In the carnival the pinheads and the roustabouts, the barkers and their shills, the dancers and fireaters and snake-men and ride mechanics, the layout and advance men, had something in common which transcended color and sex and racial and age differences. They were carny, all of them, interested in gathering their tips and turning them—which is carnivalese for collecting a crowd and persuading it to file past the ticket-taker—for this, and for this alone, they worked. And Horty was a part of it.
Horty’s voice was a part of Zena’s in their act, which followed Bets and Bertha, another sister team with a total poundage in the seven hundreds. Billed as The Little Sisters, Zena and Kiddo came on with a hilarious burlesque of the preceding act, and then faded to one of their own, a clever song-and-dance routine which ended in a bewildering vocal—a harmonizing yodel. Kiddo’s voice was clear and true, and blended like keys on an organ with Zena’s full contralto. They also worked in the Kiddie’s Village, a miniature town with its own fire station, city hall, and restaurants, all child-size; adults not admitted. Kiddo served weak tea and cookies to the round-eyed, freckle-faced moppets at the country fairs, and felt part of their wonder and part of their belief in this magic town. Part of… part of… it was a deep-down, thrilling theme to everything that Kiddo did; Kiddo was part of Horty, and Horty was part of the world, for the first time in his life.
Their forty trucks wound among the Rockies and filed out along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, snorted into the Ottawa Fairgrounds and blended themselves into the Fort Worth Exposition. Once, when he was ten, Horty helped the giant Bets bring her child into the world, and thought nothing of it, since it was so much a part of the expected-unexpected of being a carny. Once a pinhead, a happy, brainless dwarf who sat gurgling and chuckling with joy in a corner of the freak show, died in Horty’s arms after drinking lye, and the scar in Horty’s memory of that frightening scarlet mouth and the pained and puzzled eyes—that scar was a part of Kiddo, who was Horty, who was part of the world.
And the second thing was Zena, who was hands for him, eyes for him, a brain for him until he got into the swing of things, until he learned to be, with utter naturalness, a girl midget. It was Zena who made him belong, and his starved ego soaked it up. She read to him, dozens of books, dozens of kinds of books, in that deep, expressive voice which quite automatically took the parts of all the characters in a story. She led him, with her guitar and her phonograph records, into music. Nothing he learned changed him; but nothing he learned was forgotten. For Horty-Kiddo had eidetic memory.
Havana used to say it was a pity about that hand. Zena and Kiddo wore black gloves in their act, which seemed a little odd; and besides, it would have been nice if they both played guitar. But of course that was out of the question. Sometimes Havana used to remark to Bunny, at night, that Zena was going to wear her fingers plumb off if she played all day on the bally-platform and all night to amuse Horty; for the guitar would cry and ring for hours after they bedded down. Bunny would say sleepily that Zena knew what she was doing—which was, of course, perfectly true.
She knew what she was doing when she had Huddie thrown out of the carnival. That was bad, for a while. She violated the carny’s code to do it, and she was carny through and through. It wasn’t easy, especially because there was no harm in Huddie. He was a roustabout, with a broad back and a wide, tender mouth. He idolized Zena, and was happy to include Kiddo in his inarticulate devotion. He brought them cookies and cheap little scatter-pins from the towns, and squatted out of sight against the base of their bally-platform to listen raptly while they rehearsed.
He came to the trailer to say goodbye when he was fired. He had shaved, and his store suit didn’t fit very well. He stood on the step holding a battered straw “keyster” and chewed hard on some half-formed words that he couldn’t quite force out. “I got fired,” he said finally.
Zena touched his face. “Did—did the Maneater tell you why?”
Huddie shook his head. “He jus’ called me in and handed me my time. I ain’t done nothin’, Zee. I—I didn’ say nothin’ t’ him, though. Way he looked, he like to kill me. I—I jus’ wish…” He blinked, set down his suitcase, and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Here,” he said. He reached into his breast pocket, thrust a small package at Zena, turned and ran.
Horty, sitting on his bunk and listening wide-eyed, said, “Aw… Zee, what’s he done? He’s such a nice feller!”
