The theater was attached to an exclusive couples-only resort on a white sand beach. It had begun as something of a rundown striptease attraction, in a musty old burlesque house, but it became a glittering success when the Dwarf Queen put Pindick up on stage. The Dwarf Queen loved the limelight, and even in the end, when it was apparent that Pindick was the real star of the show, she accepted that fact just so that she could be the one to stand beside him.
Pindick was the circus clown, a sad-faced clown with a droopy mouth, a Bozo wig, and the ubiquitous red nose. He always looked like he was about to break into tears. He wore purple pantaloons with a ruffle and flapped around in clown feet that gave him a bandy gait.
The premise of the act, which changed every night and became more and more abusive as the audience came back with a bloodlust that turned into a frenzy, was to improvise ways to torment and humiliate Pindick.
At first, it was just about throwing pies at him, while he stood helpless with that mournful look on his white painted face, but the Dwarf Queen knew no limits. She slapped him around, beat him, and whipped him, the lash cracking against any part of his body or his head.
She put a bit into his mouth, gave him a donkey tail, and rode him around the stage, using a crop and spurs to make him trot.
Dressed in fishnet stockings, top hat, and tails like Marlene Dietrich in the Blue Angel—which was her favorite picture—she drizzled honey and chicken feathers over Pindick and invited onlookers to throw raw eggs at him until he was dripping with yolk and eggshells.
She handed out tomatoes to the first three rows, and like a medieval mob, they hurled rotten fruit at him while he sang in a falsetto voice.
She forced his jaws open with a metallic dental device and allowed members of the audience to pour surprise fluids into his yawning orifice. It could have been a shot of Vodka or a glass of liquid soap, or sour milk, and after a while, she would encourage them to shoot spitballs through a straw into the target. And then there was a squirt gun apparently filled with urine.
But, since this was an adult-themed show with plenty of nudity, on private property, where no-one was policing them, the highlight of the performance was to expose the clown’s genitals.
Some nights, the Dwarf Queen would de-pants him unexpectedly, creeping up behind him with a wicked smile to the spectators while he was trying to juggle, and jerk his pantaloons down with the elastic around his ankles. Some nights, she would have him perform a clumsy striptease, while the men and women of the audience cawed and chanted. As the drums rolled, there he stood, shell-shocked under the probing spotlight, with his tiny, shriveled penis on display for jeers and cackles, and ultimately, brutal silence.
This was what they had all paid for tickets to witness.
The Dwarf Queen led him off triumphantly, as he pulled up his trousers and bunched the waistline in his fist. She always had to be attentive to him afterwards, like a mother with a child, or if the mood was right, she would keep him going as if they were still on the stage, handling him harshly and pushing his face into a backstage corner to wait for her while she went to get a drink. She knew that after the performance, his head would be wobbling like a china plate on a bamboo pole, and she had to bring him down slowly.
By the time they were alone together in their room at the end of the long night, they spoke freely, discussed the reactions of the audience, and thought of ways they could improve the act, or new tricks to perform. Pindick was always brimming with suggestions. She always admired how clever he was, but no-one would have imagined it. Even the Dwarf Queen did not realize the levels to his manipulation.
Of course, any man who called himself Pindick and who revealed his undersized member to the world had to have a sense of inner security that did not depend on factors about which other men were sensitive. In fact, as the Dwarf Queen knew, because of how he had been raised and because of his intellectual abilities, Pindick the clown was vain and arrogant. He felt so superior to the spectators who paid money to snigger at him that their mockery meant nothing. In a way, studying their responses, he was the one who was mocking them.
The customers did not see it that way, though, and word of the outrageous act spread through the island and around the globe. People came from other hotels along the beachfront, and from towns on the opposite shore, and in the hills, and then from distant lands. Guests returned annually to the resort, bringing new guests in tow, and business increased rapidly.
Tickets for the show were sold out months in advance. There were masks, postcards, souvenirs, and posters for sale, but the Dwarf Queen was adamant that Pindick could not be photographed on stage. The act had to be experienced in person.
On rare occasions, before the evening performance, when Pindick was in full white-faced make-up, wig, and costume, she led him along the boardwalk, and visitors flocked for photographs with their arms around him. They always tried to pinch his nose, but she prevented them. Little did anyone realize the sinister secret that the red spongy nose was concealing.
If anyone were paying attention, they would have noticed how alarmed the clown became when a giddy fan reached for his nose. But the Dwarf Queen always made sure that his nose was safe.
Pindick became so popular that a second scene was added. The clown usually appeared late in the program, just before the finale, because there really was no-one to follow him. He was what they had all come to see, and it was the climax of the show.
The Dwarf Queen negotiated an additional fee for a sort of a warm-up teaser early in the presentation. This kept the impatient spectators calm and whet their appetites for what would come later. The Dwarf Queen would not appear in the teaser, and it would be performed wholly between Pindick and the Ringmaster.
