Issue 11.1 Fall 2015

11.1 cover image

 

 

An Evening with Torano

 

Andrea Berns

 

Many circuses had elephants, but Cirque du Crépuscule had the best.

 

His name was Torano.

 

Torano was large and strong with raw, pachydermal skin and long, ivory tusks. He was the friendliest elephant in the state. He would do tricks like stand on his hind legs and shake the hands of children with his snake-like trunk. He could wiggle his floppy ears and make it rain by shooting water out of his trunk.

 

Children loved Torano, and Torano loved children.

 

One night, during a discussion of crazy, delinquent things to do, Jonathan asked me if I would like to pay Cirque du Crépuscule a visit. After the show was finished and the circus was closed. It was just crazy enough to put us in juvenile prison.

 

But only if we were caught.

 

Jonathan and I were the romantic felons laughing in the red, white, and blue face of the law. We never got caught. This is the kind of stuff we did on our date nights. The spontaneity made him beautiful against the setting sun.

 

When the time was right, we snatched a bag of weed from our stash and purchased a jumbo bag of shelled peanuts from the local market just outside of town. We drove deep into the middle of the country where Cirque du Crépuscule made its home for the week.

 

I could pick locks with ease and expertise. I pulled a bobby pin from my hair and applied my contribution. The gates opened like freedom. We feasted like ravenous animals upon the warm, midsummer-evening air. The circus looked dark and abandoned at this time of night. It quickly became our playground.

 

The air still smelled faintly of burnt kettle corn and cotton candy mixed with animal dung. Soft crickets clicked on and off. Locusts buzzed. We relished in these sounds and smells and the deserted sights. We could do whatever we wanted here.

 

The Fun House was dark. The Ferris wheel was sleeping. If we wanted to, we could have found the switch and awakened the red and yellow fireflies of lights and dance to the clownish accordions and steam calliopes of the carnival night. But we were not stupid. That’s why we’d made it this far without getting caught.

 

Jonathan took a long drag from the joint and passed it over. After a few, I could already feel the world around me beginning to sharpen. Then we locked hands and ran through the park like children. We grasped each other’s arms and swung around in a circle so that the warm twilight wind rushed in our faces. My long, frizzy hair whipped in my eyes, strands sticking to my damp forehead. Then we let go, falling to the ground in wasted dizziness, laughing like schoolchildren in the late eventide.

 

A voice, loud and harsh. An adult’s voice. A stream of light sifted the ground. A security guard.

 

Ah, glorious.More excitement to our night.

 

As if rehearsed, Jonathan pulled me from the ground. My feet slipped with clumsiness from the trip, which set us off. Then we ran, stumbling and laughing at the buzzing thrill that reverberated off our bones like bells tolling. It hummed in our feet as they crushed the ground with every inebriated step.
We were certain we lost him once we hid behind one of the red-and-gold-striped tents, laughing giddily and gasping for air. Then Jonathan cupped my chin in his hands and swirled his tongue in my mouth. I tufted his hair in my fingers. It poked like brown grass through the spaces. The thrill of danger enticed us.

 

When we broke our embrace, we realized we had found the barred cars of the train the circus travels in. Big striped kittens were sprawled on the floor of their cage, eyes serenely closed while visions of mice and catnip danced in their heads. Foolish monkeys were huddled together, their long tails poking lazily through the spaces between the sturdy bars. We laughed at them; how innocent they were. Unsuspecting. I pulled a peanut from the bag and threw it at one of the kittens. Its ear twitched but nothing more. Jonathan tapped on the bars with the head of the hammer we bring for every adventure. All three of the kittens shook their furry heads at the annoying clangs in a disoriented confusion. Jonathan ran the hammer across the bars. It rang like a tone-deaf xylophone. One of the kittens swiped a burly paw, nearly nicking his hand with its sharp claws. But Jonathan laughed in its face and told it to brush up on its reflexes. I threw another peanut.

 

The next car was larger than the rest and held a massive, sleepy elephant—the friendliest elephant in the state.

 

Jonathan unleashed a superior laugh. He asked the big lug of lard how it was feeling.

