William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

“It’s 28 Locust Lane. You got enough dough?”

“You might let me have a couple of dollars from the treasury.”

“Okay, honey. But get some coffee into you first. Promise Zeena you’ll have breakfast.”

Pete took the money and put it carefully away in a billfold. “I shall probably have a small glass of iced orange juice, two three-minute eggs, melba toast and coffee,” he said, his voice suddenly vibrant. Then he seemed to fade. He took out the billfold and looked in it. “Must make sure I got my money safe,” he said in an off-key, strangely childish tone. He started off across the lot toward a shack at the edge of the village. Zeena watched him go.

“I’ll bet that joint is a blind pig,” she said to Stan. “Pete’s sure a real clairvoyant when it comes to locating hidden treasure- long as it gurgles when you shake it. Well, you coming back and clean up? Look at you! Your shirt’s sticking to you with sweat!”

As they walked, Stan breathed in the morning. Mist hung over the hills beyond the town, and from a slope rising from the other side of the road came the gentle tonk of a cowbell. Stan stopped and stretched his arms.

Zeena stopped too. “Never get nothing like this working the two-a-day. Honest, you know, Stan, I’d get homesick just to hear a cow moo.”

The sun, breaking through, sparkled in wagon ruts still deep with rain. Stan took her arm to help her across the puddles. Under the warm, smooth rubber of the raincoat he pressed the soft bulge of her breast. He could feel the heat steaming up over his face where the cool wind struck it.

“You’re awful nice to have around, Stan. You know that?”

He stopped walking. They were out of sight of the carnival grounds. Zeena was smiling at something inside herself. Awkwardly his arm went around her and he kissed her. It was lots different from kissing high-school girls. The warm, intimate searching of her mouth left him weak and dizzy. They broke apart and Stan said, “Wow.”

Zeena let her hand stay for an instant pressed against his cheek; then she turned and they walked on, hand in hand.

“Where’s Molly?” he asked after a while.

“Pounding her ear. I talked the old gal that has the house into giving us the two rooms for the price of one. While I was waiting for her to put up her husband’s lunch I took a quick peek in the family Bible and got all their birth dates down pat. I told her right off that she was Aries-March 29th. Then I gave her a reading that just set her back on her heels. We got a real nice room. Always pays to keep your eyes open, I always say. The kid had her a good soak and hit the hay. She’ll be pounding her ear. She’s a fine kid, if she could only grow up some and stop yelping for her daddy every time she has a hangnail. But she’ll get over it, I reckon. Wait till you see the size of these rooms.”

The room reminded Stan of home. The old house on Linden Street and the big brass bedstead in his parents’ room, where it was all tumbled and smelling of perfume on Mother’s pillow and of hair restorer on his father’s side.

Zeena threw off her raincoat, rolled a newspaper into a tight bar, tied it with string in the middle and hung the coat up on a hook in the closet. She pulled off her shoes and stretched out on the bed, reaching her arms wide. Then she drew out her hairpins and the brassy hair which had been in a neat double roll around her head fell in pigtails. Swiftly she unbraided them and let the hair flow around her on the pillow.

Stan said, “I guess I’d better get that bath. I’ll see if there’s any hot water left. He hung his coat and vest on a chairback. When he looked up he saw that Zeena had her eyes on him. Her lids were partly closed. One arm was bent under her head and she was smiling, a sweet, possessive smile.

He came over to her and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. Zeena covered his hand with hers and suddenly he bent and kissed her. This time there was no need for them to stop and they didn’t. Her hand slid inside his shirt and felt the smooth warmth of his back tenderly.

“Wait, honey. Not yet. Kiss me some more.”

“What if Molly should wake up?”

“She won’t. She’s young. You couldn’t wake that kid up. Don’t worry about things, honey. Just take it easy and slow.”

All the things Stan had imagined himself saying and doing at such a time did not fit. It was thrilling and dangerous and his heart beat so hard he felt it would choke him.

“Take all your things off, honey, and hang ’em on the chair, neat.”

Stan wondered that he didn’t feel in the least ashamed now that this was it. Zeena stripped off her stockings, unhooked her dress and drew it leisurely over her head. Her slip followed.

At last she lay back, her bent arm under her head, and beckoned him to come to her. “Now then, Stan honey, you can let yourself go.”

“It’s getting late.”

“Sure is. You got to get your bath and get back. Folks’ll think Zeena’s gone and seduced you.”

“They’d be right.”

“Damned if they wouldn’t.” She raised herself on her elbows and let her hair fall down on each side of his face and kissed him lightly. “Get along with you. Skat, now.”

“Can’t. You’re holding me pinned down.”

“Try’n get away.”

“Can’t. Too heavy.”

“See’f you can wiggle loose.”

There was a knock at the door, a gentle, timid tapping. Zeena threw her hair out of her eyes. Stan started but she laid one finger on his lips. She swung off the bed gracefully and pulled Stan up by one hand. Then she handed him his trousers, underwear, and socks and pushed him into the bathroom.

Behind the bathroom door Stan crouched, his ear to the panel, his heart hammering with alarm. He heard Zeena get her robe out of a bag and take her time about answering the tap. Then the hall door opened. Pete’s voice.

“Sorry t’wake you, sugar. Only-” His voice sounded thicker. “Only, had little shopping to do. I sorta forgot ’bout getting breakfast.”

There was the snap of a pocketbook opening. “Here’s a buck, honey. Now make sure it’s breakfast.”

“Cross my heart, hope die.”

Stan heard Zeena’s bare feet approach the bathroom. “Stan,” she called, “hurry up in there. I want to get some sleep. Get out of that tub and fall into your pants.” To Pete she said, “The kid’s had a hard night, tearing down and putting up in all that rain. I expect he’s fallen asleep in the tub. Maybe you better not wait for him.”

The door closed. Stan straightened up. She had never turned a hair, lying to Pete about him being in the bathtub. It comes natural in women, he thought. That’s the way they all do when they have guts enough. That’s the way they would all like to do. He found himself trembling. Quietly he drew a tub of hot water.

When it was half full he lay in it and closed his eyes. Well, now he knew. This was what all the love-nest murderers killed over and what people got married to get. This was why men left home and why women got themselves dirty reputations. This was the big secret. Now I know. But there’s nothing disappointing about the feeling. It’s okay.

He let his hands trail in the hot water and splashed little ripples over his chest. He opened his eyes. Drawing his hand out of the steamy warmth he gazed at it a moment and then carefully took from the back of it a hair that gleamed brassy-gold, like a tiny, crinkled wire. Zeena was a natural blonde.

The weeks went by. The Ackerman-Zorbaugh Monster Shows crawled from town to town, the outline of the sky’s edge around the fair grounds changing but the sea of upturned faces always the same.

The first season is always the best and the worst for a carny. Stan’s muscles hardened and his fingers developed great surety, his voice greater volume. He put a couple of coin sleights in the act that he would never have had the nerve to try in public before.