Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories (33 page)

THE CARNIVAL

by Charles Beaumont

The cool October rain and the wind blowing the rain. The green and yellow fields melting into grey hills, into grey sky and black clouds. And everywhere, the smell of autumn drinking the coolness, the evening coolness gathering in leaves and wheat alfalfa, running down fat brown bark, whispering through rich grass to tiny living things.
The cool rain, glistening on earth and on smooth cement.
"Come on, Lars, I'll beat you!"
"Like fun you will!"
Two boys with fresh wet faces and cold wet hands.
"Last one there is a sissy!"
Wild shouts through the stillness and a scrambling onto bicycles. A furious pedaling through sharp pinpoints of rain, one boy pulling ahead of the other, straining up the shining cement, laughing and calling.
"Just try and catch me now, just try!"
"I'll catch you all right, you wait!"
"Last one there is a sissy, last one there is a sissy!"
Faster now, flying past the crest of the hill, faster down the hill and into the blinding rain. Faster, small feet turning, wheels spinning, along the smooth level. Flying, past outdoor signs and sleeping cows, faster, past strawberry fields and haystacks, little excited blurs of barns and houses and siloes.
"Okay, I'm going to beat you, I'm going to beat you!"
A thin voice lost in the wind.
"I'll get to the trestle 'way before you, just watch!"
Lars Nielson pushed the pedals angrily and strained his young body forward, gripping the handlebars and singing for more speed. He felt the rain whipping through his hair and into his ears and he screamed happily.
He closed his eyes and listened to his voice, to the slashing wind and to the wheels of his bicycle turning in the wetness. Whizzing baseballs in his head, swooping chicken hawks and storm currents racing over beds of light leaves.
He did not hear the small voice crying to him, far in the distance.
"Who's the sissy, who'll be the sissy?" Lars Nielson sang to the whirling world beside him and his legs pushed harder and harder.
His eyes were closed, so he did not see the face of the frightened man. His ears were full, so he did not hear the screams and the brakes and all the other terrible sounds. The sudden, strange unfamiliar sounds that were soft and quiet as those in his mind were loud.
He pushed his young legs in the black darkness, harder, faster, faster . . -
The room was mostly blue. In the places where it had not chipped and cracked, the linoleum floor was a deep quiet blue. The walls, specially handpattered, were soft greenish blue. And the rows of dishes on high display shelves, the paint on the cane rockers, the tablecloth, Mother's dress, Father's tie-all blue.
Even the smoke from Father's pipe, creeping and slithering up into the thick air like long blue ghosts of long blue snakes.
Lars sat quietly, watching the blue.
"Henrik." Mrs. Nielson stopped her rocking.
"Yes, yes?"
"It is by now nine o'clock."
Mr. Nielson took a large gold watch from his vest pocket.
"It is, you are right. Lars, it is nine o'clock."
Lars nodded his head.
"So." Mr. Nielson rose from his chair and stretched his arms. "It is time. Say goodnight to your mama."
"Goodnight, Mama."
"Goodnight."
"So."
Mr. Nielson took the wooden bar in his big hands and pushed the chair gently past the doorway and down the hall. With his foot he pushed the door open and when they were inside the bedroom, he pulled the string which turned on the electric light.
He walked to the front of the chair.
"Lars, you feel all right now? Nothing hurts?"
"No, Papa. Nothing hurts."
Mr. Nielson put his hands into his pockets and sat on the sideboard of the bed.
"Mama is worried."
"Mama shouldn't."
"She did not like for you to be mean to the dog."
"I wasn't mean."
"You did not play with it. I watched, you did not talk to the dog. Boys should like dogs and Mama is worried. Already she took it away."
Lars sat silently.
"I'm sorry, Papa."
"It isn't right, my son, that you should do nothing. For your sake I say this."
"Papa, I'm tired."
"Three years, you do nothing. See, look in the mirror, see at how pale you are getting. Sick pale, no color."
Lars looked away from the mirror.
"I tell you over and over, you must read or study or play games."
"Play games, Papa… ?"
Mr. Nielson began to pace about the room.
"Sure, certainly. Games. You can, you can make them up. Play them in your head. You don't have to run around and wave your arms to play games!"
