The Leap Year Boy (36 page)

Markham laughed. “Listen lady, if he’s as good as you say he is, I’ll give you forty. That’s top dollar for a side show act.”

“Eighty-five.”

“Sixty. Take it or leave it.”

Lotte whispered to Delia, “Don’t push him. He’s offering you real good money for the sideshow. Plus you get room and board.”

Sixty bucks a week for riding around in a train, plus meals and a place to sleep—it wasn’t a fortune, but it would do for the time being, with or without Abe. “Sorry I got so loud there, Mr. Markham. Lou. Just sticking up for my boy, you can understand.”

“Yeah, yeah. So is it a deal?”

“Deal.”

“Fine.” Markham clapped his hands. “Now let’s see some action here. And listen to me good. If your boy don’t come through here, the deal is dead.”

Delia helped Alex climb up on the table. He began his windup. As everyone stared at Alex, Delia stared at them. With their heavy makeup and outfits, Betty and Bobby looked like corpulent puppets. Lotte looked like a sad, life-sized kewpie doll. Markham groped Lotte’s rear end, pushing under the tight fabric with one hand and scratching his crotch with the other.

The air in the wagon seemed to get thicker. She began to feel queasy. Throwing Alex in with these people, this was what she’d been dreaming about all those weeks? She looked at him standing on the table, as if he were an exhibit, with his arms hanging there. She imagined the hoots and the catcalls that were sure to come from the audiences as he stood in a spotlight—chimp, chimp, chimp!—in some garish, obscene costume, with a frightened look on his face, searching for his father, appealing to her to get him out of the place as she stood off to the side, in the shadows, helpless, ashamed, committed. The hot dog she’d shared with him an hour earlier rose up in her throat.

Markham said, “Well?”

She tapped Alex on the shoulder and whispered, “Miss the bull’s-eye.”

He started to answer, but Delia put her finger over his lips. She smiled. “I know what I told you before, but now I want you to miss. You don’t really want to do this anyway, right? Me neither. So make a bad throw. For me?” She winked.

He winked back.

Bitty Betty said, “What’s she saying to him?”

“Shut up,” Bobby said.

His first throw went two feet and clattered to the floor. Alex said, “Ah-oh.”

Lotte said, “Dee?”

He picked up the second knife and, as if it were too heavy to hold, laid it back on the table near his feet.

Bobby Boy hooted, “Some knife thrower. Lady, you need to stick Tiny there back in diapers.”

Markham crushed his cigar with his shoe. He shook Lotte by the collar. “What the hell are you’re trying to pull on me here?”

“Hey, Lou, that hurts.”

Delia said, “Lay off her, you pig.”

Markham released Lotte. He rubbed his fist. “You know what, lady? You wasted enough of my time, and I’ve had it with that smart mouth of yours. You wouldn’t be so good-looking with a busted nose, would you?”

“Drop dead.” She stuck out her chin.

Markham took a step toward her, but stopped in his tracks as a knife whizzed through his hat and stuck it to the wall behind him.

Lotte screamed. Bobby Boy and Bitty Betty pushed and shoved their way out of the wagon. Markham patted the top of his bald head, as if he were trying to see if it was still there.

Delia glanced at Alex, who was pointing the third knife toward Markham’s face. “Alex, no.”

She turned to Markham. “You know what, tough guy? That’s what you get for threatening me. And I’ll tell you something else. You lay off my friend or his next toss will go through your neck.” She hugged Lotte, who was shivering. “Honey, I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but I just couldn’t go through with it. This ain’t no life for a little boy. I should have known it all along. It’s no life for you, neither, being jerked around by a shit-heel like him. Stop crying, all right? Your makeup is running down your face.”

Lotte looked at Markham, who was still rubbing his head, where a faint red line streaked across the crown. “I don’t know what to do, Dee. About all this.”

“You’ll figure it out. But if I was you, I’d get my ass the hell out of here and save myself. Listen, I gotta go. His old man will be looking for him. Give me a hug.”

Markham began to rise to his feet but sagged back, seeing Alex hold the knife in the ready position. Blood trickled down his forehead. “Christ, I’m bleeding. This is your fault, Lotte. Get that kid out of here before I’ll call the cops.”

Lotte said, “Oh shut up, Lou.”

*

“Dad, you’re pulling my arm out!”

