Pages Torn From a Travel Journal Read online

  “Indeed, Sar, the same.”

  “I never got chance to make it on account’a work but a couple’a chums tolt me it was a doozy! S’you’ll give me free tickets to hang that in my wind-er?”

  The tall man nodded awesomely & passed the mechanic a cutting of tickets. “Thy fine graces are bountied in the most, good Sar, and I shan’t scruple to detain thee any farther of thy goodly nature. Thee may trust in my word as a gentleman of verity that O’Slaughnassey’s Travelling Show be ye finest, ye most complete, and more striking than any thee might ever have conceived,” & then the man hung the poster so to show its front out the window. Nate & I went outside with him, where he now was able to stand without hindrance. Truly he was a natural giant, & more so in other regards as, first, I caught Nate casting a brief, frowning glance at the titan’s crotch, after which my own eyes followed suit reflexively. He shook each of our hands, his own being double the length & breadth of mine, & offered, “Gentlemen, I am distinguished to have been led into thy midst, and look with much anticipation to seeing thee at the show . . . ”

  My distraction took moments to fend off, for, you see, the crotch of the man’s trousers appeared quite disproportionately stuffed.

  He walked off in leviathan strides, collapsed himself into a waiting spoke-wheeled truck, & drove away.

  “Ain’t that a kick?” Nate remarked, hands ever on his hips. “Looks like we got sumpthin’ fun ta do after all.”

  “Fortunateness seems to have granted your wish,” I said, eyeing the poster.

  “Shit-yeah’n a great big fuck ta boot!”

  I frowned.

  Mussed-haired from an apparent nap, the bus driver appeared, & thus began Nate’s indelicate dissertation regarding the show & cost-free admission tickets. “Haow yew like thet! A curnervul!” enthused the driver. “En’t ben tew one in yeers . . . ”

  “Nor have I,” I contributed, recalling similar travelling shows that would come to the Stamper Hill region periodically. More times than not, however, I could not attend due to the ubiquitous writer’s curse–i.e., I didn’t have the money!

  Nate sharpened his perpetually snide grin. “Friend’a mine tolt me ‘bout this one last year, & said they had a crew’a carny whores ta die fer!”

  “Ee-yuh, I believe it,” said the driver. “I went me to a curnervul in Brattleboro onct, and the hoo-ers theer drained me dry. Ee-yuh, suh. If spunk was garbage, theer pussies’d be a dumpin’ grounds. Ask me, theer en’t a better place for a feller to send his jism than up a curny hoo-er’s cooch.”

  “Or up her tailpipe!”

  “Er in her gut, for thet matter!”

  “Or–hail! All three!”

  I felt dissolute. The level of vocal vulgarity & overall vitiated moralism staggered me in place; though being the stranger in strange company I struggled to maintain some demeanour. Only when the driver saw fit to slap me on the back, did I actually blanch.

  “En’t that right, Slim?” he gruffed, laughing. “You ever git’cher peter-snot up in a carny whore’s cunt?”

  Stupefied, I could only falteringly reply, “I’m sad to say that I have never had the benefit of the experience . . . ”

  “But ya’d lak to, wouldn’t ya?” Nate asked with some concern.

  As for the opportunity of conveying my “peter-snot” into such a creature, I wanted to answer that the notion of my caring less was most definitely an issue of total impossibility. Being the sport, however, I replied, “Why, of course . . . ”

  The mechanic rocked back & forth on his heels. “Well tonight’s yer lucky night, ‘cos we’ll be a-goin’. That tall feller gave me three tickets–one fer each’a us.”

  The driver erupted a hoot. “And I thurt it’d be a dullard’s night!”

  “We’se havin’ us some fun!” & with this exclamation, Nate performed a vocal demonstration that I believe is referred to as a “rebel-yell.”

  I raised a querying finger. “I believe you aforementioned something about an associate of yours endorsing this show last year?”

  “Aw, shee-it yeah, man!” Nate’s eyes gleamed vulpurine at the tickets. “An’, see, this friend’a mine? Dolman Nale’s his name–he runs couple’a stills up in the woods, but it was Dolman tolt me ‘bout this self-same carnival last year’n how dandy the whores turned out, but see, what he couldn’t quit ravin’ ‘bout was this one whore in particular . . . ”

  The driver’s interest was duly piqued. Mine, however, was not.

