The Howling III h-3

by Gary Brandner

  Even in its boom days Silverdale had never been much more than a last watering hole for travellers coming down through the Inyo pass and heading for some insane reason into Death Valley. Today it did not even show on many maps. When pressed for a location, residents would say it was five miles from Wheeler. If that reference drew a blank look they would admit the town was fifteen miles out of Lone Pine. Anybody who did not know Lone Pine deserved no further explanation.

  A far cry from the old days, Bateman Styles reflected as he tramped across the dusty field to Moskowitz's trailer. When he was a boy — Lord, that was fifty years ago — carnivals had played towns throughout the south, the west, and the middlewest without slowing down for nine months of the year. In those days the carnival was a big attraction in the towns, and even in cities of 50,000 or so population. Even with the Depression, people found dimes to spend riding the Octopus or trying to win a kewpie doll.

  It was a lot different now. But hell, what wasn't? Bateman himself had been slowing down steadily for several years. He didn't have a lot of time left, but he always said he wanted to go out running a pitch somewhere. Only suckers die broke in bed.

  He reached Jackie's trailer and banged on the aluminium door.

  "It's open," piped a squeaky voice from inside.

  Bateman entered. Jackie Moskowitz sat on a bench at a fold-down table playing solitare. He brought himself up to table level by sitting on two copies of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages. He did not look up immediately.

  Bateman remembered Jackie from the days when he was Major Tiny, an ill-tempered midget with Gallagher's Greater Shows. That was in the fifties. It was a phase-out time for carnivals, and just as well for Major Tiny, whose faulty pituitary gland unexpectedly betrayed him. In a period of less than a year he grew to four-eleven. Not a big man in the outside world, but laughably tall for a midget.

  Luckily for him Jackie had saved his money, and he was able to buy a piece of the Gallagher's show when he got too big to work. It had since declined steadily until the ragtag collection of grifters, kids, and burnouts that made up Samson was all he had left.

  "What's up, Jackie?" Bateman said, squeezing his paunch into the narrow space behind the table across from Jackie.

  "I gotta cut back," said the little man.

  "Oh?" Styles braced himself for the bad news.

  "Your show's gotta go."

  "Why mine?"

  "Because it's the weakest in the whole shebang. I carried you last year for old time's sake. I was ready to do it again, but I got lookin" at the bills, and I can't hack it."

  "My tent's better than the kootch show," Bateman protested. "Those bimbos couldn't give a hard-on to a Mexican sailor. Or what about the Wheel of Fortune? Umbach's got his foot on the pedal so heavy it raises smoke when he stops the thing. Even the yokels aren't going for that."

  "Forget it, Bateman," squeaked the little owner. "You're gone."

  "Why me? Just give me a reason."

  "Okay. That bunch of so-called freaks you carry around wouldn't get a second look at a Kiwanis convention. Your giant, what is he, six-seven?"

  "Six-eight-and-a-half," Styles protested.

  "Some giant. The yokels can see kids bigger than that at any high-school basketball game. And your bearded lady — you call that a beard?"

  "You would if you kissed her."

  "God forbid. That five-o'clock shadow don't impress anybody, not even when she darkens it up with pencil shavings."

  "She's got three kids."

  "That don't make her no freak."

  "I mean how's she going to take care of them?"

  "That ain't my problem. Let her do shave-cream commercials. And your sorry fire eater — what's he call himself, Flamo?"

  "Torcho."

  "It's always one or the other. Do you know how old his schtick is? I mean, blowing lighter fluid out of your mouth went out with handlebar moustaches."

  "Handlebars are back."

  "Don't confuse the issue."

  "So my people aren't exactly New Wave. What of it? Most of the carnival is things that's been around for years. Nostalgia, that's what brings the folks in."

  "Well, in your case it ain't bringing enough of "em in. You and your freaks are out, Bateman. Sorry, but that's the way it is. In another year I'll most likely be out too. You and me, we're the tail end of this business."

  Styles seemed to crumble where he was wedged into the small seating space. He stared blankly down at the worn cards laid out before Moskowitz.

