He threw down the rest of the applejack and hoped this wasn't the answer. The liquid warmed a path. Perhaps, he thought, it was because he brought a little honest wonder into their lives one night out of the year .
Then he remembered the prairie that surrounded this small and weary town. And the applejack made him want to turn and say something to the men. You don't have to wait for me, he wanted to say. Just open your eyes: there's magic in the air. Show me a tree, I'll show you a trick no magician alive could ever do. The dust underneath your boots is a riddle to keep you up nights: What did it used to be before it was dust? Mountains? And the sun! Hey, keep your eyes on the yellow ball--now it's there, now it isn't. Where does it go to? And why? A stone, a hill, a lake--now there's tricks that are tricks, gentlemen! There is magic for you. And I'd give a lot to figure out how they're done, yes, sir, a lot .
But he didn't say any of this. Instead he ordered another drink and reached over and calmly withdrew a bouquet from a small man's vest. The man jumped back and stared.
"Better shut your mouth, Jeff," the bartender said, winking, "or he'll be taking something out of it you won't want to see!"
The man closed his mouth and everybody laughed.
They gathered around, then, at this signal. "Show us another one now, come on. Give us a rabbit."
Dr. Silk vanished the bouquet and pulled a cartwheel from nowhere.
"Give us a rabbit!"
"Now, boys, I got to save something for tonight. Even magicians have to eat, you know."
"That so? I'd of thought you'd conjure up a steak whenever you felt like it!"
"Well, that's true. But they never taste so good, somehow. Though I do remember one experience when I had no choice in the matter. It was in Russia, and I hadn't et anything but bugs for seventeen days and nights . .
The bartender leaned forward, wiping slowly at a thick glass mug. "You was in Russia?"
"Oh yes," Dr. Silk said. "Got a good friend there--only man I know who can outshoot me. He once knocked the wings off a beetle at fifty paces. And--well, when things get on the dull side, I take a little trip and visit him. Of course, he's always glad to see me, since if it hadn't been for Doc Silk, he'd probably still be sitting on that flagpole . . ."
Every man in the bar had now joined the group. Dr. Silk looked around, took a breath, and began to talk.
He knew they would believe him. After all, how can you doubt the word of a man who pulls roses out of the air?
Obadiah rang the bells; the crowd hushed; Dr. Silk walked through the curtained tunnel from the wagon to the stage.
He bowed gravely. A creature he was from another world, as strange in this tiny Kansas town as a comet. Oil lamps from below threw unearthly light across his face, curving the shadow of his mustaches up into the squints of his eyes. He was unreal. At any moment he might turn into a hawk or crumble into a little heap of stars or snap his fingers and change night into day.
"Ladies and gentlemen--" His voice was smooth and deep, a roar of ocean. "--and good friends!"
Far away there was the snorting of restless ponies; otherwise the town was silent, gathered here. Children sat on boxes or their fathers's shoulders: a few were squeezed as close to the platform as they could get, squirrel-eyed already, watching.
"The wonders I have brought to you tonight are here for your edification and enjoyment. They were taught to me by an East Indian princess, in exchange for saving her life. Before that eventful happenstance on the Fiji Isles, I was an ordinary man, possessed of no more powers than you . . . or you . . ." His finger jabbed out, pointing to one and then to another. ". . . or you. Then I learned the Mysteries of the Ages, and dedicated myself to bringing them to the people of the United States, my home. Later on I'll tell you all about a magic remedy that you can't get anywhere else--you all know it by now. But first: On with the show!"
And with a twist of his wrist, Dr. Silk plucked a crimson handkerchief out of the air. While the people watched, he balled the cloth into his fist, held it, and said, "Allakazam!" and shook loose five handkerchiefs, all knotted together, all different colors.
Applause tumbled out over the stage. Shouts and laughter and shrill little cries. Micah Jackson's body became inhabited by a demon: the demon made legs hop that could never have hopped otherwise; the old man in the black suit moved about the stage with youthful, fluid grace, prancing, bowing, skittering.
