Stepping into the semi-darkness, the smell of sweat and sawdust that invaded his nostrils was another reminder of the life he once lived. As he approached the first exhibit, he saw behind its scratched clear plastic was an enormous woman, eight-hundred pounds or more. Dressed in a bathing suit made for a woman half her size, Dugan recalled with a stab of empathy that presenting the freaks in a cartoonish light was never beyond the pale. He nodded to the woman and quickly passed her by. The next booth featured the bearded lady, and the one after that a miniature couple billed as husband and wife. The two sat on comically giant stools on opposite sides of the booth. Both had their arms crossed and their backs toward one another as if they had suffered a recent marital spat. The next stall contained Enrique.
Wolf Boy!
Dugan stepped in front of the clear Plexiglas and saw his hirsute friend sitting in a chair, staring at the ground while idly smoking a cigarette. He wore overalls that came to just below the knee, with no shirt and bare feet to accentuate his hair covered frame. However, taking in the otherwise bare space, it was with mixed emotions Dugan hearkened back to his own carnival days, recalling there had at least been some attempt at showmanship, with decorated cages and various props. Known then as “Vampire Boy!”, his cage contained a fairly realistic and functional coffin that he eventually worked into his act. Next door to his, Enrique’s cage had contained papier mache boulders he would hide behind, and a large and eerie moon tacked up high on the wall. When Wolf Boy! made his surprise appearance, little children would shriek with terror and back away before laughing at his antics.
Dugan stood there a long while waiting for Enrique to look up, during which he heard the entrance door open and a shuffle of footsteps come in. The boyish sniggers he heard from that direction were a once familiar sound as well. But the shuffling was enough for Enrique to finally raise his head. Spying Dugan, he first cocked his head in wonder before his eyes went wide with disbelief. After blinking twice, the man with coarse dark hair covering his entire body broke into a wide grin and leaped from his chair. Rushing to the clear plastic separating them, his eyes never left Dugan’s as he wordlessly placed his palm against it in greeting. Raising his own hand, Dugan pressed it to the glass opposite his friend’s.
Tears fell from Enrique’s eyes. “Dugan,” he said.
Dugan welled up too, but the salt in tears hurt, so he willed them back.
“Hola, Enrique,” he said. “Como esta?”
The two gaped stupidly at each other for another few seconds before Enrique raised his finger to signal one moment. Hurrying to the rear of the booth, he opened a door. Seconds later, Enrique strode from the opposite end of the trailer and the two old friends embraced warmly.
2
The porch of the guest cottage was on the left side of the structure facing the main house. Having no desire to attract the attention of the men with the guns, after snatching up his travel bag, Dan opened the back window and threw it out onto the ground. He quickly followed suit.
Only a slender strip of grass lay between the cottage and the stone wall. Picking up his bag, he raced to the wall and peeked over for the first time, understanding then why Esquinaldo was able to keep it so low. Beyond was a fifteen or so foot drop down a sheer face to a sloping hill on the other side. Without thinking, like Cortez burning his ships, Dan lifted his bag across the few feet of stone and let go. The decision had been made.
While back there, he could still hear muted sounds drifting across the lawn from the men on the patio. A loud snort followed by a louder spit. Raised voices in friendly disagreement. A chortling chuckle as if in response to a dirty joke. Upon hearing the last, he cocked his ears to listen more closely. He could have sworn that last sound was nearer. After another second, he heard the shuffling sound of booted footsteps traipsing up the stairs of the cottage, followed by a banging rap on the door.
His heart pounding, he pressed his palms to the stone and lifted himself onto the wall. Wriggling to the opposite side, he dangled his legs and flipped himself over. Laying down on the flat stone, when ready, he gently lowered the rest of his body until just his shoulders and arms were clinging to the edge of the wall. Holding on tight, he let the rest of himself go vertical, stretching his legs and arms as long as he could. He almost lost his grip when he heard another muffled, but insistent pound on the door followed by a shout:
“Senor. Abre la puerta. Ahora.”
