Monstrous Affections (30 page)

James leaned over and rapped twice on the windowpane. His
mother looked up. Widened her eyes in unconvincing delight,
as though he were the last person she’d expect to see at the
window on an August night some four days after the death of her
husband. “Jimmy!” Her voice had a far-away sound to it through
the windowpane. She shut the Bible on its marker, set it down and
hurried to the front door, which she flung open with a clatter.
“Oh, Jimmy!”

James patted his mother’s back. “Hello, Mother,” he said, as she
buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and moistened his shirt
with tears. “Hello.”

“Now tell me what happened,” he said, as they sat across from one
another in the dining room. “What happened to Dad?”

His mother smoothed out her print dress and looked down. “I’m
sorry, hon — I guess I didn’t put too much in that telegram. Thought
you might have read the newspapers. About the derailment and
such.”

James shook his head. “I don’t have much time for that, what
with my schedule.”

His mother smiled and patted his hand. “Well, you’ve got time to
come home when I need you most. That’s a blessing.”

“They gave me ten days,” said James. His mother’s smile faltered,
so he added: “I’m sure I can arrange a little more.”

“Oh.” The smile returned. “Well, good.”

“Now. Was it the derailment? That — ”

“That killed your father?” James’s mother folded her hands in
front of her and fixed her eye on the Bible. “Not directly. I can’t
believe you hadn’t heard of it. There was a newspaper man who came
all the way from Seattle to interview me and take pictures. He said
it’d play in all the Hearst papers, what with the circus angle. Biggest
one since 1918, he said. I’d have written more if I’d known.”

James frowned. “The
circus
angle?”

“It was a circus train,” she said, sighing. “Twillicker and Baines
Circus. Come down from Canada. Old steam engine, six rickety old
freight cars and a couple of Pullmans. Wasn’t even supposed to stop
here . . .”

“Ah.” James nodded. He
did
remember the story now — the
Twillicker and Baines wreck had come up a couple of times while he
was in makeup. The circus train had derailed somewhere “up north.”
There’d been a kerosene fire. Some animals had gotten loose. A lot
of people had been killed. There was a number, but he couldn’t
remember what it was. He shut his eyes — as much in shame as in
grief. Maybe someone had said the word Chamblay in connection
with the wreck. If they had, James just hadn’t made the connection
between the wreck and his home. Even when his mother told him of
his father’s death.

What did that say about him?

“There there, dear.” His mother patted his hand. “It’s been a long
day’s drive for you. I see that pretty car of yours outside. You don’t
want to hear about your father right now. Why don’t you get some
sleep? Lots of time to talk in the morning.”

“I’ll sleep in a moment.” James opened his eyes and took his
mother’s hand in his and looked her in the eye. It had been years
since he’d fled Chamblay, and every one of those years showed in
her face. Now grief was added to the mix. She looked very old. “Tell
me about Dad now.”

His mother nodded. “The train wreck happened in the middle of
the night. They’re still trying to figure exactly how, because there
wasn’t any other train involved. It made a terrible noise, though.
Sounded like the ground was being torn. Your Dad — well, he went
out to see what was what. You know how he could get.”

James didn’t answer. He
did
know how his Dad could get. Old
Nick Thorne had a reputation to uphold in the town: he was the
strongest and most capable man there was, after all. A terrible
explosion sounds off in the middle of the night? He’d be out there
in a flash.

“He joined the fire crew. The wreck was just a mile south of the
station house, so he hopped on the back of the truck as it passed.
Last time I saw him alive.”

“Was he caught in the fire?”

James’s mother shook his head. Tears were thick in the corners
of her eyes. They gleamed in the kerosene light, as her mouth turned
down and her brow crinkled angrily.

“Trampled,” she spat. “Crushed underfoot. By that damned
elephant
.”

James’s bed was as he remembered it: an iron-framed monstrosity,
barely wide enough for one with a mattress that sagged deep in
the middle. If two people got on that bed, its rusted springs would
scream to wake the dead. Otherwise, there were few possessions left
in the room. He stopped his mother from apologizing.

“I’ve been away a long time,” he said. “It’s fine. Now go to bed.”

