Camptown Lady                       

by  sloanranger

Part l

"Excuse me Miss, is this seat taken?" Kathy turned from the window and looked up at a tall man, about twenty five with short blond hair. 

"Yes, I'm sorry, it is." She instinctively put her purse onto the empty seat and the young man moved on. She took a Salem cigarette out of it's package and put fire to it's tip.  The big bus geared up again and pulled out onto the open highway.  Kathy turned back and leaned her forehead against the cool glass.  

The new, 1961 double-decker Greyhound was large and comfortable. Air-conditioned with it's own bathroom, the bus had roomy, blue Naugahyde seats and Kathy had one on the upper deck.The girl was eighteen, and on her way to Goodland, Kansas.

Kathy had never seen so much open country. The scenery was beautiful, wheat fields rippled and waved for miles, making the wheat look like a yellow sea, as the wind blew across it.

Living in Boston last March, she had been working in a cafeteria across the street from the stadium. While on her break, sitting at one of the Formica tables with her coffee and cigarette, a guy in his early thirty's walked in. Average looking, with brown hair and a receding hairline, he sat at a nearby table. "You work here?"

"Yeah."

"What's your name?"

"Kathy, but everybody calls me, Kit.  What's yours?"

"Tom. You got a menu, Kathy? I been working seven hours straight."

"Yeah?"  She strung the word out. "What kinda work do you do?" 

"I'm an elephant trainer." Kathy laughed out-loud at that. She was a sad girl mostly but she had a real laugh, raucous and loud."That must be interesting work," she said, as brought him a menu and water. She pronounced it : "in-ner-es-ting, leaving out the first 't,' but stressing each syllable.

"Beats factory work," he said.

They talked for a while and Tom kept looking over at her while he ate. She was tall and buxom and she wore her long auburn hair in a chignon.  

Definitely worth the time, he thought, and a possible, 'maybe'. 

Probably be bald before he's forty, Kathy mused but  he seems nice.  

He started coming in twice a day, late in the mornings and seven o'clock at night.  He had worked for the circus four years now, Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, and they were playing at the Stadium across the street.   

During their conversations, he told her about his work.  Tom had missed the days when the circus was under the big top.  Over the past ten years, most of the circuses had combined and there were only two or three big shows left. Rarely working under the big tents, they played large cities that had arenas or stadium-like facilities.  

Tom was the assistant elephant trainer but he usually left out the 'assistant' when talking to girls.  He took care of eighteen elephants.  

"How do you travel?" Kathy had asked him. Tom told her they traveled by train, crowding six elephants into each car.

A few days later he asked her if she'd like to come across the street and see the elephants, and after work she had gone.  She had never been around animals before.  They were huge  but she felt sorry for them. Each elephant had a steel band around its leg with a chain attached to a large stake in the ground. The size and smell of the large piles of dung surprised her.

"Watch," he said, when they got inside. Tom went up to one the elephants and unchained him.

"Max," he said, "Back - Up," in a loud voice. The elephant stood on his hind legs. When Tom said:  "Max, Front - Up,"  the big creature bent it's knees and knelt on his forelegs. Kathy was impressed by the animal's intelligence.  

"Want to sit on him?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Tom said.  He had the elephant kneel lower on it's forelegs, and Tom helped her to get on, but when the animal stood up she got scared and told Tom she wanted to get off.   He told the elephant to kneel down and he helped her off.

He told Kathy to lay down, and he'd show her a trick. She did as Tom told her but when the elephant approached she tried to get up. 

Tom ordered, "Don't move! You might scare him."  Max straddled each side of her head with his huge forelegs. "Tom, make him go away," Kathy said, petrified.

(To be continued).