Grogo the Goblin

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  But on a more basic level, none of this mattered. The barker was attempting to seduce the crowd into a willing suspension of disbelief, and the mood, the atmosphere, and the peculiarity of a freak show itself combined to make the crowd willing to be seduced.

  The New York State Fair had been held in Syracuse every summer for over a century, but by 1968 the event had long since shed its original purpose and had become essentially an enormous flea market. The tractor pulls and livestock exhibitions were still presented, of course, but few of the visitors expressed any interest in them. The large fairground was host to a thousand merchants and a hundred food booths, and only the area designated for the cheap mobile carnivals retained any of the ambience of preindustrial America.

  Most of the rides and attractions in the midway carnival section were owned by amusement companies that made the annual circuit from fair to fair and from church bazaar to church bazaar; but Dr. Miracle's Freak Show was a small operation, working on a shoestring budget, constantly in the red and at the end of its long tether. Dr. Miracle himself—Norman Appleby—was the owner, manager, bookkeeper, paymaster, and at the moment, sideshow barker, and he knew that he was collecting his last fifty-cent admissions, that this would be the last performance. And so also did the few elderly employees who were still with him, who still paraded their useless skills or their personal tragedies before the eyes of the curious, impassive audiences.

  This was the last evening for Dr. Miracle. Appleby was unwilling to continue to dip into his savings to meet the bills, such as the fee for the space he had rented at the fair. No more appearances had been booked because no one seemed interested in the small company of freaks. Ashvarinda Patanjali, known as Maharaja the Rubber Man, would give a public demonstration of yoga positions, his asanas, once more, and then be done with it. Ahmed the Wizard would relive vaudeville for one final performance, and then resume his life as Bernie Sherman and retire to live with his daughter Dawn in Boca Raton. Florence Jackson would remove her Konga makeup and then do God knew what for a living, whatever an uneducated middle-aged black woman could do. And Vernon Sweet, Grogo the Goblin? What about the elderly freak whose childlike mind had come up with the greatest carnival illusion Appleby had ever seen?

  Appleby had plans for Vernon Sweet. He had already negotiated a deal with Emilio Tagliotti, the famous stage and television magician. All he needed was Sweet's signature on an agency contract, and he could start collecting a percentage of the take when Sweet joined Tagliotti's act. Ten, maybe fifteen percent?

  Nah. Twenty, twenty-five. Why not? Without me, where would Sweet end up going? Into some mental home someplace?

  "Don't delay, ladies and gentlemen." Appleby urged, "you may never again have the chance to witness the wonders awaiting withinnnnn. . . ." A few people approached the rickety podium behind which Appleby was standing and began to pay the admission fee. "Thank you, thank you, right through there, thank you . . ."

  Two and a half . . . four . . . six and a half . . . seven and a half . . . be surprised if we took in in fifty bucks for the whole goddamn day, Appleby thought dismally. And me owing the Fair Commission fifteen hundred! He could pay the debt with no problem. He just did not want to, and he certainly had no intention of incurring any further debts trying to keep the tired old freak show alive.

  Appleby was a large man in every sense of the word. His stomach was large, his mouth was large, his dreams were large. The only thing about him that was small was the level of his achievement. It had all been so romantic and exciting back in the early 1920's, when he had actually done that about which most little boys only dream: he had run away from home to join the circus. It had been an absolutely delightful existence for so long, he recalled as he continued to usher people through the entrance flaps into the dark and musty interior of the freak tent. An elephant boy until he was fourteen, shoveling a ton of shit and carrying an ocean of water for a dollar a day plus room and board; from fourteen to eighteen, a shill and a barker at the games of chance; and then the high point of his life, his career as a strongman and acrobat with the stage name of Henry Faber.

  God, did I get the girls back then, he mused as the last of the curious onlookers entered the tent and the rest of the crowd outside wandered away toward other midway attractions.