  "Can't you give me a week?"

  "No way. Everything's too tight. Hell, Bateman, you can probably collect more on social security than you make travelling with a tincan outfit like this. You're sure as hell old enough for it."

  "They tell me that to collect any of that you have to show you put some in over the years."

  "No bull? How chickenshit."

  "What if I come up with another gimmick?"

  "I don't want your freaks, period."

  "Okay, if they got to go, that's it. Maybe I can come up with something else."

  "Come up with what? We open tomorrow."

  "Lemme think about it, okay?"

  "Sure, you think about it, Bateman, but I don't want to see those freaks in the morning."

  "I'll give them the word."

  "Good."

  Moskowitz returned his full attention to the solitaire game. Styles levered himself out from the confining seat and left the trailer.

  * * *

  Breaking the news to his people — like most old-time carnies, Styles would never call them freaks — did not go too badly, all things considered. Collosus shook his hand, thanked him for a year of work, and said he'd have no problem getting a dishwasher job in some joint. They liked to have a big guy who could come out from the back if the bouncer got into it with somebody tougher than he could handle. Collosus was no fighter, but he was big and looked mean, and that was enough to discourage a lot of mouthy punks.

  Torcho said little when Bateman gave him the bad news. He merely belched and chewed his Maalox tablets. He guessed maybe he could go back to his wife in Bakersfield if she had kicked out the 12-string guitar player she'd been shacking with.

  With Rosa it had been tougher. Tears had welled in her great brown eyes and rolled down into her inadequate moustache. Bateman took her aside and slipped her enough for her bus fare back to Flagstaff, where she had parked the kids with a sister. It was the best he could do.

  Now, walking in the late afternoon on the hill above Silverdale, Styles missed all of them. In his years as a showman he had seen a couple of thousand people come and go. He could never get used to it. They were his family. And in his heart he knew, once somebody left the carnival, you never saw them again. It was like they died.

  Speaking of which, unless he could come up with some fast spiel for Moskowitz by tomorrow morning, Bateman Styles would himself be leaving the carnival. When he'd made the pitch in Moskowitz's trailer he had some half-ass idea about selling the midget on a flashy new idea. The trouble was, he didn't have one. All the ideas were used up.

  Bateman stopped frequently to rest as he walked. The hills were steeper than they used to be. And it was hard for a man to catch his breath at this altitude.

  He sat on a rock and looked at the view. Silverdale might not be much shakes as a town, but you couldn't buy the view for a million dollars. To the east, flat and parched, stretched Death Valley. It shaded delicately from gold to chocolate brown. To the west, just beyond the Inyo foothills, stood big-shouldered Mount Whitney.

  His contemplation of the scenery was interrupted by a sound very close to him. Not quite a sob, and not quite a growl, but a little of each. Bateman stood up and looked behind the rock he had been sitting on.

  There on the ground lay a boy, or young man, his body twisted into an unnatural position. He was huddled there, his face away from Styles, his limbs twisting and jerking as though yanked by invisible wires. It was the boy who was making the sob-growl sound
s.

  Styles's first thought was that the kid was having an epileptic seizure. He had once worked with a high-diver who was an epileptic. They all figured some day Carlo would throw a fit while he was up on the tower looking down at the tub. Sure enough, one day he did. Carlo's last dive was by far his most spectacular.

  Bateman knew you were supposed to keep an epileptic from swallowing his tongue. He leaned down and tried to roll the young man over on to his back. Then he saw the face, and forgot all about epileptic seizures.

  Ten minutes later the young man was looking reasonably normal. All muddy and soaked with sweat, but not a bad-looking kid. Styles leaned against the rock smoking an unfiltered Camel.

  "Hi" said the showman.

  The boy said nothing.

  "You got a name?"

  "M-Malcolm."

  "Mind telling me how you do that, Malcolm?"

  "Do what?"

  "Make yourself go all hairy and fierce looking like you just did."

  Malcolm stared at Bateman Styles. He was silent for a minute as he seemed to make up his mind about something. Finally he said, "I don't do it on purpose. It just… happens. Sometimes I can control it."

