The Circus in Winter Page 13

  FORM C: Text of Interview

  I was born after slavery time. You can always tell those that come before. The blue hands for one, from tending the indigo pots. The "G" brand on the foot. The web on the back. That's what my brother and me called the whipping scars, spiderwebs. We wasn't to watch my daddy and uncles when they washed or changed shirts or shoes, but we always snuck a look when we could. I never saw my mama's bare back till she died, and she had the webs too, come to find out.

  My daddy went to war with Master Grimm and cleaned his clothes and fed his horse. Got a minié ball in his calf and limped all his life. Master Grimm was thankful for all my daddy done and buried him with a nice headstone. It was hard times after the war, so he must had powerful feelings for my daddy to spend that kind of money. Daddy wouldn't never tell me what he really thought of Master Grimm, so that's a secret he took to the grave. I got treated good because I was my daddy's son, but I wasn't sad when Master Grimm passed.

  After Emancipation, they open up the Penn School for teaching the old slaves to read and write, but my mama didn't make us kids go because she teach us. She had stories pass down to her from oldest times, when the first come over the sea. My daddy's line the oldest at Eastwater, go back five generations to a slave boy name Gus. My daddy made me memorize our line all the way back, and I knows it still. My daddy was Festus, who was the son of Maum Ellie, who was the daughter of George, who was the father of Ceasar, who was the son of Berty, who was the daughter of Gus, who come to Charleston and got bought by the first Master Grimm. I teach it to my kids, but they don't wanna remember it. Just like my brother.

  See, my folks, they knew the words those old slaves say and the songs they sing. But my brother, he didn't want none of that. He said we all need to go North and get civilized, but my mama say she never leave Eastwater because to see the ocean was to see the bridge from here to there and we be lost if we let it go out of sight. My brother go to find a job up North. His name was Sugar because my mama say he was the sweetest baby ever live.

  I drove the carriage when Master and Missus went out, so I got to see a little of the world that way. One time, they go to Charlotte to visit some friends and had me drive them. Got to stay a whole week. While we was there the circus come to town and we go down to see it. I was sitting there in the colored section when I seen the elephants come out, and sitting on top of one is my brother Sugar, but I don't hardly recognize him because he got paint stripes on his face. He was wearing leather britches and a necklace of bones and was shaking some kind of stick at folks, looking mean and yelling some talk I never heard. The circus man say they found him naked in the African jungle living with a bunch of gorillas. All the white people looked real scared, one little white boy was crying, but all the colored folks was laughing and pointing at my brother and saying, "What kind of fool is that?" I didn't know what to do. Sugar hadn't wrote us much since he left except to say he was working and not to worry. Sitting there watching him, I know why he don't write more. He was shamed, and so was I, so I didn't let him see me. On the way home, Master Grimm asked me, "Wasn't that jungle boy your brother that run off North?" and I said, "No sir, it wasn't him."

  A long time ago. After that, we stopped hearing from Sugar. My folks died, and when I got my own family, I just never told them about my brother. Didn't seem much point. Fact, I ain't never told nobody this story but you.

  THE KING AND HIS COURT

  —or

  Boy Meets Girl,

  Boy Marries Girl,

  The End

  IN 1967, Hoosier sportswriters agreed on one thing: Ethan Perdido of Lima, Indiana, was the best baseball player in the state. The sports editor for the Lima Journal penned an editorial on Ethan's behalf: "Indiana has a Mr. Basketball. Why not a Mr. Baseball?" It didn't happen, but this revolutionary idea did bear some fruit: Ethan received a full scholarship to play ball at Purdue University. In an interview, Ethan thanked God, his parents, his coaches, and his girlfriend for believing in him. The reporter gleefully noted that Ethan's teammates had dubbed him "The Undertaker," not only for his prowess on the field, but also because he was heir to Lima's oldest mortuary, the Perdido Funeral Home. "I love baseball," Ethan said in the article, "but I'll probably wind up back in Lima eventually to take over the family business."

