Shape of the Final Dog and Other Stories (9781101600665) (3 page)

I guess Doc was ready to be alone now because he asks me if I'm going over to see Jack. I tell him I suspect I might. He stares at me a second, then he says, You still got some of your hair, Spencer. But if you're going over to see Jack, I'd get it cut if I was you. I thank him for the advice and take my leave.

Even though Mot was good at this barking like a dog, the trick of it was to get him to do it on command. My conviction is that anybody can learn anything, change what they are to what they want to be, and Mot was shaping up to be what I'd call the Wild Man. The question was, did he wanna be the Wild Man? The way he was acting back at Doc's, I figured he did. He had what it took; we'd just have to work on it. So while it was still fresh in his mind, we stopped in a field.

What seemed to work wasn't so much words as gestures. For instance, if I did the “dog” myself, he'd do it back. Then what I started doing is give him a little punch at the same time I'd want him to bark, and he put the two together. I detected something in his eyes then, something not so much dog as puppy dog, and I found that at that moment if I'd lift my hand to him, he'd cooperate. Actually, he was a quick learner. One session is all it took. At the end of it, Mot, I recall, seemed fairly pleased with himself. I know I felt pretty good about it.

The barbershop's a place where on Saturday everybody hangs around, even after they get their hair cut. Some boys don't even get one, they just come in to make fun of each other and tell stories. But it's not Saturday. Nobody there but Beck. I sit Mot in one of the chairs so he can watch. Beck throws a sheet around me, acting like he'd seen me the day before, like I never left town. He's a mouth-breather, smokes too much. I tell him he looks like a man who better lose some weight, get some exercise. He tells me he'll cut my ears off. That's the way we talk. Next he wants to know what kind of cut I want.

A New York cut?

He's trying to be funny, snipping at the air around my head with his scissors.

Just cut it, I tell him.

Beck himself is bald; must've figured being bald was bad for business, because he wears the sorriest excuse for a toupee you ever seen, must've sent in for it.

I ask him how it's going. He tells me that cutting hair for twenty years in this town is like printing counterfeit money in prison. I think he thought he said something funny, but I don't get it. I look at the wall; it's covered with pictures, a couple new ones, mainly sports and naked girls. Mot's got his eye on what's left of Beck's lunch. A doughnut and a half-eaten salami sandwich. Then Beck tells a joke. I don't laugh, tell him I already heard it. What about your friend, he says, meaning Mot. I change the subject, ask where Clovus is.

Clovus is a big black kid who was his sweep-up man. I find out he went away to college on a scholarship, which brings Beck to the topic of Mot, comments on his size. Says he's even bigger than Clovus was. I figure by Saturday Beck is gonna spread the word. Guess who's back in town? He'll say, Guess who he had with him? Old Spence, you say? Got a nigger who can't talk? They'll talk all afternoon about that one. Let 'em. Beck leans closer, got another joke.

You know why dogs don't like blacks?

I don't wanna know, but he gives it to me anyway.

Because they can't swim!

If you think that's funny, you're a bigger bozo than I thought, I tell him.

He thinks that's funny too. You can't win with Beck. But getting the haircut turned out to be part of a bigger plan. All the hair on the floor accumulated because Beck has this idea that the floor just needs sweeping once a week. Till it mounts up, why bother? Tells me he sweeps it up on Fridays. It's Thursday, so there's a lot of it. Mot's staring at it, giving me the idea. In a way you could call it Mot's idea, because it was him that gave it to me.

When he's finished cutting my hair, I ask Beck for a garbage bag and a broom. Beck's watching me sweep up the hair, trying to figure a way to charge me for it. Finally he says, What you gonna do with all that hair?

I tell him, Southern hair is worth big money up North. They got doctors up there who make wigs out of it and sell 'em to bald guys down South. He's so dumb, he doesn't know a real joke when he hears one.

Next I take Mot to the hardware store. We buy a big tube of roofing tar and take our project back home. So I don't get bothered by Sister, I turn off the engine and coast into the backyard. I get Mot and the stuff I acquired out of the car and into the barn. I need privacy, but it's so hot in there I leave the door open a crack. They say curiosity killed the cat, but Auto is a lot more curious than a normal cat. He's standing out there with his nose in the door, watching everything we do.

