by Monte Schulz
He laughed.
Mademoiselle Estralada said, “That’s very nice.”
She poured the absinthe into the first glass, filling about a third of it with a lovely emerald liquid that glimmered in the lamplight.
Chester smiled. “Thanks a million. I tell you, that war was the graft of the century. All I got out of it was a drink habit and some cheap chromos for a souvenir.” He winked. “Don’t worry, honey. I came back clean.”
“Did you kill anyone?” the gypsy asked, pouring an inch less absinthe into the other glass. A sweet scent of licorice filtered into the sweltering closet. Alvin had never seen such pretty liquor in his life. Just looking at the green drink made him thirsty. “Naw, I’m a pacifist. I didn’t hold much for shooting scrapes. I preferred bourbon and dice with my pals in the drinkeries. It was a hell of a lot safer.”
“That’s very sensible.”
Mademoiselle Estralada put a lump of sugar in one of the vented spoons, then took the pale blue decanter, placed the spoon over the fluted glass, and dribbled ice water onto the sugar, gradually dissolving it through the spoon into the emerald absinthe below.
Chester took one last drag off the cigarette butt, and snuffed it out in the silver ashtray. “Say, that reminds me, this beauty pageant you were telling me about, that wouldn’t have been at the Navy Pier, would it? See, I went out to a speakie on the South Side one evening to shake a hoof with a dame from Halstead Street. You know, the sort a fellow wants to slick up for even if he’s just taking her downtown to a ping-pong parlor.”
The gypsy lightly stirred the mixture, her spoon making a pleasant tinkling sound as the swirling green liquid became a cloudy opalescent. Then she gave the glass to Chester. “À votre santé.”
“Thanks.” He sniffed it, and took a sip. “Say, that’s not half bad.”
“It’s sweet, no?”
He took a longer sip and licked his lips. “Yeah, sort of minty.”
“I’m happy you like it.”
“Sure I do.” Chester took a long swig, draining half the glass. “Anyhow, trouble was, this dame’s pop was one of those old-timers who thinks nobody younger than himself’ll ever amount to anything. If a fellow dating his little girl wasn’t rubbing elbows with the well-to-do, he thought she’d laid an egg for letting the fellow pay a call on her in the first place.”
Chester took another drink of absinthe while the gypsy stirred her own glass. “Well, she wasn’t exactly a society dame herself, but when I bought her a fox neckpiece, he acted like I hadn’t done anything more than have her down to a sweetshop for a couple of chocolate drops. Told her I was a missing link! Well, that made me pretty sore, so I fibbed to the cops that his alleydog’d bitten me in the back of the leg and they came and took it to the pound. I tell you, that old goat cried like a dame when he found out.”
Chester finished the glass of absinthe. He studied it briefly, and gave the glass back to Mademoiselle Estralada. “Gee, that was swell. How about another?”
“Certainly.”
Alvin watched the gypsy set her own glass aside and fill Chester’s half up with absinthe. She took another lump of sugar with the vented spoon and slowly dissolved more ice water into the gangster’s glass.
“At any rate,” Chester said, settling back on the divan, “I got nothing to kick about tonight.”
“You seem very happy.”
“Sure I am.”
The dwarf scuttled away from Alvin into the wardrobe of dresses where he covered his face with one of the gypsy’s gowns and sneezed. Then he crawled back to the slot just as Mademoiselle Estralada returned Chester’s glass to him. “Here you are.”
“Thanks.” He drank half of it down in one long gulp and broke a grin afterward. “Gee, that’s refreshing.”
The gypsy sipped her own absinthe, then sat down next to Chester on the puffy divan. A wind gust outside shook the wagon windows. Lamps flickered. She remarked, “Lester says you’re from the Big Town.”
Chester took another drink. “Not lately. I had a run-in last spring with some mental defectives mucking around Lauterbach’s saloon in Cicero. They were pretending to be snoopers in their Sunday blacks while hijacking two dozen barrels of rum a month out of the storehouses in Skaggs grocery trucks. Too bad none of ’em were any too good at it.”
Alvin watched Chester finish off his second glass of absinthe, and wipe his lips with the back of one hand. Madamoiselle Estralada asked, “You were a watchman?”
