Another Roadside Attraction

by Tom Robbins

  Another sickening silence. Both were ashamed of their indulgences. They could sense a taint on their karmas. Gradually, however, Ziller climbed into a smile. From Amanda, a diffident giggle. In a moment, the two of them were laughing—freely and deliriously, like children tickled in their cribs by a roguish uncle. Their mouths mashed together, hotly, moistly. His gentle hand kneaded her breasts, then slid down her belly and into her panties. Her clitoris perked like a bud, buzzed like a cicada. He grew masculine to an improper degree.

  Most of the night they did it, laughing and biting. Waking in the morning with rhinestone crustations on their eyelids and the butt end of a rainbow filling their tiny room.

  The Pelican, in Bryte, California, is one of those taverns that function as a neighborhood social club. There is a coin-operated pool table of less-than-regulation size. There is a shuffleboard table that seems as much too long as the pool table seems too short: it looks like a landing strip. There is a bowling machine and two pinballs. There is a library of punchboards: Black Cat, Texas Charley, Lucky Dollar. There is a jukebox stuffed with country-and-western hits and the kind of tin pan alley laments that sound poignant to the jilted and juiced. There are revolving wire Christmas trees laden with beef jerky and beer nuts; there are jars of boiled eggs and hot sausages and a larger jar in which pickles lounge like green Japanese in a bath. There is an animated plastic trout stream advertising Olympia beer (It's the Water"). There is a friendly middle-aged couple behind the bar.

  A lot of brewy laughter and first-name calling jostles the smoke bank that hangs in the Pelican almost from ceiling to floor: the Pelican is in a shuffleboard league and competition is keen and boisterous when its team is matched against a tavern from Sacramento. But on that particular September evening, at a table near the bar, three men in their mid-twenties were in conversation grave and angry. “They've got a big fire of some kind going,” said Bubba. “Canyon's lit up like the streets of Hell.”

  “Yeah, and you can hear that stupid music all the way over by Ritchy's dairy,” complained Fred.

  “Hell, I heard it right out here in the parking lot,” said Bubba. Andy grunted and nodded.

  “Well look,” said Fred, “if a bunch of queers and niggers and sluts want to have an orgy that's their business. But let 'em have it in San Francisco or L.A. or wherever they come from. Don't let 'em come around here and spread their filth. Folks around here don't want that shit. We've got sisters out on dates tonight, Andy and I have, out with decent boys. Those weirdos get full of that LDS, God knows what they might do. Got no morals, no respect for property—”

  “There, you said it,” Bubba jumped in hotly. “No respect. No respect for authority, no respect for law and order, no damned respect for nothing. That's what the trouble is in this country today. Bunch of niggers and weirdos trying to tear down everything this country stands for. Falling right into the hands of the Commies. Uncle Sam's in a bind overseas, you think they'll help? Shit no. They want to dress up like cowboys and Indians. Go pick flowers. Make a bunch of loud noise and call it music. Want everybody to work and support 'em. While they take a bunch of drugs and attack innocent people and God knows what all.”

  Andy's big blond head was bobbing like it was on the end of a pole. The other two took long pulls from their schooners. Wiping his mouth, Fred said, “Ain't there something the sheriff can do about that riffraff? Let's go have a talk with the deputy. Those scum been around for three weeks now. What are we paying the cops for?”

  “Already talked to Dick,” said Bubba, belching. “They already nailed 'em once, you know. Searched 'em took 'bout eight of 'em off to jail. Rest of 'em hid their dope and needles somewhere. God, you shoulda heard what Dick said about those broads. None of 'em wears any underwear. Anyway, they can't bother 'em for a while, I guess. Unless they get some complaints. The queers got permission to be on that land. And the Cleevers who own the closest ranch, they ain't gonna complain. Liberal Democrats and Unitarians to boot. Hell, their oldest boy Billy's joined up with 'em.”

  “Maybe we can go talk Ritchy into filing a complaint,” said Fred. “That music will curdle his milk. Or maybe we oughta do a little complaining ourselves.”

