Something Wicked This Way Comes (14 page)

In front of the United Cigar Store on this before-noon Sunday with the bells of all churches ringing across here, colliding with each other there, showering sound from the sky now that the rain was spent, in front of the cigar store the Cherokee wooden Indian stood, his carved plumes pearled with water, oblivious to Catholic or Baptist bells, oblivious to the steadily approaching sun-bright cymbals, the thumping pagan heart of the carnival band. The flourished drums, the old-womanish shriek of calliope, the shadow drift of creatures far stranger than he, did not witch the Indian's yellow hawk-fierce gaze. Still, the drums did tilt churches and plummet forth mobs of boys curious and eager for any change mild or wild, so, as the church bells stopped up their silver and iron rain, pew-stiffened crowds became relaxed parade crowds as the carnival, a promotion of brass, a flush of velvet, all lion-pacing, mammoth-shuffling, flag-fluttered by.

    The shadow of the Indian's wooden tomahawk lay on an iron grille embedded in the sidewalk in front of the cigar store. Over this grille with faint metallic reverberations, year after year, people passed, dropping tonnages of mint-gum wrapper, gold cigar-band, matchstub, cigarette butt or copper penny which vanished below forever.

    Now, with the parade, hundreds of feet rang and clustered on the grille as the carnival strode by on stilts, roared by in tiger and volcano sounds and colours.

    Under the grille, two shapes trembled.

    'Above, like a great baroque peacock striding the bricks and asphalt, the freaks' eyes opened out, to stare, to search office roofs, church spires, read dentists' and opticians' signs, check dime and dry goods stores as drums shocked plate glass windows and wax dummies quaked in facsimiles of fear. A multitude of hot and incredibly bright fierce eyes, the parade moved, desiring, but not quenching its desire.

    For the things it most wanted were hidden in dark.

    Jim and Will, under the cigar store sidewalk grille.

    Crouch-pressed knee to knee, heads up, eyes alert, they sucked their breaths like iron Popsicles. Above, women's dresses flowered in a cold breeze. Above, men tilted on the sky. The band, in a collision of cymbals, knocked children against their mothers' knees with concussion.

    'There!' exclaimed Jim! 'The parade! It's right out front the cigar store! What're we doing here, Will? Let's go!'

    'No!' cried Will, hoarsely, clenching Jim's knee. 'It's the most obvious place, in front of everybody! They'll never think to check here! Shut up!'

    Thrrrummmmm. . .

    The grille, above, rang with the touch of a man's shoe, and the worn nails in that shoe.

    Dad! Will almost cried.

    He rose, sank back, biting his lips.

    Jim saw the man above wheel this way, wheel that, searching, so near, yet so far, three feet away.

    I could just reach up. . .thought Will.

    But Dad, pale, nervous, hurried on.

    And Will felt his soul fall over cold and white-jelly quivering inside.

    Bang!

    The boys jerked.

    A chewed lump of pink bubble-gum, falling, had hit a pile of old paper near Jim's foot.

    A five-year-old boy, above, crouched on the grille, peered down with dismay after his vanished sweet.

    Get! thought Will.

    The boy knelt, hands to the grille.

    Go on! thought Will.

    He had a crazy wish to grab the gum and stuff it back up into the little boy's mouth.

    A parade-drum thumped one huge time, then - silence.

    Jim and Will glanced at each other.

    The parade, both thought, it's halted!

    The small boy stuck one hand half through the grille.

    Above, in the street, Mr Dark, the Illustrated Man, glanced back over his river of freaks, cages, at the sunburst tubas and python brass horns. He nodded.

    The parade fell apart.

    The freaks hurried half to one sidewalk, half to the other, mingling with the crowd, passing out handbills, eyes fire-crystal, quick, striking like snakes.

    The small boy's shadow cooled Will's cheek.

    The parade's over, he thought, now the search begins.

    'Look, Ma!' The small boy pointed down through the grille 'There!'

In Ned's Night Spot, half a block from the cigar store, Charles Halloway, exhausted from no sleep, too much thinking, far too much walking, finished his second coffee and was about to pay when the sharp silence from the street outside made him uneasy. He sensed rather than saw the mild intermingled disturbance as the parade melted among the sidewalk crowds. Not knowing why, Charles Halloway put his money away.

