Carnival

by William W. Johnstone

  “If it had been the town’s fault, there would have been lawsuits. I never heard of any.”

  “Who was left to sue? Besides, dad told me the insurance company paid off the wives and kids of those killed and that was that. As far as I know. I read about it once, over at the newspaper offices, but all those accounts are gone. Destroyed by someone.”

  “Now why would anybody do that?”

  He shrugged his muscular shoulders. “I don’t know. To cover guilt, to bury the past, to kill the memory.” He had not told his wife about his hallucination that afternoon, or of his visit to Dr. Tressalt. He sipped his martini and asked, “Where are the kids?”

  “Linda’s over at Jeanne’s, with Susan Tressalt. Spending the night. Mark has a date.”

  “I thought he and what’s-her-name had broken up?”

  “Betty. Yes, they did. He’s out with Amy.”

  “Ah! Who’s Amy? Never mind. He flits around so much I can’t keep up with him.”

  Friday evening. Most other kids and many of their parents would be all hyped up for The Big Game that night. But Holland didn’t have a football team or basketball team; hadn’t had either in years. The distances the teams would have had to travel were just too great and the school board wisely felt that money would better be served on education. But Holland did have a place for the young to congregate on weekend nights: a huge old warehouse that had been converted to a teen center. They could dance, play pool or ping-pong, have parties, or just sit and talk. And it was only loosely supervised by adults. The kids themselves kept order, and since its inception, the young people had done, for the most part, a damn good job of it.

  Martin glanced at his watch. “What’s for dinner?”

  Alicia smiled sweetly and smugly.

  “Oh, no! I forgot.”

  “That time again,” she reminded him.

  Martin drained his glass and headed to the bar for a refill. He took note of his wife’s disapproving look and set the glass on the bar, returning empty-handed to his chair.

  Been a lot of disapproving looks lately, he thought.

  On the third Friday of each month, a half dozen couples, all approximately the same age, gathered at a home for dinner and gossip. The women enjoyed it, the men professed to hate it. But they really didn’t.

  “Where are we suffering tonight?” Martin asked.

  “Eddie and Joyce’s. But cheer up: next month it’s here.”

  * * *

  “What’s goin’ down tonight?” Jeanne tossed out the question.

  Susan shrugged and Linda said, “I don’t want to go to the center, that’s for sure.”

  The three girls all had that sun-tanned and wind-fresh healthy look of typical country girls. Susan grinned and Jeanne said, “What’s the matter? You afraid that Robie might be there?”

  “Not afraid.” And she wasn’t. Like her father, Linda was self-assured and resourceful, and had a lot of raw nerve. “But I sure don’t want to see him. He makes me sick. He wants Suzanne, he can damn sure have her.”

  “I always thought you and Robie had an agreement?” Susan said.

  “Yeah, so did I. You should have seen the expression on his face when I punched open the console and found those panties in there. And they sure weren’t mine. My butt is not that big.”

  The girls laughed, Jeanne asking, “Did you really hang them over his head?”

  “I sure did. Then I got out of the car and walked home.”

  “You tell your folks?”

  “Mother. She thought it was disgusting. But she’s been weird lately.” No one commented on that. They all knew what was going on. The grapevine of the young. “I didn’t tell daddy ’cause he never was thrilled about me seeing Robie. Thought he was a wise ass. I guess he was right.”

  Neither Susan nor Jeanne said: I told you so. But they both wanted to.

  Jeanne rolled off the bed and dangled keys in front of her friends. “I got daddy’s truck. Come on. Let’s ride.”

  * * *

  Robie Grant stood in front of the teen center with several of his friends, including the unspoken leader of Holland’s answer to a gang, Karl Steele. All had agreed that it was boring as shit inside. Ping-pong. Who wants to play ping-pong?

  The boys were dressed very nearly alike: jeans, boots, cowboy hats, dark shirts. And they all had one thing on the brain.

  Karl Steel vocalized it. “Let’s ride. See if we can chase up some pussy.”

  “Suzanne and Missy said they’d be around tonight,” Hal informed the group, “lookin’ for us. Suzanne’s got her mother’s car.”

