Fum

by Adam Rapp

  When Brill catches himself turning into one of his fellow gawkers, he decides he’s seen enough and moves away.

  Just get to the wigwam, he tells himself. Keep moving . . .

  Some fifty feet deeper into the tent, a group of fifty or so students stands before a large terrarium with PLATO THE POTATO BOY advertised on a neon archway. Brill stops and watches from the back of the crowd. Inside the terrarium, it appears, a man without limbs has been planted into rich brown soil. He is shirtless and bald, and possesses a disarmingly deep voice, which is amplified over a public address speaker. Several dandelions have been arranged in the soil around him. He speaks into a lavaliere microphone hanging around his neck, which boasts perhaps two of the thickest veins Brill’s ever seen.

  Plato the Potato Boy proselytizes passionately about the evils of the digital world. “Throw your smartphone AWAY!” he cries. “Talk to each other FACE-TO-FACE! Write a freaking LETTER to someone, with a freaking PEN, and put it in the freaking MAIL, you FREAKS! Do something VICTORIAN for a change! Or go live in a NATIONAL FOREST and learn how to build a FIRE and use a HATCHET and FISH and CAMP and get inspired to start this awful world OVER!”

  The students are rapt. Many are wearing Plato the Potato Boy T-shirts.

  If this isn’t a cult, then I don’t know what is, Brill thinks.

  Brill looks around and finally spots the wigwam at the back of the big top.

  Plato the Potato Boy’s amplified voice fades as Brill moves away.

  There is a huge line to see the clairvoyant giantess. Many have brought portable stools and beach chairs, and the procession snakes this way and that. If Brill had to guess, there might be fifty to sixty people waiting to have their dread told to them. Many fan themselves with freak-show programs. Some have actual miniature battery-operated fans, which they hold in front of their tired, sweaty, beleaguered faces.

  Brill takes his place at the end of the line.

  A bare-chested African-American man wearing a top hat, suspenders, and white pants makes his way through the line, collecting money. After he takes the five dollars from Brill, he says, “Will you be offering your left or right hand?”

  “Excuse me?” Brill replies, confused.

  “Will Fräulein Fum be taking your left or right hand? For your prophecy.”

  “Oh,” Brill says. “My right hand.”

  The man then takes Brill’s left hand, turns it so the knuckles are facing up, and stamps it with what appears to be a cylinder of ChapStick. Then he removes the top hat and bows to Brill, revealing a six-inch, flesh-colored horn protruding from the crown of his head.

  “Thank you, sir,” the man says, and then places the top hat back on his head, covering the horn.

  After the man moves on to the next person, Brill looks down to see three small purple Fs marking the flat surface above his wrist.

  Fräulein Feffi Fum, Brill thinks.

  Did Corinthia rename herself or did some freak-show higher-up assign the name to her?

  Is my daughter now speaking with a German accent?

  So much has changed in the past year. First Channing disappeared and then his only daughter never returned from a college visit, and then, just six weeks ago, on Christmas Eve, in the middle of the night, he received a call from a neighbor who had discovered Marlene, his wife of twenty years, walking barefoot down the middle of Stained Glass Drive, wearing only her nightgown, trudging through the falling snow, carrying a laundry basket full of Channing’s workout gear, babbling indecipherably. Since then, Marlene’s been staying at Streamwood Manor, a private psychiatric hospital up in Centralia, about an hour north of Lugo, where Brill goes to visit her on weekends.

  Brill learns from a Houston man who gets in line behind him that Venus used to be a kind of layover town for crooks on the lam.

  “That motel on the other side of the water tower is where they’d stay,” he tells Brill. “Then they’d head to Louisiana and try to disappear in Shreveport or Monroe or someplace like that.”

  The man is referring to the very motel where Brill is staying tonight.

  “Don’t worry — it’s safe now. I’m Russell,” the man says, extending his hand. He is wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt and possesses a face like a walrus, distinguished by an impressive, platinum-colored handlebar mustache.

  Brill shakes his hand. “Brill,” he says. “Brill Bledsoe.”

  Russell goes on to tell Brill that this is his third visit. Feffi Fum has already correctly prophesied two “bad things” that have come true. First, his German shepherd, Julius, died. And then his house got robbed.

  “All they took was my sixty-inch flat-screen TV,” he explains, “but I did get robbed.”

  “And you’re back again,” Brill says.

  “Here I am,” Russell agrees. “I guess dread is sort of addictive.”

  He tells Brill how he first saw the Fräulein at Lyon College in Arkansas. And then, after Julius died (kidney failure), he just absolutely had to see her again, so he followed The Beautiful Apocalypse to Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi.

  “Waited in line for three days before I finally got to see her again,” he says. “And that’s when she predicted the robbery.”

  “After her prophecy about the robbery, did you do anything to prevent it?” Brill asks.

  “That’s the thing,” Russell cries. “I just sort of waited around for it to happen! And then it did! Fate is so cool!”

  According to Russell, The Beautiful Apocalypse was initially visiting only college towns, but when Fum came along, they had to expand beyond the higher-education circuit.

  “Popular demand and all that,” Russell says.

