Cakey then turned and bowed to the crowd. Nobody applauded. It was whisper quiet in the tent. This did not seem to perturb him in the slightest. He pointed to the row of wooden poles and the little metal base that held them, and snapped his fingers at Touches. Touches ducked his head, crawled over, grabbed the end of the metal base and proceeded to slide the whole thing offstage. Bubbles also made her exit at this time, backing away, still clutching the plates. Just before she slipped behind the curtain, she looked at Cakey, though she was staring at the back of his head, and David saw the same anxious look in her eyes. She wanted to warn him, it seemed, warn him that the crowd was hostile, but he neither noticed the look nor seemed to care.
He walked up to the edge of the stage and bowed again.
“Hello, boys and girls. I’m Cakey the Clown,” he said. Onstage, he spoke in an exaggerated version of his real voice, a throaty snarl that sounded like he was being lightly strangled. It didn’t win him any friends. David saw some of the children covering their ears. “Shall we defy death together? Shall we?” And he laughed a high, cackling laugh, reaching back behind himself to produce half a dozen long, silver knives. “Do not be alarmed at the sight of blood, boys and girls. I am a trained professional, and what’s a little blood between friends?” He laughed again, but he laughed alone.
Hess leaned over to the man on his left, the same man who had been with him when the Klown Kroo had first rolled into town. They spoke quietly for a moment, then Hess shook his head and pointed at Cakey.
“Make no mistake,” Cakey said, brandishing one of the knives. “These blades are razor sharp.” He pretended to pluck a single hair from his wig and slice it with the knife. “Cut it right in half. See that, boys and girls?” He gestured to those in the front of the crowd. “Stand back a bit. Wouldn’t want anyone to lose an eye.”
The crowd pressed back a little, but there wasn’t much wiggle room. The people standing right in front of David bumped his bench and nearly knocked him off. He caught himself on one of the support posts for the tent. The air was getting warmer and moister, and the smell of the people was souring into something almost medicinal. David fought the urge to pinch his nose shut, afraid the gesture might offend.
Cakey tossed the first knife high in the air, and when it fell, he pretended to miss the catch. It sailed past his right hand, and then he quickly snatched it with his left before it hit the ground. A ripple went through the crowd. At last, the troubled silence was broken. Cakey added a second knife, juggling the two while still holding the others in his hands. From two he went to three. At last, the crowd was hooked. Children uncovered their ears, dared to lean away from the safety of parents, flashing broad, toothy grins.
Once Cakey had a good cascade going with three knives, he added in an occasional trick—under the leg, over the shoulder, behind the back. Then he added the fourth knife and the fifth. The tips of the blades were almost touching the canvas ceiling at their apex. David studied the faces in the crowd. Their eyes tracked the path of the knives as they sailed up and over, turning, sharp edges catching the light. They were hooked, but not at all of them were enjoying the experience. The sicker ones looked unhappy, wringing their hands, licking their lips, like people anticipating a tragedy but unable to look away.
After a few minutes, Touches crept back through the curtain. Someone in the crowd spotted him and shouted some garbled words. Hess scratched furiously at his scalp, and fresh blood ran bright and red down the side of his head. Cakey pretended not to notice Touches as he tiptoed ever closer. Touches had a hand over his mouth, hiding a smile. He waved at the audience, pointed at the knives sailing high into the hair and nodded. David heard a loud moan. Some in the audience began shuffling from foot to foot, like children who can’t bear to stand still. Touches gave a little theatrical laugh, bobbing his head up and down, and reached for Cakey.
And then Cakey sneered, flicked his wrist, and tossed the sixth and final knife over his shoulder, right at Touches. Howls went through the crowd and some swooned, but Touches caught the knife by its handle, stumbled back a few steps and launched it right back at Cakey.