Lars looked down, where the carpet lay thin and unmoving.
"But you do nothing. All day I work, and hard I work, lifting many pounds, and I come home tired. All day I use my arms and feet and back and I do not want to any more, when I come home, so I don't. I sit in the chair and read. I read, Lars, and I smoke my pipe and I talk to Mama. I sit still, like you, but I do something!"
With Mr. Nielson's agitated movement, the room started to pick at the Feeling. Lars concentrated on white.
"And it don't take my arms and legs to do it. They are tired, they are every way like yours. I am you at night, Lars. And I am old, but I don't sit with nothing. I am always playing games, in my head. I don't move, but I don't worry Mama who loves me. I don't move, but I don't say nothing to my Mama and Papa, ever, just sit staring!"
"I'm sorry, Papa."
"Yes, for yourself you are sorry! You are sixteen years old and should be thinking about how to live, how to get along when Papa is no more here to take care of you and there is no money."
"Yes, Papa."
"Then begin to think, Lars. When I come home at night, let me see you talking to Mama, planning things with your brain. The big men are big because of their brains, my son, not their arms and legs. Nothing is wrong with your brain, you didn't hurt it. You have time to learn, to learn anything!"
"I will begin to think, Papa."
Mr. Nielson rubbed his hands together. They made a rough grating sound.
"All right. Tomorrow you tell Mama you are sorry and want to play with the dog. She will get it back for you, and you should smile and thank her and talk to the dog."
"I-I can go to bed now?"
"Yes."
Mr. Nielson leaned forward and slid one arm behind Lars' back, another beneath his legs.
"We are not like others," he said slowly. "When I am gone, there will be nothing, no money. Don't you see why you got to-are you ready?"
Mr. Nielson lifted Lars from the wheelchair and laid him on the bed. He sucked on his pipe as he removed shirt, trousers, stocking, shoes and underwear; grunted slightly as he pulled a faded tan nightgown over heavy lengths of steel and rubber.
Then he smiled, broadly.
"You should say big prayers tonight, my son. You have worried Mama but even so, tomorrow is a surprise."
Lars tried to lift his head. Father stood near the bed, but in the corner, so the big smiling face was hidden.
"Tomorrow, Papa?"
"I tell you nothing now. But you are a young man now, nearly, and you have promised me that you will begin to think. Isn't that what you promised, Lars?"
"Yes."
"So. And I believe you. No longer coming home to see you sitting with no thoughts. I believe you and so, tomorrow you get your reward. Tomorrow you will see happiness and it will clear your head; then you will be a man!"
Lars stopped trying to move his head. He closed his eyes so that he would not have to stare at the electric light bulb.
"Hah, but I don't tell you. Say big prayers, my son. It is going to be good for you from now on."
"I will say my prayers tonight, Papa."
"Goodnight, now. You sleep."
"Tell Mama-that I'm sorry."
Mr. Nielson pulled the greasy string and the room became black but for the coals in his pipe.
Lars waited for the door to close and Father's footsteps to stop. Then he moved his lips, rapidly, quietly, fashioning the prayers he had invented. To a still, unmoving God, that he could stay forever in the motionless room, to fight the Feeling. That he could think of colors and nothing and keep the Feeling-the feet across meadows, the arms trembling with heavy pitchforks full of hay, all the parts of life-in a small corner in a far side of his mind.
Lars prayed, as Father had suggested. His head did not move when sleep came at last.
"You did not tell him, Henrik?" Mrs. Nielson rocked back and forth in the blue cane chair, breaking green beans into small pieces and throwing the pieces into an enamel wash-basin.
"No."
"He never was to one-there never was one in Mt. Sinai since I can remember."
"Once when I worked for the fruit company it came here but we were very busy and I could not go."
"Henrik, do you think, will it really be good for him?"
"Good? Mama, you do not know. When I went to that one in Snohomish I did not have a job to work or money. I just went to look and I didn't spend anything. But there was all the people, everybody in the town, and all laughing. Everybody, laughing. And so much to see!" Mr. Nielson began to chuckle. "Shows and machines and good livestock like you never saw. And funny, crazy people in a tent. Oh Mama, when I went home I was happy too. I didn't worry. Right after, I got a job and met you!"
