The Elephant Girl
By Ann Wuehler
My daughter Shaileen considered herself an elephant. Why or how she picked up this notion escapes me. I go to work, my daughter wears gray socks on her hands and feet, with an empty toilet paper carton held to her small blobby nose. She poked holes on one end, pulled red yarn through each hole, tied the yarn into sloppy knots, tied the free ends of that red yarn behind her head. It did not look like an elephant’s trunk. She had not drawn lines or segments on that round cylinder that grew mangled and filthy the more she wore it. Shai has not a bit of artistic talent. Her crayon renderings of her tiny family make it appear as if she had toothpicks and rat droppings for relatives. No heads or clothes, just straight up and down lines with weird dots here and there. It’s very modern art, her first grade teacher, Mr. Kalaidy, told me. As she’s an average student, with no behavior problems otherwise, he was not alarmed by her utter lack of artistic talent.
“Look, mama,” Shai pointed to a pile of lettuce leaves in my good glass bowl I sometimes used for our Christmas dinners. When I had time to nuke a Hungry Man turkey dinner. I’d buy some dinner rolls for a special treat, heat them a bit, put them in my pretty bowl with the white roses against a green background. As it was just me, Shai and possibly my stepbrother, Mark, for Christmas, we all enjoyed our nuked dinners. It was far cheaper to just buy several Hungry Man’s than try to buy out the store for a feast that would rot before we could choke it all down. Shai seemed to understand her mother would not be making a table full of food and that Uncle Mark might not be showing up, as he might be busy. “Look!”
“Sorry. Do elephants eat lettuce? I thought they ate trees,” I looked at my rumpled smock, with the stain right there. Where had that come from? Could I cover it up with a button or a pin? Shai made a trumpeting noise, her sound when I was not paying the right amount of attention and that her mother knew nothing whatsoever of actual elephants. “That’s old lettuce. Where did you even get that?”
The lettuce was turning brown, even with some black edges. Shai’s small nose could be heard sniffing as she bent her head over that ancient lettuce dirtying my clean bowl. How had she reached my bowl? Would there be the rickety kitchen chair and the cupboard above the sink left wide open? Yes, of course. “It was in the garbage. Mr. Kalaidy said in ‘murica we waste nearly all our food and you can eat it out of the dumpsters.”
“I’m sure he said a version of that,” I replied with utmost caution. “What about Cheerios? Do elephants eat Cheerios?” I could no more afford real Cheerios than a diamond ring. We had Oaties. We called them Cheerios.
“If they have to,” my elephant girl said with her own version of utmost caution. She stomped around as I threw out the lettuce, washed out the bowl, dried it with my stained smock. I poured some dry Oaties into the bottom. Yes, the chair had been pulled up to the sink, the cupboard door left wide open. “We don’t have milk?” She peeked at me from around her tied on nose.
“Elephants drink milk?”
“Sometimes,” Shai told me, nodding as wisely as she knew how. I let her consume her elephant treat out of my good bowl, but I made her use a spoon. I might be a terrible mother but I knew letting her try and eat cereal and milk any other way would lead to a giant mess, a broken bowl and a cut and bleeding child. Because some things a mother has to learn the very hardest of ways. I fetched a giant gaudy daisy pin, fixed it over the stain as my other smock resided in the laundry bag. I’d have to somehow get some laundry done and hang the wet things about our tiny apartment to drip drip on the floor. As my few quarters went to the washing machines. A load to dry cost over two bucks. And often didn’t dry that good anyway. It saved me some cash to just air dry my stuff. It saved me even more to hand wash in the sink. You learn to economize. “That’s my pin!”
“I know. I’m borrowing it. I’ll be very careful.” I fixed my hair again, tried to make myself presentable for a day spent bent over a register. “You ready for school? You know to go to Mrs. Cabel’s today?”