  “Let’s roll,” Karl ordered. “Get us a case of long-necks.”

  And the others followed.

  * * *

  Martin looked at the glob of eggplant casserole the hostess had plopped on his plate. Never a picky eater, there were, nevertheless, a few things he disliked to the point of barfing.

  Eggplant casserole was one of them.

  To Martin’s mind, the damn stuff looked like it had unwanted visitors wandering around in it. It was almost as bad as boiled okra—and that looked like snot.

  “I’m telling you, Martin, that is the absolute best food you have ever put in your mouth,” Joyce was assuring him with a smile.

  Martin lifted his eyes from the crawly goop on his plate. He fought to keep from screaming.

  Joyce’s face had changed: mucus ran in greenish-yellow streams from her pig-snout nose, dripping over rotting and hairy and protruding lips. She snorted and oinked and curved back her lips. Her fangs were long and discolored. Her hair was all tangled and ropy and filthy. Fleas jumped about in the mess.

  “Kiss me, Martin,” she grunted.

  Martin recoiled, almost dropping his plate. He blinked his eyes and the apparition was gone. The Joyce he had gone to school with stood before him, frowning, worry-lines creasing her forehead.

  “What’s the matter, Martin? You suddenly went white as a sheet. Alicia!” she called as the room went silent. “Hey, girl, you’d better get over here.”

  But Dr. Tressalt was there first. He sat Martin down in a chair and took his pulse. “Racing like a trip-hammer.” He looked up at Alicia. “You better take him home. I’ll get my bag and be right behind you.” He patted Martin’s arm. “You got a bad bug, my man. You’re probably coming down with the flu. The symptoms are right. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  “I damn sure have something,” Martin agreed, standing up and moving toward the door. But for some reason, as yet unknown to him, he did not think it was the flu.

  As the front door closed behind Martin and Alicia and the doctor, Milt Gilmer said, “Ol’ Martin better lay off the sauce.” He knocked back the rest of his bourbon and water. “End up like his daddy.”

  TWO

  Martin Holland the third got in his truck one day, drove off to the north, and never came back. That was in 1969, while Martin the fourth was doing his thing over in ’Nam. A massive search went on for days, but neither the truck nor the man was ever found. Some theorized that he was kidnapped, with the kidnappers losing their nerve and just killing him. Others felt he was drunk and drove up into the badlands and got lost. Others didn’t really give a damn what happened to him, those types of people being what they are: envious of anyone with more money and material things than they happen to possess.

  Martin number four had been adamant that with the birth of his son, the numbers behind the name would cease. So the boy was named Mark. A year later, Linda came along. Alicia said there would be no more.

  Good kids, most would agree. Never in any trouble, respectful to elders, and both worked for their money—unlike a lot of kids with monied parents—and made A’s in school. And both kids preferred the company of their father over the company of their mother. Which suited both parents just fine.

  Back at the Holland house, with Janet coming over with Gary, Martin leveled with them all about the hallucinations he’d been experiencing. Alicia looked scornful, Janet seemed worrie
d, and Gary did not respond at all.

  The doctor took Martin’s blood pressure, his pulse—which had settled down to normal—looked into his eyes and down his throat. “Everything is normal, Martin. Like I said, I think you’ve got a bug roaming around in your innards, just winding up for the big punch that’ll put you down for a few days. You get some rest tonight and take it easy tomorrow.”

  Martin shook his head. “Gary, I feel just fine! Maybe somebody slipped some acid into my drink this evening?”

  The doctor sat on the ottoman, facing his friend since boyhood. “OK, buddy. Let’s pursue that line. Hey, we’re all out of the sixties, that time of great unrest and social change and experimentation. Did you ever take any LSD at good of’ U of N? Or anywhere else for that matter—like in Vietnam, to name one real good place where nobody would blame you for wanting to get zonked out? I mean, acid, or so I’ve read, can come back on a person.”

  Martin shook his head. “No, I never dabbled in acid. I smoked some pot in college.” He waved his hand. “Hell, we all did—remember? Took some speed. But I never got into psychedelics. By the time I got to ’Nam, I’d been clean for over two years. I never liked grass anyway; all it ever did for me was make me hungry, horny, and sleepy—at the same time.”

