October (12 page)

He was suddenly depressed. He was about to put the doll in a nearby metal oil-drum trash container, saw an empty-handed little girl staring at him, and handed it to her.

"Look, Daddy!" she cried, running to her father a few paces away. The father stood mopping his hairline with a tired handkerchief "Look what I won! What about my cotton candy?"

The father looked down at her, nodded tired thanks to James, drew the little girl away toward a nearby booth where an aluminum pan churned pink, threadlike sugar around long, fragile white paper cones.

At eleven, the small crowd dispersed. James followed them to a square, dusty parking lot cornered with long poles topped by red pennants. Strings of red and white Christmas lights sagged between the poles. Some of the bulbs were out; one white one blinked annoyingly, on and off.

James stopped a man who was just helping his wife into their station wagon. A little boy was curled on the back seat, thumb in mouth, clutching a stuffed tiger. The tiger had the same frightening smile as the Kewpie doll.

"Can you tell me where the nearest town is?" James asked.

The man turned languidly to him. He flicked a mosquito away from his ear, scratched at his sweaty neck around the back. He wore a checked, short-sleeved sport shirt, was thin, with thinning hair. "Jeez, there ain't a town near here. Nearest one forty miles away. This is farming country, if you haven't noticed." He smiled tiredly.

"Is there anywhere I could find lodging for the night?"

The man looked him up and down, stifled a yawn. "Sorry, no, mister." He closed the door to his wife's side, walked around, got into his car. Without another word he pulled the station wagon out, drove off.

All the cars drove off.

The string lights in the parking lot blinked once, in unison with the one defective bulb, then went out. James heard the pennant at the top of one of the corner poles flap lazily. The calliope stopped. Far off over the fields, corn murmured.

Most of the booths and kiosks had been abandoned. There was a small show tent, green-and-white-striped, faded. James entered. Inside was a minuscule stage, two steps up, pine planking, knotholes fallen out from dryness. Facing it was a half circle of thirty or forty folding chairs.

A man in clown makeup and ballooning red-and-white suit sat on one of the chairs in the last row, hunched over a makeup box. His head was completely white save for a crowning, monk-like fringe of bright red hair. James was reminded of the Kewpie doll.

"What—?" The clown swiveled with surprise toward James, as if he had been caught at something. James was relieved to see that his mouth, which had been cleaned of makeup, did not have the Kewpie-doll grin he had seen so often that evening.

"Sorry," James apologized.

"Sure." The clown rustled in his makeup box before turning back to James. There was a small rectangular mirror set in the open, hinged cover of the box.

"You lost?" the clown said, his tone cool.

"Guess I am. I've been hitchhiking. My ride dropped me here for the night."

The clown studied him. "That getup, I thought you were part of the show"

James smiled. "It's a long story."

"So tell it to me," the clown said. Abruptly he rose, walked to the stage, reached behind it. He pulled out a large blue metal cooler. Grunting with effort, he dragged it
around to the
front of the stage. He opened it, fished into water, produced two beer cans before slamming the cooler shut.

"Alfresco," he said, tossing one of the beer cans underhand to James.

"Thanks." The beer was cold; when it went down, it tasted even colder. James remembered how warm in comparison his cola had been.

The clown sat on the cooler, feet spread apart, arms on his knees, dangling the beer from one hand. He studied the ground before he looked up. "I'm Billy Peters. You're . . . ?"

"James Weston."

"They call you Jimmy?"

"No."

"Fine." A tentative smile. "So how do you like our little outfit, James?"

"Well—"

"Tell me the truth. Sucks, doesn't it? You know what it's like trying to make a buck in carnivals today? Especially an old carnival?"

Before James could answer, the clown said, "Can't be done." He straightened, put the beer to his mouth, drank, lowered the can. "This is the third outfit I've been with in three years." Again he drank from the beer can. "Just can't be done."

"I was wondering why there were so few people here tonight. With not much happening around here, and this being the last night, you'd think—"

The clown waved his hand "They would have been here. Would have packed the place. There's nothing to do here but screw dogs or sit on corn. They had a multiple murder here couple days ago, that's why they weren't here."

The clown waved his hand again. "Happens all the time. You know how these farm families are. Dad tells Sonny he can't whack off anymore in the outhouse, or can't go out with Betty Sue 'cause Dad wants to bop her himself so late one night, Sonny gets the Winchester Dad gave him for his twelfth birthday out of the garage, spends an hour up in his room cleaning, oiling, and loading it, then walks calmly into Morn and Dad's room, blows their heads off, does the same to Sis and Junior, then sucks the barrel like an El
Producto
an meets 'em all in heaven." The clown looked down at his beer. "Happens every week. Farmer roulette."

James sipped from his own beer. The clown emptied his, stood to open the cooler lid and fish for another beer. He resumed his place.

"So," Billy Peters said after sampling the new beer, "what's your story?"

James told him an edited version. He admitted that he was hitchhiking across the country on a whim. "But now," he said, "I think it's time to head back to L.A."

"You were going to New York?" the clown asked.

James nodded. "Grew up there."

"Ah." The clown sucked on his beer.

"I wanted to ask you, "James said, "if there was a place I could sleep tonight."

"Sure," the clown said. He smiled, an odd thing, the top of his face covered in white makeup, wide, exaggerated eyes, bright white, the bottom containing his all-too-normal grin. He drained his beer, stood, brought two more cold ones out of the cooler. He tossed one to James, the same smooth underhand motion. "One more beer and I'll set you up."

Forty minutes later, the beer slowing his mind, lulling his already tired body, James Weston followed Billy Peters to his camp wagon. They passed a couple of
roustabouts in the
darkness, laughing, passing a wine bottle, talking about sleeping late the next morning before breaking down.

