“Mr. Prather? Do what? Momma, what’re you talking about?”
—and that’s how Carmella had learned about the Device. Her mother had tried to hide and protect her from the knowledge. She hadn’t wanted Mr. Prather harassing Carmella about finding something so alien and unknown. But death would shift the mantle of responsibility to her daughter’s shoulders.
She’d never forgotten her mother’s final warning: Find the Piece, Carmella; Oz won’t let you leave until you do. Don’t be trapped like I was. Trapped. Carmella had never let the word fade from her—
“Oz has you hunting for the last Piece, doesn’t he?” George said abruptly.
“Uh…yes, he does.” She looked at George’s face—his expression seemed odd, unreadable.
“Maybe it’d be better for everybody, Carmella, if maybe you didn’t find it.”
“What? How can you say that, George? What do you—”
“Shit,” said George, getting up quickly from the table. “I better get to work. See ya.”
Carmella had been staring absently toward the woods at the opposite end of the field when she suddenly focused on George’s exit. Beyond him, she saw the reason for it. One of the bull-necked Beagle Boys lurched through his rounds among the trailers, making sure everybody was heading out to their stalls in the sideshow tent.
And immediately behind him, walking in long purposeful strides, came Ozymandias Prather. He seemed to be looking at her in his oddly indirect way as he drew closer.
“Hello, Carmella,” he said in his deep, resonant voice.
“Good morning, Mr. Prather.” She stood up, started gathering her breakfast things to a tray. “I was just getting ready to—”
“I know you were. Just one moment, my dear.”
There was something commanding about Ozymandias Prather. Whether it was the way he looked at you, or the inflection in his voice, or perhaps something altogether indefinable, one thing was certain—people paid attention to him. Carmella stopped in mid-step. “What is it?” she asked, already knowing what he would be saying.
“Oyster Bay is our last chance this season,” he said. “Almost everyone has come through for me—except you.”
“Mr. Prather I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Even you can’t tell me what it looks like.”
“You’ll know when you’ve come near it,” he said. “You’ll feel it and you’ll simply know.”
“I hope so,” she said. “I hope you’re not upset with me.”
Prather smiled and it was a clumsy gesture. “Of course not. It’s only that I grow impatient. To be so close and yet so far is most frustrating. I’m sure you can understand that. Although I can’t explain it yet, you must believe me when I promise a better life for all of us when the Device is complete.”
Carmella nodded. Prather’s words had become a familiar refrain and she almost could recite them by heart.
He turned and moved away from her, long legs scissoring him along the path between the trailers. One of the Beagles pulled in beside him like an ugly tugboat eager to service a cruiser, and the pair headed back toward the midway.
Cleaning up quickly, she retreated to her trailer where she applied overly dramatic make-up—false eyelashes, pencil-arched brows, Chinese-red lipstick and rouge—and slipped into her costume. When she emerged she had transformed herself into “Madame Cerami, Seeress of the Mediterranean Isles.” Her garishly painted billboards portrayed her to the public seated behind a crystal ball, holding it so that the sixth finger on each hand was clearly and obviously visible. The same for her jewelled, satin head-dress, which had been designed to accent the third eye in the center of her forehead.
Growing up among the Freaks, Carmella had never been overly sensitive or neurotic about her mutations. Indeed, her mother had always seemed far more disturbed about her differences than Carmella ever had. And yet, when she traveled among the Straight people she styled her hair in ways which concealed her extra eye, or wore hats which performed the same function. All those “normal” people—most of them would get very bothered by her extra eye even though, if they took the time to really look at it, they would realize it was as beautiful an eye a woman could have. The shape a perfect Sicilian almond, long lashed, an iris of gold-flecked chestnut, clear, and radiant.
But it was a false perfection; the eye was blind. Had it been blue-frosted by a hideous cataract, it could see no less.
