by Daniel Kraus
YOUR DISPLEASURE, DEAREST READER, IS hot enough for me to feel across time and space. You find me sadistic. A reassuring smile, you think, was not much to ask to becalm a boy ravaged by rare disease and facing the dragon of Death without sword or scutcheon.
Yes, all right—I suffered the chigger-bites of guilt. Hopeless though I might have been, Johnny was more hopeless still. Does that confession change a single thing? Even had my seventeen years versed me in the ways of cooing and patting backs, which it had not, what comfort to a dying boy could be offered by a fellow who had already died? I was, and remain, the Damned, and for you to believe it, I need only describe what happened to me each night inside the Gallery of Suffering.
Note, though, that you were warned.
When I began my career as the Astonishing Mr. Stick, I spent the duration of my performances posing the question of Why?—to the gent in the front row and to the kids roughhousing at the rear; to the rodents scuttling backstage and to that biggest rodent of all, Gød. None of my addressees answered. The Barker himself accepted my existence with nary a care about heaven or hell. Rather than spiritual interrogation, he muttered to me the same statistic:
“Seventy-five million dollars will be spent on patent medicines this year, Mr. Stick. And I’ll be damned if we don’t take our share.”
I learned to disassociate during performances. It is, I am convinced, the only thing that saved me from total neurosis. The Barker’s tone was authoritarian and his manipulation of my body had a physician’s fearlessness. I let myself be lulled by both. He is Dr. Whistler, I told myself, and I am merely Dr. Whistler’s Subject, and what is happening to the Subject upon this stage is barren of emotion. I find it difficult to deviate from this perspective even in writing. Allow me this indulgence as we proceed?
Dr. Whistler takes the stage alone. The Gallery can squeeze in upwards of fifty people, but this particular show nets fifteen on a good night. These brave souls sit upon benches in darkness, though the stage is ablaze with such fervid torchlight that they are forced to squint. The Subject watches from backstage.
“‘The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.’” Dr. Whistler surveys his audience. “Lord Byron gave us those immortal words. I am but a humble man of medicine, hardly the equal to such a poet, but I submit to you a thesis. When pain overwhelms our existence, the ‘art of life’ Byron spoke of becomes abstract. So says Thomas Jefferson: ‘The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.’ Now, those are the words of an American! A man whose breast, like my own, like yours, in dark days draws comfort from the steady march of science.”
The Subject is unconvinced that the rural assemblage follows the good doctor’s literary logic. Yet they nod along hungrily. Indeed, hunger is a quality that does not change from town to town. These people are lame and wracked; some of them are dying and know it.
“For twenty years, Dr. Whistler’s Pageant of Health has been the pacesetter in the eradication of pain. Our agents scour the Earth for extraordinary individuals who have found ways to battle the ailments that beset mankind, and then we bring them to you, in this very gallery. Your time is precious and yet you come to us because you have watched your siblings, your friends, and your elders die with leeches on their faces—that awful medieval praxis prevalent even in this enlightened day.
“Gentlemen! We have ether now, we have chloroform. A man named Röntgen last year developed a photographic method of viewing bones inside the body! And ladies, one of your own by the name of Elizabeth Blackwell received an accredited medical degree in 1849. Others of your fair sex follow, and in a generation our country shall have a battalion of the prettiest doctors in the world! Our nation has not faltered when asserting with rifles and cannons our independence from the British. Nor shall we falter in this war against pestilence. We shall assert our sovereignty—with nerve, with audacity, with puissance!”
The Subject is unable to muster the strength required for the clapping of hands; otherwise, even he might find himself swept into the ecstasy of the saved.
“It is in this spirit of grand adventure and bold investigation that I bring before you a great discovery. Found shepherding cattle in our forty-first state of Montana, where he lived with bland parents in a small clay hut, this youngster represents a step in evolution that we can emulate with the clever application of known chemicals. I need say no more—you shall witness his fortitude with your own eyes. I present to you, distinguished guests, a most accomplished young man—the Astonishing Mr. Stick!”
Generally it comes as a surprise to the Subject when two of the pageant functionaries assist him into the brilliance. Things are in dizzying motion. A chair is being placed onto the center of the stage. A large easel is being positioned stage right and balanced upon it is a giant pad of paper painted with the Subject’s pseudonym.
