Carnival: Satiated (Part I)
In the filthy tent gone grey and dun with time and travel and sin, the men of the town packed in like fish in a tin and their greasy, greedy reek rose, rose, rose to the ropes in the dark high above. So small a place, this Harvest Downs, that the entire population of menfolk squirmed their way inside, packed close and tight and stinking and eager. Yes, even elder Kethan Rue trembled there, a palsied tripod with the head of his gnarled cane gripped in his single arthritic claw, the stump of his other arm resting neatly atop it. Yes, Old Mally stood there, bitter and blind with spit on his chin, snarling like a cur at any man near ‘cause already he could smell it. Even the preacher, Brother Soren Reyes, slunk in like a whipped dog, oily black locks hiding his eyes, lips writhing like worms as he planned for his caterwauling Sunday sermon about the Devil and temptation.
Outside the tent tarried the best barker in the game, Rolling Bob. He whipped a grimy crimson handkerchief from his back pocket and blotted at his pockmarked brow. True he looked like nothing much, a grotesque little ball of a man with twin hunches mounding his back, but these monstrosities he kept well-hidden under his voluminous coat. So voluminous his coat, so hunched his back, that it seemed as though his head emerged from his chest with no neck to support it. Yet truly his patter worked miracles, lulled the sheep and allowed the goats to play. Now his spiel wound down like an old record grinding to a halt on a dust-choked phonograph. The madness slipped away, the dead glitter promises faded from his eyes, and the truth emerged: a man who knew too much, too much, too much.
The damp handkerchief stowed away, Rolling Bob withdrew a tattered old cigar and chewed the stump in contemplation.
Thaddeus Grange, Barlow Grange’s eldest boy, wandered towards the tent with a false mosey; no urgency here, no not at all. His fresh-scrubbed face shone like a star, his straw-blond hair gleamed with the pomade holding it flat to his skull, and he wore his good overalls all fresh-pressed and smelling sweet. As he dawdled along, hands deep in his pockets, he cast little glances from the corners of his robin egg eyes at the piss-poor paintings that tattooed the tent’s flanks.
Rolling Bob felt no patience tonight. “Scram kid. Go get some cotton candy. Play a game or two. Ride the Scream-n-Beg. This is no spectacle for kids.”
The boy flushed a bit, but he halted and stood solid on widespread legs. “I ain’t no kid, Sir. I’m well of age.”
The barker took in the downy chin, the freckled cheeks, and shook his head. “Hell you say. You’re not sixteen for another two weeks.”
Thad’s eyes shot wide. “How you know that, Sir?”
“Magic, kid.” The barker chuckled, a low and unpleasant sound. “This is a carnival. How else would I know?”
A long moment passed as the boy mulled this over. “Cain’t be magic,” he said at last, “My momma says there ain’t no such thing as magic, and she knows the Bible from back to front.”
Rolling Bob’s mouth twitched. “Your momma sounds like a lady with a fine memory indeed. But there’s more in this world than is betwixt those covers, and you don’t want to know one jot of it.”
Helpless, Thad eyed those paintings again, those cracked and dry caricatures creaking with promise. “If you’ll excuse me Sir, I think that I do.”
With a hard sound meant to break the spell of the boy’s stare, Rolling Bob spat out a tatter of tobacco. “Tent’s full to capacity, kid. No show for you.”
Like an animal peeking from its cave, the boy’s tongue darted over his parched lips. “Two weeks, Sir. Just two weeks and I ain’t a kid no more, but then you carnies is gonna be gone. I can pay-”
Rolling Bob spoke in his most gentle voice then, the voice used for small birds and fauns and cherubs and dear lost luscious girls. He used the voice that came before the blood. “I’d hate to see so fine a boy as you pay the price for entering that tent.”
A dry half-sob tugged from the boy’s chest, but this desire hounded him like no desire before it, and this cruel denial felt like torture. “It’s only a nickel, Sir. Please, I got me a nickel. I got me a whole pocket full of nickels.”
The barker’s voice dropped softer, and softer still, so faint that the boy strained to hear the words, strained to read the lips. “Oh mortal child, it costs far more than that.”
Then, only then, did a tremor of darkness trouble the boy’s eyes. “Sir, my pa’s in that tent. My grandpa too.”
“Don’t you worry your head,” the barker murmured, “Don’t you think at all.”
But then the air filled with the clink of chattering coins, a thousand miniature bells, the cries of dying birds at sunset. A scent, exotic and pungent and heady and carrion and oh so dry and ancient made the boy’s brain gibber and dissolve.
