The Circus of Dr Lao and Other Improbable Stories Read online

  The cops wandered around a little, peering in tents and staring at people and nodding to their friends. They caught a little boy sneaking in under a tent, pulled him back, bawled him out, and sent him home in tears. Then they decided to see a sideshow or two.

  “We’ll jest go in one right after another so’s not to miss anything,” said the thin ugly cop.

  “Right,” said the fat ignorant-looking cop. “Ever see such a goofy circus?”

  “Never,” said his buddy. “Let’s go in here.”

  They went in the medusa tent. The interior was tinted a creamy yellow, and pale silver stars spangled the yellowness. A big mirror hung on the far wall. Before the mirror was a canvas cubicle, the interior of which was reflected in the mirror; One could not see into the cubicle unless one looked in the mirror. Mirror and cubicle both were roped off so that no one could approach very near to either.

  Sitting on a couch in the cubicle was the medusa paring her nails. Her youth was surprising. Her beauty was startling. The grace of her limbs was arousing. The scantiness of her clothing was embarrassing. A lizard ran up the canvas side of her enclosure. One of the snakes on her head struck like a whiplash and seized it. The other snakes fought with the captor for the lizard. That was bewildering.

  “What in the devil kind of a woman is that?” demanded the big fat ignorant-looking cop.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Doctor Lao, “this is the medusa. She is a Sonoran medusa from Northern Mexico. Like her Gorgon sisters, she has the power to turn you into stone if you look her in the eye. Hence, we have this mirror arrangement to safeguard our customers. Let me beg of you, good people, to be satisfied with a reflected vision of her and not go peeking around the edge of the canvas at her. If anybody does that, I forecast lamentable results.

  “First of all, however, look at her snakes. You will notice that most of them are tantillas, those little brown fellows with black rings about their necks. Towards the rear of her head, though, you can see some grey snakes with black spots on them. Those are night snakes, Hypsiglena ochrorhyncus, as they are called in Latin. And her bangs are faded snakes, Arizona elegans, no less. One of the faded snakes just now caught a lizard which some of you may have seen. Her night snakes also eat small lizards, but the tantillas eat nothing but grubs and similar small worms; the feeding of them is sometimes difficult in colder climes.

  “It was a doctor from Belvedere, I believe, who first pointed out that the snakes of a medusa were invariably the commoner snakes of the locality in which she was born; that they were never poisonous; that they embraced several different species; that they fed independent of the woman they adorned. This Belvederian doctor was interested primarily in the snakes and only secondarily in the medusa, so his observations, as far as sideshow purposes are concerned, leave much to be desired. However, I have made a study of this and several other medusas and, hence, am able to tell you a little about them.

  “The origination of medusas is a puzzle to science. Their place in the evolutionary scale is a mystery. Their task in the great balance of life is a secret. For they belong to that weird netherworld of unbiological beings, salient members of which are the chimera, the unicorn, the sphinx, the werewolf, and the hound of the hedges and the sea serpent. An unbiological order, I call it, because it obeys none of the natural laws of hereditary and environmental change, pays no attention to the survival of the fittest, positively sneers at any attempt on the part of man to work out a rational life cycle, is possibly immortal, unquestionably immoral, evidences anabolism but not katabolism, ruts, spawns, and breeds but does not reproduce, lays no eggs, builds no nests, seeks but does not find, wanders but does not rest. Nor does it toil or spin. The members of this order are the animals the Lord of the Hebrews did not create to grace His Eden; they are not among the products of the six days’ labor. These are the sports, the offthrows, of the universe instead of the species; these are the weird children of the lust of the spheres.

  “Mysticism explains them where science cannot. Listen: When that great mysterious fecundity that peopled the worlds at the command of the gods had done with its birth-giving, when the celestial midwives all had left, when life had begun in the universe, the primal womb-thing found itself still unexhausted, its loins still potent. So that awful fertility tossed on its couch in a final fierce outbreak of life-giving and gave birth to these nightmare beings, these abortions of the world. Ancient man feebly represented this first procreation with his figurine of the Ephesian Diana, who had strange animals wandering about her robe and sheath and over her shoulders, suckling at her numerous bosoms, quarreling among the locks of her hair. Nature herself probably was dreaming of that first maternity when she evolved the Surinam toad of the isthmian countries to the south of here, that fantastic toad which bears its babes through the skin of its back. Yes! Perhaps through the skin of the back of the mighty mother of life these antibiological beings came forth. I do not know.

