Nightmare Alley

by William Lindsay Gresham

  They parted at the side of the stage; Hoately’s hand appeared. Quickly Stan took the collected questions and placed the dummy batch in the hand which vanished upward. Stan heard the creak of feet on the boards above him. He sat down at the table, switched on the shaded flashlight bulb, squared up the pack of envelopes and cut the ends from them with one snip of the scissors. Moving quickly, he shook out the cards and arranged them before him on the table.

  Question: “Where is my son?” Handwriting old-fashioned. Woman over sixty, he judged. A good one to open with—the signature was clear and spelled out in full—Mrs. Anna Briggs Sharpley. Stan looked for two more complete names. One was signed to a wiseacre question which he put aside. He reached for the black crayon and the pad, wrote, “Where son?” printed the name swiftly but plainly, and held the pad up to the hole in the stage at Zeena’s feet.

  “I get the impression of the initial S. Is there a Mrs. Sharpley?”

  Stan found himself listening to the answers as if they held a revelation.

  “You think of your boy as still a little fellow, the way you knew him when he used to come asking you for a piece of bread with sugar on it….”

  Where the hell did Zeena get all that stuff from? She was no more telepathic than that kid, Molly, was electricity proof. The Electric Chair act was gaffed like everything in the carny. But Zeena—

  “My dear lady, you must remember that he’s a man grown now and probably has children of his own to worry about. You want him to write to you. Isn’t that so?”

  It was uncanny how Zeena could fish out things just by watching the person’s face. Stan got a sudden thrust of cold fear. Of all the people in the world for him to hide anything from, it had to be a mind reader. He laughed a little in spite of his anxiety. But there was something which pulled him toward Zeena more strongly than his fear that she would find out and make him a murderer. How do you get to know so much that you can tell people what they are thinking about just by looking at them? Maybe you had to be born with the gift.

  “Is Clarissa here? Clarissa, hold up your hand. That’s a good girl. Now Clarissa wants to know if the young fellow she’s been going around with is the right one for her to marry. Well, Clarissa, I may disappoint you but I have to speak the truth. You wouldn’t want me to tell you no fibs. I don’t think this boy is the one for you to marry. Mind, he may be and I don’t doubt that he’s a mighty fine young man. But something tells me that when the right young fellow comes along you won’t ask me, you won’t ask anybody—you’ll just up and marry him.”

  That question had come up before and Zeena nearly always answered it the same way. The thought struck Stan that it was not genius after all. Zeena knew people. But people were a lot alike. What you told one you could tell nine out of ten. And there was one out of five that would believe everything you told them and would say yes to anything when you asked them if it was correct because they were the kind of marks that can’t say no. Good God, Zeena is working for peanuts! Somewhere in this racket there is a gold mine!

  Stan picked up another card and wrote on the pad: “Advise important domestic step, Emma.” By God, if she can answer that one she must be a mind reader. He held it up to the trap and listened.

  Zeena pattered on for a moment, thinking to herself and then her voice lifted and her heel knocked gently. Stan took down the pad and knew that this would be the blow-off question and he could relax. After this one she would go into the pitch.

  “I have time for just one more question. And this is a question that I’m not going to ask anybody to acknowledge. There’s a lady here whose first name begins with E. I’m not going to tell her full name because it’s a very personal question. But I’m going to ask Emma to think about what she is trying to tell me mentally.”

  Stan switched off the flashlight, crept out of the understage compartment and tiptoed up the stairs behind the side curtains. Parting them carefully with his fingers he placed his eye to the crack. The marks’ faces were a mass of pale circles below him. But at the mention of the name “Emma” he saw one face—a pale, haggard woman who looked forty but might be thirty. The lips parted and the eyes answered for an instant. Then the lips were pressed tight in resignation.

  Zeena lowered her voice. “Emma, you have a serious problem. And it concerns somebody very near and dear to you. Or somebody who used to be very near and dear, isn’t that right?” Stan saw the woman’s head nod involuntarily.

  “You are contemplating a serious step—whether to leave this person. And I think he’s your husband.” The woman bit her under lip. Her eyes grew moist quickly. That kind cries at the drop of a hat, Stan thought. If only she had a million bucks instead of a greasy quarter.

