by Amy Bloom
“Mr. Showalter. Sir.”
“Gerry heard about the new girl. He has an idea. Send the greenie over there.”
I looked up and the big man walked out. Mr. Showalter did not address people like me directly.
Mr. Wilson walked me across the field.
“Hey, Sunshine, I brought a friend. Miss Lorena Hickok.”
A wiry, dark-haired man sat outside his wagon, lathering his face in front of a hand mirror and shouting, “ ‘She’s gonna shake, she’s gonna bake, she’s gonna scorch your eyes and then bathe them with her beauty.’ How you doing, Lucius? How you doing, kid?”
One of the smaller banners, purple, yellow, red, and blue, with star and moon shapes punched out, and gold fringe along the edges, hung on the side of their wagon and they’d strung fairy lights around the windows and along the roof. A man came out in a flowered silk wrapper and dungarees stuffed into his boots. He was tall and slim. His hair was cut regular style on one side and pinned up like a woman’s on the other.
“I’m Gerry,” he said. He kissed my hand and said, “Brother and Sister in One Body.”
Sunny said, “I’m Sunny Florent. Ballyhoo. Ger, you’re not thinking of her for the cooch.”
Gerry caught my eye, to say, Stand up straight, and I did, even though I agreed with the other man. I could just see me clumping around on the stage in nothing much while a bunch of men who looked like my father made remarks.
“You never know,” Gerry said. “You remember Bertile? Some men like a big girl. She’s got nice eyes.”
“You’re the boss,” Sunny said.
Mr. Wilson waved to us and went back to his office, his hair bright in the sun, his suit shining.
“Stay for supper,” one of the men said.
* * *
—
By the time we’d brought plates and bottles and platters to the picnic table, Alligator Girl (Maryann) and Lobster Girl (Betsy) had come over in their linen shifts and felt slippers, with a bunch of wildflowers in a milk bottle for the table. Gerry sat between Betsy and me. I watched to see who was going to help Betsy with the chicken and the dumplings, the size of my fist. I tried not to make a fool of myself, staring at her fused fingers, tight around the fork and knife and sawing away.
“You getting used to us?” Gerry said. He ran a finger up my arm. “Oh, you got the heebie-jeebies?”
He put chicken and potato salad on my plate. I ate my chicken as quietly as I could, trying not to make any big gestures, or knock over my water glass, or demonstrate that I was unfit to be there.
“Here’s what you need to know,” Gerry said. “Every rube thinks they’re better than we are and every freak knows the truth. It’s us who are just plain better than them.”
“I don’t think I’m better than anyone,” I said. “Believe me, I don’t.”
Maryann patted my arm, kindly.
“He doesn’t mean you in particular,” she said. “He’s speaking in general. And, in general, people come to us to be horrified, or amused, or both and, even more, just to feel better. These are poor people scraping by in one-horse towns, hoping for electricity. Like if you’re fat with a pretty face, you’re mourning your fate, and then God is kind enough to put in front of you a fat girl with a mustache and a port-wine birthmark. We’re a comfort, we are. God’s conspicuous errors.”
“Isn’t she something,” Betsy said. “Maryann could have gone to college. She could have taught college.”
“Not too late,” Gerry said, and Maryann tossed her head, like she had a headful of curls, instead of what she had, which was a plaid newsie cap on top of her poor, scaly, almost hairless scalp.
Gerry bowed to her.
Betsy said, “We’re not deaf, ya know. We hear what they say. Oh mumble mumble, look at her arms. Look at his little titty. They must think once you’re onstage, your ears just close up. And we see them too. We see them and I’m telling you, those people, they don’t know nothing. The worst of us are still better than rubes.”
“Amen,” Gerry said. He put down his wineglass and did a little tap dance on the wooden deck.
* * *
—
Gerry said, Lorena and I are taking a walk.
We walked past the edge of the wagons, toward the animals. He held my hand.