“No! I hate her! She smells like soap!” Shai stomped each foot and I waited for the downstairs neighbors to stomp up the stairs themselves. Demand to know why there was so much stomping and to shut the bleep up. Two college age guys who partied all the time and studied almost not at all. They could make noise but me and Shai had to be mice wearing quiet nursing shoes. “ I have to be nice to her cats!”
“Elephants like cats,” I threw at my daughter, who stopped, turned her brown-green eyes on me with outright suspicion. “Once upon a time, a cat saved an elephant. It warned it that a lion was sneaking up on it. A small black housecat. The elephant was so grateful, it promised the cat a ride across the great river so the cat could get home. As a flood had swept the poor cat away from its beloved owner. A queen who lived in a black castle all alone except for her cat, long thought lost. The cat was returned to the queen who rewarded the elephant by letting it come and go as it wished in her giant garden. And when the elephant wished to nap, the queen promised she would close the gate and post a guard, so no lions could sneak up on the elephant and eat it for supper. So there you go.” I had grown used to making up tales about elephants. Shai could be managed better that way. If I could avoid a fit or a tantrum, I’d tell my only child whatever stories I could summon from the tired meat of my brain. Her curly black head tilted this way, that way. She knew what a bullshit artist I could be. And yet, she went along most of the time.
“It is a nice cat.” She conceded.
I went off to work, she went to school. She could walk to Elkburg elementary. It had been named for some baseball player or serial killer, I never bothered to remember which. I checked my phone but no messages today. Shai had been acting up lately. We think it’s because she senses trouble at home, had been the school’s assessment. Single mother living off on-sale items, not Christians, daughter pretends all the time she’s an elephant. It had even been suggested that I find Jesus. I found him, I had wanted to say to the two earnest sorts grilling me for having such a shitty life and an obviously weird daughter. I found him and he was a drunken panhandler who shouted about having sex with ponies. It’s very odd what things you wish to say to people being earnestly mean to you.
Ralph got into my line. I only knew his name because he sometimes handed me his debit card to run instead of handfuls of warm, moist dollar bills. Today he had dog bones, new sheets for a twin bed and condensed mushroom soup. They were three for a dollar. He had four. “Paula,” he smiled at me, as the old lady before him managed to get all of her purse’s contents back into her purse, then grab her one bag full of condensed mushroom soup and aspirin. “I got a dog.”
“So I see. What kind of dog?” I sighed as I saw all the markdown stickers on the sheet. The lowest one said ten dollars. “Are these ten?”
“I think so. I got a beagle. A beagle cross. Off Craigslist. Do you have to get three of a kind only to get the three for a dollar?”
“Yeah, you do. I can get you two more or...?”
Ralph gulped, took a pocketful of crumpled ones from his pocket. “I got a dog now. I can’t be spending all my money on soup.” He indicated I was to put the fourth can aside. I then noted there was a further markdown tag on the sheets, surely someone had noticed what an ugly brown color they were. Baby poop brown. Eight dollars and ninety cents.
“The sheets are eight bucks. You can get the soup,” I said, noting my other customers were grumbling, shifting, sighing loudly. Elderly Ralph had no one to help him. I knew he’d be living on that soup for days on end. Making it last, making it stretch. Probably didn’t have a dog at all. Just an excuse to buy dog bones he could soak in the soup, then gnaw on. But why not buy crackers? They were far less expensive.
Ralph allowed Stevie, the nearest bag boy, to fetch two cans of soup, then toddled out to go wait for the bus. As my shift ended, my supervisor Joan called me aside. The stained smock. Had to be. Or I had forgotten to wear deodorant again. Joan cleared her considerable length of throat. I had never seen a longer neck on anyone. Tightly curled very red hair, those glasses you wear halfway down your nose. And very tall. Easily six foot tall. With no boobs or hips. “Paula. We’re gonna have to cut your hours again. That new store is...”
