Death of a Ventriloquist

The Largest of the Circus Animals

6 The Largest of the Circus Animals Nights when the heat in my room has mass and scale, a heft, or I catch a whiff of straw and dung covered with a dabble of cologne, I know it looms in a corner with a boy who can smile at anything. In its stomach is a quiet house: a family in five red rooms— five three-legged chairs, five doors shut, five mouths that never speak of the smell. I can tell you there are two tusks and a trunk that plays the role of hand, nose, or snorkel, depending on the night. Its eyelids swim over human pupils. The heart of course is many-ventricled, and the chambers beat in three directions at once—its three muscles working at off-intervals so that it appears a frenzied man pushes and pulls from inside. His action feeds the stomach, organ of appetite and the filial scene. The meal— fat with memory—went down the gullet, a long greased slide past the clapboard hideout in the voice box. The heavy meal is indigestible. I have nothing left to hide, my pachyderm, and nothing to make the family (still in their rooms) speak to me. ...