  “Said they had this li’l blondie whore with a smile could launch a thousand ships and a rack’a tits like to make a monsignor pull his hair out–”

  The driver roared laughter.

  Nate’s seedy grin inclined toward us. “But ya know what else?”

  “Whut?” pleaded the driver.

  “I daren’t contemplate,” came some veiled sarcasm from me.

  Nate’s voice fell to a whisper. “She has hands for feet . . . ”

  The driver’s already odd face transformed to something odder in reaction to Nate’s cryptic words. “I curn’t be heerin’ yew right. Yew say hands for–”

  “I say she gots hands where her blammed feet should be!”

  “No!”

  “‘S’a fact. Dolman Nale ain’t one fer tall tales.”

  Though my own faith in this Mr. Nale’s credulity fell pointedly short of Nate’s, I had heard of similar anomalies–chromosomal, evidently, based on the fascinating research of Johannsen & Mendel of years ago. The theory is thus: that once an ovum is positively fertilised, discrete constituents called “gene-markers” are mysteriously activated. The resulting embryo-genesis ensues; however, flawed gene-markers may, for a myriad of reasons, come into play, triggering abnormal development.

  “Yee-ip, I ain’t kiddin’ yawl. Gal was born with hands fer feet–and born without teeth too–”

  “No teeth, nuther?” said the driver.

  “Not a chopper in her yap, no sir!” Nate gave a lewdly knowing nod. “But it’s on account’a that that she sucks the best pecker in the land. Dolman Nale, he’s had some dick-suckin’ in his time, but he says she’s the best, and don’t charge much neither. Says the gal also does a show–”

  The driver crossed his arms. “A shew, yew say?”

  “Yee-ip. They got a bunch’a peep-tents there, they call ‘em. For, like, ten cents worth’a tickets, you can look in and watch.”

  The words unwittingly goaded a question I could not repress. “Watch what?”

  “Watch the whores gettin’ poked by stunt-cocks—you know.”

  “I assure you–I don’t know. Stunt—”

  He dramatically grabbed his crotch & hefted it. “They’se carnies with really big dicks.”

  “Ee-yuh,” augmented the driver. “An’ for fellers who en’t got the dough for a hoo-er, he curn at leest watch’n have at himself with his hand.”

  “Oh,” I muttered.

  “Yee-ip,” Nate aggravatedly repeated. “And this blondie, this gal with hands for feet? What she do in her tent is she beats off four fellas at once. Get it?”

  First the deduction, then the horrendous picture, formed in my mind. “Ah, I see . . . ”

  “And like I said, the fellas is all packin’ really big cocks, and what they do, see, is they all slap down their jizz on her, for what they’se call the wet-shot. Shee-it, Dolman tolt me that poor gal looked like a dang rum bun time them stunt cocks was done a-cummin’.”

  The driver percolated laughter.

  My element, surely, this was not, but I stood determined to go along since Nate’s inference that a free ticket had my name on it. My only interest was the change of scenery & possibly–should finances allow–a candied apple. I’d leave the “peep-tents,” & the “hoo-ers,” to them.

  Nate cracked his hands together like a pistol shot. “Well, hail. What’re we’se waitin’ for, boys? It ain’t far, and I’se got my truck.”

  “I’m much obliged to be included,” I told him.

  “Ee-yuh,” a
dded the driver for the nth time, &–for goodness sake, he rubbed his crotch! “I need ta fuck me a hoo-er in the wuss way.”

  Nate fumbled for keys in his pocket. “I just hope that blondie with hands for feet is there this year.”

  A moment previously, my eyes found their way back to the poster advertisement. “If this hanging is timely, I’d say you’re in luck.”

  Both men drifted over as my finger directed their attention. The poster turned out to be an elaborate artistic endeavor &, in specificity, a helix of detailed sketch-illustrations which furnished an eye-catching border for the sensational lettering. I’ll add that the artist demonstrated a talent akin to a hybridization of Dore & Brundage: evocative & if anything too-detailed representations of the carnival’s repertoire of personnel. It was here that I became engrossed, as did my associates. It was a rich & grotesque tableau that formed the poster’s curtilage, commencing, first, typically: the Bearded Lady; the Mermaid of Ponape; the World’s Oldest Man, the Sword Swallower; the 500-Pound Woman; an interspersion of double-headed livestock & an Oddities Room proffering jars of variously anomalous fetuses; then, far more attention-arresting: a cadaverous, sunk-eyed female (Cadaveressa, Revived From the Clutches of Death By African Magic!), an impish little girl (The 45-Year-Old Child!), a ghostly 3-eyed man (The Tri-Clops!), &, at the bottom, the target of my notice: Bliss! The Girl with Hands for Feet!

