William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

Across the fire the fat man lifted a steaming can from the embers with a pair of pliers. “Got yourself a can, bud? Java’s done.”

Stan knocked tobacco crumbs from a tin and twisted a rag around it. “In there, pal.”

The coffee set his stomach churning again. Christ, I need a drink. But how to snake out the bottle without that bastard cutting himself in?

He eased the bottle neck from his coat and pretended to be studying the cards while the white mule trickled into the steaming can.

The squat hobo raised his face. “My, my! What is this that gives off so heavenly an aroma?” His voice was like sandpaper. “Could it be Odeur de Barley corn? Or is it a few drops-just the merest suggestion behind the ears-of that rare and subtle essence, ‘Parfum Pourriture d’Intestin- You never know she wears it until it’s… too late’? Come on, blondy, gimme the bottle! ”

Through his smile Stan said, “Sure. Sure, pal. I was going to break it out later. I’m waiting for another pal of mine. He’s out trying to get a lump.”

The fat man took the bottle of rotgut, measured it by eye, and very accurately drank half of it, handing it back and returning to his coffee. “Thanks, bud. The only pal you got is right in there. You better soak it up before some other bo muscles in on us.” He shifted his weight, crossed his legs, and took a long drink of coffee, which trickled down the shiny blue surface of his jowls. A two days’ growth of beard made him look like a pirate.

He rested the can on his knee and wiped his chin, running his tongue around between his lips and gums. Then he said, “That’s right, bud-kill the bottle. How would you like it if we had an unexpected guest?” His voice took on a reedy, mincing tone and he held his head coyly on one side, lifting bushy eyebrows. “He’d find us in a dither-it being the maid’s day off. All we’d have to offer him would be a drink of that fine, mellow, wood-aged polecat piss.” The jowls swayed as he shook his head in mock concern. Then the dark face brightened. “Or perhaps he would be that priceless gem-the guest-who-always-fits-in-ready at a moment’s notice to don an apron (one of your frilly best, naturally, kept just for those special people) and join you in the kitchen, improvising a snack.”

Stan brought the bottle to his mouth again and tilted it; the raw whisky found holes in his teeth and punished him, but he finished it and heaved the bottle into the weeds.

The fat man threw another branch on the fire and squatted beside Stan. “What kind of cards are those, bud?”

The man’s shirt was almost clean, pants cuffs scarcely frayed. Probably rode the plush a lot. In his lapel was a tiny steering-wheel emblem of a boat club.

Stan gazed up into his face. “My friend, you are a man who has seen life. I get the impression that somewhere in your life has been an office with a broad carpet. I see a window in an office building with something growing in it. Could it be little cedar trees-in a window box?”

The fat hobo stood up, swishing the coffee in his can. “Everybody had cedars. I had a better idea-an inspiration. Grass hummocks-just plain grass tufts. But this will show you the genius . What do you think I put in them? Katydids! I’d bring up a client late at night-town all dark there below us. Tell him to step back from the window and listen. You couldn’t believe you were in the city.” He looked down and his face tightened. “Wait a minute, bud. How’d you know about them grass tufts?”

The Great Stanton smiled thinly, pointing to the cards before him. “This is the Tarot of the Romany cartomancers. A set of symbols handed down from remote antiquity, preserving in their enigmatic form the ancient wisdom through the ages.”

“What d’you do with ’em? Tell fortunes?” The gravel voice had lost its hostility.

“I receive impressions. You have two children. Is that correct?”

The fat man nodded. “Christ knows, I had once. If that bitch hasn’t let ’em kill themselves while she was out whoring around.”

“Your third wife?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Wait a minute. How’d you know I was a three-time loser?”

“I drew the impressions from your mind, my friend, using the cards of the Tarot as a concentrative. Now, if you wish me to continue, I shall be glad to. The fee will be twenty-five cents, or its equivalent in merchandise.”

The hobo scratched his scalp. “Okay, bud. Go ahead.” He threw a quarter beside the cards and Stan picked it up. Five shots. Gathering the cards he shuffled them, having the fat man cut them with his left hand.

“You see, the first to appear is the Hermit . An old man, leaning on a staff, follows a star that burns in his lantern. That is your quest-your journey through life, always seeking something just out of your reach. Once it was wealth. It became the love of women. Next, you sought security-for yourself and others. But misfortune descended on you. Things inside you began to tear in opposite directions. And you would have five or six drinks before you took the train home at night. Isn’t that right?”

The glowering, dark face nodded.

“The Hermit is the card of the Search. The Search for the Answer.”

“Come again, bud.” The fat man’s tone was subdued and hopeless. “What brains I ever had was knocked loose by yard dicks years ago.”

Stan closed his eyes. “Man comes into the world a blind, groping mite. He knows hunger and the fear of noise and of falling. His life is spent in flight-flight from hunger and from the thunderbolt of destiny. From his moment of birth he begins to fall through the whistling air of Time: down, down into a chasm of darkness…”

The hobo stood up cautiously and edged around the fire. He watched the cartomancer warily. Nuts can blow their tops easy -and this one still held a can of hot coffee.

The Great Stanton spoke aloud to himself. The jolt of whisky had loosened his stomach and drawn it out from his backbone. Now he rambled; with a foolish, drunken joy he let his tongue ride, saying whatever it wanted to say. He could sit back and rest and let his tongue do the work. Why beat my brains out reading for a bum that was probably too crooked and phoney even for the advertising racket? The tongue does the work. Good old tongue, man’s best friend-and woman’s second best. What the hell am I talking about?

“… we come like a breath of wind over the fields of morning. We go like a lamp flame caught by a blast from a darkened window. In between we journey from table to table, from bottle to bottle, from bed to bed. We suck, we chew, we swallow, we lick, we try to mash life into us like an am-am- amoeba God damn it! Somebody lets us loose like a toad out of a matchbox and we jump and jump and jump and the guy always behind us, and when he gets tired he stomps us to death and our guts squirt out on each side of the boot of All Merciful Providence. The son-of-a-bitch!”

The world began to spin and he opened his eyes to keep his balance. The fat man wasn’t listening. He was standing with his back to the fire, throwing pebbles at something beyond the circle of light.

When he turned around he said, “A goddamned, mangy, flea-bitten abortion of a dog was trying to horn in on our fire. The stinking abomination. I hate ’em! They come up to you, smelling, groveling, please-kick-my-ass-mister. I hate ’em! They slaver all over you. You rub ’em behind the ears and they practically come in your face out of gratitude.”

Stanton Carlisle said, “My friend, at some time a dog did you an injury. I think the dog was not yours but that it belonged to another-to a woman.”

The bo, moving agily with the grace of an athlete gone fat, was standing beside him now, fists working, the knuckles rippling as he spoke. “Sure it was a dog-a toadying, cringing, vomit-eating, goddamned abortion of a dog! Sure he belonged to a woman, you crazy bastard! And the dog was me! ”