  Gary and Janet laughed at that. Alicia did not. That was too crude for her tastes.

  “Gary, I don’t have a fever. I don’t have the sniffles. I don’t have a headache, or sore throat, or any aching in my muscles or joints. It isn’t the flu. And it didn’t start until I saw those carnival trucks begin to roll through town.”

  At that, Janet walked to the wet bar and fixed a pretty good bump of bourbon.

  “What’s with you, love?” her husband asked.

  “Ah, well, here goes—even though you’re probably going to think I’m crazy.”

  He grinned at her. “What else is new?”

  Janet turned, facing the men. “Gary, I’m serious about this.”

  “About what?”

  “Some . . . damnit! Something pulled me to the fairgrounds today!” she blurted.

  Gary stared at her. “Say—what?”

  “Gary, now I told you I’m serious. Don’t make fun of me.” She looked at Alicia for support.

  “Oh . . .” Alicia waved her hand. “All right. It was more something pulling me than it was Janet and Joyce. It was probably just my imagination and when I told them, it became infectious, that’s all.” She seemed anxious to dismiss the whole matter.

  “Could the carnival have brought some sort of virus in here, Gary?” Martin asked.

  “Oh ... maybe. But it would have to be a fast-moving sucker and everybody in that show would have to be infected with it.”

  Martin stared at his wife. “You felt a pull? Would you explain it?”

  “It was like, well, someone had planted subliminal suggestions in my brain. Then all of a sudden, something triggered them. I just could . . . not help myself. I had to go to the fairgrounds.”

  “Weird!” Martin shook his head.

  “It’s bullshit!” Gary muttered, careful that the ladies didn’t hear him say it.

  The phone rang and Alicia stilled it. “Yes? Oh! Yes, he’s here. I’ll tell him. Is the boy all right? Very well, doctor. Surely.” She hung up and looked at Gary. “That was Dr. Rhodes. He was called over to the teen center. Some boy named Harold went into convulsions and then began screaming about monsters coming out of a fire. The doctor would like for you to join him.”

  “That’s odd,” Gary said. “Don made it clear some time back that he doesn’t care for me at all.”

  Martin stood up.

  Gary looked at him. “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “With you.” He lifted a hand, cutting off the doctor’s protests. “Gary, I feel fine. Look, something very odd is happening in this town. And I’m going to find out what it is. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The fairgrounds lay quiet. The carnies would start putting up the equipment in the morning; but for now, they stayed in their trailers and campers—a very few in tents. The mess tent was up and open. But nobody was using it.

  The road manager of the show, Jake Broadmore, and his front man, Slim Rush, stepped out of Jake’s old trailer to stand in the quiet darkness.

  “Our last play-date,” Slim spoke softly and with a slight smile on his lips. He was called Slim because he was five feet, six inches tall and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds.

  Jake smiled his reply.

  “They got the place all fixed up real nice, don’t they, Jake?”

  “Real nice,” Jake agreed.

  “But it don’t look much like I remember it.”

  “They changed it around some. Some rebuilding. Tell the boys there ain’t no big rush in settin’ up. Things don’t crank up for six more days. Next Thursday at noon. Mayor’s supposed to make a speech, then some lady’s gonna sing the national anthem. Same old stuff. But I’ve missed it.”

  “Yeah, me too. We got time, lots of it. We wanna do this right.”

  “Amen, brother.”

  “Almost thirty-four years to the date. I rememer it all well.”

  “Will be exactly thirty-four years come next Thursday night.”

  Both men’s eyes seemed to burn at the memory.

  An extremely tall man walked past them in the night. He was almost eight feet tall. He glanced at the men, nodded his head, and walked on.

  “You lookin’ after Dolly?” Jake called.

  “Don’t I always,” the carnival’s giant man replied, without pausing.

  “Still surly,” Slim muttered.

  “Have you ever knowed him when he wasn’t? Looks after Dolly though. Even though he don’t have to no more.”

