Shadows of Tockland

by Jeffrey Aaron Miller

  “Who? Us or the rubes?” Cakey said.

  “The rubes,” he said. “They’re all sick in the head, and they’re entertained by sickness.”

  Karl laughed and slapped his gut with one hand. Annabelle was pressing a bandage over Cakey’s freshly stitched wound. She turned to David and smiled sympathetically. No, not sympathy, he realized. Pity. She was looking at him with pity, and he didn’t like it.

  “The sickness is everywhere these days,” she said, and she actually stepped around Cakey, came over to David’s corner and patted him on the shoulder. He flinched at her touch. “That’s the way of the world. Lots of sick people anywhere you go.”

  “The end of the world,” Cakey said, reaching back to feel the bandage. “I keep telling you people. The end of the world.” He used the edge of the table to pop the cap off the bottle Karl had given him and took a generous swig.

  “Isn’t it dangerous? Don’t any of you ever get sick?” David asked. “Going from town to town with all these infected people?”

  “The risk goes with the job,” Cakey said. “You ask a lot of stupid questions.”

  The comment stung, and David swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. “But…haven’t any of you ever caught anything?”

  Cakey waved his hand in a big circle over his head. “Nobody present in this room right now is infected,” he said. “Look, you got any other questions? Get them all out of your system now and then shut up for a while, would you?”

  “Don’t tell the kid to shut up,” Telly said. “He gets to talk, same as the rest of you.”

  Cakey ignored Telly. He pulled his clown costume back up over his shoulders and buttoned it. There was a ragged hole in the cloth at his shoulder and a long, dark stain of drying blood down the back. He didn’t seem to mind.

  “Any more questions, kid?” he said, spinning in his chair to face David. He took another swig from the bottle.

  David shrugged, but Cakey kept right on staring.

  “Come on,” Cakey said, snapping his fingers. “Anything else you want to ask? Get it over with.”

  David almost said nothing, but he feared if he didn’t, Cakey might keep right on staring at him with that awful face.

  “Well, okay then, I guess I did sorta wonder about a few things,” he said.

  Cakey made a rolling gesturing with the one of his hands.

  “Well, I did sort of wonder why they all keep calling you by your stage name,” David said. “Touches is Karl offstage, and Bubbles is Annabelle, but they all keep on calling you Cakey. That can’t be your real name, can it?”

  Karl laughed loudly. “Kid, Cakey don’t go offstage,” he said. “He’s a performer day and night, onstage, in the trailer or takin’ a crap by the side of the road.”

  Cakey smiled at this and tugged on the collar of his clown costume. “That’s right. Since you must know absolutely everything, Disturby, let me lay it all out there for you, almost as if I was reading a history book, see.” He sneered a moment before continuing. “So I used to do this stupid little juggling act with these tiny pink birthday cakes. Three of ‘em. I’d light the candles with a cigar in my mouth. That’s the origin of the name. Cakey the stupid cake juggling moron. Make sense?”

  David nodded.

  “Good,” Cakey continued. He took another swig of his drink, coughed. “Rubes don’t go for that cutesy stuff anymore. They need real danger, and you gotta give ‘em what they want. So the act changed. The little cakes became knives, but I kept the name. I figure Cakey is who I am, onstage or off. What’s the point of being two people?”

  “Is that why you never take off your makeup?”

  Cakey took a deep breath, grimaced and pressed a finger to his cheek. “This ain’t makeup,” he said, running his finger down the side of his face. The color neither ran nor smeared. And now David saw him anew, the white face, the giant blue eyebrow, the blood red lips smiling and frowning, all as smooth as a layer of dried paint. Not makeup.

  “It’s a tattoo?” David asked.

  But Cakey waved him off and turned away. “This kid ain’t gonna make it in the Klown Kroo,” he said. He leaned back in his chair, then remembered his wound, took an angry little breath and leaned forward again.

  “Oh, I don‘t know,” Annabelle said. She winked at David and headed over to the couch, pushing Karl’s folded clothes aside, so she could sit down. “He might work out if we give him time to adjust.”

  “You say that because you feel sorry for him,” Cakey said and polished off his drink. He slammed the bottle onto the table. “He’s a soft little boy. Telly, send him back to his gross, bloated people.”