And that was when Hess finally rushed the stage. The crown of his head was a bloody mess. He had picked the scab off and created an ugly patchwork of fresh scratches. As he fought through the crowd, shoving people out of his way, he crammed his hat back onto his head and unleashed a low, guttural sound. Cakey heard him and glanced in his direction, if only for a fraction of a second, and that was all it took to miss the catch. The knife sank into his shoulder.
“Oh, God,” Touches cried in the deep, un-clownish voice of Karl.
Cakey grimaced, tipped forward and took a corrective step, but he kept right on juggling the knives. The crowd erupted with shrieks. People began flailing their arms, children burst into tears. Hess threw himself against the edge of the stage and thrust his hands at Cakey’s feet, bloody fingers splayed. Long rivulets of blood seeped out from under the brim of his hat and ran down his cheeks. Cakey saw him and tried to ease back out of reach, but he was fighting through pain to keep the cascade of knives going. Hess leapt up and snagged the tip of one red shoe in his fingers, gurgling as he did so.
Karl rushed the front of the stage. The character of Touches was gone now. He yanked off his right glove and rolled up the sleeve. Telly came out from behind the curtain, brandishing the shillelagh.
Karl got there first. “Get back, you,” he snarled, ducking under Cakey’s pivoting arms and snagging Hess by the arm.
“Don’t put ye’re hand to me,” Hess growled and gnashed his teeth at him.
The swaying of the crowd intensified, the moans and gurgles building into a grotesque symphony. All David could do was clutch the tent pole, lean back into the shadows and hope nobody noticed him. Karl took a swing at Hess, but Hess ducked the blow. Karl’s knuckles grazed the top of his hat, knocking it off his head and revealing the bloody ruin of his scalp.
By now, Cakey had stepped out of range of the grabbing hands. Annabelle came out and helped him stop juggling, catching the knives for him one by one and dropping them onstage. When they were all discarded, she put an arm around his waist and guided him offstage, the sixth knife still protruding from his shoulder blade. Blood ran down the back of the clown suit, staining the gaudy yellow fabric.
Karl grabbed hold of both of Hess’s wrists and flung him back into the crowd. Telly was there now, center stage, clutching the shillelagh in both hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he called, his tinny voice cracking through the cacophony of disturbed voices. “Ladies and gentlemen! If you’ll please calm down for a moment. Please! Let’s have a moment of calm.”
Hess was absorbed into the crowd, flopping and kicking, and David watched a handful of others drag him away from the stage. The crowd was swaying and moaning, shaking their heads and flapping their hands in the air. It looked like they might all rush the stage, the whole churning mass of them. Karl hunkered down, clenched a fist and poised to hit the first one to get in range. Telly raised the shillelagh over his shoulder. Then Gooty stepped from backstage, cracking his knuckles and taking up a position beside Karl.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m asking you to remain calm,” Telly said. “We’ve had a bit of a technical difficulty. Remain calm!”
Hess was dragged to the tent flap and outside into the darkness. David’s last glimpse of him, until later, was of two feet kicking, heels slamming into the dirt, and then he was gone. His absence had an immediate calming effect on the crowd. People looked around, muttering to themselves, then seemed to settle in their places, turning back to the stage with knitted brows as if they no longer knew where they were or how they’d wound up there.
“Folks, we’re gonna have to postpone the rest of the evening’s entertainment,” Telly said, relaxing his grip on the shillelagh.
A few responded with angry sounds at this, shaking their fists at him, but most of the people kept right on staring with dull confusion on their faces. K
arl and Gooty were still poised to lay into anyone who came too close. Gooty looked tired and irritated, but Karl, with his beady eyes and bared teeth, was ready to kill.
“I’m gonna have to ask you all to quietly, calmly exit the tent,” Telly said. “Come back tomorrow for the matinee. Okay? Let’s go. Quietly, calmly.” He pointed with the sharp end of the shillelagh toward the tent flap. Nobody moved.
“Quietly and calmly!” Karl shouted. “Get the hell out of here!”
A few toward the back of the tent trickled out, then a few more, but most kept right on staring.
