by Merl Fluin
THE GOLDEN CUT: A SURREALIST WESTERN
Merl Fluin
Copyright
Copyright 2019 by Merl Fluin
ISBN 978-0-244-75009-1
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
E-book marketing image 2019 by Janice Hathaway.
Sunset Tornado 2018 by James Thew.
Feynman diagrams: public domain.
Head Louse Press: https://headlousepress.blogspot.com
Dedication
For Julian – from brain to brain, such glee
0.
You can’t trust your senses in the desert. Not on a night like this.
Down here, the dung beetles navigate by the constellations, rolling their perfect spheres towards known ends. Up there, the stars roll satellites in their orbits, navigating the grooves that gravity has worn into space. Close your eyes on a night like this and you even think you can hear it: the beetles’ pattering descant, the planets’ rumbling bass. You can’t, though. Only the sound of the blood lapping inside your body, round and round, round and round.
1.
Damsol Arcadio was in full spate, her eyes spangling.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you, thank you! Didn’t I promise to show you sights unseen? And didn’t I keep my promise, boys and girls?”
Shrieks and whoops from behind a wall of light, a din of feet on hollow wood.
“That was Madame Nigredo, the greatest high-dive artiste in the greatest show on earth!”
Thunderous applause turned to laughter and catcalls as the toe-dancer troupe pirouetted into the ring alongside a cavalcade of huge zanies riding tiny bicycles with honking horns and flaming handlebars. One of the zanies careered up behind Damsol and goosed her with an ornate sweep of the fingers. Damsol produced a reaction as big as Texas as he swerved out of the way and scooted around the ring.
“Do you mind?” shrieked Damsol amid hundreds of shouts of joy.
The toe-dancers leapt into the joeys’ arms, retracting their toes inside their legs and thrusting them out again in time to the windjammers’ parping.
Backstage, where everything was stink and gloom and chaos, a young woman crouched to fasten her shoes. She was dressed in a singlet of the same pale shade as her own skin. Her beard was trimmed and pointed, her eyes and mouth dramatic with colour. As she rose to her feet, her strawberry blonde hair tumbled in ringlets around her shoulders. She gleamed like mother of pearl beside the sorrel mare that stood at her side.
Red horse and white horsewoman watched Damsol in the ring. “I say, do you mind?” Damsol cried out again. “I’m trying to tell the ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls about what’s coming to delight and amaze them next! Oh, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this big top’s full of secrets and surprises!”
The mare nickered and nipped the young woman’s shoulder between velvet lips.
The young woman put her arms around the mare’s neck, twining her fingers into her mane and whispering into her ear: “Don’t worry, Cowhead, that’s just Damsol doing her schtick. She doesn’t suspect a thing.”
Cowhead snorted and clicked silver-painted hooves. Horse and horsewoman stood together, each breathing in the scent of the other: sweet hay and sweat, liniment and peppermint, the greasy tang of pomade and makeup. The other kinkers surged and foamed around them. Thighs and hips undulated past beneath cascades of feathers, wet mouths and hard faces streaked with paraffin, giant limbs of wood, tiny heads of cotton, cloaked bodies caked in blood and blisters and smelling of oil and woodsmoke. The waves of people entering and leaving through the back-door tent flap hurled pongs and noises through cold night air.
