Monday, August 9, 1926

We were about 20 miles West of St. Louis, when the boss stopped the caravan to water the elephants, near the banks of the Missouri River. I decided to take a nice swim and accompanied Eddie Bee and Miss Devine. Ambrose had assigned different people to watch after me at all times because he knew I wanted a drink bad. 

This place looked familiar. I remembered having stopped at this exact spot nearly a year ago. Lying in a mud puddle, I found something flat, round and shiny green. It was some sort of Indian coin with strange writings all over it. I kept that lucky coin in my pocket for good luck.

We moseyed on down to the bank of the Missouri river, and once we got there, I announced.  “I’m going in,” I waded in up to my waist. 

“I want to go in too,” said Devine, leaning against a tree trying to remove her dress. “Eddie, dear, can you help me out here?” she said, trying to balance herself on one leg.

“Ugh, don’t lose your balance and fall on me. I don’t want to die today,” Eddie said, grinning.

Devine stripped down to her underwear and waded into the river. “Oh God, this feels so good. You coming in Eddie?” she said, waving.

“Not me. I can’t swim a lick. I’ll go up as far as my ankles, he said, taking off his shoes.

After the swim, we lay in the grass and dried our clothes in the sun. Across the river, the two Polish brothers from the trapeze act, Carlos and Andreas Von Hagens walked down to the river’s edge and began undressing. 

“My, oh my, what a sight to behold,” Devine said, admiring the muscular lean physiques of the two young men. “What I wouldn’t give to be 20 years younger and 100 pounds lighter. Hello boys,” she said, waving. 

I picked up my fiddle and started to play a tune. Devine lay on her stomach, propping her head in her hands staring at me as I played. 

“So Harvey, where did you learn to play, and how come someone as talented as you is here working for the circus? You really should be doing greater things with your life,” she said.

“I once had a promising career as a violinist, but I left a wife and family back in Akron Ohio after she divorced me for me for being an arrogant mean drunk.”

“My my, I can’t imagine you as a mean drunk. You seem so quiet and gentle,” she said.

“In my youth, I was a selfish and abusive man. Age and poverty has humbled me. I do regret the choices I made,” I said, swirling my feet in the water.

“Don’t we all. Can you believe I wanted to be a dancer at one time, and look at me now. I can barely walk,” said Devine.

“I wanted to be big and strong, but look at me now,” said Eddie, flexing as we chuckled.

Devine looked up and said, “Looks like a storm is approaching. You boys best get me back before we get wet.”

As we helped Devine back to the wagons, the sky continued to darken, and suddenly there was a flash of lightning, followed by a loud roar.

I was standing in a field of tobacco with a bunch of negros dressed in sack cloth clothing and barefoot. I looked down at my hands and feet and saw that my skin was a dark brown color.

“Jasper, what’s wrong with you. Hurry, we needs to get the baccer on the wagon befo the storm hits,” said a young black man with a straw hat.

“Where am I? I was just at the river with my fiddle,” I said, scratching my head.

“You best not be talking like that or Massa Edward will beat you,”

Suddenly, a white man rides up on a horse and says, “Jasper what are you doing?”

“Massa Edward, I thinks Jasper got a bit too much sun. He be better once he drinks a dipper of water,” said the young black man, putting his arm around my shoulder, leading towards the water bucket. “You needs to be more careful, Jasper. Can’t be letting the boss think something is wrong.”

He helped me to the water bucket and then showed me how to hand the stalks of tobacco that lay in the fields up to the men on the wagon. I wasn’t used to such hard work. Another flash and then I was back sitting in my bed with Ambrose and Andy looking down at me. There was a strong wind rocking the wagon as dust blew in the door.

“What happened?” I said, looking up at them.

“You tell me. They brought you in here jabbering away about working on some tobacco farm. You had a strange accent, and said your name was Jasper. What do you remember?” said Ambrose.

“I was on a farm with slaves. I was one of them and was harvesting tobacco,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“You had me worried you old fool. I thought you were either going senile or else you were drunk,” said Ambrose, shaking his head.

“Harvey, are you going to be okay?” said Eddie. “I need to get back to Mrs Devine before the storm blows me away.”

“You go on Eddie. I’ll make sure that old Harvey is taken care of.