Whatever else she might had said. Just gone. I was already working only twenty or so hours a week here at George’s. A local grocery and department store chain. They could not compete with both the Wal-Mart and Costco. I had put in applications to both. I already worked nights cleaning offices, under the table work. I got paid in cash to help my friend Rose, but she could only throw me work once in a while or it looked suspicious. I also worked at the convenience store four days a week. To make up for my twenty hours here at George’s. And so I could pay my rent and some of my bills. I figured if the rent was paid, it didn’t matter if they turned off the lights. As long as me and my elephant girl were not trying to live in the park like a pair of squirrels. My shoulders ached. I felt the ache just kick up, as it did when I got bad news. “Sure. So?”
“It will go down to about fourteen. More hours toward Christmas, but right now, we just can’t swing a bunch of cashiers. Things are tough,” Joan nodded at me, patted my shoulder with her giant hand. Pale pink fingernail polish. Rings. Such people stripping your hours always wore lots of rings. “I’m very sorry. Oh and please make sure you have a clean smock. We’ve had several complaints about the dirty cashier with the ugly pin,” Joan hurried off to delight more employees as I cringed, put my hand over that pin that did not begin to hide that stain.
That night I noticed the skin around my daughter’s nose seemed gray. I rubbed at it with my fingertip until Shai pushed at my hand. “Stop that! Mrs. Cabel had those rice cakes again. And her cat coughed and choked. Then spit up on the good carpet. The one in her bedroom. Oh you bad cat, she said. Riley then pooped and pooped. It smelled.”
“Did you have a good day at school?”
Now her fingers rubbed at her cheeks, at her nose. “I’m turning into an elephant. I asked Mr. Jesus and he said, yes, why not. Mrs. Cabel says that’s not how prayer works but I said yes, it is and she called me a devil child. I said no, I’m an elephant child. She wouldn’t let me have any more rice cakes. But they’re gross. I’m hungry.”
“What do you want?” I filed that away about Mrs. Cabel but she worked cheap. And it meant Shai was safe here in the apartment building until I could get home. “She’s old. Don’t annoy her. And she doesn’t mean that about the devil. The devil isn’t real.” I paused, considering how best to ask about the elephant stuff. “You’re not turning into an elephant, Shai. You just like to pretend you are one.”
“Oh no, mama,” she blinked her bright eyes up at me, then sat up. “I am an elephant! Deep down. I’d like cake.”
“How about a bowl of cereal? We can both have one.”
“Do we have sugar?”
“I have brown sugar.” Did I, though? My head kept spinning inside. Spin spin, how to make up those missing hours. Spin spin. Maybe if I flirted with Hasij a bit more, I could get some more hours at the convenience store. It was a joke, really, that Hasij, from Syria, ran the store. Were not all convenience stores run by men from India or something? Wasn’t that a joke people told all the time? Hasij, a big, rather good-looking man with the most gorgeous woman for a wife and three kids with a stunning beauty to them that made me and my kid look like lumps of raw dough. He had come here with nothing, as the story went, and now he ran a small store that sold overpriced junk food to hasty Americans. If I wore some makeup and buttered him up? Worth a shot. I could also be very honest with him, explain I had lost hours at George’s, just ask for a few extra hours to make that up. Yes, that seemed the far more reasonable and adult plan. As my flirting awkwardly never went well and most men seemed to ignore it thoroughly or treat me as if I were having epileptic fits. Rose’s opinion was that I should wear makeup and something low cut when stuttering out pick up lines. Does that work? Men are easy, Rose had replied.
We ate our cereal, sprinkled with the fragments of brown sugar. It had hardened into brown lumps so I had to crush it with a spoon. But Shai rambled on about her day and about her friend Bailey whose dad was a fireman. I noticed again she had odd gray patches about her nose. That her nose seemed longer. That yes, her small ears, set against her head rather closely, now seemed to have expanded a bit outward. My daughter is not turning into an elephant. It’s not medically possible. There’d be outcries, petitions on the internet, conspiracy theories about the pharmacy companies! I checked my phone when Shai went back to bed. Rose asked me to help her this Friday night. I texted back a giant yes. She sent back a thank you.
