The Circus of Dr. Lao (2 page)

     A traffic officer of the railroad read the ad at seven-thirty while he was eating breakfast just before going to work. Behind one of his ears a pimple loomed temptingly, ripe for a squeezing. His hair was dryish and thinnish and untidy and brownish and needed further combing. His flesh was the flesh of one neither young nor old, but more old than young, more repulsive than tempting. Cannibals might have eaten him; shipwrecked mariners never. An undiscerning woman might have loved him; a cinema queen never. He wasn't a very good traffic officer; he might have made a failure of the insurance business. Heaven perhaps could comfort him; this world never. His two young sons sometimes would wonder how his hands would look in handcuffs, his feet in ballet slippers, his nose in a stein of beer. He read the ad uneasily, remarking to his wife petulantly:
     "Here's a damn circus in town. But it never came over the railroad; must have its own trucks. Just some more business we didn't get. By George, there's lots of it we don't get any more. First thing I know they won't be needing traffic men on the line any more. Then what in hell'll we do?"
     "Oh, now, don't start worrying," said his wife, "till you've got something to worry about."

     A state quarantine inspector came in from his nightly vigil at the bug station out on the California highway and at breakfast in a restaurant met a fellow-inspector from the bug station on the New Mexico highway. They saw the ad in the restaurant paper.
     "Did you see any circus come by your place last night?" asked Inspector Number One.
     "Nope," said Inspector Number Two.
     "Neither did I. It must have come in over the railroad, I guess. If you ain't got nothing to do this afternoon, let's go to the damn thing."
     "Awright," said Inspector Number Two. "I kinda like the goddam things."

     A lawyer who prided himself on his knowledge of history and religion read the ad and bogged down at the "long-dead city of Woldercan" and the "fearful god Yottle." He went to his encyclopaedia to refresh his memory. Neither city nor deity could he find. He wasn't sure about Bel-Marduk either, so he looked him up, too. Bel, however, was there. "Yottle . . ." thought the lawyer, "Woldercan . . . baloney; somebody's been making up a lot of stuff. Fooling the people all of the time. Wonder what a circus conception of a god previous to Bel-Marduk would be like. Oh, Lord, what'll people think of next? Believe I'll go to the darn thing. Can't do any worse than bore me to death."

     A widow, a Mrs. Howard T. Cassan, read the advertisement at quarter of ten. ". . . the midway will house a fortuneteller . . . veiled in mystery . . . prophecies invariably true . . ." Mrs. Cassan always went to fortunetellers. When none was available she cast the cards or séanced with ouija. She had had her future foretold so many times that in order to fulfill all the forecasts she would have to live ninety-seven more years and encounter and charm a war-strength regiment of tall, dark men. "I'll go and ask this man — let's see — yes, I'll ask him about that oil well I dreamed about," said Mrs. Howard T. Cassan.

     Two college youths from back East, Slick Bromiezchski and Paul Conrad Gordon, at the moment in Abalone, Arizona, after an outing in old Mexico, read the ad and decided to see the circus.
     "Let's take in that peepshow," said Slick.
     "You're damn right; and we'll take it in cockeyed drunk, too," said Paul. "Refusing admittance to men under the influence of liquor is a challenge no Sigma Omicron Beta can overlook."

     Mr. Etaoin, the
Tribune
proofreader, conned the ad again at his breakfast at ten-thirty to see if he had overlooked any errors in it the night before. Finding none pleased him. He regarded the page fondly, marking the emphasis gained by the use of white space around the big black type, commending the restrained use of italics, admiring the thin Goudy caps and small caps. The sense of what he looked at piqued him. "Wonder what kind of show it is?" thought Mr. Etaoin. "Believe I'll go to the thing."

     Mr. Larry Kamper read the ad cursorily in a cast-aside
Tribune
as he lounged under the palm trees in the park by the railroad station waiting for a freight train to leave Abalone. Larry knew not what train he was waiting for, nor in which direction it might be going, nor where he would get off. But he didn't mind. He had recently been discharged from the army, still had a little money, was reasonably his own master and comparatively free from worry. His last permanent address had been Company E, 15th U.S. Infantry, American Compound, Tientsin, China. He had been discharged at Fort Mason after his return to America on an army transport, had been paid all that was due him, and now was touring the great Southwest, a land hitherto out of his ken, on sidedoor Pullmans. So he lounged under the palm trees in the park near the railroad station, waiting for a freight train to go in either one direction or another, and cursorily read the ad in the cast-aside
Tribune
. And, lo, upon the world-weary traveler there fell a pall of nostalgia, and waveringly a ghost cry from the bones of his dead youth smote his ears: he had not seen a circus for ten years; to be a little boy again; to tremble at the sight of strange animals; to recapture the simple thrill of wonderment: that would be pleasure; that would be good. Larry the infantryman, Larry the booze-fighter, Larry the whorechaser, Larry the loudmouthed, read the ad and longed for his boyhood. And presently he got to his feet and wondered what time it was and started for the circus grounds.

