Nancy A. Collins, page 16
“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, to Dr. Oddbody’s Gallery of Wonders and be amazed, shocked, startled and amused unlike you’ve ever been before, all for the paltry sum of one dollar, four quarters, ten dimes, one hundred pennies-the price of two candy bars! See for yourself the grandest, most astonishing collection of prodigies and monstrosities gathered together in one place since the days of ancient Rome!
“I, the one and only Dr. Oddbody, have traveled to the farthest corners of the globe to bring back marvels for your entertainment and enlightenment! From the heart of darkest Africa, to the headwaters of the Amazon, to the cannibal isles of the South Pacific I have risked everything and dared all to bring these wonders back to the United States, for the delight and education of you, my fellow man!
“I have spared no expense in searching every nook and cranny of the world to provide this banquet for the brain and feast for the eye! Step up! Step up and see the amazing Gobbles, the Human Ostrich! Captured in the savannas of Nairobi, where he was raised from early boyhood by the mighty running birds of the plains! See him swallow a light bulb whole-then cough it back up again!
“See! Smidgen and Midget, the World’s Smallest Couple! They’re tiny as can be, but oh, how does their love grow! See! Duchess Harrietta, the World’s Fattest Bearded Lady! See! Lamia, the Serpent Queen! Where does the girl end and the snake begin? Only Lamia knows for sure! Step up, ladies and gentlemen! No waiting, no delays! Step up, and avoid the rush! Tickets now selling in the doorway!”
Cindy scanned the banners, feeling the same kind of mixture of curiosity and anxiety that had marked her first peek at her older brother’s stack of porno mags.
“I don’t know about this… Its like paying to look at deformed people.”
“Aw, c’mon!” Barry chided, shooting her a sour look. “You’re the one always complaining about how boring things are around here! Now there’s a chance of doing something different, and you’re chickening out! Maybe you really are just like your mama, after all?”
That last nettle stung, just like he knew it would. Cindy straightened her shoulders, resolve replacing her previous timorousness. “Okay. Let’s do it, then.”
Barry stepped forward, thrusting a couple of crumpled bills at the ticket-seller.
Dr. Oddbody set aside his bullhorn to glance down at the young couple. His gaze slid across Barry’s raw-boned farm boy’s face and came to rest on Cindy. Although the carny said nothing, she could feel his eyes weighing her like a heifer on the auction block. Her cheeks turned red and she quickly looked away.
“Move ahead and keep to the right,” Oddbody said, smiling like a croupier as he took their money and ushered them inside the tent.
As they stepped inside, Cindy could feel the freak show proprietor’s eyes on her back. She reached out for Barry’s hand, but he had already moved away from her.
The interior of the tent smelled of sawdust and was divided by a series of canvas half-walls. Each exhibit had their own special booth, with a painted backdrop and a wooden platform that enabled the paying customers to an unobscured view of the performer.
The first display belonged to Smidgen and Midgen. The World’s Smallest Couple were not, in fact, pocket-sized, but they very small, roughly the size of toddlers. Their cubicle was designed to resemble a front parlor, with a sofa, easy chairs, and a coffee table scaled to accommodate the owners. Despite their child-like builds, Smidgen and Midgen affected adult hairstyles and clothes tailored to fit their small builds. With their high-pitched voices they could be easily be mistaken as children playing an elaborate game of dress-up- until you saw their wrinkled, knowing faces. On their tiny, baby-like hands were matching bands of gold.
As Barry and Cynthia stepped up, the midget couple smiled and welcomed them to their “home”, then launched into well-rehearsed spiel recounting their individual origins, how they met, and their life together as a professional couple. They were particularly proud of their son, who played basketball for Indiana.
The second stage housed an exceptionally large, bearded woman dressed in a tent-like purple muumuu and matching velvet cape trimmed in blatantly faux-ermine. The bearded fat lady explained, with an accent redolent of the Bronx, that she had once been the wife of the Duke of Ultima Thule-but was forced to step down when she grew a beard better than her royal hubby’s.