There wasn't enough room inside the wagon for two. It was covered in litter, old girlie magazines, empty Styrofoam coffee cups, beer cans, clothing, makeup supplies. It smelled musty.

The blanket Peters handed him was stained, flakes of paper adhering to it. Peters made no apology, removed his costume, lay on his lumpy bed in his skivvies, turned his head to the wall.

James went outside. He shook the blanket out, lay on the ground, covered himself.
 
He heard vague sounds, far of a hoot of laughter. There was a cross of stars directly overhead. Cygnus, the Swan. The Northern Cross. He closed his eyes.

And instantly opened them. The clown, Billy Peters, was on top of him, his mouth opened so wide it looked as if it had been repainted. The clown made little gurgling sounds deep in the back of his throat.

James tried to throw the clown off. He was pinned at shoulders and arms. Peters put large hands on James's face, palms flat, conforming to the contours of James's cheeks. With his thumbs, he pressed down under James's chin, above the Adam's apple, cutting off air.

James thrashed, thought of the nearby roustabouts, tried to shout. He could make no sound, could barely breathe. Billy Peters' face lowered. James's vision was beginning to swim. The clown's fingers, pressed hard on his face, were forcing his mouth open, pulling the teeth apart, holding them open like clamps.

The sounds in the back of the clown's throat, a rasping grate, became louder. James had the feeling that the clown was about to put his mouth over James' and kiss him. The clown's eyes were unnaturally large, bloodshot, his breath oddly cold.

James began to black out. The rasping sound became huge in his ears, with a rush of blood, and as the clown lowered his mouth, James saw in his failing sight something small and grayish appear on the clown's tongue—a movement of antennae or legs, which fell. He felt it scrape the back of his own throat. Immediately, he felt a freezing cold.

With a gargantuan effort, convulsing with lack of oxygen, choking, he threw Billy Peters aside. James held his hands to his neck, pulling oxygen in, and at the same time, trying to expel the thing in his throat. He felt it digging, finding purchase. Then there was an excruciating pain, as if a huge dentist's needle had been driven up into the back of his throat, filling it with numbing, icy
novocaine
.

He tried to scream. An airy, nearly inaudible hiss came out. He threw himself on the ground, clawing at the dirt. His mind was blind with pain. He saw fire in front of his eyes, felt as if his entire head was burning in acid. None of the thing's movements in the back of his throat were lost to him: he felt each tiny, boring cut, each movement of tiny legs, as it angled up

Then, in a flash of blindness that left him gasping, the pain was gone.

The sudden release from cold fire was like an orgasm. James fell back on the ground, gulping for air. His sight cleared, and as he blinked the tears of pain out of his eyes, he saw that the Northern Cross had wheeled toward the west, its trailing stars hidden by the cutting corner of the top of the camper.

As his breathing evened, he heard Billy Peters gasping.

James sat up. The clown was convulsing mightily. He had crawled to the front of the camper, and his hands clutched the front tire. His body was racked with shooting spasms. James stood, approached him.

The clown's body gave off a hissing sound, like air escaping a punctured balloon.

James pressed the toe of his boot into the clown's shoulder and turned him on his back. Billy Peters' hands let go of the tire. He fell back, twitching. His head, a grotesque mask, half man, half clown, hit repeatedly on the dirt.

Hsssssssssss
, the body said.

Billy
Peters's
mouth tried to speak; he tried to raise his hand.

Hsssssssssss
.

The eyes dropped away. The face collapsed like a sand castle dried in the sun. The body crumbled within its clothes.

The skull fell back against the ground, then turned, in one hissing moment, to a pile of dust.

James lifted the clothes. Dust spilled out of them. There was a sound like sand running through fingers. A plume of fine particles drifted away.

From the far side of the carnival site, James heard a roustabout's curt laughter.

Beyond, he heard the hissing of corn, like the sound of the disappearing man.

James shook the clothes out, threw them in the trailer, closed the door, walked away.

He walked, until the dim night-lights of the carnival were a mile behind. The looming rectangle of the trailer truck he had left grew off the highway. When he reached the cab of the truck, he stopped walking.

He lay down off the road next to the truck and slept.

He dreamed he wore a clown face, and was climbing into the open window of a farmhouse with a Winchester rifle. He emptied the house of life, lastly a boy in a room covered with baseball pennants and trophies, the blue barrel of the rifle in the boy's mouth, below his ruined head, carefully wrapping the dead hands around it before they stiffened. Then he dreamed that he was a man who repaired telephones, and a woman who sold cosmetics door-to-door, and a man who lived alone in the mountains but who sometimes came down into town, to visit a lone woman who would then die, or meet someone on a lone road with snow falling, who was later found tripped into a bear trap, head nearly severed. He was another man and then another, and a woman and a little girl and another man who liked to collect stamps and worked at a nursing home where many old people died.

And, finally, he was a little boy who lived in a town where apples grew.

Yes, he said in his dream, and he didn't know if the words had come from his own mouth.

He slept, dreamless.

In the morning, the dreams were forgotten. The truck driver,
stubbled
but rested, once again poked him awake, saying it was time to go.

And when James got up and stretched, he realized that he wanted to go on with his quest after all, that this was surely the time to finish what he had started, to go back East. Marcie and his work, and Samuels, would just have to wait.

He felt rejuvenated. They were on the road immediately, passing a roadside carnival breaking down that looked vaguely familiar to James. But his eyes looked away from it, to the highway.

He bought the truck driver breakfast in Cedar Rapids. They talked, and laughed, and James found himself watching the truck driver leave with regret, going into the lonely confines of the back of his truck to check that his load was tied down, as James clutched his knife a little too hard over his eggs, and had to pry it curiously from his fingers with his other hand.