Madball

by Fredric Brown

  He pulled over the madball, the two-inch diameter crystal in its silver stand, and polished it lovingly with a square of black velvet. He smiled a little, thinking how descriptive was the carney slang word for it, madball.

  He stared at it, but not into it, musingly.

  Round like the world, he thought. Like the world, sometimes seeming transparent, easy to see through; like the world, at other times mysterious and a little frightening. Not that he ever really saw anything there except once in a while when he was a little drunk and then it always scared him, but looking into it helped him to concentrate.

  Usually, that is. This time it didn't. Whatever the thought that he'd been on the verge of thinking, it slipped farther and farther away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MID-EVENING AND SAMMY was glad because Jesse was drinking and when Jesse started drinking on the job he nearly always closed the place early, even if business was fairly good like tonight, and if he closed Sammy wouldn't have to set up any more milk bottles and might even have the rest of the evening to do anything he wanted to do. Sometimes when he was drinking Jesse would go off by himself and he'd tell Sammy to stick on the lot and not get in any trouble but as long as he stayed on the lot Sammy would be free to wander around and see the other games and the shows.

  Tonight Sammy was especially glad that they might close early because Jesse was mad at him. Jesse had bawled the holy hell out of him this morning and had been acting mean to him ever since, all because he'd found a man dead and instead of pretending he hadn't found a man dead he'd called people to tell them about it. And it wasn't fair of Jesse to be mad because how could Sammy have known, since he'd never found a dead man before, that he was supposed to go away quickly and let somebody else find the man?

  That was the bad thing, you never knew what you were supposed to do when something new happened until it had happened once and you'd learned, but the first time you probably did the wrong thing and so many new things kept happening that you were always in trouble because you'd done wrong on them.

  And Jesse was always getting mad and bawling him out for something even though he always tried to do his best for Jesse because Jesse took care of him and Jesse always told him that if he ever quit taking care of him they'd come and put him in a place behind bars because he couldn't take care of himself. And Sammy knew Jesse was telling the truth because he'd been in a place like that once, a place with bars on the windows and the doors always locked. He'd hated it there. And one day there'd been a door open and he'd walked out and there had been a horrible time, he didn't know how many days, with people kicking him around and ordering him away and slamming doors on him when he was hungry, starving to death and hardly able to walk. And then he'd heard music and there was the carnival lot and he'd walked the midway dazzled by the bright colors and the happy music and tortured by the smell of frying hamburgers. And then Jesse had yelled "Hey, kid!" at him and from that moment everything had been all right. Jesse had asked him if he wanted to set up milk bottles and earn a little money and it had been hard for him to learn just how to do it right - well, it hadn't been hard to learn how to set them up but it had been awfully hard to learn when to set them up, to wait until the man had thrown three baseballs instead of putting back one milk bottle if he knocked it over on the first or second throw. He had to learn to watch and count the baseballs, one, two, three, and after that he could put back any of the milk bottles that had been knocked down. But Jesse had growled and sworn at him until he'd learned. And then after a while Jesse had taken him over to the place where the carney's ate and had bought him a meal and he'd eaten it so fast that Jesse had stared at him and said, "Damn it, kid, when did you eat last?" and when he said he didn't remember Jesse had bought him a second meal and his stomach was finally filled. That night Jesse had taken him to the little green tent that he'd learned was a sleeping top and had said they'd sleep together, and something had happened that night that had hurt him, hurt him bad, but Jesse had fed him and so anything Jesse wanted to do to him was all right, anything. That had been about a year ago, he thought, anyway there had been one winter since it happened, and he'd been with Jesse ever since.

