The School of Beauty and Charm

by Melanie Sumner

  When the curtain went down, we shuffled along the fence to the Tunnel of Love, which I had helped patch together with tinfoil, red lightbulbs, and pinups. The marks loved it. They laughed at the recording of Jungle Jim’s voice saying things like “Darling, I can’t live without you, but I want to try” and “Honey, please don’t leave me with the bills!” We’d rigged up a heart-shaped button that kids could push to hear “Violets are red, roses are blue, you’re mine, and that’s a lie, too!”

  Stepping out of the tunnel, we ran smack into Eva’s web. From the shadows, Arthur emerged smoking a pipe.

  “Spidora,” he said gravely. “Born Eva Pisano, in the small village of Positana, Italy. Mother Nature plays her tricks; no one knows why. Here a child is born with two heads, or an elephant ear, or perhaps a tail. Perhaps our creator has some lesson to teach us, a lesson in tenderness, compassion, and mercy. A lesson from the Almighty. Shall we throw it away?”

  “His dad was a preacher,” whispered Zane. “Baptized the entire state of Mississippi—two or three times.”

  “That’s what the people of Positana did with Baby Eva. They threw the three-legged child into a Dumpster.”

  Arthur sighed. His pipe smoke filled the room, and we all squinted to get a better look into the nine-foot web. Spidora, lit by a black light, wore a short black dress, black-lace gloves, and three black stockings fastened to garter belts. She swayed above us. Onstage, she wore a black wig plaited into tiny braids, which somehow gave the impression that she had more than three legs. If anyone leaned against the fence, she smacked her lips dangerously.

  “In the Dumpster,” Arthur said sadly, “behind the KFC in Positana, Italy. She was eleven months old, surviving on chicken bones.” He shook his head and drew on his pipe while we stared at Spidora and imagined her as a baby in a Dumpster. “Yes, friends, in Positana, a picturesque Italian village built on ancient cliffs spiraling up from the sea . . . can you hear Homer’s sirens singing from the Isle dei Galli? Listen . . .” Off cue, Spidora spit a long rice noodle from her mouth. “Positana could tolerate a KFC, but not a deformed child. And this is what we call progress.” Eva waved her third leg.

  “No honey, that ain’t real,” a mother whispered to son as we were leaving. “That’s rubber.” The child, however, did not believe his mother and continued to whimper.

  Behind them, a stranger tried to help. “Third leg! That was just too fake for me. Believe me, if a person was to have another leg, it wouldn’t go there.”

  “Well, where would it go?” demanded his wife.

  “Well, it wouldn’t go there. On the other side, maybe. Or on the back. That’s where I’d put it, right in the back.” The child cried more loudly.

  “That rubber snake killed me,” someone said. “Did you see the stamp, made in korea? That just killed me.” Several people agreed that they had seen the stamp on Percy’s belly. “I can’t believe I paid ten dollars to see that piece of junk. They git ya, don’t they?”

  In staging the ten-in-one, Arthur had anticipated the marks’ disillusionment at precisely this point. Pretending to open a curtain by mistake, Arthur swiftly unveiled Lollibells. Decked out in bows and polka dots, Warren sat in a dunking cage on a springboard over a tub of water. For just fifty cents, anyone could buy three balls and hurl them at him.

  “Hey you!” he called out to a large man. “Fat guy. Porker. No, not you. The other bubble butt. The one with the ugly girlfriend. Yoo-hoo! Can’t catch me.”

  Quarters clanked; the balls began to fly. Lollibells splashed into the water and came up grinning. “Hell of a way to make a living, ain’t it,” I said, rapping on his cage, but he didn’t hear me.

  In a few minutes, Arthur ushered us through a tent flap into some makeshift stands placed in front of a mattress ringed with chicken wire. Red, white, and blue crepe paper streamed from the ceiling, and a large sign announced DAISY AND SPENCER, THE BOXING CHIMPS.

  “Ah,” cried Zane. “The monkey smell! I love it! This is the best act in the ten-in-one!”

  “Except for yours,” I said.

  Shrugging, he blushed beneath his Instant Tan. Backstage, Tic Toc slapped in a tape of jungle sounds. Arthur paced in front of the empty ring with his hands clasped behind his back, inexpertly followed by a green light.

