Spondulix: A Romance of Hoboken

by Di Filippo, Paul

  The man nodded his acceptance of Rory’s indecisive declaration. He handed back Rory’s driver’s license and moved on to the next passenger. Rory surreptitiously reached up under his jacket and pulled his sweat-soaked shirt away from his armpits.

  Within the next few minutes he had left behind the country of his birth, a land ruled by a system that seemed intent on killing him for having dared to indulge in one single symbolic antiauthoritarian gesture during his brief moment of fleeting fame.

  In the foreign city he checked into a YMCA. After a brief time spent orienting himself, he changed hopefully into his swim trunks and visited the pool. He essayed a dive or two, but found his heart wasn’t in the activity. The whole ritual seemed pointless. He knew he would not bother with the sport again. Dzubas’s gloomy prediction seemed already fulfilled.

  Rory returned despondently to his room. He lay down atop the thin coverlet on his bed. For the next eighteen months.

  Of course, not continuously. But for much of each day Rory felt hog-tied by the same dull inertia that had strapped him the week after his expulsion from the Olympics. With the spine of his existence removed he felt flaccid as a jellyfish.

  When not vegetating in his room Rory forced himself to walk the city. He spent hours staring out at Lake Ontario, the largest body of water he had ever seen (not counting the Atlantic from ten thousand feet). The lake reminded him of an enormous swimming pool. From time to time he went to a movie, a concert, or a rock show. He patronized every branch of the city library. The same cheap restaurant hosted Rory’s three daily meals, and he enjoyed a first-name familiarity with all the waitresses. (One of the younger women tried to engage him in conversation, but he only mumbled off-putting responses and boosted her tip by fifty cents.) He made no real friends, especially not with any of his fellow expatriates, among whom his shared guilt would flame into prominence. Every month or so he mailed a curt postcard home, without a return address, so as not to implicate his parents in his heinous crime. Once or twice he contemplated phoning, but always decided against placing a call. He could just imagine what his father would say to him, if the elder man even consented to pick up the phone at all.

  Rory gave up shaving and was surprised by the luxuriance of his beard. This novel feature of his own once-familiar body seemed to betoken the sea-change that had overtaken his whole life. Rory felt he hardly knew himself.…

  He had left home with a few thousand dollars, combining personal savings and the check from his father. One day he noticed his money had nearly evaporated.

  Rory panicked. How could he, an illegal alien, expect to get a job? Would he have to formally renounce his citizenship, claim status as a political refugee? Such a permanent step did not appeal to him. This place, however comfortable in its slightly off-kilter way, did not feel like home. Someday he knew he would return to America, although he could not imagine how or when. But in the meantime, he would somehow have to earn a living.

  May of the year 1970 brought alarming news daily from America that only increased Rory’s anxiety. Protests, riots, anarchy, repression, the noise and chaos of a deracinated, decentered nation. Where was any solid refuge, some certainty, a locus of cushioning sanity, however temporary?

  A palimpsest of posters plastered Toronto. Ads for coffee houses, concerts and demonstrations. Random screeds, scrawls and rants. (Imported from Paris, circa 1968, the frequent invocation NEVER WORK! met the eye everywhere. Much later, idly mentioning this to Earl Erlkonig, Rory caused a similar rash of graffiti in contemporary Hoboken, as the new motto of the Beer Nuts replicated itself with spontaneous vigor.)

  One day a new poster appeared, pasted crazily all over town. Bigger than most, about two feet by three, it had been printed in smearily garish colors. Charmingly naive illustrations, drawn in the manner of a prior century, included snarling tigers, trumpeting elephants, rearing horses; tumbling acrobats, spinning trapeze artists, teetering tightrope walkers. The poster proclaimed:

  announcing the imminent and much anticipated arrival of

  Lispenard’s Pantechnicon!!!

  featuring

  the Marvelous Zoetrope Machine!!!

  several Edifying Mise-en-Scènes!!!

  (suitable for viewers from seven to seventy)

  Caged Exotica!!!

  and starring

  Frankie “Third Degree” Burnes, Fire-Eater & Midget!!!

  Mister Jacky Ray, Ductile Enterologist!!!

