Sounded fine to me. Now Daddy was happy, I was happy, and life went just grand.
Five more years went by. Which was very, very nice, since Daddy had thought the whole circus things was gonna peter-on-out after two years. We stayed on an’ brought in more money ‘cause we kept makin’ the tricks bigger an’ better. I was never the headliner, and that suited me fine. Way less pressure and the money was almost the same. But I noticed something as time had gone on; it looked like the crowds were thinning out a bit. Fewer people coming and fewer seats getting filled.
“Well Hon,” Daddy said, “what you’ve got right about now is called a depression. Lot of folks are out of work, and that means less money for things like the circus.”
I wasn’t worried, to tell the truth. Daddy’d always steered us right before, and I had no doubt he’d keep doing so. “Are we gonna be out’ve work, Daddy?”
“Well, I’ve got things I’ll set just in case that happens, honey. I’ve been taking the money we’ve been making and socking it away.”
“Where? The bank?”
“Heck, no! The Bank’s been the worst place to put money for a couple’a years now. No, I took it all outta the bank, an’ I’ve been investing it.”
“Wuzzat?”
“I buy part of a company, and if the company does well, I get our money back plus a little extra. It’s risky, but not as risky as putting it in a bank or under the mattress over in our house back home in Indiana.”
“What companies did you buy?”
“One makes beer. Another makes cigarettes. A third one makes soap and those radio shows your gal friend likes to listen to so much- Proctor and Gamble.”
“I thought alcohol was illegal.”
“It was. They switched to ginger beer and ‘near beer’ for a bit, but now that it’s legal again, we’re making money hand-over-fist compared to most folks. Mr. Barnum’s come to me a couple of times, borrowing money from us so’s he can make payroll. He offered me interest on the loan, but I wouldn’t take it. ‘Mister Barnum,’ says I, ‘you took my Jane and I in when we needed a place, and you gave us a home to be in these last seven years. There is no way on God’s green earth I’ll make you pay interest on that when I can help you back.’
Daddy was gonna say more, but Miss Esperanza the acrobat needed his attention for a minute. I’d been noticing her needing his attentions more and more lately, and that suited me fine. Daddy’d been so good to me, and he’d put up with so much from Ma afore we came out here, I was quite happy to see him get some happiness in this area of his life. She was pretty, too- I couldn’t come right out an’ say she was as pretty or moreso than Ma. Even though she was. Despite all Ma’d put us through, it woulda felt disrespectful.
I woulda stayed with them all until the end. I’d had a few beaux myself over the past few years, and some had tried to get fresh, but Daddy’d always told me that there was no man alive anywheres what was worth givin’ up the best treasure a woman can give her husband on their weddin’ night. I believed him, too. More to the point, I saw over an’ over what happened to gals who did different, and I did not want that to be me.
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But Daddy seemed happy. Even happier when he an’ Miss Esperanza got hitched. Daddy wanted a church weddin’, and so did Miss Esperanza. So one day Daddy surprised me an’ we went to the town we was in. It had a big Cathedral, and they was married! Daddy had a nice black suit, and Miss Esperanza wore a white, store-bought dress they’d got just that mornin’! What a great day that was, for everybody. We had the time of of our lives for a few months after that.
He started coughin’, though, a few weeks after I turned eighteen. A few months after that he was hurtin’ alla time in his chest. The doc looked him over and shook his head, told Daddy he had the cancer, and that was that.
When he died, they buried him in the city we was in at the time- and I felt God had done us a kindness by letting him pass in St. Louis, where Father O’Hanlon could give him last rites and do his funeral. Everyone at the circus put on their Sunday best, even the ones who never went to Church, and they all went to the funeral and most of ‘em cried, especially Ignazzio the Strongman and Miss Esperanza, who asked me to call her Mia from that day on. She said after the funeral she couldn’t stay at the circus no more, on account it made her think of Daddy too much. She was going back to Mexico, and she said I could come with her, if’n I wanted, her bein’ my stepmother and all now. I told her, no thank you, Mis- Mia. I love ya a lot, an’ I was real happy with how you made Daddy happy. But the circus was my family now, and I needed to be with them. Maybe I could follow her to Mexico later? Last I saw of her she hugged me tight, told me she loved me, an’ I’d always be welcome where she was in Mexico. She got into a car with a tall man who she said was her brother. They drove off, and that was that.
I was sad, real sad. I went shootin’ and it made me feel better some, but not all the ways. The show hadda go on that night, and I wish I could say I felt Daddy lookin’ over my shoulder, but I didn’t. I just felt sad, except when I heard the ping! of my bullets hittin’ their targets.
After that, things got worse. Ma suddenly showed up. Or rather, some guy in a trenchcoat did, sayin’ Ma had sent him to track me down. He talked me into coming to see her in a fancy restaurant, along with the new man she’d married. She’d gone back to her own mama and daddy, and they’d got her married up to someone real rich, like them.
Ma didn’t smile hardly at all, though to be fair I didn’t either. I was real, real mad at her for runnin’ off. Her new husband waren’t there either, just her. She said a bunch of stuff, but I wasn’t in much of a mood to hear it. “I’m here to bring you home, Jane,” she said at the end. “It’s time you learned who you really are.”
“I know jus’ who I am,” I said, “I’m my Daddy’s little girl. He loved me, an’ the money he saved up for me proves it!”
Well, that was a mistake, let me tell you. Ma sat up kinda slow and careful, like a cat stretching. She hadn’t knowed about Daddy’s money, how he’d saved and invested it, but now she did. “Intriguing,” she said, usin’ a word what I’d heard Mr. Electro use a whole bunch. “It seems your Daddy can make a down payment on all the misery he caused me after all.”
Well, that tore it. I started yellin’ at her in that fancy-pants place fit to beat the band. I yelled about how she was always fightin’ with Daddy, and how sad it made him, and how it made me go to bed every night with my guts feelin’ like they was tied in double-knots. I yelled at her for running off and making Daddy cry, when he always tried to be good to her and do right by us. And I yelled at her for leavin’ me and never saying goodbye, or so much as sendin’ a card at Christmas or any of my birthdays.
Ma wasn’t gonna put up with that. She mumbled something about how I was hopeless, gathered her pocketbook and her muff and walked out of the place. The guy with the trenchcoat was there, suddenly, and he told me it was time to go home, back to the circus.
He was nice while he drove me back. I think he felt bad for me. He dropped me back off at the circus and told me it might be a good idea to get all of Daddy’s money in one place and put it under a mattress, because he said, “Your mother is connected to some very powerful people in this country.”
He drove off, and I just went to my trailer, laid down on the bed and cried and cried and cried. It was so unfair- why couldn’t Ma have been poor, like Daddy an’ me? Why couldn’t she’ve been happy with having a good man who loved her for a husband?
Things started to go bad after that.
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TO BE CONTINUED....