The Circus of Dr Lao and Other Improbable Stories Read online

  “Yes we did, mother,” said Alice, “a real live sphinx. It looked like a woman sticking her front out of a lion. It was pulling a wagon with a big bear in it.”

  “It wasn’t a bear,” said Edna, “it was a man.”

  “It was a bear,” said Alice.

  “It was a man.”

  “It was a bear.”

  “It was a man.”

  “Oh, heavens! Don’t start that now,” said Mrs. Rogers. “What was it, Willie, a bear or a man?”

  “I thought it was a Russian,” said Willie.

  Mrs. Rogers sat down. “You children see the strangest things sometimes. What else was there, Alice?”

  “Well, there was a man with horns on his head like a goat; and there was a Chinaman; and there was a snake; and there was a man what looked like God.”

  “Oh, Alice,” said Mrs. Rogers, “how can you say such a thing?”

  “Well,” said Alice, “he looked just like those pictures of Jesus in the Sunday-School book, didn’t he, Edna?”

  “Just exactly,” said Edna. “Long brown hair and beard and white robes and everything. He looked awfully old, though.”

  “Well, was that all there was in the parade?” asked Mrs. Rogers.

  ‘That’s all, mother. There weren’t any clowns or elephants or bands or camels or anything.”

  “Weren’t there any horses?”

  “There was a horse with a horn on its head, but it had a funny tail,” said Edna.

  “Well, it must have been a queer parade,” said Mrs. Rogers. “I wish I had seen it.”

  A little later Mr. Rogers came in with a funny look on his face.

  “What’s the matter?” his wife asked.

  “I dunno,” said the plumber; “it don’t seem right. That parade I saw just now. Oh, yeah, before I forget; I got work, Sarah, nine months’ work starting tomorrow.”

  “Well, thank God!” said Mrs. Rogers. “Where? Tell me quick!”

  “Oh, maintenance stuff down at the hotel. But I wanted to tell you about that parade. Never saw such a thing. Got a snake there I bet’s eighty feet long if he’s an inch. And then there was a Chink. Funny old bird. Oh, yeah; but what I wanted to tell you about was a bear they had in a cage. There was a fellah standing beside me tried to tell me it was a man. Ever hear of such a thing? Couldn’t tell a bear from a man! I thought he was joking at first, but he got hard as the devil, so I piped down and let him think it was a man. Ever hear of such a thing?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Rogers, “I’ve heard considerable about it already this morning.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Oh, the children saw the parade, too.”

  “Oh, they did, huh? That’s good. They didn’t think that bear was a man, did they?”

  “Willie thought it was a Russian,” said Mrs. Rogers.

  At quarter to eleven Miss Agnes Birdsong, high-school English teacher, was down on Main Street waiting for the parade and feeling a little foolish. She felt even more foolish when she saw what a silly little parade it turned out to be. But she looked pretty standing in the shade in her flimsy summer dress; she looked pretty, and she knew it, and she kept on standing there and watching.

  She couldn’t quite identify the animals at first. Then she said to herself: “Of course, that thing’s a unicorn.” Then she remembered that unicorns were figments of the imagination. “It’s a fake,” she corrected herself.

  She regarded the snake with a slight feeling of illness. She hated snakes anyway; this huge grey yellow-tongued worm with scarlet throat and jeweled eyes bothered her and frightened her. Suppose it should get loose. Of course, it was penned in there, but suppose it should get loose. How terrible. The grinning old Chinaman, noting her concern, reached around behind him with his whip handle and prodded the serpent. It hissed like a truck tire going flat and shifted its slimy coils.

  Miss Agnes shuddered.

  Then she saw the sphinx and the old bearded man driving it and the man in the cage on the wagon. The old bearded man was wool-gathering; the reins lay listless in his hands; his thoughts, far away from Abalone and the business of driving in the parade, played gently in some stray corner of the universe of his mind. The sphinx, noting its driver’s inattention, took the bit in its teeth, gave a sluggish leap, and almost snapped the reins from the old fellow’s grasp.

  “Pay attention to your business, Apollonius,” snarled the sphinx.

