Carter Beats the Devil (6 page)

In the middle of the night, Charles sat in the velvet folds of the curtains, and felt afraid. He was afraid of losing the rest of his family. When
James was fresh-born, his mother had put Charles’s hand on top of his bald head, and said, “Feel that movement? The bones of his skull haven’t grown together yet,” and from then on, he feared for James’s fragility.

He made himself small there in the window, imagining all the things that frightened him. Bullies. Falling down the stairs. Wolves. Mr. Jenks. The clothes mangler. How the orphans in the stories his mother’s club read aloud to make each other weep forgot their parents’ voices. He hadn’t forgotten how his mother spoke, nor would he, and some nights he crept into her closet to smell her remaining clothes. “The souls in the lake of fire,” he whispered, grimacing and waving his arms in a way that wasn’t quite right.

In the middle of the night, with his father and brother asleep, and his mother having an adventure, he felt fits of longing for places he’d never been, places he couldn’t describe, and he wondered if there were anyone else like him in the world, awake and catching glimpses of the unknown. He wondered if he were truly related to his family, or if instead he had dropped in among them, a changeling.

. . .

Mr. Carter was not immune to the house’s atmosphere, as it was hard to ignore two anxious boys in a household of slowly dwindling numbers. Further, in December, holiday wreaths began to appear on neighbors’ doors, and letters from Mrs. Carter began to hint at presents to come, which made both his sons now follow him from room to room.

One day, he arose early and announced he had a treat for them. He had outfitted the spider phaeton carriage for a trip, which struck Charles as treat enough already—whereas their mother always made them take the surrey, which was slow and safe, the spider was slight and spry and jumped excitingly over cobblestones.

“We’re going to a fair,” his father said, clapping his hands. “It’s all the way in the wilds of Berkeley.” Charles’s face fell. He had been to fairs before, and suspected that this would be as much of a treat as a trip to the grocer’s. Fairs were for women to display quilts and merchants to gaze fondly at displays of new cotton batting. At best, he might get pie.

But on the ferry to Berkeley, with the three of them huddled in the spider phaeton’s seat, and salt spray rising bracingly in their faces, Mr. Carter explained that this was different. The old fairs they knew were things of the past, stale and dead, and, he noted with disdain, unprofitable. Now they’d been revitalized by capitalists who had added amusements and frivolities. “Since we’re coming out of a depression, the country needs a little diversion,” he said, holding out a broadside so that
James could see it over one shoulder and Charles the other. Mr. Carter drew a finger down what looked like a diagram of a village square. “The Midway Plaisance.”

“The what?” asked James.

“It’s like a town, but the only business is pleasure. Here’s the Moorish palace, and the Egyptian Theatre, a shooting gallery, and, oh, here’s the Merry-Go-Round with Parker’s Famous Military Band Organ.” Charles had drawn so close his cheek scratched against his father’s overcoat. He didn’t know what a Merry-Go-Round was, but it sounded exotic, and as his father listed off the other attractions—the Volcano of Kilauea, Vienna bakeries, a model of St. Peter’s of Rome, the world’s tallest man, “amazing oddities of the vegetable and animal world”—Charles began to fidget.

After they arrived in Berkeley and took the horse to the livery, Mr. Carter walked them onto the fairgrounds. James and Charles immediately began to bicker about which attraction they would see first. Their father didn’t notice, as he was perusing a broadside for a cattle auction.

“Boys,” he said, digging into his trousers for coins, “you each get thirty cents. I have an appointment.” In the hours he’d been promoting the fair, he hadn’t mentioned an appointment, but the Carter brothers asked nothing, as they were distracted by the sight of silver dimes hitting their palms. Their father explained that the tax benefits of owning a small herd of livestock had led to waves of
fin-de-siècle
“urban farming” and he was determined to come away from the fair with exactly three fine animals.

So Mr. Carter went left, to the auction, and his sons were sent right, toward the heart of the action. This was their first adventure out of the house since their mother had left, and Charles was excited and nervous about the possibility of getting lost, or even stolen by brutes who were said to prowl around the edges of parks. Yet there was music from a steam calliope, and the sounds of games being played, and when Charles saw children escorted by both parents, he tried to feel free rather than lonely. James was quick to spot the sweets table, and so, gorging themselves on cotton candy and taffy and coconut crisps, the boys took their remaining coins toward the midway.

