by Anne McAneny
“As most of you may know, you’ve just witnessed the return of the world-renowned Forenza and Galasso families, the cherished circus performers who once upon a time visited Beulah with regularity . . . until twelve years ago, of course.”
He waited for the sad sighs of the audience to die down.
“Twelve years ago, the Forenza and Galasso families came into receipt of a little boy. Not so little, actually. He was fifteen, but slight, not yet endowed with muscles or a single hair on his fair face. His hands were atremble, his voice shaky, and his very soul battered to within an inch of existence.” He stepped to the front edge of the stage. “For he’d witnessed the unspeakable.”
He conveyed the intensity of the message through his eyes and voice, letting the audience absorb the significance with a long and heavy pause. Then he spun on his heel and began to pace as he spoke.
“Unspeakable but true. Always true. And that boy, with a small voice and a great passion, convinced the powerful families to forego their plans to travel to Beulah. In fact, he persuaded them never to return again.”
The audience gasped.
“Until he asked them to, of course.” Rafe paused and seemed to make eye contact with every member of the audience. “‘Why?’ you might ask. And that, my friends, is the story you will experience, body and soul, in this very tent tonight, for tonight marks the first time this story will ever be told. A story starring Beulah—Beulah the wonderful and Beulah the terrible. Your ears will feast upon the tale, but ears are only one way to receive a story. Thanks to that slight but clever boy, through the magic of lights and mirrors and lasers—and even a principle known as destructive interference—you shall feast all of your senses—your entire being—upon the story of how the Forenza-Galasso Circus came—no more!—to Beulah, South Carolina.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you a tale I like to call . . . Ouroboros!”
In a single instant, Rafe disappeared from the stage as if vaporized, and an entirely new scene took his place. The stage was no longer a stage, the limits of the tent completely gone. The setting became Beulah, the audience its citizens. The stage had seemingly transformed into a road, a swamp, tall grasses, trees, and animals, all in full-color 3-D, and the audience was no longer watching. We were there. Almost before the story had begun to unfold, I—and everyone in the theater—heard Mrs. LeGrange gasp and cry out, “Macy!” as if the girl herself had appeared on stage because, of course, she had.
#
Macy rode her bike along Old Pleasant Road, her face lit with hope, wonder, and a sense of disbelief. She looked like she wanted to burst out laughing, but instead, kept shaking her head. Something too good to be believed had grabbed hold of my old friend. Her right foot, adorned with a holed sneaker, pressed her bike pedal to a stop. The well-worn tires made a slight skidding noise as she stopped near the edge of Black Swamp.
“Hey, Hoop, you hunting again?” Macy’s voice was spot-on, sending icy chills through my core. I couldn’t imagine what the experience was doing to Mrs. LeGrange.
Suddenly, a bright-haired boy of slight but promising build came into view. It was Hoop. He strode up the small hill from the bank of Black Swamp to meet Macy. His bare feet and calves were wet, and he held a fishing pole in his hand. Behind him, his three-speed Schwinn bike lay carelessly on the ground. Like a loyal horse, it seemed to wait eagerly for its master to return so it could perform its duties.
“Hey there, Macy,” said Hoop’s childhood voice, sending my heart into spasms. “Now correct me if I’m wrong, but today is birthday eve.”
Macy smiled, and the entirety of the scene lit up with her. “It sure is.”
“And you’ve set the whole night aside for me, right?”
“From eight o’clock on, until 1 a.m. anyway. Got special permission from Momma.”
A whimper from the front row.
Hoop smiled, not lecherously, but gratefully, like the young gentleman he’d always been. Then he bowed, swirling a hand from chest to hip. “I’ll pick you up promptly at eight, m’lady, at your front door.”
Macy imitated the hand-swirling gesture. “I look forward to your arrival, m’lord.” And then she giggled in such a way that it was difficult to keep from giggling with her.
“If I may be so bold as to inquire,” Hoop said, keeping up the pretentious voice, “where are you off to on this fine morning? You have a certain degree of delight upon your countenance.”
