Jacob Jankowski Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter One

Jacob Jankowski cannot remember his age but thinks he is somewhere between ninety and ninety-three. He lives in an assisted-living center because he broke his hip, and his family felt he needed help with his day-to-day living. He is sitting in the hallway and sees a group of residents gathering at a window. Curious as to what they are looking at, Jacob climbs out of his wheelchair and uses his walker to join the residents at the window. Down a block from the center, a circus is setting up. Jacob is so overwhelmed by the sight that he has momentary chest pains that cause other residents to call for a nurse.
At dinner that night, Jacob is in a bad mood because he is unhappy with the mushy food the center often feeds the residents.
He sees Kinko get up and take his little dog, Queenie, out for a pee. Jacob gets his bearings. It looks like the circus tents have already started to go up in a new town. Our guy realizes that he's at the absolute bottom of the circus totem pole. Hey, you have to start somewhere, right? Jacob meets up with August, who introduces him to Marlena. Ah, Marlena. She recognizes him from the previous day and actually thinks she might know him from somewhere. Strange. Finally, Marlena brings out the horse Jacob is supposed to look at, Silver Star. Jacob can immediately tell that the horse is in really bad shape. Jacob examines Silver Star and gives his diagnosis: the horse's feet are in major trouble and it may be too late to do anything about it. They'll have to take very good care of the big guy, and even that might not be enough. Poor horse. Marlena is horrified. But August and Uncle Al, who just rolled up, don't want to believe the horse is in such bad shape. Uncle Al is up in arms because they need the horse for the show. He refuses to believe the horse will die, and, just like that, he officially hires Jacob. Then he says it's time to pack up and keep going, even though they just got there. What? It's going to take a while to get going again, though. At lunch, while they wait, everyone's buzzing about why the circus can't stay. (We're curious, too.) There's a lot of speculation, but no one knows for sure. August
She seems pretty nice. (Yes, we're talking about an elephant here.)The two humans dance for a brief moment before Marlena stops them, and they go back to her part of the train.August comes in and he's furious: Al paid way too much for the elephant, in his opinion, and they don't know what to do with her. Plus, Al hired more people with nowhere to put them, so everyone's going to have to crunch, and morale will be low.Demoralized, they all drink a huge amount of whiskey. (Not the best coping mechanism, we'd say.)Drunk, Jacob makes his way back to his room. On his way, he passes two people getting hot and heavy outside. When he gets to his car, Kinko is hosting a large, raucous party. Jacob is invited to join, and the drinking only gets worse.Jacob is hammered when two women, Barbara and Nell, come over to and start hitting on him. They take him somewhere else and start undressing him and touching him. Things are getting pretty intense when Jacob throws up all over everything. Wow, way to ruin the moment (although we're kind of glad he did).The next day, Jacob wakes up hurting. Kinko comes to get him – August is looking for him. Turns out, Jacob has been dressed up like a clown and shoved into a big chest. Plus, someone shaved off all his hair (down there). Talk about a circus prank. He's super embarrassed and has to leave the room looking very strange.Jacob heads back to his room and can't stop thinking