  And Jesse bought him all he wanted to eat, always, and if Jesse never gave him any money, that didn't matter much because there wasn't anything he ever needed money for except cotton candy and he could get money for that sometimes by doing errands for other carneys sometimes when Jesse didn't need him. Right now he had fifty cents in his pocket, burning a hole there, that Mr. Linder had given him early this afternoon for going to a store a block from the lot and bringing back some things Mr. Linder had written down on a list for the Store Man to read. But when Sammy got back Jesse had made him start work right away so he hadn't had time to spend the fifty cents. That was another reason he hoped Jesse would close early tonight because then the Cotton Candy Lady would still be in her booth and he could have five big balls of fluffy cotton candy without having to wait until tomorrow for them. The Cotton Candy Lady charged the marks fifteen cents for a cone of cotton candy but she always gave them to Sammy for a dime if Sammy waited till a time when there weren't any other customers there.

  And now Jesse took the bottle out from under the counter and drank again and this time he drank the last of the little that was left in it and threw down the empty bottle. And sure enough he said, "Okay, kid, let's knock it off. We done enough today." And it was still early enough that everything else in the carney was running, maybe only about ten o'clock or even earlier. And now if only Jesse didn't want to go to the sleeping top he could have those cotton candies.

  Sammy started to lower the canvas front of the booth and he remembered something he'd been wondering.

  "Jesse," he said. He'd called Jesse Mr. Jesse at first, like he called everybody else Mr. or Miss but Jesse hadn't liked it and had made him stop.

  "Yeah?"

  "Jesse, how old am I?"

  "Hell, I don't know. Eighteen, maybe twenty. Why?"

  "The cop asked me. When he was asking about me finding the man dead. I didn't know but I been wondering. How many is eighteen?"

  "Goddam, what you get not minding your own business. You do anything like that again-"

  Sammy cringed for fear Jesse was going to get mad all over again and even hit him. He said, "I won't, Jesse."

  "Goddam well better not. Aw right, run along and do whatever you wanta, long as you stick on the lot. I'm gonna take the boys with the dice tonight."

  Jesse went out under the sidewall.

  Sammy straightened things up, put all the baseballs into the foot locker and locked it, picked up the bottle Jesse had thrown down and pushed it out under the back canvas, then pulled out the plug that turned off the lights.

  And Sammy was free.

  A few minutes later he was eating his first cone of cotton candy and while he ate it he watched the bally of the model show across the way. They were starting to bally again when he got his second cone and with it in his hand he wandered over closer to watch.

  Miss Trixie and Miss Maybelle were on the platform in their silk wrappers. They were both pretty but Sammy watched Miss Trixie. He liked Miss Trixie; she gave him quarters for doing errands for her two or three times a week. And she treated him nice. Some of the other women on the lot acted as though they didn't like to have him around but Miss Trixie didn't seem to mind. She was small and had such smooth nice black hair and such red lips.

  Her silk wrapper was pulled tight around her and in front there were two mounds that were breasts. Other women had them too and he wondered why. For the first time Sammy found himself wondering why women were different from men. Of course, Sammy and Jesse had breasts too, after a fashion, but not the kind women had. What were they good for? Most men, he knew, liked to see women's breasts and the rest of women's bodies, too; that was why the marks paid money to go in the model show, to see the models take off their robes and pose on a little stage, in only a G-string and a thin cheeseclothy bra that you could see right
through, and he knew that in some towns they got by without wearing even the net bras but they always had to wear the G-strings when they posed. But why did men pay money to see women pose that way? He'd asked Jesse once when Jesse had been in a good mood and Jesse couldn't tell him; Jesse had said, "Damn if I know either, kid," and had sounded as though he meant it, although you couldn't always tell with Jesse.

