“I was going to climb up there,” Frost said. “I was going up there this morning. It was supposed to be me.”
U.S. Grant, who had not spoken, but had stopped screaming, eased up slowly, fell to her knees next to Conrad. She took hold of him and lowered him so that he could lie on his side without his feet sticking up in the air. His extended eyeball became bathed in green paint, and now blood ran out from him in gluts and blended with it.
“He was going to surprise you two,” U.S. Grant said. “He heard Bill say there was painting to do yet. A bucket left. He got the paint out of the car. He couldn’t sleep because he wanted to surprise you.”
“Jesus,” Bill said.
“He climbed up there when daylight came. I was fixing him breakfast. He was going to finish and eat breakfast. I heard the bucket shift, and . . . He was going to finish up and eat breakfast.”
“It’s my fault,” Bill said.
“No,” Frost said, tears running down his cheeks. “It’s my fault.”
“That’s right,” U.S. Grant said. “Your fault. You had to have that rattletrap. No one but Phil knew how to really fasten it together. You had to have it though. And you had to have it painted right away. You always have to have things right away. He always wanted to please you, Frost. Always. We always want to please you, but you’re not so smart. You fucked up. You and your goddamn idea.”
“I know,” Frost said. He reached out his hand and ran it through Conrad’s paint-caked smattering of hair.
A blackness went over Bill. He got up and stumbled, fell down, got up, stumbled again.
As he groped his way toward his trailer, Gidget came out of the motor home. She had stopped to comb her hair and put on lipstick. She was wearing a pair of simple blue pajamas and a pajama top with a bright bird of paradise embroidered on the left side above her heart. She wore little blue house shoes with round blue cotton balls on the toes. She looked out at Frost and Conrad and U.S. Grant, then she looked at Bill, but she looked his way for only a moment, then she sighed deep, swallowed, took a deep breath, and went running out to Frost, screaming, screaming, as if it was she who had fallen.
Twenty-nine
US. Grant carried Conrad to her trailer and wiped him clean with paint thinner and paper towels, got his eye back inside its socket with the aid of tweezers and a couple of cotton balls and strip of Scotch tape.
It looked better than the other eye, which had met the ground and was like a grape stepped on by a size twelve. She cut a strip from her dress and made a string and patch from it, and after she cleaned him off good and dressed him in his red overalls, she tied the patch over the mashed eye and combed his wad of hair. She put both his shoes on him, then she wrapped him in a quilt.
Frost and one of the pumpkin heads carried the body from her trailer to the Pickled Punk trailer and placed him behind the Pickled Punks, on the floor pallet, next to a deck of cards, under the wrinkled picture of Jesus in pain.
Frost called the police then.
Inside the Ice Man’s trailer Bill took the little stack of Westerns Conrad had given him and piled them neatly and arranged them by his bed in rows, then he restacked them on top of the Ice Man’s freezer and sat on the bed and looked at them and tried to remember what each of them was about. He sat there until tears came, and then he shook his head and rolled onto the bed and cried and fell asleep to hide from the pain.
The police came out in a while, and they asked everyone out of their trailers and got stories from everyone, and they took names, and Bill gave a false last name that no one had heard before and had no reason to doubt. Down deep he wanted to give his real name and hope it meant something. He wanted to be taken away and punished.
The cops didn’t seem to think there were any signs of foul play, even if the body had been cleaned up, and Pete didn’t tell how he sucked a pecker and had seen Bill down by the river. Most likely he had already forgotten it. They only asked Pete a couple of questions, then decided it was a little like interviewing a turnip.
The police went away and Bill went back to his trailer wearing his guilt like a second skin. He was there fifteen minutes when he heard something outside. He pulled on his pants and went out barefooted. Frost was on a little step stool and he had a bucket of soap and water. There was a can of paint thinner on the ground. He was cleaning the paint off the trailer with a brush and a rag.
“Leave it alone!” Bill said. “Leave it alone!”
“Whoa, Bill, it’s okay.”
“Ain’t nothing okay. Conrad’s dead!”
“I know how you feel.”