  Miss Katie Stearn, Aerial Sprite!!!

  and not to neglect

  that equine phenomenon

  NOWHERE ELSE TO BE FOUND

  The Diving Baroness

  UNIQUE WONDER OF SEVEN CONTINENTS!!!

  ~ COME ONE, COME ALL ~

  (the last source of wholesome family entertainment

  in an age rivalling that of sodom & gomorrah)

  Stamped in red ink on a slant across a prearranged blank space at the poster’s bottom, a list of times and places beckoned.

  Something about the nostalgic announcement sparked interest in Rory. Memories of dozens of Iowa fairs surged through him.

  He resolved to attend an evening performance that very night.

  The bus at dusk discharged Rory and dozens of other circus-goers in the suburb of Forest Hill, northwest of the city. There a vacant lot had been transformed into a garish gypsy city. A huge patched tent, its peak easily forty feet tall, dominated the center of the encampment. Scores of wooden game and refreshment booths dotted the acreage around the tent, erected according to no discernible plan. A rickety Ferris wheel in some obvious need of alignment constituted the only mechanical ride. Each booth sprayed a pool of light around itself from the colored lanterns strung from superstructures, leaving the trampled alleyways separating them in partial irregular shadow. Barkers barked, children shrilled, adults laughed. Everyone seemed to be having massive amounts of fun.

  Rory wandered up and down the grassy trails. The bigtop show did not open for an hour yet. On the outskirts of the encampment he encountered the private equipage of the cast and roustabouts. A few empty semis, a herd of Airstream trailers, a car or ten, a horse-caravan, a pickup truck, some empty animal cages on a detached flatbed.…

  “Hey, fella, this area’s not open to the public.”

  Obeying some hazy curiosity, Rory had set foot among the trailers. From behind one emerged the man who had accosted him.

  Of average height, the amazingly thin performer called to mind comparisons with such common objects as broomsticks, beanpoles and spaghetti strands. A long morose face evoked Buster Keaton. The aggressiveness of the man’s bristly mustache failed to compensate for the silliness of his abbreviated tonsure fringing an oblate zone of baldness. He wore spangled tights under a dirty terrycloth bathrobe. A hole in one of his acrobat’s slippers allowed his big toe to protrude. When this man moved, he exhibited a curious fluidity akin to an eel’s, as if his skeleton comprised not conventional bone but merely cartilage.

  “Gee, I’m sorry—”

  The skinny man did not acknowledge Rory’s apology. He frowned and squinted at Rory with bent neck and lowered head, as if convinced that this stranger intended perhaps to burn the carnival to the ground. But the look, meant to be menacing, conjured up only the image of an anorexic catfish.

  Rory shrugged and walked away. After a few yards he turned around. The man was continuing to glare at him. For some reason this justifiable but overdone scrutiny angered Rory and raised thoughts of handing out some kind of comeuppance.

  Once back on the midway, Rory idled around a penny-pitch booth for a few minutes, then circled around to the trailers from a different direction.

  The skinny man crouched in a blot of darkness beneath a lighted window in one of the smaller trailers, peering sneakily inside. Fate had presented Rory with the perfect opportunity for revenge upon this Peeping Tom. But upon further consideration, Rory declined to take advantage of his position, deciding that the lurid affairs of circus performers were none of his business.
He left the man at his spying.

  A line had formed outside the bigtop. Rory joined it. Inside his pocket he held twenty Canadian dollars that represented a sizable portion of his remaining funds. Taking out a dollar entrance fee, Rory tried not to think about what he was going to do when his money ran out.

  The ticket-taker was a young boy who had two stubby flippers in place of arms. Since he sat on a high stool behind a narrow lectern emblazoned with the circus’s name, Rory had to hold his dollar up high so the boy could grip it between two amorphous “fingers.” The money went into a special open purse hung about the boy’s neck. Then, bending his whole trunk forward, the boy unspooled and detached a ticket and handed it to Rory. Not the most convenient transaction, but the cozily freakish absurdity of the interaction seemed entirely in keeping with the atmosphere of Lispenard’s Pantechnicon, an enterprise which Rory had already divined prided itself on a ramshackle and eccentric attitude.

