Freaks: Alive, on the Inside!

by Annette Curtis Klause

  “I have one, thank you,” I snapped, and I walked off before I said something I’d regret.

  By the time I was waiting for my cue in the small tent near the back door of the big top, I had regained my composure. I wore my good suit and thought I made a dashing figure. Mr. Rose hadn’t made an appearance yet, and I hoped fervently that he wasn’t keeping company with a bottle.

  Performers bustled this way and that through the open staging area, in and out from behind screens. They fiddled with ribbons and bootlaces, conferred about last-minute changes, or sat for the application of stage makeup. I thought I might be the only one apart from all this purposeful chaos, until I saw an apparition. The sweetest young lady I could imagine stood like a still and silent mirage amid all the activity. She wore an innocent pink confection—a cap-sleeved peasant blouse and short bloomers combined into one with smocking at her tiny waist. Red tights clothed her legs, and on her feet were pink ballet slippers with ribbons that tied halfway up her most attractive calves. Around her upper arms and her throat were ribbon bows to match. Her long, dark hair was secured in a knot at the nape of her neck.

  Her compatriots, three men and a boy, wore yellow shorts and red waistcoats over their leotards, and fancy matching calf shields above soft leather boots. By these costumes I recognized them as the trapeze artists. Her partners bantered with one another in a guttural language I didn’t recognize. They laughed, clapped one another’s backs, and ignored the girl beside them, who looked to be their little sister. She gazed about her with huge, dark eyes in a solemn face, and she seemed lonely.

  Ah, this is the foreign girl I’m fated to love, I thought half seriously. She didn’t look the sort to be scornful and cruel, like the equestrienne, so I drew up the courage to approach her. Surely no one would mind with her brothers standing right there, and she looked like she needed a friend.

  “Hello, my name’s Abel Dandy,” I prepared to say. “I’m new to the show. Would you take pity on a stranger and offer me conversation?”

  Her eyes grew even larger as I walked up, and her lovely lips parted in surprise. I gulped down the tremor that her lips invoked in me, and squeaked, “Hello,” like a fool.

  “Marika?” One of those brothers turned our way. He glared at me and nudged the man next to him.

  “Are you annoying my sister?” asked the first.

  “No, sir, truly,” I answered.

  “How dare you,” said another brother, and moved toward me.

  I stepped back involuntarily. “Sorry, sir. I was being friendly.”

  “We decide who is friendly to our sister,” said the first brother.

  “Do we have to teach you manners?” asked a third.

  “No, sir.” I backed away another step. Marika gave me a little, hesitant smile and glanced anxiously at her brothers in case they had seen. Well, all the girls weren’t stuck up, then, I decided, but how did one talk to them? I beat a retreat right into Mr. Rose.

  Mr. Rose bent double with laughter and slapped his thigh. “Leave the virgins alone, young Dandy,” he wheezed. “Find yourself a married lady with a busy husband.”

  Catching me in an uncomfortable predicament put Mr. Rose in a good mood. He acted quite chummy with me before we went on to perform, and I was relieved to note he didn’t smell of whiskey. “Always enter the ring with your right foot,” he told me. “It’s good luck.” He managed to put a reasonable distance between his knives and me during the act, and after the show he invited me along to sup with him. I was glad of the company, even though I didn’t much like him. Supper proved quite bearable, except we had to listen to the elephant trainer complain endlessly that someone had taken one of his beasts out for a walk again without his permission and given all of the elephants treats. More than once Mr. Rose rolled his eyes.

  I fell asleep that night to thoughts of the pretty trapeze artist, but the dancing girl strode up to me with a face like a petulant flower and placed her hands on her hips.

  “Stay away from that girl,” she demanded. “You are mine.”