  To keep himself in shape the summer before he started school, Ethan joined a fast-pitch softball league and played first base for the B&B Grocery Roustabouts. He thought the transition would be easy, since the ball was bigger. Quickly, Ethan discovered fast-pitch was tougher than it looked. The distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound was much shorter, for one thing, which threw off his hitting, and since the ball moved differently, his fielding suffered. But by July, Ethan had his game back, just in time for a match up between the Roustabouts and the King and His Court, the Harlem Globetrotters of fast-pitch softball.

  The King and His Court was born on an afternoon in 1946. A gifted pitcher named Eddie Feigner threw a 33–0 shutout. When the disgruntled losers taunted him, Eddie claimed he could whip them again with just a catcher. "But you'd probably just walk us both," he mocked, "and then where'd we be?" So he drafted a first baseman and a shortstop and the four-man team still won, 7–0. Eddie declared himself "The King" and took his court on the road like a barnstorming softball circus. The King's fast ball came in at over 100 miles an hour, his curve dropped like an elevator, and he had trick pitches, too: blindfolded, behind the back, between the legs. He threw strikes from second base. His troupe traveled from town to town, taking on all comers. Most nights, the King and His Court went home victorious, and at three bucks a head, a lot richer as well.

  But this story isn't about the King and His Court. It's not about the difference between baseball and the dying tradition of men's fast-pitch softball. It's not about Ethan Perdido and his It's a Wonderful Life-ish choice between duty to family and personal dreams. This story is about the girl sitting on a wooden-bleacher throne: Ethan's girlfriend, Laura Hofstadter.

  Laura attended every game her boyfriend played, but not because she especially loved baseball. She went because it was something to do, and because she loved Ethan, or thought she did. She liked it when people looked at her when Ethan got a hit or made a great play. It made her feel like somebody. The summer he played for the Roustabouts, she became a temporary member of the Softball Wives, the husband-cheering women who dotted the stands of Winnesaw Park. The Softball Wives didn't care much for Laura. They thought her standoffish, and they resented the way their husbands stared at the browned belly revealed by her knotted shirts. Laura felt the resentment in their smiles and polite waves, but when Ethan asked her why she wouldn't sit with the other women, she couldn't find the words to explain.

  But the night that the King and His Court played the Roustabouts, Laura was forced to join the Softball Wives in the bleachers. The game had brought out half the town, after all. That day's edition of the Lima Journal claimed Eddie Feigner was the most underrated athlete of his time. Earlier that month, in an exhibition game with major-league all-stars, Eddie had struck out Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Brooks Robinson, Maury Wills, Harmon Killebrew, and Roberto Clemente. In a row. K-K-K-K-K-K.

  The stands were packed with sweating bodies. Laura tried hard to keep herself contained, but she couldn't help but touch the women on either side of her, couldn't help but wonder how many years away she was from becoming them. Betty Pollard, who worked down at the Lima Savings Bank with her, had thighs that spread like dough, and Carol Winters bore a whole river system of varicose veins on her legs. Both women had children, two or three each, although Laura could never count them because they were always racing around chasing foul balls.

  The two teams were finishing their warm-up. The King and His Court played catch, two pills slapping leather mitts, one exclamation mark after the other, punctuating the night. Ethan stood at home plate, hitting balls to his teammates. Laura didn't care much for baseball, but she loved its sounds, the notes Ethan played on hi
s bat; the long flies for the outfielders hit the bat's sweet spot with a deep, woody thwack, and the skittering ground balls he hammered out for the infielders cracked like gunshots. She liked baseball because you could feel it humming inside you every time something good happened.

  A woman with a bad vibrato sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," and then the King got on the P.A. Laura saw him up in the scorekeeper's box, a stocky man with a flattop and a big grin.

  "LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, I'M EDDIE FEIGNER, AND WELCOME TO TONIGHT'S GAME BETWEEN THE B&B GROCERY ROUSTABOUTS..."

  He paused, letting the crowd cheer for their native sons.

  "AND THE ORIGINAL FOUR-MAN SOFTBALL TEAM, THE KING AND HIS COURT!"

  Everyone clapped politely.

  "WE'RE PARTICULARLY HONORED TO PLAY IN LIMA, BECAUSE OF YOUR HISTORY AS A CIRCUS TOWN!"

