William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

Zeena taught him many things, some of them about magic. “Misdirection is the whole works, honey. You don’t need no fancy production boxes and trap doors and trick tables. I’ve always let on that a man that will spend his time learning misdirection can just reach in his pocket and put something in a hat and then go ahead and take it out again and everybody will sit back and gasp, wondering where it came from.”

“Did you ever do magic?” he asked her.

Zeena laughed. “Not on your sweet life. There’s very few girls goes in for magic. And that’s the reason. A gal spends all her time learning how to attract attention to herself. Then in magic she has to unlearn all that and learn how to get the audience to look at something else. Strain’s too great. The dolls can never make it. I couldn’t. I’ve always stuck to the mental business. It don’t hurt anybody-makes plenty of friends for you wherever you go. Folks are always crazy to have their fortunes told, and what the hell- You cheer ’em up, give ’em something to wish and hope for. That’s all the preacher does every Sunday. Not much different, being a fortuneteller and a preacher, way I look at it. Everybody hopes for the best and fears the worst and the worst is generally what happens but that don’t stop us from hoping. When you stop hoping you’re in a bad way.”

Stan nodded. “Has Pete stopped hoping?”

Zeena was silent and her childish blue eyes were bright. “Sometimes I think he has. Pete’s scared of something-I think he got good and scared of himself a long time ago. That’s what made him such a wiz as a crystal-reader-for a few years. He wished like all get out that he really could read the future in the ball. And when he was up there in front of them he really believed he was doing it. And then all of a sudden he began to see that there wasn’t no magic anywhere to lean on and he had nobody to lean on in the end but himself-not me, not his friends, not Lady Luck-just himself. And he was scared he would let himself down.”

“So he did?”

“Yeah. He did.”

“What’s going to happen to him?”

Zeena bristled. “Nothing’s going to happen to him. He is a sweet man, down deep. Long as he lasts I’ll stick to him. If it hadn’t been for Pete I’d of probably ended up in a crib house. Now I got a nice trade that’ll always be in demand as long as there’s a soul in the world worried about where next month’s rent is coming from. I can always get along. And take Pete right along with me.”

Across the tent the talker, Clem Hoately, had mounted the platform of Major Mosquito and started his lecture. The Major drew back one tiny foot and aimed a kick with deadly accuracy at Hoately’s shin. It made the talker stammer for a moment. The midget was snarling like an angry kitten.

“The Major is a nasty little guy,” Stan said.

“Sure he is. How’d you like to be shut up in a kid’s body that way? With the marks all yawping at you. It’s different in our racket. We’re up head and shoulders above the marks. We’re better’n they are and they know it. But the Major’s a freak born.”

“How about Sailor Martin? He’s a made freak.”

Zeena snorted. “He’s just a pecker carrying a man around with it. He started by having a lot of anchors and nude women tattooed on his arms to show the girls how tough he was or something. Then he got that battleship put on his chest and he was off. He was like a funny paper, with his shirt off, and he figured he might as well make his skin work for him. If he was ever in the Navy, I was born in a convent.”

“He doesn’t seem to be making much time with your Electric Chair pal.”

Zeena’s eyes flashed. “He better not. That kid’s not going to get it until she runs into some guy that’ll treat her right. I’ll see to that. I’d beat the be-Jesus out of any snot-nose that went monkeying around Molly.”

“You and who else?”

“Me and Bruno.”

Evansburg, Morristown, Linklater, Cooley Mills, Ocheketawney, Bale City, Boeotia, Sanders Falls, Newbridge.

Coming: Ackerman-Zorbaugh Monster Shows. Auspices Tall Cedars of Zion, Caldwell Community Chest, Pioneer Daughters of Clay County, Kallakie Volunteer Fire Department, Loyal Order of Bison.

Dust when it was dry. Mud when it was rainy. Swearing, steaming, sweating, scheming, bribing, bellowing, cheating, the carny went its way. It came like a pillar of fire by night, bringing excitement and new things into the drowsy towns-lights and noise and the chance to win an Indian blanket, to ride on the ferris wheel, to see the wild man who fondles those rep-tiles as a mother would fondle her babes. Then it vanished in the night, leaving the trodden grass of the field and the debris of popcorn boxes and rusting tin ice-cream spoons to show where it had been.

Stan was surprised, and gnawed by frustration. He had had Zeena-but how few chances ever came his way for him to have her again. She was the wise one, who knew all the ropes of the carny and everywhere else. She knew. And yet, in the tight world of the carnival, she could find very few opportunities to do what her eyes told Stan a dozen times a day that she would take pleasure in doing.

Pete was always there, always hanging around, apologetic, crestfallen, hands trembling, perfumed with bootleg, always a reminder of what he had been.

Zeena would beg off from a rendezvous with Stan to sew a button on Pete’s shirt. Stan couldn’t understand it; the more he thought about it the more confused and bitter he got. Zeena was using him to satisfy herself, he kept repeating. Then the thought struck him that maybe Zeena played a game of make-believe with him, and actually saw over his shoulder a shadow of Pete as he had been-handsome and straight and wearing his little black beard.

The thought would strike him right in the middle of his act and his patter would turn into a snarl.

One day Clem Hoately was waiting beside the platform when he came down after the last show. “Whatever’s eating you, kid, you better turn it off while you’re on the box. If you can’t be a trouper, pack up your junk and beat it. Magicians come two for a nickel.”

Stan had acquired enough carny to reach over, take a half dollar from Hoately’s lapel, and vanish it in his other hand before walking away. But the call-down by the older man burnt into him. No woman or man his own age could drive the gall into his system like that. It took an old bastard, particularly when the stubble on his face looked silvery like fungus growing on a corpse. The bastard.

Stan went to sleep that night on his cot in the Ten-in-One tent with fantasies of slowly roasting Hoately over a fire, inquisition fashion.

Next day, just as they were about to open, Hoately stopped by his platform while Stan was opening a carton of pitch books.

“Keep them half-dollar tricks in the act, son. They got a nice flash. The marks love it.”

Stan grinned and said, “You bet.” When the first tip came wandering in he gave them all he had. His sale of the magic books almost doubled. He was on top of the world all day. But then came night.

By night Zeena’s body plagued his dreams and he lay under the blanket, worn out and with his eyes burning for sleep, thinking back and having her over and over in memory.

Then he waited until closing one night. He stepped back of the curtains on her miniature stage. Zeena had taken off the white silk robe and was putting her hair up, her shoulders white and round and tantalizing over her slip. He took her roughly in his arms and kissed her and she pushed him away. “You beat it out of here. I got to get dressed.”

“All right. You mean we’re washed up?” he said.

Her face softened and she laid her palm gently against his cheek. “Got to learn to call your shots, honey. We ain’t married folks. We got to be careful. Only one person I’m married to and that’s Pete. You’re a sweet boy and I’m fond as all hell of you. Maybe a little too fond of you. But we got to have some sense. Now you be good. We’ll get together one of these days-or nights. And we’ll have fun. That’s a promise. I’ll lay it on the line just as soon as ever we can.”