Still dangling, Dan lowered his eyes to the ground and became alarmed at how far it still seemed. But his muscles strained, and he knew he was seconds away from the men realizing he wasn’t there. Though he thought it an odd time for it to happen, it occurred to him then what must have transpired: the meeting in Esquinaldo’s office had concluded, an agreement had been reached, and it was time to tie up all the loose ends. Dan was one of those loose ends.
Not waiting to see how this movie ended, he counted to three in his head and then let himself fall into the void.
3
Enrique was exhilarated to introduce his old friend around, taking him by the arm and dragging him from stall to stall. “Vampire Boy! is here!” he announced. “This is Vampire Boy!” Dugan received polite nods from all and smiles from most. The little gentleman in the stall next to Enrique was more than kind.
“I’ve heard about you!” he gushed, in reference to his onetime act. “And of course, Enrique talks about you all the time. It’s so very nice to meet you.”
Once the introductions were out of the way, Enrique clapped him on the back and said, “Come with me,” before taking him out the rear door and into a nearby trailer. Inside, a man was seated at a dressing table putting on makeup. Hearing the door open, he turned . . . and turned . . . and turned his head one-hundred and eighty degrees in the manner of an owl. Dugan’s eyes went wide. That was a new one.
“Federico,” Enrique said excitedly. “This is Scott Dugan. I’ve told you about him. He was Vampire Boy!”
The man smiled and nodded in greeting before turning . . . and turning . . . back around to apply more makeup. Enrique guided Dugan to a couch and motioned him to have a seat. Grabbing a cigarette from an open pack on a side table, he lit one and offered one to Dugan, who declined.
Once both were comfortable, with a smile, Enrique asked, “So what the hell brings you to this Godforsaken dump?”
“Just a coincidence, really. I was coming back from down south and saw the lights.”
“Man, am I glad you did. I mean it. It’s really good to see you. I think about the old days all the time. We had ourselves some good times, didn’t we? Of course, anyplace is better than this shithole. Still, I don’t think even we knew just how good we had it, until . . .”
Understanding the territory he had inadvertently stumbled into, Enrique trailed off suddenly and looked down.
“Sorry, man. You don’t wanna hear about it.”
“Yes, I do,” Dugan asserted. When Enrique looked him in the eye, he went on. “Not just want to. I need to hear about it. It’s why I’m here.”
Enrique blew out a long breath before taking another deep drag and collecting his thoughts. While waiting, Dugan reflected on his last days at the carnival, and his killing of a man named Buck Steinhoffer, the son of carnival owner, Big Ben Steinhoffer. He had stumbled upon Buck committing indecent acts with a young girl and wasn’t able to control himself like he promised Big Ben he would. That day, Buck became his first human victim.
“Well,” Enrique began carefully, “It goes like this. After Buck died, Ben was all broken up. But man, did he send a posse after you. It’s a miracle they didn’t find you. Hired a slew of private detectives as well. In fact, now that I think of it, I probably should have just kept my mouth shut back there instead of introducing you the way I did. You know how word gets around.”
Dugan did, and nodded.
“Anyhow,” Enrique continued, “that was the end of the road for Steinhoffer Amusements. He shut down the whole shebang and went off to a ranch he owned in,
I guess it’s Wyoming. I hear he doesn’t go out anymore. No one’s seen him since, not that we ever saw much of him to begin with. He was always in his trailer counting his money. Still, if I were you, I’d be careful if you ever find yourself up Wyoming way.”
Dugan nodded again and thought about it some more. He had always felt bad about what he had done. Ben had been good to him . . . well, so long as Dugan made him money, that is. Still, as bad as Buck was, and as much as he deserved to die, Dugan was conflicted about it, though on one level, he admitted some of it was shame about allowing his vampire instincts to overpower him. He had suckled long and deeply on the dying man.
On the other hand, screw him, he reminded himself. Buck had it coming. All of it, and more.
“What about the others?” Dugan asked to get his mind off it, though he suspected he already knew the answers. He needed to hear it just the same.
“Well, you probably guessed that Rudy’s gone. Didn’t last much longer after you disappeared, though that’s probably a blessing. He was having trouble near the end, but you knew that.”