Stagehands trundled the high-dive act’s pool into shadow, slopping water over the sides as they went. Damsol stood dead centre of the ring at the base of a cone of white light, her arms outstretched and her head thrown back as the flying troupe sliced parabolas. Wrapped in a shimmering skin, one of the flyers blew fiery kisses into the darkness of the audience, droplets of flame falling from her fingers to the wet sand far below. A drop of burning paraffin landed on the bare shoulder of an acrobat dancing atop a rolling globe. The acrobat flickered, stumbled, regained her footing and stayed upright. The band reached a seesawing crescendo and skeins of silk unfurled from the very highest frame of the big top. Each acrobat caught a length of silk and wrapped it around her body. The band stopped playing and the sweet, delicate notes of a musical saw wove a new mood as the acrobats’ globes glided in a pattern only they could see, weaving a cat’s cradle of many colours around the motionless Damsol. The notes of the saw climbed to a peak and the flyers high above pulled on the silk, hoisting Damsol into the air as she declaimed to the crowd:
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, feast your eyes and fill your boots! Somewhere beyond the shell of night lies a world where every angle is true, every curve is lissom, every line is clean and every solid is regular – where hearts are pure and minds are clear – where rulers are wise and townsfolk are just – where everyone gets what’s coming to ’em and the coming is always on time! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, that’s where every one of my performers came from! I went up personally and picked them myself and brought them down to this world to dazzle your senses tonight! Let’s have a big hand for my fearless flyers, so light and golden that they can make even an old bird like me rise to the occasion! And let’s have another big hand for my artful acrobats, so deft on their dancing feet that they can make even me walk on air! As above, so below!”
With a flourish she raised her hat and threw it high. The throw was misjudged. The hat landed in the path of one of the acrobats, who managed to keep her globe rolling beneath her but crushed the hat in the process. A clown dashed back into the ring to retrieve the situation. Scooping up the hat, he launched into a chapeaugraphy routine as if that had been the intention all along, striking comic poses as a nun, a cowboy, Napoleon, General Custer, a big-beaked bird, a loony-eared elephant and a giant baby in a flopping bonnet. Past masters of a thousand near-misses, the band took the hint and tooted along. The acrobats jumped down from their globes and held their silks while the flyers lowered Damsol back to the ground.
None of the acrobats caught anyone’s eye as they returned backstage, bowling their globes along beside them under the flats of their hands. The other clowns ran back out to join their comrade and were greeted with charivari cheers.
Huffing and puffing, Damsol brought up the rear of the exodus and stopped beside the young woman and her horse.
“Balls-up,” Damsol remarked, and then gave a wheezy laugh. “Hey, I made a funny joke. Strawhouse tonight. Even the Two Slits must be damn near empty. I’m sure I recognised some of that grafter crowd in the front rows.”
“What do a bunch of hard cases like that want here?” asked the girl, peering over Damsol’s shoulder into the crowd.
“Beats me. Lot of out-of-town gillies too.”
“Everyone around here is from somewhere else.”
“Yeah. Except the Great Invisibles. Wonder if they’ll show up as well.” She patted the girl’s arm. “How you feeling tonight, kid? You and the hoss going to do your special thing?”
“That’s up to Cowhead. I guess I’ll see when I get out there.”
“Something unnatural between you and that horse. I swear she understands every word you say. Make you a lot of money someday.”
“That’s the general idea,” said the girl with a smile.
Damsol lit a cigar, one eye on the action in the ring. “Those goddam joeys never miss th
e main chance, do they? That globe girl messed up and now those bastards are milking it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who they trying to impress, TJ? You got any scouts sniffing around tonight?”
“Aw, Damsol, come on now.”
“Come on now yourself.” She breathed smoke. “I know you’re going to leave me for something bigger and better one day, kid. Just let me have some of the benefit before you do, ok?”
“Silly.” The girl called TJ kissed Damsol’s cheek.
Damsol stuck her head around the canvas and signalled to the band, holding up five fingers and making a wind-up motion with her wrist. “You ready?” she asked. TJ nodded and sucked in a breath as Damsol stepped away.
Cowhead nudged TJ between the shoulder blades. TJ turned around to face her, and Cowhead lowered her head until their foreheads rested together. They took a moment to synchronise their breathing, eyes closed. TJ’s left hand rested on the pulse point below Cowhead’s jaw, her right on the white leather of the bridle. A circle of space began to clear around them as other performers stepped aside or held back. TJ kept her eyes closed and spoke into Cowhead’s ear: “She loves you, and she’s proud of you, and even if she’s not here tonight she keeps you in her heart, because you’re her girl. And you’re my girl too.”