  “Now there are two lines of vibration working about this problem. One of them concerns another woman.” The tension left the woman’s face and a sullen frown of disappointment drew over it. Zeena changed her tack. “But now the impressions get stronger and I can see that while there may have been some woman in the past, right now the problem is something else. I see cards … playing cards falling on a table … but no, it isn’t your husband who’s playing. It’s the place … I get it now, clear as daylight. It’s the back room of a saloon.”

  A sob came from the woman, and people twisted their heads this way and that; but Emma was watching the seeress, unmindful of the others.

  “My dear friend, you have a mighty heavy cross to bear. I know all about it and don’t you think I don’t. But the step that confronts you now is a problem with a good many sides. If your husband was running around with other women and didn’t love you that would be one thing. But I get a very strong impression that he does love you—in spite of everything. Oh, I know he acts nasty-mean sometimes but you just ask yourself if any of the blame is yours. Because here’s one thing you must never forget: a man drinks because he’s unhappy. Isn’t anything about liquor that makes a man bad. A man that’s happy can take a drink with the boys on Saturday night and come home with his pay safe in his pocket. But when a man’s miserable about something he takes a drink to forget it and one isn’t enough and he takes another snort and pretty soon the week’s pay is all gone and he gets home and sobers up and then his wife starts in on him and he’s more miserable than he was before and then his first thought is to go get drunk again and it runs around and around in a circle.” Zeena had forgotten the other customers, she had forgotten the pitch. She was talking out of herself. The marks knew it and were hanging on every word, fascinated.

  “Before you take that step,” she went on, suddenly coming back to the show, “you want to be sure that you’ve done all you can to make that man happy. Maybe you can’t learn what’s bothering him. Maybe he don’t quite know himself. But try to find it. Because if you leave him you’ll have to find some way to take care of yourself and the kids anyhow. Well, why not start in tonight? If he comes home drunk put him to bed. Try talking to him friendly. When a man’s drunk he’s a lot like a kid. Well, treat him like a son and don’t go jumping on him. Tomorrow morning let him know that you understand and mother him up a little. Because if that man loves you—” Zeena paused for breath and then rushed on. “If that man loves you it don’t matter whether he makes a living or not. It don’t matter if he stays sober or not. If you’ve got a man that really loves you, you hang on to him like grim death for better or worse.” There was a catch in her voice and for a long moment silence hung in the air over the waiting crowd. “Hang on—because you’ll never regret it as much as you’ll regret sending him away and now folks if you really want to know how the stars affect your life you don’t have to pay five dollars or even one dollar I have here a set of astrological readings all worked out for each and every one of you let me know your date of birth and you get a forecast of future events complete with character reading, vocational guidance, lucky numbers.…”

  For the long haul the Ackerman-Zorbaugh Monster Shows took to the railroad. Trucks loaded on flatcars, the carnies themselves loaded into old coaches
, the train boomed on through darkness—tearing past solitary jerk towns, past sidings of dark freight empties, over trestles, over bridges where the rivers lay coiling their luminous way through the star-shadowed countryside.

  In the baggage car, among piles of canvas and gear, a light burned high up on the wall. A large packing case with auger holes bored in its sides to admit air, stood in the middle of a cleared space. From inside it came intermittent scrapings. At one end of the car the geek lay on a pile of canvas, his ragged, overalled knees drawn up to his chin.

  Around the snake box men made the air gray with smoke.

  “I’m staying.” Major Mosquito’s voice had the insistence of a cricket’s.

  Sailor Martin screwed up the left side of his face against the smoke of his cigarette and dealt.

  “I’m in,” Stan said. He had a Jack in the hole. The highest card showing was a ten in the Sailor’s hand.

  “I’m with you,” Joe Plasky said, the Lazarus smile never changing.

  Behind Joe sat the hulk of Bruno, his shoulders rounding under his coat. He watched intently, his mouth dropping open as he concentrated on Joe’s hand.

  “I’m in, too,” Martin said. He dealt. Stan got another Jack and pushed in three blues.

