"No, ma'am, Nebraska."

"Why, I could have sworn Utah to look at your troops. So tidy. So disciplined. I would have thought Utah, with their boots polished just so. You must be very proud."

21.

On the Lam

Papa, old in his chair, and Mama, crocheting and dreaming with her eyes open, as we all pretended that this was a night of children and stories like the old days. Only Arty was missing, off alone in his van. The twins held Chick, who was reading aloud to them, and I sat on the floor with my hump warm against Papas bony leg.

"'What makes you look so white, so white?' said Files-on-Parade.

"I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch,' the Color-Sergeant said."

Chick's voice, sharp as gla.s.s in its chanting, stopped abruptly as he sprang off the twins' lap and whirled around to look at them.

"Did a pin stick you?" The twins' surprised faces opened. Chick shook his head, frowning.

"Ah, the boy's tired of hanging Danny Deever. Too glum!" growled Papa. "Let him cremate Sam McGee instead. Come, boychik, begin, 'There are strange things done!' and give it a roll this time! Breathe from your crotch up!"

But Chick wouldn't recite and he wouldn't crawl up on the twins' lap anymore but came and sat by me while Papa boomed through Sam McGee and we all did north-wind noises, dog-team yappings, and the ghostly voice saying, "Close that door!"

Papa tottered off to bed soon afterward and Mama went in for her shower. That's when the twins pounced on Chick. He blushed and stammered. He hadn't meant to hurt their feelings.

"But why did you look like that?"

"I just didn't know you had that little guy in there with you. It surprised me. Then I didn't want to lean on him. I thought it might hurt him."

The matching faces were as grey as old meat. "What little guy?"

"That one, asleep there," and Chick pointed. Which is how the twins discovered that they were pregnant for sure.

"We're not going to sit waiting in that f.u.c.king infirmary tent with all those slimy norms drooling at us!" So Elly said. Iphy pointed out that Doc P. refused to see them otherwise, and they had no choice.

"Come with us, Oly. Stay with us when she examines us. We're scared of her."

So we sat on folding chairs against the sunlit canvas wall and listened to the flies buzzing high up around the center pole, and to the twittering of the dozen or so amputees who were waiting in wheelchairs (if they were past the foot stage) or on folding chairs if they were still working on fingers and toes. Chick came and sat beside me with an exotic-bird coloring book and a handful of colored pens, whiling away his free hour by filling in the eyes on the peac.o.c.ks tail with slow, painstaking blue. "Doc P. says this is good for my hands," Chick explained. None of Arty's followers spoke to us but they all looked at us out of the corners of their eyes. I sat counting the fading yellow gra.s.s blades dying beneath the chairs.

When Doc P. s nurse finally led us up the steps to the examining room of the clinic, Doc P. was not pleased to see us.

"If Chick says you're pregnant and you've missed your period, there's no use wasting my time. You're pregnant. Anyway, I'm a surgeon, not an obstetrician. Your father is the one you should talk to. He's got experience in this field."

The twins leaned on the examining table, looking humble. She didn't ask them to sit down. She sat, thick and puffy white, masked and gloved, behind her white metal desk, doing spider-mirror pushups with her fingers touching. I was afraid and the twins were afraid. Doc P. was not our turf at all.

"What they wanted," I croaked, "was to get rid of it." The twins nodded on alternate beats. Doc P. rose up slowly, her white masked face pushed forward, her thick gla.s.s lenses winking intently.

"Presumably these talented singers can speak. You have tongues?"

I glanced at the twins, half-expecting them to shove their tongues out in dutiful demonstration.

"Rid of it? Rid of it?" Doc P. crooned.

The twins nodded in miserable syncopation.

"And Papa wouldn't like? Papa wouldn't do it? No. Papa would want you to hatch the monster, wouldn't he? It's been years since poor old Al had a baby to play with, hasn't it?"

The seeping acid in Dr. Phyllis's tone wore at my bones, peeling my teeth. I tugged at Elly's hand, wanting to leave, but they were staring at her as she sat back down and clasped her hands on the desk in front of her.

"No. I could nip it out of you in five minutes and no harm done. Don't think I couldn't. But I'm not going to, and I'll tell you why. I have a contract with your Arturo, and young Arturo does not wish it. He is looking forward to being an uncle. It's not for me to deny Arturo this pleasure. And it's not for you to defy him. Drink milk. Eat greens. Your abdominal muscles are strong. It will be months before you show. And one last bit of healthful advice. Whatever you've been doing to make Arturo angry, stop it."

We slogged out past the blank-eyed patients waiting to have their stumps examined.

"It's odd," Iphy said as we went toward the Chute, "that's the first time we've ever spoken to her."

