There was a powerful hissing music whistling from a wagon that was throwing fog and songs out of a row of pipes, sounding so hot and hard and pointy that you’d’ve thought you’d took a knife and were scratching at something deep inside your ear.
But soon’s it felt like the sounds were gonna cause your head to bust open, your eyes started taking over and noticing separate things out of what at first didn’t appear to be nothing but a blur of colour and torches.
There were more of the walking stick–holding, straw hat–wearing white men singing out for you to come see what they had hid up in their tents. They kept calling out the same words over and over, sounding like the choir on Sunday but without no real feeling of happiness in the words.
There were bright red and blue and green and yellow banners strung up ’longside dull brown, high-reaching tents. On the banners were pictures of things that you had to pay a whole nickel to go in and get a look at. Why, terrible as those pictures were, I’d have paid a nickel to not go in and see ’em!
There was a painting of a white man that appeared to be half a human and half a alligator, joined up so’s you couldn’t tell if what you were seeing was the rear half of a alligator swallowing up the top half of a man, or if it was a man that had been born without no legs who had sewed the back half of a lizard onto hisself to see if maybe he could do some walking that way!
There was a picture of a white woman that looked like she had some child’s arms and legs poking out of the side of her neck! And another white man that was picking up a full-growned elephant and holding it over his head like he was ’bout to toss it into the next county! Another banner showed a white man that was wide as a barn holding hands with a white woman that waren’t much more than a stick with a hank of yellow hair on top. They were standing under a big red heart that said, BIZARRE LOVE!!!!
But the drawing that I knowed would keep me awake nights and discourage me from wandering ’round in the woods for a good long time was the one of a white man who had to be a conjurer! He didn’t have no animal parts stuck on him, nor no parts of other people growing out of him that would invite staring, he had something worst. Something that I tried hard to look away from but waren’t no way I could do it.
He had sharp, yellow, jaggedy-looking bolts of lightning shooting di-rect out of his eyes! The bolts were making the normal-looking white man in the picture with him float off his feet and scramble and scratch at the air like he was ’bout to drift up to the clouds! It would cost you a whole quarter of a American dollar to go in the tent and see the conjurer do this! I’d’ve gave two quarters of a dollar not to!
But sure as shooting, this was the other person the Preacher said we were gonna have to go see. He pointed at the drawing of the man with the lightning-bolt eyes and said, “He’s the owner of the carnival. I want to get a look at what kind of rigmarole he’s got going before I talk to him.”
Another straw hat–wearing, walking stick–waving white man was out front of the tent calling, “Last show of the evening, last show of the year, last time in Canada, last chance of your lifetime to see the fantastic Vaughn-O working his powers of mental prestidigitation!”
The Preacher slapped two whole American quarters on a table and told the white woman sitting there, “Me and my boy want to see the mesmerist.”
I spoke right up and said, “No, sir! You go on in and see him. I’ll wait over yon by that tree.”
The Preacher grabbed hold of my collar and pulled me into the tent. This one didn’t have no benches in it to sit down on, so we were standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of folks from Chatham. Soon’s we were inside and worked our way up to the front, I clamped my hand ’cross my eyes.
The Preacher put his mouth near my ear and said, “No-siree-bob. I paid a whole twenty-five cents for you to watch this and that’s just what you’re going to do.” He jerked my hand away from covering my face.
The first thing I did was look straight up, partly so’s I wouldn’t have to see the stage, but mostly ’cause if the Preacher was gonna force me to watch and get floated off by lightning coming outta some white man’s eyes, I wanted to see if there was something I could latch ahold on to afore I ended up in the clouds.
If I was gonna get lifted away, this was a good place to do it ’cause I couldn’t’ve got no higher than the roof of the tent. There were torches high up on the walls that I’d have to be careful of whilst I was floating, but I figured if I kept a keen eye and kicked at ’em, I could get by without burning nothing ’sides my brogans and maybe the cuffs of my trousers.
I looked all ’cross the top of the tent and my heart started slowing down. It was a true relief to see that there waren’t no one from the earlier shows still stuck up there. Maybe that meant the conjuring wore off after while and you’d come a-crashing back down.