  “Now you're getting an idea,” hissed Bubba. “Now you talking, son. The three of us, we go pick up Spud and Joe. And Dick Wilding, he's off duty now; hell, Dick'll go. Six of us be plenty. We'll get us some ax handles and ball bats and go over there. I mean clean house. Put the fear of God in 'em. They're just germs, you know, no more than germs or flies or rats. People that sink to that level ain't fit to live in a country like this. Let's do Uncle Sam a favor and clean out that rat nest.”

  “Right, boy, right,” said Fred. “I didn't risk my life overseas to come home to something like this. I don't want my folks living around trash and traitors that'd sell their own country to the Reds for a bottle of pills. I say run 'em right out of the country. Better than that, hang 'em.”

  Andy was nodding and grunting and thinking of his baby sister. The trio finished its beer. “Well, what are we waiting for?” asked Bubba.

  “You're waiting for somebody to turn your heads around straight,” said a clear calm voice from the bar. The three men looked up to find the stranger who had been sitting with his back to them, on the nearest stool, now looking into their faces—smiling. “The ladies and gentlemen whom you desire to assault are showmen—jugglers, fire walkers and yogic acrobats—whose mission it is to entertain and enrapture children of all ages. They bring into the lives of ordinary Americans the color and splendor of the Orient, especially of those Asian cultures whose folkways have been abolished by Communist invaders. They are no threat to your freedom for it is in the name of freedom that they perform their magical feats.”

  Fred cocked his right arm and Andy growled. Both made a move to rise, but were restrained by Bubba. Bubba was more observant than his drinking companions, perhaps that was why he was an auto parts salesman and they laborers on the river docks. While the stranger had been talking, Bubba had been sizing him up. He was dressed in jeans and a black sweatshirt and although his hair was fairly long, he was clean-shaven and did not have the weirdo look. More importantly, he was built. Shoulders wide, hips narrow, biceps like eggplants shoved up his sleeves. He had moved very little on his barstool but the slightest turn of his head suggested a superb athletic grace. He was a few years older than they and looked as if he'd caught a few punches, although not enough to scar his face. “This joker would go through Andy or Fred like thin shit through a tall Swede,” mused Bubba. “He wouldn't be a pushover even for me.” Bubba was discreet. “You from around here, buddy?” he asked in his best no-nonsense John Wayne baritone.

  “No, I work for a logging outfit up near Aberdeen, Washington,” the stranger explained in his willowly drawl. “Been whoring around San Francisco for a few days, and now I'm about to deliver a bab—a pet, to a friend of mine near here. My name is Plucky Purcell.”

  There was activity in the front of Bubba's brain. He looked the stranger over well, his eyes squinting, his mind wrestling with the uncomfortableness of associations. The frayed ends of his thought patterns seemed to bleed into the stranger's space, merging with him in some sweep of self-canceling perception. And then he hit upon it, or rather, tripped over it, fell on top of it, held it down like a farm boy trapping a pig. “Purcell,” Bubba purred slowly. “Plucky Purcell. Say, you ain't the Purcell who played ball, the one who stole . . . ? Yeah. You are him, ain't you, huh?” Bubba's teeth showed big and yellow inside a heavy timber-cat grin. His jowls were candy red.

  “Well,” said Purcell with hesitation, “all that happened a long time ago.”

  “Oh shit. Oh shit.” Bubba was squealing, laughing, jumping up and down in his chair like a baby. “Hey, guys, this is Plucky Purcell. Remember? About ten years ago? Hey, Purcell, come over here and let me buy you a brew. How about telling us about that mess, huh? Tell me what really happened. Oh shit, boys, wait'll you hear this. Oh my.”

  �
�Gentlemen, I don't really relish heating up those old cold chestnuts. But I'll make a deal with you. I'll tell you about my little escapade if you'll come—peacefully—with me out to where that circus is camped. I want you to meet those folks and get to know them a bit so you won't have to fear and hate them as you do.”

  Fred and Andy were not sure what was transpiring and they were less sure that they liked it. Bubba, however, was spastic with delight. “Look, boys,” he whispered, “I just remembered, Spud and Joe are at the stag movies over to the Legion hall; we couldn't get them to go anyway. Now just listen to this story. This Purcell's okay.”