"You never said a word," I pointed out.

"We've never had anything to do with her or Arty's crowd. Don't they make you feel strange? They're always around, underfoot. That slum camp stretches for acres, but we don't really know what they're doing or why. Should we find out? Are you going to vomit? Elly?"

And Elly did, in the dust between the refrigerator truck and the cat wagon.

"I was going home for lunch," said Chick, "when the twins went boo from behind the cat wagon. I didn't know they were there. They got mixed up with the cats in my head. Elly said would I pick that little guy out of their belly. Iphy too. They wanted me to. I felt kind of surprised thinking maybe I could help them, do something for them, not just moving furniture. Then I felt around, reached in to see what it was like inside, see if I could do it. I try not to go inside people. Sometimes it happens by accident, like sitting on their lap that little guy came out at me! That's what I do for Doc P. and I try not to do it the rest of the time. But the little guy is in there, all right. I told them that I couldn't do anything to the little guy, that you'd told me specially not to, not to do anything to get the little guy out of them. Iphy went away into herself but Elly scared me."

"How?" asked Arty. "Did she yell? Or think hate thoughts? She didn't hit you, did she?"

"No. She pushed OUT, like a thing that won't die."

"Did you ever get any lunch? No? Those girls in the office made pie. Cut me a slice too. And let's see if you can tell whether I want banana cream or chocolate."

"Arty, I can't do that."

"Try."

"You know I can't."

From the files of Norval Sanderson: Chaos rules-midway shut down for the first time in years- Arturo in a genuine frenzy-sweating heavily at the radio transmitter in his van-speaking calmly while his whole body twitches, jerks and writhes in his chair. His shorts and a green velvet shirt, sodden black with sweat, the vinyl of his seat smeared with sweat, Arty's bald pate dripping sweat into his eyes. Little Oly stands by with an endless supply of tissues to mop his face, wipe his eyes. She runs errands. His voice stays clear, unhurried, precise as it goes out over the transmitter.

Big Binewski pops in and out with his mustache tangled - the mother's collapsed in bed with a redhead in attendance - the youngest, Chick, is out with the posse - Arty, at the radio, is in direct contact with fifteen vehicles full of Binewski guards and other show employees - all looking for the twins, Electra and Iphigenia, who have run away from home.

Oly, the faithful watchdog, insists that the twins have been abducted. Oly keeps trying to shoo me out of the van, away from Arty, but I see enough. For example - Arty is sending the posse to clinics and doctors-the addresses found for him by Oly, who leafs through a stack of local phone books that may cover three states. Oly is getting testy at not being able to get rid of me and Arty evidently doesn't care. I decide to let her shoo me. This looks like an all-day session.

Finally she nods me off to the door as though to give me a private word. Turns out she is changing tactics-wants me to go check on Crystal Lil, see if the old broad is still alive, and then -Oly the cool one - would I just drop in on the Admitted Office and see that the Arturans stay calm in the face of this unexpected interruption of routine? Arty is saying, "Chick, are you hearing me? What about the nurse pract.i.tioner service I gave you? ... Should be within a mile of where you are now ... " with the voice of men discussing mild weather.

Standing on the step, I look down at Oly - teasing her that I may change my mind and come back in after all. "Tell me, Oly, why is Arty so upset? I've never seen him like this!" She shrugs her hump and twists her frog mouth into a pained grin, "Family. The Binewskis are big on family."

I stroll over to the redheads' dormitory trailers. They are deserted except for buxom Bella, with a chaw in her jaw, perched in an open door so she can spit at the next trailer while painting her toenails.

Bella snorts at the twins' absence - explains that they've gone off with Rita (the redhead) and Rita's sweetie, McFee, in McFee's elderly pickup. The twins are knocked up, explains Bella, "probably by that pus sack, the Bag Man" - and the girls are looking to get "sc.r.a.ped out" (searching for an abortion) despite "His Armlessness, His Almighty Leglessness" having forbid it.

Redheads reading magazines in the Binewski van say Crystal Lil is asleep on pills.

The Arturan office queen, Miz Z., unperturbed, has her battalion of campers contemplating their stumps and meditating on P.I.P. (Peace, Isolation, Purity)-generally lollygagging in the sun and oblivious of the situation on the other side of the fence. As long as lunch and supper happen, they won't notice.

Randy J. - a Binewski guard and ex - Marine who was driving the van when the twins were located. Randy says it was an Ob-Gyn office - Chick spotted the pickup and the Rita redhead smoking a cigarette out front. The vigilantes busted in ...

