After Catfish left us on the corner, Mother and I decided to drink water from a hot spring, ride a Duck, and visit the IQ Zoo—in that order. Saved the best for last, and that worked good, because the IQ Zoo was where I met Bunny the Pig.
We found our first sight and saw it—a real hot spring. Sure enough, that old water was hot. We even drank it.
I thought about the water sloshing around in my stomach. And my stomach wasn’t the final destination. That two-thousand-year-old water would come out of my body one way or the other, and make its way back down to the center of the earth to be shot up to some space visitors in two thousand years. I’d be dead and gone. Everybody I knew would be long gone. The circle of life gave me the willies.
I took Mother’s hand firmly. The sidewalk was busy with people coming and going, in and out of the big fancy hotels. I was proud to be strutting there in my new cowboy outfit. We fell in behind a couple of big girls who walked with great confidence on platform shoes. They wore long skirts made of bright handkerchiefs stitched together, and their tops didn’t all the way cover their backs so I could see their knobby spines swaying like cobras. I didn’t think I would ever be that beautiful when I grew up, if I agreed to let myself grow up. I might just be a Peter Pan. Who wants to be a stupid old adult?
* * *
Sight two: the Duck Trucks. They were advertised everywhere. We paid to take a ride. I used Mother’s hundred-dollar bill, with a picture of Ben Franklin on it. For change I got a fifty-dollar bill, with Ulysses S. Grant on it. I’d never seen a fifty-dollar bill before. Also got a twenty, and a five, plus coins. As I said, I could handle money. Before she died, my mean grandmother told me all about counting the change because people would keep more, hoping you wouldn’t notice. “Sneaky snakes” she called them. Her world was full of sneaky snakes and, more often than not, she made me feel like a sneaky snake.
The Hot Springs Duck did not have feathers. It was part tank, part houseboat, and part open-air bus—if you can mix those three. When all the seats on the Duck Truck were filled, the tour guides jumped on the platform by the driver and grabbed the microphones. They were a couple of old people in overalls and big straw hats. Grannie rocked back and yelled, “Howdeeeee.”
I “howdeed” back at them. All the adults smiled kindly at me, but all the kids looked at me like I was some kind of maniac. I didn’t care, not a titch. It doesn’t cost you anything to be polite.
Then the Duck sped down a boat ramp and paddled out into the lake with a great splash. Everybody on the Duck screamed, myself included. We all knew it was coming, that big splashdown, but we all screamed just the same. It’s funny what groups of people will do just to be part of a group. Scream, laugh, riot, fall on your knees and pray.
As we picked up steam and paddled away from land, I took Mother’s hand in mine. “Let’s go home,” I said.
“I don’t know, sweetie.” She loosened her fingers.
“I do, Mom. We probably have enough money to get a bus or a plane or a taxi.”
“That would be dangerous.” Mother pulled her hand away and ran it over her forehead, brushing windblown hair back.
“Not as dangerous as being with Carl and Gus the Doughnut Cutter. They’re up to no good, I tell you.”
“Don’t be silly, Ruby Clyde.”
As I said, Mother was a good mother, no joke. It’s just that she was so busy avoiding danger that she never saw it right under her nose. As my mean grandmother used to say, “If it had been a snake, I’d’a bit it.”
When we got across the lake, a baby in a lime-green sunhat went to screaming. The mother kept shoving a pacifier in its mouth but she couldn’t hush it up for nothing, and there we were, stuck out on the water. People started rolling their eyes and looking as miserable as the screaming baby.
Finally Mother leaned over to me and whispered, “Ruby Clyde, could you do something?” Mother liked my healing powers, even though they were limited, at that time, to crying. She believed in me.
I shook my head. “Not in front of all these people.”
She nudged my arm and said, “Go on, put your hands on that poor child.”
Mother nagged me like the mother of Jesus at Cana, when she wanted him to turn the water into wine. Now if that wasn’t a trite miracle, nothing was. I mean, what possible difference could it make if the wedding guests had to drink water instead of wine? Grandmother said water was poisoned back then and wine was healthier (but that was no excuse to drink it today, she said). I don’t think the mother of Jesus was worried about their health anyway—she just wanted wine.
Finally, I said, “Oh all right.” Then I stood up and walked toward the crying baby. The baby screamed louder, its face all rubbery with fury. The mother seemed scared of me when I stopped in front of them, but before she could interfere I laid my hand on the baby’s little green hat. The baby made a perfect O with its mouth and blinked. Tears caught in its eyelashes, and it got quiet—completely quiet. I took my hand away and said to the mother, “There.”
Everyone on the Duck stared at me.
* * *
The next sight: the IQ Zoo. The big windows were painted black with big yellow words: IQ ZOO. The wall had cartoon elephants, camels, cobras, and ostriches, all holding college diplomas and those flat-top hats that people wear to graduation.
What a wondrous variety of animals. My hopes escalated, and I almost forgot that I had been dragged away from home without my permission on my birthday. In addition to the animal pictures, there were circus people painted on the windows. I’d always thought it would be quite nice to join the circus.