    'Warm it up again, Ned?'

    Ned was pouring coffee when the door swung wide, someone entered, and splayed his right hand lightly on the counter.

    Charles Halloway stared.

    The hand stared back at him.

    There was a single eye tattooed on the back of each finger.

'Mom! Down there! Look!'

    The boy cried, pointing through the grille.

    More shadows passed and lingered.

    Including - the Skeleton.

    Tall as a dead tree in winter all skull, all scarecrow-stilted bones, the thin man, the Skeleton, Mr Skull played his xylophone shadow upon hidden things, cold paper rubbish, warm flinching boys, below.

    Go! thought Will. Go!

    The plump fingers of the child gesticulated through the grille.

    Go.

    Mr Skull walked away.

    Thank God, thought Will, then gasped, 'Oh, no!'

    For the Dwarf as suddenly appeared., waddling along, a fringe of bells on his dirty shirt jingling softly, his toad-shadow tucked under him, his eyes like broken splinters of brown marble now bright-on-the-surface mad, now deeply mournfully forever-lost-and-gone-buried-away mad looking for something could not be found, a lost self somewhere, lost boys for an instant, then the lost self again, two parts of the little squashed man fought to jerk his flashing eyes here, there, around, up, down, one seeking the past, one the immediate present.

    'Mama!' said the child.

    The Dwarf stopped and looked at the boy no bigger than himself. Their eyes met.

    Will flung himself back, tried to gum his body into the concrete. He felt Jim do the same, not moving but moving his mind, his soul, thrusting it into darkness to hide from the little drama above.

    'Come on, Junior!' A woman's voice.

    The boy was puffed up and away.

    Too late.

    For the Dwarf was looking down.

    And in his eyes were the lost bits and fitful pieces of a man named Fury who had sold lightning-rods how many days how many years ago in the long, the easy, the safe and wondrous time before this fright was born.

    Oh, Mr Fury, thought Will, what they've done to you. Threw you under a pile-driver, squashed you in a steel press, squeezed the tears and screams out of you, trapped you in a jack-in-a-box all pressed down until there's nothing left of you, Mr Fury. . .nothing left but this. . .

    Dwarf. And the Dwarf's face was less human, more machine now; in fact, a camera.

    The shuttering eyes flexed, sightless, opening upon darkness. Tick. Two lenses expanded-contracted with liquid swiftness: a picture-snap of the grille.

    A snap, also, of what lay beneath?

    Is he staring at the metal, thought Will, or the spaces between the metal?

    For a long moment, the ruined-squashed clay doll Dwarf squatted while standing tall. His flash-camera eyes were bulged wide, perhaps still taking pictures?

    Will, Jim, were not seen really at all, only their shape, their colour and size were borrowed by these dwarf camera eyes. They were clapped away in the box-Brownie skull. Later how much later? - the picture would be developed by the wild, the tiny, the forgetful., the wandering and lost lightning-rod mind. What lay under the grille would then be really seen. And after that? Revelation! Revenge! Destruction!

    Click-snap-tick.

    Children ran laughing by.

    The Dwarf-child, drawn by their running joy, was swept along with them. Madly, he skipped off, remembered himself, and went looking for something, he knew not what.

    The cloudy sun poured fight through all the sky.

    The two boys, boxed in light-slotted pit, hisstled their breath softly out through gritted teeth.

    Jim squeezed Will's hand, tight, tight.

    Both waited for more eyes to stride along and rake the steel grille.

    The blue-red-green tattooed eyes, all five of them, fell away from the counter top.

    Charles Halloway, sipping his third coffee, turned slightly on the revolving stool.

    The Illustrated Man was watching him.

    Charles Halloway nodded.

    The Illustrated Man did not nod or blink, but stared until the janitor wanted to turn away, but did not, and simply gazed as calmly as possible at the impertinent intruder.

    'What'll it be?' asked the café proprietor.

    'Nothing.' Mr Dark watched Will's father. 'I'm looking for two boys.'

    Who isn't? Charles Halloway rose, paid, walked off. 'Thanks, Ned.' In passing, he saw the man with the tattoos hold his hands out, palms up toward Ned.