  “Kid stays,” Telly said. He slid a chair over to the shelf, stepped up on it to reach the cooler and got himself a drink. “At least wait until you’ve seen the act.”

  “And if he turns out to be a wash?”

  Telly looked at Cakey for a moment, glanced at David, then away.

  “It happens, boss,” Cakey said. “Sometimes you hire people that turn out to be a wash.”

  “That goofy kid from Chocowinity,” Karl offered. “Remember him? With the porkpie hat and the little bolo tie? Cried onstage. We had to send him home.”

  Telly nodded. “If the kid turns out to be a wash, we send him home,” he said, without looking up. Before David could react, he added, “But give him a chance first.”

  David felt indignant. No, they would not send him home. Nobody could make him go back there. He felt his face tighten, his eyebrows draw down. Cakey looked at him questioningly.

  “I won’t turn out to be a wash,” David said.

  “Well, the rubes like danger,” Cakey said. “That’s the first thing you have to understand and accept. They like it when we get injured. They like it when we act crazy. They want deranged stuff. That’s what people like these days. It don’t matter what you read in a history book. Times have changed. Can you handle that?”

  David, heretofore timid and hurt, had a sudden urge to take a swing at Cakey. Fortunately, his hands were still tucked under his thighs, and by the time he dragged them out, the feeling had passed, and the timid misery had returned.

  “I guess I can handle it,” he said. “Sure.”

  “Sure, he says,” Cakey replied, shaking his head. “You’ll disappoint.”

  “I…” David’s voice cracked. Awful silence followed.

  “I don’t think he will,” Annabelle said.

  “Why are you taking up for this kid all of a sudden?” Cakey asked. “You didn’t like him either when he first showed up.”

  Before she could answer, a noise arose from outside. Voices, clatterings and thumps and a rattling as of chains. Gooty sat up and turned toward the door. Telly snagged his shillelagh from the corner and gestured at Karl, who set his bottle down and cracked his knuckles.

  “What is it?” David asked, though he knew. Of course he knew. Angry voices, sick voices. His heart pounded in his chest, and he had to fight a sudden urge to dive under the table.

  Annabelle stepped over to the window and drew back a corner of the shade.

  “What do you see, Belle?” Cakey asked, swirling the dregs in the bottle as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Rubes,” Annabelle said. “Over by the tent.”

  “How many?” Telly asked. He walked up to the door and slid the safety latch in place.

  “Hard to tell,” Annabelle said. “Maybe twenty, thirty. A few of them have torches. Might be others hiding in the shadows.”

  “Don’t latch the door, boss,” Cakey said. “They’ll just push the trailer over or burn it down. If they want in, let ‘em in.”

  “Fine,” Telly said, undoing the latch and stepping back.

  “Twenty or thirty, she said,” Gooty remarked, turning this way and that as if looking for an escape. “You’re gonna let twenty or thirty rubes rush through the door? You’re insane. Payasos locos!”

  “They can’t all rush through at once, can they?” Cakey replied. “Two or three at a
time at most.”

  Gooty grimaced then walked over to the cooler on the shelf and dug out a bottle. He twisted off the cap and dumped the contents into the sink.

  “Shouldn’t ought to waste good beer like that,” Cakey said, leaning back in his chair, still careful not to put any pressure on his wounded shoulder.

  “Don’t need the beer,” Gooty replied. “Just need the bottle. It’s cheap booze anyway.”

  Telly took a few practice swings with his shillelagh. Annabelle stepped back from the window and let the shade fall.

  “They’re coming toward the trailer,” she said. “I think a few of ‘em saw me.”

  Karl flexed his fingers, made fists and bumped his knuckles together.

  “What’s happening?” David asked, hating the tremor in his voice. “What do they want?”

  “Sometimes, rubes don’t think they got their money’s worth, and they try to take it out of us in blood,” Telly said, taking another swing with his shillelagh. “If I had to guess, I’d say Hess got ’em all riled up after they left, and they’re back for a refund.”

  “It’s another part of the job, kid,” Cakey said. “Let me guess, you don’t like this part either?”

  “No, not really,” David said.