  "Anything special that makes it happen?"

  "When something makes me feel really sad. Or really mad. Then… things happen to me."

  "No kidding. What makes you mad, Malcolm?"

  "I don't know. Lots of things."

  "How about being in a cage with people standing around looking at you, pointing, saying things about you."

  The moment he said "cage" Styles knew he'd hit it. The boy's eyes deepened to a dangerous shade of green, and his lips pulled away from his teeth like an animal. Then he got hold of himself.

  "Yeah," Malcolm said. "That would make me mad." Bateman Styles drew in deeply on his cigarette, coughed, and said, "You want a job?"

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bateman Styles leaned back from the fold-down table and lit up a Camel. He coughed. He watched as the boy Malcolm shovelled in the beans and sausage he had heated on the small butane stove. It looked like his grocery bill was going to go up fast, but if the kid could manage that trick he saw today, he'd soon pay for it.

  "That was good, Mr Styles," Malcolm said when at last his plate was empty. "Thanks."

  " Sure it was enough."

  "Well

  "It'll have to be," Styles said quickly, "until I can get to the store."

  "I wish I could help pay," Malcolm said.

  "You will, my boy, you will," Styles said. "However, before we start making permanent arrangements, we'd better go see the boss about taking you on."

  "You're not going to ask me to, you know, do it for him, are you?"

  "Not if you don't want to, my boy. That act's our bread and butter, and there's no use giving it away, not even to the boss."

  "It isn't that I don't want to, Mr Styles, it's just that I can't, like, make it happen just any time."

  "I get the picture, lad. You need the stimulus. Anger, despair, some powerful emotion. We'll work that out. By the way, "Mr Styles" makes me nervous. Call me Bate."

  Malcolm grinned shyly and nodded.

  "What we need now is a name for you."

  "I have a name."

  "No, no, no. Malcolm definitely does not fill the bill. We need something to draw in the marks. Something to whet the people's appetites for what they are about to see. Like Torcho, the Fire Eater."

  "I don't eat fire."

  "I know that, boy. I was merely using it as an example. As a matter of fact, it didn't do much for Torcho either." Styles was silent for a long minute. He closed his eyes, lay his head back, pursed his lips and passed a hand over the wisps of grey hair that remained on his scalp. Suddenly his eyes popped open. He smiled broadly, showing brown-stained teeth.

  "I've got it. Wolf Boy. Grolo the Wolf Boy." He waited for a reaction.

  Malcolm frowned.

  "Something wrong?"

  After a moment's hesitation Malcolm shook his head. "I don't want to be called that."

  "What's the matter with Grolo?"

  "That's okay. It's the other part."

  "Wolf Boy?"

  Malcolm nodded.

  "Judas Priest, why not? It's short, descriptive, and has a nice scary ring to it."

  "I don't like it." There was a new, cold note in the boy's voice.

  "Then we shall discard it," Styles said decisively. He again went into his thinking posture — eyes closed, head back, lips pursed. This time he was out with it in thirty seconds.

  "Animal Boy." He studied Malcolm through narrowed eyes. "Can you live with that?"

  "I guess so."

  "Then it's Grolo the Animal Boy. I don't think it has the same appeal as Wolf Boy — "

  Malcolm's eyes darkened.

  "But, after all, you are the attraction here, and we'll call you anything you like."

  * * *

  They left Styles's antiquated trailer together and tramped across the dark field toward Jackie Moskowitz's Airstream. The concession stands were up, the tents in place, the small ferris wheel erected, all ready to go at ten tomorrow morning. Some of the attractions like the kootch show and Bateman's tent would not open until evening.

  In the back of the food tent the perpetual poker game was in progress. The laughter and good-natured cursing of the carnival hands floated through the clear night. Elsewhere it was quiet. The town of Silverdale, immediately to the north, showed only a sprinkling of lights.

  The showman and the boy came to a stop at the owner's blimp-shaped trailer. Styles gave Malcolm a reassuring wink and banged on the aluminium door.

  The little owner was wearing yellow pyjamas and a cut-off robe when he opened the door. He looked at Styles and the boy with distaste.