Zena closed the door. She looked at the package. It was wrapped in gilt gift paper and had a red ribbon with a multiple, stringy bow. Huddie’s big hands must have spent an hour over it. Zena slipped the ribbon off. Inside was a chiffon kerchief, gaudy and cheap and just the bright present that Huddie would choose after hours of careful searching.
Horty suddenly realized that Zena was crying. “What’s the matter?”
She sat beside him and took his hands. “I went and told the Maneater that Huddie was—was bothering me. That’s why he was fired.”
“But—Huddie never did anything to you! Nothing bad.”
“I know,” Zena whispered. “Oh, I know. I lied. Huddie had to go—right away.”
Horty stared at her. “I don’t understand about that, Zee.”
“I’m going to explain it to you,” she said carefully. “It’s going to hurt, Horty, but maybe that’ll prevent something else happening that will hurt much more. Listen. You always remember everything. You were talking to Huddie yesterday, remember?”
“Oh, yes. I was watching him and Jemmy and Ole and Stinker drive stakes. I love to watch ’em. They stand around in a circle with their big heavy sledgehammers and each one taps easy—plip, plip, plip, plip—and then each one swings the hammer right over their head and hits with all their might—blap, blap, blap, blap!—so fast! An’ that ol’ stake, it jus’ melts into the ground!” He stopped, his eyes shining, hearing and seeing the machine-gun rhythm of the sledge crew with all the detail of his sound-camera mind.
“Yes, dear,” said Zena patiently. “And what did you say to Huddie?”
“I went to feel the top of the stake inside the iron band, where it was all splintery. I said, ‘my, it’s all mashed!’ And Huddie, he said, ‘Jus’ think how mashed your hand’d be iff’n you lef’ it there while we-uns drove it.’ And I laughed at him an’ said, ‘It wouldn’t bother me for long, Huddie. It would grow back again.’ That’s all, Zee.”
“None of the others heard?”
“No. They were starting the next stake.”
“All right, Horty. Huddie had to go because you said that to him.”
“But—but he thought it was a joke! He just laughed… what did I do, Zee?”
“Horty sweetheart, I told you that you must never say the slightest, tiniest word to anyone about your hand, or about anything growing back after it gets cut off, or anything at all like that. You’ve got to wear a glove on your left hand day and night, and never do a thing with—”
“—with my three new fingers?”
She clapped a hand over his mouth. “Never talk about it,” she hissed, “to anyone but me. No one must know. Here.” She rose and tossed the dazzling kerchief on his lap. “Keep this. Look at it and think about it and—and leave me alone for a while. Huddie was—I… I can’t like you very much for a little while, Horty. I’m sorry.”
She turned away from him and went out, leaving him shocked and hurt and deeply ashamed. And when, very late that night, she came to his bed and slid her warm, small arms around him and told him it was all right now, he needn’t cry any more, he was so happy he could not speak. He burrowed his face into her shoulder and trembled, and he made a promise—a deep promise, to himself, not to her, that he would always, always do as she said. They never spoke of Huddie again.
Sights and smells were treasures; he treasured the books they read together—fantasies like The Worm Ouroborus and The Sword in the Stone and The Wind in the Willows; strange, quizzical, deeply human books, each the only one of its kind, like Green Mansions, Bradbury’s Mart
ian Chronicles, Capek’s War with the Newts, and The Innocent Voyage.
Music was a treasure—laughing music like the Polka from the “Isle of Gold” and the cacaphonous ingenuities of Spike Jones and Red Ingalls; the rich romanticism of Crosby, singing “Adeste Fideles” or “Skylark” as if each were his only favorite, and Tchaikovsky’s azure sonorities; and the architects, Franck building with feathers, flowers and faith, Bach with agate and chrome.
But the things Horty treasured most were the drowsy conversations in the dark, sometimes on a silent fairgrounds after hours, sometimes bumping along a moonwashed road.
“Horty—” (She was the only one who called him Horty. No one else heard her do it. It was like a private pet-name.)
