by David Nickle
“I’ll sleep in a moment.” James opened his eyes and took his mother’s hand in his and looked her in the eye. It had been years since he’d fled Chamblay, and every one of those years showed in her face. Now grief was added to the mix. She looked very old. “Tell me about Dad now.”
His mother nodded. “The train wreck happened in the middle of the night. They’re still trying to figure exactly how, because there wasn’t any other train involved. It made a terrible noise, though. Sounded like the ground was being torn. Your Dad — well, he went out to see what was what. You know how he could get.”
James didn’t answer. He did know how his Dad could get. Old Nick Thorne had a reputation to uphold in the town: he was the strongest and most capable man there was, after all. A terrible explosion sounds off in the middle of the night? He’d be out there in a flash.
“He joined the fire crew. The wreck was just a mile south of the station house, so he hopped on the back of the truck as it passed. Last time I saw him alive.”
“Was he caught in the fire?”
James’s mother shook his head. Tears were thick in the corners of her eyes. They gleamed in the kerosene light, as her mouth turned down and her brow crinkled angrily.
“Trampled,” she spat. “Crushed underfoot. By that damned elephant.”
James’s bed was as he remembered it: an iron-framed monstrosity, barely wide enough for one with a mattress that sagged deep in the middle. If two people got on that bed, its rusted springs would scream to wake the dead. Otherwise, there were few possessions left in the room. He stopped his mother from apologizing.
“I’ve been away a long time,” he said. “It’s fine. Now go to bed.”
The room had a small window in it that overlooked the town. Light poured in from below, painting squares on the ceiling and walls. It reflected back from a small tin mirror nailed onto the opposite wall. His mother absently straightened it. James took her gently by the shoulder and led her to the door.
“Bed,” he said firmly.
When she was gone, he undressed himself, hanging his trousers and shirt on a hook by the closet. He sat on the bed for a moment — listened to it squeak as he bounced a little. The briefest flash of nostalgia overcame him, then — of another night, when he felt the bristles of his friend Elmer Wolfe’s neck against his shoulder . . . When the springs screamed, loud enough . . .
. . . loud enough . . .
“A Cyclops!” James snapped his fingers. That’s what you called a giant with an eye in the middle of his forehead. He’d seen drawings years ago, in the old Bullfinch’s Mythology they had at the schoolhouse. A huge, one-eyed man who lived in a cave and was ultimately blinded by a gang of Greek sailors.
James went to the mirror. The light from the window was enough to see himself by. But the mirror made him into a funhouse image — his chin was cartoonishly long; the thin moustache he’d cultivated for his Captain Kip role looked as though it’d been drawn by a drunkard. He leaned closer and it was better: the nearer you get to a bad mirror, the less the distortion.
Finally, he found he was literally looking himself in the eye. Just inches from the mirror, his own eye seemed huge. The light was wrong to make out the colour — but it took little imagination to paint his iris yellow and green. To imagine the iris — big and black as an Idaho sky. He could lose himself in that eye. No, scratch that: he wanted to lose himself in that eye.
“Mmm,” said James. His hand crept down to his crotch — took hold. He smiled. Shut his eyes. How would it be, he wondered, to lick that thing — that massive thing, while hands as wide as his back squeezed his shoulders; a thumb as wide as a post gently, maybe even painfully, spread his cheeks.
Eyes still closed, he backed across the room to the freshly sheeted bed and fell into it — lost already in a fevered and vivid dream.
James and his mother spent the next morning at the Simmons Brothers Funeral Parlour in town. His mother had made pretty much all the arrangements before he’d arrived in town. It was going to be a good burial, in the Chamblay Hill Cemetery, with a nice oak casket and a polished headstone made of granite. It was far more than his mother could afford on her own. James made out three large cheques, while Mr. Simmons prattled on about the tragedy of the train wreck and the evil of circus folk and the better place that Nick Thorne had gone to. When they were finished, James took Mr. Simmons aside.
“Tell me,” he said quietly, “what really happened to my father. It was no elephant — was it?”