Rapidly, he pulled wonders from his sleeves. He borrowed a young cowboy's hat and broke six eggs into it and then made the eggs disappear: Presto! He showed the people two bright yellow hoops, eternally joined as the links of a chain. Strong men tried to pull the hoops apart. Clever men searched for the tiny hinges that had to be there, and weren't. Ordinary hoops? Very well. Rickety-rack, pom pety-pom! And with a flourish, Dr. Silk separated the hoops and sent them rolling away.
The applause was guns going off now, it was horses stampeding. Dr. Silk ate it and drank it, and knew that of all the places he had ever been, Two Forks loved him most. He'd actually thought he had been slipping, losing the love that nourished him--and listen to them now!
Obadiah, looking fierce and mysterious in the light, as a head-hunter ought to look, put the miracles away with immense style. Sometimes--on times like this--the old man seemed to forget that he had joined Dr. Silk as the result of a bet: he seemed to remember far-off jungles of Arabian Deserts or floating islands in the clouds. Obadiah was old, he partook of the wonder against his will.
Now Dr. Silk was crawling inside a coffin, and the eyes of the people broadened, and their fists clenched, and their breath stopped in their throats.
Obadiah's voice boomed majestically. "Will somebody from the audience kindly step up and nail down the lid?"
A farmer let friends push him up onto the stage. He grinned foolishly, and winked, and put his shoulders into the hammer. The farmer went back into the crowd, full of triumph. "He's foxed now, you can wager. He's in that box for good!"
Obadiah stretched his arms and held up a lavender curtain and counted: "One! Two! Three! Four! Are you ready, Doctor?"
"Ready!"
And there was Dr. Silk, standing by the coffin, bowing.
The people stomped, shouted, yelled, thumped, while the children kept crying, "How'd you do it? Tell us how you did it!"
The miracles went on, wrapping the people of Two Forks tighter and tighter in the spell. Time ceased to exist, while rabbits hopped out of top hats and cards flew loose like wild pigeons, only to fly back again, and chairs and tables floated on the still night air.
"Pick a card, sir. Any card."
(The pains were coming back, getting into his bones.)
"Well, I don't know--"
"Got it?"
(Hot pains, knifing. Get away!)
"Yeah, I guess so!"
"Is there--" Dr. Silk had to gasp to keep the hurting from his body "--is there any way I could have seen that card, sir?"
"Not that I know of there ain't."
"Sure about that?"
(Better now; a little better; passing.)
"Yeah."
"All right. The card you're holding . . . might it be the ace of spades?"
"God bless us, that's what it is, sure enough!"
"Thank you, sir, thank you. And now--"
The people of Two Forks listened to a speech made by a villainous looking dummy, they watched silver dollars appear from their vests, from their ears, from their hair . . .
(The pain gathered in his heart, punched, and subsided.)
"If you found it on me, dammit, then I figure it's mine!"
And all the while, the children screeching, "Please tell us! How'd you do that one, Dr. Silk? Did it really come out of nowhere? Show us how! Please!"
Finally, it was time for the last magic. Perspiring, Dr. Silk told them about the years he had spent in Ethiopia, and how the maharaja had refused absolutely and how he'd had to creep into the palace in the dead of night, at great risk to his life, in order to steal the e
nchanted basket.
"Is it empty, sir?"
"Empty as it can be!"
"Nothing whatever inside? Hold it up for everybody to see, please. Nothing there?"
"Nope."
"I'd like a strong man, please. A man with muscles, who knows how to throw."
"Go on, Doody! Go on."
"Ah, thank you. Now then, I want you to take this empty basket and throw it straight up into the air, as high as you can. Is that clear?"
"Just toss it up in the air, you mean?"
"That's right. Ready? One . . . two . . . three . . . Throw it, sir!"
The man threw the basket: it sailed upward. All eyes held it. Then there was an explosion, and eyes jerked back to Dr. Silk, who stood on the stage with the smoking pistol in his hand. The basket fell back to the stage, rolled, was still.
"Mr. Doody, would you care to remove the lid?"
The man poked tentatively at the basket's woven teapot lid. It fell aside.
"The Lord!"
