wildscape. literary journal

Like Chained Elephants
by John Mummert

“They look like white elephants,” she said.
— Ernest Hemingway

The Trinity River had dwindled throughout the summer. Two women made their way to a table overlooking the depleted canals. They sat facing the puddled water, their backs to three men in the opposite corner drinking beer and arguing about whether a football game should ever be cancelled due to excessive heat. No one else sat outside in the late afternoon. The patio roof provided a modicum of relief from a sun that seared the skin. Ceiling fans stirred the stifling air. The women lay their wide-brimmed sun hats on the unused chairs, set their purses on the table.

The red-haired woman’s eyes followed two policemen on bicycles as they rode alongside the canal below.

“Just a routine patrol,” the dark-haired woman said. She touched the red-haired woman’s arm, spoke so as not to be overheard. “They aren’t interested in us, Paige.”

A waiter came from inside the cafe, placed chips and salsa on the table, and cardboard coasters bearing the logo of a black lager.

Paige pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear, and brushed a finger across a coaster. “It’s a breed of chicken, you know. Blue Kraienkoppe. German. Or maybe Dutch.”

“German beer in a Tex-Mex cafe,” the dark-haired woman said. “Their feathers are blue, I suppose?”

“Blue and white, I think.”

The waiter handed menus to them. “Something to drink?”

Paige adjusted the long skirt of her green sundress. “Something hard.”

The dark-haired woman looked to the waiter. “Give us a minute, please.”

The waiter nodded, and retreated past the surveillance camera above the door and into the air conditioning.

“Something hard isn’t a good idea, Paige.”

“Bad for my health, Andra?”

“If they discover you were drinking . . . and we need to keep our wits about us.”

“Then let’s have iced tea. That’s allowed, isn’t it?”

“Regular iced tea,” Andra said. “Tea wasn’t meant to taste like a peach.”

Andra turned and waved to the waiter who rushed to the table.

“Regular iced tea, please,” Andra said. “Unsweetened.”

A poster glowered from the wrought-iron fence surrounding the patio. The phone number and web address were large and bright red.

Andra scanned the menu. “Feel like eating?”

Paige shrugged. “Split some nachos?”

The waiter returned with two tumblers of tea, and placed them on the coasters.

“Can we get an order of Grande nachos, please?” Andra said. “Steak.”

“No,” Paige said, “mixed.”

“With everything?” the waiter asked.

“Enough jalapeños to scorch my insides,” Paige said.

“Don’t give him a hard time,” Andra said.

Paige looked to the waiter. “Lo siento. I’m bitchy today.”

The waiter smiled. “No importa. It’s very hot.” He headed back inside.

“It’s hot every day,” Paige said. “Wonder what else he might attribute my mood to? I suppose that’s a good thing, considering.”

“Be careful,” Andra said. “The last thing you need—the last thing we need—is attention. This conversation alone—”

“I know . . . I know.”

A sudden gust of hot wind caused a red windsock at the corner of the patio to snap like a whip. The attached chain slapped against the fence.

“That windsock looks like an elephant’s trunk,” Andra said.

Paige squeezed a lemon slice into her tea. “Then the chain must be attached to shackles on its legs.”

“Well, that’s morbid.”

“I saw a documentary about elephants kept chained up for work. They were beaten. The shackles rubbed sores on their legs. It was horrible.”

“Not here?”

“No. I can’t remember. India? Thailand? I can’t remember.”

“There’s a giant rock formation in Iceland shaped like an elephant. Frozen in rock, dipping its trunk in the ocean.”

“Better a rock than being chained and beaten.”

“You feeling all right?”

“I feel fine.”

Andra wrinkled her brow.

“I’m fine. Really.”

Andra glanced at the canal, took a long drink of tea. “You left your phone at home?”

“Kitchen table. Seems an appropriate place, don’t you think?”

“You haven’t looked up anything?”

“Of course not. There are people scouring those records. Looking for someone to report.”

“Have you had time to think this through? I know it’s a lot.”

Paige stared through her tea glass. “I wish we could go back in time. Before . . .” She waved a hand. “Before all this.”

“We don’t get that option.”

“Well, at least we’re allowed to pick our flavor of tea and what we want on our damn nachos.”