  Dolly Darling was the fat lady. Six hundred and fifty pounds of blob. Five feet, five inches tall. Her special-made truck was her home. Tiny the Giant drove the truck. Backed it right up to a special-made stall in Nabo’s Ten-in-One, wheeled Dolly to the tommy-lift, and lowered her. That’s where she sat, from noon to nine at night. Except when she had to go take a crap—which was an event in itself. The potty was also special-made, and was placed right behind a flap just to Dolly’s right and a couple of steps back. Dolly Darling’s place was between Tiny the Giant and the Dog Man.

  The others in Nabo’s Ten-in-One included: Carlson, the world’s most tattooed man, who lay on a bed of spikes. Nuru, the Indian fakir, who stuck needles and pins through his lips and cheeks and arms, and chewed up light bulbs and soft drink bottles. Samson, the strong man, who bent horseshoes and crowbars and who had an I.Q. of about fifty. At the peaks. At the valleys he was a slobbering idiot who was very capable of tearing a normal human being into bloody chunks with nothing but his bare hands. There was Balo, the beautiful young woman who handled snakes, including rattlesnakes and pythons. Lulu, the half man, half woman, with both male and female organs. For a slight extra charge, one could see the Geek, watch him tear the head off living chickens and drink the blood. At the end of the big tent housing the Ten-in-One, was JoJo, the ape man, billed as having been found as a child in the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa—half ape, half man. JoJo was known, in carny lingo, as the main blow-off. Meaning that he could, if he had to, carry the whole show. The blow-off is the most important part of a Ten-in-One. Before the carnival got JoJo, they had only the Dog Man as a human freak.

  Nabo himself ate fire and swallowed swords and neon tubing.

  “I can’t hardly wait,” Slim broke the silence.

  Monroe, the Ten-in-One’s talker, joined them in the night. A circus uses a barker, a carnival uses a talker. It was Monroe’s duty to gather the crowd, usually with a half naked Balo on the platform with him, a fifteen foot snake wrapped around her, the tip, or crowd, gathering, and then Monroe would turn them; in other words, coax the tip into the tent with his line of patter—a talker.

  “It’s begun in town,” Monroe informed them.

  “How wonderful!” Jake rep
lied, excitement in his voice. “We’ve waited so long!”

  * * *

  The Harold boy had settled down by the time Gary and Martin had arrived at the teen center and pushed their way through the kids. Dr. Rhodes knelt by the boy. The boy’s lips and tongue were bloody where he had chewed on them during his convulsions.

  There was a peculiar odor lingering around the boy.

  “Smells like charred wood,” Martin noted.

  “Yes, I noticed.” Dr. Rhodes looked up, “but he has no burns on him that I can find.” He smiled oddly.

  Gary thought it was a hell of a time to be smiling. He knelt down beside the boy. “What did you give him, Don?”

  “Nothing. He was already quiet when I got here.”

  “He was talking crazy,” a teenage girl said. “Some mumbo jumbo language.”

  “But it was a language,” another girl spoke up. “I mean, it had definite word-sounds and obvious meaning.”

  Don Rhodes looked irritated that the kids had brought that up.

  Strange behavior on his part, Gary thought. “It had meaning . . . to whom?” he asked the girl.

  “I don’t know, Doctor. But it was a language. I’ve studied languages for the past four years and intend to become a linguist. It was a language.”

  “Nonsense,” Dr. Rhodes said.

  * * *

  The Harold boy was taken to the town’s clinic and nurses called in. Members of his family agreed to sit with him during the night, and the nurses would call if his condition changed.

  He would be transported to Scottsbluff first thing in the morning.

  Dr. Don Rhodes had walked off without another word.

  “Odd fellow,” Martin commented.

  “More like a horse’s ass would sum it up better,” Gary replied. “But he’s a good doctor,” he grudgingly added.

  “Gary, the boy doesn’t belong to one of those religions that go off the deep end every now and then and start speaking in tongues, does he?”

  “I thought of that and asked his friends. No. Not according to the kids.”

  Gary dropped Martin off at his house. He told Martin to get some rest and if he felt like it, he’d meet him at the club for their regular Saturday morning golf game.