It will all be fine, I tried to tell myself. Everything will magically work out. I had the early shift and Hasij would dock my pay if I was a minute late. Did I have a clean smock? No, I did not. I fished it out of the laundry bag, washed it in the sink, then hung it up to dry in the bathroom. I set my alarm to go off at four thirty, to get there by six. I checked on Shai and oh, why did it seem her small hands seemed...to end in stubby circles, rather than her chubby fingers? And that gray had spread to more of her face. Oh goddamn it.
“Hey, God? Or Satan? Either one? Can you not turn my only kid into an elephant? Thanks,” and I went off to bed, rubbing my eyes. Midnight. I’d not get much sleep.
9
“I just need more hours,” I told Hasij, who fussed with the machine that churned out flavored shaved ice treats. It had been jamming and not working. He refused to get a real repairman in. “Is that possible?”
The store stood empty at the moment. It had been extra slow today. I drooped visibly and my smock had not dried and seemed to smell of mold and dish soap. I was out of laundry detergent. The black eyes traveled my way, the fist holding a screwdriver seemed to go white across the knuckles a bit. Oh. Wrong time to ask. I had misjudged badly. “No. Can you clean the window?”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have asked but...Yeah. Never mind. I can clean the window.” I got the Windex, the paper towels, went to work as asked. My face felt the same temperature as the sun. My phone buzzed in my smock pocket. Oh God. Shai’s school calling. Oh please let it be her lunch account that needed paying or something ordinary I could fix with promises and talking into a phone. A woman walked in, in nurse scrubs or maybe she was a doctor. Or an actor in a local play. There was a community theatre in the artsy part of this town now. Last year they had done Sound of Music with everyone dressed like space aliens. Which had not gone over well. Hasij made a grumbling noise and I responded like a trained dog. I went back behind the counter, put my best happy to see you smile on my face and waited to serve the great and wonderful public. She bought a giant cup of coffee and a power bar. Dr. Marina Bobbins read her name tag. “And your change.”
Wordlessly, she dropped her change, about eighty cents, into the jar to help Syrian refugees. Hasij went into the back office, shut the door. Oh dear, he and his lovely wife were fighting again. When they were at peace, he would give the shirt off his considerable back to anyone who asked. When not at peace, he would shut himself in the back office and pace about muttering in what I supposed was Syrian about evil women and her in particular. Love seemed the same awful, wonderful thing no matter where you were from. I cleaned the window, then swept and tidied, took care of customers and yes, fixed the sludgy slush machine by emptying the contents, blowing out the hose a bit and starting a fresh batch of shaved ice. I took the ‘not working’ sign off without considering male pride.
“You broke it!”
“I didn’t. It works now,” I said, head thumping at all this. Oh my god, I had forgotten to call the school back. “It’s working. See?” I put a cup under to catch a bit of the grape flavored one. Hasij snarled at me. An actual snarl. My phone went off again. Oh fuck oh fuck! “I have to call my daughter’s school back. I’m sorry. I won’t fix anything here again. I’m very sorry, sir.” Cringing and acting like a doormat had become second nature when at work. Jobs didn’t pay enough. And the hours were always part time. You put up with it. Fighting back was for people in movies, not people in real life. Fighting back was not American or patriotic, I had learned.
“You women,” there had been another word in there but it was not English. He stomped back to the office, the door slamming so hard I heard it splinter a bit. Two men entered, laughing and happy. I took a deep breath, trying not to burst into panicked tears at how badly my day was going and the stress of needing to call the school back.
“Hey, you okay, lady?” A young man with deep coffee skin and a bald head. The other young man had long black hair twisted into a thick braid. Skin like copper. My mind threw up that it was very United Nations in here today. Was that racist? I had no idea what was actually racist anymore. It had become confusing.
“No,” I actually said. “Is it okay if I call my daughter’s school back? All the Hostess stuff is on sale today.”
“Wow, sure,” the other man said, then they wandered over to the Hostess section, giving me careful looks. They answered on the second ring.