  “The esteemed physicist Stephen Hawking said, ‘We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.’” He rubbed his goatee and faced the audience. Lecturer, the carnies called him. “I don’t know if I understand the universe or not, but I do know that although it may be hard for the average man to believe he has descended from an ape, it’s even harder for the ape to believe.”

  “Here comes the Bible lesson,” whispered Zane. A couple of toucans squawked over the drum beats, which were increasing in tempo.

  “Did we come from these hairy beasts? Did we once swing from branch to branch, picking each other’s fleas as a sign of affection? Did we, too, sometimes brutally attack our mates?”

  Behind me, a woman rose and answered him. “No sir, we did not! We come from Adam and Eve and they was made in the image of the Lord! The Bible says it. Genesis 1:26. And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’ That means monkeys!”

  “Ma’am, you are absolutely correct,” said Arthur Reese, nodding at her. “Thank you. Now let us pose another question—”

  “Jesus weren’t no monkey, I know that much,” interrupted the woman.

  No one volunteered to go in the ring.

  “Let me ask you one question,” the woman said, standing up. She wore pale-blue slacks and a pink-striped shirt that outlined her drooping bosom. A series of bad perms had turned her hair into hay; blue eye shadow swept glamorously toward her ears. Her face was red with excitement. “You tell me,” she called out to all of us, “if God is a monkey, then how could He write the Bible? You answer me that.”

  Beside her, a lumpy teenage girl in thick glasses hunched her shoulders and dropped her head.

  “Anybody here go to church?” challenged the woman.

  “Mother!” hissed the teenager. “Sit down.”

  “You hush. I just asked a question.”

  “Second Pentecostal,” said a skinny man with a pocked face.

  “That don’t count, honey. Anybody here go to the Baptist church?”

  “Don’t count for what?” cried the skinny man, but just then Arthur motioned backstage, and the music rose to a level that drowned out every voice but his own.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen!” he called out. “Meet two very special members of the Arthur Reese Traveling Show.” As he bowed, he made a wide sweep with his arm; bashfully, the two chimps stepped out from behind the curtain and climbed into the ring. Daisy wore her yellow sundress with matching ruffled underwear and curtsied for her admirers. Spencer, butt-naked except for a bow tie similar to Arthur’s, bowed. The audience clapped, and several women cooed.

  “These two pygmy chimpanzees, brother and sister, came from south of the Congo.”

  “Ain’t he cute,” said a huge man beside me. When Daisy and Spencer wrapped their arms around each other and began to dance to “Feels So Good,” the audience buzzed with admiration. Every child in the crowd asked his mother for a chimpanzee.

  After the dance, Jungle Jim hopped over the chickenwire and instigated a comedy routine. Hooting and squealing, Daisy and Spencer chased him around the mattress. They did flips and somersaults, and Daisy did a headstand on Spencer’s shoulders, proudly showing us her ruffled panties. Spencer yawned, exposing his enormous yellow teeth, then scratched his ass. We were all laughing, even Zane, who had seen this show hundreds of times. When Arthur asked if anyone wanted to box with Spencer, he received a round of giggles and snorts.

 
“For a mere five dollars, Ladies and Gentlemen, you are welcome to challenge our chimp. If you can stay in the ring for five minutes, I will give you one hundred dollars.” He pulled a wad of money from his vest pocket and flipped through the crisp green bills.

  Spencer raised a hairy arm to show us his skinny muscle.

  The Pentecostal stood up. “I’ll go a round with the little fellow,” he said with a kindly smile on his face, as if he were about to play with a toddler.

  “I must warn you, sir,” said Arthur, pocketing the five. “Our hairy little brother is a champion boxer. He may inflict pain; he will certainly leave bruises.” With a mocking grin, the challenger signed a waiver. Then he removed his cap and did a boxing step, winking at Spencer. “Your glasses, sir,” said Arthur, holding out his hand.

  “I gotta see my target, don’t I?” protested the man, but he was laughing. “For all I know, this fellow gets real quick in the ring.”