“Well, of that, you can be sure,” Macy said, returning to her regular voice. “I’m on my way to Boyd’s. I turned on the radio this morning and caught the second half of the Power Pot numbers.” She grinned hard and fast, lifting brows slightly darker than her hair. “You won’t believe it, Hoop, but three of my numbers matched.”
Hoop nodded and smiled as he patted her arm. “All right, that’s awesome.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say? It’s sixteen million dollars, Hoop! Sixteen million. And I’m getting a piece of it!”
“Yep, I know.”
Macy frowned. “It’s just that, well, you don’t seem real excited.”
“Sixteen million’s nice and all, Macy, but it ain’t nothing compared to what I plan to acquire.”
“Acquire? Does that mean something other than earn?”
“Earn, acquire, finagle. All the same to me. And sure, it’d be nice if you acquire your own sixteen million, or even a few thousand, but my goal is to make your millions look like chump change.”
“Well, good luck with that, and I’ll be sure not to forget about you while I roll around in my paltry millions, or thousands, or whatever.”
“Kind of hard to forget someone you’re stuck with.”
“That how you think of it now?” Macy said with a grin. “That you’ll be stuck with me when I turn fifteen?”
“Nah, more like stuck together, in a good way, like icing and cake.”
She chuckled. “That sounds better.”
Hoop pointed a thumb at the swamp. “I’d better get back to it.” And with that, he spun around to return to the water while Macy pressed on her pedal to continue toward Boyd’s.
“See you tonight!” she shouted.
We the audience were suddenly plunged into darkness again, even more deeply than before. If someone in the tent had torn off their clothes and danced right in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to see it. The blackness felt treacherous, and remained so until the next scene came alive with a single sound: the soft swish of a bike tire with minimal tread skidding to a stop on loose gravel.
The scene brightened to reveal the sun cresting over the ugly, rectangular shape of Boyd’s General Store before most of the additions had been added. Macy hopped off her bike and leaned it against the store window, too excited to bring it all the way to the bike rack. She hesitated only a second as she glanced at the sheriff’s car in the lot. Finally, she shrugged to herself, pressed her lips together, and entered the store.
As the scene faded, it offered just enough light for me to glimpse Quail in the front row, his shoulders at full mast and his mouth tense as he swallowed with dread expectation. Meanwhile, Adeline DeVore, two seats down, appeared all but frozen as we entered the next scene.
Inside Boyd’s General, Macy bounded to the register, giving a quick wave to a younger but stressed-out version of Sheriff Strike Ryker. He was searching for something in the pharmaceutical aisle, looking confused. On the far side of the store, Grace Elbee squeezed loaves of bread and assessed their freshness with a cynical eye, as if convinced that Boyd planned to cheat her no matter which loaf she selected. Her face wore its permanently pinched expression while her free hand clutched her purse to her chest.
“Mornin’, Mrs. Elbee,” Macy called out.
Mrs. Elbee turned and replied with a cross between a smile and a grimace.
Macy approached the register where Boyd was tapping his foot and applying price stickers to small pieces of candy. “Hey there, Boyd,” Macy said, “you’re no
t gonna believe this, but I need to check those lottery numbers. I think that ticket my momma bought might be a winner.” She winked at him ever so subtly.
Boyd showed as much interest in Macy’s good fortune as a cow would in a passing car.
Through the magic of Rafe’s custom-created special effects, I felt like an invisible but paralyzed customer inside the store, and I had to assume that everyone else in the audience felt the same way. It was frustrating, at least to me, because I wasn’t free to march over and shake Macy, to tell her that no matter what happened in the next minute, she must keep quiet about it.
Boyd opened the register and pulled out a sheet of paper just as the bell above the door rang out. In walked Quail the Whale. He shouted out a greeting to the sheriff, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t want to acknowledge Mrs. Elbee because they did not exchange hellos. Quail stood in place, surveying the store, presumably deciding which he wanted to tackle first: the donut bin or the coffee machine. Before he’d made up his mind, the door almost bumped him in the butt. He took a surprisingly light step out of the way and turned to ogle a pair of big breasts in a tight, red sweater.