  So, over a couple of beers, Purcell told them a carefully rehearsed version of an event from his past. Then they left the Pelican and after securing a pint of Seagram's 7 from the glove compartment of Bubba's Mustang, they boarded Plucky's VW microbus for a visit to the campsite. They had traveled only a half-mile or so, passed the bottle only once, when Fred yelled, “Hey, who's this in the back of the wagon? You got a kid back there?”

  Bubba whirled around and studied the shadowy figure in the rear. “Kid, hell,” he roared. “That's an ape! Purcell's got a friggin ape in here!”

  “Calm yourselves, gentlemen. And be humble.” Purcell spoke with the hermetic theatricality of John Paul Ziller. “You are in the presence of Mon Cul, prince of baboons. Mon Cul has been around the world eight times and met everybody twice. He is better educated than you or I, and is the only creature on earth, man or beast, who knows an English word that rhymes with orange.”

  “Oh crap,” said Bubba. “It's just a dumb ape. Come here, monkey. God, it's funny-looking. Look at that big red ass. Come here, monkey, come here and let me—Yeoowwww! Jesus Christ! It bit me. Look! The son of a bitch nearly bit my finger off.” Bubba thrust his arm over the driver's seat between Purcell and Andy. Indeed, blood was gushing.

  “Just relax,” Purcell told him. “We'll make a bandage. I've got some clean white socks in the glove compartment.”

  “Bullshit,” hollered Bubba. “You turn this damn bus around right now. We're going to see the sheriff. I mean it. Turn around. That goddamn monkey's gonna get a bullet in its head. It's probably got rabies and I don't know what all. Come on now, buddy, I mean it. Turn around and head this zoo on wheels to the sheriff's office. Hauling wild animals around without no cage. You probably connected with that freak show yourself. There's gonna be hell to pay over this . . .” He was livid.

  Purcell pulled the bus into a small private road as if to turn around. Instead, he killed the engine, got out, opened the back door and pulled Bubba out by his collar. He coldcocked him with one swooshing Joe Palooka uppercut.

  Frank and Andy jumped him, one of them momentarily blinding him with a thudding blow to the temple. But, using a combination of judo, jujitsu, karate, kung fu and aikido, Purcell gradually chopped them into gory unconsciousness. He felt a wee dizzy himself. He lay down on his back in the ditch. Sucked the remainder of the Seagram's into his head. Giggled at the moon. And sunk into an honest sleep, dreamless but sweet as clover.

  So the Sacramento celebration of the Indo-Tibetan Circus & Giant Panda Gypsy Blues Band transpired without interference. For one participant, however, the aftermath of the revelry was not the least benign. The ringmaster was afflicted with a hangover of near-terminal vileness. While the troupers prepared their belongings and equipment for the caravan to Eugene, Oregon, where they had three performances scheduled, Nearly Normal spent the morning vomiting self-portraits and farting looney tunes and merry melodies.

  Now, in the curious medical treatise of Marcellus, who hung out his shingle in Bordeaux in the fourth century A.D., there is a treatment for post-intoxicant malady that prescribes certain white stones found in the stomachs of young swallows. Amanda just happened to have some such stones in her centaur-carved lemonwood herb cabinet (all dried plant material in the cabinet had been confiscated by the Sacramento police), so she let Nearly Normal to a grassy spot by the river where he lay with the stones on his forehead and midsection. First, however, he ingested three aspirins which were not unlike the stones in color and size. “Medicine change very little,” Smokestack Lightning was heard to observe.

  About ten o'clock—the September sun was just starting to tickle the bare backs of the roustabouts—Plucky Purcell chugged into camp, whistling “Try a Little Tenderness” through a muffler of dried blood and whiskey phlegm. “Ran into some old navy buddies. Bit of boyish horseplay,” he explained to Ziller. John Paul and the baboon had a restrained but joyous reunion.

  “Amanda,” said Ziller, “permit me to present Plucky Purcell, great transcendent eagle of crime. And Mon Cul of the genus Papio, my trusted friend and brother through all weathers, frictions and sublimes.” Whereupon the baboon bowed deeply, catching a ray of sunlight upon his scarlet buttocks. “Amanda and I were married yesterday, Dugoobie fashion, sun officiating; and this is Thor, aged two and one-half, who has graciously allowed me to be his pa-pa.” Purcell shook the boy's hand, then kissed Amanda's cheek in the manner of Leonard Bernstein, executing a baggy shuffle all the while so as to conceal the erection the bride has immediately inspired.