“Keep up, Benjamin.”

Sweat flew from Abe’s face as he charged through the crowd milling about at the midway. He elbowed his way to the ticket booth and banged on the counter.

Roseanne Rigby, who’d been a rider in the circus’s Wild West show until she broke her coccyx leaping over a barrel, leaned out from the booth. “How many, partner?”

Abe smacked a dollar down. “Where’s Lou Markham?”

“Fifth car behind me. Who wants to know?”

Abe shoved open the flimsy wooden gate that led to a line of boxcars. Roseanne leaned out and yelled, “Hey, you ain’t allowed back there.”

Abe pushed on, dragging Benjamin with him. Goddamn it all. First that crazy Hannah tried to steal his son, and now Delia, damn her, had taken off with Alex, too. Christ, she could have made some kind of deal by now, sold his kid off to the circus. She could be long gone—but if she wasn’t, HHeaven help her.

He leaped up the stairs to the fifth boxcar and banged the door open. Sitting on the floor was a large bald man in a checked suit. A woman in a gold costume held a cloth blotched with blood to his head. Abe bellowed, “Where’s Delia Novak? Where’s my son?”

The bald man said, “That little bastard Alex? How the hell do I know?”

In three seconds Abe had his hands around Markham’s throat with the intention of bashing his head through the floor. “Where is my son?”

“Abe!” Delia stood in the doorway, holding Alex’s left hand. He had cotton candy in his right.

“Daddy!”

Abe dropped Markham’s head and rushed to his son. He dropped to his knees to hug him. “Are you all right, Alex?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

Abe looked up at Delia. “I should belt you one.”

Alex tugged on Abe’s shirtfront. “Don’t be mad at Delia. We went in there,” he said, pointing to the boxcar, “and there was a man and a woman dressed up like cowboys, almost as little as me. There was too, Benjamin, don’t laugh. Then I was supposed to throw the knives like I promised, but Delia told me we were going to fool them so then she told me not to throw.”

Abe stood and moved next to her. “Is that right?”

“Then the circus man, he was mean to Delia and that lady there, so I threw a knife at
him
. At his hat, I mean. Then we left.”

Abe looked at Delia. “Why?”

Delia looked past him, at Lotte and Markham. “What’s the difference, Abe? You got your boy back. He ain’t hurt or nothing.”

“I thought you was going to take him away.” Abe had never seen her look lost before. “I guess I should thank you.”

She lit a cigarette and waved the smoke away from Alex. “Yeah, well, forget about it. You’re here now. You and your boys, you go and enjoy the circus.”

Alex said, “You come, too.”

Delia kneeled down and kissed his forehead. “Sorry, pumpkin, not today. I gotta spend a little time with my old friend. You go on, have fun. Abe, don’t let him eat too much, he’s had plenty already.” Alex reached for her hand but she backed away. “Go on, go now.”

A calliope played
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
. She watched Abe and his boys trail off toward the midway. Alex turned his face once back to her. She waved and went back into the boxcar to retrieve her friend.

Epilogue

A week after his day at the circus, on the morning of his first day of school, Alex got up early, an hour before his father and brother, excited by the prospect of starting at Fulton Elementary. He washed his face, brushed his teeth and plastered down his hair with pomade, as he’d seen Benjamin do. The pain in his head was dull and constant, but he forgot about it with the excitement of the day.

His mind buzzed with the things Benjamin had told him about kindergarten—singing songs, playing games, snack time, coloring. He stood on the stepstool to get to the breadbox on the kitchen counter when he heard the front door swing open. He ran into the foyer, and standing there in full uniform was a soldier.

“Private first class Arthur C. Miller reporting for duty, Mr. Alex.” Arthur held his right hand to his temple, waiting to salute.

Alex was so shocked all he could do was salute back.

“At ease, troop.” Arthur scooped Alex up in his forearm. “How you doing, Stretch?”

“Arthur, you got real big.” He rubbed his hand against Arthur’s cheek. “You’re a man now.”

Tears formed at the corners of his eyes. “It’s good to be home, Alex.”

Abe’s shout from upstairs filled the room. “Is that Arthur? Hold on, son, I’m coming!” His footsteps pounded down the stairs. He practically crushed Alex hugging his older son.

Benjamin joined the three of them, and for a long moment they stood as one. Finally, Arthur said, “Don’t you little clowns have to go to school?”

