Nightmare Alley

by William Lindsay Gresham

  One morning Molly ran in and there was a lady in bed with Dad. She was a very pretty lady and she had no nightie on and neither did Dad. Molly knew what had happened: Dad had been lit the night before and had forgotten to put on his pajamas and the girl had been lit and he had brought her up to their rooms to sleep on account of she was too tight to go home and he had intended to have her sleep with Molly but they had just fallen asleep first. Molly lifted the sheet up real, real careful and then she found out how she would look when she got big.

  Then Molly got dressed and went down and got the racing form on the cuff and came back and they were still asleep, only the lady had snuggled in closer to Dad. Molly stood quiet in a corner a long time and kept still, hoping they would wake up and find her and she would run at them and go “Woo!” and scare them. Only the lady made a low noise like a moan and Daddy opened one eye and then put his arms around her. She opened her eyes and said, “Hello, sugar,” all slow and sleepy, and then Dad started kissing her and she woke up after a while and started to kiss back. Finally Dad got on top of the lady and began to bounce up and down in the bed and Molly thought that was so funny that she burst out laughing and the lady screamed and said, “Get that kid out of here.”

  Dad was wonderful. He looked over his shoulder in one of his funny ways and said, “Molly, how would you like to sit in the lobby for about half an hour and pick me a couple of winners out of that racing form? I have to give Queenie here her exercise. You don’t want to startle her and make her sprain a tendon.” Dad kept still until Molly had gone but when she was outside the door she could hear the bed moving and she wondered if this lady could use Dad’s toothbrush and she hoped she wouldn’t because Molly wouldn’t want to use it afterwards. It would make her sick to use it.

  When Molly was fifteen one of the exercise boys at the stable asked her to come up in the hay loft and she went and he grabbed her and started kissing her and she didn’t like him enough to kiss him and besides it was all of a sudden and she started wrestling with him and then she called, “Dad! Dad!” because the boy was touching her and Dad came bouncing up into the loft and he hit the boy so hard he fell down on the hay as if he was dead, only he wasn’t. Dad put his arm around Molly and said, “You all right, baby?” And Dad kissed her and held her close to him for a minute and then he said, “You got to watch yourself, kidlet. This world’s full of wolves. This punk won’t bother you no more. Only watch yourself.” And Molly smiled and said:

  “I couldn’t have used his toothbrush anyhow.” Then Dad grinned and rapped her easy under the chin with his fist. Molly wasn’t scared any more only she never strayed very far from Dad or from other girls. It was awful that had to happen because she could never feel right around the stables any more, and couldn’t talk to the exercise boys and the jockeys any more in the old way and even when she did they were always looking at her breasts and that made her feel all weak and scarey inside somehow even when they were polite enough.

  She was glad she was beginning to have breasts, though, and she got used to boys looking at them. She used to pull the neck of her nightie down and make like the ladies in evening dresses and once Dad bought her an evening dress. It was beautiful and one way you looked at it it was light rose and the other way it was gold and it came down off the shoulders and was cut low and it was wonderful. Only that was the year Centerboard ran out of the money and Dad had the bankroll on him to show and they had to sell everything they had to get a grubstake. That was when they went back to Louisville. That was the last year.

  Dad got a job with an old friend who ran a gambling place down by the river, and Dad was his manager and wore a tuxedo all the time.

  Things were going fine after a while and as soon as Dad squared up some of his tabs he registered Molly at a dancing school and she started to learn acrobatic and tap. She had a wonderful time, showing him the steps as she learned them. Dad could dance a lot of softshoe himself and he never had a lesson. He said he just had Irish feet. Also he wanted her to take music lessons and sing, only she never could sing—she took after Mother that way. When the school gave a recital Molly did a Hawaiian number with a real hula skirt somebody had sent Dad from Honolulu and her hair falling over her shoulders like a black cloud and flowers in her hair and dark makeup and everybody applauded and some of the boys whistled and that made Dad mad because he thought they were getting fresh but Molly loved it because Dad was out there and as long as he was there she didn’t care what happened.