     Six blocks down Main Street Larry Kamper encountered the parade. Realizing he was too early for the show, he shouldered his way through the mass of Mexicans that cluttered the curb to get a look at the procession.
     He almost laughed when he saw it. Only three frowzy little beast-drawn wagons, the first driven by an old Chinaman, the second by a pale bearded man, the last by a Jewish-looking fellow with a cap of goat horns on his head. There was a big coiled grey snake in the Chinaman's wagon, a bear in the second wagon, a green dog in the last.
     "Hey," said a man standing beside Larry, "what sort of animal is that thing pulling the first cart there?"
     Larry looked and saw a horse bearing on its forehead a long thin white horn.
     "Just some fake," said Larry. "What d'you call them things? Singlehorns? That ain't it. Monohorns? Naw . . . uh . . . unicorns? That's it. Unicorn. Fellah took a horse and made a unicorn out of it by pasting a horn on its head, I guess."
     "Yeah, but that ain't no horse like any ever what I see," said the man. "Look at thet there tail. Ever see a horse with a tail like that critter's got?"
     "Well, I don't know a hell of a lot about horses," said Larry. "I been in the infantry six years. But it ain't no unicorn; I know that, 'cause there ain't no unicorns, nor ever was."
     "Well, sir, that thing ain't a horse either," said the man. "I been boy-raised with horses, and I can tell 'em when I see 'em; and that ain't no horse."
     "I guess it's a freak of some kind then," said Larry. And he also said: "Well, Jeesis, what's that thing driving the last wagon?"
     The man looked and said: "Why, it's just a feller with some goat horns on his head. Another fake, I reckon."
     "I never seen a man like that before," said Larry. "Look at his feet."
     "What's the matter with his feet?"
     "Aw, he pulled 'em down too quick. He had 'em up on the dashboard for just a second. Had awful funny-looking shoes on, if you could call 'em shoes. Look at his face; ever see a face like that before?"
     "Sure," said the man; "hell of a lot of 'em. What's wrong with his face?"
     "I dunno," said Larry. "The whole thing's screwy, anyway. Circus parade with only three wagons! My Gawd. Hey, what's that animal in the last wagon?"
     "You got me, brother. Looks like a dog, though."
     "That ain't no dog," said Larry.
     "Well, say now, let's get together on some of this stuff," protested the man. "Which of us is cockeyed, anyway?"
     "Oh, to hell with the parade," said Larry. "I got some money. Come on, let's get a glass of beer."
     "Right," said the man.

     They went into Harry Martinez's place.
     "Two cervezas," said the man to Barkeep Harry.
     "Naw, naw," said Larry. "I just want beer."
     "That means beer out here; it's Spanish," grinned Harry.
     Larry was relieved. "Awright, then. What'dya think of the parade?"
     "I didn't think a hell of a lot of it," said Harry, "'cept that I couldn't figure why they had that man in the second cage. What was he, a wild man from Borneo or something?"
     "Man?" said Larry's companion. "I didn't see no man in a cage. There was a snake and a bear and something what looked like a dog kinda, but I didn't see no man. Did you?" he asked Larry.
     "I dunno what the hell I saw now," said Larry.
     "Well," said Harry Martinez, "I'm here to tell you that I got good eyes, an' that in the cage on the second wagon of that there parade I seen a man. He looked like a Russian or something. And what kind of an animal was that what was pulling that second wagon; tell me that, either of you."
     "I didn't rightly notice," said Larry's companion.
     "Neither did I," said Larry.
     "Well," said Harry Martinez, "I did. Did you ever hear of a sphinx?"
     "That big statue thing in Arabia?"
     "Yeah. Well, it looked like a sphinx pulling that second wagon. 'Course it was a fake. Big mule, I reckon, tricked out in a lion's hide."
     "Nope," said Larry, "I remember now. That wasn't no mule."
     "Well, what the hell was it then?" asked his friend.
     "I dunno, but it wasn't a mule, that's a cinch," said Larry, finishing his beer.
     "Two more beers," said his friend.
     "Right," said Harry Martinez.