  Brill wonders how this makes his daughter feel. Is she proud of helping to increase the demand for The Beautiful Apocalypse? Is she even aware of it?

  “So, why are you in line?” Russell asks. “You want to know something specific, or are you just thrill seeking?”

  “Well,” Brill says, “my son disappeared back toward the beginning of the school year. I was thinking maybe she could tell me something about him.”

  “That’s a damn good reason,” Russell says. “Sorry about your son.”

  “And I’m sorry about Julius,” Brill offers.

  As they slowly inch their way closer to the white wigwam, Brill starts to worry that he might not get to see his daughter. The line is just moving so slowly.

  An hour passes.

  And then another.

  Brill and Russell talk about many things: Russell’s son, Hans, a young marine who is serving his third tour of duty in Afghanistan; Brill’s various over-the-counter health supplements (fish oil, glucosamine, and a probiotic called Vital Biotics); Russell’s love of dove hunting and bass fishing (Falcon Lake is the very best spot, down in Zapata); and the story of Channing’s disappearance the night of the tornadoes as well as his many athletic achievements.

  Finally, improbably, it seems — some three hours later — Brill is next up.

  A middle-aged female security guard stationed beside a short velvet rope cautions Brill against taking photos or videos and tells him that he will have a five-minute encounter, after which he will be expected to leave the wigwam, and that if he wishes to spend more time with Fräulein Fum, he must go to the end of the line, pay another five dollars, and get restamped. The woman’s face is tattooed with hundreds of thin green pinstripes. She wears a black T-shirt with The Beautiful Apocalypse’s initials on the front and SECURITY on the back. She speaks in a military manner, and Brill notices what appears to be a remote control holstered to her waist.

  “What’s that?” he asks, pointing to it.

  “My Taser gun,” she says.

  “Do you ever have to use it?”

  “Not very often,” she says.

  Do these dread seekers try to hurt Corinthia? he wonders.

  Is my daughter in danger?

  Moments later, the person who had been in line in front of him — a thin, dark-haired woman holding a
photo album — emerges, dabbing at her eyes with a Kleenex. Brill wants to go straight in, but the security guard lady with the pin-striped face closes the rope and holds her hand up.

  “She’s done for the day?” Brill asks, indignant.

  He feels as if his heart has dropped into his stomach.

  “We always give her a minute for recovery,” she says. “Her seeing takes its toll.”

  After what feels like an interminable sixty seconds, she unclips the rope.

  “Good luck,” Russell calls to Brill as he enters the wigwam.

  His daughter is seated on an enormous wooden throne. On her head she wears what appears to be a nun’s white wimple and neckerchief. She also wears a long blue robe. The costume creates a religious effect. Her face is tastefully made up, and she looks clean and beautiful, perhaps a bit thinner. A smell of frankincense taints the warm, thick air, though its source is unseen. The low, moody lighting brings out his daughter’s cheekbones and brows. Before her is a small round table dressed with white linen, on top of which rests a large hourglass containing fine white sand.

  Opposite Corinthia, a normal-size chair awaits Brill.

  “Hello, Cori,” he says, his Bazoo Meatpacking Windbreaker folded over his arm.

  Corinthia stares at her father for a long moment. She doesn’t blink — she just looks straight at him.

  Brill searches her face for love, for excitement, for the smallest recognition, but it remains neutral.

  Brill can feel a thread of embarrassment thickening in his kidneys and bowels. He’s fully aware that his hair has gone grayer since she last saw him. He knows his eyes look tired and puffy. The recent events have aged him.

  “Please sit,” she finally says.

  Brill does so.

  “You’ve come a long way,” Corinthia says.

  She uses her normal voice. Brill is hugely relieved that she isn’t affecting an accent.

  “I drove over seven hundred miles,” he says. “I took your mother’s car. The Audi’s in the shop. . . . You look good. I like your costume.”

  “It’s not a costume,” she says.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “A costume would suggest that I’m performing something,” she explains. “This is far from a performance.”

  “But you’re using a character name,” Brill retorts, perhaps a hair too objectionably, because Corinthia flips over the hourglass, and its sands start to empty.

  From his pants pocket Brill produces a green-and-yellow lanyard, about six inches long, with a little clip on the end.

  “Your mother made this for you,” he says. “She’s been staying at a, well, a kind of health center in Centralia. After you didn’t come home, she sort of had a . . . well, let’s just say she’s had a hard time. But she’s doing better. She wanted you to have this. It’s for keys, or a whistle.”

  Corinthia accepts the lanyard.

  “Thanks,” she says, placing it in her lap. She points to the hourglass. “You have about four minutes and thirty seconds.”

  Brill nods. He can feel a lump forming in his throat, as if he’s been forced to swallow potting soil.

  “Don’t you want to know your dreadful prophecy?” she says.

  “Yes,” he says, “of course.”

  Brill clears his throat a few times, tries to swallow that awful lump.

  “I think your mother and I would like to know if there’s any information about your brother.”

  “You have to ask me directly,” she tells him. “I take your hand in mine, and then you look into my eyes and ask the question. That’s how it works.”