Rolling Bob’s eyes widened with terror as he stared past the slick-haired curve of the boy’s head. Thad began to turn then, hungry to know damnation in the way of all boys, but Rolling Bob snatched his chin with a crab’s claw pinch. “No,” the barker whispered, “No, no, no, and no. It’s her. Don’t look, kid. Not if you value your soul.”
But Thad wanted to look - oh how he wanted to look! - and he struggled to free his chin.
“Stare into my eyes!” the barker commanded, “Now, kid!”
The sound grew louder, swept closer, and the boy’s skin swarmed with gooseflesh. The scent grew richer, darker, and Rolling Bob fairly screamed, “Look into my eyes!”
Startled, Thad obeyed, and deep within each of those eyes he saw a tiny star. There, so far down, they flickered and pulsed and danced in a most fascinating way, and the boy could look at nothing else.
Rolling Bob shuddered and panted, knowing the danger of his choice, but feeling far more keenly the danger for the boy.
She drew up beside the pair, all shimmer and sound and scent. Stone-still she gazed at them, the eyes above the silver-mist veil as black and empty and frigid as deep space. When she spoke, she used the old tongue, the nameless language that predated time, the language of the gods. “What is this I see?”
Thad, though his eyes remained locked on the stars in the barker’s eyes, retched at the sound of those words and Rolling Bob shuddered from jowl to jowl. Yet he answered her in the same tongue, its power undimmed by his slovenly form and his legacy of shame. “He is innocent.”
Dark and dripping laughter colored her words. “Will you never learn, you foolish thing? Innocence is an illusion.” A single alien-slender hand arose and a fingertip like an icicle touched the trickle of sweat seeping down Thad’s brow.
“Stop!” Rolling Bob commanded, but she only smiled and drew aside her veil. Her tongue, a viper’s fork, wrapped around her sweat-tainted finger. Tasting the boy, she shivered and unleashed a voluptuous moan that resounded in the bones.
The cocks of boy and barker sprung to life with painful intensity, and Rolling Bob cried out at the degradation though he kept his eyes riveted upon the boy’s.
She dropped her veil and brought her lush mouth to the barker’s ear. “I could tell you such things of this boy,” she breathed, “I could tell you of suckling calves, of little sisters, of day laborers with broad backs glistening in the sun-”
“No,” Rolling Bob whispered.
“Oh yes. Oh how wrong you are, for this boy is no innocent, Zophiel. He has a taste - and a talent - for corruption.”
“His soul is innocent,” spat the barker, “His soul, thou demon!”
“Zophiel . . .” she sang, mocking him, “Give him to me. Give him to me, and once again you may . . .” Her hand snaked beneath his bloated belly, tweaking and caressing the hard flesh there while he throbbed and heaved. Her other hand stroked the boy’s chest and began the descent down the crisp, clean front of his best overalls.
“I beg you!” Rolling Bob choked out, “In His Name, I beg you!”
“And you presume that I care, you foolish thing?”
“Lady, your tent awaits,” the barker said, desperate now, “It swells full to the brim and side to side with all the menfolk of this town.”
“Truly?” She paused. “Every man?”
“Even the man of God.”
Just like that, she stepped away. “Know that you owe me, you wretched thing.”
“I do.”
“Say it.”
“I owe you, demon.”
A smirk crossed her mouth, hidden beneath the veil. “Very well. You may keep your . . . innocent.” She turned and walked away then, the pendulum sway of her hips promising infinite violations. Her scent, her sound, her aura all faded as she rounded the curve of the tent towards the performer’s entrance.
Gasping, Rolling Bob broke eye contact with the boy. Thad doubled over and vomited at the barker’s feet, desperate to expel the foulness of her touch. “What was that?” he sobbed, “Oh my Father Who art in Heaven, what was that?”
The barker scrubbed sweat from his brow. “Just count yourself lucky, kid. Count yourself lucky and run away now. Don’t look back. Don’t think back. Love the Lord and pray every night that she never thinks of you.”
“Oh please,” whimpered the boy, “Tell me, tell me, what she is.”
“I can’t, kid. Don’t wonder any more. Just run.”
Thad looked at Rolling Bob with dull, bruised eyes. “Please.”
“he barker came at him then with a mouth like a lion's maw. "Run!” he roared, “Run!”
The boy scrabbled in the sawdust, kicking up a little flurry, then gained his feet and staggered into the night. He ran from the neon lights, the buzzers and bells and machinery grind. He ran from the people at the carnival who hungered for cheap entertainment and the carnival people who hungered for unnameable things.