While the royalty angle was a nice touch, the Duchess was nowhere near as imposing as her banner had represented her. Granted, she was indeed fat, and she did have a beard, but she weighed a mere three hundred pounds, with a sparse growth of scraggly chestnut-colored hair that barely covered her double chin. Except for the little crown and ermine robe, there was little to differentiate the Duchess from any number of women Cindy had seen shopping at the local Wal-Mart.
Gobbles the Human Ostrich was seated on a stool, reading a newspaper as Barry and Cindy approached his stage. He was a rather ordinary looking man dressed in a black leotard and tights, and the only decoration in his performance space was a smaller version of the banner than hung outside and a wooden table that boasted an array of inedible objects, such as razor blades, a light bulb, a long-stemmed rose and a can of nails.
As they drew near, the Human Ostrich took a page of the newspaper he’d been reading, tore it in two, wadded it up into a ball, then stuffed it into his mouth and swallowed it whole. Cindy grimaced and made an uneasy noise as she watched the Human Ostrich’s throat bulge.
Unlike the previous exhibits, the Human Ostrich did not seem to feel obligated to launch into an elaborate account of his supposed origins and behavior. As it was, his act was pretty much self-explanatory. As they watched, he picked up the long-stemmed rose and bit off its head, munching on it like a contented cow. Then he proceeded to consume the thorny stem in the exact same manner. “Dude!” Barry said, by way of approval.
When the Human Ostrich reached for the razor blades, Cindy cringed and moved toward the fourth and final stage in the tent, leaving Barry to gape at Gobbles ingest metal implements.
Unlike the others, an old-fashioned theater curtain, like the ones in the high school auditorium, obscured the final stage. They were the color of good wine and were made from heavy velvet, with golden tassels on the hem. Cindy wondered what they could be hiding. Then, without a sound, the curtains were pulled back and music began to play. It was the high-pitched sound of an exotic flute, like the ones snake charmers play.
She glimpsed something white and gold partially hidden in the shadows at the back of the stage. With a start, Cindy saw that it was a woman, naked save for a heavy golden rope wrapped about her torso and limbs in a Gordian knot.
When the golden rope began to move of its own accord, Cindy realized that she was looking at the woman known as Lamia, the Serpent Queen.
The snake charmer moved forward as the music began to play, the great serpent wrapped about her like a living stole. The snake’s skin sparkled like a wet sun, dappled by irregular patches of darkness. Cindy recognized it as being some kind of python, perhaps it was an anaconda, said to be the largest snake in the world. In any case, it was certainly bigger than the baby boa constrictor back at the Life Sciences lab back at school.
The snake’s blunt-nosed head, which was perched on the dancer’s shoulder, facing the audience, was easily the size of a large dog’s, its eyes as dark as a closet. With a start, she realized the serpent was looking right at her with an unwavering gaze, its forked tongue furiously tasting the air. The intensity of its gorgon-like stare made something in her chest squeeze her heart as firmly as a hand, then let go. Cindy gave out with a tiny cry-part gasp, part scream—and took an involuntary step backward.
So riveting was the python’s size and appearance, it took her a moment to realize that the dancer was just as unique and unusual as her monstrous pet. Her flesh was as pale as a mermaid’s, her eyes as carefully painted as those of the Egyptian pharaohs. Her heavy chestnut locks were piled atop her head and held in place by a golden diadem in the design of a sunburst. She was both voluptuous, yet surprisingly fragile-looking, not unlike the portraits of Mary Magdalene.
Save for the diadem, a few golden upper arm bracelets, and silver bangles on her ankles and wrists, Lamia was otherwise naked, although what would have been otherwise public private parts were conveniently concealed by the coils of the snake wrapped about her.
While Cindy was so self-conscious as to her appearance she could not bring herself to wear anything but a one-piece swim suit, Lamia stood there, naked as an egg, dressed in nothing but her own skin and yards of living scales, without apparent shame nor undue pride. Instead, she held herself with all the dignity of Caesar’s wife before the Senate.
“Holy, shit!”