Dugan did. Rudy had been “The Monster!” a man with a massive tumor covering much of his body. In his final days, it had started constricting his airways. He was having difficulty breathing. Still, he was sad to hear it. Rudy was one of the kindest men he ever knew.
“But,” Enrique continued, “life goes on, and there’s good news too. Harold and Lois got married. They moved down to Florida. Harold works as a teacher, if you can believe it. Lois gives swimming lessons to kids. I still hear from them from time to time. We send postcards and the like.”
Dugan smiled. Harold was the tallest man he’d ever met, more than eight feet, and was in love with Lois, a beautiful woman who had been born with a fleshy, tongue-like protuberance instead of legs. However, in her custom fish getup she became “The Mermaid.” Harold carried her lovingly everywhere they went.
“That is good to hear,” Dugan said with a smile. “I’m happy for them. Really. Make sure you tell them both I said hello.”
Enrique smiled. “You can count on it.”
The two fell into comradely silence, with the music of the carnival reverberating throughout the trailer. Federico had by then completed his makeup session and exited the narrow compartment. It was getting late. Dugan would have to leave soon if he wanted to make tracks. Still, there was one old friend he had yet to hear about and wondered why.
“How about Gunther?” he asked, referring to a hydrocephalic man with a light bulb shaped head. Though developmentally disabled and not all there, he was another kind soul who had taken care of Dugan when he needed it most.
Dugan watched Enrique let slip a crooked smile.
“What is it?” he asked.
Standing, Enrique said, “Come with me. It’s why I brought you here.”
Dugan stood. The two walked to the end of the trailer, where Enrique stopped in front of a closed door. Looking at Dugan, with another tear in his eye, he said, “You got here just in time. It won’t be long now.”
He opened the door. Inside, Dugan saw lying on one of the two beds was Gunther. Pale, gaunt, and barely recognizable if not for the shape of his head, but it was Gunther. There was no question about that. Dugan felt himself well up.
“We took his banner down just yesterday,” Enrique said softly.
Dugan nodded.
Sitting beside his bed and holding his hand was a little person. She glanced up and smiled at Enrique, but stared suspiciously at Dugan.
“Gwen, I’d like you to meet someone,” Enrique said in a hushed voice. “This is Scott Dugan. He’s a friend of Gunther’s. He’s come to say goodbye.”
Gwen dropped her suspicions and nodded, letting go of Gunther’s hand and laying it gently on the bed. Hopping nimbly from the chair, she looked up at Dugan and said, “Only a minute, okay? He needs his rest.”
Dugan nodded. While moving toward the chair Gwen vacated, he heard the door close quietly behind him. Sitting down, he flashed back to keeping vigil at another bedside, for Alice, a young girl who was “Old Before Her Time!”, dying at the tender age of fourteen. He had loved Alice like a sister, and he remembered how kind all the carnival folk were to her both before and after she passed.
Lifting Gunther’s hand, Dugan clasped it gently and allowed a single tear to fall. Feeling a weak heartbeat beneath his fingers, hearing the ragged breathing, he understood Gunther was hours away from death. With a pang of remorse, he recalled that when he was forced to leave the carnival, it was the man whose hand he now held who had taken it worst of all.
After a minute or so, perhaps sensing his presence, Gunther’s eyes opened. Dugan smiled down at him. It took some time, but soon enough, Dugan saw a glimmer of recognition in the man’s otherwise cloudy eyes.
“Dugan,” Gunther rasped.
Dugan choked back tears. “That’s right, Gunther. It’s me, Dugan. It’s okay. I’m here now.”
A weak smile appeared on Gunther’s face before a rush of pain swept through him. Dugan gripped his hand more tightly and used all his power to take the pain away. Soon thereafter, it passed.
With his eyes still closed, Gunther asked, “Gunther . . . Dugan . . . friends?”
Dugan was unable to hold back his tears. “Yes, Gunther,” he croaked. “Dugan and Gunther are friends. Good friends. Always.”