To their disappointment, regardless of the broadside’s promises, there was no shooting gallery, nor was there a Merry-Go-Round, and they had to walk carefully, or they would trip, as the ground along the Midway Plaisance was a nightmare of fossilized wheel ruts from heavy wagons that had passed during a rainstorm. Still, Charles looked at the tents with their gaily painted promises—the Wonders of Germany!—the Vistas of Venice!—and he began to feel at ease in a way he never had before.

They paused outside a tent whose yellow sign announced The World’s Smallest Horse, with arabesques and filigree designs suggesting the idea was most attractive indeed. The boys were in complete agreement that they had to see the world’s smallest horse.

They handed their nickels over. Inside the tent was a corral. A small black horse knelt in a bed of dirty hay beside a bowl of dirty water. The brothers watched the horse pant for a moment.

“He isn’t that small,” Charles said.

“He’s a little bit small,” James agreed, “but not that small.”

They left. Carter felt irritated, as he’d been keen on seeing a much smaller horse. The next tent promised Dangerous Reptiles, which made his heart jump with anticipation, but when they entered, there were simply three boa constrictor snakes, each—or so the man who took their nickels said—diabolical, though it was hard to tell, since they wouldn’t come out from under the rocks on the other side of the glass.

As this exhibit had been a gyp, the brothers avoided the next two tents: the Florida alligator and the Fat Lady. Charles was unsure of what to do next—he wanted more badly than ever to be taken over by genuine wonder, and he felt that
some
tent
somewhere
would provide what he wanted, but still he decided to avoid the entire pavilion of oddly shaped fruits and vegetables. He was in fact prepared not to enter another tent all afternoon. However, James insisted they see the world’s tallest man.

The sign outside the tent declared: Stretch Sullivan: 8 Foot 5 Inches of Fighting Irish.

“It might be a gyp,” Charles cautioned. But since they still had time before the cattle auction was over, Charles agreed to enter. They paid and they walked together past the canvas flap, into the mildewing tent.

It was gloomy inside. Where the tent’s seams had given way, shafts of light made faint ovals on patches of dead grass. There was a tent pole in the center and leaning against it was Joe Sullivan. He was reading a newspaper. He glanced at the boys, then went back to his paper, licking a thumb and turning a page.

James reached out and held his brother’s hand. At the touch, Charles, who’d been staring for several long seconds, realized he had neither blinked nor breathed since entering. He inhaled quietly. Sullivan’s black and scuffed shoes were the length of shotguns. He could pick up a mature pumpkin one-handed. As Charles tilted his head back he felt like he was in the nave of a church; Sullivan’s head nearly touched the ribbed vaulting of the canvas tent.

Charles walked a few paces back and forth, bumping into James as they each toed an imaginary line. They kept their distance not from respect, but from a vague fear of being eaten. In fairy tales, giants ate little boys. Charles was old enough to know that these were only stories, but not old enough to dismiss the possibility completely.

Sullivan was dressed in a black wool suit, a bolo tie and a huge tan Stetson. His grim expression—hooded eyes, a mouth as straight and plain as a ruler—looked less like flesh than a waxy kind of stone. He didn’t seem in a fighting mood. Still, Charles’s unease began to outweigh the wonder he felt.

“Well, we’ve seen him,” Charles said, taking his brother’s hand. James, however, wouldn’t budge.

“How tall are you?” James asked.

Without looking away from his newspaper, Sullivan jerked his thumb at the pole he was leaning against. “Like it says there,” he murmured. He had a soft voice, as if the air were thinner up where it came from. The pole’s hashmarks indicated feet. There was an exclamation mark at 8 feet 5 inches, which, because he was slouching, Sullivan did not quite meet.

Charles said, “Well, we’ve seen him,” again, but James still had his stubborn look.

James put his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you have a chair?”

“What’d you say?” Sullivan continued reading.

“Why don’t you have a chair?”

“No one wants to see me sitting down.”

“Oh. What’s your name?”

“Joe Sullivan.”

“Oh. I’m James Carter.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Oh. I’m almost seven.”

“That’s dandy.” Sullivan flipped his paper over.