  She was sixteen and all grown up when things went to smash. Some fellows from Chicago had come down and there was trouble at the place where Dad worked. Molly never did find out what it was, only a couple of big men came to the house one night about two o’clock and Molly knew they were cops and she went all weak, thinking Dad had done something and they wanted him but he had always told her that the way to deal with cops was to smile at them, act dumb, and give them an Irish name.

  One said, “You Denny Cahill’s daughter?” Molly said yes. He said, “I got some mighty tough news for you, kid. It’s about your dad.” That was when Molly felt her feet slip on glass, like the world had suddenly tilted and it was slippery glass and she was falling off it into the dark and would fall and fall forever because there was no end to the place where she was falling.

  She just stood there and she said, “Tell me.”

  The cop said, “Your dad’s been hurt, girlie. He’s hurt real bad.” He wasn’t like a shamus now; he was more like the sort of man who might have a daughter himself. She went up close to him because she was afraid of falling.

  She said, “Is Dad dead?” and he nodded and put his arm around her and she didn’t remember anything more for a while, only she was in the hospital when she came to and somehow she was all groggy and sleepy and she thought she had been hurt and kept asking for Dad and a cross nurse said she had better keep quiet and then she remembered and Dad was dead and she started to scream and it was like laughing, only it felt horrible and she couldn’t stop and then they came and stuck her arm with a hype gun and she went out again and it was that way for a couple of times and finally she could stop crying and they told her she would have to get out because other people needed the bed.

  Molly’s grandfather, “Judge” Kincaid, said she could live with him and her aunt if she would take a business course and get a job in a year and Molly tried but she couldn’t ever get it into her head somehow, although she could remember past performances of horses swell. The Judge had a funny way of looking at her and several times he seemed about to get friendly and then he would chill up. Molly tried being nice to him and calling him Granddad but he didn’t like that and once, just to see what would happen, she ran up to him when he came in and threw her arms around his neck. He got terribly mad that time and told her aunt to get her out of the house, he wouldn’t stand having her around.

  It was terrible without Dad to tell her things and talk to and Molly wished she had died along with Dad. Finally she got a scholarship to the dancing school and she worked part time there with the young kids and Miss La Verne, who ran the school, let her stay with her. Miss La Verne was very nice at first and so was her boy friend, Charlie, who was a funny-looking man, kind of fat, who used to sit and look at Molly and he reminded her of a frog, the way he used to spread his fingers out on his knees, pointing in, and pop his eyes.

  Then Miss La Verne got cross and said Molly better get a job, but Molly didn’t quite know how to begin and finally Miss La Verne said, “If I get you a job will you stick with it?” Molly promised.

  It was a job with a carny. There was a Hawaiian dance show, what they called a kooch show—two other girls and Molly. The fellow who ran it and did the talking was called Doc Abernathy. Molly didn’t like him a bit and he was always trying to make the girls. Only Jeannette, one of the dancers, and Doc were steady and Jeannette was crazy-mad jealous of the other two. Doc used to devil her by horsing around with them.

  Molly always liked Zeena, who ran the mental act in
the Ten-in-One show across the midway. Zeena was awfully nice and she knew more about life and people than anybody Molly had ever met except Dad. Zeena had Molly bunk in with her, when she stayed in hotels, for company, because Zeena’s husband slept in the tent to watch the props, he said. Really it was because he was a souse and he couldn’t make love to Zeena any more. Zeena and Molly got to be real good friends and Molly didn’t wish she was dead any more.

  Then Jeannette got nastier and nastier about Doc’s paying so much attention to Molly and she wouldn’t believe that Molly didn’t encourage him. The other girl told her, “With a chassis like that Cahill kid’s got you don’t have to do no encouraging.” But Jeannette thought Molly was a stinker. One day Doc whispered something to her about Molly and Jeannette started for her looking like a wild animal with her lips pulled back over her teeth. She smacked Molly in the face and before Molly knew what was going on she had pulled off her shoe and was swinging at her, beating her in the face with it. Doc came rushing over and he and Jeannette had a terrible battle. She was cursing and screaming and Doc told her to shut up or he would smash her in the tits. Molly ran out and went over to the Ten-in-One and the boss fired Doc out of the carny and the kooch show went back to New York.