No, Carmella’s special eye, the source of her special sight, actually lay within the dark folds of her mind, in the place where dreams and fears and hope break free. Her visions were full of mist and mystery, brooding views of things dark and personal, often fraught with symbols of sex and romance. So full of shadow and smoke—these visions—that she’d long ago learned not to trust them, even if she could understand them clearly.
The boards called her a “Seeress,” and she had to smile at that. The stories she made up for the rubes who paid for a quick look at the future were inspired by the horoscopes in the morning papers. Cheap prophecies for crippled spirits. Carmella believed it was a fair exchange and nobody ever came back to complain anyway.
As she entered her tent through the back entrance, she could feel the pent-up expectations of the crowd about to be loosed upon the Freaks; could smell their anxiety coming off their pack like the sour-musk scent of bad sex.
Her stall was set up as a space-within-a-space so that she was visible to everyone who passed by, close enough so that no one could not notice the fingers and the eye. The crowd could press against the wire mesh and peer into her inner sanctum where she sat under dramatic purple-gelled light, fondling a cheap glass ball. For an extra few dollars, one of the Beagle Boys dressed in mufti would let one of them into her tacky salon for a quick reading from the crystal globe. And as always, she could hear the sting of their voices.
As diverse as the Freaks might be, there was one experience they all shared: listening to the Straights talk about them as if they weren’t there. As if they were dumb circus beasts; as if they were insensate lumps who couldn’t be touched by human speech; as if they had no feelings and could not be hurt.
“Jeez, check out this one!”
“Oh-my-God…what a shame…!”
“It is real? Did you see it blink!”
“How can she stand that?”
“And she would’ve been such a pretty girl…”
“Nice set-a jugs on her, though.”
“These people make me sick…”
Carmella had heard them for so long, it was no longer surprising how unoriginal their responses had become, how numbingly similar. And yet, their words had never lost their power to deal out the pain.
She looked into their faces as they filed past. They seemed better dressed, better groomed than most. Oyster Bay was near a few colleges and some high-tax real estate. It had been a traditional spot on the tour for a long, long time, before the area had become a place of wealth and influence, but the people still came each year to get funky with Peabody’s Traveling Circus. Maybe they needed a break from their VCRs and their BMWs and their CPAs; maybe they wanted a taste of the way it used to be.
Maybe they needed something to laugh at…?
Most filed past, with Labor Day indolence, pleased enough to gawk and stare and mouth an insult, but some paid their dues to the cerberus named Beagle. Carmella gave them her inscrutable smile as she coaxed visions from her crystal with six-digit strokes.
There is money in your future.
Watch out for friendly strangers.
Your love life will take a fortuitous turn.
Next month is a good month for starting new projects.
A life-long dream will soon come true.
Your family is concealing shocking news.
The usual litany of hollow hopes and fears flowed from her full lips like the promises of a virgin. Everyone loved it whether they believed it or not. The night slouched past her and finally a bull-horned voice dispatched the hanger-ons, the deadbeats, and t
he late-comers. As one of the Beagles closed up her stall, she pulled off the head-dress, ran fingers through her long, auburn hair. It felt good to be free of it.
Leaving through a back-entrance, she could smell the blended scents of the midway—cotton candy, fried food oil, and crowd-sweat. Even though the tension of the night’s performance was easing out of her, she still felt anxious, as though she sensed something frustratingly unclear. Just knowing this was the last weekend of the tour was making her what momma used to call “antsy.”
By the time she reached her trailer, she decided she would go into Glen Cove, a neighboring town with a strip of friendly late-night restaurants and bars. She needed a change of scenery. After shedding her costume, and a quick and rare shower courtesy of the Nassau County Recreation and Parks Department, Carmella prepared herself for a late evening among the Straights.
When the cab picked her up, she looked like any other young woman who cultivated a casually fashionable look. Wearing a baggy silk blouse, a sleekly-cut skirt, and a pair of white cotton-lace gloves, she could have easily passed as a C. W. Post student wearing the latest rock-music styles. Thick bangs covered her forehead, and the gloves concealed her extra fingers. The costume was perfect and no one would ever suspect she wasn’t One of Them. She smiled wanly as she considered her life as a series of changes from one costume to another. Maybe it was time to change all that.