The audience recoils upon getting a look at the Subject. He is given to believe that he looks unwell under this lighting. To distract from the Subject’s lifeless deportment, a small elevated box is positioned stage left. It is a tiny replica of the stage, upon which sways the doctor’s beloved Silly Sally adorned in a tiny replica of Dr. Whistler’s attire, complete with top hat tied with string around her chin. What elicits the sighs of adoration from the crowd, though, are the five kittens dressed like the Subject poking their pink faces from the lower half of the box. Collectively they are known as the Kitten Chorus.
Dr. Whistler plucks a pointer from the easel and taps it thrice.
“Mr. Stick is unlike the others you will meet in the Gallery of Suffering. He is not one given to displays of emotion. He comes from hearty Austrian stock and his time in the mountainous West further developed his stoicism. Mr. Stick’s aloof demeanor is, in fact, evidence of his talent. Pain of head, chest, stomach, ear canal, extremities; burns and scalds; the bane of sciatica—you, too, can hold mastery over them! Mr. Stick is a prophet of a sorts; he shall lead each of us into salvation, right here on Earth.”
The Subject has trained himself to look straight ahead, especially when hearing the squeal of hinges as the doctor opens the box. The Subject cannot see the needles within but he can imagine how they must gleam in the firelight. The turn of the page upon the easel is loud. So is the gasp from the crowd that follows.
Dr. Whistler touches his pointer to a colored medical illustration of a man flayed of his skin. His body is woven from vessels like a topographical map of red tributaries, and these lines thicken as they draw toward the heart, one of the many organs depicted. This plate is labeled “The Chief Arteries and Veins of the Body” and numbers from one to thirty match a list written down the edge of the paper.
“Oh, the human body,” sighs Dr. Whistler. “How many pockets of wonder are contained within! How numerous the sockets of pain, how frequent the intersections of agony! We have notated here, honored guests, thirty threads of circulatory fabric, from major artery to superficial vein. If I were to invite the hardiest among you to take this chair, the piercing of a single one of these vessels would result in acute suffering and significant spilling of blood.”
The Subject knows that the first needle is coming. He can see it flashing.
“The Astonishing Mr. Stick is made of sterner material. Part of it is nature; part of it is the combination of herbs, pollen, grasses, honeys, minerals, and cured meat juices that he has ingested since birth. See for yourself its power.”
The tip of the needle touches the Subject’s chest. The Subject has not lost his sense of touch. He wishes to make that abundantly clear. His senses have been but truncated, so that he feels what happens just beyond the point of pain. This manifests itself as a hard, heavy, sobbing sadness of the physical flesh.
“Number thirty.” Dr. Whistler adopts a technical tone when reading from the list. “Branches of the pulmonary arteries, veins in the lung.”
These are not sewing needles. The steel is thin as a whisker and as long as a child’s forearm. The needle passes through the Subject’s clothes and on into muscle. The audience gasps. The Kitten Chorus hears this cue and rescues the audience from overwhelming horror by mewling a parody of the Subject’s tribulation. The Subject cannot fathom how the felines have been so well trained. In his experience only dogs are trainable; cats are but proctors of chaos. Nothing that happens upon this stage each night impresses the Subject more than this.
The doctor continues with the insertion. The Subject can hear the squeak of his own flesh as it resists the steel invader; he can feel the itch of a lung sac being lanced. Ofttimes the puncture releases trapped air and it feels like a bullet being shot from inside the Subject’s body. Dr. Whistler stops the insertion. This needle is not withdrawn. This is important to the overall effect of the performance. He sifts through his box. It makes a pleasant xylophone sound.
“Number twenty-nine: kidney, renal artery and vein.”
Dr. Whistler bobs about the stage inserting needles and counting down. (twenty-eight: the long saphenous vein; twenty-seven: femoral vein; twenty-six: iliac vein; twenty-five: median vein—the words are as familiar to the Subject as a song.) The Subject takes on a porcupine appearance; the evidence becomes irrefutable. Dr. Whistler moves ever upward. (five: common carotid artery; four: innominate vein; three: aorta; two: temporal artery.) Needles pass through the Subject’s heart, his throat. The Kitten Chorus keeps up their uncanny comedy. The audience is sickened, then amused. The dramatic swings leave them exhausted.