  Ziller explained to Amanda that California had recently enacted a law requiring motorcyclists, passengers as well as operators, to wear helmets. A policeman had pulled Ziller over in Golden Gate Park and insisted that if Mon Cul were going to ride on a cycle like a human, he'd damn well better wear a helmet, too. Naturally, the baboon refused to submit to that indignity. Although John Paul was aware that state patrolmen were generally a more intelligent breed than their municipal counterparts, he nevertheless did not wish to chance penalty and/or delay while biking up to Sacramento. Hence, he had requested that old friend Plucky give Mon Cul a lift.

  “Now isn't that the shits,” exclaimed Nuclear Phyllis, who, being a two-wheeler herself, had been drawn to the conversation. “It's bad enough a person's head isn't his own any more—the cops want to control what goes in it and what goes on it—but now they want to tell animals what to wear. I mean, seriously, does the helmet law protect the public health, safety or welfare? Hell no. It's designed to protect the bike-rider from himself. A person's got a right to break his own head if he wants to. It's his head. It's his decision.”

  “That's not the point, baby,” said Purcell, appraising the girl with a greasy butcher's eye, apportioning her into lion chops and rump roasts and nippled filets. “Granted, the helmet law is unconstitutional, like a good fourth of the new laws today, but safety, health and welfare were never a consideration. The pigs wouldn't care if every biker in the nation split his melon. Huh-uh. 'Duly constituted authority' would sigh with relief. Think for minute. What motivates the Man to act? Bread, right? Like everything else, it's really a question of economics. The majority of motorcycle accidents are caused by automobile drivers. They aren't conditioned to looking out for bikes so they're always slamming into them. A cat gets knocked off his scooter, cracks his headbone, who has to pay? The auto insurance companies, that's who. Now the insurance gangsters got one of the most powerful lobbies around. When they say 'shit' the Man says 'what color?'” So it's the insurance companies who pushed that helmet law through to save themselves some bread. Everything that happens in this society sooner or later boils down to a matter of a buck.”

  “Are you truly convinced that our culture is that monetary, Plucky?” Amanda asked.

  “Look, sweetie, you got your own reality going,” Purcell replied. “But that isn't the reality of the United States of America. Huh-uh! After the doctors and scientific experts testified in Congress that cigarettes cause or compound not only cancer but a number of other diseases and are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths annually, the senior senator from Kentucky stood up just shaking with anger and moaned, 'You're trying to wreck our economy.' And what did Henry Ford II say when the government began insisting on safety devices in cars? “The American people don't want anything that's going to upset the economy.' And what's more, Ford was
right. Fifty thousand a year dead on the highways, but don't rock the economy. Look, America is no more a democracy than Russia is a Communist state. The governments of the U.S. and Russia are practically the same. There's only a difference of degree. We both have the same basic form of government: economic totalitarianism. In other words, the settlement to all questions, the solutions to all issues are determined not by what will make the people most healthy and happy in their bodies and their minds but by economics. Dollars or rubles. Economy über alles. Let nothing interfere with economic growth, even though that growth is castrating truth, poisoning beauty, turning a continent into a shit-heap and driving an entire civilization insane. Don't spill the Coca-Cola, boys, and keep those monthly payments coming.”

  “Shee-it. That American eagle needs a feather job, don't it?” grumbled Nuclear Phyllis, staring at her own helmet in disgust.

  “Well, now, honey, that old helmet law might not be so bad,” said Purcell. “I know this cat down near L.A., got stopped by the heat for wearing his helmet strapped to his knee. He told them, 'The law says you gotta wear a helmet, it doesn't say where you gotta wear it.' Well, the cops wrote him a ticket anyway and made him put the helmet on his head. So what happens? Five miles down the road he flipped the bike—and broke his kneecap.”

  Evidently, either the aspirin or the bird stones had worked a cure, for Nearly Normal walked up and enjoined the rapping troupers to return to their labors. Purcell climbed back in his bus. He had to get on to Aberdeen. He was already a day late and the logging foreman cracked an even smarter whip than Nearly Normal. He promised to catch up with the show in Washington, however, and spend a weekend or two with the troupers.