Mr. Nielson slapped his knees.
"How many? Twenty years ago, but see, see how I remember! Lars will be no more like this when he sees all the laughing. He will come home like I did. But I didn't tell him. He don't know."
A cat scratched at the screen and Mrs. Nielson rose to open the door. She sniffed the air.
"Raining."
Mr. Nielson took up his newspaper.
"Henrik, he can't go on the rides."
"So? I went on no rides."
"What can he do?"
"Do? He can see all the people laughing. And he can see the shows and play with the dice-"
"No!"
"Mama, he is sixteen, almost a man. He will paly with the dice, he will say, and I will throw them. And he will see the frogs jump. And I will take him to the tent with the funny people. The brain, Mama, the brain! That is what enjoys the carnival, not arms and legs. That is what will make Lars understand."
"Yes, Henrik. We must cheer him up. Maybe after, we can bring him the dog and he will play with it."
"Sure, certainly, he will. He will be happy, not alone in this house, feeling sorry for himself."
"Yes."
"It will start him to think. He will think about how to make for himself a living, like anybody else. And he will read books then, you'll see, and find out what he wants to do. With his brain!"
Mrs. Nielson paused before speaking.
"Henrik."
"Yes?"
"What can he do, like you say, with his brain, without arms and legs?"
"He has arms and legs!"
"As well not, as well no back, no body."
"Hilda! He must do something, something. Look at that blind woman who can't hear, like we read in the magazine-she did something. Can't you see, Mama, can you not understand? I would take care of Lars, even if it is wrong. But you know the railroad will give only enough for you when I die, and I am not young. We married late, Mama, very late. If Lars does nothing, how will he live? Is it an institution for our boy, a home for cripples where he sees only cripples all day long, no sunshine, no happiness? For Lars? No! At the carnival tomorrow he will see and begin to think. Maybe to write, or teach or-something!"
"But he has not been from the house, since-"
"More reason, more!"
Mrs. Nielson broke beans loudly. Kindling crackled in the big cast-iron stove.
"This blind woman you say about, Henrik. She has feet to walk."
"Lars has eyes to see."
"This woman has hands to use."
"Lars has ears to hear, a brain to think, a tongue to talk!"
The cat scratched sharp sounds from the linoleum.
Mrs. Nielson rocked back and forth.
"This woman has money and friends. She never saw or heard, she cannot remember."
Mr. Nielson went to the sink and drew water from the faucet, into a glass. He drank the water quickly.
"So, then Lars has a heavier Cross and a greater reward."
"Yes, Henrik."
"You will see, Mama, you will see. After the carnival, he will know what he wants to do. He will begin to think.
Mrs. Nielson rose and dusted the bean fragments from her lap, into the washbasin. She picked up the cat and went outside onto the porch. Then she returned and snapped the lock on the door.
"Maybe you are right, Henrik. Maybe anyway he will like little dogs and talk to me. I hope so, I hope so."
Mr. Nielson wiped his hands on the sides of the chair and listened to the rain.
Lars felt his body pushed by strong invisible hands, felt himself toppling over like a woolen teddy bear onto Father's shoulder. He bit his lip and closed his eyes.
Mr. Nielson laughed, applying the brake.
"There now, the turn too sharp, eh Lars? I will be more careful."
The car began to move again, more slowly, jerking, rattling. Lars looked out the windshield at the fields and empty green meadows.
"Papa, is it far?"
"Hah, you are anxious! No, it is not far. Maybe five miles, right over the bridge."
"Will we have to stay long?"
Mr. Nielson frowned.
"I told Mama we would be back before dark. Don't you want to go, after what I told you, after what you said?"
Two children playing in a yard went by slowly.
"Don't you want to go, Lars?"
"Yes, Papa. I want to."
"Good. You don't know, you never saw anything like a carnival, never."
Lars closed his mouth and thought of colors. The children touched his mind and he thought of the blue dishes in his home. He opened his eyes, saw the pale road and thought of black nothing. Wind came through the open windows, tossing his brown hair and clawing gently at his face and he thought of the liquid green in a cat's eyes.
Mr. Nielson hummed notes from an old song, increasing pressure on the accelerator cautiously. Soon the road became a white highway and other cars went whistling by. Signboards appeared, houses, roadside cafes, gasoline stations and little wooden stands full of ripe fruit.
