Something Wicked This Way Comes (16 page)

    'Elevenfifteen.' Charles Halloway judged the courthouse clock, adjusted his wrist watch, cigar in mouth. 'One minute slow.'

    'Sir,' said the Illustrated Man.

    Will held Jim, Jim held Will fast in the gumwrapper, tobaccolittered pit, as the four shoes rocked, shuffled, tilted above.

    'Sir,' said the man named Dark, probing Charles Halloway's face for the bones there to compare to other bones in other halfsimilar people, 'the CoogerDark Combined Shows have picked two local boys, two! to be our special guests during our celebratory visit!'

    'Well, I - ' Will's father tried not to glance at the sidewalk.

    'These two boys - '

    Will watched the toothsharp shoenails of the Illustrated Man flash, sparking the grille.

    ' - these boys will ride all rides see each show, shake hands with every performer, go home with magic kits, baseball bats - '

    'Who,' interrupted Mr Halloway, 'are these lucky boys?'

    'Two selected from photos snapped on our midway yesterday. Identify them, sir, and you will share their fortune. There are the boys!'

    He sees us down here! thought Will. Oh, God!

    The Illustrated Man thrust out his hands.

    Will's father lurched.

    Tattooed in bright blue ink, Will's face gazed up at him from the palm of the right hand.

    Inksewn to the left palm, Jim's face was indelible and natural as life.

    'You know them?' The Illustrated Man saw Mr Halloway's throat clench, his eyelids squinch, his bones struck vibrant as from a sledgehammer blow. 'Their names?'

    Dad, careful! Will thought.

    'I don't - ' said Will's father.

    'You know them.'

    The Illustrated Man's hands shook, held out to view, asking for the gift of names, making Jim's face on the flesh, Will's face on the flesh., Jim's face hidden beneath the street, Will's face hidden beneath the street, tremble, writhe, pinch.

    'Sir, you wouldn't want them to lose out. . .?'

    'No, but - '

    'But, but, but?' Mr Dark loomed closer, magnificent in his picturegallery flesh, his eyes, the eyes of all his beasts and hapless creatures cutting through his shirt, coat, trousers, fastening the old man tight, biting him with fire, fixing him with thousandfold attentions. Mr Dark shoved his two palms near. "But? - '

 
  Mr Halloway needing something to excruciate, bit his cigar.

    'I thought for a moment - '

    'Thought what?' Grand delight from Mr Dark.

    'One of them looked like - '

    'Like who?'

    Too eager, thought Will. You see that, Dad, don't you?

    'Mister,' said Will's father. 'Why are you so jumpy about two boys?'

    'Jumpy. . .?'

    Mr Dark's smile melted like cotton candy.

    Jim scootched himself down into a dwarf, Will crammed himself down into a midget, both looking up, waiting.

    'Sir,' said Mr Dark, 'is my enthusiasm that to you? “Jumpy?”'

    Will's father noted the muscles cord along the arms, roping and unroping themselves with a writhe like the puff adders and sidewinders doubtless inked and venomous there.

    'One of those pictures,' drawled Mr Halloway, looks like Milton Blumquist.'

    Mr Dark clenched a fist.

    A blinding ache struck Jim's head.

    'The other,' Will's father was almost bland, 'looks like Avery Johnson.'

    Oh, Dad, thought Will, you're great!

    The Illustrated Man clenched his other fist.

    Will his head in a vice, almost screamed.

    'Both boys,' finished Mr Halloway, 'moved to Milwaukee some weeks ago.'

    'You,' said Mr Dark, coldly, 'lie.'

    Will's father was truly shocked.

    'Me? And spoil the prizewinners' fun?'

    'Fact is,' said Mr Dark, 'we found the names of the boys ten minutes ago. Just want to doublecheck.'

    'So?' said Will's father, disbelieving.

    'Jim,' said Mr Dark. 'Will.'

    Jim writhed in the dark. Will sank his head deep in his shoulder blades, eyes tight.

    Will's father's face was a pond into which the two dark stone names sank without a ripple.

    'First names? Jim? Will? Lots of Jims and Wills, couple hundred, town like this.'

    Will, crouched and squirming, thought, who told? Miss Foley? But she was gone, her house empty and full of rain shadows. Only one other person. . .