  “Going to cost you to string along,” he said casually.

  Martin had dealt himself another ten. “I’ll string along.”

  Major Mosquito, his baby head close to the boxtop, stole another glance at his hole card. “Nuts!”

  “Guess it’s between you gents,” Joe said placidly. Bruno, from behind him, said, “Ja. Let them fight it out. We take it easy this time.”

  Martin dealt. Two little ones fell between them. Stan threw more blues in. Martin met him and raised him two more.

  “I’ll see you.”

  The Sailor threw over his hole card. A ten. He reached for the pot.

  Stan smiled and counted his chips. At a sound from the Major all of them jumped. “Hey!” It was like a long-drawn fiddle scrape.

  “What’s eating you, Big Noise?” Martin asked, grinning.

  “Lemme see them tens!” The Major reached toward the center of the snake box with his infant’s hand and drew the cards toward him. He examined the backs.

  Bruno got up and moved over behind the midget. He picked up one of the cards and held it at an angle toward the light.

  “What’s eating you guys?” Martin said.

  “Daub!” Major Mosquito wailed, taking his cigarette from the edge of the box and puffing it rapidly. “The cards are marked with daub. They’re smeared to act like readers. You can see it if you know where to look.”

  Martin took one and examined it. “Damn! You’re right.”

  “They’re your cards,” the Major went on in his accusing falsetto.

  Martin bristled. “What d’ya mean, my cards? Somebody left ’em around the cookhouse. If I hadn’t thought to bring ’em we wouldn’t have had no game.”

  Stan took the deck and riffled them under his thumb. Then he riffled again, throwing cards face down on the table. When he reversed them they were all high ones, picture cards and tens. “That’s daub, all right,” he said. “Let’s get a new deck.”

  “You’re the card worker,” Martin said aggressively. “What do you know about this? Daub is stuff you smear on the other fellow’s cards during the game.”

  “I know enough not to use it,” Stan said easily. “I don’t deal. I never deal. And if I wanted to work any angles I’d stack them on the pick up until I got the pair I wanted on top the deck, undercut and injog the top card of the top half, shuffle off eight, outjog and shuffle off. Then I’d undercut to the outjog—”

  “Let’s get a new deck,” Joe Plasky said. “We won’t any of us get rich arguing about how the cards got marked. Who’s got a deck?”

  They sat silent, the expansion joints of the rails clicking by beneath them. Then Stan said, “Zeena has a deck of fortune-telling cards we can play with. I’ll get them.”

  Martin took the marked deck, stepped to the partly open door and sent the cards flying into the wind. “Maybe a new deck will change my luck,” he said. “I been going bust every hand except the last one.”

  The car shook and pounded on through the dark. Behind the open door they could see the dark hills and a sliver of moon setting behind them with a scattering of stars.

  Stan returned and with him came Zeena. Her black dress was relieved by a corsage of imitation gardenias, her hair caught up on top of her head with a random collection of blond hairpins.

  “Howdy, gents. Thought I’d take a hand myself if I wouldn’t be intruding. Sure gets deadly back in that coach. I reckon I’ve read every movie magazine in the outfit by this time.” She opened her purse and placed a deck of cards on the box. “Now you boys let me see your hands. All clean? ’Cause I don’t want you smooching up these cards and getting ’em dirty. They’re hard enough to get hold of.”

  Stan took the deck carefully and fanned them. The faces were an odd conglomeration of pictures. One showed a dead man, his back skewered with ten swords. Another had a picture of three women in ancient robes, each holding a cup. A hand reaching out of a cloud, on another, held a club from which green leaves sprouted.

  “What do you call these things, Zeena?” he asked.

  “That’s the Tarot,” she said impressively. “Oldest kind of cards in the world. They go all the way back to Egypt, some say. And they’re sure a wonder for giving private readings. Every time I have something to decide or don’t know which way to turn I run them over for myself. I always get some kind of an answer that makes sense. But you can play poker with ’em. They got four suits: wands are diamonds, cups are hearts, swords are clubs, and coins are spades. This bunch of pictures here—that’s the Great Arcana. They’re just for fortunetelling. But there’s one of ’em—if I can find it—we can use for a joker. Here it is.” She threw it out and placed the others back in her purse.