  “Fifteen thousand volts of electricity pass through her body without hurting a hair of the little lady’s head. Ladies and gentlemen, Mamzelle Electra, the girl who, like Ajax of Holy Writ, defies the lightning.…”

  Glory be to God, I hope nothing happens to that wiring. I want Dad. God, how I want him here. I’ve got to remember to smile.…

  “Stand over here, Teddy, and hold onto Ma’s hand. So’s you won’t git tromped on and kin see. That there’s a ’lectric chair, same’s they got in the penitentiary. No, they ain’t going to hurt the lady none, leastways I hope not. See? They strap her in that chair—only there’s something about her body that don’t take ’lectricity. Same’s rain rolls right off the old gander’s back. Don’t be scared, Teddy. Ain’t nothing going to happen to her. See how the ’lectricity makes her hair stand out stiff? Lightning’ll do the same thing I heard tell. There. See? She’s holding a ’lectric bulb in one hand and grabbing the wire with the other. See the bulb light? That means the ’lectricity is passing right through her ’thout hurting her none. I wisht your pa was that way with ’lectricity. He got a powerful bad burn last winter, time the wires blowed down and he was helping Jim Harness get his road cleared. Come along, Teddy. That’s all they’re going to do over here.”

  Now I can get up. Sailor Martin’s looking at me again. I can’t keep saying no to him every time he asks me to go out with him. But he can always think faster than I can. Only I mustn’t let him, ever. I mustn’t be a tramp; I don’t want it this way, the first time. Dad …

  Stanton Carlisle: The great Stanton stood up and smiled, running his glance over the field of upturned faces. He took a deep breath. “Well, folks, first of all I’m going to show you how to make money. Is there anybody in the crowd who’s willing to trust me with the loan of a dollar bill? You’ll get it back—if you can run fast. Thanks, bud. Now then—nothing in either hand, nothing up the sleeves.”

  Showing his hands empty, save for the borrowed bill, Stan gave a hitch to his sleeves. In the folds of his left sleeve was a roll of bills which he acquired deftly. “Now then, one dollar— Wait a minute, bud. Are you sure you gave me only one? You’re sure. Maybe that’s all you got with you, eh? But here are two— one and two. Count ’em. It’s a good trick, especially along toward the end of the week.”

  Which one will smile at the oldest gag? One out of every five. Remember that. One in five is a born chump.

  He produced the bills one after another, until he had a green fan of them. He returned the bill to the lad. In doing so he turned his left side from the crowd, got a metal cup in his hand. It hung by an elastic from his left hip.

  “Now then, out of nowhere they came. Let’s see what happens to them when we roll them up. One, two, three, four, five, six. All present and accounted for. Into a roll—” He placed the bills in his left hand, slipping them into the vanisher. “Blow on the hand—” The vanisher, released, thudded softly against his hip under his coat. “Lo and behold! Gone!”

  There was a scattering of applause, as if they were a little ashamed of it. The chumps.

  “Where did they go? You know, day after day I stand here— wondering just where they do go!” That’s Thurston’s gag. By God, I’m going to use it until I see one face—just one—in this bunch of rubes that gets the point. They never do. But that dollar bill production goes over. Poverty-struck bastards—they all wish they could do it. Make money out of the air. Only that’s not the way I make mine. But it’s better than real estate. My old man and his deals. Church vestryman on Sundays, con man the rest of the week. Frig him, the Bible-spouting bastard.

  “Now then, if I can have your attention for a moment. I have here a bunch of steel rings. Each and every one of them a separate, solid hoop of steel. I have one, two, three-four, five, six-seveneight. Right? Now I take two. Tap ’em. Joined together! Would you take these, madam, and tell me if you can find any joints or signs of an opening? No? Thank you. All solid. And again, two separate rings. Go! Joined!”

  Better speed it up, they’re getting restless. This is the life, though. Everyone looking at you. How does he do it? Gosh, that’s slick. Trying to figure it out. It’s magic to them, all right. This is the life. While they’re watching and listening you can tell ’em anything. They believe you. You’re a magician. Pass solid rings through each other. Pull dollars out of the air. Magic. You’re top man—while you keep talking.