And out of the basket shot a hundred snakes! Red ones, green ones, yellow ones--jerking, twitching serpentines, like a rainbow come suddenly apart.
Dr. Silk looked over at Obadiah, who grinned and winked and immediately hauled out the boxes of Wonderol.
The people stood smiling out as far as you could see. Bowing, Dr. Silk listened to their applause; he listened and felt the love as it cascaded over the oil lamps. And he knew it was the sweetest, most marvelous feeling that could be: he wished he could do more--something to repay them for this love which, if they knew it, kept him alive, nourished him, let the heart of Micah Jackson beat on. If he could make them see the magic around them, that would be a repayment--but how many ever saw this magic? No, he couldn't do that for the people. Yet--.
"How'd you do it?" The high-voiced softly shrill question had become a chant. The children were ecstatic: "Tell us, tell us, please!"
Begging, imploring. Would he do this for them, would he, please?
Dr. Silk felt the applejack--"Mr. Jackson, if you don't cut it out, you'll be dead in a year, I promise you"--and his head seemed to dance with the children's question.
Then, all at once, he knew. He knew what he could give the people. He knew how he could say thank you and say good-by, gracefully, forever.
"All right," he called. "Gather round, now!"
"What are you gonna do? You gonna. . . show us how the magic's done? Are you?"
Dr. Silk looked at them. You know better than this, he thought, and he thought: It is because you're going to have the big tricks explained to you in a little while and you know how you'll feel and you want them to feel the same? No. It isn't. And it isn't a test, either. Or anything. Just a way to repay them.
"Yes," Dr. Silk said, "I am."
Obadiah's jaw fell. He walked over quickly. "You ain't really?" he said.
"I am. The children want it, Obadiah. I'll never be able to do anything else for them--you know that. And just look at their eyes."
"I wouldn't Doctor, swear to the Lord."
"He's gonna show us!"
The clapping began again. Everyone pressed close, expectant, waiting.
"Don't do it," Obadiah said. "Let's just sell us some medicine like we always do and scat."
But Dr. Silk was already reaching into the black box.
He removed the enchanted hoops. "Now I want you to pay close attention," he declared.
"We will." "Shhh!"
Carefully, then, with exaggerated simplicity, he showed how there were actually three hoops, how two of them fit together and where the third one came from.
"See?"
The children squealed incredulously and clapped their hands. Someone said, "I'll be damned, I will be damned."
"Show us more!"
Dr. Silk felt the pain again. "You want to see more?" he asked. "You really and truly do?"
"Yes!"
Obadiah grunted and sat down.
"Very well." And Dr. Silk went on to show them the magic cane, and how it wasn't magic at all. "See," he smiled, "the flowers, which ain't real, they fold up, like this, inside the head. They're there all the time. Then I just press this here spring and it releases them. I bought it in Chicago at a warehouse. . ."
One by one, carefully, Dr. Silk explained his miracles. The deck of cards that contained nothing but aces of spades; the eggs that really weren't eggs at all; the coffin that had no bottom . . .
"Just lift it off, you see, and put it back. Just like that!"
Gradually the squealings died. The audience thinned. But the Magic Man did not notice: he could think of nothing but the love the people had given him and how he must repay them. So he did not feel the wrinkles jumping back into his face, or the dust of far-off places falling from his suit, or hear the way the crowd was turning quiet; or see the children's faces, with their hundred dimming lights.
When at last he had come to the enchanted basket--snakes coiled neatly in the flase bottom--Dr. Silk stopped, and blinked away the wetness. "We're all magicians now," he said, his smile poised, waiting.
There were murmurs beyond the flickering of the lamps, and shufflings.
The people were silent. They looked at one another furtively, and a few giggled, while a few wore angry expressions.
Slowly, they began to disperse.
The people began to go away.
Dr. Silk felt the pain another time, more strongly than ever before: almost a new kind of pain, wrenching at his heart. He saw the boy with the freckles who had been with him this afternoon. The boy's eyes were moist. He paused, staring, then he wheeled and tore away into the shadows.
"But, I thought you wanted--" Dr. Silk saw the dark night faces clearly. No one looked back.