  Lit inside by scattered spotlights in the tent’s upper reaches and by widely spaced bare bulbs strung above head level, the performance space boasted wooden bleachers interrupted by two wide alleys allowing performer entrances and exits. A tightrope bisected the air above the sawdust-strewn floor. Several sturdy laddered poles afforded access to the heights of the tent. A musty dank smell, as of wet fur and moldy canvas mixed, filled Rory’s nostrils.

  Rory took a seat in the very first row of the bleachers, knees against a low encircling barrier. He still didn’t quite know why he had come or what he expected to see, but he intended to get his money’s worth, by gum!

  Gradually the grandstands filled up. Rory waited for someone to sit next to him, but no one did. As a matter of fact, the first three or fours rows of seats all the way around the ring remained vacant, despite crowding in the other tiers. Rory grew more nervous by the minute. Everyone but him seemed to know a secret. What could it possibly be? Weren’t the front rows always the most popular, especially with children? Perhaps any hapless spectators up front would be forced to participate willy-nilly in some foolish skit.…

  As his lonely plight became more and more evident, Rory’s unease changed to stubborn indifference. Since by now any attempt to switch his seat would render him the object of massed attention, he made up his mind to tough it out, come clown or sword-swallower.

  After an appropriate interval of jostling for seats most of the lights dimmed. A lone spotlight materialized, focused on the entrance to the tent. Ragged music erupted. A man appeared and jogged heavily into the center of the ring, tracked by the spot.

  Carrying a riding crop, dressed in a top hat and a tuxedo whose every stitch strained to bursting, the short fat man reminded Rory of no one so much as the Penguin, Batman’s archenemy as portrayed by Burgess Meredith on TV. All the man needed to complete the illusion was a monocle in one eye. Rory half expected him to emit the Penguin’s trademark squawk when he spoke, but his commanding voice turned out to be rumbling baritone.

  “Welcome, welcome, dearest children and honest adults, to Lisepenard’s Pantechnicon! I am Leonard Lispenard, your humble ringmaster. I promise you a show tonight that will leave your hearts as light of woe as the games of chance have left your purses and wallets light of cash!” He paused for, and received, some obligatory mild laughter. “Unlike many of my competitors, we offer nothing smutty or risque, only the astonishing and miraculous feats of men, women and wild beasts, trained to perfection in their various arts! In short, a brief respite for your eyes and souls from everyday cares and concerns. As lagniappe we will all view a short fable by means of the marvelous Zoetrope machine! Spicing the major acts, our jolly clowns will offer gay divertissements! But before we begin, you must meet our cast!”

  A fanfare rolled forth and the parade of performers began. Into the ring they marched, rolled and rode: feathered and jeweled, harnessed and caparisoned, extravagant and demure, brawny and lissome, all smiling and waving, the momentary triumph of paste and tinsel and willing suspension of disbelief over hard-edged mundane reality.

  Rory noticed the skinny man who had irked him taking his part in the march. The effort involved in smiling seemed particularly painful for the lugubrious performer, and his was the only unconvincing visage.

  The troupe filed out, leaving Lispenard behind alone. Roustabouts set up various props while he spoke.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen of all ages, our first act! Andre the Woodsman, Master of Beasts! A hearty round of applause, if you will!”

  Enthusiastic clapping heralded the entrance of a man with the build and rugged profile of a legendary lumberjack of yore. Clad appropriately, he sported a plaid shirt, thick twill pants, high laced boots and a bright green toke.

  Trailing Andre the Woodsman came a pack of waddling beavers and a handful of darting, beady-eyed wolverines.

  The animals expertly and obediently took up their positions on barrels and boxes. Cracking a long whip above their furry heads, Andre began to put the iconic fauna of the Far North through their paces. Jumping over each other, riding miniature bicycles, leaping through hoops, walking on their hind legs, balancing balls, snarling, chittering, they formed a blur of brown fur. One rogue beaver detoured as planned to a tent pole and began gnawing it, setting off gasps of horror in the audience. Andre cracked his masterful whip, seemingly nicking the beaver’s broad paddle-tail, and it desisted and ran yelping from the tent.

  When the act was over, Andre took a deep bow. On cue, a wolverine nipped his ass. In mock fury he chased the whole menagerie out, to much applause and laughter. From a loudspeaker came the voice of Lispenard: “Andre the Woodsman! An act as wild and untamed as the brave Canadian populace!”

