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By Root 6219 0

between this show and the shows from my past—this one doesn’t even have a midway, just a big top with a ticket gate at the door and concession and souvenir stand beside it. It looks like they still sell the same old fare—popcorn, candy, and balloons—but the children also carry flashing swords, and other moving, blinking toys I can’t make out at this distance. Bet their parents paid an arm and a leg for them, too. Some things never change. Rubes are still rubes, and you can still tell the performers from the workers.

“MR. JANKOWSKI?”

Rosemary is leaning over me, seeking my eyes with hers.

“Eh?”

“Are you ready for lunch, Mr. Jankowski?” she says.

“It can’t be lunchtime. I only just got here.”

She looks at her watch—a real one, with arms. Those digital ones came and went, thank God. When will people learn that just because you can make something doesn’t mean you should?

“It’s three minutes to twelve,” she says.

“Oh. All right then. What day is it, anyway?”

“Why, it’s Sunday, Mr. Jankowski. The Lord’s Day. The day your people come.”

“I know that. I meant what’s for lunch?”

“Nothing you’ll like, I’m sure,” she says.

I raise my head, prepared to be angry.

“Oh, come now, Mr. Jankowski,” she says, laughing. “I was only joking.”

“I know that,” I say. “What, now I have no sense of humor?”

But I’m grumpy, because maybe I don’t. I don’t know anymore. I’m so used to being scolded and herded and managed and handled that I’m no longer sure how to react when someone treats me like a real person.

ROSEMARY TRIES TO steer me toward my usual table, but I’m having none of that. Not with Old Fart McGuinty there. He’s wearing his clown hat again—must have asked the nurses to put it on him again first thing this morning, the damned fool, or maybe he slept in it—and he’s still got helium balloons tied to the back of his chair. They’re not really floating anymore, though. They’re starting to pucker, hovering above limp lengths of string.

When Rosemary turns my chair toward him I bark, “Oh no you don’t. There! Over there!” I point at an empty table in the corner. It’s the one farthest from my usual table. I just hope it’s out of earshot.

“Oh, come now, Mr. Jankowski,” Rosemary says. She stops my chair and comes around to face me. “You can’t keep this up forever.”

“I don’t see why not. Forever might be next week for me.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Do you even remember why you’re so angry?”

“Yes, I do. Because he’s lying.”

“Are you talking about the elephants again?”

I purse my lips by way of an answer.

“He doesn’t see it that way, you know.”

“That’s cockamamie. When you’re lying, you’re lying.”

“He’s an old man,” she says.

“He’s ten years younger than me,” I say, straightening up indignantly.

“Oh, Mr. Jankowski,” Rosemary says. She sighs and gazes toward heaven as though asking for help. Then she crouches in front of my chair and places her hand on mine. “I thought you and I had an understanding.”

I frown. This is not part of the usual nurse/Jacob repertoire.

“He may be wrong in the details, but he’s not lying,” she says. “He really believes that he carried water for the elephants. He does.”

I don’t answer.

“Sometimes when you get older—and I’m not talking about you, I’m talking generally, because everyone ages differently—things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they’re a part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they’re not true—why, then you get offended. Because you don’t remember the first part. All you know is that you’ve been called a liar. So even if you’re right about the technical details, can you understand why Mr. McGuinty might be upset?”

I scowl into my lap.

“Mr. Jankowski?” she continues softly. “Let me take you to the table with your friends. Go on, now. As a favor to me.”

Well, isn’t that just dandy. The first time in years a woman wants a favor from me, and I can’t stomach the idea.

“Mr. Jankowski?”

I look up at her. Her smooth face is two feet from mine. She looks me in the eye, waiting for an answer.