Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

“Judge not, lest ye be judged, Ruthie.”

  It had escalated from there. First because there’s a huge difference between judging, which I wasn’t doing, and inquiring, which I was! And second because, in those days, I increasingly felt the need to draw something personal – maybe even something angry – out of Bridie, instead of those ever-lasting Biblical quotes.

  “Are you defending her, Bri’? What about the people who say she’s a wh…?”

  “Ruth!” she’d barked, glancing meaningfully at Asael. “Don’t you dare! People say all kinds of silly things. And the silliest people of all just repeat what they hear. You’re not silly, so don’t repeat. The fact is that we don’t know Amalthea. We don’t know her background. We don’t know why she’s like she is. And even if we did, we wouldn’t be making judgements. We wouldn’t like people talking about us would we? That’s just ignorant! And unkind! So we’ll do unto her as we’d like to have done unto us. Okay?”

  “But we do know stuff about her!” I’d insisted. “The goats! And those signs she puts on them! And men who she . . . !”

  “Yes, yes, alright! We know a few little things. But we don’t know what they mean, do we? What they mean to her! And until and unless we do, we should mind our business.”

  “But Bri’! She told Dorrie Gunster that she believes in ghosts! She thinks she’s reincarnated! I mean . . . what’s that about?”

  “I believe in goats too!”

  That was Asael, blundering stupidly into the discussion. No one was going to challenge Amalthea’s reputation, even in a constructive way, while he was around.

  “Not ‘goats’, stupid! Ghosts!”

  “Oh! Well I believe in them too! And anyhow, maybe she is re-in-tarnated for all you know! Like . . . what is it, anyhow?”

  I’d thought I was on the verge of having a win, at least in terms of getting Bridie to actually argue. But Asael had provided her with a distraction, which she jumped at.

  “It means coming back to Earth after you die; only you come back as someone else or an animal. But we know it’s a silly idea, don’t we? Short and sorrowful is our life. And there is no remedy when a man cometh to his end. That’s the Book of Wisdom.”

  It’s hard to argue with the Book of Wisdom; especially when its dismal outlook kind of suits a very frustrating person who you live with.

  “Yeah, well” I’d said, determined to make one last thrust. “If you want my opinion, she’s the most . . . !”

  “Enough! Let the poor girl alone! Unless you’re going to talk to her and ask her about herself . . . are you going to do that? No? Well then, just let her be! Accept and trust that she has reasons for her . . . eccentricities. The tree is known by its fruit!”

  * * *

  I had no ideas about investigating anyone’s ‘fruit’, but it was clear that that discussion was over. She never did clue in to the fact that I really just wanted to understand! And I wanted her to understand that there was a person amongst us who didn’t give a cat’s meow for what people thought. And maybe that could actually be a good thing!

  * * *

  Anyhow, if a person stands on Sideshow Alley for half an hour, everyone in town passes in front of them and that, I grudgingly had to admit, was probably why Asael was there. Some moon gravity thing had yanked him out of his established orbit around me and Bridie and that moon gravity thing was Amalthea Byerson.

  No sooner had she drifted into view than he began shuffling about like a legless line-dancer. His hands flicked around his collar, his hair and an itchy spot on his cheek; fluttered together and apart, dodged in and out of his pockets and, as he edged into her path, attempted a careless wave

  “M-m-m-m Byerson!” I could see his lips moving. “M-M-Amalthea!” He was like a plastic bag on the verge of disintegrating and I strained to hear, unwilling to miss a single beat of it.

  I doubt that he had any more idea than I did on what to expect from her but, to both our amazements, she walked right up and stopped in front of him! I thought of her eyes and I thought, ‘Okay! This is going to kill him now!’ No one looked at anyone quite as directly as Amalthea looked at people, but eyeball to eyeball stuff was like the smallest worm in Asael’s compost heap of abilities. I admit I crossed my fingers for him about then. I mean, it would have been tragically perfectly Asa’ to get this far with whatever twisted little plan he had, and then do something gross at the last minute – like throw up on one of the goats!

  “Asael!” she smiled in that warm, I-was-hoping-I’d-run-into-you sort of way that some women are so good at faking. And she started to chat with him! Like he was genuinely an old friend! And it didn’t kill him! I was leaning so far into the alley, I could have reached around and popped a ping-pong ball into one of the clowns’ mouths! With a bit of a toss, I might even have gotten one into Asa’s!

