Joe Lansdale - Freezer Burn

Bill presented his arm to Frost, but Frost said, “No, has to be in the hip.”

Reluctantly, Bill pulled down his underwear and rolled over and lay on his stomach, halfway expecting Frost’s hands to clamp down on his shoulders and for Frost to enter him from behind. He had never known anyone like Frost, and no one had ever been as nice to him. Therefore, it occurred to Bill that Frost might be queer, looking for brown ring and deep penetration. Then it occurred to him if he was queer he was certainly banging one hell of a nice poontang about ten times a night. Did queers do that? Could they learn a trade like that and maybe even enjoy it?

The shot was over before Bill could consider much else, and Frost had not tried to impose himself. He merely cleaned his equipment with a little bottle of alcohol and put the hypo and the medicine away and zipped it up in the bag.

“I know you’ve done something you shouldn’t, Bill,” Frost said, “and I’m not asking what. I can read a man. I know men. I don’t know women, but I know men. And you’ve done something. I know too you’re a good man and it wasn’t anything bad, just something stupid. Am I right?”

Bill hiked up his underwear and rolled over. “Yeah, I did some stuff. I told you already I did.”

“All I want to know is what you’ve done isn’t anything terrible. Just stupid. And you know better now.”

“Yeah, I did plenty of stupid things. Stupid is kinda my trademark.”

“Nothing like murder?”

Bill considered. He hadn’t murdered his mother, she had died, and he hadn’t murdered the idiot firecracker stand man, Chaplin had, and he hadn’t killed Fat Boy, Fat Boy had gotten his from snakes, and he hadn’t killed Chaplin, a Roman candle had, and he hadn’t killed the cop. The cop managed that all by himself. For a man that hadn’t killed anyone, he had certainly been around a lot of death, but he didn’t even feel close to lying when he said: “Naw, nothing like murder. Just a little trouble. I reckon it’ll blow over afore long. And yeah, I know better.”

“Good,” Frost said. “I’ve been watching you, and I think you’re the man to do what I first asked you about.”

“Managing?”

“Sort of. I need a man who can go into town and do some of the things I’m doing. I’m sick of it. I’ll make a lot of the arrangements still, but I need someone to go in and pay some money here and there and pick up a few things and make sure permits are in order and advertising is taken care of. Got me?”

“I don’t know anything about permits and that kind of stuff.”

“Frankly, you don’t have to. It’s all arranged. Look, Bill, it isn’t really a managing job. It’s just donkey work, but it isn’t difficult donkey work and I’d rather not do it. It’s a way for you to start picking up a little money, and being a little more useful around here. Some of the others are starting to think you’re some kind of pet of mine because you don’t have oddities.”

“Reckon I look odd enough.”

“Everyone knows now it isn’t a permanent oddity, and that you aren’t trying to work up an oddity. I got to tell you straight, Bill, you have to do this, you want to stay on. We don’t really need anyone else to just set things up.”

“Am I gonna have to keep doing that too?”

“Yes. I said we don’t need you, but you’re here, you help.”

“But this town stuff… With this face?”

“Another week, you’ll be good as new.”

“Yeah?”

“A little puffy, maybe, but lots better. Surely you’ve noticed it’s better.”

Bill, who had avoided examining his face for some time, went into the bathroom. Normally he just glanced into the sink and ran the water and washed his face and hands without looking in the mirror, but now he raised his head slowly and saw his reflection.

The Blowed Up Man was gone. He was puffy and red, even blue in a couple of spots. Knotty over the eyes, on the cheeks, at the corners of his lips, and right under the nose. Not pretty, but no one would mistake him for a freak now, just a guy who couldn’t keep his hands up in a barroom brawl.

Bill washed and toweled his face dry, happy about the improvement. He came back in and sat down on the bed. “You’re right, I’m gettin’ better.”

“These shots will make it cure up all the faster.”

“This job going to actually pay me something besides room and board, huh?”

“That’s what I said.”

“How much?”

“It depends what we haul in. I take the money for entrance and for looking at the Ice Man, everyone else runs their own show. They take what they get for people looking at them, any tips they can finagle. I get a little slice of their pie so they can stay in the carnival. Way I’d do you is give you a percentage of what I get, plus room and board. You’ll be in another trailer.”

“What trailer?”

“The Ice Man’s trailer. It’s the only one with enough extra space. It’s got facilities. I’ve even bought you some clothes. A few pairs of pants and T-shirts. A light jacket. Tennis shoes, socks, and underwear.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Feeling better, Bill became a shrewd businessman. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “I still don’t know what kind of money we’re talkin’.”

“You’ll find when I have a really good week I’ll be generous. We usually do all right.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised the jack this racket brings in. I always thought carnivals were by the skin of their teeth.”

“It might seem like a lot to you, but by the time I deal with expenses and such it’s no great shakes. The Ice Man, believe it or not, draws more people than anything.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“It’s a full third of my income. There may come a time when I semiretire, and just put the Ice Man up somewhere for exhibit. I wouldn’t have the expenses I have now, and it’d be a good living, I think. You see, people are getting so they don’t like to look at freaks. Political correctness, I guess, but my children, the ones everyone else calls the Pickled Punks, and the Ice Man, people don’t feel guilty because they’re already dead. They’ll pay to look, because what they’re looking at can’t look back.”

“That Ice Man, he what you said he was, a Neanderthal?”

“I said he might be. He looks a little too good to be a Neanderthal, don’t you think?”

Bill wasn’t really sure what a Neanderthal looked like, so he held back judgment. “You ever had the electricity go off on that thing? I mean, it did, wouldn’t the Ice Man come to pieces pretty quick?”

“I’m prepared. What do you say? Is it a deal?”

They shook hands on it.

Bill awoke mornings atwist in his blankets, his cot squeaking as he rolled over and looked at the Ice Man’s refrigerated tomb.

It was the same each day. He found living in the trailer with the Ice Man bothersome. At night, so he could sleep, he lay a blanket over the top of the freezer glass. He was uncertain what this accomplished, but it made him feel better.

Sometimes in a deep sleep he dreamed the Ice Man was breathing and he could hear it as certain as he could hear his own breath. In and out. And beyond the breathing was the thumping of a heart.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Most certainly the beating of an ancient bloodless heart. And there was the tapping at the glass. The tapping would grow more desperate, work in rhythm to the breathing and the pounding of the dead heart, and he would try to awake to make the dream end, but he feared if he awoke it would all be real. At least in the dream, he could call it a dream.

Other times he thought he heard the glass splintering, or thought he heard footsteps gliding up behind him, but when he broke the spell of sleep, turned with a start and an explosion of breath, there was only the freezer with the blanket stretched over it, its motor humming, and the beating of the little fan stirring hot air. He knew then the noise was the freezer and the fan and the outside wind rocking the trailer, working in tandem to scare the shit out of him.