“Mmm?”
“Can’t you sleep?”
“Thinkin’…”
“Thinking about your childhood sweetheart?”
“How’d you know? Uh—don’t kid me, Zee.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, honey.”
Horty said into the darkness, “Kay was the only one who ever said anything nice to me, Zee. The only one. It wasn’t only that night I ran away. Sometimes in school she’d just smile, that’s all. I—I used to wait for it. You’re laughing at me.”
“No, Kiddo, I’m not. You’re so sweet.”
“Well,” he said defensively, “I like to think about her sometimes.”
He did think about Kay Hallowell, and often; for this was the third thing, the light with a shadow. The shadow was Armand Bluett. He could not think of Kay without thinking of Armand, though he tried not to. But sometimes the cold wet eyes of a tattered mongrel in some farmyard, or the precise, heralding sound of a key in a Yale lock, would bring Armand and Armand’s flat sarcasm and Armand’s hard and ready hands right into the room with him. Zena knew of this, which is why she always laughed at him when he mentioned Kay…
He learned so much in those somnolent talks. About the Maneater, for example. “How’d he ever get to be a carny, Zee?”
“I can’t say exactly. Sometimes I think he hates carny. He seems to despise the people who come in, and I guess he’s in the business mostly because it’s the only way he can keep his—” She fell silent.
“What, Zee?”
She was quiet until he spoke again. “He has some people he—thinks a lot of,” she explained at length. “Solum. Gogol, the Fish Boy. Little Pennie was one of them.” Little Pennie was the pinhead who had drunk lye. “A few others. And some of the animals. The two-legged cat, and the Cyclops. He—likes to be near them. He kept some of them before he got into show business. But it must have cost a lot. This way, he can make money out of them.”
“Why does he like them, ’specially?”
She turned restlessly. “He’s the same kind they are,” she breathed. Then, “Horty, don’t ever show him your hand!”
One night in Wisconsin something woke Horty.
Come here.
It wasn’t a sound. It wasn’t in words. It was a call. There was a cruel quality to it. Horty lay still.
Come here, come here. Come! Come!
Horty sat up. He heard the prairie wind, and the crickets.
Come! This time it was different. There was a coruscating blaze of anger in it. It was controlled and directive, and had in it a twinge of the pleasure of an Armand Bluett in catching a boy in an inarguable wrong. Horty swung out of bed and stood up, gasping.
“Horty? Horty—what is it?” Zena, naked, came sliding out of the dim whiteness of her sheets like the dream of a seal in surf.
“I’m supposed to—go,” he said with difficulty.
“What is it?” she whispered tensely. “Like a voice inside you?”
He nodded. The furious command struck him again, and he twisted his face.
“Don’t go,” Zena whispered. “You hear me, Horty? Don’t you move.” She spun into a robe. “You get back into bed. Hold on tight; whatever you do, don’t leave this trailer. The—it will stop. I promise you it will stop quickly.” She pressed him back to his bunk. “Don’t you go, now, no matter what happens.”
Blinded, stunned by this urgent, painful pressure, he sank back on the bunk. The call flared again within him; he started up. “Zee—” But she was gone. He stood up, his head in his hands, and then remembered the furious urgency of her orders, and sat down again.
It came again and was—incomplete. Interrupted.
He sat quite still and felt for it with his mind, timidly, as if he were tonguing a sensitive tooth. It was gone. Exhausted, he fell back and went to sleep.
In the morning Zena was back. He had not heard her come in. When he asked her where she had been, she gave him a curious look and said, “Out.” So he did not ask her anything more. But at breakfast with Bunny and Havana, she suddenly gripped his arm, taking advantage of a moment when the others had left the table to stove and toaster. “Horty! If you ever get a call like that again, wake me. Wake me right away, you hear?” She was so fierce he was frightened; he had only time to nod before the others came back. He never forgot it. And after that, there were not many times when he woke her and she slipped out, wordlessly, to come back hours later; for when he realized the calls were not for him, he no longer felt them.