The Ringmaster was a big-bellied foreigner in a scarlet topcoat with a booming voice, and a collection of vulgar jokes and songs, which he would belt out into a microphone in different languages. The ruse that they worked out was that he would ask for volunteers from the audience, and Pindick, making his entrance from the back of the hall, would be the one that he selected.
The Ringmaster was a natural to play the part of the bully, and he found new ways to abuse the clown each night. He made him wear a dunce cap, used a whip to crack a playing card from between his teeth, and tricked him into sitting on a cream pie. The clown always seemed terrified of the Ringmaster. One night, when the crowd was insatiable for it, he hypnotized Pindick to copulate with a stuffed sheep. He did not like to tell Pindick before the show what he was planning, but he always consulted with the Dwarf Queen in advance.
The Dwarf Queen did not care much for the Ringmaster, but she was envious of how much the spotlight shone on him as the centerpiece of the show. There were always allegiances and jealousies among the performers.
There were the strippers and chorus girls who idolized the Dwarf Queen like infatuated schoolchildren. There was Jumba, the circus strongman, with hairless, oily muscles, who felt deep sympathy for Pindick, and stood up for the clown long before he became so celebrated. Jumba was always bewildered by the way that Pindick was maltreated.
There was Wanda, the man-girl, who rivaled the Dwarf Queen, but they kept an easy fellowship between them. She was called the man-girl, not because of any ambivalence about her sexuality, but because of her athletic build. She was blonde and voluptuous, and dressed like a mythological goddess, and she did an act that was mostly about whip-cracking.
Once in a while, when her co-star had been too soused or marked up too badly from the previous night to appear in public, the Dwarf Queen let Wanda borrow Pindick and bind him to the post.
The whip, Pindick scoffed in private, was not his specialty, but he had trained to take the lash. What he displayed was more cerebral, the whip was mindless and barbaric. Most of it was bluff and showmanship. There were loud snappers which did not hurt, there were vipers with a silent bite. The trick was that as long as the coils struck the body after the crack, the force had all been shaken out of it, and as long as the react
ion of the victim was believable, the audience would think he had been stung. Of course, mistakes could happen, and, let’s face it, once in a while, it was deliberate.
It was Wanda who would take Pindick to the stage on the night of his final performance.
By that time, Pindick had become such a celebrity on the island that he was not even referred to by name. At first, people enjoyed the jape of calling out to him, because his name itself was such an insult. But, after a while, they were uncomfortable about it, and he was called Mister Pindick. And then it was just Mr. P, and no-one dared to breathe the real name of the legendary artiste.
People pointed and nodded and whispered when he was seen. His infamy overwhelmed the rabble. His antics became less about his victimization than his daring. Everyone had witnessed the show, and they all had a favorite feat which they remembered. They always wondered what he would accomplish next.
He never paid for a drink at any bar or a meal or a taxi anywhere on the island. He was never kept waiting, and everything was complimentary. The Dwarf Queen relished it, but Mr. P accepted his fame with modesty, as if it were simply his due.
Offstage, he took to a stylish black pinstripe wardrobe. He started to go around without her more and more, but they always yearned for one another when they were apart. They could not stand to be apart from one another for too long.
This was especially true before and after the performance when they were both in their roles.
They always used to have a few drinks to wind down after the show. But on the night before what was to be his last appearance, Pindick could not find her, and he started to panic. He had been in the communal dressing room backstage, removing his greasepaint and his costume, and she was not at the pool-deck bar where they usually met. He waited until closing time, but she did not come.
He went down to the beach because, on a hot night, the Dwarf Queen liked to swim in the ocean under the moonlight. He feared that, a little under the influence and easy prey for the seductive tides, she might have been swept away by the backwash.
There was nothing but empty paddleboats and beach chairs with no cushions, and all the umbrellas were folded. He heard the sound of the wind and the breakers. The smell of salt was in the air. He was the only one on the sand. He stared into the black waves.
He checked their room on the ground floor. Their bed had not been touched. Everything was neat and sterile. The soft pastel colors and the utilitarian fixtures of the hotel room made it feel like an infirmary, but for the vivid textiles of their theatrical costumes and property. Her half-finished drink was still on the table among her make-up vials and powders, but the ice had melted.
He looked all through the resort. No-one seemed to know where she was. He was filled with a sense of foreboding.
It was almost four a.m. when, without even knowing why, he went up the steps and along the open corridor to the Ringmaster’s room.
The door was ajar. Inside, the lamp was glowing and there were muffled sounds.
He tapped on the door. “It’s Pindick.”
“Come in, Pindick,” he heard the Dwarf Queen’s voice. “I’m in here.”
He was relieved that he had found her, and he let the door swing open.
The Dwarf Queen was naked in the bed, her dwarfish body across the big buttery flesh of the Ringmaster.
“You can sit in the corner, and watch us,” she instructed.
“Yes, Pindick,” guffawed the Ringmaster. “Watch me do her.”
The clown stared transfixed and collapsed like a marionette to the floor in the corner, unable to take his eyes off the bed. He could not understand why the Dwarf Queen would allow a bloated bully like the Ringmaster to use her so obscenely, and as if to make matters more hurtful, the Ringmaster was naked in every way, except that he was wearing Pindick’s bright red nose.
