Read Online The Circus in Winter by Cathy Day - Free Book Online Page A

potatoes, onions, and leftovers. Plopping down into a kitchen chair, she felt a whoosh of air from the cushion, the sound of the fat woman settling in. Even alone in the kitchen with her father, she was embarrassed, overwhelmingly aware of her body. She wished, along with her size, she'd also inherited Grandma Pearly's renowned self-assuredness.
    Gordon joined her at the table, squirting ketchup on his concoction. Finally, she had to ask him—how old was he when Mr. Ollie's daddy died? He put down his fork. "You been snooping again, girl?" Verna hung her head. "Lemme tell you something. Lemme tell you the truth." Gordon told her. Like this:
    Once while playing in the elephant barn, he'd watched Hofstadter put his cigar out on Caesar's tongue with a sickening sizzle. He saw Hofstadter die that day at the river, watched Caesar take revenge—and was glad. Hofstadter hit the water, but he didn't die instantly, like he'd told Mr. Ollie. It took a while. The elephant held a thrashing Hofstadter at the bottom of the river with his feet and tusks. After, Elephant Jack found him underwater, his eyes and mouth wide open, his curses floating helplessly down the Winnesaw River. The bullhook—bent into a sad C—was still clenched in the keeper's angry fist. He saw what came after. Two hundred bullets and seven poison apples. Elephant Jack's knife. Caesar's penis and its intended use. Black circles on a pink tongue.
    Yes, yes, yes. All Gordon actually saw was Caesar's corpse—after the fact. But understand: Over the years, he had lost the ability to separate what he'd seen from what he'd heard, what he knew for sure from what he'd surmised. In his mind, he
had
been there, hiding in the hayloft watching Hofstadter brand Caesar's tongue, standing on the banks of the bloody Winnesaw. He saw these things clearly, like photographs in his head.
    Verna cried, regretting that she'd prompted her father to open up the dark box. "You don't want to tell Mr. Ollie his dad was a bad man."
    "He's my friend. He loves his daddy, and he'd never believe any different anyway." Gordon rinsed his plate in the sink. "Sometimes you run across a man whose granddaddy kept slaves. Just you
try
telling him what my daddy told me about that, what his mama told him..." He couldn't finish. "Time for bed," he said.
    The next day, Gordon took Verna downtown to the Lima County Historical Museum. A few months earlier, the local historical society had turned the old Robertson Hotel into a makeshift gallery. He escorted her through the crowded displays of Indian arrowheads, pioneer butter churns, and circus artifacts. Finally, he led her to a raised pedestal in a far corner, upon which sat a large animal skull. Without being told, she knew it was Caesar's.
    "Read that horseshit." He pointed to a framed clipping gone yellow with age.
ELEPHANT IS KILLED
CAESAR IS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE
Pays the Penalty for the Murder
of Hans Hofstadter with his Life
Elephant Jack Pursues the Beast
to the Fields and Shoots Him
    She touched a bullet hole on the skull. A voice yelled, "You! Girl! Don't touch that," and Verna snatched her hand back. The woman who'd rung up their quarter admission peered over her spectacles. "You should tell her what happened," Verna said to her father, glancing at the woman.
    Gordon dismissed her with a waved hand. "She don't care. The truth ain't nothing but a lie that folks learn to live with."
    Â 
    GORDON DIED when Verna was nineteen. She inherited the family fortune: her mother's Victrola and red tap shoes, the mortgage on her father's house, the unpaid loan on his car. To help her out, Mr. Ollie gave Verna a job at Clown Alley Cleaners doing alterations and working the steam-iron press. For a short time, Verna became known in Lima for her generosity—she gave freely of her food and whiskey and cigarettes and bed and breasts—and some men took what she offered. It wasn't a bad life, considering what she had to work with, but secretly