Back in the ring, the zanies wrapped it up. Two of them ran on their hands and play-fought with their feet while the others gambolled and clapped in a circle around them, encircled in turn by the gambolling and clapping of a big top full of townies. At a shout from the gooser the fighting clowns leapt right-side up, and the whole troupe streaked around the ring one last time before stampeding out, yelling and hooting as they went. The shanty brought the lights down low as the applause died away and a single spotlight picked out Damsol, restored to glory in a new hat.
“And now,” Damsol declared, “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s a pleasure and a privilege for me to present to you the hoss who’s the boss, the girl who whirls, the pair who dare, the divils who swivels – she rides, she glides, she waves her backside – she’s the talk of the town and she never falls down – the one, the only, TJ Breckenridge!”
The band struck up a folk tune at a rousing gallop as TJ and Cowhead came into the ring, a flame-haired rider astride a flame-red horse. Children and adults filled their lungs and thrust forward their torsos at the sight of this apparently naked young woman suspended in the spotlight like an image in a zoetrope. More lights came up and she made two laps of the ring, her arms thrown out as if invoking a god. TJ gripped the pommel and swung her legs to jump and stand on Cowhead’s rump. Cowhead never broke stride as TJ kicked the air and swung low onto her haunches to dance Cossack-style to the crazy music before dropping astride Cowhead again. She tucked her head and made a forward roll into the saddle to sit with her back facing Cowhead’s head. The crowd went wild. The children hoo-hooed; the grown-ups wriggled inside their clothes. Now TJ stood again, her left foot in the stirrup, her right pointed high. She laughed as the sand flew up from Cowhead’s dancing hooves. Now TJ leaned her body sideways across the saddle, her right leg stretched backwards. Damsol tossed hoops towards her that she caught on her arms like silver bangles. Now she leaned the other way, left foot pointing towards the apex of the cone of light as Damsol threw hoops for her to catch on her leg. The noise of the crowd, the scraping of the band, the pounding of Cowhead’s hooves, Damsol’s chuntering patter and TJ’s showbiz whoops merged and rolled around the big top. TJ arched and twisted, a riot of grace and daring. Back in the saddle and facing forwards, she tossed the hoops back to Damsol one by one. She paused to pat the neck of the unceasing Cowhead, then jumped back upright and launched a routine of flip-flaps from hands to feet and back again. She grabbed the pommel and bounced from one side of Cowhead’s body to the other. Her toes touched the ground before she rose arrow-straight and flew up and over to come down on the other side. Round and round, TJ’s hair swept out behind her, Cowhead’s mane and tail rippling. The crowd hung forward like a single open mouth that let out a roar when she swung beneath Cowhead’s belly and back into the saddle in a single movement. Cowhead’s hooves never missed a beat. TJ leant forwards and spoke into Cowhead’s ear, her breath coming hard. “What do you say? Do we do it?”
Cowhead slowed to a walk. TJ gestured with her head to Damsol, who beamed as she called for the props to be brought. Somersaulting off the horse’s back, TJ landed and ducked her head through the red, blue and orange sash that Damsol draped over her shoulder. Damsol placed a golden wand in TJ’s left hand and a bottle in her right, then withdrew to stand behind her. Damsol’s brassy hair echoed the younger woman’s curls; her red and blue ringmistress gear paid tribute to the sash. High on the trapeze a lone flyer gazed down, enthralled. The clowns had found their way ringside and leered up at Cowhead, who stood quietly now a few yards in front of Damsol. Raising her right foot from the ground, the knee bent and tucked behind her left thigh, TJ opened her arms wide and held out the wand and bottle. The band fell silent. The crowd obeyed and did likewise.