Mr. Simmons crossed his arms and lowered his head.
“An elephant,” he said carefully, “was involved. But no.”
“Not an elephant,” said James. “But it was a big thing.” He took a leap. “A — Cylcops, I heard.”
Mr. Simmons fixed him with a glare. “Circus folk,” he said sharply. “Circus folk have all manner of queerness to them. Giants and midgets and clowns and trapeze artists. Big enough man can call himself a Cyclops if he wants. I should stay well clear of them, if I were you, son.”
“Where are they?”
“By the creek — camped like wicked hoboes in the North Brothers’ common. But they won’t be there for long.”
James suppressed a smile. Wicked hoboes. “I see.”
Mr. Simmons’ glare faded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve buried nine good men who lost their lives trying to put out the fire on that train wreck. Your father far from the least of them. Contrary to what some might say — a busy day’s no pleasure for an undertaker.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” said James.
“But son — ” Mr. Simmons put a pale hand on James’s arm “ — circus folk aren’t nothing but gypsies, you know. They’ll cut your throat and steal your wallet, give them half a chance. They’ll overrun a town, steal its children. Don’t go out there looking for vengeance.”
“Vengeance?” James was honestly puzzled, and that was betrayed in his expression. “Why would I — ”
“For the death of your father,” he said, then added quickly: “Although I can see such thoughts are far from your mind. That is good, young sir. I apologize for thinking you a hothead. Other sons and daughters have been angrier about the goings-on with the circus folk. If I may say — your mother has raised a fine and temperate man. I am told that you do quite well for the family. In the moving picture business. I’ve a nephew in Spokane who’s a great fan of the pictures. I shall tell him we’ve met.”
“Give him my regards,” said James. “And now — one more thing — if I could . . .”
Mr. Simmons smiled sadly. “See your father? I’d advise waiting ’til tomorrow. There’s some work to be done. To make him as he lived. Do you no good to see ’im now, son.”
James hadn’t been about to ask to see his father’s corpse. God, that was the last thing he wanted to see. He’d wanted to know more about the circus folk. About the Cyclops. But Mr. Simmons wouldn’t talk more about that. He’d just think that James was fixing for vengeance, and try and stop him. So James just returned the sad smile and nodded. “Tomorrow, then,” he said.
“You’re far away,” said his mother outside the house.
“Yes.” James ran his hands over the knobby wood of the steering wheel. Stared into space, at the far western ridges that were partly obscured in low cloud right then. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right, dear.” She sat in the car, looking at him.
He smiled at his mother. “Listen. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to take a little drive by myself.”
His mother took a breath, patted his arm. “Of course, dear. You haven’t been back here for almost ten years. And now you’re back, it’s to bury your — ” She stopped, lifted her handkerchief to daub her eyes.
“Yes.”
James let his mother go inside, and put the car into gear. He wheeled back through Chamblay’s downtown. It was looking livelier during the day. Livelier, in fact, than it had in some time. He counted maybe a dozen trucks, covered with black tarpaulins. Bi
g, dangerous-looking men in dark suit jackets leaned against their fenders, leering at passing townswomen. From behind the wheel of the Coupe, James leered at them. Turnabout’s fair play, he thought, imagining himself in their midst — a giant in their midst — plucking first one, then the other, screaming into the air . . . Ramming them face-down into the sawdust — into the dirt . . .
God, James, he thought as the little fantasy took form in his mind, you are a depraved one.
Back in Los Angeles, Stephen had taken to chiding him about that very thing. “They’ll let you go, you know, if the press gets wind of your shenanigans,” Stephen said to him, curled against his stomach in the heat of a Sunday afternoon not long ago. “They’ll cut you loose.”
“No fooling.” James had reached around front of Stephen, took hold of him lightly and ran a fingertip in the warm space between his thigh and his scrotum. He gave Stephen’s nuts a sharp little squeeze. Stephen sucked in a breath — James could feel the cheeks of Stephen’s arse tightening around him. “I guess we should stop, then. Maybe I should find religion. Or — ” he pulled his hand away “ — take little Alice up on one of her many offers. Knock her up. That’d settle it once and for all.”