And then, people. People walking and leaning and playing ball and some merely sitting. Everything, whirling by now in tiny glimpses.

Lars tried to force his eyes shut, but could not. He looked. He looked at everything and pressed his tongue against his teeth so the Feeling would stay small in his mind. But the meadows were yards now, and they were no longer quiet. They moved like everything in them moved.
And the people in the automobiles, laughing and honking and resting their elbows out the windows.
When he saw the girl on the bicycle, Lars managed to pull his eyelids down.
"Oh, such a beautiful day, Lars! Everyone is going to the carnival. See them!"
"Yes, Papa."
The car turned a corner.
"Different than all alone in a cold room, eh my son? But, see-there, there it is! Oh, it's big, like when I went. Look, Lars, this you have never seen!"
Lars looked when his eyes had stopped burning.
First, there were cars. Thousands and millions of cars parked in lots and on the sides of the highway and wherever there was room, in yards, gasoline stations, the airfield. And then there were the people. So many people, more than there could be in the world! Like ants on a hill, scrambling, walking, moving. Everywhere, cars and people.
And beyond, the tents.
"Oh, Mama should have come, she should have come. Such a sight!"
The old car moved like a giant lobster, poking in holes that were too small for it, pulling out from the holes, seeking others. Finally, beneath a big tree in a yard, stopping.
Mr. Nielson smiled, opened the back door and pulled the wheelchair from the half-seat. He lifted Lars and put him in the chair and stood for a moment breathing the air and tasting the sounds.
"Just like before, only even better! You will enjoy yourself!"
Lars tried to feel every rock beneath the wheels and every blade of grass. He turned his eyes down as far as he could, to see the earth, but he saw his body. The sounds grew louder and as he glided on the smoothness he began to see beyond the crawling, moving people. It all grew louder and Father's voice faster so Lars cut off the feeling and returned to the bottom of the ocean.
The hard-rubber wheels turned softly on nothingness .
Heyheyheyhey how about you, Mr.? Try your luck, test your skill, only ten cents for three balls… Now I'll count to five, ladies and gentlemen, and if one of you picks the right shell, you win a Kewpie Doll.. - All right, sir, your weight is one-fifty-three, am I right? - . - Right this way, folks, see the wonders of the Deep, the dangerous shark and Lulu the Octopus. . - The Whirlagig, guaranteed to scare the yell out of you… Fun, Thrills and Excitement, only twenty five cents on the Flying Saucer… Fresh cotton candy… Spooktown, Spooktown, ghosts and dragons and lots of fun, ten cents for adults, a nickel for the kiddies… How about you, Mr.? . . -
Lars kept his eyes still, but the Feeling was there. It was small at first and he could think yet of colors and beds that did not move. But it was growing, in the shape of baseballs and bicycles and gigantic leaps, it was growing.
Mr. Nielson took his eyes from the iron machine and turned the crank until it clicked. The sign read Secrets of the Harem and Mr. Nielson sighed.
He put the huge ball of pink vapor to Lars' mouth and Lars put his tongue about the gritty sweet.
"Ah ah ah, you are happy, I can see, already! What shall we do now? The fish, we will look at the fish!"
Peculiar grey creatures swimming in dirty water in a big glass tank.
"Now you wait here for Papa."
Father stuffed into a small box and the box falling fast down a thin track, then up and later down again. Screams and laughter and movement. Movement.
"Watch, you see. I'll break the balloon!"
Pop! And a plaster doll covered with silver dust and blue paint.
Inside for the thrill of the century, ladies and gentlemen, see Parmo the Strong Man lift ten times his own weight . - .
A man with a large stomach and moving muscles, pulling a bar with a black ball at either end, hoisting the bar, holding it above his head. Laughs and cheers.
Yahyahyahyah! See her now, folks, the most gorgeous, the most beautiful, the most (ahem!) shapely little lass this side of Broadway. Egyptian Nellie, she's got curves on her yahyahyahyah…
"Lars, you wait-no, you don't. It wouldn't be right."
The candy and the peanuts and the little dirty faces. The rides and the planes and the exhibits and the penny arcades. The stale, excited odors and the screaming voices. And the movement, the jerking, zooming, swooping, leaning, pushing, running movement.