The seasons passed and the carnival grew. The Maneater was still everywhere in it, flogging the roustabouts and the animal men, the daredevils and the drivers, with his weapon—his contempt, which he carried about openly like a naked sword.
The carnival grew—larger. Bunny and Havana grew—older, and so did Zena, in subtle ways. But Horty did not grow at all.
He—she—was a fixture now, with a clear soprano voice and black gloves. He passed with the Maneater, who withheld his contempt in saying “Good Morning”—a high favor—and who had little else to say. But Horty-Kiddo was loved by the rest, in the earnest, slap-dash way peculiar to carnies.
The show was a flat-car rig now, with press-agents and sky-sweeping searchlights, a dance pavilion and complicated, epicyclic rides. A national magazine had run a long picture story on the outfit, with emphasis on its “Strange People” (“Freak Show” being an unpopular phrase.) There was a press office now, and there were managers, and annual re-bookings from big organizations. There were public-address systems for the bally-platforms, and newer—not new, but newer—trailers for the personnel.
The Maneater had long since abandoned his mind-reading act, and, increasingly, was a presence only to those working on the lot. In the magazine stories, he was a “partner,” if mentioned at all. He was seldom interviewed and never photographed. He spent his working hours with his staff, and stalking about the grounds, and his free time with his books and his rolling laboratory and his “Strange People.” There were stories of his being found in the dark hours of the morning, standing in the breathing blackness with his hands behind him and his gaunt shoulders stooped, staring at Gogol in his tank, or peering over the two-headed snake or the hairless rabbit. Watchmen and animal men had learned to keep away from him at such times; they withdrew silently, shaking their heads, and left him alone.
“Thank you, Zena.” The Maneater’s tone was courtly, mellow.
Zena smiled tiredly, closed the door of the trailer against the blackness outside. She crossed to the chrome and plastic-web chair by his desk and curled up with her robe tucked over her toes. “I’ve had enough sleep,” she said.
He poured wine—shimmering Moselle. “An odd hour for it,” he offered, “but I know you like it.”
She took the glass and set it on the corner of the desk. She waited. She had learned to wait.
“I found some new ones today,” said the Maneater. He opened a heavy mahogany box and lifted a velvet tray out of it. “Mostly young ones.”
“That’s good,” said Zena.
“It is and it isn’t,” said Monetre irascibly. “They’re easier to handle—but they can’t do as much. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”
“So do I,” said Zena.
She thought his eyes moved to her and
away in their deep sockets, but she couldn’t be sure. He said, “Look at these.”
She took the tray on her lap. There were eight crystals lying on the velvet, gleaming dully. They had been freshly cleaned of the layer of dust, like dried mud, that always covered them when they were found—the layer that made them look like clods, like stones. They were not quite translucent, yet the nucleus could be seen by one who knew just what internal hovering shadow to look for.
Zena picked one up and held it to the light. Monetae grunted, and she met his gaze.
“I was wondering which one you would pick up first,” he said. “That one’s very alive.” He took it from her and stared at it, narrowing his eyes. The bolt of hatred he aimed at it made Zena whimper. “Please don’t…”
“Sorry… but it screams so,” he said softly, and put it back with the others. “If I could only understand how they think,” he said. “I can hurt them. I can direct them. But I can’t talk to them. But some day I’ll find out…”
“Of course,” said Zena, watching his face. Was he going to have another of his furies? He was due for one…
He slumped into his chair, put his clasped hands between his knees and stretched. She could hear his shoulders crackle. “They dream,” he said, his organ voice dwindling to an intense whisper. “That’s as close to describing them as I’ve come yet. They dream.”
Zena waited.
“But their dreams live in our world—in our kind of reality. Their dreams are not thoughts and shadows, pictures and sounds like ours. They dream in flesh and sap, wood and bone and blood. And sometimes their dreams aren’t finished, and so I have a cat with two legs, and a hairless squirrel, and Gogol, who should be a man, but who has no arms, no sweat glands, no brain. They’re not finished… they all lack formic acid and niacin, among other things. But—they’re alive.”
Dreaming Jewels Page 5