  Everything happened so fast that afterward I perceived it as a single instant—a scream and a whorl of blood. Zane, who had set his watch, told me the fight lasted one minute and three seconds. First, Jungle Jim hauled Daisy out of the ring, pretending to be jealous when she blew kisses over her shoulder. Then he straightened Spencer’s bow tie, gave him a whack on the butt, and led him to his corner. The challenger, grinning sheepishly, went into another corner. When Jim was out of the ring, Arthur blew a whistle. In a flash, Spencer was on the man’s chest, giving him rapid blows to the head. Blood spurted, a fountain of blood. When the man screamed “Oh, God, please make him stop!” Arthur blew a second whistle, and Spencer wandered away from his victim and began to pick his teeth. Jim switched tapes and slid the man away on a gurney to the tune “Dog and Butterfly.”

  “Do we have another challenger?” asked Arthur.

  I elbowed Zane. “Not on your life, sweetheart. And you’re not going up there, either. Do you know what that waiver says? In case of injury or death. The lawyer cut accidental.”

  Beside me, the big man was heaving himself out of the stands.

  He walked toward the ring with his jeans sliding down his hips. Numerous cans of Skoal had worn a ring in his rear pocket. His belly was the size of a watermelon, and when he raised his arm in anticipated victory, his hairy white flesh gleamed under the lights. His face bore the expression of a bulldog. With fondness and embarrassment, I thought of T. C. Curtis.

  “Ed Larkin,” he said, shaking Arthur’s hand.

  “No need to crush my bones, Mr. Larkin,” said Arthur, recovering his hand. I can see that you are a strong man. How tall are you, if I may ask?”

  “Six three and a half, last time I measured. Weight, 296.”

  “Very impressive. Your opponent, Spencer of the Congo, is three feet two inches tall and weighs 55 pounds. Do you really think this is a fair match?”

  Larkin shrugged. “You all set it up. I get a hundred bucks right here if I stay in the ring five minutes, right? I don’t want no check in the mail.”

  Arthur patted his vest pocket. “It’s right here, waiting for you. And if you stay in the ring for six minutes, I’ll double it. Two hundred dollars.”

  “Let me at ‘em.”

  Spencer took an immediate dislike to Ed Larkin. He circled him in the ring, baring his teeth and spitting. His hair stood straight up. When Larkin took a swing, Spencer lifted him up and threw him over the chickenwire.

  “I ain’t outa the ring!” screamed the man, jumping back on the mat, and that is when the real beating began. With my hands over my eyes, I heard bones breaking.

  “Holy shit,” said Zane. “Where’s Jim? Holy shit.”

  When I looked again, Spencer had ripped off the man’s shirt and was scratching his back, leaving long red stripes on the flesh. Blood bubbled out of Larkin’s mouth as he cried out, “Mercy!”

  Zane looked at his watch. “Two and a half minutes—counting the time he was thrown over the wire.” Another gurney appeared. Daisy climbed into the ring, put a towel around Spencer’s neck, and then handed him a banana.

  Beside me, a woman in a pink seersucker pantsuit sighed and said, “And he paid five dollars for that.”

  Suddenly, the teenage girl who had been glowering beside her mother stood up and made her way to the ring. She wore a T-shirt that said I LOVE NEW YORK and a friendship bracelet on her thick wrist. When Arthur took her glasses off, he had to help her find her way into the ring.

  “I’m not going to tell you how much I weigh,” she told Arthur in a serious voice.

  “I would never ask a lady such a question.”

  In the stands, her mother was going nuts. “Linda!” she called. “Linda you get back up here right now before I have to come get you. You hear me? I won’t have this. I will not. Young lady, I am counting to ten!”

  Linda sighed. When Arthur whispered something in her ear, she scowled and turned reluctantly to her audience. “I love you, Mother,” she said sullenly.

  “Don’t you smart off to me,” said her mother, making her way through the bleachers with her pocketbook in hand. “Mister, if you put my girl in there with that animal I’m gonna call the police. You all hear that? I’m gonna call the police!” The crowd gave appreciative murmurs.

  Before anyone could stop her, Linda had hauled herself over the chickenwire and stood in the middle of the mattress facing the killer chimp. In his corner, Spencer crossed his arms over his chest, watching her closely. She was a big girl, with thick dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail on top of her head. Her jeans looked painfully tight, and the i love new york T-shirt stretched over her ballooning chest. Without her glasses, her face seemed sleepy and naked. She just stood there.

