I find a coffee shop on my way to the theater. The inside is meant to look rustic, the floor and ceiling made of the same light-grained wood, the walls decorated with paint-by-numbers of waterfalls, forests, native-Indian faces. The place is empty except for a wall-eyed kid at the counter who keeps staring at my trunk. He’s a shine, the type who wants to talk his way onstage. I take the booth nearest the door, sit with my back to him, my trunk propped on the opposite bench.
A man in an apron jots down my order. I roll my neck, shut my eyes. My tongue’s furring over and my gut’s churning. I think in pictures, everything right on top of me, blotting out whatever’s behind. The Porcine Child nodding off a snarl of flies. Jonson spraying saliva through the gaps in his teeth. I pinch the flap of my ear, dig my nails in.
The kid waits for my food to arrive. A shine trick—now I’m stuck for as long as it takes me to eat. I watch his shadow spread over the table.
Excuse me, mister? he says.
It’s sir.
What?
When you’re talking to someone you never met before it’s sir. Mister is an insult.
I didn’t mean it to be, he says. Then adds, You here for the shows?
He’s got a canvas glove hanging from each back pocket and his frame barely fills his clothes. He looks like a kid who’s used to being barked at.
Can I sit? he asks.
I’m in a hurry.
I won’t take a minute.
Not today, son.
I start cutting up my flapjacks. The kid clears his throat.
Did you hear the one about the widower who married his wife’s sister?
What?
He didn’t want to break in a new mother-in-law.
I don’t say anything.
I write jokes, he says. For sale.
I have a dumb act.
What?
I don’t talk onstage. I juggle.
But you could, he says. People sing while they play the piano. You could tell jokes while you juggle.
I’m not interested.
But you know people.
They aren’t interested either.
He straightens his spine.
Did you hear the one about the southern planter? he says. He was an undertaker from New Orleans.
That’s enough, kid, I say.
I stand, step from the booth. He digs his fingers into his thighs. His smile gives out.
Fine, he says. That’s fine.
He starts to leave, then turns back.
You know, he says, a year ago our theater was a butcher’s shop. You’re shit if they sent you here, mister.
He makes a show of slamming the door. The counter-man laughs. I look over my shoulder. He’s sitting on a stool, stropping a ladle against the skirt of his apron.
Kid’s half scrambled, he says. But he speaks his mind. Gotta give him that.
I do, I say.
The flapjacks are swelling in my stomach, soaking in the whiskey. Bits of undone batter clog my throat. I look back at the man in the apron. He sees it in me.
That way, he says, pointing with his ladle.
I sprint the distance from the back stoop to the outhouse, a clapboard box with a hole in the door where the knob should be. I loop in two fingers, pull, feel a thick splinter break my skin. My head spikes back at the stench. After a while, my stomach settles, my skin cools. I stand, pull the splinter free with my teeth.
I order a second pot of coffee, empty cup after cup until my mind clears. On my walk to the theater I see the shine loading sacks of feed onto a flatbed truck, his back sloping under the weight.
The performer’s entrance is off a gravel side alley. A houseboy with a gumboil on his chin greets me at the door, tells me I’ll be dressing in the cellar.
I stop at the notice board. Beneath the hell-and-damn edict there’s a telegram with my name on it:
Two weeks since I heard from you. Following address good for ten days: 20 S. Maple, #4, Ogden, N.Y.
I’m to deliver ten vials to 5 N. Ogden Street between two and four in the afternoon. If there was a message for Jonson he’d already found it. He’d likely found mine, too. I tear the scrap of paper free of its tack, fold it into my coat pocket.
The basement hallway cuts through six dressing stalls, four on one side, two on the other. I hear the contortionist playing his ocarina, two sisters from the sister act bickering in their stage voices. There are remnants of a butcher’s shop cluttered against the back of my stall—reams of meat paper, jars of brine and marinade, a rusted sausage stuffer, pairs of mesh gloves, the hook from a hanging scale. There’s a mirror with no frame nailed to the wall beside the door, a folding table and chair set up underneath. No wash basin, no towel.
I uncordon my valises, hang a linen cloth from the nail on the opposite wall, hang my stage suit up against the cloth. I dig out a small bag of make-up, sit at the mirror. The folds of skin beneath my eyes look like burst water blisters. I cover them over with burnt cork, change into my costume, count the rounds of applause until it’s my turn to take the stage.
I’m debuting something new in my act, something I’ve saved to try out on a smaller market. I’ve bolted metal loops into the striped balls, taught myself to catch and throw by spearing the loops with my hook. I’ve got six balls going, my good hand buried in my pants pocket. It’s working. I get applause, a few whistles. I move to the edge of the stage, toss the balls like they’re headed for the third row, reel them back. The trick is to get enough spin. People in the front throw up their hands, then laugh. I step back, the balls still turning, take a blindfold from my pocket, slip it over my eyes. My hook finds the loop every time.
There’s a shout, and I hear seats emptying, boots clumping up the aisles. The balls bounce around my ankles. By the time I get my blindfold off the audience is down to three crag-faced women near the back. The one in the middle is smiling, looking sad or maybe simple. I gather up the striped balls, get a wide circle going. I take it slow until my arms quit shaking.
I’m ready to bow off when the doors open and people start filing back in. They’re talking amongst themselves, excited, but by the time they’re sitting again they’ve gone quiet. I pick the blindfold up from where I’d dropped it.
When it’s over, Jonson’s waiting for me in the wings.
You got one-upped by a mule, he says.
What?
A runaway mule. Rabid. Bucking and screaming. It kicked out the bank window. Took half the town to get it calm.
I raise my shoulders.
They came back, I say.
Downstairs, I open my valise, take up the prosthetics one by one, slide the vials from the hollows and line them in rows on the table. I select five single-notched vials, five double-notched vials, return the rest to their sockets. I change out of my