“You don’t know shit. He ain’t dead more than a few hours and you’re cleaning the trailer.”
“It has to be cleaned, Bill. We don’t want Conrad’s legacy to be green paint on the trailer and a brush stuck to the window. I’d rather not be reminded.”
“Well, I want to be reminded. I want out of this whole thing. I’m sick of being in this trailer. I’m sick of the Ice Man. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of this goddamn carnival. You don’t give a shit he’s dead.”
Bill went inside the trailer and slammed the door. A moment later Frost came inside and took a chair and sat with his hands in his lap, watching Bill lie in bed snuggling a pillow.
“Conrad meant a lot to me.”
“Yeah. Tell me you raised him from a pup.”
“You forget, Bill, when you first came here, you thought these people were retards, niggers, just freaks. It was I who told you different. I put you in this trailer for a purpose. I wanted you to be with the Ice Man.”
“Well, I don’t like him.”
“You don’t like how he makes you feel. Do you ever wonder why he makes you feel that way?”
“He don’t make me feel any kind of way.”
“Sometimes I think he’s some kind of messenger for us all. That whatever each of us wants to see, we see it in him.”
“That’s silly.”
“Could be. That little story I tell to the people who come to see him. I have to tell it that way, but it’s not the truth.”
Bill grew attentive in spite of himself.
“Do you know who Constantine was?”
Bill shook his head.
“A Roman emperor. He explored Jerusalem looking for holy locations where Christ had been. Where he had been crucified, where he had been buried. He claimed that the body lay in a church there. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Many believe it is still there, hidden away somewhere. Others believe it was never there. Some believe Constantine had it removed. He feared if anyone knew where it was, they might try to take it. Like the ark of the covenant, the body of Christ would have powers. Or at least people would think it did.”
Bill slowly swung his feet to the floor and leaned forward.
“It is thought that the body was preserved with methods we no longer know. The body was hidden for fear it would be stolen, desecrated. Things changed in the Middle East. One upheaval after another. The body disappeared, or so some esoteric scholars claim. It is thought to have somehow found its way out of Jerusalem and to the United States. Was owned by an eccentric millionaire who also had the diary of the true Jack the Ripper, the severed dried head of John the Baptist, and Rasputin’s penis, though his daughter disputes this and says she has it. And she certainly has something. It looks like a blackened banana. Anyway, that’s not the point. A lot of money changed hands, it’s said, and this millionaire bought the body of Christ. In time, the millionaire died, and somehow, perhaps one of his relatives, bitter for some reason, a nonbeliever, whatever, sold it to the carnival. This made it no less sacred. It allowed the Savior to be exposed to many people. I bought that exhibit and was told this story by the owner, but the story he gave out was the one I tell now. He said it was too much for people to know, or suspect that this was the true body of Jesus. Yet, when they viewed, he knew, somewhere down deep in their heart of hearts, they knew.”
“I thought Christ was supposed to have risen. Ain’t that how the
story goes? That was true, wouldn’t be no body.”
Frost nodded. “If he was just a man, then there would be a body. He may not be the son of God, but he would still be one of the most important human beings to have ever lived. And if he was in fact the son of God, the body is his shell, not his spirit. It would have been his spirit that rose, not the shell.”
“You’re saying that . . . That’s really the body of him?”
“I’m saying I bought the exhibit and the story. The body may in fact be the body of the previous carnival owner’s kin. A bum who died and was preserved. It doesn’t matter, Bill. Not really. It matters what you decide to believe.
“I’m going to go now, and I’m going to clean that mess on the side of the trailer. Then I’m going to try and find a place to have Conrad embalmed and buried. He was always a good and close friend to me, and now I intend to help him leave this world.”
“He’s already left it.”
“I suppose he has.”
Frost got up and went outside. A little later Bill heard him working alongside the trailer. Bill took the paperbacks off of the freezer and placed them beside his bed.