  "Jesus, Bateman, is this important? I just took a sleeping pill."

  "I told you I'd get a new show."

  "Well?"

  Styles swept his hand in a grand gesture toward Malcolm.

  "I give you Grolo the Animal Boy."

  Moskowitz squinted up at them. "Come in here in the light."

  Styles urged Malcolm into the trailer, then followed. The showman stood back while Malcolm shifted nervously from foot to foot. Moskowitz walked slowly around the boy, examining him from all angles.

  "Animal Boy? What the hell does that mean? He's not a geek, is he?"

  Styles was offended. "Jackie, you've known me long enough to know I wouldn't bring you a geek. Grolo here will turn into a raging, roaring, frothing animal before the eager eyes of the paying customers. He will be a sensation."

  "Yeah? What's the trick?"

  "Jackie, please. Would you ask Houdini how he did his water torture escape?"

  "I would if he was looking for work."

  "This is by way of a trade secret. Even I do not know how he does it."

  "Okay, okay, so don't tell me." Jackie picked up one of Malcolm's hands and examined it. "He don't look much like an animal."

  "Not now, he doesn't. Just wait until tomorrow night when there's a tent full of marks waiting to see him."

  "I don't know, Bateman. I was thinking of using your space for a baseball pitch. I haven't had one for two years."

  "A baseball pitch? Can you imagine people paying more to knock over weighted metal milkbottles than to see a genuine bona-fide animal boy?"

  "People like to throw baseballs."

  "They like to be scared too. Why do you think horror movies clean up?"

  "Well

  "Jackie, let me try it for this one week in Silverdale. I'll guarantee you a minimum."

  "Guarantee?"

  "More than that. If we don't outdraw the kootch show and the Ring-Toss, I'll make up the difference out of my own pocket. And if we bomb, you can leave us here and you're out nothing."

  "Are you sober, Bateman?"

  Styles held up a right hand. "Not a drop since early this afternoon."

  The little man cracked off a huge yawn. "Okay, you got a deal. I wan
t to see this act myself. But remember, if your animal boy is a dog, it's adios."

  "Fair enough, Jackie, fair enough."

  "Now get out of here and let me get some sleep." He looked up doubtfully at Malcolm. "Uh, so long, Grolo."

  "Goodnight, Mr Samson," Malcolm said.

  As they walked back across the field together Styles clapped Malcolm on the back. "Congratulations, my boy, you're in show business. This calls for a toast to our future success. Or do you indulge?"

  "I don't drink, but you go ahead, Bate."

  "Thank you, my boy, thank you. I believe I will. Then perhaps I'll take a stroll over to the kootch girls" trailer. Care to join me in that?"

  Malcolm flushed. "Well, I, uh, don't know if I, uh…"

  "That's all right. Plenty of time for sport. Probably better for you to get a good night's sleep. I'll fix you up with a blanket roll in the trailer and try not to wake you when I come in."

  * * *

  Malcolm jolted out of a light sleep when Bateman Styles returned to the trailer sometime after midnight. It took a moment to realize where he was, then he closed his eyes and feigned sleep as the showman bumbled about the trailer trying clumsily to be quiet. Soon Styles was in his bed, snoring. Malcolm dozed off again with a tiny contented smile on his lips.

  Bateman was up at dawn, apparently none the worse for his night's carouse. He scrambled some eggs and made hash-browns for the two of them, then left Malcolm alone.

  The sounds and smells of the carnival as the people started coming in were enticing, but Malcolm stayed in the trailer. He was not yet ready to move among people again.

  In mid-afternoon Styles returned looking pleased with himself.

  "Good news, boy. At virtually no expense, I have procured a cage," he said. "We can't convince the good people you're dangerous without a cage, now can we?"

  He saw Malcolm's expression darken and went on quickly. "It isn't much of a cage, really. It would barely hold a determined pussycat. However, it will do until we can find something more impressive. It was lucky that Clete Matthews still had it from the time he was carrying a chimp act. The thing still smells faintly of chimpanzee, but I daresay we can get used to that, right?"