Freaks: Alive, on the Inside!

“It’s strange,” said Earle. He shifted his bulk and the cart groaned. “You’d think someone as big as me would be hard to miss, but for some reason it makes people even more likely to ignore me—like I’m too big to see. That a new ring you got? I don’t recollect that.”

“Mink was mad at Ceecee, was he?” I said, turning the conversation back to business.

“Oh, he was wrathy,” said Earle. “He was cussin’ hard enough to raise Sam Hill. ‘If you ruin one of my acts again, I’ll ruin you,’ he says. ‘I’ll have Bonfiglio turn you all girl, and the only work you’ll find for the rest of your life will be in secondrate cooch shows.’”

He paused. “You ever notice how fine spoken the hoodlums are in these Police Gazette reports?” He rattled the pink newsprint in his pudgy hand. “You think that’s because they live in the big city?”

I thought it more probable that the writers were novelists who needed to pay the rent. “Could be, Earle,” I said, my mind still on Ceecee.

“I been reading stories like this for years,” Earle said. “But it beats the Dutch to be in one. A fat feller like me, he gets to sit a lot, and read a fine yarn if he’s lucky. Travelin’ with this show is the closest I usually get to adventuring. I still won’t get to be a hero, nor win the girl, but I can be a chum and tell you that you’d better hightail it out of here while you can. Thems as runs away gets to fight another day.”

I agreed with him completely. Unfortunately, I had others to think of too. I should devise a plan. The idea left me in a panic sweat.

As I turned to leave, Earle called me back. “Um, could you do me a favor?” he said. “Could you empty my convenience?” He pointed down under the cart. For a moment my spirits lightened. At least I wasn’t trapped in a cart, able only to shit through a hole into a pot below. I could do something about my troubles. I would.

Mink didn’t come to the funeral, and he refused to pull up the tent to let Earle out or let Mr. Bopp attend. Bonfiglio still sat smoking his pipe on top of the crate that imprisoned Mr. Bopp.

Ceecee appeared, however, dressed once more in his dark evening attire. He glided to the grave’s edge like a wraith, his dark eyes burning. His smile was as thin and glittering as a razor blade. He bowed his head and put his hands together in mock prayer. Miss Lightfoot flushed in anger, but Mr. Ginger held tight to her arm so she

didn’t speak. The children huddled with Apollo as far away as possible, at the other end of the open grave amid the prairie grass. Their eyes remained riveted on Ceecee as if he were a rattlesnake. How dare he come here? I wanted to raise my fist and strike him to the ground, but Mr. Ginger shook his head at me, and I decided that this event would be hard enough for the children without their seeing me murdered in front of them, which would no doubt be the outcome of my protest. “We are here to honor and bid good-bye to our dear friend,” I began through clenched teeth.

Minnie held her corn dolly up in both hands, as if to let it see Bess Tuggle dressed in her Sunday best and wrapped in a fine cotton sheet that should have been for her trousseau. Bess reminded me of Tauseret, who lay in her own grave wrappings, but I didn’t think Bess would ever open her eyes again. This was the second burial I had attended in a matter of days, and I had never been to one before this summer. I had to get Apollo and the children out of here before there was another.

Mr. Ginger recited some lines of Milton, and the children sang a disorderly but touching rendition of “All Things Bright and Beautiful” in trembling voices. From that day on, I would see a giant and a dwarf when I sang the words “all creatures great and small.”

We all tossed in a handful of soil, then Billy Sweet began to fill up the hole. Ceecee bowed to no one in particular and left. He was humming.

“Revenant! Ghoul!” Miss Lightfoot cried, and burst into tears. Mr. Ginger held her and let her cry it out on his shoulder.

Apollo and I led the unnaturally quiet children away. Each shovelful of cold clay earth thudded an echo within me.

Late afternoon, the shows began as usual, and I sat in the tent protecting the jars once more. A gloom hung over me like a wet fog, and despair curled in the pit of my stomach. Tauseret lay motionless, and I wondered if last night was a fantasy, but her lips appeared fuller than they had been yesterday, and I detected the slight curl of a smile upon them. I yearned to wake her and prove everything true, but thought it prudent to let sleeping mummies lie while Mink and his henchmen were out and about.

Outside, Mink cajoled the dupes. Next door, the children’s shrill voices were fragile with tension and fear as they joked too hard and squabbled among themselves. Apollo lost his temper and yelled at them, and Minnie cried. I heard Miss Lightfoot comfort her.

Soon the customers trooped through, wide-eyed rubes who pointed and laughed at what they didn’t understand. “What makes you so smug?” I wanted to yell at them. “Do you think that those with different bodies have different emotions, too? They should be wondered at and treated with respect.” But I didn’t say a word because it wouldn’t make a difference.

Ceecee followed Mink through the tent and leered at me as he passed. My skin crawled. What gave him the right to pose as an anomaly of nature and exploit its gutter potential, when others had no choice and bore their difference with so much dignity? What made that self-made freak and murderer believe he was above God’s laws?

Between shows, while the locals enjoyed the mouse game, I slipped into the larger tent. The children ran from where they sat around Miss Lightfoot’s skirts to gather around me and complain about Apollo.

“He’s a brute,” said Moses. “He punched my arm when I said that he looked like the moths had got him. I was only joshing.”

Apollo stood in the background. His frown, combined with the damage done by Ceecee’s razor, made his expression quite fearsome.

“He’s unhappy about Bess,” I whispered to the young ones. “Don’t you get grumpy when you’re sad?”

“Frog Boy does,” Bertha said, and nudged Moses with her bowed arm.

Moses glowered fit to match Apollo, and one eye popped slightly.

“I expect Apollo’s quite sorry, really, but too angry with himself to say so,” I told them. “Why don’t you give him a hug and a kiss, Minnie?”

Minnie didn’t have to be told twice. She toddled off and, before Apollo knew what had happened, flung her arms around his legs. Apollo’s eyes widened with panic, and he tried to pry her off. The children squealed with laughter, and Willie, still young enough to hug another fellow shamelessly, grabbed Apollo’s waist. “Hey!” Apollo cried. Bertha lumbered up on all fours. She pushed herself up on her stubby legs to throw her stunted arms around the dog boy’s neck and kiss his cheek with gusto, while he tried to squirm away from her lips.

Miss Lightfoot giggled, and Earle’s laughter bellowed so loud Mr. Ginger peered out from behind his curtain to see what we were about.

Apollo’s lips twitched and the light returned to his eyes. There was nothing that boy loved more than affection—except for food, maybe.