Who: Dick, Haley Circus NPCs, Narrative. Where: Haley’s Circus - New Jersey When: 8/23/15 What: Dick stops by at his old mobile stomping grounds to check in and say hi, and gets some news he wasn’t expecting. Rating: PG
“Haley!”
The old man looked up, searching for the sound of his name and finally spotted Dick waving as he meandered through the crowd toward him. He held his arms out, his laugh a sound of greeting as he hugged the taller young man. (Dick still remembered when Haley had seemed huge to him, larger than life as only a ringmaster could be.)
“I expected you to be by much sooner!” Haley noted, but then looked to Dick’s police uniform under his jacket. “Ah, but you’ve been busy, I see. How is the beat?”
“Rough, but can’t complain. It’s easier than my old job here,” Dick teased.
“You loved it,” Haley teased right back, continuing on through the crowd with the Bludhaven police officer at his side. “Have you said hi to anyone else yet?”
“You’re the first person I’ve spotted, so you have the first misfortune.”
“Ha! Well, I was counting on you making it. Got something I wanted to tell you.”
Dick looked at him puzzled, but Haley didn’t comment further as they started toward the animal tents. They ran into Raya briefly, but she had errands to run and couldn’t linger.
“Something I always wondered,” Haley noted, glancing after her. “Why did you two never…?”
Dick shrugged, smiling awkwardly. “Never the right time, I guess. One of those misses, but it’s fine. She’s all right.” Dick turned himself sideways while a group of teens bustled past, most with their phones out and yakking excitedly as they moved toward the game booths.
“Well, you might say that, but she still gets a spark in her eye whenever she sees you. You best make sure you give her a proper goodbye before we hit the road again.”
“Well, you all will be back in town after carney season, right?” They moved behind the tents, passed some of the hands who always worked in this area specifically to help keep the regular crowds away from the animals while they rested and ate.
“Most of us, yes.”
“Uh?”
“Few members are retiring.”
“Nooo,” Dick said with some incredulity. “Harry finally is making good his threat of getting too old for this?” Those weren’t the exact words Harry the Clown used, but even as an adult, Dick rarely cursed. Something too ingrained from his parents.
“That old clown will never retire!” Haley laughed, slapping a hand out. “Though you need to stop by and see him as well. He’s less grumpy when he sees you’re doing all right. Now you need to say a proper hello and goodbye to some other good friends of yours.”
Dick grinned, having already spotted exactly who Haley was talking about. He gave a low whoop of sound, something he knew would be familiar, and true to an elephant’s excellent memory, the two big elephants turned about and looked for him. The closest gave a greeting blast of sound, reaching out with her trunk and Dick didn’t hesitate hopping over the low barrier and going right up to the big animal. She immediately pat and sniffed at him with the tip of her nose, her mouth turned up in a smile. He could feel more than hear the low noise she was making, decibels too low for a human sound but felt like a deep purr standing this close to her.
“Hey Elinore! You’re looking spry! Oh yes, I missed you, too. Whope!” Another trunk slithered about him, dragging him backward in a hug. Dick turned about, patting at the huge head of the younger elephant. “Zitka, you old nanny elephant! Yes, I missed you, too!”
Haley just watched, smiling with a reminiscent glow in his old eyes as Dick pet and chattered at the two elephants who were acting like cheek-pinching doters, their noises making the other few elephants talk and rumble in curiosity. Dick had to apologize when Elinore went searching in his pockets for peanuts. Zitka didn’t care that he had none though, her trunk keeping a hold on him and patting at him. The two could crush him easily, even by accident were Dick to step between them wrong, but Dick had never been worried, just being careful to maneuver away from their swaying sides.
Haley seemed to be thinking about that. He shook his head, eyes merry. “You never were a bit afraid of them. I remember we had a horrible storm one night. We were worried the elephants would bust away in fright, and an elephant on a stampede is a terrifying thing. None of them did, and we were too busy trying to find you to really worry about why, just thanking our lucky stars. Then the next morning, who do we find curled up in their pen with them?”
Dick smiled abashedly. “Oh man, I remember that. My dad was furious. Sixty pounds, he had hollered. Sixty pounds and I could have been trampled like a dry twig.”
“You were little more than a twig than. And your father was right. Even when you explained that your talking to them kept them all calm, your father still walloped you and told you to never do it again. None of these girls would hurt a hair on your head on purpose, but most accidents aren’t on purpose on their part. They get careless and startled just like anyone.”
“I know.” Dick rubbed about Zitka’s ears. “I remember also though that if they needed to find me, they would send out Zitka here. Didn’t even need to tie her, they’d just send her out. She’d wander right up to wherever I was. Better than a dog. I heard the saying once, and I think it’s entirely right. There are humans and there are animals and then there are elephants.”
“That’s true. I’m going to miss them.”
Dick looked to Haley in confusion.
Haley smiled sheepishly, shrugging a little. He looked tired now. “Elinore is retiring, Dick. She’s fifty-one years old. She hasn’t been in the ring for the past year. Her legs can’t take it anymore. Even the traveling is hard on her. So she’s going to an elephant sanctuary.”