"They were up on the table on their hands and knees, bare a.s.s sticking up in the air kind of pitiful with the nurse getting 'em ready. See us, they about go to the moon, jump down screaming, try to break out the window. I scared they'd hurt themselves, catch h.e.l.l from the boss. But, Jesus, that little b.u.g.g.e.r, Chick, steps through and looks at 'em, down they go to sleep in a pile on the floor. We just sort through for arms and legs, tote 'em out to the van and the nurse and the doc dithering behind us. Rita and McFee gone. Jumped in that beat-up old Dodge and gone. Know they're in up to their a.s.s, see?

"Them twins sleep sweet in the back all the way here. That boy Chick did something. Some hypnotism, maybe. Tell you, it scared the s.h.i.t outa me. You shoulda seen it!"

Which, I a.s.sume, means that the twins fainted. They're locked in their trailer under guard now as we move on.

Arty is laid up. He's staying in his trailer van. He's got a bandage across one ear and on the cheek on the same side, and a thick dressing on his neck just below that ear. A thin scratch on his chest is visible - just the end of it - at the edge of his shirt collar. He is NOT explaining the damage. He's moody - an anger that alternates with what I suspect is grief. All very controlled, of course. He discusses philosophy. Talks Arturism. Nothing personal allowed.

Oly, his maid of all work, is running constantly between Arty's van and the twins.

The twins are jailed in their van, incommunicado.

The redheads say (buxom Bella, jouncing Jennifer, and Vicki) that Arty went into the twins' van just as they were coming around - waking up from their capture at the doctor's office.

"His Armlessness, the Mighty Fin, was gonna read 'em the riot act. He's all high and mighty and they flipped out on him."

"Just Elly. She went for him. Tried to bite out his jugular. Iphy couldn't stop her. That Elly's a rocket to Reno when she's rolling."

"He's in there alone, see. Just the pinky, Oly, to wheel his chair. Oly screams for the guard and jumps on Elly, trying to pull her off. You catch her without her sungla.s.ses you'll see. Oly's got a doozy of a shiner."

"A week off is what they're saying. First time this show's been closed down that long in more than eighteen years. I can use it. Fine by me."

Caught Chick crushing ants today in the dust. Shocked me. He's very gentle, usually. I've seen him watch his feet not to step on a bug. Feels terrible if he kills one by accident. I went out to check on the fly farm and heard a m.u.f.fled thumping around back. There was Chick, dancing and stamping on a small anthill. His face red, eyes glaring, respiration fast. When he saw me he stopped, stood still, looked down at the ground around his feet and burst out bawling. Scrawny ten-year-old kid, wailing like his heart was boiling out through his ears.

I picked him up and took him over to the water tank. Dabbed my hanky under the tap and washed his face and waited for the storm to ease. He leaned on my knee and tried to get a grip on himself. Touched my own crusty heart, I admit. Brave little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Finally started asking questions but got little out of him.

Total gist: He tries "to be good and help but it seems like everything turns out wrong" and he's "no good to anybody and ends up hurting instead of helping people." Pretty heavy load for a tyke.

I beat the bush, working around some of the wild stories they tell about him in the midway. He got embarra.s.sed. Clammed up. At last he says, "They can't figure out why all the other kids are special and I'm not. They make stuff up, crazy stuff, so I'll seem special too."

Maybe this crew is getting to me. Maybe I sat too close to too many big explosions and the miniature ruptures in my brain are spreading over to dementia pugilistica. Maybe it's just me being contrary.

The h.e.l.l of it is, Chick's explanation was a replica of what I've been telling myself all along. But, when he told me precisely that, I didn't believe a word of it. What the h.e.l.l does he do with that fat spider Doc P. ? How come a ten-year-old kid runs the anesthetic for every operation? Some of the stump folks claim it's just air coming through the mask and that the real painkiller is Chick himself. How many times have I heard people claim that their pain disappears the instant Chick comes near them? I've had no discomfort during my surgery but I never noticed anything about Chick. He's just there. I'll pay closer attention next time.

Here I am trying to make a case for healing powers or mental fingers or some such hog wallop. The kid's a colorless little drudge with an inferiority complex at not being a freak like his brother and sisters. He overcompensates with an idiot sensitivity halfway to martyrdom. The perfect patsy. Anything to please. Christ knows, anybody with Arty for a brother is in deep water trying to preserve his self-esteem.

So the kid says he thinks when he dies all the creatures he has ever hurt will be waiting for him, looking at him, still hurting from the hurt he laid on them ... Says he was walking along "just now" and stepped on a lone ant before he noticed it. "Failed again as usual" seems to be his feeling. So he flips off the rails and goes berserk on the anthill.

