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Colors swirled behind my eyelids. They began to take form. A dancer in white gauze trimmed with azure and crimson emerged, her breasts bare. Pleasure cupped my loins with a firm, hot paw.
She held a string of beads in one hand and a rattle in the other, twirling its two-pronged frame to make metal disks hiss and shush in harmony with the clicking of her beads. She danced to the rhythm of the chants sung by swaying girls and of the chock-chock sound of their ivory wands knocking. She rolled her hips and embraced the music with her arms. Pipes soa
red in melody, harps chimed, the rhythm grew faster and faster, until she twirled in a blur of whites, reds, blues, and golds. People clapped, they clicked their fingers. I shook with internal thunder and felt I might spiral into the maelstrom of the dance. She spun closer and closer, her dark eyes flashing promises, until she stopped, breathless, in front of me, so near I could smell the spices she wore, heated by her sweat, and my blood surged sweet and effervescent.
Come to me, a voice whispered in my ear like the rustling of leaves.
My eyes shot open and I looked frantically to either side. Surely that had been a real voice.
“Flea bit you, son?” my father asked.
“Um, I think I fell asleep,” I said. My heart thumped as I tried to work out what my mind had turned into a voice. The rattling of cutlery? A sneeze? “Perhaps I should get to bed early.”
“You are excused,” said my mother.
I was too deep in thought to pay much mind to the chuckles I heard on the way out, but as I passed the table of Gladys Dibble, the Pixie Queen, and her fairy court, a raucous voice burst into song.
“He flies through the air with the greatest of ease. The naked young man on the flying trapeze …”
Archie sat between Betty and Dolly like a fly in a bun, singing at the top of his lungs. Archie, all the time ready to take a poke at me because I was so ordinary. The other diners clapped time as they laughed, and Baby Betty blew me a kiss.
Did they all think me a joke? Underneath their affection was there pity for the normal boy who would never quite belong? Or was there a streak of resentment under their teasing?
I strode from the room, gazing straight ahead. I wanted to keep on going, to march right out of the house.
4
I CAME EARLY TO THE PRACTICE barn the next morning and found Apollo in the hayloft, sobbing into a bale of last summer’s sweetgrass. Through his rumpled fur I could see a bruise on the cheek turned my way—his father’s work, no doubt. Damn the man. Apollo was only a child. I sat at the boy’s side and pulled him to me. He clasped me and wept into my shoulder. Although my neck felt damp and itchy with his tears, I held him until he’d finished crying.
“Cheer up,” I told him. “You’ll soon be all grown up and your own man.”
“Wish it was now,” he said, and hiccupped.
The barn door creaked. “Jack’s here,” I said. “I’m to have self-defense lessons. Want to watch?”
Apollo perked right up. “Yeah!” he said, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Uncle Jack’s lesson turned out to be no more than the boxing pointers he had given me in the past. I dutifully sparred with him and listened to his advice, but my heart wasn’t in it.
I heard laughter. “Why, it’s the water baby at his practice. Very gentlemanly, I must say.” Archie Crum swaggered though the barn door.
“What do you want, Crum?” Jack asked.
Archie ignored his question. “It’s not Marquis of Queensbury rules you need when the odds are against you. What you need are barroom moves. Come on, Jack, let’s show the boys some real fighting.”
Jack was a fine, muscular man and more than a match for a four-foot dwarf, no matter how burly or how experienced a stage strong man.
Archie saw my doubt. “I shouldn’t worry if I were you, young frog. I’ve toppled bigger giants than our Jacko here.” With that, he kicked Jack in the left shin. Jack howled and lifted the injured leg. Archie hooked the remaining leg with one of his, and Jack fell to the ground.
Apollo whooped, and my mouth fell open.
“At this point you jump on him or run,” Archie said to me. “If it’s you that falls, tuck, roll, and bolt. Don’t lie there like this idiot and let your foe kick you.”
“That’s dirty fighting,” Jack said, scrambling to his feet.
Archie rolled his eyes. “Of course it’s dirty. When a man’s in danger, he does what he can to survive. Always take your opponent by surprise when you can, Abel. Especially when he’s bigger than you. Hit him where it hurts the most—stamp on his instep; kick him in the shin, or in the privates if you can do that without him grabbing your leg. Of course, if you do hit him in the privates, be prepared to run like hell. If you’re fighting in close, poke him in the eyes.”
“Hold on there,” said Jack. “That can inflict permanent damage.”