If I’d’ve knowed this was gonna happen I’d have brung me a length of rope and tied it ’round my ankle. That way if I started floating, the Preacher could have pulled me ’long home like a kite. I’d have felt a lot better ’bout waiting for the conjuring to wear off back in Buxton than here ’mongst a bunch of strangers.
Afore I could do any more worrying, a curtain on the stage got whipped aside and a tall, round white man in a long black cape was standing right in front of us. His eyes looked a whole lot more like a dead person’s eyes than a live person’s. They were blank and blue and they ’peared to be looking square at you, but you could tell they waren’t really seeing a thing.
A bevy of laughs and moans and screams came out of everyone that was jammed up in the tent. It ain’t being fra-gile when I say that I was ’mongst the screamers.
I grabbed hold of the Preacher’s shirtsleeve and mashed my face into it. He just as quick snatched it away and said, “I told you you were going to watch this. You can learn about how a flimflam works.”
I noticed my own arm was being held on to tight and looked to see who’d grabbed me. A little white stranger boy, near ’bout as old as me, was laughing and carrying on something wild.
He swore, “Blang it all! This here’s the fourth time I seen him and I still near ’bout jump out my skin when he first come on stage!” He talked like he was from America.
I said, “You saw him four times! Ain’t you afeared of getting floated off?”
He laughed and said, “Pshaw! He just a old humbug! He can’t float naught nowhere.”
The boy had a head of thick curly red hair and a nose that looked a whole lot like a bird’s beak. His eyes were a scary gray and blue colour, ’bout the same as the sky afore a storm. He waren’t nothing but a child but the smell of cigar smoke came outta his mouth strong!
I said, “He really caint float nothing away?”
“Naw! Watch what happens. What’s your name?”
“I’m Elijah.”
The boy looked like I cursed at him. “Elijah? You sure?”
“Course I’m sure.”
“You live down in Buxton?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m-a tell you something, Elijah. You’d best not tell no one from Chatham that that’s your name.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause there’s a rapscallion in Chatham what’s already laid claim to that name, and he ain’t the kind to be sharing nothing with no one! There was a boy up here whose name was Edward, and Elijah from Chatham didn’t want no one else having their name even start with the same first letter as his, so he made the boy change his name to Odward! And Odward’s own ma and pa calls him that now ’cause they didn’t want no trouble with the real Elijah. If I’s you I’d find me another name ’cause Elijah from Chatham ain’t gonna be real happy ’bout meeting you, particular not with you being a slave boy from Buxton.”
“I waren’t never a slave. I was freeborn.”
“Don’t matter. Just you be mindful of who you say that name to. Elijah from Chatham ain’t to be trifled with. He already killed a full-growed Indian man! And didn’t kill him with no knife or gun or sw
ord, killed him with one hand! His left one! And he ain’t but twelve years old!”
Those words hadn’t had no chance to sink in good when the conjurer on stage came to life. He flunged his arms to the sides and showed that under his black cape he was wearing a something blue that looked a powerful lot like a dress with all sorts of shiny, sparkling, silvered stars and crescent moons. Why, it was pasted with as many moons as stars! And that don’t make no sense, that don’t make no sense atall.
All the folks that were screaming and laughing a minute ago set up a mess of oohs and aahs that would have you believing they were seeing the real heavens ’stead of a dress with sham stars and way too many moons stuck all over it.
The little white boy dugged his elbow into my ribs and said, “Keep a watch on his eyes!”
The most amazing thing happened! The conjurer’s eyes rolled back in his head and their place was took right away by another set of eyes! Only difference twixt ’em was that these two eyes were brown, and whilst the other ones seemed staring and empty, these eyes were looking dead at you! And worst, waren’t no doubt that they were seeing you!
I felt my legs commence shaking and grabbed ahold of the white boy so’s I wouldn’t fall.
He said, “Them first eyes is painted on his lids, I was out back smoking a see-gar with him and seent it myself. He ain’t real atall!”
