Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation (15 page)

“Frosted Mini-Wheats—you know, those little shredded wheat things. They fortify your whole body. Remember?”

“Oh, those. Ha. No, those are pure shit.”

“Wow. Seems like you were just telling me not that long ago how much you liked them.”

“Well, I used to believe in Santa Claus,
too.”

The infant was born on the cusp of winter as dawn rose on the twentieth century. Its sick jangly cry whipped across the frigid river and twisted its way through the mills and factories where, for a heartbeat, production of steel and aluminum seemed to halt. Outside the tiny house, a passerby might have observed distressed figures swimming in the dull yellow light behind the soiled window. They hovered around him, frightened and praying, as the broken little boy struggled to prove himself worthy of life.

Some time later, far away, another child entered the world. Fleshy and full of want, it sang out, strong and greedy, as if it hoped to devour the earth itself. Those in attendance conveyed obligatory smiles and bland compliments to the exhausted mother. Yet there was an uneasiness in the room. No one dared speak of it, but these were clearly the cries of an asshole.

My tenth-grade American History class was informed that we would be missing the second half of school on Tuesday to watch a threshing machine demonstration at the York Fair. Within moments of the announcement, I’d already formulated a plan: I would sneak off from the group and go to the freak show. In a weak moment, I invited Roy Hatcher to come along, but he balked—not because he feared getting caught, but because he felt it was wrong. Roy Hatcher, apparently, was in school to learn—and skipping off to see people with birth defects was not his idea of a good time. I had to shake my head. Just another shallow fuck who didn’t get it.

I was mad about freaks in those days, absorbing every poetic metaphor and lofty allegory that writers of freak books tossed my way. They were indeed “very special people,” and I—a perfectly healthy albeit freakishly pale-skinned boy from the gritty pastures of Pennsylvania Dutch Country—
related
to them. I, too, was an outcast: I saw things differently! Felt things more deeply! I refused to run with the pack, and the pack had no interest in running with me. (I forget which came first.) And if all that wasn’t divergent enough, I didn’t like the movie
Animal House
.

My true place, I was convinced, was among my brethren in the congress of living curiosities, and a trip to the York Fair was my pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I never missed a season
back then and consider myself privileged to have met some of the greats in their twilight years: Esther the Alligator Girl, conjoined twins Ronnie and Donnie, Toad Boy Otis Jordan (who later tinkered with his act and rechristened himself “The Human Cigarette Factory”), and how could I forget the talkative black midget in a pinstripe suit whose name escapes me (as the names of midgets often do), who in one long exhale took me through his entire career—from his days of dancing on the sidewalk for chestnuts to appearing on the great vaudeville stages alongside such notables as Sophie Tucker and “Sleep ’n’ Eat.” (A career virtually identical to that of a white midget I once met who also danced for chestnuts and worked with Sophie Tucker and Percy Kilbride from the Ma and Pa Kettle
films.)

But it’s all gone now. Disability groups, handicap associations, and other like-minded busybodies have succeeded in closing the sideshows down, armed with nothing more than common sense and a just cause. Walk into a “Human Oddity” tent these days and what passes for a freak is probably a guy without tattoos who abhors social media.

The history teacher, Mr. Mueller, was a known boozehound, wife beater, and antique tractor buff. Two-thirds of that explained our field trip to see a nineteenth-century thresher demonstration. Had we been on point with our current studies, we’d be eating Quarter Pounders at the
McDonald’s in Gettysburg. Mueller shooed us off the bus and gave us our directives: “Keep your asses moving and your traps shut!” It was just the Dewar’s talking, but still . . . poor Mrs. Mueller.

The heart of the fair and all its glories loomed beyond us as we were frog-marched to that ground zero of tedium: the exhibition and livestock buildings. Somewhere, not very far away, was a girlie show, but where we walked, there was only erection-dousing signage with come-ons like
EMBROIDERY AND CROCHET
and
BLACKSMITH
VS
.
COBBLER!
And everywhere—
everywhere
—the smell of shit.

We entered the Tools and Agriculture Annex and rubbed elbows with the other hostages—dead-eyed 4-H’ers, confused nursing home captives, and the A-list from the state hospital. One of my classmates, Brenda Strode, recognized her uncle in the latter group and waved excitedly, but he was getting yelled at for breaking a cheese press.