  “You and your sister in the parade!” Amalthea cried. “Lovely! We were just talking to her at the gate!”

  She indicated Rosemary and Garlic, behind her. They looked up at Asa’, kind of inscrutably from behind their sunglasses, and I noticed that Garlic was no longer chewing. Which meant that, unless the words had left a bitter taste in his mouth and he’d spit them out, my Agnes letter was well and truly in the fertiliser canal.

  “A lovely chat, we had!” Amalthea was carrying on, very close to Asa’s face as the crowd broke around them. “About happiness and being special. And what about you, Asael? How are you? Pleased with your day so far?”

  And (someone could have dropped a ping-pong ball into my mouth!) she leaned into him, placing her cheek next to his! She was so close, I fancied he’d feel the air compressing between her chest and his! There was a whack and a clang from the Strongman’s Hammer and, for one wild instant I thought maybe Asa’s heart had exploded! Maybe he’d had a subclavian artery malfunction, which was one of the many mysterious things he liked to fantasize about.

  Then . . . she stepped back and turned away. The whole stop-chat-mock hug having taken only half a minute. Poor Asael! His face went through this routine like he’d been drowning but then someone had pulled him out of the sea and saved him but then they’d changed their minds and thrown him back.

  ‘And there’s your lesson, little brother!’ I thought. ‘You’re eleven years old! And reality is a kicker!’

  As I said, they and the goats were standing in the centre of the sawdust-paved alley. In any other universe, they would have been nudged and shouldered out of the way but the crowd on that day broke politely around them, like a shoal of fish, gliding around a small island. So when she turned away from Asa’, she was actually turning to face an on-coming current of people. You really had to see her to believe her – how she smiled and spoke and reached to touch people. Like she was counting them . . . or claiming them. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d opened her arms and tried to gather them in – like a merry little gill-netter.

  The gossipers and the biddies, I knew, would feed on this show for weeks and I found myself watching for them in the crowd. They were there all right, screwing up their faces, pointing at her back and her bum and the rolling surf of her red hair and her blatant refusal to move with the masses. But there were just as many – men and women – whose stares were as openly awed as Asa’s! I reckoned that, for every two who’d’ve been horrified to see her climb on The Grand Gourd, there’d’ve been at least one who might’ve trotted over to offer a leg up!

  If I’d had any lingering doubts about which side of the Amalthea fence to fall on, (which I didn’t) I’d’ve lost them then. She was invincible! She was like our river, wearing patiently away at the rocks and the banks. If a girl like her could cut through Sugar Tonian rigor mortis, anything was possible! I wonder now if that’s a thing Asael had sensed about her; like he had an inkling that he and I the whole town, in our separate ways, needed her.

  Meantime, though, Asael was way out on a limb there, with God knows what plan disintegrating in his mind. Because whatever things stirred Amalthea to be
the person she was, a creepy little eleven-year-old obsessive was never going to be one of them! Still and all, a boy has to learn doesn’t he?

  Rosemary and Garlic had been passive observers through all this. Garlic, being blind, was a picture of concentration – decoding sounds, I supposed. But Rosemary, I suddenly realised, had found me and was staring at me over the tops of her glasses. If she’d been a person, I expect she’d have nudged someone and pointed me out. I gave her my best what’s-your-problem glare but – take my word – you can’t intimidate a goat. Especially one that knows about ‘the Force’.

  * * *

  I remember now, Asa’ asking me once about those signs – ‘The Force is Gathering’ and ‘Let it Gather in You’. What were they for, he wanted to know. So I made up a story about three kinds of people in the world.

  “There’s those who wonder if ‘The Force’ is too busy to gather, see? Like it’s sitting down to tea somewhere, unsure if the time is right for gathering? So for them, it’s just information. And there’s those who worry that something else, something other than the ‘The Force’, is gathering. You see? So for them, it’s kind of reassurance. And then there’s those who’ve lulled themselves into thinking that ‘The Force’ is actually dispersing! For them, it’s a warning. Get it? And we all have to decide which type of person we are.”

  “And what type are we, Ruthie?”