  Miss Agnes Birdsong nearly sat down on the sidewalk in amazement. She looked at the people around her, but they seemed not to have heard a word. Miss Agnes touched her pulse and her brow. “I am a calm, intelligent girl,” she said firmly. “I am a calm, intelligent girl.”

  Then the last wagon came along drawn by the golden ass, driven by the clovenfooted satyr. A little gold ring was in the satyr’s nose; beside him on the seat was his syrinx. To Miss Agnes he smelled like a goat. His torso was lean as a marathon runner’s; his hoofs were stained grass-green. A grape leaf was caught in his hair. He leered at Miss Agnes; he shielded his eyes with his hand and leered at her. He turned in his seat and stared back at her, staring and staring as though out of his accumulation of years he could remember nothing to compare with her.

  “I am a calm, intelligent girl,” Miss Agnes reassured herself. “I am a calm, intelligent girl, and I have not seen Pan on Main Street. Nevertheless, I will go to the circus and make sure.”

  At a quarter past twelve, Mr. Etaoin, the Tribune proofreader, went around to the Tribune newsroom to see about getting a pass to the circus.

  The city editor gave him one. “Old Chink brought ‘em in this morning. Funny old bird. Spoke good English. Didn’t want any free publicity for his show or anything. Said he understood it was customary for newspaper men to get in at all the shows and entertainments for nothing anyway, so he was bringing around a few passes to save trouble out at the grounds. Oh, by the way, Etaoin, did you see the parade this morning? I missed it, but from what I’ve heard it was a kinda screwy thing.”

  “It was unusual rather than screwy,” said Etaoin. “Did you hear anything about a bear that looked like a man?”

  “No,” said the editor, “but I did hear something about a man that looked like a bear.”

  ‘That’s just as good,” said the proofreader.

  “Well, what about this unicorn stuff?” asked the editor.

  “Yeah, they had a unicorn, too.”

  “Oh, yeah? Seems to me I heard something about a sphinx, also.”

  “There was a sphinx there, too.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Uh huh. And the golden ass of Apuleius was there and the sea serpent and Apollonius of Tyana and the hound of the hedges and a satyr.”

  “Quite a collection,” said the editor. “You haven’t forgotten any of them, have you?”

  Etaoin thought awhile. “Oh, sure,” he said; “I did forget. There was that Russian.”

  At a quarter of two Mr. Etaoin started for the circus grounds intent on viewing the sideshows first before the big top opened up for the main performance. He had a pass good for everything anyway; there was no profit in not using it to the uttermost; no sense in not squeezing from it everything gratis that could be squeezed. Money was made to buy things with, but passes were designed to take you places for nothing. The freedom of the press.

  It was hot as he walked through the streets of Abalone. Etaoin reflected how much better it was to have it so hot rather than correspondingly cold—it would be way below zero. Overcoats. Mufflers. Overshoes. Eartabs. And every time he’d go in a door the lenses of his glasses would cloud over with opaque frostiness, and he would have to take them off and regard things with watery eyes while he wiped them dry again. A pox on wintertime. A curse on cold weather. An imprecation on snow. The only ice Mr. Etaoin ever wanted to see again was ice in little dices made in electric refrigerators. The only snow he ever wanted to see again was the snow in newsreels. He wiped the perspiration from his brow and crossed to the shady side of the street
. On the telephone wires birds perched, their bills hanging open in the terrific heat. Heat waves like cellophane contours writhed from building roofs.

  By the time he reached the circus grounds he had almost forgotten the circus; and, as he walked up to the tents, he was at a loss to think what he was doing there in that dusty field under the red-hot sun at that time of day. Then over the pathway between the rows of tents he saw a big red and black banner. It proclaimed:

  THE CIRCUS OF DOCTOR LAO

  “So that’s the name of it,” thought Mr. Etaoin.

  The tents were all black and glossy and shaped not like tents but like hard-boiled eggs standing on end. They started at the sidewalk and stretched back the finite length of the field, little pennants of heat boiling off the top of each. No popstands were in sight. No balloon peddlers. No noisemakers. No hay. No smell of elephants. No roustabouts washing themselves in battered buckets. No faded women frying hot dogs in fly-blown eating stands. No tent pegs springing up under one’s feet every ninth step.