But in his head, he couldn’t run, couldn’t even take a single mental step away from the hoochie-coochie tent and its flaking artwork that advertised the endless talents of an entertainer named Lilith.
*
Rolling Bob watched the night until it swallowed the boy. He breathed a prayer of thanks that he knew went unheard, then drew a massive needle and a long length of sinew from his pocket. Working fast, he sewed the entrance of the tent closed with long, even stitches, then turned his back and walked away.
Outside the tent tarried the best barker in the game, Rolling Bob. He whipped a grimy crimson handkerchief from his back pocket and blotted at his pockmarked brow. True he looked like nothing much, a grotesque little ball of a man with twin hunches mounding his back, but these monstrosities he kept well-hidden under his voluminous coat. So voluminous his coat, so hunched his back, that it seemed as though his head emerged from his chest with no neck to support it. Yet truly his patter worked miracles, lulled the sheep and allowed the goats to play. Now his spiel wound down like an old record grinding to a halt on a dust-choked phonograph. The madness slipped away, the dead glitter promises faded from his eyes, and the truth emerged: a man who knew too much, too much, too much.
The damp handkerchief stowed away, Rolling Bob withdrew a tattered old cigar and chewed the stump in contemplation.
Thaddeus Grange, Barlow Grange’s eldest boy, wandered towards the tent with a false mosey; no urgency here, no not at all. His fresh-scrubbed face shone like a star, his straw-blond hair gleamed with the pomade holding it flat to his skull, and he wore his good overalls all fresh-pressed and smelling sweet. As he dawdled along, hands deep in his pockets, he cast little glances from the corners of his robin egg eyes at the piss-poor paintings that tattooed the tent’s flanks.
Rolling Bob felt no patience tonight. “Scram kid. Go get some cotton candy. Play a game or two. Ride the Scream-n-Beg. This is no spectacle for kids.”
The boy flushed a bit, but he halted and stood solid on widespread legs. “I ain’t no kid, Sir. I’m well of age.”
The barker took in the downy chin, the freckled cheeks, and shook his head. “Hell you say. You’re not sixteen for another two weeks.”
Thad’s eyes shot wide. “How you know that, Sir?”
“Magic, kid.” The barker chuckled, a low and unpleasant sound. “This is a carnival. How else would I know?”
A long moment passed as the boy mulled this over. “Cain’t be magic,” he said at last, “My momma says there ain’t no such thing as magic, and she knows the Bible from back to front.”
Rolling Bob’s mouth twitched. “Your momma sounds like a lady with a fine memory indeed. But there’s more in this world than is betwixt those covers, and you don’t want to know one jot of it.”
Helpless, Thad eyed those paintings again, those cracked and dry caricatures creaking with promise. “If you’ll excuse me Sir, I think that I do.”
With a hard sound meant to break the spell of the boy’s stare, Rolling Bob spat out a tatter of tobacco. “Tent’s full to capacity, kid. No show for you.”
Like an animal peeking from its cave, the boy’s tongue darted over his parched lips. “Two weeks, Sir. Just two weeks and I ain’t a kid no more, but then you carnies is gonna be gone. I can pay-”
Rolling Bob spoke in his most gentle voice then, the voice used for small birds and fauns and cherubs and dear lost luscious girls. He used the voice that came before the blood. “I’d hate to see so fine a boy as you pay the price for entering that tent.”
A dry half-sob tugged from the boy’s chest, but this desire hounded him like no desire before it, and this cruel denial felt like torture. “It’s only a nickel, Sir. Please, I got me a nickel. I got me a whole pocket full of nickels.”
The barker’s voice dropped softer, and softer still, so faint that the boy strained to hear the words, strained to read the lips. “Oh mortal child, it costs far more than that.”
Then, only then, did a tremor of darkness trouble the boy’s eyes. “Sir, my pa’s in that tent. My grandpa too.”
“Don’t you worry your head,” the barker murmured, “Don’t you think at all.”
But then the air filled with the clink of chattering coins, a thousand miniature bells, the cries of dying birds at sunset. A scent, exotic and pungent and heady and carrion and oh so dry and ancient made the boy’s brain gibber and dissolve.
Rolling Bob’s eyes widened with terror as he stared past the slick-haired curve of the boy’s head. Thad began to turn then, hungry to know damnation in the way of all boys, but Rolling Bob snatched his chin with a crab’s claw pinch. “No,” the barker whispered, “No, no, no, and no. It’s her. Don’t look, kid. Not if you value your soul.”
But Thad wanted to look - oh how he wanted to look! - and he struggled to free his chin.