Once Eddie had left, I took Ambrose by the hand. “I’m not drunk and it wasn’t no dream. For just a few minutes, I think I traveled back in time to some tobacco farm in the south. I was one of the slaves. I know it sounds strange, but I swear to God that it happened.”

Ambrose sat on his bed eyeing me curiously and raised an eyebrow. He nodded and started to clap his hands. “Bravo! That was an amazing story, old man. You almost had me fooled.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Hmm, no, but you got the shakes, Ambrose. Look at your hands. I’m afraid you’re just suffering from the delirium.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right, but it felt so real.” I said lying back down on my cot.

“Yes, my dear Harvey, We are gonna get you through this. 

The circus arrived in the outskirts of St Louis by late afternoon. The storms had moved on, but the ground was wet and muddy in the field where the circus was to set up the big tents. The men were standing around waiting for Mr Addler to give his okay to set up the tents. 

The boss arrived and surveyed the plot of land. He put his hands on his waist and took a deep puff from his cigar. “I know it’s a bit muddy, but I think it will be fine. We can just put down boards and planks. By tomorrow it should be dried up.”

“You heard the man. Let’s get these tents up and running,” said Bill Dooley, pointing at the roustabouts standing in a circle around them. 

I sat on a stool, shaking in the soggy grass, along with Miss Melody Vanderpelt, watching the roustabouts hammering in the stakes from across the field. She looked at me and said, “Harvey you aren’t looking so well.”

“No, Ma’am, I doing very poorly here. I need a drink really bad. feels like my skin is crawling. I don’t know if I can take much more of this.”

“You know I can’t do that. I thought you were going to read that book.”

“It’s hard to concentrate and the book is making me sad.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it about?”

“‘Bout this dog named Buck, that gets sold off to these bad guys in Seattle. He gets beaten. I hate when animals get beaten.”

“I know honey, the world is full of cruelty,” she said, touching my shoulder. I felt tears forming in my eyes. It had been ages since a woman treated me this tenderly. 

I went back to my reading, when all of a sudden there was all sorts of yelling and screaming coming from the roustabouts. Melody stood up and put her hand over her eyes to block the sun. Men were running about. One man went running off towards the boss’s wagon. I got up and followed Melody down to see what all the fuss was about.

When we reached the men, I saw that one of the men was lying on the ground. Other men stood in a circle surrounding him. The man was crying hysterically.

“It hurts! It hurts real bad. Am I gonna die?”

I pushed through the crowd and saw that it was my friend, Tim Clark, the sweet feeble minded nephew of the boss. His right arm was covered in blood. Someone had tied a shirt around it tightly to stop the blood. I turned and dropped to my knees, covering my face in my hands. I was shaking so bad. I needed a drink. While everyone else was watching Tim, I slipped back to my wagon and got my secret stash of whiskey I had hidden up under the wagon. I took the bottle and walked near the edge of the big field where the elephants were kept. I stood in the grass beside Rosie who was eating weeds and tree branches near the tree line.

I patted her trunk and took a big swig from the bottle. “Rosie, we should just run away from this place. We could go up north to Canada and live in the wilderness.” I took another swig. The alcohol made me feel better. The shakes went away and I sat down in the tall grass cradling the bottle between my legs. That image of Tim flashed in my mind again. That blood soaked cloth covering his arm, the look of horror on the faces of the men standing around, and the confused, terrified look of Tim, my friend. I shook my head and took another swig. The strange trip to a tobacco farm surrounded by slaves was also still fresh in my mind. The world seemed to be turning upside down. I shook my head and drank until the bottle was empty. 

Later that night, I heard the voice of Eddie Bee yelling, “Here he is! Over here in the grass by the elephants.”

I opened my eyes and there was Ambrose and Hercules standing above me. Andy put his ear to my chest and said, “He’s breathing.”

“Let me sleep,” I moaned, rolling on to my side.”

“Harvey, I see you’ve been drinking again. Come my sad, indignant clown. Can’t let the boss catch you in this condition. Hercules, help the poor man to his feet.”

“How’s young Tim? I couldn’t bear to watch.” I whispered. 

“Tim was hurt really bad. We rushed him to a doctor and his arm couldn’t be saved. He’s back resting up in the boss’s wagon,” Ambrose said, picking up my hat as Herc carried me towards my wagon.

I felt ashamed for letting them all down, and wept.