  Rory sat stupefied. The fairs of Iowa had never presented him with such an act.

  Some clowns tumbled out. One stole the other’s underwear from beneath his clothes. The aggrieved victim knocked the thief on his head with a big stick and sent him rolling like a hoop until he eventually collapsed. A scaled-down ambulance, siren warbling, scooted out, discharging a pantomime doctor and nurse. The buffoonish medicos lifted the injured clown onto a stretcher, but, through expert miming, sought payment before loading him into the ambulance. The clown on the stretcher reached deep into his pants and pulled out a wad of funny money, which the male “nurse” stuffed down “her” bosom.

  Leonard Lispenard returned after the chaotic departure of the clowns. “And now, without a shred of merciful respite or letup for your pounding hearts or aching ribs, our diminutive swallower of all objects sharp, pointed and dangerous— Mister Frankie ‘Third Degree’ Burnes!”

  A besuited dwarf walked bandy-legged into the ring. He carried various swords, torches and poles. Without spoken preamble he began his act.

  All of the various instruments which Burnes proceeded to thrust down his throat measured fully two-thirds of his own stature. By any measure of sanity, Rory believed, the props had to telescope into themselves, dwindling to a foot or less. Yet from Rory’s vantage, he could detect no divisions in the objects. And after each swallowing, Burnes solemnly flexed each moist prop and thrust the object into the sawdust-covered dirt floor to demonstrate its solidity.

  When the crosspiece of a rapier met the performer’s lips, Rory nearly died himself.

  Burnes made his exit to well-deserved applause. Lispenard took center stage once more.

  “And now, as promised, the exquisite antique yet still instructive fable of Daedulus and his son. You will swear that living actors are moving within your gaze, yet all is accomplished by— the Zoetrope!”

  A pair of burly men pushed the Zoetrope out on its wheeled cart. The device consisted of two huge upright concentric cylinders. The outer featured a series of slits in its circumference; the inner was painted with half-seen murals. Connected to an intricate arrangement of gears and chains, the cylinders seemed capable of movement should a pair of cranks be turned.

  After locking the carriage wheels securely, the roustabouts took up their positions at the cranks. With straining
muscles they began to spin the handles. The twin cylinders started to revolve, one clockwise, the other widdershins. Faster and faster they spun. Sweat flew from the men. At a certain speed the cylinders vanished into a translucent blur. In their place shimmered a soundless animated movie, almost three-dimensional in its palpability.

  Daedalus came to Crete, where he was hired by King Minos. A big bag of drachmas changed hands. Minos’s wife, Pasiphse, confided her unnatural lust for a holy bull to the master artisan. Reluctantly, Daedalus helped her consummate her pagan desires. (This incident not depicted, but plainly alluded to as an offstage occurrence.) Pasiphae subsequently gave birth to a bull-man, the Minotaur. Enraged, Minos commissioned Daedalus to build a labyrinth in which to secrete his bestial stepson. This was done. Then Daedalus himself and his son Icarus fell afoul of the ruler and were imprisoned. Wings of wax and feather grew apace, to aid escape. Off the two prisoners flew. From a terrible height, father lamenting piteously but silently, overbold Icarus plunged into the sea.…

  The spinning cylinders, forgotten in the absorbing story, slowed to a halt. So fatigued were the operators of the Zoetrope that several of their fellows had to assist them to limp from the ring.

  Lispenards expression connoted both joy and sadness, as did his voice. “A mechanical marvel! And yet the tale it tells belies all human ingenuity! Are we not all sons of Daedalus, with our modern labor-saving devices leading us to untimely dooms? Let us all contemplate our own blinkered, ultra-efficient lives for a moment, with the image of Daedulus and his unfortunate son fresh before us.” Lispenard bowed his head for a moment, during which time only the creak of strained ropes and wood and rippling canvas sounded. When he raised his face, however, he beamed, and Rory felt a burst of cathartic relief he was certain the whole audience shared.

  “But enough gloom and morbidity! Tonight we propose in the main only entertainment, not chastisement for common mortal foibles! And with that goal in mind, may I present Miss Katie Stearn, Mistress of the High Wire!”