“Focus. Anger won’t help right now.”

“I’m so scared.”

“I know. So, no one else knows?”

Paige shook her head.

“Do you trust him?”

“I don’t know. His head’s not on the chopping block.”

“It is if he helps you,” Andra said. “Or if he knows, and doesn’t report you.”

“I don’t know what he’d do. That’s sad, isn’t it? That I don’t know?”

“Then say nothing.”

“I’ll lose my job. Have to report twice a week.”

“You’re certain?”

“As certain as I can be without a test. A doctor would have to report the results. But I know. If I could get across the border—”

“You can’t leave the country without a test.”

“And another when I return. I’d have to sneak across.”

“And then sneak back? If you got caught—”

“If I got caught . . . then . . . well. Wonder what they’ll put on my tombstone? Or will they just put my head on a pike somewhere?”

Andra leaned forward. “They won’t find out. We’ll get you through this.”

“What if it goes wrong, and I have to rush to an emergency room? The hospital will have to report me. Even if they might not admit me. Just let me bleed out in the parking lot.”

“It’s early. There are other ways.”

“They’re searching packages and the mail.”

“They’re missing a lot, maybe most. Listen . . . I know someone.”

“Around here?”

“Don’t ask me that.”

“But if you get caught with . . . anything.”

“We’re careful.”

Paige glanced around. “Expensive?”

“No one gets turned away.”

“You’re sure they’re the real thing?”

“Our sources aren’t scammers.”

“Seems what I bought to prevent this wasn’t real.”

Andra touched the ring on her finger. “You should have come to me. I’m allowed. At least for now.”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Don’t ask me that either.”

Paige sighed. “If I was some big-shot’s daughter. Or mistress. Fake test result, a few days in Canada. Or Europe. You know . . . a country in this century.”

“Unless that big-shot was willing to hang his mistress out to dry to protect himself.”

Paige smiled. “How would he replace me if word got around he sold me out?”

“They all seem to find someone willing. Henry VIII didn’t have trouble finding another wife after chopping one’s head off.”

“Two.”

“Two?”

“He chopped off the heads of two wives. Henry was way ahead of his time. He—”

Andra cleared her throat, tapped the table.

The waiter set a platter of nachos, two plates, and a small bowl of jalapeños on the table, and refilled their tea glasses. “Do you need anything else?”

“Not right now,” Andra said. “Thank you.”

Paige clenched her napkin with both hands as she watched the waiter return to the air conditioning. “Think he heard anything?”

“Not unless it was about Henry VIII.” Andra gestured at the poster on the fence. “Nothing worth reporting.”

“He brought extra jalapeños. Maybe he’s okay.”

“He might well be. But I’m not about to ask.”

Paige shuddered as a police motorcycle rumbled across an adjacent bridge. “I’m so scared, Andra. How could people think it would never get this bad? It was so obvious.”

“I know.” Andra picked a nacho from the platter. “You suppose this chicken might be Blue Kraienkoppe?”

“I think that’s a show breed. I doubt anyone actually eats them.”

They ate their nachos and drank their tea.

Paige drew a finger through the condensation on her tea glass. “What now?”

“Give me a couple days.”

“If you get caught because of me . . .”

“It won’t be because of you. We can’t let them take everything from us.”

“My grandmother says there’s some preacher in—I forget where; Louisiana? Idaho?—there are so many. He wants to allow burning at the stake. Says the Spanish Inquisition had the right idea.”

“We’d be far better off in Spain these days.”

“We’d need a test before going.”

Andra smiled. “We would.”

“So . . . a couple days?”

“Friday. Not here. Too crowded on a Friday.”

“And that camera.”

“The plaza at the Carter? Bronze sculpture at the east end. Same time.”

Paige nodded, and stared into the distance, across the shrunken canal. “What do you think they’ll tell my classes? You know . . . if . . .”

“Listen to me—you’re going to get through this. We’re all going to get through this.”

“Not all. That poor girl down in Granbury last week.”

“I know.”

“They just let her die. She’s not the only one.”

“I know. But we’re not going to let that happen. You sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I’m fine. I feel fine . . . I’m so damn scared.”

about the author // John Mummert