David Nickle - Monstrous Affections

“But son—” Mr. Simmons put a pale hand on James’s arm “—circus folk aren’t nothing but gypsies, you know. They’ll cut your throat and steal your wallet, give them half a chance. They’ll overrun a town, steal its children. Don’t go out there looking for vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” James was honestly puzzled, and that was betrayed in his expression. “Why would I—”

“For the death of your father,” he said, then added quickly: “Although I can see such thoughts are far from your mind. That is good, young sir. I apologize for thinking you a hothead. Other sons and daughters have been angrier about the goings-on with the circus folk. If I may say — your mother has raised a fine and temperate man. I am told that you do quite well for the family. In the moving picture business. I’ve a nephew in Spokane who’s a great fan of the pictures. I shall tell him we’ve met.”

“Give him my regards,” said James. “And now — one more thing — if I could…”

Mr. Simmons smiled sadly. “See your father? I’d advise waiting ’til tomorrow. There’s some work to be done. To make him as he lived. Do you no good to see ’im now, son.”

James hadn’t been about to ask to see his father’s corpse. God, that was the last thing he wanted to see. He’d wanted to know more about the circus folk. About the Cyclops. But Mr. Simmons wouldn’t talk more about that. He’d just think that James was fixing for vengeance, and try and stop him. So James just returned the sad smile and nodded. “Tomorrow, then,” he said.

“You’re far away,” said his mother outside the house.

“Yes.” James ran his hands over the knobby wood of the steering wheel. Stared into space, at the far western ridges that were partly obscured in low cloud right then. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right, dear.” She sat in the car, looking at him.

He smiled at his mother. “Listen. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to take a little drive by myself.”

His mother took a breath, patted his arm. “Of course, dear. You haven’t been back here for almost ten years. And now you’re back, it’s to bury your—” She stopped, lifted her handkerchief to daub her eyes.

“Yes.”

James let his mother go inside, and put the car into gear. He wheeled back through Chamblay’s downtown. It was looking livelier during the day. Livelier, in fact, than it had in some time. He counted maybe a dozen trucks, covered with black tarpaulins. Big, dangerous-looking men in dark suit jackets leaned against their fenders, leering at passing townswomen. From behind the wheel of the Coupe, James leered at them. Turnabout’s fair play , he thought, imagining himself in their midst — a giant in their midst — plucking first one, then the other, screaming into the air… Ramming them face-down into the sawdust — into the dirt…

God, James , he thought as the little fantasy took form in his mind, you are a depraved one .

Back in Los Angeles, Stephen had taken to chiding him about that very thing. “They’ll let you go, you know, if the press gets wind of your shenanigans,” Stephen said to him, curled against his stomach in the heat of a Sunday afternoon not long ago. “They’ll cut you loose.”

“No fooling.” James had reached around front of Stephen, took hold of him lightly and ran a fingertip in the warm space between his thigh and his scrotum. He gave Stephen’s nuts a sharp little squeeze. Stephen sucked in a breath — James could feel the cheeks of Stephen’s arse tightening around him. “I guess we should stop, then. Maybe I should find religion. Or—” he pulled his hand away “—take little Alice up on one of her many offers. Knock her up. That’d settle it once and for all.”

“Oh, go to hell,” said Stephen. “You wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” James had replied. “She’d know what to do. And she wants to fuck me.”

“Everybody wants to fuck you,” said Stephen. “You’re Captain Kip Blackwell, for Christ’s sake. But I have to tell you, Kip — that unenthusiastic flirtation you play at with her in the canteen isn’t fooling anybody .”

“It fools Alice,” James had said.

“You think?”

James set his jaw. Put his foot on the gas pedal. He took the road to the mill — then, following the wood smoke and tire ruts, made his way to the creek-bank where, according to Mr. Simmons, the circus was encamped.

There was no Big Top; not shooting galleries nor cotton candy stands nor halls of mirrors. The remains of the Twillicker and Baines Circus was mostly people, and those people had spread in a makeshift shantytown along the grassy east bank of the Chamblay Creek. Little tents pitched here and there, charred swaths of orange and green and blue fabric. Some of the folk had dug out fire pits in the needle-covered dirt. They were surrounded by trees, spruce and pine so high that from the camp’s far side, they obscured much of the snowy mountain peaks to the west.

James stopped his car and got out. The place smelled of wood smoke and burned fat. He tromped down the slope to the first of the tents — where a young woman sat beside an older man, broad-chested with a long, drooping moustache. He wore a battered felt bowler hat, and his arm was in a sling. She wore a pale blue cotton sun dress, mismatched with the torn fishnet stockings of a dancing girl.

“Hello,” said James.

“Good sir,” said the man, tipping his hat. “Clayton O’Connor, at your service.” The woman smiled wanly. “And this is Clarissa.”

James stood there awkwardly for a moment. They didn’t appear to recognize him — which as he thought of it wasn’t unusual: circus folk had a show of their own to perform Saturday afternoons. There’d be precious little time for the pictures, what with all the fire-eating and clowning and lion-taming to fill up the day.

“Good afternoon,” James said. “James Thorne. I’m looking — that is—”

“The eye,” said Clarissa, nodding. She got a funny look in her eye.

“Do not mind her and her riddles, friend,” said Clayton O’Connor. “She’s new at the Sight.”

James smiled. “ The Sight . She’s a fortune teller?”

Clayton nodded, and removed his bowler cap to reveal a balding crown covered in intricate tattoos. “An oracle,” he said.

“Ah. Of course. Oracles speak in riddles, don’t they?”

Clayton shrugged, held his hat in front of him. “It is a mixed blessing, good sir.” He extended the hat a little further, like a bowl. “Prophecy is good, but it’s nothing,” he said, “without sound interpretation.”

“I see.” James laughed. “Prophecies are free, but interpretation costs a penny.”

“Five pennies.”

James’s first impulse was to walk away — leave the tattooed man and his abstruse young oracle to prey on the next townie that happened by. But he dug into his pocket, and came up with a nickel he thought he might spare. The oracle was a good shtick, and these people had just survived a train wreck; he couldn’t begrudge them their little grift. He tossed the coin into the hat. “Interpret away,” he said, and knelt down beside them. “Tell me…” He paused, looked across the creek to the dark evergreen wood. Some of the circus folk between himself and the river were taking note of him — of his new automobile. A dwarf limped up to it and gave the rear tires a malicious little kick. “… tell me about the Cyclops.”

Clayton looked into his cap — with his damaged fingers, he pulled the nickel out, turned it over and examined both sides.

Clayton paused a moment, then looked James in the eye. “You’ve seen it, have you, sir?”