  “Now this medusa here is a young one. I should place her age at less than one hundred years. Judges of women have told me she is unusually attractive, that she possesses beauty far more lovely than that possessed by the average human girl. And I concede that in the litheness of her arms, the swelling of her breasts, the contours of her face, there is doubtless much that would appeal to the artistic in man. But she is a moody medusa. Sometimes I try to talk to her, to find out what she thinks about sitting there regarding all the world reflected in a mirror, potentially capable of depopulating a city merely by walking down the streets looking at the passers-by.

  “But she will not talk to me. She only glances at me in the mirror with boredom—or is it pity or amusement?—on her face and fondles her snakes, dreaming, doubtless, of the last man she has slain.

  “I recall an incident of some years ago when we were showing in the Chinese city of Shanhaikwan, which is situated at the northern extremity of the Great Wall. The medusa and some of the other exhibits in my circus were slightly ill from a long sea voyage, and the whole circus had a droopy air about it that was simply devastating to the business. Well, we put up our tents in Shanhaikwan and thought to stay there awhile until our animals had recovered. It was summer; the mountain breeze from Manchuria was refreshing. There was no war in progress thereabouts for a wonder, for that is the most war-ridden spot in the whole world; and we decided to stay there awhile and try to regain our customary equanimity.

  “Sailors were in the city, sailors from foreign countries who were off their warships on shore leave; and they came to see my circus. They were a gang of drunken swine, but they paid the money, and I let them in. They saw the medusa and, being asses, thought she was just a girl I had fitted out with a cap of snakes in order to fool people. As if one had to go to all that trouble to fool people! However, as I was saying, they thought the medusa was an imposture; but they were enamored of her beauty and, for a boyish lark, they planned among themselves to kidnap her one night, take her down on the beach, rape her, and then cast her aside.

  “So one black night, when the moon was behind a cloud-bank, these sailors came sneaking up to the circus grounds and with their knives sliced a hole in the medusa’s tent and went in after her. The night being so dark that they could not see her face, they were safe enough for the time being, at least.

  “Apollonius and I were returning from a wineshop and realized what they were doing as we came staggering and arguing to our tent. I was very angry and would have loosed the sea serpent upon the ravishers; but Apollonius said not to, that the moon would be out presently, and then matters would take care of themselves. So I quieted down, and we watched and waited.

  “There were ten drunken sailors in the mob. Pale as ghost-flesh were their white uniforms in the black darkness. As I say, they split the tent with their knives, seized the medusa, gagged her, and carried her down to the beach. Just when they got her past the dunes, the moon came out from behind its veil. And I assume the sailors were standing in a semicircle about the medusa, for next morni
ng, when Apollonius and I went down there, ten stone sailors were careening in the sand just as she had left them after looking at them; and the drunken leers were still on their silly, drunken faces. And still are for aught I know, for those leers were graved in the living stone.

  “I tell you, it does not pay to fool with a medusa. Are there any questions anyone would like to ask? If not, I suggest we go and look at the sphinx.”

  A big fat woman in the crowd said: “Well, I don’t believe a word you say. I never heard so much nonsense in all my living days. Turning people to stone! The idee!”

  A little man beside her said: “Now, Kate, don’t go sounding off that way in front of all these people.”

  Kate said: “You shut up, Luther; I’ll say what I darn good and well please!”

  Doctor Lao said: “Madam, the role of skeptic becomes you not; there are things in the world not even the experience of a whole life spent in Abalone, Arizona, could conceive of.”

  Kate said: “Well, 111 show you! I’ll make a liar out of you in front of all these people, I will!”

  And Kate shouldered her way through the onlookers to the roped-in canvas cubicle where lounged the medusa.

  “In the name of the Buddha, stop her!” screamed Doctor Lao.

  But Kate bent under the guard rope and stuck her face around the edge of the cubicle. “Hussy,” she started to say. And before she could utter a third syllable, she was frozen into stone.