    'Boys?' said Ned. 'How old?'

    The door slammed.

    Mr Dark watched Charles Halloway walk off outside the window.

    Ned talked.

    But the Illustrated Man did not hear.

    Outside, Will's father moved toward the library, stopped, moved toward the courthouse, stopped, waited for some better sense to direct him, felt his pocket, missed his smokes, and turned toward the United Cigar Store.

    Jim looked up, saw familiar feet, pale faces salt and pepper hair. 'Will! Your dad! Call to him. He'll help us!' Will could not speak.

    'I'll call to him!'

    Will bit Jim's arm., shook his head violently, No!

    Why not? mouthed Jim.

    Because, said Will's lips.

    Because. . .he gazed up. . .Dad looked even smaller up there than he had last night, seen from the side of the house. It would be like calling to one more boy passing. They didn't need one more boy, they needed a general, no, a major general! He tried to see Dad's face at the cigar counter window, and discover whether it looked really older, firmer, stronger, than it did last night washed with all the milk colours of the moon. But all he saw was Dad's fingers twitching nervously, his mouth working, as if he didn't dare ask his needs from Mr Tetley. . . .

    'One. . .that is. . .one twenty-five cent cigar.'

    'My God,' said Mr Tetley, above. 'The man's rich!'

    Charles Halloway took his time removing the cellophane, waiting for some hint, some move on the part of the universe to show him where he was going, why he had come back this way for a cigar he did not really want. He thought he heard himself called, twice, glanced swiftly at the crowds, saw clowns passing with handbills, then lit the cigar he did not want from the eternal blue-gas flame that burned in a small silver jet pipe on the counter, and puffing smoke, dropped the cigar band with his free hand, saw the band bounce on the metal grille, and vanish, his eyes following it farther down to where. . .

    It lit at the feet of Will Halloway, his son.

    Charles Halloway choked on cigar smoke.

    Two shadows there, yes! And the eyes, terror gazing up out of the dark well under the street. He almost bent to seize the grate, yelling.

    Instead, incredulous, he only blurted softly., with the crowd around, and the weather clearing:

    'Jim? Will! What the hell's going on?'

    At which moment, one hundred feet away, the Illustrated Man came out of Ned's Night Spot.

    'Mr Halloway - ' said Jim.

    'Come up out of there,' said Charles Halloway.

    The Illustrated Man, a crowd among crowds, pivoted slowly, then walked toward the cigar store.

    'Dad, we can't! Don't look at us down here!'

    The Illustrated Man was some eighty feet away.

    'Boys,' said Charles Halloway. 'The police - '

    'Mr Halloway,' said Jim hoarsely., 'we're dead if you don't look up! The Illustrated Man, if he - '

    'The what?' asked Mr Halloway.

    'The man with the tattoos!'

    From the café counter, five electric blue-inked eyes fixed Mr Halloway's memory.

    'Dad, look over at the courthouse clock, while we tell you what happened - '

    Mr Halloway straightened up.

    And the Illustrated Man arrived.

    He stood studying Charles Halloway.

    'Sir,' said the Illustrated Man.

    'Eleven-fifteen.' Charles Halloway judged the courthouse clock, adjusted his wrist watch, cigar in mouth. 'One minute slow.'

    'Sir,' said the Illustrated Man.

    Will held Jim, Jim held Will fast in the gum-wrapper, tobacco-littered pit, as the four shoes rocked, shuffled, tilted above.

    'Sir,' said the man named Dark, probing Charles Halloway's face for the bones there to compare to other bones in other half-similar people, 'the Cooger-Dark Combined Shows have picked two local boys, two! to be our special guests during our celebratory visit!'

    'Well, I - ' Will's father tried not to glance at the sidewalk.

    'These two boys - '

    Will watched the tooth-sharp shoe-nails of the Illustrated Man flash, sparking the grille.

    ' - these boys will ride all rides see each show, shake hands with every performer, go home with magic kits, baseball bats - '

    'Who,' interrupted Mr Halloway, 'are these lucky boys?'

    'Two selected from photos snapped on our midway yesterday. Identify them, sir, and you will share their fortune. There are the boys!'