  “Okay,” Brill hears himself say.

  Then he reaches across the small table and offers his right, unstamped hand, which disappears in his daughter’s soft, warm hands like a playing card. They stare at each other a long moment, and then, with a slight tremor in his voice, Brill asks her the following:

  “What is going to happen to Channing?”

  Corinthia closes her eyes and takes a slow, deep breath. Her eyes appear to roll back in her head, which starts to twitch back and forth ever so slightly. Brill has the strange sensation that he is turning into a much smaller version of himself — that he’s literally losing size and volume. He will emerge from this wigwam as the puppet version of Brill Bledsoe and go climb into that box and spend the rest of his life with the Ten-Inch Man. He could even take over the attraction after the Ten-Inch Man dies; that way, he’d always be near his daughter.

  Corinthia unleashes a long, steady exhale and opens her eyes. She releases Brill’s hand and tells her father that Channing will be coming home.

  “Well, that’s good!” Brill says, excited. “That’s a good thing!”

  “But it won’t be good,” Corinthia says. “It’ll be far from good.”

  “In what way?” Brill asks.

  “They’re going to find him upside down. Attached to the water tower. As if he’s fallen from the sky.”

  “Oh,” Brill says. “I see.”

  He suddenly feels sick to his stomach. He has to bring his hand to his mouth to keep himself from retching.

  “But where on earth was he?” he asks.

  “I can’t tell you that,” she says.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know the past. I only know the future.”

  Brill imagines his son hanging upside down from the Lugo water tower. Will he be dead? Will he be somehow maimed or blinded? He has to swallow hard again.

  “And what about you?” Brill forces himself to ask.

  “What about me?” Corinthia says.

  “Will you be coming home anytime soon?”

  “No,” she says.

  Brill nods slowly and then reaches into his back pocket and retrieves a thick envelope, folded in half and cinched with a rubber band.

  “Here,” he says, setting it on the table.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “Money,” he says.

  “I don’t need your money, Daddy.”

  Hearing her say the word Daddy almost takes his breath away. He may have come all this way just to hear that word.

  “Please,” he says.

  “They give me forty percent of the daily take,” she explains. “I’m fine for money.”

  “Use it for your medication, then. It’s so expensive.”

  “I’m no longer taking medication,” she says serenely. “Things are so much clearer now.”

  She passes the envelope back across the little table.

  Brill accepts it, and then he starts to cry.

  “Will you at least think about coming home?” he pleads, his voice faint. He can’t remember the last time he cried in front of his daughter, or in front of anyone, for that matter. His voice sounds strange, far away, like that of a small, lost boy.

  Corinthia tells him that she has a new home.

  “I finally found my place,” she says.

  “But don’t you want to go to school?” Brill says. “I spoke with Principal Ticonderoga the other day, and she said you could come back to Lugo Memorial and make up your schoolwork, and that if you agreed to take a few summer school courses, you could start your senior year with the rest of your class.”

  “I’m done with school,” she says.

  “What about Cloris?”

  “What about her?”

  “Don’t you miss her?”

  “Cloris and I will always be friends. She’s going to come see me in South Carolina next month.”

  “I helped her put chains on her tires the other day,” Brill says, wiping his eyes. He can hear his normal voice coming back to him. “Lugo’s having its biggest snowfall in over fifty years,” he adds. “It seems like they’re plowing the streets every other night. You wouldn’t believe how many people are using cross-country skis.”

  They are quiet for a moment. Brill spies the hourglass, which has run out of sand.

  “When I walked in, this woman with hands for feet tried to sell me cotton candy,”
he says, hoping to extend his brief visit.

  “That’s Wendy,” Corinthia says. “She’s from Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. You should see her play Frisbee. We’re going to be roommates once the tour hits Florida.”

  “She seems very nice,” Brill says.

  “She is.”

  “I know I can’t make you come home,” Brill says. “You’re of legal age to do what you wish. At seventeen, you’re fully emancipated. And I respect your choice, I do. I don’t completely understand it, but I respect it.”

  Corinthia nods.

  “But are you happy doing this?”

  “I’ve never been happier,” Corinthia says.

  The female security guard with the pin-striped face enters the wigwam.

  “It’s okay, Phyllis,” Corinthia says to her. “I know him.”

  “We gotta keep that line moving,” Phyllis says. “There’s a lotta people out there.”

  “Another minute,” Corinthia says.

  “You can have sixty seconds,” Phyllis says, looking at her watch, “but if he’s not out of here after that, I’m coming back in.”

  Phyllis turns and exits.

  “Can I at least take you to dinner tonight?” Brill says.

  “I can’t tonight,” Corinthia says. “It’s Family Friday. We do potluck. Wendy and I made deviled eggs.”

  “What about tomorrow?”

  “I’m not sure,” Corinthia says. “It depends on how I’m feeling. Seeing takes its toll.”

  “Okay, then,” Brill says.

  He waits for his daughter to say something, but she just sits there. She seems to be filled with a powerful tranquility.

  “Should I go get back in line?” he asks.

  “If you’d like to,” Corinthia says, “but we only go till eight tonight. It’s already past seven.”