He shook his head. “Naw, I worked for a messenger service Lauterbach hired to send these sports a notice about how unhappy he was with the job they were doing. After me and some of the boys delivered them a valentine to a garage at North Clark Street, I decided I ought to get away from the liquor traffic for a while, maybe buy a secondhand motor, go see some of the country.”
The gypsy smiled. “What a marvelous idea. Would you care for another drink?”
Chester gave her the empty glass. His eyes had drooped a fair amount since entering the painted wagon, his speech deteriorated to a mild slur. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Mademoiselle Estralada filled his fluted glass more than half full with absinthe. Once again she performed her ritual with the sugar lumps and the vented spoon and the dribbling ice water. Alvin began to feel closed in and worried that Chester had a cast-iron stomach and could probably drink arsenate of lead without getting knocked flat. Chester picked up one of her Japanese fans and waved it about. “Say, I thought you were gonna tell my fortune.”
Mademoiselle Estralada stirred the drink. “Would you still like me to?”
She tapped the spoon clean on the rim of the absinthe glass and set it aside. Her painted eyelashes glittered in the kerosene shadows.
“Why sure, it’d be swell.”
The pretty gypsy gave Chester his third glass of absinthe, then sat down again beside him on the divan and took his free hand in her own and gently traced the map of his palm with her fingertips while he drank two-thirds of the sweet liquor. “Let not distrust mar thy happiness.”
Chester kept his eyes on her as he took another drink. He waited for her to speak again. When she didn’t, he frowned. “Is that all? Nothing about me and Sunshine Charlie and a basement full of mazuma? I thought you were a fortune teller. You sure ain’t no Evangeline Adams, honey. Go on, try again, but this time tell me how big my fortune’s going to be.”
He drank the rest of his absinthe and let the fluted glass roll off his fingers onto the divan. In the closet, the dwarf started to whisper something until Alvin hushed him.
Mademoiselle Estralada frowned. “Please don’t scold me. When I was a child, I tamed lions for the circus in Budapest and charmed the king cobra.”
“Sister, I don’t know that I’d hire you to train a flock of seals if you weren’t any better at it than you are at telling a fellow’s fortune.”
Narrowing her eyes, the gypsy took his other hand and rapidly re-traced the lines across his palm. Then she advised, “If thou payest attention to all the departments of thy calling, a fortune awaits thee, greater than any treasure within the country in which thou residest.”
Chester cracked a sloppy grin. “Gee, now that’s more like it, sweetheart. Sounds like I ought to break into the foreign oil game, what do you think?”
The dark-skinned gypsy leaned over and retrieved Chester’s empty glass from the divan, then stood up, her jewelry tinkling in the shadowy boudoir. She told him, “As the seasons vary, so will thy fortune.”
Chester laughed. “Oh yeah? Well, here’s one for you, sweetheart: As long as dandelions bloom, as long as fruit ripens, as long as grain grows, just so long will men drink! Now, go ahead and fill ’er up again. I’m getting thirsty.”
“If you like,” the gypsy replied, taking Chester’s glass back to the bottle of Pernod Fils.
“I sure do.”
Alvin watched Madamoiselle Estralada sip briefly from her own drink, then pour more absinthe from the green bottle into Chester’s glass. Black w
isps of burning kerosene diffused the lamplight throughout the boudoir.
Chester spoke up from the liquor trance he had been lapsing into for the past quarter hour. “What do you say you come over here and we tell each other some smutty stories?”
The gypsy stirred the absinthe into another milky green cloud. She arched an eyebrow. “You wish to be naughty?” The spoon clinked on the inside of Chester’s glass.
“You bet I do.”
Mademoiselle Estralada put down the vented spoon, brought him the glass of absinthe, and kissed him on the cheek. He grabbed her by the elbow and kissed her on the lips.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured as he let go, “you just drain me up.”
The gypsy smiled.
Chester drank half the glass, then burped. “Say, what do you got in this liquor of yours? Gasoline?”
“Elixir of wormwood,” Mademoiselle Estralada replied, “grown in the Val-de-Travers.”
“You don’t say.” Chester drank another gulp, his mouth smeared crimson with the gypsy’s evening lipstick. “Well, it’s got one hell of a wallop, whatever it is.”
“I’m so glad you enjoy it.”