  But the ignorant optimism and profligacy of youth had shifted into the cautious, penny-pinching realism of middle age. Appleby was now in his midfifties, and all his dreams of grandeur and fame had long since faded before the cold realities of life. He was nearly forty before his increasingly tender back and incipiently ar-thritic arms told him that his days as a strong man were numbered. It was then that he began to plan for his future . . . better late than never, he had reasoned . . . by making the move from performer to manager and then to owner. It had taken every cent he could beg and borrow to buy the Dr. Miracle Freak Show from Wayne Kessler, the previous Dr. Miracle, and over the years he had seen profits from his investment. But he knew that the show had had its run, and now it was time to bring down the curtain and fold up the tent.

  Appleby had saved and invested wisely, and he had no fears for his financial future. Hell, he had even paid into Social Security long before he had to. But that was not the point. He would miss this life, miss the traveling and the circus people with whom he had spent his life. Of course, with Tagliotti and Sweet, there would be more money to be made, and that never hurts; but he felt an undercurrent of bitterness and anger nonetheless.

  Typical of my luck, he thought as he closed the tent flaps and walked to the small stage at the rear of the tent, that I invested in the branch of the circus industry which was the first to die. No one is impressed by my mundane horrors anymore, not when they can switch on the TV news and watch people bleeding to death in Vietnam or being attacked by police dogs in Alabama.

  He recalled bitterly the confrontation he had had with a group of college students just two months before. The Konga the Gorilla Girl act was racist, they had told him. It was cultural imperialism for him to degrade the religion of India by presenting the yogi Ashvarinda as a rubber man. And in a socialist system, a handicapped person such as Vernon Sweet would not have to parade his deformity in order to survive. He would be cared for by society.

  Socialism, for Christ's sake! Goddamn kids today. Bunch of spoiled, lazy little brats.

  And they don't buy tickets to freak shows.

  When Appleby now addressed the audience, he spoke in soft, low tones, a stark contrast to the booming voice with which he had urged them to enter the tent. The contrast was intentional and calculated, for the atmosphere within had been designed to be mysterious and mystical. The interior of the large tent was lighted by a few oil lanterns whose flickering flames created shadows that danced upon the dark canvas. The audience sat upon a few rows of wooden benches, and two large cages stood on either side of the small stage, hidden from view by curtains that reached from ceiling to floor. An incense burner sent wisps of aromatic smoke to provide an exotic haze, and from an unseen record player came the tinny twangs of a Ravi Shankar sitar raga. Norman Appleby would not know a raga from a rug; but the music was weird and gave him a headache after a while, so he figured it was good background for the show.

  "And now, ladies and gentlemen," he said with a tense solemnity, "Maharaja the Rubber Man!"

  Ashvarinda Patanjali walked onto the stage as Appleby left it, and proceeded to sit down into the lotus position, placing each foot sole upward upon the opposite knee.

  "Tat Vishnum vareniam," he whispered to himself. "Bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nahk pracodayat. . . ."

  Let my meditation be on the glorious light of Vishnu. .

  May this light illume my mind. . . .

  Ashvarinda was a small, wiry man, but he had a presence about him that made him seem large and strong. His long white hair reached down to his shoulders, and the tip of his thick gray beard almost touched his navel. He moved at times with the quickness of a bird and at other times with the grace of a ga
zelle, with no hint of the slow stiffness so common among people who had lived as long as he. He paid no attention to the audience, for he was not a showman. He was a yogi, and he performed the asanas of hatha yoga for himself alone, not for the crowd that sat gaping at him.

  He had come to America thirty years before, hoping to teach Vedanta and hatha yoga to Americans, but America in the late 1930's had little interest in the arcane mysteries of the East; the Great Depression and the impending world war had been of more immediate importance than achieving samadhi, enlightenment. And so Ashvarinda had survived as best he could, eventually becoming the rubber man in the freak show. Here at least he could devote his time to the physical and mental disciplines that were at the heart of his religious practice without having either to starve to death or beg. Only Buddhist monks beg; Hindu yogis work. And only Jams see virtue in starvation.