“‘Pain pays the income of each precious thing,’” says Dr. Whistler. The audience chokes on a collective breath as the point of the final lancet rests upon the Subject’s eyeball. “William Shakespeare—he knew of what he spoke, did he not?”
Those in the front row are treated to a soft popping sound as the needle punctures the eye. The Subject’s lashes flutter, he cannot help it, as the needle slides through the vitreous humour. Dr. Whistler, tired now, dripping sweat, nevertheless takes care to complete the insertion at an angle sharp enough to skirt the brain entirely. He is nervous about the brain. The Subject can tell. Dr. Whistler cannot afford a miscue that might turn his already taciturn attraction into a vegetable.
The Subject is helped to his feet and for thirty seconds he stands under his own power. It takes a while, but he raises an arm and waves while thirty inserted needles click-clack against one other. Women fan themselves. Men blurt expletives. The Subject is ushered offstage by the same two men who brought him in, one of whom, with little artistry, extracts each of the quills. The other worker leaves to join Dr. Whistler on stage to begin the bonanza of selling. “Pain” is a vague malady; anything with which the Pageant of Health is overstocked becomes the sale du jour.
Shaken but already loosening the caps from their medicines, the exiting audience is met by the Soothing Foursome, whose silken voices keen like the whistle of a far-off train. To the tune of “Auld Lang Syne” they transform that evening’s commercial message into a jewel of four-part harmony:
So long as mortal ills endure,
And mankind suffers pain,
So long shall Apache Blood Purifier
Its trusted name maintain.
Now, Dearest Reader, I—the Subject of the above play—ask you: was I really so cruel to Little Johnny Grandpa? How could I come to his aid when I was unable to aid myself? My prose is flowery, that I cannot help, and so you project upon me sensitivity, gentility, compassion. You are wrong to do so. Any sensitivity or gentility that remained in my pallid corpse leaked out through thirty holes inflicted dozens of times per month, each drop of compassion drawn from me like a bulb of blood. You cannot see these holes from where you sit. Nonetheless, I guarantee you that they are there.
V.
LIFE, UNINTERESTED IN A CORPSE’S ashen daydreams, rolled on. Popular conversation topics among Pageant employees ranged as capriciously as unfed bison. For a time discussion centered upon the so-called St. Augustine Monster, the washed-up carcass of some fantastic sea beast workers saw during a swing through Florida. Then it was the late 1896 death of Alfred Noble, the inventor of dynamite, a substance all Pageant laborers held in high regard. (I, of course, wondered if my pop was out there somewhere raising a toast.) Then, for a spell, it was President McKinley’s war with Spain off our southeastern coast that had our boys oiling their weapons and fantasizing of bagging a baker’s dozen of Spaniards.
Were the degenerates of Dr. Whistler’s valorous patriots or avid newshounds? Neither! These uneducated louts were more insulated from the real world than your typical Midwestern clodhopper. Their insipid chatter served one distinct purpose: to distract them from the deadly downturn of our business.
That is not to say crowds were thin. Southerners, especially, amassed like ants, spilling in incredible numbers from the smallest of holes. It was that few possessed the money to purchase product. The Barker slashed prices, slashed them again. Pitches were dumbed down to one-word bleats: “Health! Drink! Good!” We often moved on a mere two days after arrival, our passage from county to county marked only by the levels of mongoloidism and the irritating quirks of local patois.
By 1898, Dr. Whistler’s Pageant of Health was as broke as the oafs before whom we danced. No one was happy. Vital repairs were delayed and the stage buckled mid-spiel more than once. Laborers, ornery after anemic payment, raised hell in local barrooms and landed in the clink. The chow served up by Professor Bach was reduced to a succession of ambiguous stews, each one underperforming the previous. The Soothing Foursome had it worst of all. Whites everywhere were disturbed by colored folk singing anything other than spirituals and the Foursome was greeted by thrown fruit, discharged tobacco, fierce invectives.