  The rubes were getting close. He heard their voices, shouting and cursing, some uttering ghastly high shrieks. He heard the clatter of wood and metal. Annabelle had said twenty or thirty, but to him it sounded like hundreds. The sound spread out, encircling the trailer.

  “What are they saying?” David said, tucking his face between his knees.

  “Crazy talk. What does it matter?” Telly replied. “Annabelle, take another look.”

  Before she could move, a cheer went up from the crowd, and something thumped against the door.

  “We want more show,” someone shouted. “We paid for more show!”

  People began pounding on the door. Voices came from all sides.

  Telly jabbed a finger at Karl and pointed at the door. Karl nodded and reached for the knob, his other hand curled into a fist and cocked back behind his shoulder.

  “Open the door and see who’s there,” Telly said. “But lemme take the first swing.”

  Karl smiled, nodded and opened the door.

  A grizzled old man with a long black beard stood on the porch, an oozing sore on his cheek and a mess of scar tissue where his right eye had been. He had a rock clutched in one meaty fist, and he drew his arm back to throw it.

  “Clowns,” he spat.

  Telly stepped out from behind the door and brought the shillelagh down with a deep and satisfied cry. It smacked the old man right on the mouth. A loud crack, a burst of blood, and he fell backward off the porch.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” Telly said.

  The old man landed on the grass with a grunt, and an immediate cry of outrage went up from the crowd. Karl slammed the door shut and turned to Telly, laughing.

  “Beautiful,” he said, clapping the much smaller man on the shoulder.

  “But, of course,” Telly said with a bow. “One rube down, twenty nine to go.”

  The outcry of the rubes became the sound of all of them rushing the trailer. Annabelle reached over to the dresser and picked up a jar of cold cream and held it in her hands. Telly raised his weapon, and Gooty brandished his empty bottle. And now, at last, Cakey rose, favoring his wounded shoulder, and turned toward one of the windows, his empty bottle dangling from one hand. David, who only wanted to sink into the ground out of sight, made himself stand up. He thought he ought to at least make an appearance of readying for the fight, but when he got to his feet, his legs felt unstable. He reached out and clutched the rim of the sink for support.

  “Brace yourselves,” Telly said.

  On all sides, bodies smacked into the walls, and the whole trailer shook. David almost lost his balance, but his iron grip on the sink kept him from falling. Cakey stumbled back against the edge of the table and grunted in pain.

  “Kill the clowns,” one of the rubes screamed. “They broke Reginald’s teeth! He’s bleedin’! Kill the clowns!” David thought it might’ve been Hess, though the man had not sounded quite so hoarse with madness before.

  The crowd began rocking the trailer back and forth, the axles squealing. Annabelle stumbled into the makeup table, scattering jars and pencils and rags. The cooler on the shelf tipped over, spilling half a dozen bottles onto the floor.

  “Open the door,” Telly said.

  Karl opened the door, and a sea of leering, diseased faces peered in. Bodies were pressed up against the back of the trailer in a heap. Dirty faces, stained clothing, toothless mouths. Arms reached through the open door, fingers clawing along the frame. Telly took a step back to avoid the grasping hands and began swinging away. The shillelagh thumped off arms, hands, stomachs, legs, and with each blow, the crowd’s frenzy intensified.

  “Karl, help,” Telly said.

  Karl had ducked behind the door to avoid the hands, but he stepped out into the open now and raised both fists. He had big hands, rough knuckles.

  “Come get your money’s worth, rubes,” he said, and began punching into the crowd.

  Telly and Karl timed their blows to avoid each other, moving in a clockwork rhythm—shillelagh, left fist, shillelagh, right fist—that seemed rehearsed. Bodies thrashed, voices cried out.

  “You need help?” Cakey asked from his place beside the table.

  “Wait your turn,” Telly said.

  And then one of the rubes had Karl. His caught the collar of his shirt and drew him to the door. Other hands reached for him, grabbing hair, moustache, grabbing flesh. Annabelle leaned left and right, looking for an opening to throw the jar of cold cream, but Karl was blocking her view.

  “Someone dislodge these rubes,” Karl said.

  “I’m trying,” Telly replied. “I’m trying!”

  One of the trailer’s windows shattered, and glass rained down on the tabletop. Annabelle screamed, and Gooty covered his head.