“A testament to the ingenuity of modern man!” a John Deere salesman decreed as we stood before an evolving display of cutting implements that commenced with a sharp rock and climaxed with a riding mower. Mr. Mueller allowed us a few moments to gawk at the sickles before hustling everyone outside to the Main Event—the T. rex of the tour: the steam thresher. We gathered around an old Gomer who said
something about wheat, the 1800s, and boilers, while occasionally hawking a chunk of his respiratory system into a paisley scarf. I made sure to raise my hand so my attendance would be noted.

“Uh . . . how big are those tires?” I queried, in a voice choked with fascination.

Mr. Mueller fielded that one: “They’re wheels, not tires, you idiot!”

“Oh, yeah, I meant ‘wheels.’”

“Resnick—shut up!”

Mission accomplished. Then the old man fired up the tractor, which made a god-awful racket in the predictable nineteenth-century manner, and the entire class was swallowed up in a cloud of steam. I saw my window. By the time the thresher lurched forward, I was running through the Swine and Poultry Building, out a side door, and into the heart of the midway, where my senses quickly engaged in a turf war over the bomb blast of stimuli: racing pigs, fried lard, the distant voice of Eddie Rabbitt singing “Two Dollars in the Jukebox” from the grandstand, competing with the furious growl of a preacher holding a microphone to his mechanical larynx . . . and hey, was that a tattoo of David Duke on that guy’s arm?
Keep moving, don’t make eye contact. Yonder lies the temple.

The banners flapping outside the sideshow tent were worrisome, indicating more than a few “working acts” and animal fluff. I was there to see real human oddities, not a sword swallower, not the Human Blockhead, and certainly not that bovine snooze-fest Pixie the Mini Cow. Luckily, there was one banner that stood out from the rest and justified my reason for being there. I entered the tent as the Human Blockhead was going into his big closer—hammering a railroad spike up his left nostril. Those hoping to see a gush of blood and snot were to be sorely disappointed; this man was a professional. After some cornball patter about clearing his sinuses “the old-fashioned way,” he pried the spike from his nose and was warmly received by the crowd. My timing was fortuitous. The spectators were then invited to meet the performers, who were lined up on a long platform like monarchs whose kingdom was second only to Eddie Rabbitt’s trailer.

Sideshow folk were always happy to greet their public, but even happier to sell you a “pitch card”—a small photograph depicting their unique talents or unusual appearance. Over the course of a season, they could make some decent money selling these souvenirs, although I suspect Pixie the Mini Cow got fucked over by her manager. Being a purist, I knew there was only one card worth getting that day, and boy was it a peach.

Sealo the Seal Boy wasn’t hard to spot—he was sitting in a little chair toward the end of the platform, wearing a smile that lit up the entire tent (the cigar dangling precariously from his mouth threatened to do the same). Far from being a boy, he appeared to be a man in his sixties, pleasant-looking and utterly unremarkable in every regard, despite having no arms, and hands that protruded from his shoulders. He may not have lived on an ice floe or encountered the puzzled gapes of sea lions as depicted on the banner outside, but Sealo was a genuine, bona fide freak.

“Hi, there! What’s your name?” he said as I approached the platform.

“Adam Resnick,” I replied with starstruck formality.

“Nice to meet you, Adam!” he beamed. Sealo offered his hand and I reached up and shook it. It was a little disconcerting, but still more pleasant than kissing a few of my aunts. Somehow his physical characteristics weren’t as jarring as I expected, and quite frankly, he kind of pulled it off. Certainly better than I could have. Sealo was a cool guy.

“Where ya from, Adam?”

“Harrisburg.”

“Oh, I’ve been through there. You’re right by Chocolate Town. I went through the factory, you know. That was years ago. They had those big tanks full of chocolate . . . man, I wanted to jump right in!”

He laughed and the cigar danced around on his lips. I felt lousy about it, but the image of Sealo swimming in chocolate did take some of the fun out of Hershey bars for a while.

“Do you do good in school, Adam?” he asked, turning serious.

“No, not really,” I replied, unable to lie to him.

“Well, I understand,” he said, “school might not seem like such a hot deal right now, but you’ll be amazed where it’ll take you in life. Learning is probably the most important thing a fellow can do for himself. What do you want to be?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I never really thought about it.”

“That’s all right, you’ll sort it out. I’m not worried about you at all. I know my customers!”

It was the first time in my life that someone had expressed anything remotely like hope for me. In that sense, Sealo really was a freak. He saw me differently than I saw myself.