  A few people stood desultorily about; a few more wafted in and around the rows of tents. But the tent doors all were closed; cocoon-like they secreted their mysterious pupae; and the sun beat down on the circus grounds of Abalone, Arizona.

  Then a gong clanged and brazenly shattered the hot silence. Its metallic screams rolled out in waves of irritating sound. Heat waves scorched the skin. Dust waves seared the eyes. Sound waves blasted the ears. The gong clanged and banged and rang; and one of the tents opened and a platform was thrust out and a Chinaman hopped on the platform and the gong’s noise stopped and the man started to harangue the people; and the circus of Doctor Lao was on:

  “This is the circus of Doctor Lao.

  We show you things that you don’t know.

  We tell you of places you’ll never go.

  We’ve searched the world both high and low

  To capture the beasts for this marvelous show

  From mountains where maddened winds did blow

  To islands where zephyrs breathed sweet and slow.

  Oh, we’ve spared no pains and we’ve spared no dough;

  And we’ve dug at the secrets of long ago;

  And we’ve risen to Heaven and plunged Below,

  For we wanted to make it one hell of a show.

  And the things you’ll see in your brains will glow

  Long past the time when the winter snow

  Has frozen the summer’s furbelow.

  For this is the circus of Doctor Lao.

  And youth may come and age may go;

  But no more circuses like this show!”

  The little yellow wrinkled dancing man hopped about on the platform sing-songing his slipshod dactyls and iambics; and the crowd of black, red, and white men stared up at him and marveled at his ecstasy.

  The ballyhoo ceased. The old Chinaman disappeared. From all the tents banners were flung advertising that which they concealed and would reveal for a price. The crowd lost its | identity; the individual regained his, each seeking what he thought would please him most. Mr. Etaoin wondered just where to go first. Over him fluttered a pennant crying, Fortunes Told. “I shall have my fortune told,” Mr. Etaoin confided to himself; and he scuttled into the tent.

  Miss Agnes Birdsong, high-school English teacher, arrived at the circus grounds ten minutes after two. She neatly parked her neat little coupe alongside the curb on the opposite side of the street, raised the windows, got out, locked the doors, and walked across the street to the multitude of tents.

  On a platform in front of one of the tents the old bearded man who had been wool-gathering while he drove in the parade that morning was doing the ballyhooing. It was the poorest ballyhoo speech Miss Agnes had ever heard in all her life, and she had heard some terrible ones. The old man spoke in a thin, weak voice, apparently extemporaneously, for he often had to stop and think what to say next. He was talking about the sideshows:

  “. . . ‘nd in that tent over there, the third one after the big one, you people will see the chimera, a very curious beast. I don’t suppose any of you people know what a chimera is, but it doesn’t matter; go and look at him anyway. He can’t hurt you, of course; being penned up that way for so long has gentled his nature. I think he’s shedding now, that is, the lion part of him is shedding, so he won’t look so glossy, but you can still tell what he is, of course. And Doctor Lao will be around there somewhere to answer any questions you may want to ask regarding the chimera. A very curious beast. I understand they are very nearly extinct. I can’t think where the doctor got this one. In the next tent is the werewolf, I believe; yes, the werewolf is in the next tent to the chimera. You all know what a werewolf is, I assume. Very interesting beast, indeed. Later on, in the month of October, it becomes a woman for six weeks. Period of metamorphosis is curious to watch. Too bad it isn’t changing form now. Know you people would like to see a wolf change into a woman. We feed it lamb chops as a rule. However, Doctor Lao will tell you all about it over in the tent. He has a very interesting lecture on the werewolf, I understand. Really must listen to it myself sometime. I don’t know a great deal about the beast, to be perfectly frank. Then, in another tent is the medusa. I myself perform magic tricks in the tent across the way. And, let me see, I’m sure you people would be interested in seeing the mermaid, because in this desert country away from the sea, these ocean-dwelling creatures are bound to be unusual. Then, | too, there is the hound of the hedges, which probably you have never seen, because it is indigenous to grasslands and weed patches and hedgerows and the like. The show for men only is in the last tent. I imagine the fertility dance of the Negro priests will start presently. Of course, that tent is for men only.