  Sammy had never gone inside the model show, not even inside the top when a show wasn't going on, because Jesse had told him not to. But once he'd seen Miss Trixie in just the costume she posed in, the G-string and the net bra. It had been on a hot night, an awfully hot night, a couple of months ago in the middle of summer. It had been one of the nights Jesse had closed early and Sammy had been free and he'd been walking around behind the tops and Miss Trixie, in a robe, had ducked under the sidewall of the model show top and had called to him. She'd given him fifty cents and told him to go to the grab joint, not all the way to the chow top but just to the grab joint, and get her a coney island sandwich with everything on and to get himself one too if he was hungry or else keep the quarter. He'd been a little hungry so he got two coney island sandwiches with everything on and called to Miss Trixie from in back like she'd told him to, and she'd come back under the sidewall again and stood with him while they ate the sandwiches. And after a minute she'd said, "Is that a breeze?" and had taken off her robe and hung it over a tent rope and stood there almost naked enjoying the slight breeze that had just come up, and he'd seen her body. It was whiter and smoother than a man's and somehow different in some way. And in two other ways the difference wasn't hard to tell at all. One of those ways was her breasts. Of course he'd known women had mounds there on their chests because you could tell that much even when they were wearing dresses or robes, but seeing Miss Trixie's breasts that close and with only a thin net that you could see right through over them, Sammy realized for the first time that they were breasts like his own except that the nipples were bigger and the breasts themselves were a lot bigger. Like swellings. But they were pretty and he liked them and looking at them gave him a funny feeling, as though he wanted to do something but didn't know what it was he wanted to do.

  The other difference between her body and a man's was even more puzzling and it was the other way around; Miss Trixie's G-string was so small and fitted against her so tightly that he could see she was different there too, that she didn't have what men had there, and he wondered if all women were like Miss Trixie there and if so what they did when they went to the doniker, and he'd wanted to ask Miss Trixie about it.

  He'd forgotten all about it until now, staring up at Miss Trixie on the platform, he remembered and started wondering again about the mystery of women.

  He wondered how he could find out about such things, who he could ask who might tell him. And suddenly it came to him where he could find out and without even having to ask anybody and it was so simple that Sammy wondered why he'd never thought of it before.

  Because he remembered now the word sex. He'd heard people use it and he didn't know exactly what it meant but he did know that it had something to do with women and their bodies. And the unborn show was named Mystery of Sex, wasn't it? And didn't Mr. King, the talker for the show, say that the mystery of sex was explained inside, everything about it, the naked truth. And Sammy knew what naked meant, it meant without any clothes on at all, not even a bra or a G-string. Why, if he went in that show he could learn everything, and why couldn't he go in tonight, why couldn't he? He still had three dimes left out of his fifty cents and the unborn show - what did unborn mean? Well, he'd find that out too - cost only one dime so he could have two more cotton candies and still go to the show.

  His second cotton candy was finished now, though, so he went back to the booth and waited until the Cotton Candy Lady wasn't busy and then bought his third one from her. She smiled at him and made it a bigger one than usual. She said, "Sammy, if everybody loved cotton candy like you do, I'd be rich." And she pushed back his dime. "This one's on the house, Sammy, if you go get me a san'wich. I'm starvin'."

  She gave him a quarter. "Hamburger. Tell him don't skimp the mustard."

  When Sammy came back with it for her his cotton candy was gone again and he wanted to buy another. But she laughed and gave him that one for free too. So he still had three dimes.

  He'd been wanting to use one of them for something and for a while he couldn't remember what and just wandered down the midway. Then he heard Mr. King talking in front of the unborn show and he remembered.

  "... see everything, boys, I mean everything, the sex mystery exposed, red hot, sex in the raw, everything explained, plain down to earth unadorned, right before your very eyes, now it can be told, what papa did to mama, one dime only one dime, come and see for yourselves, the mystery of sex, only a dime, continuous ..." Sammy dropped the paper cone that had held his fourth cotton candy, stepped up to the ticket box and put a dime on the counter. Mr. King reached for the dime, then looked at Sammy. He pushed the dime back.

  He said, "Hell, kid, you're with it. You don't got to pay. Just walk on in."

  Sammy said, "Thanks, Mr. King," and started around the ticket box. But then Mr. King said, "Wait a minute," and he stopped.

  Mr. King said, "Listen, Sammy - your name's Sammy, ain't it?"

  Sammy nodded.

  "Well, Sammy, I just thought. You don't want to go in there now. Burt's got some marks in there and you might queer his pitch on the books, see?"