People were starting to push in now, waiting to meet the Seal Boy, but I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to exchange phone numbers, make plans to hang out, get to know his family. I needed this guy in my life. I could imagine Sealo in a Santa Claus suit, soothing the minds of neurotic children everywhere, dispensing insight and encouragement—providing
hope
. Then I envisioned the horrified faces of those same
children trying to squirm out of his lap, their outraged parents, and the angry mall manager screaming at the guy who’d hired Sealo in the first place: “He’s got no fucking arms! Broom him!”

Block it out,
I told myself. Be positive. Have faith in people. Wasn’t that ultimately Sealo’s message?

I bought several of his pitch cards: Sealo shaving, Sealo holding a hunting rifle, Sealo sawing a piece of lumber—Sealo doing, doing, doing. Sans
arms
. What did that make me? What would my pitch cards depict? Adam complaining, Adam making excuses, Adam raging and bitter.

I respectfully asked him to sign one of the cards, and he did so with great care and deliberation.

“Adam, it was a real pleasure to meet you,” he said, passing the card back to me. “I’ll be keeping an eye out for you.”

I bid my new friend farewell and moved onward. The world seemed twice as big now, awash with possibility, if only I allowed myself to see it. And then, suddenly, there I was: standing below Big Ben, a 650-pound man packed into a redwood lawn chair with a doomed vinyl pillow lodged beneath him. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. His lips, pressed into fierce lines, echoed the creases in his forehead. A handwritten sign, crafted from a piece of cardboard that still retained a portion of the Birds Eye logo, was
propped up next to him. Its message was direct and unceremonious:
DON’T ASK
ME
QUESTIONS
—
I HAVE A SORE THROAT
.

My outrage came quickly. Just a few yards away sat Sealo—a real freak—giving his all, while this fat piece of shit clocked out due to a scratchy throat. How dare he even breathe the same sawdust! What happened to “the show must go on”? I immediately sized up Big Ben for what he was: an interloper, a charlatan, a pox on the Congress of Living Curiosities. He was the anti-Sealo. Yet it was so much more than that. Big Ben, ladies and gentlemen, was a testament to the worthlessness of modern man.

A little farm boy wandered over, perhaps eight or nine years old, so nondescript he looked familiar. He squinted at the uncommunicative fat turd on the patio chair and then looked at me, as if seeking confirmation. I gestured toward the sign, and he read it, lips moving silently. A scowl came across his face. He stepped closer to the platform and grunted.

“Hey! Fat Ben!” he called out.

I flinched.

“Hey, fatso, how come you don’t talk?”

In direct noncompliance of the cardboard sign, he had asked Big Ben a question! But Ben did not stir, save for a small twitch in his left pinky, which I may have imagined. The boy muttered to himself, “He ain’t really sleepin’.”

He kicked the platform, producing a loud hollow thud. I almost ran out of the tent.

“You know you ain’t really sleepin’!” he cried out. “Why’d you take my money if you ain’t gonna talk?”

The kid showed no signs of wrapping up his interrogation. But it wasn’t my business. I was merely a bystander.

“How big are your underpants, fatty?” he continued. “I bet your mother was a cow. Is that why you’re so damn fat? Do you moo like a cow? Do you shit in the yard like a cow?” The boy deserved a lot of credit, but to suggest that Big Ben was anything like a cow was an insult to the diminutive Pixie, who was corralled nearby eating grain from a teacup.

I decided to help the kid refine his line of questioning. He was missing the whole point.

“Ask him if he understands the word ‘obligation,’” I whispered. “Explain that real freaks abide by a code of principles. Ask him if he’s ever danced in the street for chestnuts or inspired a single human being in his entire—”

A loud crack suddenly reverberated through the tent; it sounded like a branch snapping off a tree during a storm.

Big Ben’s chair had shifted.

Like a great, horrible creature in a Ray Harryhausen film, the fat man slowly came to life. One eye sluggishly opened, followed by the other. An expulsion of air passed through his dead lips, which swiftly filled with color. There were creaks
and groans as the chair shuddered beneath him. He then slowly rose, like a bloated Neptune ascending from the sea. Up, up he went, as curtains of flab jiggled and unfurled from every extremity. Big Ben towered above us now, gazing down at the boy from the edge of the platform. His chest heaved and a drop of perspiration formed in the cleft of his chin.