  7

  THE SHOW TRAVELED UP THROUGH Cumberland, into Pennsylvania, and on through part of West Virginia into Ohio. We didn’t travel the hundred miles a night we could have, but took shorter hops to reach as many towns as we could play in that richly populated area. We went through the midsize towns, the ones that wouldn’t get the biggest shows—like Ringling Brothers, and Forepaugh-Sells, although the backdoor talk said Marvel Brothers planned to carve a larger niche for themselves, with Barnum and Bailey out of the country for so long on their extended world tour. The advance crews placed ads in the paper, slapped bright, bold posters on fences and walls, and swapped tickets for space in merchants’ shop windows. The neighboring towns were papered also, and the barn sides in between, until everyone in the surrounding communities and farms knew where to come for a day of excitement and amusement.

  I continued to serve as Mr. Rose’s target; that was the only way I could enter the ring. Never again did he condescend to watch me throw, and not once did he offer to coach me. How was I going to further my career, I wondered, if I wasn’t helped with my craft? Instead I found the time to practice alone.

  If I couldn’t have a mentor, at least I could make friends, I decided. Friends in the business could do me good in the future. However, while the fellows in the show were polite and helpful, they already had their pals. When we spent the Fourth of July—my first holiday away from home—in Muncie, Indiana, the circus was packed. After the show the Marvels put on a fireworks party, but not one of the boys thought to ask me along for a beer.

  I always kept an eye out for Marika, the trapeze girl. I was sure she’d be friendly if I could catch her away from her brothers, but this only seemed to happen when I was in conversation with Eddie and Frank, and I couldn’t sneak away to talk to her.

  “I think she’s smiling at me,” I confided one day.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Frank. “She just has a cheery nature.”

  “And very large brothers,” added Eddie.

  “Not thinking of girls already are you, young Abel?” asked Frank.

  The Arabian brothers must have thought me a child, and maybe I was. The most success I’d had with women was in my dreams.

  Someone must have had regard for me, however, because sometimes I came back from breakfast to find my bed made, or I’d come home at night to discover a piece of fruit on my pillow. This made me feel all-overish because it had to be one of the boys. I hoped that it constituted a sign of friendship and not an intimate interest, because I didn’t want to be put in the awkward position of disappointing a fellow traveler. I searched the faces around me but found none that beamed on me with particular fellowship.

  The closest I felt to belonging was during those entertainments before bed.

  “What about you, Abel?” said one of the junior acrobats one night. “You say you’re from the theater. You must have a song or two to share.”

  A chorus of agreement followed, and I must admit I liked the attention. I rolled from my upper berth, where I found it impossible to sit up and get a deep breath, and took a seat offered me on a lower bunk. The song I had heard on my first night in the dormitory car had put me in mind of another song about a circus queen, one of Jolly Dolly’s favorites.

  “‘She kept her secret well, oh yes, her hideous secret well,’” I began in my passable tenor, and fellows nudged one another and exchanged winks.

  “We were wedded fast, I knew naught of her past; for how was I to tell?

  I married her, guileless lamb I was, I’d have died for her sweet sake.

  How could I have known that my Angeline had been a ‘human snake’?”

  Some fellows howled with laughter, which I found a little premature, since the funny part came later in the song, but I continued anyway.

  “We’d only been wed a week or two, when I found her quite a wreck,

  Her limbs were tied in a true lover’s knot at the back of her swanlike n
eck.

  No curse there sprang to my pallid lips, nor did I reproach her then;

  I calmly untied my lovely bride and straightened her out again.”

  I thought the lewd catcalls that the clowns made were uncalled for, but I understood their point. One of the young acrobats blushed.

  “My Angeline! My Angeline! Oh why didst disturb my mind serene?

  My well beloved circus queen!

  My human snake! My Angeline!”

  It didn’t take my audience long to catch on to the refrain, and all but a couple of the older fellows joined in heartily, then hushed for the verse.

  “At night I’d wake at midnight’s hour with a creepy, crawly feeling,

  And there she would be in her white robe de nuit a walking on the ceiling.

  She said that she was the ‘human fly’ and she lifted me from beneath,

  By a section slight of my garb of night, which she held in her pearly teeth.”

  This last line, which at home elicited sympathetic chuckles, here provoked rude laughter, but it pleased me that the fellows liked the song.