  Ashvarinda shifted with methodical grace from asana to asana, with no break in movement and no apparent strain. The simple asanas first, the cobra asana, the plow, the triangle, the salutation to the sun, little more than stretching exercises; and then the more complex asanas, the full spinal twist, the full locust asana, the balancing tortoise, the shooting bow. A few amusing chuckles emerged from the audience by the time he reached the final asana, the dwipada sirasana, as he rested his weight before him on both hands and wrapped both legs behind his head. He then flowed back into the lotus posture. "Om, shanti, shanti, shanti," he whispered, ignoring the sporadic applause, and then departed from the stage.

  As Appleby introduced Konga the Gorilla Girl, who waited in the curtained cage to the right of the stage, Ashvarinda went behind the curtain on the left. Here Vernon Sweet waited quietly in his cage for his part in the performance, the finale of the show.

  "Are you all right, Vernon?" Ashvarinda asked.

  Even in the pitch darkness behind the curtain, Ashvarinda could see Sweet's crooked teeth as he smiled. "Vernon good, Rinda," Sweet replied.

  "Just one more time, Vernon, and then we go home."

  "Go home," Sweet agreed. "Big house."

  "Yes, yes, I know, Vernon," Ashvarinda said. "Your mother's house, your father's house, way off in the woods, far away from here. There we can rest and be left alone."

  "No eat chicken," Sweet said.

  "No," Ashvarinda whispered. "You will not be a geek anymore, Vernon, not after tonight."

  "New friends for Vernon!" Sweet insisted.

  Ashvarinda laughed softly. "Yes, Vernon, we will have many new friends, if we want them. And if we wish to remain alone, apart from other people, we shall be able to do that as well."

  "No mean face?" Sweet asked hopefully for the hundredth time.

  "No, Vernon, no audience. No one to stare at you. No one to make fun of you. No one to laugh at you."

  "Vernon go home!" Sweet chirped. "Rinda go, too!"

  "Yes, Vernon, yes. But now we must prepare for the last time, the very last time." He paused. "Can you see my eyes, Vernon?"

  "Vernon see."

  "Good. Look at my eyes, Vernon, and pray with me." His already soft voice sank even lower. "Hei Bhagawan Vishnu, mercy iss kurum sey koiy bura nutiyja na nikley kyo kiy joh kurna hei vo ho kur hiy ruheyga. . . ." Lord Vishnu, let no bad karma result from this act, for we do what we must. . . .

  The night wore on. Mirrors and flashing lights effected the change of Florence Jackson into Konga the Gorilla Girl, a cheap special effect that elicited a few laughs and not one bit of applause. Bernie Sherman's mentalist act was more of a success, primarily because he was a seasoned comedic performer who joined the audience in not taking himself seriously. He was simply enjoying himself, and his own sense of fun was contagious.

  As Sherman left the small stage, Appleby reentered and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, our last exhibition will shock and disturb many of you. Before we reveal to you the horror which waits behind the curtain—"and he gestured to his left—"we want to give the fainthearted, the very young, and the very old, a chance to leave." Of course, no one left the tent. Appleby's melodramatic warning did nothing but amuse some of the onlookers and irritate others. Appleby waited a few moments and then shrugged. "Well, we've warned you." He paused. "Ladies and gentlemen . . . Grogo the Goblin!"

  The left-hand curtain parted, and an audible intake of breath came from the audience. After Maharaja and Konga they had expected another cheap excuse for a thrill. They had not expected the monstrous deformity that stood before them in the cage.

  Vernon Sweet was clad in a simple white gown, a curious hybrid of a hospital dress and a kaftan, and the simplicity of his clothing was designed to draw as little attention to itself as possible, so better to accentutate his bizarre and twisted body.

  Sweet stood some four and half feet tall, and his diminutive stature seemed all the smaller for the enormous, round, almost bald head that was perched upon his long thin neck. His shoulders sloped downward because he had no collarbones, which made his arms seem to grow directly from his throat and reach down until his hands were even with the knees of his short legs. His spine was bent in the shape of an upside-down question mark, and thick tufts of dark hair grew upon his large, gnarled feet.