  It was this drawing that the 3 of us scrutinized.

  The tiny yet intricate oddment of art depicted a robustly bosomed young woman sitting spraddled & smiling brightly through a most beatific & even angelic visage; arms extended as well as legs, the latter sporting hands where nature would ordinarily attach feet.

  “Dang if that ain’t her!” Nate cried out.

  “Juss like yew’re buddy said,” added the moronic driver.

  All a likely story, I presumed. The majority of such outlandish carnival exhibits would turn out, after more scrutinous review, to be rife with fraud &, hence, bait for the gullible. But what did I care? A few hours of distraction would surely benefit my mood, & the ticket was any writer’s favorite price.

  The passage of a few minutes found us on our way. The means of our transport? Nate’s dent-ridden & rust-patched rattletrap of a truck, which endeavored noisily along the road that wound about the darkening woodline. The vehicle’s inferior suspension brought a frown to my lips over each bump, while further frowns were elicited due to my 2 unpolished companions, both of whose body odor raged, not to mention incessant discourse replete with language the likes of which might urge the lowliest of gargoyles to become sickened to the point of projectile emesis. Simple decency demands that I repeat no excerpts in this humble travelogue.

  Dusk brought the day’s quiescence, slowly draining vivid darkness into the quaint rural scenes ahead. I chuckled as a duo of bats glided crazily across our passage, for Nate & the driver curtailed their coarse talk momentarily as if the tiny black chiropterans foreran doom. Of other motorists/pedestrians on the road, we encountered none, though the trek did clatter us past a handful of decrepit, wood-slat domiciles complete with “hayseeds” sitting in front-porch rocking chairs; as well as a badly white-washed general store & a feed & fertilizer supplier, all tucked oddly off the road & half-into overhanging woods as if shunning something. When we rounded the next bend, however, the forest abruptly gave way to an expanse of great open space that I’d estimate being a mile square. “This here’s Tuckton’s Fields,” Nate explained. “Ain’t nothin’ but dirt-scratch land on account’a the soil got wored out after the War’a Northern Aggression.”

  I thought it gentlemanly not to point out that said conflict was actuated by Southern aggression, my being a “Yankee” as far as his concern went. “Presumably via the failure of sufficient crop-rotation cycles,” I offered. “Had they rotated between cotton and soya, the soil would still possess vitality.”

  Nate made a confused smirk. “They throw the county fair here, too, and some other hootenannies’n things,” the noun in terminus being articulated as “thangs.”

  I’m fairly certain that the bus driver, as he inclined forward to squint at the vast tract of land, rubbed his crotch. “I en’t seein’ me no curnervul heer, feller ” but just then, the remaining edge of woodline broke to show us a dusk-tinged panorama whose epicenter existed as a virtual efflorescence of multicoloured light. It seemed that a colossal living fireball throbbed amid the barren field.

  “There it ‘tis, buddy!” Nate wailed. “The whores are a-waitin’!”

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-YUH!” added the driver. “Ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh!”

  Seven–that’s right–seven “ee-yuhs!” I could not have sighed with more decisive despondency.

  A single rutted road bisected the expansive field, a linearly perfect lane leading directly to this blossom of illumination. Closer, the blossom queerly increased in size, & gave up details previously diffused by distance: spiring towers with blinking pinnacles, garlands of flashing orbs, a gargantuan ferris wheel turning like a landed star; an aura glowed about the entire goliath of activity–and sound as well, gun-fire-like laughter, gleeful screams in the wake of soaring roller coasters, & colliding, gladsome melodies from a plentitude of pipe organs. The awesome sight carried with it the very acme of festiveness.

  My own awe widened my eyes as our approach slowed; truly, the carnival stretched immense, claiming dozens of acres. Nate stopped the truck in a common area awry with all-manner of motors; and after properly parking, we were off.