  “We? You mean you an’ me an’ Bridie? We’re one of each, of course! But I’m not telling you any more. The whole point of the exercise is to work it out for yourself.”

  To my knowledge, no one ever did take the trouble to ask what the signs were meant to tell us! Which probably doesn’t matter any more, since they’re both gone.

  * * *

  Anyhow, I suddenly realised that Amalthea had turned her attention back to Asael and that Rosemary had started whispering something to Garlic. I didn’t want to get caught hiding in my alcove, so I slipped into the passing crowd and glided casually over to them.

  “Ruth!” Amalthea smiled, taking my hands in her own warm dry ones. “Asael was just saying you saw me climb on The Gourd! You were hiding and watching and you caught me being naughty!”

  I was so embarrassed; I wished I’d drifted on past and left him to shrivel.

  “We weren’t hiding!” I poked Asael hard and sneered at him. “Why would you say that? It was a joke, I told you! We were playing a joke on Bridie, that’s all!”

  “Oh yeah, that’s what he said!” she lied, making the obvious effort to save his butt. “That’s what you said, isn’t it Asael? Playing a joke! Me too, I guess; only mine was officially out of line. Sorry if I offended.”

  I did my best to seem like someone who didn’t know how to be offended.

  “Doesn’t worry me! Climb on it all you like!”

  Asael stuttered into his story, then, of being put on The Gourd by the Suttons and I took a moment to wonder if she’d connected the Agnes letter to us. And to hate her a little bit for letting a certain goat gobble it up! Even if the Force was gathering in him, eating my stuff was entirely not cool! I didn’t get a chance to consolidate that feeling though because of her challenge to Asael.

  “So, did you feel anything?”

  “Huh?”

  “When you were sitting on the Gourd! Did you feel anything?”

  “I saw something!”

  She clapped her hands excitedly. “Did you? A vision?”

  “Uh-huh!”

  I could see where this was going and I wasn’t about to stand in the middle of the passing hoards while Asael resurrected twisted visions of our dead mum.

  “He sees stuff all the time,” I scoffed. “He takes medication. It’s no big deal.”

  She kind of lurched away a step, then bowled an argument at me.

  “No big deal? Oh, Ruthie, I don’t know! Coming into contact with special things like the Grand Gourd . . . can do amazing things to a person!”

  “It’s just a pumpkin, Amalthea. A big vegetable! And he does . . .” (I wanted to be sure she’d taken this in), “ . . . take medication!”

  She seemed intent on ignoring the point.

  “It’s ‘just a pumpkin’ to you and me, sure! But it’s totally awesome to practically everyone else, isn’t it? And you can see why! I mean, things that absolutely refuse to remain ordinary can’t help but astonish, can they? I tell you what! If some people . . . some lucky people . . . get glimpses into the recesses,” she smiled on Asael, “more power to them, I say!”

  I thought of filling her in on Kevin’s ‘dung heap of the Gods’ theory’ but it didn’t seem like a suitable thought to connect with ‘glimpses into the recesses’. So I just turned into a bobble-head. Not Asa’ though.

  “Maybe the Force has gathered in the Grand Gourd! Like it says on the sign! And spilled over!”

  Amalthea looked at him with positive warmth. “Bless your heart, Asael, I think you’re exactly right!”

  “But Bridie,” he babbled on, “says The Grand Gourd is not right! She says we shouldn’t treat it like it’s got some kind of magic in it!”

  “Ah, well!” said Amalthea, tapping her lips in mock puzzlement. “That’s a point! Magic! Magic would certainly be a problem, wouldn’t it?” She turned to me then, as though we were sharing some kind of secret.. “Wow! That’s got us beat, then, hasn’t it Ruthie?”

  It seemed obvious to me that she was taking the Mickey now and I kind of hoped that Asa wouldn’t twig to it. I say that in full knowledge of the fact that I do it myself, frequently, with both Bridie and Asael – but I know that I’m being a bitch when I do it. And, despite my temporary anger with her over the Agnes letter, I didn’t want to start thinking of Amalthea as a bitch.

  “Still!” she continued. “To be so bulging with life! So eager to grow!”

  She put a hand on my arm and leaned toward me and I could see in her eyes that, on this account at least, she was deadly serious.