Because James never talked to strangers, Charles was unsure what he, the older brother, should do. For some reason, James started a story—about a friend of his who had his own bicycle—that had so many false starts that Sullivan finally put his newspaper down and stared, hard, at James. Charles wasn’t sure why, but he felt growing embarrassment for himself and his brother, as if they’d seen someone naked in the bath, and, even worse, they’d paid to do it. He began to take James by the hand. But
then he glanced at Sullivan’s gloomy face once again, to tell him good-bye, and faltered.

“Excuse me,” Charles said. He tried to be polite, but excitement began to make him dizzy.

“We must be going,” James added. “Good-bye,” and he extended his hand to shake.

Sullivan squatted down. He slowly went onto one knee, his joints cracking as loud as pencils snapping, and put his massive hand out and gently curled it around James’s. James turned to his brother and said, with an angelic smile, “See, he ain’t gonna eat us.”

Sullivan looked at each brother slowly and carefully. Finally, he muttered, “Don’t say ‘ain’t.’” Crouching, he was still the size of an average, standing adult. He smelled like cough medicine. His lumpy white face, which Charles had to look up into, hadn’t changed expression, and perhaps couldn’t change. Charles still wanted to run away. But the decoration in the center of Sullivan’s bolo tie rooted him to the spot.

“Excuse me,” he said, trying to sound casual and mature, “is that a Gobrecht dollar?”

Sullivan touched his bolo tie with his fingers. “What?”

“If it’s from 1838, it’s worth over three hundred dollars.”

“This thing?” Sullivan struggled with the coin. “What are you talking about?”

“I collect coins,” Charles announced. “American coins, actually.” He continued, repeating something he’d heard his father say. “I know more about things of value than most ever will.”

He did not understand the look Sullivan gave him, but it wasn’t a respectful sort of look. Sullivan stuck the newspaper under his arm, loosened his bolo, and held it out so Charles could examine it. “What’s it say there, Elijah?”

“Oh.” Charles looked at the date carefully, disappointed. “It’s an 1850. And it’s scratched up.”

“Is it worth three hundred smackers or not?”

“It’s worth about five dollars.” Charles colored again.

“Well, why ain’t it worth three hundred?” Sullivan barked.

“In 1838 they only made thirty-one silver dollars, total, for the whole United States. But in 1850, they made forty-seven thousand five hundred. If you had an 1851 dollar, you’d be luckier, because then they made only one thousand three hundred of them, and so it’s worth—”

“Okay.”

“—worth about a hundred and fifty.”

“I get it, I get it,” Sullivan said, straightening so that the boys were eye level with the grass stains on his knees.

Charles pulled a coin from a fold in his cap. “Do you know what this is?”

“Some kinda five-dollar gold piece?” Sullivan shrugged.

Charles smiled. “You fell into the trap,” he said, as he’d said to a dozen adults. “This is an 1883 five-cent nickel in brilliant uncirculated condition. See, it says ‘five’ in Roman numerals on the back, but they forgot to say ‘five cents,’ and a racketeer dipped it in gold solution. And people who weren’t all that smart believed it was a five-dollar gold piece.”

“Huh.” Sullivan tapped his rolled-up newspaper against the leg of his trousers, and poked his tongue into his cheek. “Can I see that thing?”

It was the most valuable piece in the collection that Charles was allowed to handle himself. He wasn’t sure what it was worth, but he had never let anyone else touch it. Feeling triumphant, he handed it over.

Sullivan examined it, murmuring, “Well, whaddya know. Thanks.” He brought his hand down toward Charles, the gold coin braced between his finger and his thumb. As Charles reached for it, Sullivan grabbed it with his other hand, and made a fist, which he opened. It was empty. The coin was gone.

“Hey,” Charles said feebly. Sullivan tipped his hat and returned to the tent pole.

“Give it back,” Charles said.

“Give what back?”

“My nickel.”

Sullivan’s face showed it could indeed change expression: he smirked. Then he opened up his newspaper.

Charles looked at James, who was shaking his head gravely. “Daddy said never show anyone the coin. You’re in trouble.”

“Give it back,” Charles yelled. “That’s not fair.”

Sullivan murmured, “Get used to it, squirt.”

“I want it back!”

It had happened so fast Charles couldn’t believe it. His stomach hurt. He stood there, speechless, as the simplicity of having lost his coin—having given it away with no possibility of return—welled up in him. He burst forward and pounded on the giant’s leg. “Give it! Give it!”