Last one there is a sissy, last one there is a sissy…
"Good, good, good. Mama should be here! But now we must eat!"
An open arena, with fluffballs of red and yellow and green hanging from the ceiling. On the floor, popcorn and peanut shells and wadded dirt.
"It's all right, Lars, it's good meat. Maybe not like Mama makes, huh? So. Open your mouth."
The people's eyes, staring, pitying, a million eyes, and hums of voices in the colored restaurant. Then a kind of quiet, like sharp prongs in the Feeling. In the little Feeling, coming awake.
"Now, so? You are finished. No, the milk, the milk to make you strong."
Off out of the arena, back into the movement.
And out into the very heart of the shining motion.
Lars stopped fighting. He let his eyes see and his mind fill.
Last one there is a sissy and Father seated in a small car, bumping the car into others and howling. First one to the trestle and the slow circling ferris wheel with the squealing dots.
Just try and catch me, just try…
"Come now, Lars, we rest."
The horror in the washroom and out again, feeding the Feeling, sending it along the spiral. The music bellowing and even in the little car in the blackness of the Fun House-movement there. Sudden lights on painted monsters, cotton bats squeaking along invisible wires.
And then-
Here we go, folks, the experience of a lifetime. Yah yah hear! See 'em all-the Frog Man, Queenie the Fat Girl (three hundred pounds of feminine loveliness!), Marco the Flame-Eater, yah, yah, all inside, all inside . . -
"Come, Lars, after this we will go. But if it is like last time-you never saw anything like it. Funny looking crazy people. It's good, good."
And as a special attraction, ladies and gents, we have Jackie the Basket-case. No arms, no legs, but he writes and plays cards and shaves, right before your very eyes. Science gave him up as lost, but you'll see him now. Jackie, the Basket-Case. And the headless girl, who defies doctors throughout the universe! Nurses in attendance! Heah heah heah! Only ten cents, the tenth part of a dollar.
Square canvas flags with strange pictures on them. A man with a sword in his mouth, a woman with an orange beard, a ferocious black man with feathers. And in front, high on the platform, a man with a striped shirt and a cane, hitting a pan.
"So, we go in."
Lars said nothing. He listened to all the sounds and how they seemed like the swift rush of cold wind and rain across his face. His heart beat and his blood pounded against his temples.
I'll beat you, Lars…
Lars felt his chair being pushed forward. Out of the sunlight and quickly into the dimly lighted interior, he could see nothing at first. Only what he had been seeing for hours.
There was the sudden quiet, for one thing. Nothing to see yet, but like dropping from a close, hot hay-loft to freshly watered earth. Damp and cool, like perhaps a grave.
The Feeling stopped growing for a moment as Lars focused his eyes. He wondered where all the people had gone, what had happened, if he were back in the silent unmoving room. The cold stillness and then the soft muttering of voices, strange and out of place.
"Here, Lars, don't you see?"
Mr. Nielson ran his hand though Lars' hair and touched his shoulder. The chair moved over ploughed ground.
"Papa, what-"
Mr. Nielson giggled no louder than the other people in the tent.
"Ha ha! Look, boy, look at the woman!"
Lars saw the object that Father had called a woman. The product of mutant glands, a huge sitting thing with mountains of flesh. Flowering from the neck down the arms and looping over the elbows, dividing like a baby's skin at the hands; the thighs, cascading flesh and fat over the legs down to the feet. And over all this, a metallic costume with purple sequins attached and short black hair, cut like a boy's.
"Have you ever seen anything so big, Lars!"
Lars looked from his wheelchair into the eyes of the fat lady and then quickly away from them.
Over the ground. Stopping.
The sign reading The Frog Man, and four people staring.
"Look! Ohhh!"
Shriveled limbs with life sticking to them. Shriveled, dried-up, twisted legs, bent grotesquely. And the young man with the pimples on his face crouching on these legs, leering. Every few moments, the legs moving and the small body hopping upwards.
Lars tried to shake his head. The Feeling started from where it had left off, but it traveled elsewhere now. It traveled from his mind to his eyes and from his eyes outward.
"Come, it will be late. We must see everything. Oh, look, have you ever seen such a crazy thing!"