  “I wouldn’t want to argue with Bridie but you know, in my heart, I think it is a form of magic! Surely!”

  It was a strange moment . . . as though she was somehow looking for a reflection of herself, or of the Grand Gourd, in me. I know I disappointed her because she stepped back and spoke to As’ again.

  “Anyhow, I tell you what! Magic or no magic, some Force has surely fiddled with that pumpkin! And judging by the notes on it, every second head in Sugar Town is wishing a bit of it would spill onto them!”

  She caught Rosemary’s ear absently, stroking the silkiness with her thumb, and something in her manner struck me. Like maybe Sugar Town’s wishes actually interested her! Like even though she fit its framework so poorly, maybe she felt a rough comfort there. Who knew? Maybe she was looking for something particular in her life and had caught a faint whiff of it in Sugar Town. Stranger things have absolutely happened! She looked up, caught my speculative air and laughed.

  “Oops! Now look what I’ve done! Made the day all serious and sombre. Come on, we have to change that!”

  She swung away to face the crowd again and threw her arms wide in a gesture that seemed capable of taking in an entire half of the world.

  “Hello Sugar Town!” she called. With her arms out, she blocked fully a quarter of that section of Sideshow Alley. “Hello, Harvest Festival goers!”

  I grabbed Asael’s arm, thinking unpleasantness was about to erupt and it would be a good time to cut ourselves loose. But to my surprise, he hadn’t yet had enough of her and he refused to budge. I thought, well! Brace yourself, kiddo! You’re about to see your idol be crushed!

  It didn’t happen, though. She was outlandish and lots of people had misgivings about her but, on that day at least, they couldn’t resist her joy. People began speaking to her, softly, out of the sides of their mouths: Hiya, Thea! You tell ‘em, girl! How’re ya goin’, Sweetheart? G’day, goats! And so on. Bolder ones reached to pat her hands, her arms – some, even her face and her hair, and she stood there, open to them in utter trust. I
didn’t know if any magic actually emanated from the Grand Gourd but it made me feel utterly empty, there on Sideshow Alley, to see how strongly it emanated from Amalthea Byerson.

  There’s no telling how long the parade of greeting might have lasted if Kevin Truck hadn’t materialised in front of her. Kevin and Amalthea are quite similar in some ways. They’re both short and plumpish. He’s black, of course, and wrinkled, and she’s neither of those. And he’s ancient while she’s not. But they do share a kind of joyful optimism that insists the cup is running over even when it’s half empty and leaking.

  Thea!” he said, stopping in front of her open arms, placing his hands on his hips. “Is this the best you’ve been taught . . . to scatter your blessings so freely amongst the multitudes? Without even knowing how they’ve sinned?”

  She dropped her arms, cocked her head mischievously and, “Kevin,” she smiled, “I hereby decree that, on Harvest Festival weekend, no one’s sins may be held against them! Not even yours!”

  “Not even mine?” he laughed. “Ahh! If only I’d known such a day would come! I could’ve sinned so much harder in my youth!”

  She made a show of taking his hands from his hips and, “I’m sure,” she said, “that you were the very worst man you could possibly get away with being. Just as you are now. In fact,” she continued, turning to include us in the conversation, “it wouldn’t surprise me if you and Asael, here, had that in common!” She placed a hand against Asael’s sternum and I could see him jump, as though she’d given him an electric shock. “I suspect you’re both as bad as you can possibly be. Which, of course, still leaves you a pair of convincingly kind and gentle men.”

  And returning both hands to Kevin’s grip, she said, “We were just talking about magic, we three! And about The Grand Gourd and the questioning soul of Sugar Town.”

  “Were you now?” Kevin was immediately interested. He loves that sort of cogitative stuff. “Well, you know the poet’s answer! ‘What is all this juice and all this joy?’ ‘It’s a strain of the earth’s sweet being’!”

  He smiled love on us all, the way a man might smile on precious children or a baker on a perfect sponge cake. And Amalthea stepped up to him, wrapping him in her arms.

  “The earth’s sweet being!” I heard her say and I couldn’t take my eyes off the sight of Kevin’s surprisingly large dark hands coming to rest, one against the small of her back, the other nestling between her shoulder blades.