I
THE BAZAAR. INSIDE there it will all make sense. And my brother and I waited until both parents had fallen asleep, and drifted the car out of the driveway and down the street until it swung around the block, then I shoved it in gear and it kicked on; it began to hum, and we drove it deep into the night toward the lights we saw in the sky, the reflections, the illumination of the bazaar outside of town.
“Do you have any money?” I asked.
No. He had no money. And he sat sort of stiff but wide-eyed with one hand on the chromium door handle.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. We don’t need any money. If you get hungry, I’ll get you something to eat. Just don’t worry, OK? I see you sitting over there worrying. Well, don’t worry. Do you hear? Don’t worry.”
I had grown tired of waiting. Waiting. And I had also grown tired of listening to him asking for me to take him for a ride. Hanging around. Waiting for me. But I was waiting. And not a goddamned thing seemed to ever move in that house. Was somebody going to take us on this trip? Or weren’t they? And it didn’t seem to be going to happen.
Well, I would. And in a ball field way outside town, they were parking the cars. Beyond the cars were the tents and the hundred lights. And he and I pulled the old man’s car over by second base and walked toward the tents. He was about a foot smaller than me, but I had loaned him my leather jacket. It made him look older. But his fucking pants were too short. You could see if you looked down at his legs and shoes that he was still a kid. I mean a real kid. But he wasn’t acting like a kid this night. And the two of us silently, no talking between us, continued walking, and at the gate we were greeted by a woman.
“Good evening, men,” she said.
My brother nodded seriously, as if he had been here before.
“Where is your money?” she inquired.
“We haven’t any,” I said.
“Well, you have to have money to come in here. Gentlemen.
“Did you leave your wallets at home?”
My brother nodded seriously again.
She laughed out loud. “I can’t imagine such gentlemen being without their wallets.
“Where do you keep your rubber jimmys? And the Popeye and Olive dirty pictures?
“You,” she said, “the little one. I’m speaking to you.”
And my brother looked straight ahead seriously. “Popeye’s dead,” he said.
“Popeye’s dead!” And she laughed even more animatedly. Then reached down and cupped her hand at my brother’s crotch, then squeezed. “How long has Popeye been dead?” she whispered.
“Popeye’s been dead 100 years,” he answered looking straight ahead, seriously. “Popeye died intestate. Olive’s living on a poor farm over in Sharon. And my brother and I just come down here to spend the day. We’re the Slatterlys.”
She looked up at me still holding onto his little cock and remarked, seriously, “This one seems to know something that you or I don’t, brother.”
“Mr. Slatterly,” she addressed him, still holding tight, “You ever been to such a place as this before?”
“No, I ain’t. Just the state fair.”
“Well, this ain’t a state fair, Sir.”
“I suspected it weren’t,” he answered.
“When did you begin to suspect that?”
“Well, when I looked up there and saw the sign.”
“What sign?” She looked puzzled.
“The sign that says MIDGETS AND FREAKS GET IN FREE. Me and him’s a midget and a freak. And I suspect you’ve already decided that, ain’t you?” And he took her hand away from his crotch, began shaking it and saying, “Slatterly’s the name. Jim Slatterly. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
And she let us in.
“Rubber jimmys and Popeye,” he scoffed. “What she think we are? Kids?”
Neither of us seemed as self-conscious now that we had gotten in. And on either side of us for perhaps the length of a city block were tents with different colored lights decorating them. And men. Everywhere, men walking up and down the midway.
“Wouldn’t it be a joke if we met the old man here?” he remarked.
I agreed. “Remember, we stick together here,” I said. But despite his seeming nonchalance, I knew he wasn’t about to run off. He’d stick close by, very close by. In front of each of the tents somebody stood on a wooden crate telling a story. Up and down the midway there were all these different men on boxes telling some story. And the flaps to each of these tents were drawn closed. Some tents had numerous men listening to the speakers; others had none, or virtually none. We were drawn to the tent with the greatest number of spectators. Jim pulled me right up to the front.
It seems we had just come in about the middle of the man’s story. I couldn’t quite make it out. It seemed all fucked up. Confused. The guy was talking seriously, just like a preacher, but everything was fucked up in the story. It made no sense to me. Something about an allegory and men in a cave and shadows and fire and Pluto, I thought he said. But my brother began laughing like hell.
“What’s he saying, Jim? I don’t understand a goddamn thing he is saying.”
“I don’t either,” he said. “But you have to pretend you understand, or we’ll get our asses kicked out of here.”
So the both of us laughed. And laughed. And the speaker seemed to brighten up. And he pulled me up onto his box.
“This man here knows what I am talking about. Don’t you, Sir? Now in your words, tell those men out there what I am trying to say. Tell them just what they are going to see once inside this tent.”