 

Torano didn’t acknowledge his voice.

 

So I plucked a peanut from the bag and threw it. The peanut hit above its right eye. But the animal was so massive that it didn’t even notice the little shelled nut. So Jonathan grabbed a fistful of peanuts and threw it at the creature. They bounced off the skin like jumping beans. It still didn’t notice us. Stupid pachyderm.
           

Jonathan clanked the hammer on the bars again. He said that Dumbo should look at him when he’s talking to it.

 

Torano slowly moved his massive body into the corner farthest away from us, letting out a small sound like air squealing out of a balloon. Its tail whipped Jonathan in the face.

 

I laughed as Jonathan stared at the elephant in disbelief. He said it owed him an apology.

 

I beckoned Jonathan to come on so we could break into the fun house or something.

 

He told me no, no, wait a minute. He was going to teach the pachyderm a lesson. Then he demanded that I pick the lock of Torano’s cage.

 

I asked if he was crazy.

 

He told me again, the harshness of demand in his voice.

 

I said he was stoned.

 

He stood right in front of me. Then he snatched a bobby pin from my hair. Tendrils tumbled around my face and into my eyes. Jonathan went over to the lock on the cage and unsuccessfully tried to pick it.

 

I told him the bobby pin was too small for such a massive lock.

 

He yelled at me to shut up. Then he began pounding the lock with the hammer he had used before.
The lock gave, and the top of the door swung downwards to the ground, creating a ramp. Jonathan grabbed my hand, but I pulled awaySo he went alone.

 

He approached the elephant until he was close enough to touch it, and he did. He nudged the beast with his hand, poked at its legs, swung its trunk back and forth. He commanded it to shake his hand, just like its trick.

 

I told him to be careful. He said not to worry. Because Torano was the friendliest elephant in the state. And it wouldn’t hurt him. Then he took hold of its trunk and forced a peanut through the nostril. It shot back at him, hitting him in the eye. Jonathan asked Torano what it did that for, and Torano let out a loud, balloonish wail. It moved with sickening speed, frightening in such a small space. Torano screamed, a furious trumpet. Jonathan held up his hands. He didn’t mean what he said; he was just having some fun, he swore.
The elephant grasped Jonathan’s leg with its trunk and pulled it out from underneath him. He fell to the floor of the cage, crying out.

 

Torano was riling up, and a sheen of cold sweat rose on my skin like I had the flu. I told Jonathan to get the hell away from there, now. But the elephant attacked. It pushed Jonathan across the floor with its bulbous head, making him tumble out of the cage and onto the ground, limbs flailing. Torano followed its prey down the ramp and continued to push him across the ground with its head. It opened its mouth wide, revealing its flat elephant teeth and slimy gray tongue, and threw its trunk around, whipping Jonathan in the face. Cherry-red juice spilled out of his nose.

 

My hand went to my pocket for my cell phone, but Jonathan screamed not to call. We weren’t supposed to be here. We would get in trouble.

 

Torano charged again, and his head dropped down on Jonathan’s chest, crushing his lungs. I screamed at it. Jonathan’s hemorrhaging nose looked strangely pushed off to the side and the right side of his face was bruised and swollen. He didn’t move.

 

The beast gave a loud bellow and ran out into the night, carelessly trampling over Jonathan’s body, which convulsed as his bones crackled underneath the animal’s weight like bubble wrap.

 

I walked closer to his body until I was standing over him. This time, my hand pulled out my cell phone. I dialed those three frightening digits.

 

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

 

My words were stuck in my throat. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Jonathan’s broken body. His neck was snapped at an odd angle and his eyes were open and empty. It was useless to call. He was already dead.

 

“We’re tracing your call.”

 

No. No. That was the last thing I wanted. I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

 

A voice. A man’s voice. At first it was severe and angry, and then its possessor saw the condition of the body on the ground. Then the voice asked if I was okay.

 

I was numb. My vision was blurred and something wet fell down my face. A piercing sound echoed in the distance, tickling my vocal chords.

 

I fell to my knees as I watched the blood drip down his face. It looked violet in the dusk.

 

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