A miserable teenager was selling tickets at the IQ Zoo. He rocked back on a stool, smoking a cigarette and looking pained beyond his years. It was the circus outfit he was wearing that made him look so put out. He was hawking the business with a little jingle: “Come see the IQ Zoo, say who? You is who should come see the IQ Zoo, say who? You’s who should…” Something about that boy gave me the willies.
It cost twenty-six dollars for the two of us to go inside. I hated to let it go, but I paid with that fancy fifty-dollar bill. The unhappy boy took old Ulysses S. Grant, then counted back change: one, two, three, four single-dollar bills, and then he stopped and looked over my shoulder at the next customer, like maybe I wouldn’t notice that he was stealing my money. I stayed put and squinted hard at him until he slid the twenty across the counter. He was a sneaky snake, if ever I saw one.
Inside the showroom, a big round man wore red-striped circus pants, gathered at the ankles. A shapely woman and a little girl wore red majorette costumes with black top hats and batons. I was pretty sure it was a family business. I mean, I don’t think that little girl would be there without her parents. There’s such a thing as child labor laws.
The Circus Dad sang into a microphone while a bunch of chickens performed a square dance. Yes sir, they did. Promenade and do-si-do your partner! If you don’t believe it, go to the IQ Zoo and see for yourself. You will find square-dancing chickens with little red kerchiefs tied around their necks. The people cheered for those chickens and the chickens seemed right proud of themselves.
Mother was not amused. She had a soft spot for animals. I did too, but hers was bigger and softer.
After the chicken dance came Noah’s Ark. The spotlight swiveled to a big boat, like a Duck Truck, on a shallow pond of water. There was a wide ramp attached. Out of the dark came the voice of God:
“Make thee an ark of gopher wood…”
And while I was pondering a tree made of critters, the Circus Mom and Circus Girl pranced around in their matching majorette costumes and began herding the animals up the ramp onto the ark. They poked the poor animals with silver batons.
You know the rest. So there they came: white mice, hamsters, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, and green parakeets—two by two. I was deeply disappointed. That seemed like a puny boat full of punier animals, what with the outside window promising camels and snakes and ostriches. Those were just a bunch of house pets. Where were the exotics we had paid to see?
The lights dimmed and Circus God said his business about raining for forty days and forty nights. While he talked, Circus Mom rocked the boat. The little Circus Girl brought out a sprinkler and sprayed rain. Oh, those animals looked miserable indeed, and I wondered how many times a day they had to suffer the ultimate wrath of God.
So anyway, the storm got over. The lights came up while the animals shook water off their feathers and fur. At this point a lovely white dove flew down from the darkness, and with a sweep of his wings, he landed on a perch atop the ark. The bird held an olive branch in his mouth, or some kind of twig that was supposed to be an olive branch. And that was that.
The room went black. Suddenly a rainbow flashed on the far wall and God recited from the darkness: “I do set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a token of a covenant between me and this earth, between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.”
My mother didn’t like Noah’s Ark, not one little bit. She said out loud, “I hope you plan to wipe those animals dry. They’re going to catch their death.” Circus God snapped his head around and bugged his eyes at my mother. I, myself, was surprised at her boldness, but before I could give it much thought, it was time for the next animal show.
A spot lit up the center ring and—Lord help me—they had a little pink pig driving a miniature Cadillac. Around and around he went, American flags waving off the back of the little gold car. Everyone laughed except my mother, who raised her voice. “Now this is carrying things too far. A pig is an intelligent animal.”
Circus God spun around and said, “Excuse me,” like he was the polite one, which he was not, in case you hadn’t noticed. What he was really saying to her was shut up.
“You are not excused,” Mother said right back. I had never heard her speak that way to anybody on earth, but as I said before, she was right queer about animals, especially intelligent ones such as you might expect to find in the IQ Zoo. People around us began to squirm. The little pig drove around and around, honking his horn. That was not sightseeing at its finest.
Mother raised her fingers up and rubbed her forehead like she was suffering a splitting headache. Then she whispered to me, “Pay attention. I have to break that pig out of here.”
Before I could understand that Mother was suggesting stealing the pig, Circus Girl jumped forward, her majorette uniform sparkling all over. She pointed at us and screamed, “Daddy, Daddy, that boy and his mother are going to steal our pig!”
I guess, to her, everybody who doesn’t wear a majorette uniform is a boy.
When I turned back around, Mother had already rushed into the ring and was pulling the pig from the Cadillac. “Let him free!” she cried.
Well, the entire firmament of a red-striped family was on us. Circus God jumped on Mother and dragged her toward the door. That’s when the gloomy teenager who took our money at the entrance threw me over his shoulder, my cowboy boots cycling uselessly in the air. I hated feeling helpless, but that seemed to be a byproduct of being smaller than everybody else; that’s why small people have to use their brains.
Mother’s shoe flew off when she was tossed out. Landing outside on our behinds was humiliating, but what could we do? Who heard complaints from the poor in spirit and poor in money? Nobody, that’s who. Especially when it was just plain legal cruelty and bad manners.
Mother stood up off the sidewalk, smoothed her hair, and brushed the dirt off her skirt. As she straightened her shoe back onto her foot she said, “Ruby Clyde, they may own that pig legally, but not rightfully. Some things are just plain wrong.”