 
JOHN MARQUIS MAHONEY it took Francis's father a month die after the widowmaker fell on him while they were getting out
the winter's wood, breaking both his spine and skull. They buried him in
the tiny family cemetery on the hill behind the house. Francis took over
running the farm.
One season melded into the next; wood had to be sawed and split and
seasoned, the sap ran in late winter and was boiled into sugar, the garden
was planted, hay was made and stored. Francis was content, his days
predictable and even. In the pleasant evenings of summer he sat on the
porch with his mother, rocking quietly, enjoying a pipe while watching the
darting swallows hunt. There were fireflies and unseen crickets to mark
the steady passage of time.
And every August the hoochy-coochy girls returned to the Fair. His
mother would stand at the window hugging her breast and crying silently as
Francis rode off into the August evenings dressed in his new green work
clothes. She never slept until he returned, and she never asked about the
Fair.
They showed the geek in the geek tent, in a circular enclosure, waist
high, made of rough-sawn boards. The dirt bottom of the pen was covered
with sawdust and wood shavings.
The geek tent smelled on man sweat and damp feet in wool socks and beer
and whisky and hard cider and unwashed crotch and barnyard and oiled
leather and horse, cow, dog, and swine, and feathers and hen house dust,
cooking oil and wood smoke, creosote and whitewash, spring water and sour
milk, bay rum and dark root cellars, pork barrels and sisal rope and tar
and hot metal in the sun, canvass and evergreen trees, and farts and
belches.
They pitched the geek as the Wild Man of Patagonia. Vanquishes Killer
Serpents, Eats Them Alive. No Fakes. No Tricks. Watch If You Can.
The geek was naked except for a ragged loincloth the color and texture
of discarded mop rags. The hair on his chest was gray and sparse and his
old man's tits sagged. Two of his front teeth were missing, others
betrayed by decay. He wore a faded blue bandanna as a sweatband. His uncut
grey hair was lank and dirty and held in place by the bandanna. The geek
hadn't shaved for some days, he was barefooted, and smelled of damp earth
long covered by rotting boards, of uncooked meat gone by.
The geek was kneeling in the sawdust licking the belly of live green
snake. It was a garter snake, about eighteen inches long. He held it with
both hands; with his right thumb and forefinger he grasped it just behind
the head, his left encircled the snake's body about six inches above the
tale. The geek held the snake close to his face. The snake's mouth was
open, its forked tongue flicking in and out, testing the scent of its
captor, seeking information, knowledge, wisdom, hints of the future.
The snake tried to wrap its tail around the geek's wrist. The geek
slowly raised it above his head and looked slyly around the tent at the
men standing outside the pen. The warm, oily light the polished reflectors
of the kerosene lamps threw crisscrossed shadows of geek and snake across
the sawdust floor and up the boards of the pen.
The geek again licked the snake's belly, kissed it, and again. The geek
bent back his neck and took the snake's tail into his mouth. There were
grunts of disgust and disbelief from several of the men. The geek raised
the snake, turned in a half circle, and lowered the snake until once again
the tail was between his lips. The geek slowly closed his mouth, then
sharply whipped his head to the right, then to the left. He spit the
severed tail into the sawdust. The geek heard the gasps, the sharp intakes
of breath, the muttered Gods and damns and shits.
Smiling, the geek held the writhing snake in his right hand, high above
his head. As he made a triumphal circumambulation of the pen he wiped the
snake's blood from his lips and chin. He paused to pick up a pint bottle
of whisky from the sawdust, uncorked it with his teeth, took a slug and
sloshed it around his mouth, then swallowed. He returned the bottle to the
sawdust and brought the still-writhing snake close to his face. He thrust
the snake's head into his mouth and bit it off. Blood gushed down his
lower face. The geek stepped to the edge of the pen and paused before a
hulking farmer who was staring at him. The geek opened his lips, removed
the snake's head with thumb and forefinger, and proffered it to the man.
The geek was smiling.
The farmer drew back slightly from the wall of the pen. "You filthy
bastard," he said as he slammed a ham-sized fist into the geek's face. The
geek dropped to his knees as if poleaxed, his nose flattened, lips split.
Blood spattered over the boarding and the men nearby. The farmer leaned
over the wall that separated them, clasped both hands into one massive
knot of gnarled bone and muscle, and with a mighty swipe that began high
and to his right clubbed the bleeding geek across the side of the face.