With a bend of her head, TJ began a stately dance, her feet in step with Cowhead’s slow walk around the ring’s perimeter. The music started again as Cowhead sped to a trot. The crowd began to clap in time and TJ moved her feet to the rhythm, turning her body so that her eyes never left Cowhead’s face. Cowhead took the initiative and turned side-on so that her head pointed towards TJ in the middle of the ring. Cowhead trotted sideways, slender legs scissoring beneath that immense glossy body, the saddle and bridle gleaming, the queen of horses. Stagehands brought out the apparatus for the fire jump as TJ and Cowhead danced, their eyes locked. At a nod from TJ, they set it alight, a triangle of flame in Cowhead’s path. As Cowhead approached it, TJ raised her wand. The horse jumped through the triangle sideways, keeping her footing as she landed. The crowd yelled approval. Round Cowhead came again, the music getting faster and louder. This time TJ anticipated Cowhead’s jump with a leap of her own. She vaulted into the saddle straight up from the ground, no hands, and bobbed her head as they passed through the triangle together. The crowd exploded. Damsol hugged herself ringside, her commentary abandoned for cheers and yeehaws, her cigar gone out. Round they came for a third jump. The stagehands stood tense and watchful at the perimeter. Cowhead’s four hooves left the sand, hung in mid-air – and hung – and hung.
The band stopped mid-phrase. The crowd froze. TJ and Cowhead hovered immobile in the centre of the triangle. The flames turned from red to white and then black, flaring weirdly against the spotlights. The tang in the air changed from paraffin to something richer, earthier.
The stagehands wrapped their arms and hands in wet hessian. With slow careful movements they grasped the bottom edge and side corners of the black-flaming triangle and moved it into the centre of the ring. TJ and Cowhead moved with them, gliding as if suspended from an invisible cord at the triangle’s apex. The stagehands rotated the triangle to give the audience a view of it from every angle, then stopped and stepped away. TJ was still in the shining white saddle, her wand and bottle in either hand. She stood in the stirrups, climbed up to stand on Cowhead’s rump, placed the wand and bottle on the saddle in front of her feet, and arched her body forward until her hands reached Cowhead’s neck. The convex line of her torso mirrored the concave dip of Cowhead’s spine from haunches to withers. A new spotlight picked them out in red. TJ’s body and Cowhead’s back glistened like the parted lips of a red mouth. For a moment the world trembled, a drop about to fall into an ocean. TJ whispered behind Cowhead’s ears: “Now?”
The lights blew out, and it was pandaemonium.
It took a second or two for the audience to react after Cowhead started screaming. Then there was panic in the darkness. The din of scraping wood and scrabbling feet, children bawling and crying, incoherent shouts and screeches, sounds of smashing glass somewhere high in the stands. A smell of sweat doused the inside of the big top like a swirl of fear sucked into a void at the heart of the ring. Damsol yelled first for TJ
and then for the stagehands, running blindly towards the now invisible triangle. Kinkers scrambled from backstage, asking each other what the fuck was going on, what had happened to the lights, who was that yelling, was Damsol all right? One or two ran in the opposite direction, away from the ring and up towards the shanty’s perch. Hearing the sudden commotion inside, some of the butchers and roustabouts who had been smoking and drinking on the midway tore open the tent flaps and started pulling people out, grabbing arms, necks and breasts. After ten or fifteen minutes somebody got the lights back on.
Audience members who had been trapped in the tent scurried towards open air and escape. A woman in breeches clutched her head and staggered to the exit. She was followed by a tattooed man carrying a stick and knapsack, with a dog skittering behind him. Seats were strewn about, toppled or broken in the rush. In the cold night breezes the ring banks fluttered with shreds of paper, rubbish and torn clothing. A child’s shoe clattered in one of the aisles. Performers milled around inside the ring, eyeing one another and mumbling. Damsol sat on the sand, not answering anyone’s questions. The frazzled triangle lay on its side with the wand and bottle pinned beneath it. In the midst of it all was TJ, flat on her face. Her costume was torn and bloodied across the shoulder, her sash was in tatters, and her right arm stretched out at a strange angle. The churned sand around her was dark with footprints, scorch marks, urine and blood, but there were no hoofprints, there or anywhere. Cowhead was gone.