“Oh, go to hell,” said Stephen. “You wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” James had replied. “She’d know what to do. And she wants to fuck me.”
“Everybody wants to fuck you,” said Stephen. “You’re Captain Kip Blackwell, for Christ’s sake. But I have to tell you, Kip — that unenthusiastic flirtation you play at with her in the canteen isn’t fooling anybody.”
“It fools Alice,” James had said.
“You think?”
James set his jaw. Put his foot on the gas pedal. He took the road to the mill — then, following the wood smoke and tire ruts, made his way to the creek-bank where, according to Mr. Simmons, the circus was encamped.
There was no Big Top; not shooting galleries nor cotton candy stands nor halls of mirrors. The remains of the Twillicker and Baines Circus was mostly people, and those people had spread in a makeshift shantytown along the grassy east bank of the Chamblay Creek. Little tents pitched here and there, charred swaths of orange and green and blue fabric. Some of the folk had dug out fire pits in the needle-covered dirt. They were surrounded by trees, spruce and pine so high that from the camp’s far side, they obscured much of the snowy mountain peaks to the west.
James stopped his car and got out. The place smelled of wood smoke and burned fat. He tromped down the slope to the first of the tents — where a young woman sat beside an older man, broad-chested with a long, drooping moustache. He wore a battered felt bowler hat, and his arm was in a sling. She wore a pale blue cotton sun dress, mismatched with the torn fishnet stockings of a dancing girl.
“Hello,” said James.
“Good sir,” said the man, tipping his hat. “Clayton O’Connor, at your service.” The woman smiled wanly. “And this is Clarissa.”
James stood there awkwardly for a moment. They didn’t appear to recognize him — which as he thought of it wasn’t unusual: circus folk had a show of their own to perform Saturday afternoons. There’d be precious little time for the pictures, what with all the fire-eating and clowning and lion-taming to fill up the day.
“Good afternoon,” James said. “James Thorne. I’m looking — that is — ”
“The eye,” said Clarissa, nodding. She got a funny look in her eye.
“Do not mind her and her riddles, friend,” said Clayton O’Connor. “She’s new at the Sight.”
James smiled. “The Sight. She’s a fortune teller?”
Clayton nodded, and removed his bowler cap to reveal a balding crown covered in intricate tattoos. “An oracle,” he said.
“Ah. Of course. Oracles speak in riddles, don’t they?”
Clayton shrugged, held his hat in front of him. “It is a mixed blessing, good sir.” He extended the hat a little further, like a bowl. “Prophecy is good, but it’s nothing,” he said, “without sound interpretation.”
“I see.” James laughed. “Prophecies are free, but interpretation costs a penny.”
“Five pennies.”
James’s first impulse was to walk away — leave the tattooed man and his abstruse young oracle to prey on the next townie that happened by. But he dug into his pocket, and came up with a nickel he thought he might spare. The oracle was a good shtick, and these people had just survived a train wreck; he couldn’t begrudge them their little grift. He tossed the coin into the hat. “Interpret away,” he said, and knelt down beside them. “Tell me . . .” He paused, looked across the creek to the dark evergreen wood. Some of the circus folk between himself and the river were taking note of him — of his new automobile. A dwarf limped up to it and gave the rear tires a malicious little kick. “. . . tell me about the Cyclops.”
Clayton looked into his cap — with his damaged fingers, he pulled the nickel out, turned it over and examined both sides.
Clayton paused a moment, then looked James in the eye. “You’ve seen it, have you, sir?”
“The Cyclops? I have.” James took a breath. “Yes.”
He shook his head. “And you’re here anyway.”
“I have to find him. It.”
“Father,” said the oracle, throwing her head back theatrically and gasping at the sky. “Here for his father.”
“Hmm.” James wasn’t sure how good Clarissa was at oracling. But as an actress — well, she made wooden little Alice Shaw look positively Shakespearean.
“That has nothing to do with this. My father’s dead.”