He stayed at Gunther’s bedside a long while after that, until his old friend fell into a restless sleep.
4
It was sometime after midnight. Dan had checked himself into a no tell motel under a false name somewhere on the outskirts of the city, though near enough a busy thoroughfare where he could walk and get a cab. At the front desk, after paying the man in cash, he asked the sleepy eyed proprietor if he could get a wake-up call for five thirty a.m.. The man looked down to make a note of it. Stupidly, Dan added, “It’s important.” The man did not acknowledge him.
Stepping into the foul smelling room, he heard through the parchment thin walls a couple next door going at it acrobatically. He smiled to think that if that kept up, perhaps he wouldn’t need that phone call after all.
Tossing his bag on the bed, he started taking off his shirt while limping to the bathroom. It was time to assess his injuries. His shirt had come up on him as he fell, causing him to scrape his way bare chested along the face of the wall, inflicting nasty cuts and abrasions. When he hit the ground, he landed awkwardly and suffered a minor ankle twist. Unaccountably, at the end, he even managed to smash his head on the thing, leaving him dazed for a few moments at the bottom. But for all that, he was certain he would live.
After reserving some time at the foot of the wall to take stock of his damages, he soon began a slow hobble to the north, moving parallel to what he knew was Esquinaldo’s avenue. He had only gone a few feet before he started hearing shouts from above. Ducking into the shadows, his heart raced to think the men had looked below and seen him, but soon realized the shouts must be coming through the open rear window as they searched the house. He moved far more quickly after that.
The wall abutted three neighboring estates, and Dan soon figured out it was there as much to prevent erosion as to provide the upper crust residents with enhanced security. Coming upon a fourth property, the wall began to descend; a few houses later, he was in the rear of a large home that for some reason didn’t require iron gates or stone walls, perhaps because its owners weren’t Nazi arms merchants or murderous drug lords, Dan conjectured. Careening through their backyard, the only danger he encountered was a dog he managed to rouse that had been lounging inside the house. With its annoying barks resounding in his ears, Dan hightailed it down the driveway and made it onto the street. He limped the remaining few blocks, all the while constantly twisting his head to see if cars were coming up from behind, and scurrying into shadow when they did. Once on the Paseo, he took the first available mode of transport, and was soon ensconced inside the safety and anonymity of a city bus. He rode the bus a while, staying on it
until it stopped in a district he deemed sketchy enough.
Not surprised to find his chest a modern art masterpiece of long scratches and purplish scuffs, he cringed while using a damp facecloth and hot water to cleanse his wounds, grateful only to have not lost a nipple. With that painful task completed, he went back to the bedroom and chanced a peek out the curtain to the parking lot below and observed nothing nefarious lurking out there; not that he’d know it if he saw it, of course. But things looked normal enough, anyway.
With the symphony of pleasurable moans still coming through the wall, he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and wandered to the nightstand. Planting himself on the edge of the bed, he flipped through ancient business cards that represented a life he no longer lived and found the one he was looking for. Reaching for the phone, he scanned the instructions on how to get an outside line that had somehow managed to get stained even through hard plastic. Pushing 8, he received a dial tone and then rang the number on the card. An officious female voice answered after one ring.
“United States Embassy. How may I direct your call?”
Dan’s throat turned to sawdust. Flummoxed, he berated himself for not putting more thought into it. He had no idea where to begin.
Stutteringly, he said, “Yes, hello. My name is . . . well. That’s not important. Anyway, I was wondering if . . .”
His mind went blank. It seemed to him an hour or more went by as the poor woman waited patiently, no doubt wondering who let the feeb use the phone. Finally, although it was still possibly the stupidest thing he had ever heard, Dan uttered the phrase:
“Forecast says rain.”
He waited. Another geologic epoch came and went before the woman asked, “Would you like to leave a message?”
Stumped by the unexpected question, Dan’s first thought was that she hadn’t heard what he said. Hell, maybe the phone cut out or something. Not sure what to make of it, he felt his face go flush at the stupidity of it all. Without thinking, he went on.
Applewood (Book 3): The Space of Life Between Page 25