It was not long before I noticed the Barker looking askance. Oh, I knew what went on in his hateful head. My show, for all its sick thrill, was a resounding flop. Crowds were modest, to put it charitably, and it was becoming daily routine for the Barker to accuse me of sabotage. Without me showing a little joie de vivre, said he, the act was doomed! Naturally, I made no reply. If he felt that I was scaring away customers—the worst of sins—so much the better. Toss me to the roadside, why don’t you? Leave me for dead and perhaps the wish would come true.
You will concur that the stressors about me were significant. Regardless, I had come damned close to relaxing late one night when Little Johnny Grandpa swatted aside my tent flap with his cane and entered, small chest heaving and face crimson from some newborn indignity. His cry was vehement:
“You can talk, sir.”
For two unspeakable years I’d been cool to Johnny to little effect. He spoke to me; I gazed into a neutral direction. He adjusted my red kerchief; I pulled away. But he viewed me as a fellow hopeless case—a dismal honor—and was determined to be the Damon to my Pythias! The Horatio to my Hamlet! The Panza to my Quixote! I worked hard to deserve none of these comparisons and still the child’s fealty withstood erosion.
I favored Johnny with a minute shake of the head. No, stupid child, I could not speak, nor could I stand. I was powerless to better my pitiful situation and cursed him for suggesting otherwise.
“But y’can, sir. I know it. I been listening at night, y’see. Y’roll thisaway and thataway. Y’roll so hard there’s straw all over the place. And from deep down y’chest come moaning up words.”
Reader, I have taken pains to establish that I do not sleep, yes? When lucky, however, I could achieve a trancelike state in which my racing mind, for the most part, shifted to a quieter gear. But not once had I entertained the thought that the ramshackle bellows of my lungs remembered their former purpose.
“Sounds t’me like ‘Chester.’ Or ‘Tafta.’ Y’say it over and over again, Mr. Stick, honest y’do.”
Testa.
This jolted me more than any boxful of needles.
“ Y�
�got your bars and y’got your straw . . . but it ain’t much, Mr. Stick. No, sir, it ain’t. All y’need to do is talk to me. If y’can tell me what you want—this Chester or Tafta or anything at all—I’ll get it for you. Have faith in me, sir. Don’t no one keep watch on an old man like me. But I ain’t run down all the way, not yet I ain’t.”
Quietude had long been my consort and to her, for the moment, I remained faithful.
“Don’t think of it like no favor. There’s something I want too. Y’start talking better, walking better, and then you and me, we get out of here. I know, I’m slow. You ain’t so quick on y’feet y’self. The two of us together, though? I figure we might surprise ’em all.”
Still I said nothing. Too many radical ideas, too quickly.
The boy stabbed his cane.
“Ain’t you sick of being quiet?”
He shifted the cane from right hand to left, left hand to right. Gradually his countenance grew stormy. Sullenness twisted his loose skin into a spook mask and summoned profilgacies of phlegm.
“Y’won’t talk to me? Snort! Snoooooort! Y’won’t even try? Hack! Hack! Spit! Why, y’must like it. Y’must like what the bastard does to you. Well, he can be y’friend, then. Y’go on ahead. Maybe when y’come back from having all that fun with y’friend, maybe I’ll be gone! Cough!”
He exited with what passed for him as a righteous stride.
Six hours later, the sun not yet risen, Johnny tripped his way back to my cage.
I heard him puffing and grunting across the lot and prepared myself to endure the coldest of shoulders. But when the tent flap opened, the usual tapeworm supplies were not tucked under his arm. He limped up to my cage, lungs whistling like a punctured accordion.
“You’re gonna talk,” gasped he, “So help me, y’gonna talk.”
He stuffed his hand into the front pocket of his overalls and foisted upon me a box of capsules branded with the slogan “Pleasant to Take, Magical in Its Effects!” The dear, dumb lad! He’d raided Dr. Whistler’s supply of product in the foolish hope that one of the preposterous panaceas might actually work! With an exhausted hand I pantomimed the basic problem, touching my throat, then my stomach, then my bowels. Would the ingested material sit and spoil in my gut before leaking out of my bottom? No, thank you.