Lars leaned his head forward painfully and looked.
The face of a very old man, but smooth along the creases and over the wrinkles. Wrinkled hands, thin hair. An old man standing three feet from the ground. But not merely small. Everything dwarfed. The false beard and the gnome's cap and the stretched-gauze wings.
The Feeling went into the eyes of the midget.
"There, over there! There was no such last time!"
Over the ground slowly, past the man with the pictures on his skin, the black creeping thing, the boy with the breasts, slowly past these, slowly so the Feeling could be fed and gathered.
And now, the Feeling reaching across the tent to the other side, reaching into the woman with seventeen toes, the boy with the ugly face, the alligator girl, the human chicken, reaching and bringing back, nursing, feeding, identifying. Identifying.
Then ceasing.
"Lars, look. Never was there such a thing."
Mr. Nielson's voice was low and full of deep wonder as he craned his head over the people's shoulders.
Lars tried one last time to see the blue of the linoleum, the grey of his room, all the quiet things his mind had made so carefully. But his eyes moved.
It was large, made of wicker, padded and made to look like an egg basket on the outside. There was in front of it a square card with writing, which gave dates and facts, but the card was dirty and difficult to read. The thing in the basket lay still.
A knitted garment covered the midsection and lower part. Above, the pale flesh stretched over irregular bumps and lines, past the smooth armsockets on up to the finely combed black hair, newly barbered.
The face was handsome and young, clean-shaven and delicate.
When it lifted Mr. Nielson and the other staring people gasped.
In the mouth was a pencil and with this pencil, the thing in the basket began to write upon a special pad of paper. The lead was soft so that those nearby could make out the words, which were "My name is Jack Rennie. I am very happy".
Lars saw his father's hands about his side, lifting and pushing.
"Look, see what it does!"
Lars' body trembled, suspended above the basket, held in air. Everything trembled and shook, as teeth held a moving pencil and the pencil made words. The limbless man thought, it-he-thought…
The automobile came straight at Lars, and he saw it now. Saw it speeding over the trestle for him, bellowing its warning. The brakes screeched in his head and he saw the car swerve and careen in the wet road. And then floating down the trestle, below it, onto sharp hard things.
Lars looked from his wheelchair at the armless, legless man in the cheap basket and in one explosion, the thoughts sprang from the Feeling and scattered through his brain, moving, dancing, swinging arms, jumping on legs, moving, moving with all the ecstasy of a dead child brought suddenly to life.
"It shaves, sees, talks, it writes!"
Lars rode his bicycle in the sunlight down through the fields near the river and never stopped, for he was never tired. He rode past laughing people and waved his arms at children blurring in the distance. He pushed his young legs on the pedals and flew past all the things of the country and then of the world, all the things best seen from the eyes of a young boy on a bicycle.
The thing in the wicker basket ceased to exist. The grinning gasping people ceased to exist and Father was someone sitting in a chair, smoking his pipe.
Lars had reached the crest of Strawberry Hill and he lifted his feet, drifting and floating downward, letting the wind and rain and sunlight whirl past.
Mr. Nielson gently pulled Lars back in the wheelchair and rolled silently from the darkened tent into the afternoon.
The people were sparse. They straggled by hoarse vendors and still rides, yawning and shuffling.
Mr. Nielson forgot about the tent and began to talk.
"Well, we go home now. All day at the carnival, what, my son? Ah, Lars, I tell you, Mama should not have stayed home. Now you feel good, you will be a fine man and think, eh Lars?"
Mr. Nielson picked leaves from overhanging branches as he walked, feeling good and pleased.
When he got into the car, he looked at his son's eyes.
"Lars, there is nothing wrong? You don't look like you feel so good."
Lars was going too fast to hear Father, the wind was shrieking too wildly. The green hills turning golden, the leaves from orange to white, and all the boys and girls riding behind him, chasing, trying to catch him.
He turned, laughing. "Who's the sissy now, who's the sissy now!"
Mr. Nielson scowled.
"You'll never catch me, you'll never catch me!"
"What, what is that you say?"
Lars sang into the wind as the children's voices grew faint. He waved his arms and pedaled with his legs and saw the beautiful hill stretching beneath him.