  His eyes were small and close together, and his teeth, some of which protruded over his upper lip, were broken, bent, and as yellow as his sallow, wrinkled skin. His mouth was abnormally wide, his nose sharply pointed, his chin nonexistent. Only his hands seemed properly formed, and they were exquisitely beautiful, with thin, delicate, almost artistic fingers; and these fingers now scratched spasmodically at his knees as he looked out at the gaping faces.

  He was absolutely hideous. The audience was delighted.

  Appleby waited for a few moments before continuing to speak. He allowed the eyes of the audience to drink in the living grotesquerie in the cage, watching with some amusement as he read their thoughts in the facial expressions too flabbergasted to be guarded. Is that real . . . ? Is it makeup . . . ? That can't be real. . . . My God, he really looks like that! And so forth.

  Vernon, my boy, Appleby thought, I think I'm gonna see some real money in a few weeks, thanks to you.

  "The most reMARKable circus geek in the world, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "Grogo the Goblin has powers which science itself cannot even begin to understand. Watch him carefully, my friends. You are about to think that your eyes are deceiving you. Stay in your seats, please, during the performance. It's dangerous to get too close to this creature."

  A nervous giggle drifted through the small assembly. The people in the audience were neither unsophisticated nor cruel, and each of them felt embarrassed and just a bit guilty at having gawked so unreservedly at "Grogo the Goblin." None of them would have stared callously at a victim of cerebral palsy or paid admission to see someone whose legs had been lost to diabetes; and yet here they were, paying fifty cents for the privilege of staring at a deformed man.

  Appleby knew how audiences reacted to freaks, and he measured his words accordingly. One minute, no more, for them to realize what they were looking at; and then, before the shocked and perverse fascination changed to disapproval or disgust or worse, back to the show, back to the act, back to the circus world. It's all a show, folks, all a game; and you don't think he really looks like that, do you . . . ?

  "We all know what the geek does, my friends. We all know about the time-honored tradition of people accepting money in exchange for doing outrageously disgusting things. Do any of you here remember the muck jumpers back during the Depression?" A few low laughs were the response. "Yes, indeed, my friends, the muck jumpers, the homeless, unemployed men who, for five lousy cents, would let you watch as they dove into cesspools." A few disgusted groans arose from the audi-ence. "Well, the circus geek is an old member of that unique fraternity. The geek devours live chickens."

  Appleby watched as a few women turned to their companions and whispered urgently. He could hear bits of what they were saying. "I'm not going to sit here and . . . We're going home right now, Harry . . . I thi
nk we should call the police and . . . This is the most sickening . . ."

  And he could hear bits of the men's responses as well. "Karen, it's all an act . . . You don't think he's actually going to . . . Special effects, just special effects . . . I mean, how realistic was that stupid Gorilla Girl bit . . . ?"

  "But Grogo the Goblin," Appleby said loudly, "is, may I say, a unique geek." His booming voice quieted them and focused their attention back on the stage. "This creature is"—and he paused for effect—"a shape-changer!"

  "Right, just like Konga," someone in the audience said in a stage whisper.

  Appleby pretended to ignore the remark and the ensuing laughter, and the pretense was as calculated as everything else he had said so far that evening. By pretending to ignore the comment, and by making it very clear that he was only pretending, he could give the appearance of an irritation he did not feel.

  It was the oldest technique in the sideshow barker's repertoire. Shock them, offend them, then lull them into security and confidence and let them think they've got the upper hand.

  And then clobber them with something incredible and leave them openmouthed.

  "Judge for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen." He turned to the cage. "Maharaja, if you would do the honors?"

  Ashvarinda had ceased whispering to Vernon Sweet, and he now took a small metal cage from the ground behind the large cage in which Sweet was standing. He looked at the chicken in the cage and muttered, "You serve, small life. It is your dharma to die, and your karma to be reborn." As he took the chicken out and pushed it through the bars of the goblin's cage, Appleby went around the tent and lowered the flames of the lanterns. He then moved to the side of the tent farthest from the cage and stood waiting.