My brother stood happily in front, urging me to speak. He cupped his prick with his left hand as if it were a signal, and nodded for me to speak.
“Well, you are talking about why we shouldn’t hold our little lights under a basket.”
“That’s right!” he exclaimed. “Now tell them why.”
“Because,” I said, “Theology is the Queen of Science and she refuses, absolutely (I was feeling more courageous), to grab hold of any man’s prick who doesn’t believe in the Word of God, if you get what I mean.”
“Agape!” I heard someone shout in the crowd.
“Bullshit,” another rejoined.
“And you, little one,” he motioned to my brother. “Have you anything to add?
“What’s his name?” he asked me.
“Dan,” I replied.
“You, Dan, what do you have to tell these men?
“Come on. Speak up. Don’t be shy!” the speaker exhorted.
“Popeye’s dead.”
And the crowd of men began laughing. Like one body. Laughing hilariously. And my brother began laughing. Encouraged, he jumped up on the box with the speaker and me.
“Listen!” he shouted.
“You don’t believe it?”
They became silent.
They expectantly waited for him to tell them more.
“Popeye’s Dead,” he said. And they resumed laughing. It was the way he said it. “Popeye’s Dead. Popeye’s Dead.” It struck them all as being very funny. And he began jumping up and down on the box exclaiming “Popeye’s Dead. Popeye’s Dead. Popeye’s Dead.”
And by now the men had begun bending over in pain from intense laughter. Some had begun to roll on the ground. The speaker seemed perplexed. I, embarrassed. And my brother had no idea why they were laughing. He just presumed he was very funny.
And I grabbed him by the arm and told him we better get the hell away from this tent. Reluctantly he followed.
One of the spectators stopped us before we had found our way out of this particular crowd.
“My name is Eckersley,” he said. “William Eckersley. I wonder if you two would follow me to my car?”
“What the hell for?” Jim asked.
“I have some books out there I think you might be interested in.”
“What kind of books?”
And my brother gave me a look like—what in the hell was going on here? Strange ducks here.
“The Gilgemesh Epic for one. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Yeah,” Jim answered. “We heard of it.”
“Well, I got that for you and a book called The Miller’s Tale. You heard of that, too?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” Jim answered. “But since Popeye’s Dead we aren’t going to buy dirty books anymore. Do you understand?”
The man seemed perplexed.
“It ain’t got anything to do with you mister It’s just that when poor Popeye Died we just throwed our dirty books into the box with him. And buried it all—Popeye and the books. Just wouldn’t be right, you know. I mean continuing to read such books with Popeye being Dead.
“You know that saying about becoming a man and putting away childish things, Mr. Eckersley? Well, him and me—well him and me’s just out here tonight breaking in our new shoes; and anyway the light’s too dark for reading.” And we walked away.
“That guy was a fairy, Tom. Furthermore, I ain’t ever heard of those books. Probably some more Jiggs and Maggie. What the hell is it with these people? What do they think, we’re stupid? Fuck them.”
Jiggs and Maggie and Dr. Pangloss.
The optometrist across from Terminal Lunch. Perhaps we’d run into him here, too.
“Where in the hell are the women?” inquired my brother.
“I think that is what is inside the tents. The women are all in there.”
“How do we get inside one?”
Time, I said. Just a matter of time. He had become restless now. He didn’t want to hear anymore talk. No more lectures. No more words, speeches, diatribes, con-game spiels. He just wanted to see the women. Inside the many tents.
II
“You boys interested in women?”
No one was in front of this tent. We hesitated. The speaker motioned us over.
Why not, I thought. That’s what the hell I brought him here for. Why not get it done and over with, I reasoned. I had heard one speaker in a thick German accent mention Superman; and I thought we might want to go there.
But that would have to wait. The ticket taker by grabbing his little prick must have put the pox on him. No time or patience for inquiry now.
“Yeah. We’re interested in women. What do you have?” he says.
The speaker, a man really not too much larger than my brother, wearing a mustache and a three-piece suit and black patent leather shoes and a chesterfield coat, he smiled. “All kinds of women,” he replied. “Just what did you gentlemen have in mind?”
III
That was a very difficult question to answer.
What kind of women did he have for a midget and a freak, I wondered?
“Speak up, Shorty. You don’t want to keep them waiting, do you?”
I began laughing. What the hell could Jim say? He was either going to ask for the Virgin Mary or Olive. These being the only women he by any stretch of the imagination knew. I once caught him behind the bushes with my BB gun, the Winchester, pointing at the next door neighbor girl, about his age, and commanding her to dance or else he was going to shoot. But she had her clothes on. So I was indeed curious just what he would say.