Barry had finally finished gawking at the Human Ostrich and walked
in on the middle of Lamia’s act. He watched the snake charmers gyrations with a jaw that hung like a dead weight on a delicate scale. “What’s she doing?”
“She’s danciug,” Cynthia replied in a hushed voice, as if the freak tent had become a cathedral. Trying her best to ignore her companion, she returned her attention to the stage.
Despite her feminine charms, it was clear from the muscles that tensed and rippled underneath her pale, smooth skin, Lamia was as strong as a lioness. She had to be, if she could carry such a prodigious living weight about her neck and still move, much less dance.
If the snake’s bulk hampered her as she swayed to the music, she did not show any of it. The snake moved in concert with her movements, sliding its body along her limbs and torso, lifting its snout skyward and following the movements of her hands. She coached and prodded the great serpent as she would a lover as it caressed her trembling white flesh.
Lamia took the creature’s inhuman head in her hands and stroked it as she would a cat’s, kissing its blunted snout. In return, the python’s tongue darted forth and touched her own.
“Aw, man! That’s sick!” Barry said with a loud, somewhat nervous guffaw, the words striking Cindy like an open hand. “That bitch is twisted!” Cindy glanced up at Lamia as she moved with a fluid grace, her hands turned out flat, palms up, like a Balinese dancer. If she heard what had been said, it did not show. The serpent queen’s face was as impenetrable as a porcelain mask, regarding her audience with a placid indifference, almost as if she had emptied her eyes of sight.
Cindy turned and shot Barry a withering look. “Don’t you know anything-?” she hissed.
There was a look of dumb incomprehension on Barry’s face-one that she had become all too familiar with.
“What did I say?” he demanded, more defensive than contrite.
The thing within her chest squeezed again, and she saw her future with Barry laid out before her, like bolt of cloth unrolled for inspection: marriage six months after graduation; a couple of kids before their third anniversary; a drinking problem for him, a weight problem for her; divorce by their seventh anniversary. The images were too vivid, the future hurts and disappointments too sure, to be anything but true.
Fighting to hide the claustrophobic panic rising with her, Cindy turned and fled. The thought of spending another minute in his company enveloped her in despair as heavy as a horse blanket. She burst from the tent’s exit, gasping like a swimmer staggering free of strong surf, Barry’s steps thundering close behind. She glanced around anxiously, looking for some place to hide, but it was too late.
“Hey! What’s got into you?”
Barry grabbed her upper arm and turned her to face him none too gently. That, too, had become all too familiar as well.
“What did you mean by running off like that?”
Cindy looked at her feet rather than meet his angry, confused gaze. How could she tell him that being near him was like being slowly suffocated? That his kisses had all the passion of underdone bacon? That whatever future she might have with him was worse than no future at all? With a sob of anger and frustration, she yanked her arm free of his grasp and fled into the milling crowds of the midway.
“Cindy! Cindy-come back!” Barry yelled as he gave half-hearted chase. After a half-dozen running paces he gave up his pursuit, flapping his arms in disgust. Barry shrugged his shoulders and headed off in the direction of the Hit-The-Cats booth. “Fuckin’ basketcase,” he grumbled under his breath. She’d come back, if she didn’t want to walk back to town at the end of the night. Besides, even if she managed to find her own way home, she’d make her way back to his door sooner or later. After all-where else was there to go?
000
Cindy gasped, despite herself, when the lights of the midway switched off. With the darkness came silence, as all the portable generators that powered the various thrill-rides and other amusements shut down.
The House of Fun ceased its maniacal laughter, the taped calliope music came to a halt, and the pounding beat of heavy metal and hip-hop that served as the aural backdrop for the more adrenaline-charged thrill-rides cut off in mid-note. After enduring the amplified roar of the carnival all night, the silence made Cindy’s eardrums throb like ghost limbs.
She had spent the last couple of hours dodging in and out of the various exhibition halls, trying to avoid being spotted by Barry, before finally ending up behind the metal outbuilding that housed the prizewinning quilts and canned peaches.