“A good cocktail sure makes the evening go, don’t it?” Chester poured more absinthe down his throat, then stared cockeyed at the gypsy. “How come you ain’t sitting here beside me, honey? Got a tummy ache?”
He giggled like he was daffy.
Mademoiselle Estralada reached behind her to the tea table between the closet door and the divan and drew out a Chinese lily from the cut glass vase.
Chester said, “Make love to me, honey, and I promise I’ll take you to Jelly Roll Morton’s show at the Cotton Club next week. Cross my heart.” He gulped more absinthe and started blinking strangely. “You see if I don’t.”
The gypsy sniffed the delicate lily as she swayed in front of Chester. “Darling, I’m afraid I’m awfully done in tonight.”
Alvin watched Chester drink to the bottom of his fourth glass of absinthe. The gangster groused, “Aw, so that’s how it is, sweetheart, you don’t love me, do you?” His voice had degenerated now to a sad drunkard’s slur.
“Of course, I do, you pretty man. You know I do.”
Chester dropped his empty glass onto the Persian rug in front of the divan. “I’m not a bad sort,” he mumbled. “I tell you, we’ll have packs of fun, won’t we?”
“Sure we will, darling,” Mademoiselle Estralada murmured in a soothing tone as Chester passed out. “Beautiful fun.”
The farm boy and dwarf waited silently behind the hidden closet slot, hardly breathing in the dark. Wind rattled the wagon as they watched Mademoiselle Estralada stroke Chester’s forehead with her fingertips. After a few minutes she quit and whispered something into his ear. Then she turned toward the closet and nodded.
“Let’s go,” the dwarf said, nudging Alvin away from the trapdoor.
“Huh?”
The wagon’s front door opened and Alvin heard a flurry of footsteps. One of the Keystone Kops poked his head through the beaded curtain. He held a cotton cloth and a red rubber clown nose, which he handed wordlessly to the gypsy. The farm boy watched bug-eyed as Mademoiselle Estralada went back to the divan and stuffed the fat clown nose into Chester’s mouth and tied a fierce gag around the back of his head with the cotton cloth. Both Kaiser Wilhelm and another Keystone Kop slipped into the boudoir.
“Are they going to kill him?” Alvin whispered to the dwarf who had already dropped down through the trap door.
“Oh, heavens no! That would be murder. Hurry up!”
The farm boy heard the circus midgets dragging something into the gypsy’s boudoir, then the dwarf tugged on his ankle and Alvin wriggled his way back down out of the closet and dropped onto his knees in the sawdust beneath the painted wagon. As he crawled out into the cold wind, the farm boy told the dwarf, “When he sees what we done to him, he’ll shoot us all in the head.”
“No, he won’t.”
Across the showgrounds, the shrill music of the grand calliope, Seraphonium, piped into the night air with the noise of the gleeful crowds. By the front stairs, Emperor Nero and Chief Crazy Horse and Merlin and Sir Lancelot and Billy the Kid had gathered with more Keystone Kops, all bearing grave expressions. A wild animal cage had been rolled up next to the gypsy’s wagon, its iron door swung open.
The dwarf took Alvin by the arm. “Come on now, we have to leave.”
A chill ran through the farm boy, fear needling his spine. He said, “I tell you, this is all a lot of nonsense. He’ll kill us for sure.”
“Let’s go.”
They left the painted wagon to head off in the direction of the noisy midway. Nearby, a great cheer went up as someone rang the big steel gong atop the Strongman Pole. After Alvin’s confinement in the dark closet, the glittering lights of Laswell’s Circus Giganticus seemed wildly incandescent, a dazzling barrage of electric merriment. The farm boy’s head swam, his legs tingled, as he chased the dwarf past the Palace of Mirrors and Laswell’s shivery Hall of Freaks toward the whirling Ferris Wheel where lovely little Josephine sat waiting for them atop an apple crate between the dart throw and the shooting gallery. The hot roseate lights dyed her powdered pompadour a glittery pink like cotton candy and she held a paper fan at her chin to protect her show makeup from the windblown grime of the evening midway. When she saw the dwarf emerging from the crowd by the penny pitch, she shot to her feet with a squeal. The dwarf rushed forward to receive an embrace.