  “So glad to see so many of you people here this afternoon, and I am sure that Doctor Lao is likewise pleased. He went to a great deal of trouble to collect all these animals, and I know you will all be interested in the strange animals. Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you about the roc’s egg. It’s in another tent back there, I’m not sure just which one. It’s a great big egg, big as a house almost, and sweats salt water. I’m sure you good people will be interested in seeing the roc’s egg. Doctor Lao will give a lecture on it in the tent. I think it’s the third tent there, but I’m not sure. I really must, I suppose, familiarize myself more with the position of the various exhibits. Well, I suppose you are all tired of hearing me talk and want to go look at the shows. Remember, I perform my magic in the tent just across the way.”

  The old man climbed painfully and slowly off the platform and pushed his way through the crowd to the tent where he did his magic. A few people followed in after him. Miss Agnes Birdsong stood undecided. Then out of the corner of her right eye she saw the old Chinaman scuttling along with a pot of tea in his hand and a pipe of opium in his mouth. She halted him.

  “Doctor Lao?”

  “Yes, lady.”

  “Where is the tent with Pan?”

  “We do not have Pan in this circus, lady. What you are thinking of, no doubt, is the satyr who drove for us in the parade this morning. He is in that tent over there. Admission is ten cents. If you wish to see him, just pay me here and go right in. We are a little short-handed on ticket-takers at present.”

  Miss Agnes gave the Chinaman two nickels and, assuring herself she was a calm, intelligent girl, entered the tent to see the satyr.

  He lay scratching himself on a rack of grapevines, his thin, wispy beard all messy with wine lees. His hoofs were incrusted with manure, and his hands were bony, gnarled and twisted, brown and rough and long-nailed. Between his horns was a bald spot surrounded by greying curly hair. His ears were sharp-pointed, and lean, thin muscles crawled over his arms. The goat hair hid the muscles of his legs. His ribs stuck out. His shoulders hunched about his ears.

  He grinned at Miss Agnes, took up his syrinx, and started to play. Thin reedy piping music danced in the dull air in the dark tent. He arose and danced to his own music, his goat tail jerking shortly, prodding stiffly, wagging a
nd snapping. His feet did a jig, the clicking hoofs keeping time to his piping, pounding the dirt floor, clacking, clicking, clucking. The goaty smell grew stronger.

  Miss Agnes stood there assuring herself she was a calm, intelligent girl. The satyr capered around her, tossing his pipes, tossing his head, wriggling his hips, waggling his elbows. The syrinx peep, peep, peepled. The door of the tent fell shut. Around Miss Agnes the aged goat man galloped. His petulant piping screeched in her ears like the beating of tinny bells; it brought a nervousness that shook her and made her blood pump. Her veins jumping with racing blood, she trembled as Grecian nymphs had trembled when the same satyr, twenty centuries younger, had danced and played for them. She shook and watched him. And the syrinx peep, peep, peepled.

  He danced closer, his whirling elbows touching with their points her fair bare arms, his shaggy thighs brushing against her dress. Behind his horns little musk sacs swelled and opened, thick oily scented stuff oozing out—a prelude to the rut. He trod on her toe with one hoof; the pain welled up to her eyes, and tears came. He pinched her thigh as he scampered around her. The pinch hurt, but she found that pain and passion were akin. The smell of him was maddening. The tent reeked with his musk. She knew that she was sweating, that globules of sweat ran down from under her arms and dampened her bodice. She knew that her legs were shiny with sweat. The satyr danced on stiff legs about her, his bony chest swelling and collapsing with his blowing. He bounded on stiff legs; he threw the syrinx away in a far corner; and then he seized hen He bit her shoulders, and his nails dug into her thighs. The spittle on his lips mingled with the perspiration around her mouth, and she felt that she was yielding, dropping, swooning, that the world was spinning slower and slower, that gravity was weakening, that life was beginning.

  Then the door of the tent opened and Doctor Lao came in.

  “The satyr,” he said, “is perhaps the most charming figure in the old Greek polytheistic mythology. Combining the forms of both man and goat, its make-up suggests fertility, inasmuch as both men and goats are animals outstanding in concupiscent activities. To the Greeks satyrs were, indeed, a sort of deification of lust, woodland deities, sylvan demigods. And, as a matter of fact, groves and woodlots are today favorite trysting places for lovers intent on escaping censorious eyes.