Now that she was certain that the locals had all left for the night, Cindy abandoned her hiding place and took a tentative look around. The only illumination came from the moon, which looked down on the carnival from its place in the sky, as white and perfect as a magnolia floating in a bowl.
All of the concession stands and game booths were shut up tight, nor was there any sign of the carnies who manned the controls of the rides. It was as if the carnival workers had sealed themselves up within their individual fiefdoms to sleep away the daylight hours.
The stillness was eerie. She had not expected it to be so-lifeless-once the townspeople had gone. She thought the carnies might gather together to drink and play cards and tell stories after the fair shut down.
Cindy gave out with a short, high shriek as a hand closed about her shoulder, squeezing it firmly. She spun around, her heart beating like a blind man’s cane, and found herself staring into the smirking face of Dr. Oddbody. There was craftiness in the barker’s eyes, though it lacked a sense of ill will-as if treachery was as natural to him as storms on the sea or lighting from the sky.
“Lamia wants to see you,” he said, his message couched in a cloud of second-hand bourbon.
“Me?” she managed to squeak. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure all right,” Oddbody said, flashing a smile as sharp and unexpected as a knife in a bishop’s sleeve. He pointed with one long, tobacco-stained finger at a small silver-skinned trailer located behind the freak tent. There was a light burning in the solitary window.
Cindy glanced back at Dr. Oddbody, but the barker had somehow managed to disappear. She swallowed and returned her gaze to the squalid little trailer with its beckoning light in the window.
She felt as if she was watching herself in a movie as she strode across the deserted midway, past the shuttered ring-toss and cotton candy booth. Even through she knew she should leave right away, she could not bring herself to do so. It was as if she was fastened to the snake charmer by an invisible cord, one that was being shortened with the steady ratchet of a windlass. It was like a dream, where she was being lead by unseen and irresistible forces towards dark and dangerous places she was not sure she truly wished to go.
Her heart was thumping like a pagan’s drum-something she had never experienced, even in her most intimate moments with Barry. All she knew was that she must see Lamia, speak to her—perhaps she would have an answer for the strange throbbing that was like a toothache in her heart.
On closer inspection, the snake charmer’s trailer was no less grungy than it had appeared from a distance. Stepping onto the chipped cinder block that served as the trailer’s front step, Cynthia rapped her knuckles against the doorframe. Although there was no voice raised in response, the door opened inward. Mustering her courage, she stepped inside.
The interior was barely big enough for an adult to stand up in, and was crammed with steamer trunks and cardboard boxes filled with the odds and ends of a traveling life. Adding to the discomfort, the heat within the tiny trailer was thick as jelly. What little open space in the trailer was dominated by a large vanity table lined 20-watt bulbs and cluttered with jars of cold cream and tubes of lipstick and mascara.
It was in front of this altar to illusion that Lamia was seated, dressed in a silk kimono embroidered with black and gold Chinese dragons battling on a scarlet field, her back to her visitor. The serpent queen’s unfastened hair hung flat against her body like a living cloak as she stared into the vanity’s oval mirror, languidly rubbing cold cream onto her face.
Cindy cringed as she caught sight of her own acid-washed jeans and feathered hair reflected back at her. She wanted to run away and hide in embarrassment, but she had come this far, and there was no use in turning back. “H-hello? Lamia?” she managed to stammer. “Dr. Oddbody said you wanted to, um, see me-?”
Whatever reaction she had expected from the serpent queen, it was certainly not the one she got.
Lamia did not bother to turn around, but merely looked at Cindy’s reflection, regarding her with eyes as lifeless as the skin on a stagnant pond. With a thrill of revulsion, Cynthia noticed a long spindle of drool hanging from one corner of the snake charmer’s slackened mouth.
Baffled, Cindy moved closer, meeting and holding Lamia’s uncomprehending gaze. The dancer cringed and made a whimpering sound, her expression as dumb and anxious as a dog’s. Was this the same woman who had transfixed her with such fluid grace and unearthly beauty? As Cindy reached out to touch Lamia’s shoulder, the snake charmer jerked away clumsily, making a pathetic noise like that of an animal in distress.