The men winced at the sound of the geek's jawbone shattering as he fell to
the sawdust. The farmer spit on the fallen body.
From across the pen a bottle was thrown that struck the geek in the
back. Others followed, hitting legs, arms, the top of his head. The geek
pulled one leg to his chest; the other leg kicked in short, rapid spasms,
much the way a stunned pig kicks when it has its throat cuts and regains
consciousness. The geek was whimpering and gagging from the blood seeping
down his throat.
Coochy was at the entrance to the bent over at the waist, vomiting. He
wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then unlatched the gate and hesitantly
walked to the prostrate geek. He held his hands palm up towards the
cursing, bottle-throwing men lining the outside of the pen, silently
emploring them to stop.
"Leave it be, Coochy." "Get your dumb ass out of there." "Fuck off,
Dummy. Mind your own business."
A bottle bounced off Coochy's shoulder as he knelt beside the geek and
cradled his bloody head in his lap. He took a kerchief from his pocked and
dabbed at the congealing blood. The geek was breathing through bruised and
bleeding lips, his broken nose was clogged with blood and mucus. Coochy
helped the geek to his feet, placing one arm around his waist and one of
the geek's arms over his shoulders. The geek's eyes were squinched in pain
and he was naked now, his soiled loin cloth lay in the bottom of the pen.
In the sawdust, the carcass of the mutilated snake continued to twitch.
Silent tears ran down Coochy's cheeks as he led the geek from the pen.
"There's a pair for you." "Ayeh. Sheep fucker and snake biter." "Snake
eater." "Pussy eater." "Snake fucker." "That's really getting pretty damn'
low." The men laughed.
Coochy helped the geek to his pile of straw in a corner stall under the
grandstand. The geek curled up on the straw, knees to his scrawny chest,
right hand covering his ruined nose. Through the haze of whisky and pain
he remembered times when he wasn't the Wild Man of Patagonia, when he
didn't have to kill snakes and chickens and rats with his bare teeth.
No, by God, in those days he was the Human Cock, fearless and ready to
take on all comers. They pitted him against the gamest fighting cocks at
all the fairs. Mean and heavy and filled with bloodlust, the roosters
would have had razor sharp blades strapped to their legs that stabbed and
slashed and drew blood at each contact with human flesh. The Human Cock
would face them in the pen, on his knees, in loin cloth and bandanna. His
ankles would be crossed and tied to together, his right arm strapped
across this chest. Only his left hand was free to fight the rooster
struggling to get free from handler and fly at him, razors slashing at his
face and chest and arms. The Human Cock always bled but in those days he
often won. Coochy scuffed his blacked work boot in the straw as he
listened to the moans of the geek.
"I know he's an odd one, but he was always good to his mother," a neighbor lady was heard to remark outside the Anglican Church, the day they buried Mrs. Hildreth. "He's odd, that's certain." said another. "He gives me the willies." "You know what they say goes on at the Fair," added a prominent member of the Altar Guild. "I shudder at the thought..."
Francis stood at the mailbox, studying the envelope from the C.R. Lowney Funeral Home in Stanstead. It had been posted the previous afternoon, according to the cancellation mark. He hefted it. He knew it contained a single sheet of expensive stationery, just as the others had. Eyes closed, he explored the raised printing in the upper left corner with a fingertip in an attempt to make out the words. No. His fingers were too hard, too callused. He raised it to his face and sniffed, expecting...what?...the sharp stink of pickling fluids...the formal mortuary heaviness of horsehair and dusty plush...the delicate scent of his mother's favored lavender sachets, one of which he had tucked into her coffin. What can I do, Momma? Mr. Lowney wants the money. There ain't no money, Momma. Francis slowly walked to the house, his mind a-jumble with parental cautions from the past: always pay your bills on time...don't charge nothing...a man can't own you if you don't owe him... He sat on the porch, the bill for his mother's funeral on his lap, and slowly began to rock. Where am I going to get the money, Momma? Help me, Momma. Help me. He remembered the metal box in back of the closet in his mother's bedroom. The insurance policy was in the box. She had showed it to him once. Years ago his father had signed up with an agent in town in case the house ever caught fire and burned. He went into the bedroom and brought the box out to the kitchen table. Yes, it was there. He picked it up and read it. His eyes narrowed, he sucked his cheek. This might well do. Then the letters from Lowney would stop. Thank you, Momma. To Part 4...
Copyright © John Mahoney 1997 jane does the laundry |