The conjurer was slow as anything peering hard at everyone in the crowd. When his eyes hit ’em, some folks screamed, some folks laughed, some folks cried, and some folks ’peared to be dumbstruck. I ain’t sure which group I was ’mongst ’cause the fearing in me was too strong.
The white boy said, “Watch this. I’m-a have me some fun here!”
When the man’s eyes struck him the boy stood bolt upright and his face frozed stiff as a stone! I quick unloosed his arm so’s the conjurization wouldn’t have the chance to jump off of him and onto me.
The man pointed spot-on at the boy and called out, “You!”
The boy’s eyes near bucked right out of his head!
The conjurer-man’s finger commenced crooking and bending in a way that got more screams and confusion to rise up from the crowd.
The boy looked at me, his face unfrozed for a second, and one of his gray eyes winked. Then quick as anything his face frozed up again, looking all stupid-fied, and he started pushing his way through people and heading to the steps on the side of the stage. You’d’ve thought the conjurer’s finger was a magnet and the boy was made outta iron filings! When folks saw the spell he was under they stepped aside like he was toting a bucket that was overflowing with the plague!
He got up on the stage and the conjurer waved his cape over the boy’s head twice. He said, “Boy! Do you know me?”
The boy said, “No, sir, you’s a perfect stranger.” “Then we’ve never spoken?”
“No, sir, and I ain’t never smoked no see-gar with you behind the tent neither.”
Some folks that didn’t know how frightsome this was laughed and the conjurer screamed out, “Silence! Do you not see that this boy is already under a spell and talking nonsense? Why, if I were to misdirect my attention away from him for merely one moment he’d be in danger of remaining a babbling idiot like this for the rest of his life!” The conjurer-man talked like he came from England.
Most folks got quiet like they were in church.
The conjurer waved his cape over the boy’s head again and said, “Look into my eyes! Look deeply into my eyes!”
The boy couldn’t help hisself, he looked and the conjurer started blinking first one eye then the other so’s on one side of his face you were seeing a live brown eye, and on the other side you were seeing a dead blue one. Then he opened both dead eyes at once then both live ones till by and by your head was back to whirling and you knowed this boy had been wrong, this conjurer was real!
I snatched back ahold of the Preacher’s coat sleeve.
The conjurer said, “Look even more deeply into my eyes!”
The boy’s head started going back and forth fast like a pendulum in a clock that the weight’s fell off. Then his chin dropped down on his chest and it ’peared he was out cold, ’cepting he didn’t fall in a heap!
The man said, “You are entering a realm of velvet sleep, golden slumbers, and dappled dreams. Once I snap my fingers, you will lose yourself in my voice. Upon the sound of my fingers snapping, my simplest wish will become your irresistible command!”
He slow raised his right hand over his head, waited for what felt like was a hour, then snapped his fingers. At the same exact time someone banged a drum one terrible boom, and a flash of red and yellow powder exploded and popped and hissed all ’long the front of the stage. Screams and smoke from the powder rised up to the top of the tent, and, truth told, my scream was ’mongst the loudest and longest lasting!
The conjurer said, “When I count to three you will open your eyes and hear no voice other than mine! One … two … three!”
He snapped his fingers again and the boy’s eyes came open and were staring di-rect at the conjurer! I knowed the poor boy was under the man’s spell ’cause one of his eyeballs started looking right whilst the other one was looking left, then they commenced going in circles and rolling back in his head! My blood ran cold thinking ’bout how this boy thought this was all a flimflam, and now he’d gone and let this horrible-looking man snatch ahold of his soul! I knowed it waren’t gonna be long afore this poor white boy would be scratching and clawing at the roof of the tent!
The conjurer said, “What is your name, boy?”
The boy started talking slow, having a hard time getting the words out, “My … ma named … me Samuel … but most … folks … calls me … Sammy.”
“Samuel, who is the only person in the entire world whom you can trust?”
“You, master.”
“That’s right! And do you believe everything I say?”
“Like your mouth’s a prayer book, master.”
“Then why are you speaking to me in English? You are not a little boy, you are a chicken! And unless the chickens in Canada are very much brighter than American chickens, they do not speak English!”