“I don’t think the cooch is right for you.”
“Because I’m plain,” I said. “And, I’m too big.”
“You need to cut that shit out,” he said. “You’re not plain. And big’s no problem. You got men out there who’d love to bounce on top of you, firm young thing that you are. Lucius Wilson, maybe. Don’t you worry.”
He kissed me on the cheek. “I never made any money till I took my pants off, sweetheart. I’m not saying you have to go that way.”
* * *
—
Every week, we packed up and moved on, from Tyndall, to Plankinton, to Lake Preston and then Tracey, Minnesota, where the rousties added dream catchers with red and blue streamers and Indian headdresses to the decorations. I got up every morning with Maryann and Betsy. The girls folded me into their morning routine. Maryann was the most disfigured and the smartest and the cruelest. With long sleeves and stuffed mittens or gloves on, Betsy could go out in the world. Betsy and I gave Maryann all the privacy we could. Betsy had me brush her hair, which she could do, but not easily, and it gave us both something to pay attention to while Maryann undressed and dressed. Betsy’s hair was beautiful, “in the freak show manner,” Maryann said.
“You highlight the deformity,” she said. She modeled for us, like she was selling gowns at Marshall Field’s. She held one hard, pink, completely scaled arm up and traced its pretty curve with her other, equally awful-looking hand. She kept her wrists high and her hands tilted, like a showgirl. She put both hands on her small waist, leaning forward. The only place without scales was the bridge of her nose and her upper lip.
“But you also want to point out the ways in which we are not deformed.” She squeezed her small waist even tighter and then she pulled Betsy’s long braid.
The two of them sat on their bunks to watch me change out of my nightgown, which belonged to the office lady who left, and then get dressed. The watching seemed fair, to all of us. I stood at the foot of my bed and pulled the nightgown over my head. I stood there in just my knickers, looking like who I was, a good-sized girl from South Dakota, who could churn butter and, if I was lucky enough to be somewhere that had a healthy cow, help any farmer deliver a calf. Maryann was looking for flaws but Betsy just cupped her breasts and looked at mine.
“You really do have a very nice chest,” she said.
I put on my camisole and tightened the ribbons a little. I knew it was bad manners to rush.
I blushed and put on my shoes while they waited, and the three of us walked out through the wagons, our arms entwined.
* * *
—
“Everyone’s liking you,” Gerry said.
I was kneading his shoulders before his rehearsal. He said I had strong hands and he could use the help. He said singing and dancing, as both sexes, made for a goddamn demanding show.
We did tug-of-war with a towel, to loosen him up, then I sat down beside him and helped him pull his knee to his ear. He stood up, shaking out his arms and legs, and told me to stand completely still, or else he’d clip me in the mouth. He swung one long leg up on my shoulder. He dropped his head back and bent his whole torso away from me. Both hands landed on the floor and he rested his right foot on my right shoulder. I could smell the chalk and sweat and a sharp, fruity cologne, from his tights.
“You’re good,” I said.
“I’m not that good. I’m just more flexible than most men, which is why I am so good at being not half man and half woman, but—all woman and all man.”
He sang it out, sonorously, even from the floor, and flipped himself upright, putting a hand on me to get his balance.
“Did you hear Sunny doing my ballyhoo, last night? Sunny’s
a hot ticket, these days. ‘You can only see this extraordinary exhibit if you are over eighteen or under eighty. Under eighteen and you won’t understand it, over eighty and you won’t be able to stand it!’ ”
Gerry brought out his radio and stretched his hamstrings on a bale of hay. He found some ragtime.
“I love the Peabody,” he said.
He swung me around.
“This was invented by a big fat guy,” he said. “That man made the most of what he had, and what he had was more to love. You get me?”
Gerry took me by the hand.
“You be the girl,” he said. “We’re gonna rumba.”