The room had a small window in it that overlooked the town.
Light poured in from below, painting squares on the ceiling and
walls. It reflected back from a small tin mirror nailed onto the
opposite wall. His mother absently straightened it. James took her
gently by the shoulder and led her to the door.

“Bed,” he said firmly.

When she was gone, he undressed himself, hanging his trousers
and shirt on a hook by the closet. He sat on the bed for a moment —
listened to it squeak as he bounced a little. The briefest flash of
nostalgia overcame him, then — of another night, when he felt the
bristles of his friend Elmer Wolfe’s neck against his shoulder . . .
When the springs screamed, loud enough . . .

. . . loud enough . . .

“A Cyclops!” James snapped his fingers. That’s what you called
a giant with an eye in the middle of his forehead. He’d seen
drawings years ago, in the old Bullfinch’s Mythology they had at
the schoolhouse. A huge, one-eyed man who lived in a cave and was
ultimately blinded by a gang of Greek sailors.

James went to the mirror. The light from the window was
enough to see himself by. But the mirror made him into a funhouse
image — his chin was cartoonishly long; the thin moustache he’d
cultivated for his Captain Kip role looked as though it’d been drawn
by a drunkard. He leaned closer and it was better: the nearer you get
to a bad mirror, the less the distortion.

Finally, he found he was literally looking himself in the eye.
Just inches from the mirror, his own eye seemed huge. The light
was wrong to make out the colour — but it took little imagination to
paint his iris yellow and green. To imagine the iris — big and black as
an Idaho sky. He could lose himself in that eye. No, scratch that: he
wanted
to lose himself in that eye.

“Mmm,” said James. His hand crept down to his crotch — took
hold. He smiled. Shut his eyes. How would it be, he wondered, to
lick that thing — that massive thing, while hands as wide as his back
squeezed his shoulders; a thumb as wide as a post gently, maybe
even painfully, spread his cheeks.

Eyes still closed, he backed across the room to the freshly sheeted
bed and fell into it — lost already in a fevered and vivid dream.

James and his mother spent the next morning at the Simmons
Brothers Funeral Parlour in town. His mother had made pretty
much all the arrangements before he’d arrived in town. It was going
to be a good burial, in the Chamblay Hill Cemetery, with a nice oak
casket and a polished headstone made of granite. It was far more
than his mother could afford on her own. James made out three
large cheques, while Mr. Simmons prattled on about the tragedy of
the train wreck and the evil of circus folk and the better place that
Nick Thorne had gone to. When they were finished, James took Mr.
Simmons aside.

“Tell me,” he said quietly, “what really happened to my father. It
was no elephant — was it?”

Mr. Simmons crossed his arms and lowered his head.

“An elephant,” he said carefully, “was involved. But no.”

“Not an elephant,” said James. “But it was a big thing.” He took a
leap. “A — Cylcops, I heard.”

Mr. Simmons fixed him with a glare. “Circus folk,” he said
sharply. “Circus folk have all manner of queerness to them. Giants
and midgets and clowns and trapeze artists. Big enough man can
call himself a Cyclops if he wants. I should stay well clear of them,
if I were you, son.”

“Where are they?”

“By the creek — camped like wicked hoboes in the North Brothers’
common. But they won’t be there for long.”

James suppressed a smile.
Wicked hoboes
. “I see.”

Mr. Simmons’ glare faded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve buried nine
good men who lost their lives trying to put out the fire on that train
wreck. Your father far from the least of them. Contrary to what
some might say — a busy day’s no pleasure for an undertaker.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” said James.

“But son — ” Mr. Simmons put a pale hand on James’s arm
“ — circus folk aren’t nothing but gypsies, you know. They’ll cut
your throat and steal your wallet, give them half a chance. They’ll
overrun a town, steal its children. Don’t go out there looking for
vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” James was honestly puzzled, and that was betrayed
in his expression. “Why would I — ”

“For the death of your father,” he said, then added quickly:
“Although I can see such thoughts are far from your mind. That is
good, young sir. I apologize for thinking you a hothead. Other sons
and daughters have been angrier about the goings-on with the circus
folk. If I may say — your mother has raised a fine and temperate man.
I am told that you do quite well for the family. In the moving picture
business. I’ve a nephew in Spokane who’s a great fan of the pictures.
I shall tell him we’ve met.”