  The clapping was a little louder this time, and Laura looked around to see who was hooting. She saw Mrs. Hobzini, a former trick-horse rider who owned the local bakery, and then the hooter: Rowdy Rubens, a human cannonball turned farmer. Rowdy stood up, waving his hat, whistling. Laura's dad used to troupe as a clown with the Great Porter Circus, and he said Rowdy came by his name for a good reason.

  "YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHAT SHOWMANSHIP REALLY MEANS, AND I'M SURE YOU'LL APPRECIATE WHAT WE'VE GOT IN STORE FOR YOU! LET'S PLAY BALL!"

  The King's cleats clinked down the metal staircase and across the cement walkway to the field.

  During the game, Betty and Carol kept up a steady stream of chatter, and Laura wished she hadn't sat between them. Every once in a while, they stopped gossiping about other people's lives long enough to pry into Laura's.

  "You must be so proud of Ethan," Betty said, lighting a cigarette. "Going off to college and all." Laura almost asked to bum one, but decided against it. Ethan didn't like it when she smoked in public.

  Carol nodded. "You going off to school, honey?"

  Laura blushed. "No, not right now. I'm going to stay on at the bank."

  "Oh, that's what I did, too, before I got married," Carol said. "Had to give it up when the babies started coming."

  Betty sighed. "Wish I could give it up, but we need the money." Laura knew Harvey Pollard worked at a variety of jobs, none of them for very long.

  Laura stared at the field. "Well, I don't think I want kids for a while yet." She wanted to say, "not at all," but it wasn't something you said in Lima in 1967.

  Carol touched Laura's knee. "Honey, sometimes they come whether you want 'em to or not."

  The Softball Wives stopped chattering only when they heard the crack of bat meeting ball, and just then, a member of the King and His Court sent a line drive up the first-base line. Ethan dove and caught the ball easily, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to hit the dirt with your chest. Betty and Carol clapped, then turned the discussion to Tupperware. Laura excused herself to get a Coke.

  HERE'S SOMETHING you need to know about Laura Hofstadter: She was not a nice girl. Oh, on the outside, sure, she looked just fine, but on the inside, Laura was all bad, and she knew it. Laura was a chronic stealer of lipsticks, always red, which she never wore. She liked to drive too fast with the radio too loud. She drank and smoked when she could get away with it. She enjoyed sex, but sometimes just pretended to, and she couldn't decide which was worse. Laura felt bad that she didn't like women much; they prattled on about nothing, which always turned out to be something. Men, on the other hand, said what they meant. She liked when men looked at her; she felt it deep inside, like needing to pee, but later, when she thought about what their eyes had said, Laura felt frightened and small.

  Sometimes Laura thought she was a little insane, as if she might fly apart at any second. When those moments came, she looked at the people around her and did whatever they were doing, or whatever she thought they wanted her to be doing. Sometimes Laura thought she wasn't alive at all, only sleepwalking. When she looked back on her life, she could remember what people had said to her, never what she'd said back. Every day, Laura's mouth opened, but the words always seemed to come from somewhere else, like she was a character in a story—a stupid boy-meets-girl-story someone else was writing.

  IT WAS THE bottom of the fourth. Dust hung in the fecund air from a stolen base two batters ago—it was that kind of summer night, the kind that hovers like a hot fog. Ethan Perdido stepped up to the plate. The King had been pitching blindfolded for a while, fanning Roustabouts one after the other, but when Ethan—the only batter who had managed to get any wood on his pitches—stepped up, the King removed the handkerchief from his eyes and settled in to hurl for real, without gimmicks. The King windmilled his arm when he pitched, picking up velocity, and then shot the ball from his hip so it zinged toward the batter. No arc whatsoever, no lofting the ball toward the plate like a red-stitched gift. With a count of one and one, Ethan swung at a pitch that came in at his thighs, sending a long pop-up toward left field. The shortstop for the King and His Court took off at a dead run and caught the ball midfield. Everyone had stood up to watch the ball's flight, as if standing would help them see it better, but now they settled back down, waiting for the next sound that would bring them to their feet.