Once I get Mot down to his shoes and underwear, I start in with the tar. Keeping his face pretty much in the clear, except for his head, I give him a good coat of it. That stuff, if it gets on you, is hard to get off, so I use an old pair of gardening gloves to do it. After that's done, I go into my bag of hair, using handfuls of it to cover him with. It wasn't easy making it look like it wasn't something just picked off the floor and stuck on to him. The way I did it looked like it was growing right out of him. Kind of bushy-like, like a bear that got himself plugged into a light socket. Turned out so good, in fact, I wanted to take him to a mirror, but didn't wanna stir up Sister by bringing him indoors, at least not till his tar was hard. Next I locate a blanket to put on the seat of the Buick so we can drive to our appointment.

Out in the daylight he looked even better. But he was acting kind of confused, so I had to locate a rope to tie around his neck to help guide him. Next problem was put the top up or leave it down. The sun is what I was thinking about. On the other hand, maybe the tar would protect him from it. Tar is black, and so was Mot, so I figure leave it down. And while I'm fixing that blanket up tight like a seat cover so there's no damage to the Buick, here she comes.

First of all, she wants to know what's going on. But a woman who spends all day wondering why she's alive and the rest of the night drinking I doubt could get a quick understanding of something like the Wild Man. In fact, she's so surprised by what I done with Mot, she doesn't say diddly about the car. She never drives it anyway, doesn't have a license for it because of her record. When she's finished hearing my plan, she goes off about the rope, doesn't like it around his neck, says it's dangerous. I need it to keep him from falling behind, I tell her; plus it looks good. But she has a point, so I take it off and tie it around his waist. It was my confidence that took the wind out of her. Her and Auto just standing there watching me and Mot drive away to our meeting with Jack LaHand.

O
ut where the carnival is the land is flat, nothing out there except the carnival. Even from a distance you can see it, especially if it's night. You can see the rides lit up against the sky. That's why Doc named it Skyland. Skyland stays open all year long because the lake is pretty nearby, and the lake never closes. They got the hotel out there and other little places you can stay for people who don't have enough money to take a vacation someplace better. Fishing and speedboat rides you can do just so much of, then it's, let's go over to Skyland, go on the Tilt-A-Whirl, take in the sideshow. Also, the carnival's a good place to bring a date to.

In the afternoon, especially if it's not the weekend, there's not much action. But still there was some people hanging around and the lights were on, which was a good sign, except that they were flickering, which is how I knew Jack would be in the generator truck.

On my way over there I show Mot the Ferris wheel and point out one of the big cats asleep in his cage. Mot seems to have more interest in animals than in people. He was looking at that lion like he knew him, when up comes Funny the Fat Lady. Funny isn't fat enough to be the fat lady anymore. Besides, the real freaks stay out of sight because why pay to see 'em if you can see 'em for free? Cotton candy and apple-dipping is what she was doing these days, plus running some rides.

She gives me a hug, then steps back, giving Mot the once-over, says, Whoaa! Whatcha got there, Spence? The Wild Man, I tell her. Tell her we're on our way over to see Jack, and she fills me in. Tells me the deal on the new acts, three of 'em. One's a contortionist who's a Bulgarian girl, an acrobat basically. Does her show on two chairs in a bikini and is a pretty good draw. Then this old guy by the name of Harold Peerson up from Florida, he plays dead. Lies in a hole, and the hummers—what we carnival people call the customers—watch him to see if they can catch him taking a breath. He looks deader every day, she says. But the big attraction is this guy from Brazil. Calls himself the Swallower. Puts a live white rat in his mouth, swallows it, then puts a big snake in there that goes down his throat and swallows the rat. That's a pretty good attraction, I say, a swallower that swallows a swallower.