Ike Thiebault, the guard, sits on a folding yellow plastic deck chair next to the door of the twins' van. He nods peaceably at everyone entering or leaving the Binewski van or Arty's van. The portable "porch" or platform on which Ike sits has steps at one end, a ramp for Arty's chair on the side, and is supposed to have a reticulated flex tunnel over it to keep out the weather. The Binewskis never get around to setting up the tunnel.

Today - 10 A.M. or so - Jouncing Jenny, the redhead who complains about having to color her "honey-blond" hair, comes up the step with an armload of magazines and catalogues.

"Ike, honey, these are for the twins. I got to deliver 'em," she says. Ike, who is halfway through a self-help book promising him a method for making money in his spare time, stands up, embarra.s.sed.

"n.o.body goes in, Jenny. That's my orders."

"These are catalogues that just got here in the mail bag. It's just clothes and knickknacks. No harm. The twins want 'em to shop from." Jenny is rolling her bare golden shoulder at Ike and being gently provocative. Ike is far from immune but locked into his duty.

"Only ones can go in or out is Miss Oly and Mr. Arty. That's my orders."

"Well, Ike, you take 'em in. It don't matter. The girls want them catalogues. Ordered 'em six weeks ago. You take 'em in."

"Jenny, you'll think I'm a fool but I can't. I can't go in myself."

"You can't knock on the door and stand outside and hand in a few catalogues?" Jenny's eyebrows, plucked to whispers, are expressing delicate but scornful disbelief. Ike takes offense.

"Listen, you knock on Arty's door and ask him."

Jenny backs down immediately. "I'll just leave 'em here, Ike. If Miss Oly goes in you ask her kindly would she take these catalogues to her sisters."

2 P.M. Midway swinging noisily in background.

Crystal Lil trips eagerly out the door of the Big B van with a hunk of sea-green cloth in her hands. Lil has recently gone over to "sensible walking shoes" as part of her "Grandma" image but she hasn't adjusted to the low heels and still tends to tiptoe. This is the first time I've seen her wear her spectacles out of the van. She looks energetic and cheery and has, no doubt, just popped an upper or two. She reaches to knock on the twins' door and poor Ike, the guard, hauls himself out of his deck chair stuttering.

"Beg your pardon, ma'am ... " and the rest I can't hear. It's obvious he won't let her in to see the twins. She's incredulous. He's embarra.s.sed. It's one thing to turn away a redhead and another thing entirely to refuse the Boss Mom. Her body stiffens as his message becomes real to her. She is suddenly very old, three hundred years' worth of iron-spined Bostonian motherhood. He withers, shuffling, unable to look at her, apparently referring her to Arty. She marches to Arty's door with the blue-green cloth trailing, revealing its form as it flaps behind her - a two-necked, four-armed maternity dress, its hem pinned sketchily in place, its seams unfinished. Arty's door stays closed. No answer. Lil bunches the dress in her fists and lurches back to her own van. Her hair strikes me as grey today, rather than white.

22.

Nose Spites Face, Lip Disappears

Arty ordered the twins' tent broken down. Zephir McGurk set to figuring how to use the materials to enlarge Arty's tent. The twins' stage truck remained, closed up for travel. The big piano gathered dust.

Crystal Lil was upset. Papa spent hours trying to calm her. She said the twins had been "closed down." He used the word "sabbatical."

"They'll have their hands full with the baby." He'd say, "Remember how tired you got? They're strong enough, but, Lily, they're beginning to show. They can't be on stage with a bulging belly. We'd have riots in the tents. Investigations."

"Al, they're not yet nineteen years old. If they stop working now, they'll drift. They shouldn't be idle. And why can't I see them? They need me."

"It's an adjustment period for them. Settling to the idea of motherhood."

"Sounds like something Arty would say."

The security booth looking into Arty's big room was my responsibility again. The cot had been moved out and only the tall stool and the gun occupied the bare cubicle. I could still smell the medicine and sweat and the faint reek of decay that the Bag Man had left behind. I arranged myself on the stool and stared through the one-way gla.s.s into Arty's big room. Gradually my legs, in fact my whole a.s.s, went to sleep. Numb and useless. But I was lucky. It was spewing rain outside and Arty's cuddler for the evening was sitting on the propane tank under his window holding a soggy hunk of newspaper over her hair. By the time he let her in she would look like a smeared possum rather than the tight-bunned little c.u.n.t notcher she was. I forget her name. They were all Didi or Lisa or Suki in those days. He'd pick them out of the norm screamers at the gate when he came through after his show. They'd be jumping and howling for a look at him as he came out the back of the stage truck in his golf cart. He'd lean back, grin lots of teeth around the control bulb in his mouth, and drive past the chain-link fence to let them see him. If he stopped the cart I, or one of the security guards, would get his instructions.