  “Oh, for the sweet sake of the ‘human snake’ I’d have stood this conduct shady,

  But she skipped at last with a gentleman friend who had starred as the bearded lady.

  But oh, at night when my slumber’s light, regret cometh o’er me stealing.

  Oh, where are those limbs that tied four-in-hand scarf? How I miss those steps on the ceiling.”

  I ended to enthusiastic applause.

  “Hwaurr! I know what I’d do with a human snake,” said one of the clowns, to gales of laughter. “Introduce her to another snake.”

  “Ugh! I’d as soon touch a woman like that as touch a … well, a … I don’t know, something foul,” said a young acrobat.

  “I think she’s a contortionist,” I said gently. “Not a real snake woman.” I was sorry I had upset the lad.

  “That’s still not a lady, is it?” he said. “Taking on those … those positions.”

  I would have explained that many folk wouldn’t consider the women who worked in the circus ladies either, even though, by all evidence, they were pure young women, but salacious laughter drowned me out, and suggestions of which positions a snake woman could take.

  “I don’t think you’re a good influence on these gentlemen, Abel Dandy,” proclaimed the senior acrobat, who hadn’t joined the singing. “You’ve aroused unhealthy thoughts. Nothing good can come of such thoughts. They destroy a man’s health. They sap his strength.”

  “I’d like my strength sapped,” groaned the vulgar clown. “Even a freak would do me.”

  “If the roustabouts don’t beat it to death first,” said someone else.

  My jaw dropped at their words.

  “Get to bed, the lot of you,” the acrobat said, “or I’ll report you to Geoffrey Marvel.” That shut everyone up. “If this happens again, I will. The Marvel brothers don’t employ those with unclean habits, and they don’t tolerate those who advocate unnatural acts.” Those last words were aimed straight at me, and they stung. “You, sir”—he pointed at the vulgar clown—“what would your mother think of your debased suggestion?”

  The young men slid embarrassed glances at one another, and the clown lowered his eyes.

  We all climbed into our bunks. Some of the fellows gave me dirty looks. “Freak lover,” the clown hissed.

  I had simply wanted to sing a funny song, and now they considered me a scoundrel. I hadn’t thought the song rude, and what was wrong with a little amorous adventure, anyway? I tossed and turned. Were the dreams I’d had recently merely unhealthy thoughts? Did that make me a bad person? I hated the smell of close-packed, sweaty boys and the harsh sheets. I missed my own bed and my friends. I wanted to quit; I couldn’t, though. I would look a fool if I ran home with my tail between my legs. When I returned home, it should be with money in my pocket and a career well on the way. I clutched the ring at my neck. Be my good-luck charm, I begged.

  I stood in a garden of exotic blooms and clambering vines. The air hummed, and in the distance tiny cymbals chinged. A rustle behind me sent shivers down my back, and I caught the scent of flowers and spices I couldn’t name. I was drenched with the awareness of the one I knew and didn’t know. Every mote of me recognized that presence and cried out to it.

  I turned to see a shadowy figure just beyond the moon-light—a curvaceous form with flowing hair. “Come to me,” whispered a voice that sounded as cracked as old parchment yet hot as the desert sun, and an unbearable arrow of pleasure and pain shot through me from groin to heart.

  I awoke in the night, rigid with desire, and too afraid to relieve myself lest someone hear.

  The nighttime stories and songs didn’t stop, but I was never asked to participate again, and I didn’t try. Perhaps they were right about me. Perhaps I was dissolute and I hadn’t known it. Who cares? I decided. I didn’t want to give up those dreams. In fact, I spent considerable time imagining the end of the last one. I am reaping my reward from years of diligent novel reading, I told myself.

  The senior acrobat redirected the young men’s taste for the sensational from womanly charms to the safer thrills of ghost stories and tales of train wrecks and, best of all, circus-train wrecks that resulted in haunted tracks. Everyone had a “friend of a friend told me” story on that topic. If you believed them all, there wasn’t a stretch of rail from New York to California that didn’t have phantom elephants trumpeting late at night.