“Well, if it isn’t Beulah’s own Adeline DeVore,” he said, licking his lips.
Adeline looked less than thrilled to see him. “Good morning, Richie.”
“You looking for work, Adeline? Because I’ve got an opening at my office. Sure could use a fine-looking secretary with a brain between her ears, and I hear you do some fine work with your brain.”
“I am looking for a new job,” she said, “but I aim to be something much more than a secretary.”
“Well, excuse me all to pieces.” Quail laughed and glanced around for someone to join him in his revelry; he came up empty. “Tell you what,” he continued to Adeline who was headed for the coffee station, “if your high and mighty expectations don’t work out, you come knock on my door.” He winked in a lecherous way. “Richie Quail is always open for business.”
Adeline shot him a repugnant glare, turned away, and filled her cup.
Richie took a good long look at her backside and could be heard saying, “Mmm, mmm, mmm.”
Over by the register, Boyd handed Macy the card containing the list of winning numbers.
“Oh my God!” Macy shouted. “I won! I won! Holy Moly, I won!” She jumped up and down with excitement, clutching her ticket in one hand and the slip of paper in the other. Every few seconds, she’d jump and spin, and then she’d compare the numbers again before yelping out and starting the cycle all over again.
“What in the world?” Richie Quail said as he noticed Macy for the first time and made his way over to the register.
Mrs. Elbee approached, too, from the other side, one stilted step at a time, as if the whole scenario might be a trick to get her to buy the wrong loaf of bread.
“Here, Boyd, you check,” Macy said, thrusting the ticket and slip of paper toward him. “I think it’s a match for all six but I’m so excited, I can hardly see.” Boyd took the items. “I won, didn’t I, Boyd? Didn’t I? No, it can’t be. It must be a mistake. You sure you gave me the right numbers?”
Boyd struggled to concentrate.
“Let me see that,” Quail grumbled. He reached across the counter and grabbed the ticket and card right from Boyd’s hand. “I’ll tell you what’s going on.” He glared down at Macy. “Hey, ain’t you the little girl who was supposed to bring me my money? I been waiting on that rent, you know.” He leaned down and got right in her face. “Thought we had us a talk about payroll. And let me tell you what”—he shook the lottery ticket at her—“if you did win anything with this here ticket, it’s going right in my pocket. Overdue rent plus interest.” He stood all the way up and pulled his head back, holding the ticket a fair distance from his face. “Now let’s have a look-see what’s happening here.”
Boyd squirmed behind the counter, trying to work up some gumption. “Mr. Quail, I—”
But Quail thrust a hand out to shush Boyd. “Hold on there, Boyd. Just hold on.” Then he stuffed his ham hock of a hand into his pocket and pulled out reading glasses. They looked minuscule on his face as he compared the numbers. “Well, I’ll be a goat-stuffed snake,” he said, leaning forward on the counter and holding up the card. “Boyd, this here for the Power Pot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You telling me these are the winning numbers and this little girl has matched all six?”
“Not sure,” Boyd said. “You grabbed it ’fore I had a chance to check.”
“I won, didn’t I, Mr. Quail?” Macy shouted. “God is smiling on me today! Hot diggity dog! This is going to change everything. Everything!”
A crashing noise rang out from the front row. Lights came on inside the tent but only where they were precisely needed. I couldn’t see everything but I instinctively knew that Melanie LeGrange had dead-on fainted to the floor and kicked her chair on the way down. Before anyone in the audience could react, three medics hovered over her, followed by two armed men in suits. Within thirty seconds, the medics whisked Mrs. LeGrange away on a stretcher and out of sight, seeming to know their way in the darkness. Richie Quail then stood up and faced the audience. He’d no sooner opened his yapper to protest than the two suited men forced him back into his seat. One of them took Melanie LeGrange’s vacant seat while the other took Sheriff Ryker’s. It happened in a swift and intimidating manner, but so quickly that most of the audience couldn’t possibly know what had just transpired. I imagined that the men flanking Quail were each pressing a gun barrel into his side to elicit his continued cooperation.