“Stare into my eyes!” the barker commanded, “Now, kid!”
The sound grew louder, swept closer, and the boy’s skin swarmed with gooseflesh. The scent grew richer, darker, and Rolling Bob fairly screamed, “Look into my eyes!”
Startled, Thad obeyed, and deep within each of those eyes he saw a tiny star. There, so far down, they flickered and pulsed and danced in a most fascinating way, and the boy could look at nothing else.
Rolling Bob shuddered and panted, knowing the danger of his choice, but feeling far more keenly the danger for the boy.
She drew up beside the pair, all shimmer and sound and scent. Stone-still she gazed at them, the eyes above the silver-mist veil as black and empty and frigid as deep space. When she spoke, she used the old tongue, the nameless language that predated time, the language of the gods. “What is this I see?”
Thad, though his eyes remained locked on the stars in the barker’s eyes, retched at the sound of those words and Rolling Bob shuddered from jowl to jowl. Yet he answered her in the same tongue, its power undimmed by his slovenly form and his legacy of shame. “He is innocent.”
Dark and dripping laughter colored her words. “Will you never learn, you foolish thing? Innocence is an illusion.” A single alien-slender hand arose and a fingertip like an icicle touched the trickle of sweat seeping down Thad’s brow.
“Stop!” Rolling Bob commanded, but she only smiled and drew aside her veil. Her tongue, a viper’s fork, wrapped around her sweat-tainted finger. Tasting the boy, she shivered and unleashed a voluptuous moan that resounded in the bones.
The cocks of boy and barker sprung to life with painful intensity, and Rolling Bob cried out at the degradation though he kept his eyes riveted upon the boy’s.
She dropped her veil and brought her lush mouth to the barker’s ear. “I could tell you such things of this boy,” she breathed, “I could tell you of suckling calves, of little sisters, of day laborers with broad backs glistening in the sun-”
“No,” Rolling Bob whispered.
“Oh yes. Oh how wrong you are, for this boy is no innocent, Zophiel. He has a taste - and a talent - for corruption.”
“His soul is innocent,” spat the barker, “His soul, thou demon!”
“Zophiel . . .” she sang, mocking him, “Give him to me. Give him to me, and once again you may . . .” Her hand snaked beneath his bloated belly, tweaking and caressing the hard flesh there while he throbbed and heaved. Her other hand stroked the boy’s chest and began the descent down the crisp, clean front of his best overalls.
“I beg you!” Rolling Bob choked out, “In His Name, I beg you!”
“And you presume that I care, you foolish thing?”
“Lady, your tent awaits,” the barker said, desperate now, “It swells full to the brim and side to side with all the menfolk of this town.”
“Truly?” She paused. “Every man?”
“Even the man of God.”
Just like that, she stepped away. “Know that you owe me, you wretched thing.”
“I do.”
“Say it.”
“I owe you, demon.”
A smirk crossed her mouth, hidden beneath the veil. “Very well. You may keep your . . . innocent.” She turned and walked away then, the pendulum sway of her hips promising infinite violations. Her scent, her sound, her aura all faded as she rounded the curve of the tent towards the performer’s entrance.
Gasping, Rolling Bob broke eye contact with the boy. Thad doubled over and vomited at the barker’s feet, desperate to expel the foulness of her touch. “What was that?” he sobbed, “Oh my Father Who art in Heaven, what was that?”
The barker scrubbed sweat from his brow. “Just count yourself lucky, kid. Count yourself lucky and run away now. Don’t look back. Don’t think back. Love the Lord and pray every night that she never thinks of you.”
“Oh please,” whimpered the boy, “Tell me, tell me, what she is.”
“I can’t, kid. Don’t wonder any more. Just run.”
Thad looked at Rolling Bob with dull, bruised eyes. “Please.”
“he barker came at him then with a mouth like a lion's maw. "Run!” he roared, “Run!”
The boy scrabbled in the sawdust, kicking up a little flurry, then gained his feet and staggered into the night. He ran from the neon lights, the buzzers and bells and machinery grind. He ran from the people at the carnival who hungered for cheap entertainment and the carnival people who hungered for unnameable things.
But in his head, he couldn’t run, couldn’t even take a single mental step away from the hoochie-coochie tent and its flaking artwork that advertised the endless talents of an entertainer named Lilith.
*
Rolling Bob watched the night until it swallowed the boy. He breathed a prayer of thanks that he knew went unheard, then drew a massive needle and a long length of sinew from his pocket. Working fast, he sewed the entrance of the tent closed with long, even stitches, then turned his back and walked away.