Abe kissed Alex on the forehead. “You be a good boy today, you hear me, Alex? Stick with Benjamin until you have to go to your room. And listen to your teacher, all right? Give me another kiss.”

Alex pulled away. “O.K., Dad, I’m not a baby.”

*

On the morning of Alex’s first day at school, without so much as a goodbye and good luck to anyone, Delia packed a bag, withdrew the remaining $28.50 from her bank account and returned by train to her native Youngstown, Ohio, to live with her Aunt Tilda, a frugal, religious woman who introduced her to the Reverend Johnston. In turn, the Reverend introduced her to his only son, thirty-year-old Jonah, who’d been a missionary in Guatemala and celibate for three years.

Johnston the younger introduced Delia to the New Testament, and in turn Delia introduced him to the miracle of Old Overholt Rye. Delia joked that she always had a whale of a time with Mr. Jonah, as she called him, even though she found him bland as paint compared to Abe. After eight months of hugging, teasing and eventual bedding, she hinted to Jonah that she might be pregnant—she wasn’t—which precipitated an on-the-spot proposal and even hastier marriage, and, although she didn’t love him, having a house and a maid and spending money sure beat working for a living.

In three years, she gave him the son and daughter he’d always wanted, and he gave her the freedom of live-in help, which in turn provided her with ample opportunities to begin an on-again, off-again affair with Sanford Goldman, owner of the largest furniture store in Youngstown, who swore up and down he would leave his wife and three daughters for her if she just said the word, which of course she didn’t. It wasn’t that Goldman was particularly handsome or funny or good in bed, but he did give her great deals on home furnishings. And, as she confided in a long letter to her old friend Lotte Henderson, who’d left the circus and joined a convent in Pittsburgh, for some reason she’d always had a thing for Jewish men.

She also took up painting and found that she had a long-latent talent for watercolor. In a local art show, she exhibited a series of twelve canvases. Each of them had as its central figure a cute little boy with very long arms, wearing an orange hat. When she was approached with a lucrative offer for the series, she told the buyer they weren’t for sale.

*

The boys sat around the table at dinner and ate fish sandwiches and fried potatoes as Alex recounted his first day at school. The girls had wanted to play with him, he said, but they were all stupid except for Alice Stanton. Then he had a fight with George because George had called him a baby shrimp and stuck his tongue out, so he threw an eraser at him and hit him in the face, and then George cried, and Mrs. Davidson made him sit in the corner.

Arthur and Benjamin were hysterical, but Abe said, “Alex, don’t throw no erasers no more, you hear me?” Despite the admonition, however, Abe thought, damn if he isn’t a Miller through and through.

Arthur said, “Then how’d you get the gold star?”

Alex touched the sticker on his forehead. “I forget.”

The four of them talked into the evening, with Alex doing most of the narrative, especially regarding his adventure with Hannah and his day at the circus. Abe then laid out the thin family album: He and Irene on their wedding day, Arthur and Benjamin as toddlers, the three brothers posed with their mother. Abe looked at his boys laughing and hugging. He swallowed. At least he had them.

Arthur excused himself. Upstairs in their bedroom, he opened his copy of
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
. His Honus Wagner baseball card—his good luck charm—was right where he’d left it. He tucked it into his breast pocket.

When he came back to the kitchen, Alex was asleep in his chair and Benjamin was reading. “Dad.”

Abe had just lit a cigar. “Yes, son?”

“I have to leave tomorrow.”

Abe’s face fell. “Already? But you just got home.”

Arthur shook his head. “Special training.”

Abe pursed his lips. He wondered if he’d ever see him again. “Well, listen. Benjamin is here with Alex. You want to come to The Wheel with me? The boys would love to see you.”

“If it’s all right, I’d rather be home.”

Abe patted his shoulder. “Sure. Sure, son. I won’t be long. I just want to stop by and say hi to Delia Novak.”

After Abe left, Arthur carried his sleep drunk little brother up to the bedroom. Back downstairs, he and Benjamin shared laughs and one of their father’s lagers.

Alex woke up two hours later to the sound of his brothers and father talking and laughing. Not wanting to miss a good time, he pulled on his pants. The cuffs reached only to the middle of his calves. In the brief time he’d been asleep, his legs had grown four inches. They hurt to the touch.