    The little girl who looked like Miss Foley weeping under the tree? The little girl who frightened us so bad? he wondered. In the last half hour the parade, going by, found her, and her crying for hours, afraid, and ready to do anything, say anything, if only with music, horses plunging, world racing, they would grow her old again, grow her around again, lift her, shut up her crying, stop up the awful thing and make her as she was. Did the carnival promise, lie to her when they found her under the tree and ran her off ? The little girl crying, but not telling all, because -

    'Jim. Will,' said Will's father. 'First names. What about the last?'

    Mr Dark did not know the last names.

    His universe of monsters sweated phosphorus on his hide, soured his armpits, reeked, slammed between his ironsinewed legs.

    'Now,' said Will's father, with a strange, and to him almostdefightfulbecausenew, calm, 'I think you're lying. You don't know the last names. Now, why should you, a carnival stranger, lie to me here on a street in some town on the backside of nowhere?'

    The Illustrated Man clenched his two calligraphic fists very hard.

    Will's father, his face pale, considered these mean, constricted fingers, knuckles' digging nails, inside which two boys faces, crushed hard in dark vice, tight, very tight in prison flesh, were kept in fury.

    Two shadows, below, thrashed in agony.

    The Illustrated Man erased his face to serenity.

    But a bright drop fell from his right fist.

    A bright drop fell from his left fist.

    The drops vanished through the steel sidewalk grille.

    Will gasped. Wetness had struck his face. He clapped his hand to it, then looked at his palm.

    The wetness that had hit his cheek was bright red.

    He glanced from it to Jim, who lay still now also, for the scarification, real or imagined, seemed over and both flicked their eyes up to where the Illustrated Man's shoes flintsparked the grille, grinding steel on steel.

    Will's father saw the blood ooze from the clenched fists, but forced himself to look only at the Illustrated Man's face, as he said:

    'Sorry I can't be more help.'

    Beyond the Illustrated Man, rounding the corner, hands weaving the air, dressed 'm harlequin Gypsy colours, face waxen, eyes hid behind plumdark glasses, the Fortune Teller, the Dust Witch, came mumbling.

    A moment later, looking up, Will saw her. Not dead! he thought. Carried off, bruised, fallen, yes but now back, and mad! Lord, yes, mad, looking especially for me!

    Will's father saw her. His blood slowed, by instinct alone, to a pudding in his chest.

    The crowd opened happily, laughing and commenting on her bright if tattered costume, trying to remember what she rhymed, so as to tell it later. She moved, fingers feeling the town as if it were an immensely complicated and lush tapestry. And she sang:

    'Tell you your husbands. Tell you your wives. Tell you your fortunes. Tell you your lives. See me, I know. See me at the show. Tell you the colour of his eyes. Tell you the colour of her lies. Tell you the colour of his goal. Tell you the colour of her soul. Come now, don't go. See me, see me at the show.'

    Children appalled, children impressed, parents delighted, parents in high good humour, and still the Gypsy from the dusts of living sang. Time walked in her murmuring. She made and broke microscopic webs between her fingers wherewith to feel soot fly up, breath fly out. She touched the wings of flies, the souls of invisible bacteria, all specks, mites, and micasnowings of sunlight filtrated with motion and much more hidden emotion.

    Will and Jim cracked their bones, cowered down., hearing:

    'Blind, yes, blind. But I see what I see, I see where I be,' said the Witch, softly. 'There's a man with a straw hat in autumn. Hello. And - why there's Mr Dark, and. . .an old man. . .an old man.'

  
 He's not that old! cried Will to himself, blinking up at the three, as the Witch stopped, her shadow falling moistfrog cool on the hidden boys.

    '. . .old man. . . '

    Mr Halloway was jolted as by a series of cold knives thrust in his stomach.

    '. . .old man. . .old man. . .' said the Witch.

    She stopped this. 'Ah. . .' The hairs in her nostrils bristled.

    She gaped her mouth to savour air. 'Ah. . .'

    The Illustrated Man quickened.

    'Wait. . .!' sighed the Gypsy.

    Her fingernails scraped down an unseen blackboard of air.

    Will felt himself yip, bark, whimper like an aggravated hound.

    Slowly her fingers climbed down, feeling the spectrums, weighing the light. In another moment, a forefinger might thrust to the sidewalk grille, implying: there! there!