There's lots of drunks in this line of work. Duke the Midget was a drunk and still is, far as I can see. I knew him as a clown, but before that he was a wrestler. Wore his hair in a Mohawk and did his wrestling to tom-tom music. But he was no Indian. In fact, he wasn't even a midget. He was a dwarf, but didn't like the two D's on his billing. I see him standing over there by the generator truck with a pipe wrench, sneering at me. It goes back to a fight he picked with me before I left for New York. One thing you don't wanna do is get down in the dirt and wrestle with a dwarf. Not only doesn't it look right, but the center of gravity is not in your favor. My thought was just punch him, get it over with, but he came in low, had me around the legs, trying to knock me down on the ground so he could put a hold on me. That's what forced me to kick him. Sounds unsportsmanlike, but he'd been kicked by bigger guys than me. He even jumped the Giant once, an eight-footer from Iceland that was also a drunk and stomped Duke in the head so hard he knocked out his eye. That's why Duke wears a patch over it and dresses like a pirate when he's not working the big top.

Word travels fast in the carnival. All I had to do was stand there waiting for Jack to come out, which after about two seconds he does. My hope is Doc already called him, but it turns out I gotta handle it myself. I start out sociable, ask Jack how his daddy's doing. He tells me Wolf is great, couldn't be better. Jack's being sarcastic. I inquire if Wolf still sells war souvenirs at the playground. Not every weekend anymore. What he does is oversee things now, Jack says. Bayonets, medals and badges, flags and uniforms, you name it, Wolf sells it, featuring mainly German regalia. He's telling me all this without so much as glancing at Mot.

I came by to show him the Wild Man, I tell him. So he looks at Mot like it's nothing special, tells me they already got a half-animal, half-human performer. He's talking about Chicken Man, and before I can tell him Doc already sanctioned this deal, we're onto an argument about the damn Chicken Man. Who wants to see some fat white guy dressed up like a hen with a plastic beak? He says people are used to the Chicken Man, he's a familiar sight, tourists are comfortable with him. I say, Sure they are, he puts 'em to sleep.

Things are heating up because this is more than just about the Chicken Man, it's about what happened to his daddy, it's about Doc. And about me going off to New York. I tell him, Go call Doc, straighten things out, but Jack doesn't like being told what to do. He's standing there working his jaw like he's setting up to do something he'll be sorry for if he tries it. I see Duke the Midget smiling at me, hoping it's gonna hit the fan so he can jump in with his monkey wrench. Fine, let him. Then I whisper, You wanna tangle with the Wild Man? Say the word, Jack, all I gotta do is . . .

I give Mot's rope a little jiggle, leaving it to Jack's imagination about what could happen next. It's getting serious now.

You making me a threat, Spence?

I lean forward smiling at him, I say, You get between a dog and his bone, you know what happens?

Then what he does is whip out his gun, points it mostly at Mot. Mot doesn't give a damn, probably didn't know what it was. Then Jack starts backing away, going to the phone was my guess, but had to do it on his own terms.

I felt pretty sure that what just happened, happened in my favor, so I guide Mot to the parking lot. And sure enough, not two hours after we get back home, Doc calls. He was drunk maybe, but from what I get out of it, we had a conversation that said Spence Hooler and his Wild Man were in business.

I felt good about how things went, so when Sister comes into the kitchen with her bottle, I had a drink, gave one to Mot too. He swallowed it straight down; then about six seconds later, without any warning, he throws up. Something he ate that the gin must of triggered. Falls to me to clean it up, and when I finish I see Sis is making a study of him. I was glad to see her take an interest. Of course, that's always how it starts, a family gathered around itself before it turns into trouble.

I tell her how I'm gonna have to locate a man-size cage to put him in for the show, put a blanket over it to hide him from the hummers to build up the suspense. She objects to the whole idea, says nobody wants to be covered in tar and put in a cage with a blanket over it. Says she thinks Mot is depressed, wants to take him somewhere for an “evaluation.” I tell her I gotta go upstairs. Tomorrow was gonna be a big day.

Up in my room I stand Mot next to me, and facing the mirror, I start practicing ideas. The first thing about being a good barker is knowing psychology. Get their attention, make 'em wonder if maybe you got something nobody ever seen.

“There are things in this world nobody can explain. Observe and marvel, ladies and gentlemen! Under this blanket I have a creature that medical science would like to get its hands on. He eats raw meat, live chickens! And if I can't get him any of that, he'll chew the grass, eat the worms right out of the dirt!”