  A body lunged through the broken window, long, lanky arms, wild eyes and scabby lips. Smears of blood, some drying, some fresh, covered the top of his bare head. Hess. Annabelle was closest to him, and she heaved the jar at his face. It struck him on the forehead and bounced away, but he did not react. He reached for her with both hands, fingertips fumbling at her shirt.

  “You did this to me,” he said in a voice as thick as sand.

  Annabelle fell back against the dresser to avoid him. And now Cakey made his move. With one arm still safely tucked against his body, he spun, brought his empty bottle up and around and smashed Hess across the bridge of his nose. Blood burst from both nostrils, but Hess only grinned and gnashed his rotten teeth at him. Gooty, standing behind Annabelle, briefly raised his own bottle, as if to join in the fray, but then lowered it again and backed toward the couch.

  Meanwhile, Karl, despite his considerable bulk, was being pulled into the crowd. He kept punching with one hand, but his other hand was caught. Telly spun his shillelagh around and jabbed the pointy end through the space between Karl’s legs. Rubes cried out in pain, and some fell back, but always more moved up to take their place.

  “They’re gonna take me,” Karl said.

  “Nah, they ain’t,” Telly said. The end of his shillelagh sank into a foot with a wet thud.

  And David, still clutching the sink with both hands, kept trying to get his feet to move. He had no weapon, and the only things near at hand were the dirty ceramic dishes in the sink. But the poison burning in his belly grew hotter, until he thought he might break into pieces. Hess, still caught halfway in the window, grabbed a handful of Cakey’s orange hair and gave it an almighty tug. It was not a wig, after all. Cakey snarled in pain and drove the bottle into his face.

  “They got me,” Karl cried. He was in among them now, one leg and one arm poking out of the sea of rubes. They slapped at him, clawed at him, screamed in his face—David saw one rube begin winding a long chain around his body—and, all t
he while, Telly jabbed away.

  Cakey smashed his bottle into Hess’s face again, and the bottle shattered. But Hess had a firm hold of his hair and was trying to drag him toward the window. Annabelle picked up a wooden wig stand and threw it at Hess, hitting him right on top of his bloody head, but it bounced away without effect. Gooty, pressed up against the arm of the chair, threw his bottle at Hess, but it missed by a few feet, hit the wall of the trailer and fell to the floor. Hess’s free hand shot up and snagged Annabelle’s wrist and drew it toward his mouth.

  “I gotta get to the truck,” Gooty shouted. “We gotta get out of here!”

  “You gotta aim better is what you gotta do,” Cakey replied through clenched teeth.

  “You did this,” Hess hissed in a voice filled with blood and sickness. He drew Annabelle’s hand into his mouth and bit down, and she howled in pain.

  “Damn rubes,” Cakey said.

  David felt something wet in his hands and glanced down. A ceramic bowl. He had grabbed it out of the sink without realizing it. Dirty water dripped onto the carpet. It felt like his intestines were melting inside of him.

  Karl had disappeared into the crowd. David heard him yelling, heard rubes crying out in pain, but he was gone. Telly was standing in the open doorway now, swinging the shillelagh for all he was worth. Rubes fell left and right with smashed teeth, busted lips, broken fingers, shattered kneecaps.

  “Back, you rubes, back,” Telly said. And then one of them reached out, snatched the shillelagh and pulled it from his grasp.

  Meanwhile, at the window, Hess, surprisingly strong for one so sick, managed to pull Cakey off his feet. Cakey was at a disadvantage because he couldn’t use one of his arms, but he reached up with the other one, grabbing at Hess’s jaw, trying to force his mouth open. Annabelle’s hand was still caught between those rotting teeth, and he began shaking his head back and forth like a dog trying to tear meat from a bone.

  And finally something broke inside of David. All the poison in his guts welled up and spilled over, and a torrent of heat and madness gushed out into every limb. The fear in his heart hardened into an icy coldness, and his thoughts became a red blur.

  He took a deep breath, held it a moment, and unleashed it in a shriek of rage. Leaping away from the sink, he kicked a chair out of his way and dove for Hess. At the last second, Hess released Annabelle’s hand and turned to him, a look of almost-concern on his face. Then David brought the edge of the ceramic bowl against his face with his full weight behind it.