Dick looked alarmed from Haley to the other elephants and back. “But Haley, what about them? Elinore has been the matron forever. Zitka and her especially…”
Haley had held out a hand. “We’re retiring her. We’re retiring them all.”
Dick’s brow wrinkled, even as he pat the tip of a trunk that was tapping on his pectoral. “All…?”
Haley sighed. “Well, separating them would be hard on them. Especially Eli. The laws are getting stricter, too. There are more regulations for keeping exotic animals and even then there are groups who want circuses to stop using exotic animals entirely. So… we’re complying early. The writing is on the wall, so everyone is going to a sanctuary except for the trick dogs and horses.”
Dick felt angry suddenly. “Haley, you have always ran this circus with the utmost care for the animals! You’ve never allowed-Whoa… shh, girl, it’s okay. I’m okay.” He pat at Elinore assuringly, calming himself swiftly.
“I know, Dick, but I know other people out there don’t prioritize the same care and consideration to their four-legged family. Circus life is hard as it is, and people cut corners, big time, often at the animals’ expense, or they try to hurry their training by breaking them in cruel ways. It used to be the way things were done. I’ve been lucky to have the trainers I do. You know that. They showed you how they train, and they told you how others go about it.”
Dick shuddered. He did know. He’d even bust a few exotic animal smuggling rings and the treatment of the animals there… It was awful.
Haley continued, motioning to the big old matron who had decided to search in Dick’s pockets for peanuts again and instead pulled out his keys. She shook them so they jingled and flapped her ears. “You weren’t there when we first got her. She was in bad shape, some fool keeping her in unsuitable conditions. She was sick, even, so the medicine we’d need and taking care of the infections around her manacles was going to be a pretty penny. We were just starting out and really didn’t need another elephant. Your father, he was so young then. Your mother hadn’t even joined yet even. Oh, but he was charismatic, Jonathon was, even then. Some were grumbling about the costs when we weren’t sure she was going to live, and Jon snapped at them that it didn’t matter. Morality came before money. We had a chance to do good, we were going to do it or we may as well dump the ‘family circus’ from our name. Even if she didn’t live, he said, at least she wasn’t going to die in chained manacles and she was going to go in a warm place with dry hay and not wallowing in her own filth.” Haley looked thoughtful. “That right there set our standard for the following years. The members agreed or at least shut up, took a cut for the next show to help pay her costs. The other elephants stayed right by her, kept reaching into her pen and patting her. She pulled out of it. We’ve been lucky. She’s been a grateful girl, full of grace. She’s never held that past against us.” He sighed again. “You see, don’t you? We might have those standards, but others just don’t. Animals are a bottom dollar to them, and maybe it is time it stops. With Elinore needing to retire, time just seems right.”
Dick was quiet for a long time, reaching for his keys which were held out of his reach for a moment before Elinore lowered them into his palm. Zitka finally released him, grabbing the keys herself and jingling them happily. When Elinore reached for them, she relented them back to the matron elephant.
“So even Gunther and Gurbel?” Dick finally asked, holding his hand out to accept his keys again.
“Yes, the tigers, too. They’re old boys as well.”
Dick untangled himself from the elephants finally, waving to them. Ears wiggling, the two big ladies waved at him in farewell. “Let me get you some peanuts, girls. I’ll be back.” He fell into step with Haley, the ringmaster still walking with him. “Will the circus be all right?”
“We should be.” Haley looked weary. “Maybe it’s just karma. God knows as much as we tried to claim to be a family circus, there were things that shouldn’t have gone on here. That… that Court of Owls thing-.”
“Water under the bridge,” Dick said firmly. “We’re not discussing that. It’s closed.” The circus had paid enough for that, and Dick did not like being reminded that had Bruce not been there, the first people who would have plucked him out of the orphanage was an organization of assassins.
Just like some people were with animals, there were some who did the same with humans. Bruce had never pushed Dick into anything he didn’t agree to in his training. The Court would have treated him as more a commodity, and it would have been the breaking of kill or be killed. Dick didn’t like the dark shadow that possibility caused him in the corners of his mind.
Haley was quiet for a moment before nodding, as though deciding that was best. He picked a different subject. It was an obvious change of subject, but both men were grateful for it all the same. “So this is the last tour for them. We’re setting up announcements all over that this is their last set of shows and asking for donations to go to the sanctuary for their new lives and a show of support for PETA and for others to do the same. We wanted to do more online. We know we owe you too much, but do you think you could help with that? I’m useless on the internet.”
“Yeah, sure I can. I know the webpage.”
“Thank you.” Haley smiled wearily again. “I have to go see to things. Don’t you dare let them charge you for peanuts.” He wagged a finger and then disappeared into the crowd of people. Dick watched him go, then sighed.
Things always changed. If he was lucky maybe Alfred could make him some comfort food when he left to do his laundry. He felt he was going to need it.