  Sammy didn't see, but he knew it meant he couldn't go in now. He said, "But sometime can I go in, Mr. King?"

  "Sure, Sammy. Tell you when. Come around early afternoon some time just when we're opening and there ain't any biz yet. Then go in and stay as long as you want. Or hell, come before we're open if you just want to look around. Just so you don't touch nothing. But kid, there's nothing in there you'd want to see. Just pickled punks."

  "What are pickled punks, Mr. King?"

  "Fetuses. Babies that never got born. Dead and pickled in jars and what you want to see them for anyway?"

  "I don't want to look at no babies, Mr. King. But I want to see what you said, I mean about what sex is and naked and things like that."

  Mr. King shook his head slowly and sadly. "Believe you me, Sammy, if you're starting that far behind scratch you won't learn a damn thing in there; it'd just confuse the hell out of you. Listen, you really mean you don't know anything about sex?"

  "No, Mr. King."

  "I'll be damned. But take my word for it, Sammy, this isn't where to find out. And for that matter I ain't the guy to tell you, because you ought to be showed and not told. Get a dame to show you sometime."

  "Show me what, Mr. King?"

  "The most wonderful thing on earth, Sammy. And you sure look old enough to be showed."

  "Would any woman show me? Do you think Miss Trixie would?"

  Mr. King chuckled. "I don't know about any woman, kid, you'd better be careful who you ask. But I guess Trixie would, for enough money. But that's the catch, kid, that dame's money hungry. You can get it better and-" He looked at Sammy again. "Well, maybe not for free but cheaper'n Trixie'd take you for."

  Then a group of people started by and Mr. King didn't look at Sammy any more; he was looking at the people and talking into the microphone. "This way, boys, this way to the sex show, and only a dime to see ... "

  And Sammy wandered off. Still with three thin dimes he went back and spent one of them for his fifth cotton candy, and the model show was ballying again and Miss Trixie was on the platform and he watched her some more. Wondering what the most wonderful thing on earth was and how much money he'd have to have for her to show it to him.

  Certainly, from the way Mr. King had spoken, it would be more than the two dimes he had left. Probably it meant paper money, folding money, and Sammy had never had a piece of paper money in his life, ever. Not of his own, anyway; sometimes when he was sent on an errand he was given paper money to buy something and brought back change fr
om it. Maybe if he saved all the money, the hard money, people gave him once in a while for doing errands until he got a lot of it, a whole handful of it, somebody would give him paper money for it. But that didn't seem likely. People gave you hard money in change out of folding money but why should they give you paper money for hard money?

  No, it just didn't seem likely that he'd ever have folding money, not unless he stole it. And Jesse had told him not to steal. Jesse had said, "There ain't nuttin' wrong with stealing, kid, if you can get away with it. But you're too Goddam dumb to know what yuh can get away with and what yuh can't. So lay off or yuh'll get in trouble. Get me?" And Sammy always tried to do what Jesse told him because Jesse fed him and took care of him so he could never get paper money by stealing it.

  He finished his cotton candy and, although he still had two more dimes left, he didn't seem to want any more of it just then. And Trixie had gone inside the model show top because they weren't ballying any more. The show must be going on inside now and he wished he could go inside and see it because he wondered just how they posed in there and what they did, but he remembered Jesse had told him never to go in there. And anyway maybe his two dimes wouldn't be enough.

  He wandered the midway again and because he might as well do something with his two dimes he rode twice on the merry-go-round, which next to cotton candy was his favorite way of spending money people gave him for doing errands, although he rode the merry-go-round only if he'd had all the cotton candy he wanted or if the Cotton Candy Lady wasn't in her booth.

  After that he didn't have any more money to worry about and he just wandered. On the midway for a while and then around behind the tops. Back where the trailers and the trucks and the living tops were. He wanted to find someone to talk to but everybody must have been busy on the midway because he couldn't find anybody.