“Where to, Madam-Lady?” The cabbie checked her out in his rear-view mirror as he punched in his meter. He sat on a seat cover of woven wooden beads and spoke with a Middle Eastern accent. He didn’t seem to notice anything strange about her. Good. She’d assumed her “disguise” was flawless.
“Glen Cove. The Gold Coast.”
He nodded. “Gold Coast. No problem. You have been visiting the bazaar?”
Carmella smiled. “You mean Peabody’s—the road show?”
“Yes, yes. The ‘road show.’ I am thinking the wrong word. It is not ‘bazaar,’ no?”
She smiled again. “Well, I don’t know about that. Most people think it’s pretty bizarre…”
The cabbie nodded and grinned, obviously not catching her play on words. He turned his attention to the road, abandoning Carmella to her thoughts.
The darkness and the sense of impending adventure made her think of her mother’s wish for her to blow the Show. She squinted against headlights of oncoming traffic and wondered what it would be like to own her own car, to learn how to drive it. Traveling with the mud show all her life had left her oddly unprepared for life in the Straight world. Even a simple thing like climbing into the family wagon and driving off to the food market was totally alien to her.
She wondered what other complexities awaited her, and how fearful, how difficult it might prove to be. But despite such thoughts, she still clung to vague dreams of romance and money and plastic surgery. Her tickets to the land of Straight living.
The cab burrowed into the darkness between the North Shore towns as she settled back into the vinyl-covered seat. A familiar tingling across her forehead signaled the onset of another vision and she recoiled from it with an equally familiar tightening in her stomach. Her third eye began to tear, and she closed all her eyes tightly. The movie screen in her head, the place where they ran the twenty-four hour skull-cinema, was misting up, getting foggy. She could see the now-familiar man in the slouch hat standing in a pool of street-lamp light like a guy in an old movie. She tried to make out his features, but his face remained in shadows. He reached out to her; the gesture could have been menacing, but maybe not.
Blinking her eyes, Carmella realized she’d been clenching her teeth. Her jaw muscles ached, and she concentrated on the pain as the vision faded. She was left with the unfounded notion that tonight was the night she would finally meet him.
The thought charged her with comfort and fear…and a surge of sexual excitement.
⟡
It had been a good summer for John LoMedico. His sports book had never been better—what with neither the American nor the National League showing any really great teams, none of his bettors had a chance of doing much damage; and of course, nobody picked horse races! That, plus all the finocchios playing daily numbers, and a little loan-sharking here and there, and you were talking some serious profit-taking. Pretty good, when you figured that the NFL hadn’t really cranked it up yet. That’s when you really raked in some dimes.
At forty six, “Johnny-Doc” LoMedico had never done an honest, hard day’s work in his life. And it showed. His hands were smooth and soft and accented by several tastefully extravagant rings. His hair was still dark and full, and not a wrinkle in his stress-free, dago-handsome face. Not a day older than thirty-five, he looked. Not a day. And all because he never bought that whole ramadoola about working hard and being honest.
His Uncle Paulie’d told him, back when he was just a kid hanging out at the family candy store in Flatbush, that working stiffs were the biggest suckers in the world, that nobody should even get outta bed in the morning for what most dummies brought home in a month. Johnny remembered all the neighborhood dads; how the poor bastards used to drag themselves home from shit-paying, shit-jobs every day.
He was fourteen years old when he swore he’d never let that happen to him.
