All the Broken Things (27 page)

“I saw him wandering the back of the freak show the other day.”

“When?”

“Get out of here, kid,” and then, “Hey, kid, did you hear about the leper hockey game?”

And one of the other clowns: “There was a face off in the corner.”

Backslapping one another, they turned from him. “We’ll keep an eye out, kid,” said one, and another held a glass eye up over his shoulder like a periscope and rotated it back and forth. It was impossible for Bo to tell whether they were hiding information or just didn’t have any. He went back to Bear and petted her to calm himself.

Bear had to spend time alone in the cage in Bo’s quarters, the only time Bo would cage her. He would open it, and she would happily go in now. It was like a cave for her. Bo had filled it with towels and pillows in which she
could bed down. She looked at him, then scented high and jealous, huffing at him because she smelled Loralei.

“Hey, kid!” It was Gerry calling him.

“I’m here,” he called back.

Gerry pushed through the tarp door, came in and sat on the end of Bo’s bed beside him. He cocked his chin at Bear. “How she doing?”

“I got her to wear the tutu yesterday, and she can ride the trike now.”

“Fast work,” said Gerry. “Good job, Jangles.” He rubbed his face and yawned. No one had stopped working the whole time Bo had been there. “The plan from here is to get her in the tutu and up the ramp into the ring. I want her looking good for that first bout.”

“First bout?”

“Yeah, she’s gonna ride up and—”

Bo interrupted. “Ride up? I don’t think she’s ready for that.”

And Gerry looked surprised. “Kid,” he said. “It’s not for another day or two. You got time.”

I
T WAS TRUE THAT
B
EAR
was talented. She was already bringing the crowd into the ten-in-one with the song and dance routine they put on there, but she wasn’t a content bear. When Bo came back the next evening
from a bout with Loralei, fur sticking to him, and welts where he hadn’t been prudent, Bear whined and fussed.

Morgana called to him from the other side of the tarp wall. “Hey, kid, open the door, will you?”

He pulled the tarp door open, and went back to pet Bear.

“I just feel so closed in,” Morgana said. She sat at a tiny, custom-built table, and waved her hands over the crystal ball set in front of her. She was quiet for a time, staring into it. Then she gestured to Bear and said, “She misses you when you leave.”

Bo crouched in the cage with Bear and began to groom her with a dog brush. “I don’t believe in crystal balls.”

“Oh,” Morgana said. “It doesn’t work like that. You don’t need to believe. It’s just what I see, and—”

Bo watched her through the ball, a piece of her cheek distorted by its convexity, and thought of Orange. “What else do you see?”

“Please,” said Morgana, as in, Please don’t insult me. She thought he was mocking her, but he wasn’t.

Bo pulled at the matted fur on Bear’s rump and she swung back with her jaws open, warning. “Take it easy,” he said to Bear.

“Take it easy, yourself,” said Morgana.

“I meant the bear.”

“Sure you did.” She pulled a swath of red cloth over the ball, then swept up to the tent door and began to close it.

“Wait,” he said, and watched the tarp flick and waver. Bo got out of the cage and closed its door.

Morgana’s tiny hand slid through the opening, then pulled the canvas back. Her face peered in at him. “What?”

“I’m not just looking for Max.”

“What?”

“Hang on,” he said. Bo went to his cot, pulled the photos out of their envelope, took the least disturbing image of Orange from the pile and showed it to Morgana. “Look at this—”

“Phew,” she said, holding the glossy as she came into his room. “I seen a pickle jar with a head like that in it once in Missouri but that was years and years ago.” She looked away from the picture.

“Look at it closely,” he said.

“Why should I?”

“Please.” Bo chewed his lip. “That dead thing in the pickle jar, was it one of Max’s oddities?”

Morgana shook her head, took a closer look. “You take that photo? Who is that?”

“Never mind,” he said.

Morgana’s body swayed a little, and then her face softened. She said, “Bo, tell me.”

“She’s my sister,” Bo said. “I need to find her.” Bear began to bash up against her cage, pushing her paws through the grating. “Can you help me?” he said.

“You don’t think I’m really a clairvoyant, do you?”

Bo got up to unlatch the cage. Bear hesitated, then emerged to sprawl on the tutu lying on the floor. “Max Jennings stole her away.”

“Max?” said Morgana, suddenly smiling. “If I know Max, he’ll be taking good care of your sister. He’ll want to protect his investment.”

“I hate to think of her in a freak show.”

“Pardon me?” Morgana made a face.

“That’s different,” said Bo.

“Oh?”

“My sister’s disabled. She can’t even talk. She didn’t choose it.”

“Nobody really chooses this, Bo,” Morgana said. “It’s just you try to fit in everywhere and then you find this, and there is a kind of sanctuary among the freaks, at least for freaks there is.”

“Would you have been happier if you had been accepted in the real world?”

Morgana cocked her tiny head. It was like watching a figure on a television set come to life. She thought for a time before she said, “What do you mean by the real world?” She looked over at Bear and then back at Bo, and continued: “Most of the people around here, they mean well. Even Max Jennings, he means well. He pays us a decent wage and on time. He respects us, which is better than some I’ve worked for. Still, he’s not perfect, and I wouldn’t altogether trust him. I wish I could help you.”