  Stan picked up the joker. At first he couldn’t figure out which end was the top. It showed a young man suspended head down by one foot from a T-shaped cross, but the cross was of living wood, putting out green shoots. The youth’s hands were tied behind his back. A halo of golden light shone about his head and on reversing the card Stan saw that his expression was one of peace—like that of a man raised from the dead. Like Joe Plasky’s smile. The name of the card was printed in old-fashioned script at the bottom. The Hanged Man.

  “Holy Christ, if these damn things don’t change my luck, nothing will,” the Sailor said.

  Zeena took a pile of chips from Joe Plasky, ante’d, then shuffled and dealt the hole cards face down. She lifted hers a trifle and frowned. The game picked up. Stan had an eight of cups in the hole and dropped out. Never stay in unless you have a Jack or better in the hole and drop out when better than a Jack shows on the board. Unless you’ve got the difference.

  Zeena’s frown deepened. The battle was between her, Sailor Martin, and the Major. Then the Sailor dropped out. The Major’s hand showed three Knights. He called. Zeena held a flush in coins.

  “Ain’t you the bluffer,” the Major piped savagely. “Frowning like you had nothing and you sitting on top a flush.”

  Zeena shook her head. “I wasn’t meaning to bluff, even. It was the hole card I was frowning at—the ace of coins, what they call pentacles. I always read that ‘Injury by a trusted friend.”’

  Stan uncrossed his legs and said, “Maybe the snakes have something to do with it. They’re scraping around under the lid here like they were uncomfortable.”

  Major Mosquito spat on the floor, then poked his finger in one of the auger holes. He withdrew it, chirruping. From the hole flicked a forked thread of pink. The Major drew his lips back from his tiny teeth and quickly touched the lighted ember of his cigarette to the tongue. It flashed back into the box and there was the frenzied scraping of coils twisting and whipping inside.

  “Jesus!” Martin said. “You shouldn’t of done that, you little stinke
r. Them damn things’ll get mad.”

  The Major threw back his head. “Ho, ho, ho, ho! Next time I’ll do it to you—I’ll make a hit on the Battleship Maine.”

  Stan stood up. “I’ve had enough, gents. Don’t let me break up the game, though.”

  Balancing against the rock of the train, he pushed through the piled canvas to the platform of the next coach. His left hand slid under the edge of his vest and unpinned a tiny metal box the size and shape of a five-cent piece. He let his hand drop and the container fell between the cars. It had left a dark smudge on his finger. Why do I have to frig around with all this chickenshit stuff? I didn’t want their dimes. I wanted to see if I could take them. Jesus, the only thing you can depend on is your brains!

  In the coach, under the dimmed lights, the crowd of carnival performers and concessioners sprawled, huddled, heads on each others’ shoulders; some had stretched themselves on newspapers in the aisles. In the corner of a seat Molly slept, her lips slightly parted, her head against the glass of the black window.

  How helpless they all looked in the ugliness of sleep. A third of life spent unconscious and corpselike. And some, the great majority, stumbled through their waking hours scarcely more awake, helpless in the face of destiny. They stumbled down a dark alley toward their deaths. They sent exploring feelers into the light and met fire and writhed back again into the darkness of their blind groping.

  At the touch of a hand on his shoulder Stan jerked around. It was Zeena. She stood with her feet apart, braced easily against the train’s rhythm. “Stan, honey, we don’t want to let what’s happened get us down. God knows, I felt bad about Pete. And I guess you did too. Everybody did. But this don’t stop us from living. And I been wondering … you still like me, don’t you, Stan?”

  “Sure—sure I do, Zeena. Only I thought—”

  “That’s right, honey. The funeral and all. But I can’t keep up mourning for Pete forever. My mother, now—she’d of been grieving around for a year but what I say is, it’s soon enough we’ll all be pushing ’em up. We got to get some fun. Tell you what. When we land at the next burg, let’s us ditch the others and have a party.”