February 8, 2013
6-6:30
Water for Elephants
Pages: 90-104

Jacob finds the train car, goes inside and marlena gets him a beer. She tells him they get all the booze from Canada and put in the the camel car when they cross the border because camels spit. They change into tuxedos and marlena puts on a red silk dress that August got as a perk from being the equestrian director. They have a lovely dinner with waiters. August gets drunk and tells the tale of how he found marlena and married her and got her into the circus and all that. However the night takes a turn for the worse when marlena and August are dancing and he gets quiet and grabs marlena by the chin for a while and then releases her and collapses on the bed. Marlena goes to take care of him and Jacob realizes he is also drunk. He ask marlena what happened and she explains that August is mercurial. She reminds Jacob that even though the lion was toothless it is four hundred pounds and has claws. She asks if he is polish because of his name and she says August is Jewish and marlena's family disowned her because they were Christian and she married a Jew. He asks why was invited and she said she wanted to make up for the lion incident. She tells him uncle al is happy he is on because secretly he is trying to be like ringling and having a vet makes him more like ringling. He wakes up and the train is stopped so he goes back to his room still fully dressed and recieves a lot of strange looks. When he opens the door, kinko was reading and gets mad and throws things at Jacob to get out. He leaves to help Otis get the meat for the cats. However, it is completely spoiled with flies and maggots and Jacob and Otis puke. They clean out the cage and air it out then go to check on the horses. Silver star is lying down with marlena beside him. She asks if he will get better and Jacob says no and she realizes they have to kill the horse and she freaks out and starts crying and Jacob tries to comfort her. She leaves and Jacob finds August to tell him the news and get a gun. August is mad but says he will tell uncle al and find marlena. He waits 15 minutes to give August some time to find the people. He then shoots the horse and it gets carried out by Otis, Peter and earl. Jacob is kind of sad and August goes to talk to him and tell him that he is not going to get thrown off the train. He also says how things and rules are different on the circus and everything is an illusion. Jacob remembers they still haven't fed the cats and August says its been taken care of.

I thought about the social aspects and how much nicer august's living quarters were in comparison to Jacob. Even though Jacob has Ivy League education and works hard, the performers are giving better rooms. Also, everything is an illusion at the circus but its our fault because we long to believe in impossible and strange things or need to see people worse off than us to make us feel better about ourselves. The circus offers this and that is why they did so well.

I read well today because I finished another chapter.