’Twas the most amazing thing! The little boy started clucking and pecking ’round on the stage then he commenced scratching at the floor with his bare feet and you’d have swored he was digging up worms!
Near everybody in the tent acted like this was something funny! None of ’em thought to worry what Sammy’s ma was gonna say when the son she sent to the carnival as a little boy came home as a giant bird! And even worst, a giant chicken!
The conjurer waved his cape again and called out, “You are no longer a chicken, you are a boy again! But wait, the weather has changed! It’s positively freezing in here!”
Why, the boy took to shivering and teeth-chattering and knee-knocking so doggone much that I felt a chill of coldness run down my back! And this waren’t no flimflam neither, ’cause Sammy started turning blue the way they say white people do when they’re dead or just ’bout ready to die!
The mesmerist yelled, “Egads! This Canadian weather! One second it’s freezing and the next it’s like the fires of Hades! This heat is enough to kill!”
Sammy quit shivering and commenced wiping his brow and pulling at the collar of his shirt and saying “Whew!” so’s you’d have thought he’d just got done plowing fifty acres in the middle of July with a mouse for a mule harnessed to a knife for a plow!
Folks laughed and screamed so much that you could see why this cost a whole quarter of a American dollar to come in and see.
The mesmerist said, “And what’s that I see right in front of you, young Samuel? It appears to be the waters of Lake Erie, cool and deep and inviting!”
Sammy started brushing at the stage like it was covered with sand and he was clearing a spot to spread a blanket. But afore he could set hisself down, the mesmerist said with a voice that was fulled up with disappointment, “Samu- well, Sam-u-well, Sam-u-well.”
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Sammy frozed up and the man told him, “How can you even think of relaxing at the seashore when you are just a very few feet away from bathing in this great lake’s waters? You should jump right in!”
Sammy slapped his own forehead like he was thinking, “How come I didn’t think of that?” and stuck one of his toes out to test the water. He let out a long “Ahhh!” and got ready to put his whole foot in this lake that couldn’t no one but him and the conjurer-man see.
Afore even his ankles got wet the mesmerist said, “Sam-u-well, Sam-u-well, Sam-u-well.”
Sammy didn’t step no farther into the water and the conjurer looked at all of us who were watching and said, “Have any of you here ever heard of a boy going to bathe fully clothed?”
The crowd shouted outta one throat, “No!”
I kept my eye on Sammy and for a second the dumbstruck look flew off his face and his brow wrinkled, but just as quick he went back to looking stupid-fied.
The mesmerist said, “Of course not, particularly not when you are wearing the finest silk shirt that the most talented tailor in Toronto has to offer! Samuel, your mother would be appalled if you were to get that beautiful, expensive, and rather stylish shirt wet!”
Sammy slapped his forehead again and started pulling the shirt over his head. Once he had it off he waren’t wearing nothing but a raggedy undershirt and commenced tiptoeing back into the lake. But afore the water could cover even his knees the mesmerist said it again, “Sam-u-well, Sam-u-well, Sam-u-well.”
Sammy stopped with one foot in the air and looked back at the conjurer.
“My word! Ladies and gentlemen, would you look at this young man! He is a stubborn and ungrateful lad! Not only has his dear, beloved mother seen fit to clothe him in a fine silken shirt, she’s also given him a silk undershirt! Please, Samuel, off with it before it’s ruined by the waters of Lake Erie.”
This time Sammy cut a look at the mesmerist that waren’t the least bit dumbstruck, it was kind of edging on being worried.
He pulled his undershirt over his head and a bale of laughs echoed ’round the tent. Laughing is a peculiar thing ’cause there’re lots of different kinds. There’s the laughing you do at the end of a good story, the laugh you give when you’re scared then find out you didn’t have no cause to be, and the laughing that was bouncing ’round in this tent. It waren’t a happy kind of sound atall. It mostly reminded me of the cutting sounds that a pack of hounds makes once they commence to ripping a possum to shreds. It was more like the sound you’d think the Devil would make if he had a good sense of humour and you’d told him a joke.