“Is he coming back?” someone asked. “The clown with all them knives?”
“Tomorrow,” Telly said. “The matinee will be tomorrow. Let’s go, folks.”
More left, dazed and disappointed. Finally, there were only a handful of people left, most of them scabby and sweaty, trembling. Karl made as if to climb down off the stage and that got the last of them moving.
“Come back tomorrow, folks,” Telly said again, as the last of the townsfolk walked out of the tent and into the deepening night.
David had been holding his breath and clutching the tent pole through it all. He let his breath out in a rush now and slid down onto the bench, light-headed. Karl, Telly and Gooty all exchanged wary looks. Then they strode backstage, leaving David alone in the warm, sick-smelling air.
Chapter Eight
Refund
“You gonna live?” Telly asked, slipping through the trailer door and nudging it shut behind him.
“It’s only pain,” Cakey said, head bowed, cupping his forehead in his gloved hands.
David sat in the corner, marveling at the interior of the performers’ trailer. Thick carpet covered the floor and lush furniture lined the walls. At the end nearest the door, there was a long polished table with a lighted mirror on top. Jars of make-up and cold cream, eyeliner pencils, sponges and rags rested in little nooks etched into the top. Karl was currently sitting there, removing his makeup. Across from the table was a velvet couch with thick cushions. Gooty was sprawled out there, one arm resting on his face. Beyond the couch and table was a little kitchen area with a sink full of dirty dishes and gray water, a dining table and chairs, windows on either side decorated with lace curtains and heavy shades, all drawn. Cakey sat in one of the chairs, Annabelle standing behind him, tending to his wound. Beyond the kitchen was a wall with a doorway in it, and beyond the doorway a narrow hall leading to bedrooms.
David had taken one of the kitchen chairs and pushed it into the corner beside the sink. He sat there now, the heels of his shoes hooked under the seat, his knees drawn up to his chest. Telly laid his shillelagh beside the door, walked over to the makeup table and reached for a jar and a rag.
“We really doing a matinee tomorrow?” Karl said, wiping greasepaint from one eyelid.
“I said it to get them out of the tent,” Telly said, unscrewing the lid from the jar. “We’ll see what happens.”
“Let’s go ahead and do it,” Cakey said, wincing as Annabelle pressed a cloth to his wound. She had a bowl on the table beside her filled with blood-soaked rags and pinkish water.
“You can’t perform with a stab wound in your shoulder,” she said. “It went to the bone. I’m gonna stitch it up and then you’re going to take it easy for a while.”
“I can perform through blood and agony,” Cakey said, still wincing. “It makes no difference to me.”
To David’s surprise, the townsfolk had left the campground in a relatively orderly fashion, trudging back in the direction of West Fork. He had heard a very faint and distant shriek as he’d headed to the trailer, but it had been brief, and since then only silence. It was as if they had all just gone home and gone to bed.
Telly dipped his fingers into the jar and scooped up a generous amount of cold cream, which he smeared across his forehead. He was looking into the mirror, but he paused suddenly and scanned the room, his gaze settling on David.
“You’re awful quiet over there, kid,” he said. “How are you holding up?”
David shrugged. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was talk. He had his hands tucked under his thighs to keep the others from seeing them tremble.
“Now you see what it’s like,” Cakey said without looking at him. “Now you see, kid.”
“Be nice,” Annabelle said, under her breath. She was stitching up the wound now with a curved needle and black thread.
“I am nice,” Cakey replied. “I’m always nice. I am friend to all.”
From the couch, Gooty made a sound that might have been a laugh.
“Laugh it up, Goot,” Cakey said. “You never had a friend like me.”
“True,” Gooty said, his voice muffled by his own arm. “Y gracias, Señor, por eso.”
“Don’t know what you just said,” Cakey replied. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”
Karl, his makeup removed, except for a long white streak at his jaw line and on the tips of his moustache, stood up, tossed his rag onto the table and began unbuttoning his shirt and pants. For a moment, David thought, to his horror, that Karl was going to strip right down to his skin, and he almost covered his eyes. But then he realized Karl had on a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts underneath.