He got the hair dryer. He turned it on and blew away the frost. The figure inside didn’t look much like most pictures of Jesus, but it did look a bit like the picture on the wall of the Pickled Punk trailer, but with eyes like Frost’s. It had scars on its forehead, as if from thorns, and there were marks on its side, and Bill thought he could see some kind of mark on one of its feet. A nail wound?
Maybe it was just a wrinkle.
Thirty
Frost canceled the carnival that weekend and got permission to stay in that spot until he could take care of Conrad and have a time of mourning for himself and the carnival members. Most of them thought they ought to take the day Conrad went into the hole off and get back to work the next. They liked Conrad, some even loved him, but a buck was a buck, and you had to eat, one dead Wonder Dog or no. But it was, as usual, Frost’s way or the highway.
It turned out things didn’t go so slick for Frost. In town the body was held and it was insisted that next of kin be searched for. No one wanted to take Frost’s word on the matter. Things like that had happened before, only to result in dire consequences for town officials. They put the dog on ice and Frost and the authorities started a search.
It turned out Frost was wrong. There was a cousin in Idaho. She was found easy. She wanted the body but was too much of an invalid to come down and get it. She asked if Conrad could be stuffed and a name plaque attached so he could be made into some kind of exhibit, and would this be easier for mailing? Frost lied and told her the body was too much of a wreck. She asked Frost to bring the corpse and, being Frost, he agreed. He wanted to be there to make sure Conrad went into the ground, not next to a door and an umbrella rack. He made arrangements to have Conrad embalmed and placed in a coffin from the animal cemetery, because those were the only coffins small enough to properly accommodate him and not have him rattle around in there during transit like a BB in a boxcar. It took two days for the embalming and fitting in the coffin, the one commonly used for collies and German shepherds. Frost had to go back the next day and load the coffin in the back of the station wagon and drive back to the carnival.
He came to Bill and told him about the cousin.
“I’m going to be gone for a while. I have to go to Idaho. It’ll take me a week to get there, do the funeral, help out, and come back. You and Gidget are in charge.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about being in charge.”
“Others do, but they don’t want it. Gidget’s the one, but she’ll need help. Little things. She’ll tell you what to do.”
“I could drive Conrad to his cousin’s in Idaho.”
“I have to do this, and for my sake, and Conrad’s sake, I need you to help Gidget. Will you do it?”
Bill and Frost were standing outside the Ice Man’s trailer. Bill walked over to the station wagon and looked in the back at the small blue coffin sitting on the old creased upholstery. Goodbye, my friend. Peace to you. And I’m sorry. But I can see that ditch coming and I don’t even know how to steer.
Frost left that afternoon and that night, late, Gidget came to the Ice Man’s trailer and scratched like a cat on the door.
“I know it’s you,” Bill said, then considered it might in fact be Pete come for his blow job.
“Let me in?”
“No. You go on.”
“He’s gone, Bill. We can be together.”
“I killed my friend on account of you.”
“It was on account of an accident.”
“Wouldn’t have been no accident without you and me.”
“That’s just it, Bill. It was you and me. Not me.”
“No more, Gidget. Just leave me be.”
“You want me, Bill. I know it. You know it.”
Bill could see that ditch looming large.
“You let me in, let me take care of you the way only I can. You hear me, Bill?”
“I hear you.”
“You let me in, honey, and I’ll give you a taste like you haven’t ever had.”
“No.”
“You’re thinking about it—”
“No.”
“—aren’t you, Bill? You know what I can do—”
“Go!”
“—for you. It’s not just what I can do, it’s what you want. There’s no use pretending you’re worth something, Bill. You aren’t. You’re just like me, rotten to the core. You’re tryin’ to wear some kind of halo, like Frost wants you to. But that isn’t you. You got any halo on, it’s made of aluminum foil and a coat hanger, baby. You’re who you are. You and me, we got rotten souls, and that’s all there is to it. And there isn’t anyone can make you and me happy, but you and me. Together.”
“Please, Gidget.”
“Bill. This is the last time I ask. I’m not one has to ask much, you know that. There are plenty out there ready and willing. Open the door.”