“Give him my regards,” said James. “And now — one more thing —
if I could . . .”

Mr. Simmons smiled sadly. “See your father? I’d advise waiting
’til tomorrow. There’s some work to be done. To make him as he
lived. Do you no good to see ’im now, son.”

James hadn’t been about to ask to see his father’s corpse. God,
that was the last thing he wanted to see. He’d wanted to know more
about the circus folk. About the Cyclops. But Mr. Simmons wouldn’t
talk more about that. He’d just think that James was fixing for
vengeance, and try and stop him. So James just returned the sad
smile and nodded. “Tomorrow, then,” he said.

“You’re far away,” said his mother outside the house.

“Yes.” James ran his hands over the knobby wood of the steering
wheel. Stared into space, at the far western ridges that were partly
obscured in low cloud right then. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right, dear.” She sat in the car, looking at him.

He smiled at his mother. “Listen. If it’s all right with you, I’d like
to take a little drive by myself.”

His mother took a breath, patted his arm. “Of course, dear. You
haven’t been back here for almost ten years. And now you’re back,
it’s to bury your — ” She stopped, lifted her handkerchief to daub
her eyes.

“Yes.”

James let his mother go inside, and put the car into gear. He
wheeled back through Chamblay’s downtown. It was looking
livelier during the day. Livelier, in fact, than it had in some time.
He counted maybe a dozen trucks, covered with black tarpaulins.
Big, dangerous-looking men in dark suit jackets leaned against their
fenders, leering at passing townswomen. From behind the wheel of
the Coupe, James leered at them.
Turnabout’s fair play
, he thought,
imagining himself in their midst — a giant in their midst — plucking
first one, then the other, screaming into the air . . . Ramming them
face-down into the sawdust — into the dirt . . .

God, James
, he thought as the little fantasy took form in his
mind,
you are a
depraved
one
.

Back in Los Angeles, Stephen had taken to chiding him about
that very thing. “They’ll let you go, you know, if the press gets
wind of your shenanigans,” Stephen said to him, curled against his
stomach in the heat of a Sunday afternoon not long ago. “They’ll cut
you loose.”

“No fooling.” James had reached around front of Stephen, took
hold of him lightly and ran a fingertip in the warm space between
his thigh and his scrotum. He gave Stephen’s nuts a sharp little
squeeze. Stephen sucked in a breath — James could feel the cheeks of
Stephen’s arse tightening around him. “I guess we should stop, then.
Maybe I should find religion. Or — ” he pulled his hand away “ — take
little Alice up on one of her many offers. Knock her up. That’d settle
it once and for all.”

“Oh, go to hell,” said Stephen. “You wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” James had replied. “She’d know what to do.
And she
wants
to fuck me.”

“Everybody wants to fuck you,” said Stephen. “You’re Captain
Kip Blackwell, for Christ’s sake. But I have to tell you,
Kip
— that
unenthusiastic flirtation you play at with her in the canteen isn’t
fooling
anybody
.”

“It fools Alice,” James had said.

“You think?”

James set his jaw. Put his foot on the gas pedal. He took the road
to the mill — then, following the wood smoke and tire ruts, made his
way to the creek-bank where, according to Mr. Simmons, the circus
was encamped.

There was no Big Top; not shooting galleries nor cotton candy
stands nor halls of mirrors. The remains of the Twillicker and
Baines Circus was mostly people, and those people had spread in a
makeshift shantytown along the grassy east bank of the Chamblay
Creek. Little tents pitched here and there, charred swaths of orange
and green and blue fabric. Some of the folk had dug out fire pits in
the needle-covered dirt. They were surrounded by trees, spruce and
pine so high that from the camp’s far side, they obscured much of
the snowy mountain peaks to the west.

James stopped his car and got out. The place smelled of wood
smoke and burned fat. He tromped down the slope to the first of
the tents — where a young woman sat beside an older man, broad-chested with a long, drooping moustache. He wore a battered felt
bowler hat, and his arm was in a sling. She wore a pale blue cotton
sun dress, mismatched with the torn fishnet stockings of a dancing
girl.