“The rubes love it when we get hurt,” he said, folding up his clothes and setting them on the arm of the couch. “They eat it up.”
Telly was still gazing intently at David. His small face was a nightmare image, the white greasepaint mingled with smears of cold cream running down his cheeks and chin like melted wax. “Say something, kid.”
David cleared his throat and tried to settle himself a bit before he spoke. “I don’t know,” he said, at last, and his voice quavered. “Is it always like that?”
“What, infected people rushing the stage trying to grab us?” Telly said. “No, not always.”
“Too often,” Annabelle said, pulling the needle through Cakey’s flesh.
“We have troublemakers from time to time,” Telly asked. “It’s not a big deal. What did you expect it to be like?”
David shrugged. “More like you read about in history books, I guess. Back when they had real circuses, clowns were silly and fun and made people laugh. I used to have this book—”
“First of all, this ain’t a history book,” Cakey said, interrupting him. “Second, who says it’s not a real circus?” He still had his makeup on, his costume and wig. It had bothered David before, but now it was driving him crazy. How could he sit there still fully in character while getting stitched up? “Remind me again, Telly, why’d we bring this kid along?”
“Let it go,” Telly said, scrubbing his face with a damp washcloth.
“History books, he says,” Cakey replied with a look of disgust.
David, feeling a flush creeping up his cheeks, averted his gaze.
Telly rose and slipped off his coat, tossing it onto a chair. “He’ll be fine,” he said, taking his hat off. His thin hair was sticking up in sweaty clumps. “I’ve got his shtick all worked out. You want to hear it, kid?”
David almost said no. He had no interest whatsoever in hearing about his shtick at the moment. In fact, if he’d been closer to the door, he might have just walked out and made his way back to his cot. All he really wanted to do was curl up in the dark and be left alone.
“Tell us,” Karl said. The big man walked over to a shelf beside the sink and opened a plastic cooler. He fished around inside—David heard the clink of glass—and pulled out a couple of amber bottles of some kind of brew. He passed one to Cakey and held onto the other as he took a seat at the kitchen table.
“Okay, here’s my idea,” Telly said. “His stage name will be Disturby the Clown.”
“Disturby?” Cakey said.
Gooty made another sound that might have been a laugh.
“The kid doesn’t look disturbed to me,” Annabelle said, glancing in his direction with those dark, mischievous eyes. “He looks terrified but not disturbed.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, maybe Scaredy the Clown is more appropriate,” Cakey said. “Timid the Ulcerous Clown. Trembly the Frazzled Clown.”
“Scrawny the Weepy Clown,” Karl suggested.
“See, boss?” Cakey said. “You gotta consult us on these things. We have great ideas.”
“Nah, my idea’s best, as usual,” Telly said. “It’ll work. Disturby Dave. I like the sound of it. And his whole shtick will be that he’s cuckoo.” He spun a finger around his temple. “He goes crazy, flips around, makes all kinds of weird noises. He can be the butt of a lot of gags. People will love it. I’ve got a whole bunch of routines worked up in my head. What do you think, kid?”
David nodded, but it took great effort to do so. The butt of a lot of gags? Nope, he didn’t like the sound of that at all. Going crazy onstage? He could see the edge of a smile on Gooty’s face. Oh, yeah, Gooty loved the idea of that. David going crazy.
“A nod, that’s all?” Telly said. “You don’t love it? Hooting and hollering and flipping around. You’ll be a crowd favorite, kiddo. Say something!”
David envisioned being slapped and kicked and knocked around the stage, trying to work his gymnastics routines into the mix while leering, diseased face glared up at him. He could not have dreamed up a more horrifying scenario. He tried to think of something polite to say, but nothing came to him. When he opened his mouth, the truth leaked out.
“They’re sick,” he said. “They’re all sick.”
Shadows of Tockland Page 8