  One night the tales featured “wereanimals”—men possessed by the souls of circus beasts. I shivered as I imagined the panther man with icy eyes stalking the fellow who had caused his family’s death by fire.

  “I reckon that’s what that escaped monkey is,” said a juggler. “No one’s seen it right good. It’s a demon monkey.”

  At that moment the train chose to shudder and grind to a halt.

  A split second of pregnant fear froze us, and then one of the clowns laughed—the one I always thought of as the vulgar clown since the night of my controversial song. “Look at Abel’s face.” He had never lost a chance to taunt me since that night.

  I joined in with the others’ laughter, refusing to let them see me embarrassed, but I was irked. They’d all been scared for a moment, why should I be singled out?

  “Must be something on the tracks,” said an acrobat.

  “Probably a cow,” said another.

  Time passed and the train stayed put.

  “Someone go look,” said the senior acrobat, to a chorus of groans.

  Everyone glanced at one another and out to the pitch-dark night between towns. Something mysterious blocked the tracks, a thing perhaps a mortal should not see. Had a disaster befallen the engine crew? Was the cabin empty even now and blood smeared down the tracks?

  “Abel can go,” said the vulgar clown.

  “What?” I protested.

  There was no use complaining. Others took up the call, and they dragged me from my bunk. “Wait!” I cried, and struggled into my pants before they pushed me out in only my nightshirt.

  The fellows hustled me to the door. “Run up the tracks and see what’s up,” called the juggler who had talked of weremonkeys, and he threw my boots after me.

  “But what if the train starts?” I asked as the door slammed.

  There I was, out in the middle of cricket-chirping nowhere, with nothing but the full moon to guide my way, and the occasional lit window down the length of the train. A rattle in the undergrowth made my heart lurch—a beast coming? No, just a breeze. Did I see someone on the roof? Don’t be silly, I told myself as I pulled on my boots.

  From where I stood, I could find no reason for our stop. No one else had come out. They were sensibly tucked up in bed. I took a deep breath and walked down toward the engine. I hoped the boys would appreciate me after this.

  A whistle split the night and I sucked in a breath. The engine chugged, chugged again, and again. Metal squealed and wheels ground. I ran for a doo
r, jumped, and missed the handle. The train moved a little faster. I aimed for the next door. This time I achieved a toehold and grabbed the handle, but it wouldn’t turn. My foot slipped. I dropped to the ground before my arm tore from its socket.

  The train picked up more speed. I ran back toward my own door. There were rungs below the threshold. The fellows would let me in. Somehow the door passed me quicker than I expected.

  Oh, help.

  That’s when I saw the open cargo door of the elephant house approaching fast. I had to jump in or be stranded.

  I flung myself through the gaping, dark hole. The momentum of the train skidded me sideways on my belly across boards and straw. I hit the doorjamb. It knocked the wind from me. My legs slid out of the door again. I grabbed for a hold and couldn’t find one. I’d be out of the door and under the wheels in a trice.

  Then a hairy arm grabbed me, and I didn’t know which fate was worse.

  “Hold on, Abel,” cried a familiar voice.

  8

  APOLLO!” I GASPED, AND CLUTCHED the offered arm. “Lord in heaven!”

  The wiry dog boy, surprisingly strong, dragged me back into the car.

  I scrambled to a sitting position in the straw, my breath harsh in my throat, and looked around me nervously. When I had ascertained that the elephants were in stalls and I was not in imminent danger of being stepped on, I gave in to outrage. “What in Sam Hill are you doing here?”

  “Someone woke me up,” Apollo said. He squatted on his heels in canvas pants and a cotton shirt that hadn’t seen wash day in a month of Sundays. His golden pelt was knotted and snarled.

  “I meant here in the circus,” I said, making no sense of his answer.

  “I saw you leave,” he said. “I was sneaking up with a note from Phoebe, and there you were, sneaking too, with a suitcase! A suitcase, Abel! You were running away—without me! I had to follow.”