WATER FOR ELEPHANT - Sara Gruen [52]
Drab, silent men hang all around the perimeter with hungry eyes. As Marlena steps away from the steam tables, one of them addresses her. He’s a tall man, gaunt, with deeply creased cheeks. Under different circumstances, he would probably be handsome.
“Lady—hey, lady. Can you spare a little? Just a piece of bread?”
Marlena stops and looks at him. His face is hollow, his eyes desperate. She looks at her plate.
“Aw, come on, lady. Have a heart. I ain’t ate in two days.” He runs his tongue across cracked lips.
“Keep moving,” says August, taking Marlena’s elbow and steering her firmly toward a table in the center of the tent. It’s not our usual table, but I’ve noticed that people tend not to argue with August. Marlena sits silently, looking occasionally at the men outside the tent.
“Oh, it’s no good,” she says, flinging her cutlery to the table. “I can’t eat with those poor souls out there.” She stands and picks up her plate.
“Where are you going?” August says sharply.
Marlena stares down at him. “How am I supposed to sit here and eat when they’ve had nothing for two days?”
“You are not giving that to him,” says August. “Now sit down.”
People from several other tables turn to look. August smiles nervously at them and leans toward Marlena. “Darling,” he says urgently, “I know this is hard on you. But if you give that man food, it will encourage him to hang around, and then what? Uncle Al’s already made his picks. He wasn’t one of them. He’s got to move on, that’s all—and the sooner the better. It’s for his own good. It’s a kindness, really.”
Marlena’s eyes narrow. She sets her plate down, stabs a pork chop with her fork, and slaps it on a piece of bread. She swipes August’s bread, slaps it on the other side of the pork chop, and storms off.
“What do you think you’re doing?” shouts August.
She walks straight to the gaunt man, picks up his hand, and plants the sandwich in it. Then she marches off to scattered applause and whistles from the working men’s side of the tent.
August vibrates with anger, a vein pulsing at his temple. After a moment he rises, taking his plate. He tilts its contents into the trash and leaves.
I stare at my plate. It’s piled high with pork chops, collard greens, mashed potatoes, and baked apples. I worked like a dog all day, but I can’t eat a thing.
ALTHOUGH IT’S NEARLY SEVEN, the sun is still high and the air heavy. The terrain is very different from what we left behind in the northeast. It’s flat here, and dry as a bone. The lot is covered in long grass, but it’s brown and trampled, crispy as hay. At the edges, near the tracks, tall weeds have taken over—tough plants with stringy stalks, small leaves, and compact flowers. Designed to waste energy on nothing but getting their blooms up toward the sun.
As I pass the stable tent, I see Kinko standing in its scant shade. Queenie squats in front of him, defecating loosely, scootching a few inches forward after each fresh burst of liquid.
“What’s up?” I say, coming to a stop beside him.
Kinko glares at me. “What the hell does it look like? She’s got the trots.”
“What did she eat?”
“Who the fuck knows?”
I step forward and peer closely at one of the small puddles, checking for signs of parasites. She seems clear. “See if the cookhouse has any honey.”
“Huh?” Kinko says, straightening up and squinting at me.
“Honey. If you can get hold of any slippery elm powder, add a bit of that as well. But a spoonful of honey should help on its own,” I say.
He frowns at me for a moment, arms akimbo. “Okay,” he says doubtfully. Then turns back to his dog.
I walk on, eventually settling on a patch of grass some distance from the Fox Brothers menagerie. It stands in ominous desertion, as though there’s a minefield around it. No one comes within twenty yards. The conditions inside must be deadly, but short of tying up Uncle Al and August and hijacking the water wagon, I can’t think of a damned thing