    He sees us down here! thought Will. Oh, God!

    The Illustrated Man thrust out his hands.

    Will's father lurched.

    Tattooed in bright blue ink, Will's face gazed up at him from the palm of the right hand.

    Ink-sewn to the left palm, Jim's face was indelible and natural as life.

    'You know them?' The Illustrated Man saw Mr Halloway's throat clench, his eyelids squinch, his bones struck vibrant as from a sledgehammer blow. 'Their names?'

    Dad, careful! Will thought.

    'I don't - ' said Will's father.

    'You know them.'

    The Illustrated Man's hands shook, held out to view, asking for the gift of names, making Jim's face on the flesh, Will's face on the flesh., Jim's face hidden beneath the street, Will's face hidden beneath the street, tremble, writhe, pinch.

    'Sir, you wouldn't want them to lose out. . .?'

    'No, but - '

    'But, but, but?' Mr Dark loomed closer, magnificent in his picture-gallery flesh, his eyes, the eyes of all his beasts and hapless creatures cutting through his shirt, coat, trousers, fastening the old man tight, biting him with fire, fixing him with thousandfold attentions. Mr Dark shoved his two palms near. "But? - '

    Mr Halloway needing something to excruciate, bit his cigar.

    'I thought for a moment - '

    'Thought what?' Grand delight from Mr Dark.

    'One of them looked like - '

    'Like who?'

    Too eager, thought Will. You see that, Dad, don't you?

    'Mister,' said Will's father. 'Why are you so jumpy about two boys?'

    'Jumpy. . .?'

    Mr Dark's smile melted like cotton candy.

    Jim scootched himself down into a dwarf, Will crammed himself down into a midget, both looking up, waiting.

    'Sir,' said Mr Dark, 'is my enthusiasm that to you? "Jumpy?"'

    Will's father noted the muscles cord along the arms, roping and unroping themselves with a writhe like the puff adders and sidewinders doubtless inked and venomous there.

    'One of those pictures,' drawled Mr Halloway, looks like Milton Blumquist.'

    Mr Dark clenched a fist.

    A blinding ache struck Jim's head.

    'The other,' Will's father was almost bland, 'looks like Avery Johnson.'

    Oh, Dad, thought Will, you're great!

    The Illustrated Man clenched his other fist.

    Will his head in a vice, almost screamed.

    'Both boys,' finished Mr Halloway, 'moved to Milwaukee some weeks ago.'

    'You,' said Mr Dark, coldly, 'lie.'

    Will's father was truly shocked.

    'Me? And spoil the prizewinners' fun?'

    'Fact is,' said Mr Dark, 'we found the names of the boys ten minutes ago. Just want to double-check.'

    'So?' said Will's father, disbelieving.

    'Jim,' said Mr Dark. 'Will.'

    Jim writhed in the dark. Will sank his head deep in his shoulder blades, eyes tight.

    Will's father's face was a pond into which the two dark stone names sank without a ripple.

    'First names? Jim? Will? Lots of Jims and Wills, couple hundred, town like this.'

    Will, crouched and squirming, thought, who told? Miss Foley? But she was gone, her house empty and full of rain shadows. Only one other person. . .

    The little girl who looked like Miss Foley weeping under the tree? The little girl who frightened us so bad? he wondered. In the last half hour the parade, going by, found her, and her crying for hours, afraid, and ready to do anything, say anything, if only with music, horses plunging, world racing, they would grow her old again, grow her around again, lift her, shut up her crying, stop up the awful thing and make her as she was. Did the carnival promise, lie to her when they found her under the tree and ran her off ? The little girl crying, but not telling all, because -

    'Jim. Will,' said Will's father. 'First names. What about the last?'

    Mr Dark did not know the last names.

    His universe of monsters sweated phosphorus on his hide, soured his armpits, reeked, slammed between his iron-sinewed legs.

    'Now,' said Will's father, with a strange, and to him almost-defightful-because-new, calm, 'I think you're lying. You don't know the last names. Now, why should you, a carnival stranger, lie to me here on a street in some town on the backside of nowhere?'

    The Illustrated Man clenched his two calligraphic fists very hard.