The darkness blanketed the audience again, so completely that I’d swear I could feel its unyielding pressure against my body. I thrust my hand in front of my face but couldn’t make out a single finger. Even in the swamp, I’d never experienced such visual deprivation. It persisted longer than expected, and I heard people take out their cell phones for illumination.
Still no light.
I pulled out my own phone. It didn’t work. People’s murmurs began morphing into fear as they realized it wasn’t just their phone, but everyone’s. A panic swept through the audience, yet nobody moved. Rafe must somehow have blocked all cellular signals, but what about the units themselves? Why wouldn’t they even turn on? Then I recalled that we’d all passed through a steel barrier on the way in. It had been decorated to the hilt, but had it also deactivated everyone’s batteries? Or maybe the cell waves were overloaded with hitchhiking evil spirits unafraid of amulets. I grew panicked. Were we safe? Who were the men guarding Quail? Had Rafe gone mad? Suddenly, I felt a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I turned to see who it was but my eyes were met with pure shadow.
Moments later, lights rose up. There was no one around to have touched my shoulder. Fighting a chill, I faced forward and was immediately lurched back into the scene at Boyd’s. We the audience, in the form of our collective, impotent presence, were now seeing things from the perspective of a customer at the coffee station. Macy stood near the register, the sheriff behind her, Quail clutching the ticket at her side, while Boyd fidgeted behind the counter. Mrs. Elbee and Adeline DeVore completed the intimidating circle around my old friend.
“May I have my ticket back, Mr. Quail?” Macy spoke as if there were no doubt that Mr. Quail would hand back the ticket and wish her joyful congratulations. But instead, Quail’s fingers tightened and a contorted smile formed on his face.
“Give her the ticket, Richie,” Sheriff Ryker said, his voice and eyes weary but certain.
“Of course, of course.” But even as Quail said the words, he didn’t hand back the ticket. “Now, I’m just noticing that your ticket isn’t signed, little lady.”
“Momma hasn’t had a chance yet,” Macy said.
“Ah, yes,” Quail said. “My old friend, Melanie. Funny, but when I stopped by that tattoo parlor the other day, the owner told me he’d never even met your momma.”
Macy bit down on her lower lip, smiling all the while. “That oppor
tunity didn’t quite work out the way Momma and I had hoped. But don’t worry, Mr. Quail, we got the money now. We can pay our rent and the rent of every person in Beulah!”
“That so? Well, you must know it’s downright dangerous for you to be carrying this ticket around willy-nilly. Without a signature and all.”
“She can handle it, Richie,” the sheriff said, stepping up close to Quail. “Give her back her ticket.”
“Calm down now, Strike. I’m just looking out for the girl’s welfare.”
Macy, suddenly and without warning, reached up and snatched the ticket from Quail’s hand. “Thanks, Mr. Quail, but something tells me I’m gonna be able to look after my own welfare from here on out.”
Both Adeline DeVore and Mrs. Elbee were ogling Macy and the ticket with undisguised envy. Adeline looked pissed, with a stiffened jaw and narrowed eyes, while Mrs. Elbee kept licking her dry lips and blinking compulsively.
“Congratulations, Macy,” the sheriff said, leaning down and smiling. “You want a ride home?”
“No thanks, Sheriff. I got my bike.”
“Now, Macy,” Quail said, “I’m not kidding. You gotta be careful. Who have you told about your winning ticket so far?”
Macy hesitated only a second. “Nobody, Mr. Quail. Just found out myself.”
“You sure now?”
“Positive.”
Quail then tilted his head and let his shoulders drop. “Surely your Momma must know, though. She bought the ticket, didn’t she?”
Macy and Boyd exchanged a quick glance and that was all Quail needed. His nasty smile transfigured into something vile.
“She just doesn’t know it’s a winner, yet,” Macy said. “I’d best get home and tell her.” She then swiftly extricated herself from the tightening ring of envious neighbors surrounding her. “She’s waiting on me at the kitchen table this very moment,” she yelled back to them. “And thanks, Boyd! I’m pretty sure you’ll make some money off this, too.”