“I want a woman whose tits are so sharp that she has to put bandaids over the nipples so as they won’t cut through her sweaters.”
“OK,” said the man, pulling out a little 5-cent tablet, writing down my brother’s orders. “Anything else?” he inquired.
“Yeah.” He had his hands in his pockets now and was rocking back and forth on his little shoes like some business man. “I want her to have a big rosy belly that hangs out over her lace panties.”
“Yes, sir,” and continued writing.
“And between her legs . . .” he paused. The note taker paused. We all sort of waiting for this one.
“And between her legs . . .” he looked up at me briefly, “I would like to see Shirley Temple curls.”
Nonplussed, the speaker looked at him.
“And inside these Shirley Temple curls I want a hole.”
“What kind of a hole?” the man in the chesterfield inquired.
“About this size.” And he made a ring with his thumb and his index finger. I’d say a 2 millimeter hole.
“That’s a very small hole,” the man protested. But noted that also. “Now what do you want inside that hole?”
This was a hard one. I wouldn’t have been able to answer it.
“Well,” he waxed, “I just want it hot inside there. It’s got to be very hot.”
“How hot?”
“Well, so hot that when I put my prick in the hole, I got to keep pulling it out and putting it in so fast because of the heat.”
“But why can’t you just put your prick inside the hole and leave it there?” inquired the man.
“That’s how hot it’s got to be, buddy!” he remonstrated.
“OK. I think I’m beginning to get the idea. Now is there anything else she’s got to have?”
“One more thing,” said Jim. “Make sure she is in heat.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, goddamnit, I just don’t want her eatin’ an apple or something when I’m parting those curls and puttin’ the prick in the hole. You get what I mean? She’s got to be in heat.”
Like Spot, I thought.
“Oh, just one more thing; I don’t want to see any shit stains on her panties. ’Cause if I see shit stains on her panties, well then I’ll just want to go home. I can’t stand a woman who got shit stains on her panties.”
And the speaker nodded. Winked at me. And entered the tent.
“How did I do?” Jim inquired.
I was impressed, I told him.
“Now what’s going to happen?” he wondered.
“Well, he’s either going to call you into the tent, or she’s going to come out here. We just got to be patient.”
The night had now wore on. And the Babel of voices up and down the midway appeared to have intensified. There were diatribes and exhortations, expositions and petty harangues, reasoned argument and dissertations. And then a few like at our present stop—one or two men making arrangements. Of mysterious sorts.
The flap of the tent opened. And she emerged. Jim’s order. Blond hair with hundreds of tiny curls falling down onto the collar of the man’s chesterfield coat he had given her to cover her naked body. Deep green eyes with eyelashes thick black and as long as miniature fans. They batted, kept fluttering anxiously. Expectantly. A deep moat of ruby red indelibly inscribed about her mouth which she formed into an O, approximately 2 millimeters in circumference. Pi r squared. And under the chesterfield coat one was not permitted to see the razor sharp tits that seemed to violently object their imprisonment by this coat. Like howitzer shells, the kind embedded in cement down at our World War II Honor Roll, they pointed unerringly toward Jim. And underneath, still cloaked by the chesterfield, was the belly he ordered. We could see it roll at command under the coat, like some soft but yet nameless creature of woman-sex in a dark room under the dark and warm covers. Yes. We were both excited now. All that we could ever imagine. How had he done it, I mean my brother, I thought? And she reached down smiling provocatively and gently took Jim’s hand. And proceeded to lead it up the inside of her left leg, far up into the dark reaches under the chesterfield. Surely to assure him that once they were both naked, the Shirley Temple curls would be there.
And as the motion of their arms stopped, I watched Jim’s face for a sign. And it came. Almost a beatific smile. And he looked at me and winked. Yep, it was Shirley Temple alright.
The hole, I thought. The hole. Check it out first. But his hand came out. He was satisfied.
“What about her tits?” I inquired.
But he admonished me. “What the hell is wrong with you, you asshole. Are you blind? Look at those bullets.”
Well, maybe it wasn’t so funny after all, I thought. He, Jim, had a determined look on his face now. There was no turning back. She and him were going to go inside that tent. And I would have to wait.
Why in the hell couldn’t I have taken it more seriously, I thought. That little prick was going to go in there and come out happy. And as usual I’d wait outside.
So I was beginning to hate myself. And she reached down and took little Jim by the hand and began walking him toward the tent. But why was she wearing men’s shoes, I wondered, black patent leather shoes.
IV
A short while later we were alone together on the midway, sort of between tents. I didn’t want to show my ignorance by inquiring immediately of his time inside the tent. When he came out, we just sort of both walked casually away. He didn’t seem any different than when he went in. I thought he would exit wearing a beard and smoking a pipe or something like that. No. He was, or appeared to be, the same old “Popeye’s Dead” kid. After a few steps, he did stop and say he was hungry and asked if I would find him something to eat.