  “And now, folks, eight separate and distinct rings; yet by a magic word they fly together and are joined inextricably into a solid mass. There you are! I thank you for your kind attention. Now I have here a little booklet that’s worth its weight in gold. Here is a collection of magic tricks that you can do—an hour’s performance before your club, lodge, or church gathering or in your own parlor. An hour’s practice—a lifetime of fun, magic, and mystery. This book formerly sold for a dollar, but for today I’m going to let you have it for two bits—a quarter of a dollar. Let’s hurry it up, folks, because I know you all want to see and hear Madam Zeena, the seeress, and her act does not go on until everyone who wants one of these great books gets one. Thank you, sir. And you. Any more? Right.

  “Now then, folks, don’t go ’way. The next complete show will not start for twenty minutes. I call your attention to the next platform. Madam Zeena—miracle woman of the ages. She sees, she knows, she tells you the innermost secrets of your past, your present, and your future. Madam Zeena!”

  Stan jumped down lightly from his own small platform and pushed through the crowd to a miniature stage draped in maroon velvet. A woman had stepped out from between the curtains. The crowd flowed over and stood waiting, looking up at her, some of the faces absently chewing, hands cupping popcorn into mouths.

  The woman was tall, dressed in flowing white with astrological symbols embroidered on the hem of her robe. A cascade of brassy blond hair fell down her back and a band of gilt leather studded with glass jewels was around her forehead. When she raised her arms the loose sleeves fell back. She had large bones, but her arms were white and capable-looking, with a spattering of freckles. Her eyes were blue, her face round, and her mouth a shade too small, so that she looked a trifle like an elaborate doll. Her voice was low-pitched with a hearty ring to it.

  “Step right up, folks, and don’t be bashful. If there’s any of you that want to ask me a question Mr. Stanton is now passing among you with little cards and envelopes. Write your question on the card; be careful not to let anybody else see what you write, because that’s your business. I don’t want anybody asking me about somebody else’s business. Just let’s all mind our own and we’ll stay out of trouble. When you’ve written your question, sign your initials to the card or write your name as a token of good faith. Then give the sealed envelope to Mr. Sta
nton. You’ll see what I’m going to do next.

  “Meantime, while we’re waiting for you to write your questions, I’m going to start right in. It isn’t necessary for you to write anything, but that helps you to fix it firmly in mind and keeps your mind from wandering off it, same as if you want to remember somebody’s name you just met it helps to jot it down. Isn’t that so?”

  One out of every five heads nodded, entranced, and the rest looked on, some with dull eyes, but most of them with questions written on their faces.

  Questions? They’ve all got questions, Stan thought, passing out cards and envelopes. Who hasn’t? Answer their questions and you can have them, body and soul. Or just about. “Yes, madam, you can ask her anything. The questions are held in strictest confidence. No one will know but yourself.”

  “First of all,” Zeena began, “there’s a lady worried about her mother. She’s asking me mentally, ‘Is mother going to get better?’ Isn’t that so? Where is that lady?”

  Timidly a hand went up. Zeena pounced on it. “Well, madam, I’d say your mother has had a lot of hard work in her life and she’s had a lot of trouble, mostly about money. But there’s something else in there that I don’t see quite clear yet.” Stan looked at the woman who had raised her hand. Farmer’s wife. Sunday best, ten years out of style. Zeena could go to town on this one— a natural.

  “I’d say, ma’am, that what your mother needs is a good long rest. Mind, I’m not saying how she’s going to get it—what with taxes and sickness in the family and doctor’s bills piling up. I know how it is because I’ve had my share of troubles, same as all of us, until I learned how to govern my life by the stars. But I think if you and your brothers—no, you have a couple of sisters, though, haven’t you? One sister? Well, if you and your sister can work out some way to let her get a couple weeks’ rest I think her health ought to improve mighty quick. But you just keep following a doctor’s orders. That is, you better get her to a doctor. I don’t think them patent medicines will do her much good. You got to get her to a doctor. Maybe he’ll take a few bushels of potatoes or a shoat as part of the bill. Anyhow, I think she’ll be all right if you have plenty of faith. If you’ll see me right after the demonstration, maybe I can tell you more. And you want to watch the stars and make sure you don’t do anything at the wrong time of the month.