When Bill opened the door Gidget leaped in, swung her fist and hit him over the ear and knocked him down and tried to kick him in the balls. He rolled and she caught his side with another kick. He got up and she kicked at him again, and he grabbed her foot and pulled her to the floor and jumped astride her and slapped her across the face, back and forth, back and forth, and she said, “Yeah, baby, yeah, do it,” and he hit her again, and this time it wasn’t anger, it was pleasure, and she shared the pleasure. She used both hands to grab the sides of her white blouse and rip it open, loosing bra-less titties on the world. Bill jammed his fingers in her worn-out blue jean shorts and tugged with all his might, ripping, exposing one beautiful thigh, then he ripped again, showing the rest of her. She scratched at him and ripped through his T-shirt and tore his flesh and he bled and she ran her hands over his chest, smearing the blood, poking the red fingers in her mouth to suck. He slapped her and she groaned. He tugged at his belt and she swatted his groin. He unfastened his pants, pushed them down, got on top of her. She tried to pull her thighs together. He bit her nipple and she spread her legs with a little squeak. She was hot and wet and sticky. He went into her and she said, “Have you now, you sonofabitch!”
And have him she did. Up one side and down the other. When it was over they lay together, she in the crook of his arm and he breathing heavy, feeling satiated.
“It didn’t work out,” she said. “It happens.”
“It was terrible.”
“I know. You lost a friend. We got the wrong one. We tried too hard. We got to know he’s the one to get it, not hope he’s the one.”
“You won’t give it up, will you?”
“It’s bottom line, Billy. You either want me or you want Frost. Look here. We do this, we got the exhibit. You like the exhibit, don’t you?”
“Sure. I like Frost too.”
“Which do you like better?”
“Why have I got to choose?”
“You keep Frost, he’s got the exhibit.
Not us. Not you. You could be the man. You’re dark at the middle, baby, but you do this, we get the thing, the dingus, then you and me, we’re it, and you’re the man. You’re the driving force. Bad stuff is over. For good. I promise. This is for us. It’s the best and easiest way to jump ahead in life. It’s our jump, baby.”
“He told me it’s really the body of Christ.”
“He tells people whatever they want to think about that thing, baby. He thinks he’s some kind of do-gooder. He thinks he can rouse something good in you, and he’ll do it with talk or he’ll do it with that dead body. He’s telling you it’s Christ. Some other person he might tell it’s the body of some rock singer. He feels you out, then tells you what he thinks will work. I’ll tell you what I think it is. Something made of rubber.”
“Well, I guess he didn’t really say it was Christ. He said that was the true story he had gotten.”
“He’s got lots of true stories. I tell you it’s just something rubber is all. He makes himself important with that thing.”
“Hell, that’s what I want. To be important.”
“And you can have it. Listen, honey. Even if that was Jesus and he was here to help you personal, wouldn’t work. You’re rotten, just like I been sayin’, but you want to pretend you aren’t. You want to think maybe you can get religion or something to make you better, but once an apple is rotten, hon, it stays rotten. My advice is learn to be rotten and like it. There ain’t nothing in that freezer’s gonna change who you are, who anyone is.”
They lay silent for a while. Eventually Bill spoke. “We did this . . . I don’t want to start something. You know, a trend . . . Just this one time.”
“What’s that?”
“Something like this. Rotten or not. Just this one time. Right? I mean, there ain’t no one else we want killed, is there?”
“When it’s done, we’ll just let it go. Believe me, it can be done. I just got to think about it awhile. We won’t get in a hurry.”
“Maybe if it was someone I didn’t like.”
“Listen here. He likes you, Billy. Really, he does. But he pities you. You want to be the source of pity? That’s not true respect, friendship, or love. It’s just what it is. I love you, Billy. I know how you and me are. I face the facts. But still, I love you. Do you really want me to keep lying down with a man with a hand on his chest? You really want me to give birth to a baby might have a hand on its chest, or coming out its ass or on top of its head? You really want that? You think about it. You think about how you’ve had me, baby. Ain’t no one done the things to me you’ve done, ain’t no one likes it the way we like it. I don’t want to be shared. I want you.”