“Sure, in a minute,” I replied.
“But how was it?” I really wanted to know.
“She really wanted me, Tom. I ain’t ever seen anything hotter. Why, Jesus, she was just kissing and pawing all over me in the dark in there.”
“She took off that coat, did she?”
“Why do you ask such a stupid question?” he scolded. “What do you think—I’m going to fuck her through the chesterfield?”
I hadn’t known he knew the coat. But one hung in the old man’s closet, and he wore it out only on special times. He must of had his eye on it, too. Little bastard.
“No, she just kissed me all over and I told her to wait. We’d get it all done. I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Was there light in there, Jim? Could you really see?”
He couldn’t believe I was so fucking stupid. “What do you have to see when you are putting your hand inside a woman’s pussy?”
His hand! I was flabbergasted.
“The belly, the tits, the Shirley Temple curls, and the fire inside the hole . . . all those things?”
“Yep. Every one of them.” And he said, “Look.” He had made sure that nobody was looking, unbuttoned the fly of his pants and pulled out a limp peter. The goddamned thing was all purple and red. Like it had been held too close to a blow dryer. He proudly put it back into his pants. “That sonofabitch ain’t going to want to go stepping out again for some time.” He laughed. And spat hard on the ground like I’ve seen the old man do.
He walked on ahead of me looking for something to eat. You better believe it, I thought.
And Popeye rolled over in his grave. Ashamed.
V
He looked a little tired now, tired and hungry. And he kind of brushed against me like when we were real kids, I leading him around through the stores, he wanting to go home.
“Hang on, Jim,” I said. And began feeling a bit protective of him, sort of like the Boys Town picture. You know which one. I’d have to find him something to eat.
“Don’t ever tell the old man I let you go into such a place,” I warned him. He shook his head. No, it was clear he would never want to. Suddenly he seemed to have run down. Had begun to shiver a bit. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked. “It ain’t cold here.” But he wasn’t talking now, just shivering. Shivering. “Do you want to go home?”
He wanted something to eat. He wanted to sit down somewhere with something to eat. Goddamnit anyway! I should have known better. Some goddamn scam back there. And how his prick was going to swell up like a fucking balloon, and the whole neighborhood would know, including the old man.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“No. It doesn’t hurt.” But then he opened his fly again and looked at it.
It looked like some rabid dog had bitten it.
Then he started to cry.
Christ, I felt bad. And he began spitting into his open fly.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you doing that?”
It hurt. He said. Hurt bad. He thought he was going to vomit. And the spit made it hurt less. Did I have a handkerchief?
Yeah. And he took it in his hands, an end in each hand, twirled it a few times, then placed it, gently tied it about his prick. Spitting on it and the prick a few times before he did. The thing looked ugly now. He unsteadily buttoned up his pants. And said we better forget the food. Just take him home.
“I can’t take you home like this. You just sit there. I’ll go beg some food. The swelling will go down. It will go down. You dumb little shit.”
And he cried and cried.
The cacophony of voices outside the many tents now seemed muted. People, the men, seemed to have wandered away. There were only a few stragglers left on the midway. Many of the speakers’ boxes in front of the tent had been abandoned. A few weren’t, but no one seemed too interested anymore.
I had wanted to do so many things this night. So many tents I wanted to enter. The list of speakers I wanted to hear seemed endless. But it was all so barren now. Like some mysterious force had cracked the spine of this place, beat the life out of it. The tongue of Babel—it was as if my brother had mysteriously swallowed it in seizure.
The midway had a dank and vacant feeling to it now. And the speakers—those professors of homiletics, of science, of philosophy, of literature and the few shamans among them—why those that I saw who remained looked like copies, cheap copies of the man in the chesterfield coat, with his mustache and his black patent leather shoes. The night was going to be so wonderfully long, I thought wistfully.
Why, it had only begun. I had just started to get an idea of these treasure-filled tents and their ferry men for the river Acheron. Perhaps, I had thought earlier, I would be able to take home a new voice—‘Baruch Atah Elohim’; or at least leave speaking more knowledgeably about life.
I had heard one of the speakers exclaim, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” That, too, had aroused my curiosity.
But the speakers were mostly gone now. The few that were left were creeps. And Jim, Popeye Jim, clearly wanted to go home.
Christ, I wondered, I still got to go over that fucking bridge tomorrow and I ain’t learned one goddamned thing here tonight that’s going to help me in any way.
And with Jim beside me, walking like he had been kicked in the balls, and me worrying about killing myself—well life ain’t all that fun, I thought.
And the two of us cried like babies driving back to the house in the old man’s car.