He arched his back and pointed his right leg forward, knees pressed backward, hips high. I stood there, as he must have expected, like an old lady, with a mop. He put two fingers on my shoulder and walked them back and forth. He swung around in front of me and put his other hand on my shoulder blade. He took my hand and put it way around his neck.
“You’re around me. And, two-three—four,” he said, and pulled me toward him.
I stepped forward and stopped.
“Keep going. Right, rock, left. Right, rock, left.”
I shuffled forward and stopped.
He slapped my cheek lightly.
“Don’t be a goop,” he said. “We’re the same height. That’s good.”
He opened a trunk and brought out a bottle of hooch and two coffee cups.
“What are we celebrating?” I said.
“Nothing. Payday. Your birthday. Any excuse for a little Missouri moonshine.”
“It’s not my birthday,” I said, although I hated to argue with Gerry even that much. We drank our shots of moonshine. I coughed behind my hand.
“All I’m saying is, I think we could look cute together.”
“I’m not cute,” I said, and I wanted to cry. I wasn’t cute. I knew goddamn well I wasn’t cute and if Gerry was telling me, to my face, that I was cute, it was because something was making him lie to me. Gerry dragged us through a shim-sham-shimmy routine. I learned the names for the flap, the stamp, the stomp, and the shuffle and I don’t think I did a single step right.
“Lookee here. We want you to stay. Miss Paula’s cousin’s gonna hip-check you off your job when we get to Red Wing. She’s a favorite of Mr. Showalter’s. I’m trying to find something for you.”
“Well, sure as shit, dancing with you ain’t it.”
I pulled my sweater around me and stomped back to the wagon. Gerry called out, Good night, kiddo, but I knew I’d had a chance and had fallen smack on my big, fat face.
* * *
—
In the morning, I made the flyers for the next town and Mr. Wilson read my press release. That’s the stuff, he said. You tell ’em what’s what with us. You start with a real ass-grabber and then give ’em the facts. They run it like it’s news and ain’t we got fun.
Mr. Showalter came in. He watched me type for a moment and looked over at Lucius, who shrugged. Mr. Showalter gave the tiniest shake of the head.
* * *
—
That night, after flyering in four towns, I came back to my wagon. Gerry’d left me a note on the mirror, asking if I could come by and help him stretch.
* * *
—
Gerry and I did the routines, including the one that opened up his chest. I pulled both of his arms behind him and tugged his left hand up to his right shoulder blade and then the right hand.
“It’s all about flexibility,” he said. “Illusion and flexibility.”
He wasn’t wearing an undershirt and I could see, as I hadn’t before, the soft part of his chest and the hard one. He saw me looking.
“I don’t bite,” he said. “Neither do they. We are done here, sugar-pie.”
He took me back to his wagon, which was a narrow version of mine, with one bed, a faded, patchy quilt, a metal washbasin, and a good mirror bright and clear, with six round lightbulbs around it, strung on a cord. He put four biscuits on a metal plate, with a little pool of honey and bright red berries, frosted in sugar.
“Currants,” he said. “They’re so sour, your whole mouth’ll turn on you, but the sugar makes them sweet and sour. Plus, all those vitamins, we can fight off beriberi.”
The biscuit was still warm and filled with bits of bacon. I could have eaten bacon biscuits with Gerry all night.
“It pays to flatter the cook,” he said.
He pushed his hair back, and smiled, just a little, with one corner of his mouth turned up, toward his dimple. He looked like a movie star.
“Do you like my smile?” he said.
“It’s a nice smile,” I said.
“Damn right. Anyone can have a nice smile,” he said. “Within reason. Not every freak, obviously, and not some rube with his two front teeth missing, but you, for example, you could smile.”
“I don’t like to.”
He kissed me on the mouth and while I was blinking like a clubbed calf, he held my face in his hands.
“I don’t feel like I have so much to smile about,” I said, and I was sorry right after I said it.
He took his hands off my face and cracked his knuckles.