  Later on, while everybody was stewing around wondering what to do about it, a geologist from the university examined Kate. “Solid chalcedony,” he said. “Never saw a prettier variegation of color in all my life. Carnelian chalcedony. Makes mighty fine building stone.”

  Ed and Martha, the railroad traffic officer and his wife, brought their two sons to the circus at two twenty-five.

  “Well,” said Martha, “I never did see such a funny-looking circus in all my life. Are you sure we’re at the right place, Ed?”

  “Absolutely, my dear.”

  “Well, then, I suppose we better look at some of the sideshows. Here’s a tent with a mermaid in it. Let’s go in here.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Martha, I hate to spend money on anything that’s so obviously a fake. We both know there aint any such thing as a mermaid. Let’s look around a little more. I don’t mind being fooled if I don’t know at the time that I am being fooled, but the very idea of spending money to see something I know good and well is a fake is somehow repugnant to me.”

  “Maybe it aint a fake, papa,” offered Ed junior.

  “Don’t say ‘aint,’ dear,” corrected mama patiently.

  “Let’s go look at the snake,” suggested little Howard.

  “Oooh, snakes make mother so nervous.” Mama shuddered.

  “Well, whatta we gonna do? Just stand around all the time?” asked Howard.

  “Now don’t go talking to your mother that way, or fatherll switch some politeness into you when we get home,” threatened the traffic officer.

  Howard began to cry.

  “And don’t go turning on the weeps, either, or you’ll get switched right now.”

  Howard ceased crying.

  “Perhaps this hound of the hedges would be interesting,” said Martha, looking at the legend on a banner streaming from a near-by tent.

  “No,” said Ed, “there’s nothing to it. Only a dog painted green. I saw it in the parade this morning.”

  “Aw, gee, papa, let’s look at something,” begged Ed junior.

  “Frankly, Martha,” said Ed, “I don’t believe there’s anything here we want to see. We shouldn’t have come. I never dreamed anyone would try to palm off on the public such a collection of foolishness.”

  Doctor Lao came by headed for the medusa exhibit.

  “Whatsah mattah? You tink someblody makeum fool allah time. I no fool you. You come this place looky look; you looky look. By Glod, I no charge you nothing. You go in flor nothing; takeum whole dam family flor nothing. You see: I no fool you. This place no catchum fake. This my show, by Glod!”

  He pushed the traffic officer and his family into the tent with the roc’s egg and dashed on about his business.

  “He’s the boss of this circus,” explained Ed embarrassedly to his wife. “I guess he got sore about what I said about everything being a fake. What in the world is this thing here?”

  “The sign said it was the roc’s egg,” said Martha.

  The egg loomed like a monolith before them. Pockmarks in its shell were as big as golf balls. They oozed a thin watery secretion.

  “It looks like an egg all right,” agreed Ed. “But it’s preposterous that any egg could be so big.”

  “Well, it is that big, isn’t it, papa?” asked Howard.

  “I guess so, my boy; I guess so.”

  “Well, what do we do? Just stand here and look at it?” asked Ed junior.

  “Now, don’t be impatient, dear,” said mama.

  “I tell you what,” said the traffic officer; “I’ve got it figured out, I believe. It’s not an egg at all. It’s made of concrete or something, and it is a fake. There couldn’t be an egg that big.”

  “Well, it looks that big, papa,” said Howard.

  “Now, Howard,” cautioned mama.

  “Well, why does all the water run out of it?” asked Ed junior.

  “Oh, lots of times concreteTl sweat in hot weather, if it’s poorly made,” said papa. “It’s porous, see, and soaks up moisture on cool nights. Then when it gets hot like this afternoon, the moisture collects and runs out. Kinda like a water pitcher. Capillary action, they call it.”

  “Gee, papa, you know everything, don’t you, papa?” said Howard.

  “Well, I can tell a lump of concrete from an egg when I see it,” admitted the traffic officer.

  The egg began to emit creaking sounds. It seemed to move a little, and from its apex a noise of tapping came. “It’s the heat expanding it,” said papa.

  The tapping became louder. An irritating scratching accompanied it. The egg shook and rolled a little. “Back up a little, everybody,” said papa. “Looks like the thing was going to turn over.”