“How many times has wormboy witnessed you with a real man?” the Ringmaster asked the Dwarf Queen.
“Actually, you are the first,” she told him.
“Oh, what an honor,” he said sarcastically, as if they were all on stage doing the routine.
Pindick watched them at it and tried to see himself from the outside, like he did when he was under the spotlight with his trousers around his feet. The Ringmaster grunted out some taunts, but they became so absorbed in what they were doing together, that they did not seem to notice him in the corner anymore.
The foreigner was too big to lie across her small child-like body, so she rode him astride; and then he got behind her with the Dwarf Queen on all fours on top of the sheets. She moaned with passion as he thrust into her. The clown curled up into the corner, with his legs to his chest, and his eyes covered, but he could not stop himself from peeking through his fingers.
They finished—for the moment—and then they half-turned their attention back to him.
He got to his feet, sliding up the wall. “I’m going back to the room.”
“I said to watch us,” the Dwarf Queen repeated, because she never liked to be defied.
“I don’t want to watch.” He stumbled to the doorway. “I said I’m going back to the room.”
“I will deal with you later.” she said sharply.
He went out, and not quite realizing his strength, he slammed the door.
In their room, he could not sleep. It was not the same without her in the bed. They always slept topsy-turvy, like an endless circle. They were restless sleepers and found they would disturb each other less through the night if they lay head to feet. He rested on her side of the bed, his head on her soft pillow with a trace of her scent. He knew that she’d had too much to drink, but he was hollow and confused.
As day was breaking, the four walls of the room closed in like a painted cage, and he could not catch his breath. Outside, he found a hammock between palm trees where the resort met the beach. He could hear the sound of the waves lapping at the shore, and the hammock swayed gently.
He lay in the curve of the hammock, like a fish in a net, and dozed off as the breeze rustled the palm fronds. But he kept waking to the same picture in his mind of the Dwarf Queen and the Ringmaster. He memorized all the words that he would say to her when they saw each other.
After a few hours, he rolled off the hammock and went to look for her in their room again. She was not there, although now, he knew where he could locate her. He did not want to disturb her. He guessed that she was probably trying to sleep it off.
He had no appetite, but he realized that, with little sleep, he should at least try to have some food. She had drummed into him how to take good care of himself.
Lined up at the lunch buffet, where the performers were eating among the guests, he encountered the Ringmaster. In baggy flannel pants and a loose shirt to hide his paunch, and with a plate of sardines perched on his fingertips, the foreigner did not seem so intimidating.
“Mister Pindick.” The Ringmaster took him to one side. “I wanted to apologize to you…”
“No, no, no. There is no apology necessary. The Dwarf Queen can do whatever she wants to…”
“You know, Mister Pindick,” the Ringmaster said earnestly. “We all have such great respect for you. We really like you.”
“I couldn’t give a damn what you think of me,” the clown said fiercely.
The Ringmaster did not flinch. “I just wanted you to know that.”
“Look, just give me a wide berth today,” warned Pindick. “Just stay out of my way.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be ready for the show tonight; but keep out of my face until we get on stage.” He caught a fishy whiff of the sardines and suddenly felt queasy.
“I’m going to make you eat fire,” the Ringmaster said politely. “If that’s all right?”
Pindick nodded.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” the Ringmaster assured him. “There is no air in the human mouth, and it is full of moisture, so the flame will die instantly.”
“I know how to do the trick,” Pindick
said. “You won’t hurt me.”
The Ringmaster set down his plate on a table, put out his broad palm, and beamed. He held it out until Pindick shook his hand. Then the burly man wrapped his other arm around Pindick in a sweaty hug.
“Thank you, Mister Pindick,” he said, with a little bow.
“Thank you,” said Pindick. “You handled it just fine.”
At around five p.m., as he approached their room from the rear across the lawn, he saw her silhouette through the bathroom window. She was in the shower, and the soapy water was so scalding that the steam fogged the glass. Even though he had practiced their conversation in his head all day, he did not know what he would say to her. He waited on the grassy walkway another thirty minutes before he went through the door.
For once, she did not seem to know what to say either. They both mumbled hellos, but they could not make eye contact. This was the time of day when they would usually start to prepare for the evening performance. He would fetch their drinks from the bar. She would do her own make-up first, sitting on a stool in front of the mirror, while he waited mutely on the mat. He would try to concentrate on his role and lay out her wardrobe on the bed. Then, she would get him into makeup and his costume; and, lastly, she would apply the nose. By the time they left for the theater, they would be in character.
But she showed no signs of beginning the preparations.
“Look,” he broke the silence at last, “I don’t think I can do the act tonight…”
She glared at him. “You will do the act.”
“My head is not in the right space. I am not going to be able…”
“Are we going to have a problem?” she tried not to raise her voice.
“I don’t want to have a problem. We have had enough problems. I just don’t want to go on…”
Dark Carnival (A Horror Anthology) Page 21