“Miss Valgate, we need you to come pick up Shaileen right now. She’s...um, ill.”
“What? I’m at work...oh. Okay. Is she hurt?”
“No,” and then the woman hung up.
“Don’t come back. Look at that window!” Hasij pointed to my streaky efforts. “If you can’t even clean a window. And that machine will blow up, you just wait.”
“Sir. I’ll do better,” I begged. “Sparkling windows and no more messing with the machines.”
“You promise?”
“I do.”
“Fine. Go. I like your daughter,” and he patted my shoulder, same as Joan had done, his wedding ring flashing in the fluorescent lights. “I give you all the hours I can. Don’t ask for more. I give you more when things pick up. I like the little elephant girl. Take her to the zoo. Don’t ask for more hours.”
“I won’t,” I promised as I got out of there. I went around the corner by the dumpsters and I stuffed my fist into my mouth so I could sob a tiny bit. Mistakes, such mistakes this morning. It flooded my entire body. I shook. I shook so hard I bit my own fist.
Off to the school, a long walk but I tried to find jobs in my own neighborhood. I saw my daughter in the dim room of the school nurse. How this school afforded a nurse escaped me. Did she have several schools she watched over? Shai sat up when she saw me, her nose now long and drooping like a trunk, her ears larger, her hands fused into stumps with fingernails. And her skin gray and wrinkled. Someone had fed me some acid. I had never done acid, not one time but someone must have given me some. “Miss Valgate, you can take her home. A fever, she might have the flu. She was throwing up a bit.”
No mention of the gray skin or nose turning into a trunk? Shai shook her head at me, then left the bed. “Okay. Let’s go, honey,” I said, in my wrinkled smock. I probably still had tears on my cheeks.
“Mama. They don’t see it. But you do,” Shai said and I nodded, stopped right there on the sidewalk. I ran a finger over that lengthening nose, then pulled out each flappy ear. Shai regarded me from eyes that were now getting gold in them, the green receding, the brown turning even browner. “I don’t mind being an elephant girl.”
“I guess it will just have to pass,” I said in the way of all mothers faced with something weird and strange in a child. “Can you stay by yourself? I have to get back to work.”
“Sure. Elephants can eat lettuce out of the garbage.”
“I’d rather have you than some elephant.”
“You don’t have to worry about an elephant!” She trumpeted at me, her longer nose actually reaching out to the air, the sound like a badly dubbed jungle sound from some ancient Tarzan movie. My elephant girl. “I can sleep outside.”
“Shaileen. I’d rather you stay my little girl.”
My daughter stomped on ahead, her nose swinging. It lifted to blare out that strident elephant call. “You don’t have to worry anymore, mama! I’ll take care of you now! You can ride on my back to work!” She laughed, trumpeted, stomped, bleated, giggled. I remained where I stood on the cracked sidewalk. My daughter trotted back to me. Her eyes had become a golden-brown, her skin graying, covered with baby fuzz.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I told my elephant girl daughter.
Her nose reached out, felt along my arm, then brushed my belly. “I can eat lettuce out of the garbage.” Her trunk touched my face, she gave me elephant kisses. “I like being an elephant.”
“Shai,” I meant to say far more, make a giant speech, save her. We walked home.
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Ann Wuehler has four novels out, Oregon Gothic and House on Clark Boulevard, Aftermath: Boise, Idaho and The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane. A short story, Man and Mouse, appears in the April 2020 issue of Sun magazine. Her play, Bluegrass of God, is in Santa Ana River Review. Her short story, Jimmy’s Jar Collection, appeared in the Ghastling’s 13. She has four stories placed with Whistle Pig, Maybelle, Bunny Slipper, Pearlie at the Gates of Dawn, and Greenhorn. City Full of Rain was just accepted by Litmag. Blood and Bread was just accepted by Hellhound Magazine. Gladys, a short story, will appear in Agony Opera. Her short play, the Flying Season of Flying Monkeys, was just produced by the Spotlight Project, in Oakridge, Oregon.
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