  Ethan was the only person at Winnesaw Park who didn't watch that ball. He'd already rounded second and was almost to third when he heard the crowd groan and the third-base coach told him to hold up. Ethan was quick, on the field at least. Quick bat, quick feet, quick hands. Laura liked having a boyfriend who always did well, who never needed consoling after a poorly played game. Harvey Pollard played right field for the Roustabouts, struck out more often than not, and committed at least two errors every game. Betty always kept a smile on her face, but Laura could feel her shame. She wondered what it felt like to love a man like that, and how often Harvey Pollard dropped the ball elsewhere: in the car, at work, in bed. What did Betty say to him when he cursed his performance? Laura knew what a woman was supposed to say in moments like that, but she also knew she didn't have it in her to speak those words. She'd tell Harvey to get a job. She'd tell him to let her drive. She'd tell him to take up bowling or golf. She'd tell Harvey practice makes perfect. Laura knew she was lucky; Ethan always came through, in every way, and she knew that was a rare, rare thing. Ethan was like a very pretty, dependable car, one that always started and never needed oil, the kind you can drive forever.

  THE FIRST TIME Ethan and Laura had sex was after the Christmas Dance their junior year. Laura knew it was the night. She wasn't scared, but she wasn't excited, either. She felt like she had a dentist's appointment, something to be gotten through. They cut out early, and Ethan headed west of town, toward his family's cabin. It wasn't a cabin at all, actually, but rather a two-story lakefront home with a pier and two boats—a fishing boat and a motorboat for skiing. The first time she saw the place, she marveled that the Perdidos had enough money to fill not one, but two, houses. The Perdidos spent their summers at Yellow Lake, but rarely used the place during the rest of the year, which is why Ethan forgot it had no electricity or heat. Laura stood with him, shivering in the kitchen as they drank half a bottle of vodka from the liquor cabinet. They were still in their winter coats when Ethan carried her upstairs, although Laura had asked why they didn't just do it in the running car, where it was warmer.

  "I love you," he said. "I want this to be special. I want to do it right."

  He carried her to the queen-size bed in his parents' room, which had a picture window overlooking the frozen lake. The full moon lit the room a glowing blue, and they undressed in its light, shedding their heavy coats, then the formal skin of tuxedo and red satin gown.

  "What's this," Ethan asked when she'd removed her dress. "You look like Scarlett O'Hara."

  Laura stepped out of the crinoline, but it remained standing at attention on the floor. "It makes the dress stick out, silly."

  "We could take it camping. Use it for a tent."

  "Very funny." She tried to kiss him, but her teeth were chattering.

  "Come here
," Ethan said, taking her hand and leading her to the bed. Getting in was like sliding between slabs of ice, and they moved together quickly, looking for the warmth inside each other. Until that night, they'd done pretty much everything but what they were about to do, and Laura feared Ethan would forego it all. But bless his heart, Ethan took his time and went to every base: first, then second, then third. When he rummaged for his wallet, she wanted to ask when he'd bought them and where. He turned on the transistor radio beside the bed, and she heard a faint, big-band ballad. Sitting with his back to her, Ethan put it on, and Laura wished she could see this part, but instead she felt herself and discovered that she was hardly even wet, which scared her a little, and then he was on top of her, and the radio turned to static, and then it was happening.

  The bases probably helped a little, but Ethan couldn't get inside, so she put her hands on his buttocks and brought him into her. She felt the tearing, then the give, then the movement in and out of her. It felt horrible, like being cut slowly with a serrated knife. His head was down in the crook of her shoulder and he never saw the way she looked, only heard the sharp intake of breath, which made him moan and move faster. She put her hands on him again, pushing him, thinking it would make things go more quickly. But there was all that vodka, and it took a long time. Afterward, they lay quietly for a few minutes, and Laura felt something inside she thought was love, but wasn't. It was the astonishment you feel after you sleep with someone for the first time, like you've just survived some small danger together.

  Ethan found a flashlight in his father's bedside table and shone it under the sheets, like a child playing a game. That's when he saw the blood streaking the bedsheets and her inner thighs. "Jesus. Are you okay?" In the cold, he'd shrunk back into himself, but Laura could see the red on him and in his dark, curly hairs. The water was turned off to keep the pipes from freezing, so they stood shivering in the bathroom, cleaning themselves with toilet paper. "What'll we do with the sheets?" he asked.