  A grating, tearing sound came from the top of the egg, and a hunk of shell fell off at their feet. A yellow bill the size of a plowshare stuck out of the egg.

  “My God, it’s hatching,” said mama.

  “Stand back, everybody,” ordered papa.

  The top of the egg splintered and crackled, and out of the ruptured opening a baby roc stuck its frowzy head and looked down at them. Silly pinfeathers, big as ostrich plumes, adorned its grey skin, and the yellow at the corners of its mouth was as yellow as butter. Then the egg fell all apart, and the roc chick stood weeping in the litter of eggshell. It opened its mouth and wailed with horrible hunger.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” said the traffic officer.

  “It wasn’t really concrete, was it, papa?” asked Howard.

  “Now, Howard, please don’t ask any more questions,” said mama.

  Papa said: “Let’s go on home, Martha. I don’t like this place.”

  “All right,” said Martha, smiling.

  At the curb near the edge of the circus grounds a big truck prevented them from getting into their own car. Some rough-looking men were loading a big hunk of stone onto the body of the truck. The traffic officer recognized a man standing near the truck. He hailed him:

  “Hello there, Luther! What did you do, buy a statue at the circus?”

  Luther looked at him sourly. “That aint no statue,” he said “That’s Kate.”

  “Epitomizing the fragrance of grassplots, lawns, and hedgy, thickset places, this behemoth of hounds stands unique in the mysterious lexicon of life. Most of the other curiosities of this circus, I regret to say, have a taint of evil or hysteria about them, but not this magnificent hound. He is as sweet as hay new mown with clover blossoms still unshriveled lying in it. He is as sunny as the dewy mornings his parent grasses so much love. He is a grand
beast, if beast he may be called. Also, though I refer to him in the masculine gender, such designation is very loose; for, as a matter of fact, this hound has sex only as a water lily might have sex. He is alone of his kind throughout the world; no mate and no sire; no dam and no brood. This hound is no more masculine than a horse radish, no more feminine than a cabbage, less carnal than a tiger lily, and as little lustful as a rose bush.

  “We found him in North China along the canals where the ricefields flourish and where grasses and little stunted hedges grow. For a long, long time that land had been nothing but so much parched dust with no green thing growing upon it anywhere. Then the canals were constructed and brought water to it, and over its dry skin lovely green things commenced to grow. That which had seemed dead quickened into life. That which had seemed sterile glistened with fertility. And as a symbol and embodiment of that exuberant fecundity, the grasses and the weeds and the flowers and hedges and bushes each gave a little of themselves and created this hound, truly an unparalleled achievement in the annals of horticulture.

  “We saw him first at dusk playing about the hedgerows, leaping, gamboling, biting at the hedge apples, pawing little holes in the ground and nosing fugitive seeds into them. Alarmed by us he ramped about in great tearing circles, flitting through the grasses and disappearing behind hedges so swiftly the eye could hardly follow him. His beautiful green* ness entranced us. We had never seen so wonderful a hound in all the world.

  “So we caught him. Out of his strange eyes he looked at us —eyes that were like green unripened pods. He was perfectly gentle. His tail of ferns wagged a little, switching his sides of green, green grass. From his panting mouth chlorophyll slavered. Around his neck a thin grass snake was curled, and his leafy ears harbored green katydids and tiny black crickets.

  “In the meshes of our nooses he stood there regarding us. And, oh, that first close view of his great green glorious head! He was standing in the grasses, shoulder deep among the fresh green grasses; his parent grasses, the grasses that he loved. With their slim green fingers they caressed him and sought to shield him from us. They sought with their greenness to reabsorb his greenness, to hide him, to protect him; this their son. I tell you, nothing in the world has ever thrilled me as much as did the first sight of the hound of the hedges, and I have adored and studied animals for more than a hundred years. I said: ‘Here is the masterwork of all life, here in this superb living body that is neither plant nor animal but a perfect balance of both. Here is a mass of living cells so complete in itself that it even demands no outlet for reproduction, content to know that, though it did reproduce its form a thousand times, it could never through that or through the evolutionary changes of a thousand generations improve upon its own victorious completeness.’