She reached up and patted Bo on the head before she left.

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING
, Bo took the picture around to every aberration the carnival had to offer. No one had seen her, not the bearded lady, not the Siamese twins, not Frogman, not Mino the Giant.

No one would look long at it. “Jesus, ugly,” one of the midgets said.

The Mule-Faced Woman threw the photograph up into the air and swooned onto her velvet settee she was so upset. “That’s the nastiest human I have ever seen,” she declared, and would not speak to Bo again.

And so he’d given up looking for his sister and gone back to his cot. The Ex was huge and chaotic and she could be anywhere.

“Bear, either they are lying or she isn’t here, I can’t tell which.”

Bear was nestled at his feet, waiting. She lifted her eyebrows, one at a time. She was bored and wanted to train.

“Come on, then,” Bo said, and leashed her to go out. He planned to take her around the perimeter of the carnie area, let her sniff some grass.

They were halfway to the fence when Gerry shouted and caught up with them, out of breath.

“Loralei’s been jumpy this week,” he said. “They say bears just get more and more mental as they get older and I guess they’re right. You and Bear were scheduled to bout Thursday but I bumped it up to tomorrow.”

What happened to old bears? Bo wondered, but said, “Will you bring her back to the woods?” Gerry looked sadly back at him. Bo blinked, hoped his face said,
Don’t tell me the answer
.

“Jangles?” Gerry said. “I heard you’ve been asking around for Max, and showing a picture to some of the freaks.”

“I just need to see her,” he said.

“She’ll be here soon. Max is on his way, I heard. He got delayed with things. I’ll be sure to let you know when he gets here.”

“What’s Max done with Orange?” Bo said.

“You paint him badly.”

“He is bad.”

“Forget about it, kid. Your sister will be here soon. You think Bear can wrestle you for the show tomorrow, then?”

Forget about it. Forget about it. Forget.

“Bear?” he said. “We wrestled all the time in the park. She can do it.”

“And the noise and audience?”

“She’ll be fine.” Bo stopped in the shade of a tree and turned to her. “Bear?” Bear looked at him, then lifted a paw
and began to chew her claw. “You good to go?” And she leaned into the tree and rubbed her rear. Bo peered at the flank she was scratching. Sure enough, the fur was thinning and she had chafed her skin. “Don’t rub, Bear. It’s okay.”

“They all do it,” said Gerry.

Bear’s tongue lapped out and slid down Bo’s biceps. Tomorrow they would fight. “Come here, girl,” he said, and pulled a Hershey hunk from his pocket. Bo took a bite himself and gave her the rest.

Gerry said, “You shouldn’t give her treats unless she does something.”

Bo stared blankly at him until Gerry added, “Well, I guess you know her best, right?” and then he left.

Bo brought Bear around the site and then back to their room. He watched her lie down and begin to snore, then twitch in her sleep as she rode some dream bicycle. He sat on his bed and cradled the photograph again, peered into the flat eyes of his sister. Monster. But after all the freaks and oddities, the ones who were born so, and the working acts who drove themselves into freakishness, was she so monstrous after all?

T
HAT AFTERNOON
, as usual, people pushed and harassed their way into the ten-in-one. Bo watched the gawkers, watched them gawk and gawk, their brains not
believing their eyes, until there came a threshold of satiety, and it looked normal. There were those in the tent, some of the midgets, and the twins, who craved being seen. They could not live without the regular feeling of being witnessed. They called it performance, but it was more than that and also less. Maybe they did not feel real unless people witnessed their bodies.

Bo wondered, as he cracked the whip and Bear toddled around on the tricycle in her fuchsia crinoline, whether the same was true for him. Maybe he needed to be seen too, or maybe he needed it more as it quickly became routine. There was a kind of reckless energy he got from it. It did not spin off him like the fights—that was different. But it fed something that he was not certain was altogether healthy.

Mino the Giant stood in front of Bo on the little stage because Gerry had insisted that one of the more seasoned acts help him out. Seven and a half feet tall, Mino was a crowd-pleaser. All he had to do was stand near them and people came.

“Bear Boy,” Mino said, his voice a reverberating baritone. “Step right up!” He swung his huge body sideways to reveal Bo and Bear. Bo bowed deep, flourishing his arms.

Bo then signalled Bear to climb up onto the trike. The act wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. He held the back wheels for her, and she leaned over the bars and
heaved herself up. He guided her back paws onto the pedals and she began circling around the small stage. Bo looked out, smiling at the applause that Bear got, and saw, bobbling through the crowd, farther and farther away, a hat—a black bowler—and he thought, Max.

He got Bear off the trike fast, clipped her chain and handed her off to Mino. “I’ll be quick,” he said. He jumped from the stage, and pushed and shoved his way to the end of the ten-and-one, trying to keep Max in view. Bo made it out the back of the ten-in-one. But the man was gone.