  Cautiously, Spencer approached on all fours. He examined her tennis shoes and untied one lace. Then he tried to look up her pant leg. Jumping up, he circled her, pulled lightly on her ponytail, grinned, and did it again. She held out her hand.

  I shut my eyes. Would he bite off her fingers? I didn’t hear a sound. When I opened my eyes, he was on his knees, kissing Linda’s hand. The rubes went wild. Linda’s mother, who had been restrained by the side of the ring, wept.

  “Five minutes,” called Arthur, but Linda stayed one minute more and made two hundred dollars.

  The Boxing Chimps were followed by the Most Beautiful Teenager in America, starring Sunny, who turned into a gorilla at the end of the act. Even with Tic Toc furiously working smoke and mirrors backstage, the appearance of Jim in a gorilla suit timed to coincide with the disappearance of Sunny in a bathing suit was not convincing. Then there was the snake. It was a rubber snake, the kind sold in bins at discount stores: kelly green on top and white on the belly, with a long red forked tongue striking between two flimsy fangs. Sunny was terrified of it. She wore the toy around her neck, stroking it only when someone backstage hissed out an order. Then she shuddered.

  As Tic Toc dimmed the lights to a rosy pink, Arthur announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen! I present Sunny Boudreaux! The Most Beautiful Teenager in America!” Scowling, Sunny slouched forward in a beige bikini that sagged over her flat bottom. The rubber snake hung around her neck like a towel. Tic Toc had snuck in his favorite Jimmy Buffet song, and now Sunny was obliged to dance to “Why Don’t We Get Drunk.” She stroked the snake once, twice, and then gave her hips a lethargic wiggle.

  “Her act sucks,” I told Zane, who was watching her closely. “It’s fake.”

  “People need a break from reality, especially after watching the Boxing Chimps. That was real blood. Real pain. Arthur is a genius at manipulating the marks’ emotions. They need this. You’ll see.” He added, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but she’s very sexy.”

  “She’s tacky,” I said hotly.

  “People like tacky. You’ve probably spent your whole life trying to develop good taste. You think all the tackiness you see in the world is evidence of your progress in refinement. You refuse to believe that people hang air fresheners shaped like Christmas trees from their rearview mirrors because that makes
them happy. Oh no, they do that because they have poor taste.”

  “You’re calling me middle class.”

  “A wild guess. You went to prep school, but no one’s ever heard of it. Your family belongs to a country club that calls the toilet a powder room and can’t afford a doorman. Middle class is in the damn middle. Middle of the road. Do you know what’s in the middle of the road?”

  He looked at me, eyes blazing. “Roadkill,” he said.

  “Your tan looks fake. It’s orange.”

  “Is this a fight? Are you starting a fight, Louise?”

  “You bought her a bra,” I said, my eyes smarting with tears. “And panties.”

  “Oh, fuck! Fuck me! I knew you were going to do this. I just knew it.”

  As the music played on, Sunny’s indolence became sultry and hypnotic. The corners of her wide mouth turned down, and as she stroked the snake, her lackluster eyes took on a faraway glaze. Zane watched as she stroked the snake.

  “Do what? What does roadkill do? We sit and rot, right? We stink. That’s what I’m doing, I’m—”

  “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t put that the right way. I just meant that people are different. You need to be open to that.”

  “Shut up.” I was crying, so I covered my face with one hand, but I kept the fingers slightly spread to see Sunny. She had the snake’s head between her boobs now and had closed her eyes. As she swayed back and forth, her stringy hair fell into her face, and her bathing suit bottom sagged further down her hips. The snake slipped down to her belly, and then around one white thigh. Zane was all over it.

  I kept telling myself, It’s okay. She’s going to turn into a gorilla. She will go away. I waited. Finally, Tic Toc crossed the lights, sent up some smoke, and after some noisy fumbling on the dark stage, showed us that yes indeed, the Most Beautiful Teenager in America had turned into a big ugly gorilla.

  I turned to Zane, ready to make up, but he had disappeared.

  “WHAT IS NORMAL?” Arthur asked when he gathered us before the sign zane wilder, the human dragon. I glanced at the table to make sure I’d set it up right. “Most of what you’ve seen in our show tonight requires that you change the way you ordinarily think about the world. What you are about to see will challenge your most basic assumptions about the human body. I will do my best to prepare you for the startling revelations to come.”