“Oh, poor you. I can see what you mean. Here you are, two decent legs, two arms, nice enough pink skin, black curly hair. You can read, write, and type with the parts of the body meant for those activities. You’re doing public relations. You got a pair of tits that are really coming along. I see what you mean. You’re fucking tragic.”
Gerry wasn’t having it. Carny people’d punch you in the face before they’d let you tell them your troubles and strangle their own selves before they’d tell you theirs.
He lay down on the bed and patted the space next to him. I lay down, like it was a medical procedure, and he laughed.
“I think you can take off your shoes. God love you,” he said when I did. “Who gave you those shoes?”
I’d replaced my Turkish slippers, with small men’s wing tips from the lost and found. They were a little big on me, but they were actual shoes, shiny leather with rubber heels and a sturdy sole. Until Gerry looked at them, I’d thought only that they were the best shoes I’d ever owned.
“I’m scared to ask,” he said. “How ’bout your socks?”
My socks were plain white cotton and the only thing wrong with them was that I had to wear them three days in a row, because I only had two pair.
“I’m joshing you,” he said. “Come on and lie down beside your Uncle Gerry. Or your Aunt Gerry.”
He slid the straps of his undershirt down across his shoulders. The right shoulder was muscular and tan. The left was a little softer and whiter. He pulled his undershirt off all the way, rolling it down his body like a tight dress, raising his slim hips to get it off. I sat beside him, trying to see what he was doing, without watching. He pulled the sheet aside and lit another candle. The left side of his chest was shaved smooth, right up to the left side’s patch of black hair. His whole torso was honey color and firm, his ribs almost raising ridges under the fine skin.
“See,” he said. “You wanna tell me your story, you can do it now.”
I didn’t want to. I couldn’t talk because I was holding my breath. I had no man to compare with Gerry. I’d caught a glimpse of my father once when he was changing his clothes, back before I was scared of him. I saw the pink turkey parts between his legs and thought, That? When the big girls told me about husbands and wives, I’d thought they were making it up, keeping some more terrible truth from me.
His hair down there was dark brown. On one side, he left it tufty and full. He may have even teased it a little, it stuck out so. On the other side, it was a triangle of neat curl, edged like a flower bed. I looked away and he put my hand on the hair.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Pretty tame.”
His penis moved a little under my fingers and I screamed and put both hands between my knees. Gerry laughed. He propped himself up on one elbow and his left breast, the one that wa
s like a girl’s, fell forward. It was small, much smaller than mine, and the nipple was darker. I never had much access to mirrors but when I was at the O’Neills’, I took advantage of their electric light and their indoor plumbing and their bright bathroom mirror. I studied myself. I wasn’t thrilled about what I saw but it wasn’t mysterious.
“Nothing to it,” he said softly. “Once you know what people expect, you just give it to ’em.”
He put my hand on the flat side of his chest.
“This?” he said. He moved my hand to the breast side. “Or this?”
I felt sick. I had never touched a man’s bare chest before. I had managed, with some twisting and oh-pardon-me, to at least brush up against Lottie when she was in just her nightie. I rolled on my side. I laid my hand on his chest. I pressed down on the flat plate of muscle, on the tiny nipple, like an acorn tip. I could feel a few wiry hairs under my fingers.
“That’s nice,” he said. “Nice for me. Nice for you?”
It was not nice, as I understood the word. Touching his girl breast, which was as close as I was ever going to get to an actual girl, made me sweat. It made me want, desperately, to find a girl at the end of the breast. The other side led to what was really there: a man with one soft white shoulder and one thick tan one and only one small, puffy breast and I didn’t want to kiss a man, which I had only just now understood. Every woman I’d longed for, I’d understood to be special. Since I was nine, I’d told myself that even though, of course, I hoped for a husband someday, these special women interrupted my trajectory, but only briefly and only because they were so special. Now, I knew that wasn’t true. Women were not interruptions, for me.