  I nearly shuddered from the sheer immensity of the enterprise. At the entrance–a wooden archway painted with scenes of frivolity–we stood in a lengthy line; I used this time to look up at the dizzying erections of rails, girders, tracks, & coruscating lights to realize that this travelling show tinied the few my past had shown me. Its border was formed by the show’s transport trucks & personnel trailers, every 10 yards or so by large, cross-armed ruffians in meretricious garb, functioning as sentinels to insure that none infiltrate the carnival without rendering payment. While in wait, I contemplated the incalculable toil of an effort such as this: the sheer manpower of transport, the logistics, disassembling & then erecting all of this; it occurred to me, too, how unqualified I would be in a such a troupe.

  Soon that painted archway admitted us maw-like, whereupon Nate provided our tickets, & it was a happy pandemonium into which we were then disgorged. “Why not we look fer them whores lickety-split, don’t’cha think?” Nate’s reprobate question turned more of the wonderful English language into carnage.

  The bus driver replied with enthusiastic, “Ee-YUH!” & once again rubbed his crotch.

  “‘Specially that purdy blondie with hands fer feet’n no teeth. Can you imagine the suck-job she kin lay on us?”

  “I believe I’ll embark first on a reconnoiter of my own,” I explained, “for surely in my inexperience, my tagging along would present a burden to your own motives. We’ll meet up shortly–”

  The bus driver looked agog. “Yew meen yew en’t got no interest in creamin’ up no dutty curny hoo-ers?”

  Any response at all was nearly beyond possibility; however, I managed, “Perhaps in a short while, gentlemen.”

  “Come on now,” Nate urged the driver. “Let’s up’n find us that blondie!” & with that the 2 parted, but not before I was able to hear an adjunctive comment under his breath, “What’n tarnations’s wrong with that there fella?”

  “Durn’t knew. Guess he’s a qwee-uh-boy.”

  Nate strode off, chuckling. “Yee-ip! Bet that guy’s had more blammed dick up his ass than I’ve had shit!”

  Indeed.

  Their own decadent laughter followed them as they edged into the crowd, ostensibly in search of the maladapted woman in the advertisement poster.

  I turned to face a copiousness of activity. Amid “barkers,” jugglers, dwarfs, stilted walkers, & petite gymnasts executing cartwheels before all, most of the crowd was fed at once into a wide l
ane that formed a clough betwixt everything, the carnival’s main artery. Observation was my major intent (plus that candied apple) but so large was the crowd that I felt oppressed in spite of my desire to be here. With timidity, I took a single diffident step when—

  “Sir, Sir?” a lithe voice made inquest from behind, & then a finger tapped my back.

  I turned, startled. “Yes?”

  Standing just behind me was a young blond woman-girl with deep Adriatic-blue eyes & a face whose sheer beauty shone like a beacon. Quite short, she stood, not much more than 5 feet; it only was after catching her arresting countenance that I noticed she stood on wooden crutches.

  Her voice flowed like some aural honey. “First time at a carnival, Sir?”

  “Why, um, no, though I suppose one might suspect that–I feel a bit out of place–”

  “I think so,” she chirped. “Mostly just red-necks here, and you’re definitely not that!”

  No, but red-necks DID bring me here, thought I with an inner smile. “I’ve been present at a few carnivals in the dim past, meager compared to this, however. And I did enjoy cotton candy once on Coney Island.”

  “Oh, we have that here–”

  “And candied apples as well, I hope?”

  “Of course!” she shrilled, eyes abeam at me.

  At once I was enchanted, so enchanted in fact that my normally superior powers of deductive reasoning failed to make the most immediate coincidental observation. Her smile at me had slipped a trifle too high, revealing an absence of teeth. This could be no other than what the tall man’s poster promised: Bliss, the Girl with Hands for Feet.

  Recovering from the fruition, I immediately asked, “Might you direct me to its proper vendor, Miss? I’d be most obliged.”

  “About three-quarters down the midway”—she pointed into the crowd-stuffed passage—“on your left. I’d take you there myself, but I’m on poke-swiper watch.”

  “Pardon me?” I stretched the words.

  She giggled, a becharming (and even–I’ll own here–erotic) utterance. “That’s why I called you, Sir. Your poke–you know–your wallet? Never carry it in your back pants pocket. Always in front instead.”