     Mr. Etaoin, the
Tribune
proofreader, stepped out of the restaurant onto Main Street and saw the parade coming his way. He lit a cigarette and awaited its coming.
     When it came, he gazed at it bemusedly wondering if he saw aright. An elderly lady tapped his arm. She had a little boy with her.
     "Please, mister, can you tell us what kind of a snake that is in the wagon? Is it something they caught here in Arizona? We're just out from the East, you know, and don't know all the animals here yet."
     Mr. Etaoin regarded the reptile in the slow-moving wagon. It had no scales; only a grey slimy hide like a catfish.
     "I don't know what it is, lady," he said; "but it's not an Arizona snake, that's certain. They don't get that big out here. Matter of fact, I don't know where in the world snakes do get as big as that fellow is."
     "Maybe it's a sea serpent, grandma," said the little boy.
     "That's as good an idea as any," agreed Mr. Etaoin.
     Two business men came alongside. "Lord, but that's a big snake," said one. "Wonder what kind it is?"
     "It's a sea serpent," said the little boy.
     "It is, huh?" said the man. "Well, by George, I always heard of them things; kinda like myths, you know. But this is the first time I ever really saw one. So that's the sea serpent, huh? Well, sir, he's a monster; I'll give him credit for that. Yessir."
     The man with him said: "What's that man doing in the second cage?"
     "That's no man, Bill; that's a bear. What's wrong with your eyes?"
     "Looks like a man to me," said Bill. "What do you call it, friend?" he asked Mr. Etaoin.
     "My glasses are kinda dusty," said the proofreader, "but it looks to me like a man that walks like a bear."
     "Well, I say it's a bear what walks like a man," said the first business man facetiously. "Man that walks like a bear . . . haw, haw. That's pretty good! Where's he going to walk to in that cage? Huh?"
     "Why, it's a Russian, isn't it?" asked the old lady.
     "Good Lord, woman," said Bill, "we ain't that bad yet here in Arizona. We don't pen Russians up and put 'em on display with animals; that is, not yet we don't."
     "Here, now," said the first man to Bill; "don't talk to a lady that way. You said it was a man yourself, didn't you? What difference does it make whether it's a Russian or not? You got to excuse him, lady."
     "I don't give a damn whether it's a Russian or an Eskimo or a Democrat!" said Bill. "By God, it ain't no bear, and that's that"
     "Well, I never heard such language in all my life!" announced the old lady. "If that's western chivalry for you, the sooner I get back to Sedalia the better!"
     Mr. Etaoin, to make conversation, said: "What kind of a donkey is it pulling the last wagon?"
     "Why, it's just a common ordinary everyday good-for-nothing lousy lowdown jackass of a donkey," said Bill truculently. "I ain't going to get in no argument about him, fellah. I'm sorry, lady, for speaking the way I did. I don't feel so good this morning."
     The little boy piped up: "It's a burro, isn't it, mister?"
     "Have it your own way, lad. I don't care if it's a walrus."
     "How come it's so doggone yellow?" asked the first man.
     "It looks like it was made of gold," said the old lady brightly.
     Bill started to laugh. "Haw, haw, haw! The golden ass! The golden ass!"
     Bill's companion took his arm. "Come on, Bill; let's go. Folks are beginning to look at you funny."
     "Are people all like that in Abalone?" the old lady asked Mr. Etaoin.
     "No, not all of 'em," he apologized. "Just one or two now and then."

     The two college youths from back East came out of their hotel and climbed into their old touring car; Slick Bromiezchski driving, Paul Conrad Gordon giving advice: "Choke it, boy; choke hell out of it."
     The car started and they got as far as Main Street when a red light halted them. Then the parade came along and halted them some more.
     "There's the circus," said Slick. "Where's the peepshow float?"
     "Patience," said Paul Conrad. "They don't put their peepshows on parade. This is only the teaser to the main dish."
     "Sure is a hell of a parade," said Slick. "Old Chink with one foot in the grave; Christlike looking personage; and that guy made up to look like Rodin's Faun — or am I thinking of Praxiteles? Anyhow, what do you think of it, Oom Powl?"
     "Rodin's Faun!" said Paul; "that's what I was trying to think of. Afternoon of a faun. Nymphs. You know."
     "Sure. But why that particular stream of consciousness?"
     "It's the guy with the horns on his head," said Paul. "Suppose he were real?"
     "All right. I'm supposing as hard as I can. Now what?"
     "Well, good Lord, can you imagine a real honest-to-god satyr driving a gold-plated mule down the main drag of a hick town?"
     "Sure. I can imagine anything. What of it?"
     "Oh, nothing. Let's go. Time's flying. We got to get under the influence and make a test case on the circus grounds, you will recall."