James looked at Clayton, then at Clarissa. Her eyes fluttered shyly to her hands, a sly smile playing across her lips. Clayton raised his eyebrows in a questioning way.
Clayton nodded. “A lot of men are dead by that monstrosity’s hand,” he said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“That’s why you’re here,” said Clarissa, looking across the creek but pointing straight at James.
James ignored her. “All right, Clayton,” he said. “Tell me about this thing.”
Clayton looked at him levelly. “That’s more than interpretation,” he said, rubbing two coinless fingers together as he spoke. “That’s a tale.”
Sighing, James dug into his pocket for a couple more pennies. When he’d added them to the nickel, Clarissa feigned a swoon across the log where she sat, and Clayton started talking.
“The Cyclops,” said Clayton, “was with us for less than a season. Sam Twillicker found the beast in a deep cellar at a ranch in eastern Texas, where he’d been guesting over the Christmas break. Baines and Twillicker had had a bad run of luck with the Hall of Nature’s Abominations the past season. The mermaid had come unstitched and spewed straw and cotton all over her case in the middle of our St. Louis show in May. In the early morning hours of July 8, our prized geek Skinny Larouche ran off into a Kansas cornfield with a pair of chickens and the previous day’s nut. Later that month, Alfie Fowler took ill with something in his intestine. In August, the bug moved to the gut of brother Mitch, and by Labour Day we’d lost our genuine Siamese twins. Perhaps, said Charlie Baine, the days of sideshows were winding down and they ought just fold up the rest of Nature’s Abominations and concentrate on the Rings. But Twillicker didn’t buy that; to him, a freak tent was as much a part of the show as clowns and lion-tamers and the high wire. So when his host in Texas mentioned the thing he was keeping in the cellar, and intimated that he had intended the thing’s stay should be temporary — ‘I’ll have to kill it or be rid of it, and I’m not sure I can kill it,’ he said — Sam Twillicker was intrigued.
“Of course, intrigued’s not the same as fooled. Twillicker took care not to let his interest show.
“‘We have an excellent strong man,’ he said cagily. ‘You’ve got a fat Greek with an eye out? I might put a patch on my Wotun the Magnificent, change his name to Polyphemus and call him the one-eyed giant — and not have spent a penny more.’
“‘It would not be the same,’ said the host. ‘For mine — he has seen the Trojan women and sung duets with Sirens and walked the sea bottom at the heel of Poseidon. How can you compare?’”
“‘You ought have been a barker, my friend,’ said Twillicker. ‘For you could make the rubes see all those things and more in even my poor Wotun, with pretty words like that.’
“‘Not the same as seeing it for real, though.’
“Late in the evening, Twillicker walked outside the ranch house, to do just that: see it with his own eyes. They climbed down a tunnel past a padlocked door in the Texas scrub, and stepped out onto a ledge in a room like the bottom of a giant well. The thing — the Cyclops — was below them, lolling against the wall amid a carpet of whitened bones. Flies buzzed and flitted in the lantern beam that Twillicker’s host shone down, and the creature looked up into it with its single great eye, so wide that Twillicker could see the pair of them reflected in it.
“‘How big is he?’ said Twillicker.
“‘Twenty and five,’ said his host. ‘From toe to skull top, twenty and five feet.’
“‘And that eye,’ said Twillicker. ‘Sitting unnaturally in the middle of the forehead like that. It’s real?’
“‘It better be,’ said the host, ‘for the beast has none but that one to see by.’
“‘My God,’ said Twillicker.
“The bones rattled and crunched below as the Cyclops stirred. Both men stopped their conversation, as the thing drew himself to his feet. Standing, the Cyclops was nearly eye level to him. His breath came at him like a hot Mediterranean wind. His eye blinked. A hand, big as a door, came up over the lip of the ledge — Twillicker barely had the wit to step back into the tunnel before it could grasp him. The Cyclops opened his great mouth, and rumbled something that sounded like Greek. Hot, unbreathable air followed them up the tunnel as they backed away from the grabbing hand.