The bartender from the Wild Silver Saloon seemed about to say something--his face was red and embarrassed, not angry--but then he turned and walked off too.
In moments the tiny stage, the wagon, stood alone. Dr. Silk did not move. He kept staring over the lights, just standing there, staring.
"Boss, let's go. Let's us go."
"Obadiah--" Dr. Silk took a hold of the Negro's thin shoulders. "They didn't actually believe in me, did they? Did they honestly believe I could--"
Obadiah shrugged. "Let's us get on out of here," he said. Then he began to pick up the tarnished wonders, quickly, and hurl them into the box.
"All right." Dr. Silk looked down at his hands, at the lint-flecked, worn black suit, at the cracking patent-leather shoes. "All right." He thought of the children and all their dying faces, of the men and their faces--hard and astonished and dumbfounded as if they'd heard God snore, and watched Him get drunk, and found that He was no different from them, and so, once more, they were left with nothing to believe in.
He felt the pain come rushing.
"Why? Lord, tell me that."
Dr. Silk went through the curtained tunnel back into the wagon and sat down on the straw pallet and sat there, quietly, and did not move even when the wagon lurched and began to sway.
After a long time, he took off the black suit, the green vest, the white shirt. He got the wax out of his mustaches.
Then he went to the window and stood there, looking out over the prairie, the moon-drenched, cool eternal prairie, moving past him. For hours, for miles.
And while he stood there, the hurting grew; it came back into his body, piercing, hard, familiar hurting.
"Why?"
The wagon stopped.
"You feel all right now, Doctor?" Obadiah held onto the door. He looked frightened and lost.
The Magic Man studied his friend; then he snorted and leaned back and closed his eyes. He tried not to think of the people. He tried not to think of Micah Jackson asking How's it done? and then learning as he would, so soon now, so very soon.
"It reminds me of the time," he said softly, "in Calcutta, when I went six months without hearing the sound of a human voice . . ."
Obadiah walked over to the pallet and sat down, smiling. "I don't recall you
ever mentioned that experience to me, Dr. Silk," he said. "Tell me about it, would you, please?"
* * *
Introduction to FAIR LADY
(by George Clayton Johnson)
* * *
When I was offered an opportunity to select a story of Charles Beaumont's for this collection, I immediately thought of "Fair Lady."
It may seem an odd choice.
As many of you know it is a slight story that takes up only 5 pages in Beaumont's 183 page THE HUNGER And Other Stories, his first story collection. Before being published in THE HUNGER, "Fair Lady" had never been printed before, written while Beaumont was still an unknown young man striving to become a published writer.
A mainstream story like "Fair Lady" has a tough time of it in the marketplace, even though it may have great merit, simply because it doesn't fit into a convenient genre. Its very ordinariness and simplicity works against it. And yet, there is a lot of fragile magic packed in these few plain pages. The story's tone perfectly matches its subject matter, and one feels as he reads it that each word has been chosen with special precision to carry a freightload of delicate associations. Its pace is slow and yet the story is a model of terseness and suspense containing that quality which people call "classic" when they encounter it.
"Fair Lady" is Charles Beaumont's tenderest short story.
It is about the joys and perils of living in a dreamworld and deals in what Beaumont called "The Greater Truth."
Cold facts never had much appeal to Beaumont. He was aware of them, but would search around and over and behind them looking for something better. It was one of his greatest talents as a storymaker, what William F. Nolan called "thinking sideways"--a way of deliberately ignoring obvious connections to look for the unlikely and to be able to make an emotion-laden case for it--to discover the warm facts that often made the cold ones irrelevant. "If you want your castles to last forever, make them out of sand," he Once told me.
I know from my own experience that many of a beginning writer's first stories are written blindly, on speculation, often at night on the kitchen table and submitted, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope to addresses culled from the back pages of popular magazines. When the story comes back more frayed than before with a printed rejection form that gives no reason for the rejection the writer will re-examine the manuscript again seeking the flaw that has betrayed him, trying to see with fresh eyes and, having decided to alter it he must retype it again before submitting it to a new potential market to have it returned again and again.
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