That’s when he started running numbers out of the candy store for Uncle Paulie. That’s when he was making more in a night as a high school punk than a lot of his friend’s fathers took home all week. Eventually, when he got a little older, he started keeping a sports book, getting his own stable of customers together, kicking back some trib to the Manzaras, and generally just lovin’ life. He made excellent money and he never got greedy. That was the secret—never get greedy and everybody left you alone. Nobody fucked with you. The years rolled by and Johnny Doc never tried to horn in on somebody else’s action, never tried to chisel or jam anybody, and he got a rep among the wiseguys as a very straight player. This helped in a couple of very important ways—everybody trusted him, plus the Manzaras protected him fiercely because he contributed so much to the Family’s honorable image.
John smiled as he drove his Q45 down Jericho Turnpike. He’d just picked up a big pay-off from an Oyster Bay dentist who’d liked the Buccaneers plus the points. There wasn’t a better feeling in the world than riding around with a chunk of tax-free, folded Green in your pocket. Nothing like it—not even great sex, and he’d had enough of both to know, thank you.
Entering the town of Glen Cove, he headed for Manny’s Place and parked in the side lot. The evening was grinding down, but there were plenty of cars still huddled in the spaces. He could hear music leaking into the night as he adjusted his hat and straightened his tie. His reflection in the car’s dark glass pleased him—Johnny Doc looked good.
Despite the lingering humidity outside, the bar’s interior was comfortable. Some couples were draped over each other on a postage stamp dance-floor; others traded bon mots as they solidified earlier pick-ups and connections. The witching hour approached when the lucky ones would start draining off into the night for a few hours of sweat and passion. It was getting late, but it wasn’t too late. As the door closed behind him, all the heads at the bar turned to measure his entrance. Some of the women allowed themselves glances which lingered and John clocked each and every one of the interested parties.
Plenty of time for that later. Business always came first.
Scanning the tables and booths, he found Jimmy back in the corner with two older guys who figured to be horse-players.
“Mister John!” said Jimmy. He looked to be about thirty-seven or so, dressed like he was always getting ready to play golf, and had a habit of smiling even when there was nothing funny going down. He stood up and shook John’s hand vigorously, then introduced him to his companions. “This is Augie—my father-in-law, and this is Marv, he’s a buddy.”
Handshakes all around. Normally, when there were new faces unexpectedly in attendance—like Augie and Marv—John was a very suspicious man. But
after all the years in the business, you got to know who’s a cop and who’s a cetriole, and John could lay heavy odds that Augie and Marv couldn’t find their own behinds with a coupla funnels. If they were cops, he deserved to get busted.
So John took the end seat of the corner booth, and calmly waited. Jimmy handed him an envelope discreetly. No need to check it. Jimmy sold commercial real estate and his paper-count was always jake. Music and cigarette smoke swirled and eddied around them like fog in a cheap mystery movie as Jimmy continued to smile. “Can I get you a drink, John?”
“No, thanks,” he said. “I think I’m going to do a little trolling at the bar…see who bites, huh, Augie?”
Jimmy and the old man chuckled. “They all bite,” said Marv. “Watch it, son.”
“Yeah,” said John. “Everybody’s got a set of choppers when it comes to love, don’t they?”
They all had a good laugh at this and John used the natural pause to make good his exit lines. The last thing he wanted to do was sit around with a bunch of losers and talk sports. Truth to tell, Johnny Doc was sick of the whole sports thing. He couldn’t give a shit who had the best quarterback, or the worst bullpen, or the loudest home fans. He didn’t understand how anybody could care about the outcome of something so trivial as a game unless they had some money on it. A friend of his who taught Philosophy at Hofstra told John he’d become jaded, that he’d lost the appreciation of sport as a pure expression of desire and performance. Yeah, sure. That too.
Turning away from Jimmy’s table, John adjusted the rake of his hat and focused-in on the row of females sitting at the bar. That was one of the good things about Manny’s—it had become a great place to meet people who just wanted to meet people. No Great Expectations, and no searches for your soul-mate, and no questions asked.
He wedged in next to two housewives zeroing-in on the gray horizon of fortysomething and got Frankie’s attention. “George Dickel—rock it, with a chase of coke on the side.”
Fearful Symmetries Page 21