Josephine kissed him on the cheek. “My darling, you were so brave!”
Catching his breath as he came up behind her, the farm boy remarked, “Aw, he ain’t done nothin’ but watch.”
The pretty circus midget smiled. “You were both very brave.”
“Well, I guess that’s so.”
With a solemn voice, the dwarf told Josephine, “This is the beginning of the end.”
She nodded. “Then we ought to be very careful.”
Behind them, the glittering Ferris Wheel stopped briefly to discharge a load of rowdy passengers, mostly young people anxious to rejoin the midway crowds. Perhaps a hundred yards away, just beyond the nickel games and the hootchy-kootchy tent, a big roar went up in the direction of the animal cages. Alvin heard a round of applause amid the buzzing “oohs” and “aahs” of delighted children. The fresh tide of strolling circus-goers along the midway shifted immediately toward the excitement. Even the sideshow talkers and pitchmen paused in mid-spiel, looking somewhat quizzical.
“Let’s all wait here,” Josephine advised, her hand on the dwarf.
He shook his head. “No, dear. My friend and I must see this through to its conclusion, but perhaps you should stay. It’ll certainly be perilous.”
“What’re you cooking up now?” Alvin asked as he watched a pack of panting schoolboys rush up the circus midway toward the commotion. His own head was buzzing with fever and excitement.
“You and I have one last duty to perform,” replied the dwarf. “I’m afraid it’s unavoidable.”
“If I stay here,” Josephine asked, “will you promise to come back safely?”
“You have my word.”
“Then I won’t go. Please be careful, darling.”
She leaned forward and kissed the dwarf and hugged him tightly. Once they broke apart, the dwarf turned to the farm boy. “We mustn’t be cowards.”
“I ain’t saying nothing till you feed me the dope on where we’re going.”
“This way,” the dwarf said, directing Alvin into the weltering crowds up the midway, which resembled a street parade of circus-goers and roughnecks and curious tent performers in silken capes and silver spangles. Half the distance to the furor, a bearded albino magician stood high on a gilded stool, casting white doves into the night sky. Here and there, somersaulting clowns zigzagged toward the hubbub. Farther ahead, the farm boy saw a mob of people jamming together near the Topsy-Turvy House. The dwarf cut a path closer yet until he and the farm boy drew at last within sight of t
he ballyhoo—a hulking caged gorilla hauled out from the menagerie onto the crowded midway for all to see. Atop the iron cage, a sign read:
CONGO THE GREAT! FEROCIOUS MAN-EATING BEAST FROM DARKEST AFRICA!!!
A gang of boys had already encircled the exhibit, banging on the bars and taunting the creature with sticks. No trainer showed his face. The burly gorilla lolled in one squalid corner of the wild animal cage, heedless of the clamor. People shouted filthy curses and hurled garbage. Arriving from the Big Top, the Dixie Jubilee Minstrels played a stirring “Invictus” to exuberant cheers. Then Alvin saw a boy with a hefty firecracker light it with a safety match and toss the firecracker into the cage beside the gorilla. When it exploded with an ear-jarring bang, the monster awoke with a vicious roar, sweeping most of the crowd back from the iron cage. A tall boy carrying a long stout stick jabbed the gorilla from behind. Two deputies from Icaria emerged from the crowd to chase the boy away, but another youth tossed a second burning firecracker at the gorilla. It detonated an instant after hitting the beast, driving the creature into a frenzy. Howling with rage, the huge gorilla threw itself at the bars, side to side, then leaped for the front of the cage whose iron door, when struck by the angry beast, simply swung open to the riotous midway. A red-haired fellow in a plaid tam o’shanter standing next to Alvin and the dwarf fainted dead away as the gorilla climbed down from the iron cage and bellowed at its tormentors. Women screamed. Children ran. The gorilla moved toward those too frightened to escape as a strident voice from the gallery behind the Topsy-Turvy House shouted, “SHOOT HIM! SHOOT HIM!”
Which the deputies certainly did, emptying both their revolvers into the crazed beast from a dozen feet away, firing and firing and firing, until the gorilla toppled over backward.
When the echo of gunshots had fled across the dark, a strange hush permeated the midway.
Not a soul moved.
Only the colored flags and banners flapping in the cold wind over the Big Top disturbed the quiet.