    Dad! thought Will. Do something!

    The Illustrated Man, gone sweetly patient now that his blind but immensely aware dust lady was here, watched her with love.

    'Now. . .' The Witch's fingers itched.

 
  'Now!' said Will's father, loud.

    The Witch flinched.

    'Now, this is a fine cigar!' yelled Will's father, turning with great pomp back to the counter.

    'Quiet. . .' said the Illustrated Man.

    The boys looked up.

    'Now - ' The Witch sniffed the wind.

    'Got to light it again!' Mr Halloway stuck the cigar in the eternal blue flame.

    'Silence. . .' suggested Mr Dark.

    'Ever smoke, yourself?' asked Dad.

    The Witch, from the concussion of his fiercely erupted and overly jovial words, dropped one wounded hand to her side, wiped sweat from it, as one wipes an antenna for better reception, and drifted it up again, her nostrils flared with wind.

    'Ah!' Will's father blew a dense cloud of cigar smoke. It made a fine thick cumulus surrounding the woman.

    'Gah!' she choked.

    'Fool!' The Illustrated Man barked, but whether at man or woman, the boys below could not tell.

    'Here, let's buy you one!' Mr Halloway blew more smoke, handing Mr Dark a cigar.

    The Witch exploded a sneeze, recoiled, staggered away. The Illustrated Man snatched Dad's arm, saw that he had gone too far, let go, and could only follow his Gypsy woman off, in some clumsy and totally unexpected defeat. But then in going, he heard Will's father say, 'A fine day to you, sir!'

    No, Dad! thought Will.

    The Illustrated Man came back.

    'Your name, sir?' he asked, directly.

    Don't tell him! thought Will.

    Will's father debated a moment, took the cigar from his mouth, tapped ash and said, quietly:

    'Halloway. Work in the library. Drop by some time.'

    'You can be sure, Mr Halloway. I will.'

    The Witch was waiting near the corner.

    Mr Halloway whetted his forefinger, tested the wind, and sent a cumulus her way.

    She flailed back, gone.

    The Illustrated Man went rigid, spun about, and strode off, the ink portraits of Jim and Will crushed hard iron tight in his fists.

    Silence.

    It was so quiet under the grille, Mr Halloway thought the two boys had died of fright.

    And Will, below, gazing up, eyes wet, mouth wide, thought, Oh my gosh, why didn't I see it before?

    Dad's tall. Dad's very tall indeed.

    Still Charles Halloway did not look down at the grille but only at the small comets of splashed red colour left on the sidewalk, trailed around the corner, dropped from the clenched hands of the vanished Mr Dark. He was also gazing with surprise at himself, accepting the surprise, the new purpose, which was half despair, half serenity, now that the incredible deed was done. Let no one ask why he had given his true name; even he could not assay and give its real weight. Now he could only read the numerals on the courthouse clock and speak to it, while the boys below, listened.

    'Oh, Jim, Will, something is going on. Can you hide, keep out from under, the rest of the day? We got to have time. With things like this, where do you begin? No law's been broken, none on the books, anyway. But I feel dead and buried a month. My flesh ripples. Hide, Jim, Will, hide. I'll tell your mothers you've got jobs at the carnival, good excuse for you not coming home. Stay hid until dark, then come to the library at seven. Meantime, I'll check police records on carnivals, newspaper files at the library, books, old folios, everything that might fit. God willing, by the time you show up, after dark, I'll have a plan. Walk easy until then. Bless you, Jim. Bless you, Will.'

    The small father who was very tall now walked slowly away.

    Its cigar, unnoticed, fell from his hand, dropped in a spark shower through the grate.

    It lay in the square pit glowing its single fiery pink eye at Jim and Will, who looked back and at last snatched to blind and put it out.

36

The, Dwarf, bearing his demented and wildly lighted eyes, made his way south on Main Street.

    Stopping suddenly, he developed a film strip in his head, scanned it, bleated and blundered back through the forest of legs to reach for and pull the Illustrated Man down where a whisper was as good as a shout. Mr Dark listened, then fled, leaving the Dwarf far behind.

    Reaching the cigar store Indian, the Illustrated Man sank to his knees. Clutching the steel latticegrille, he peered down in the pit.

    Below lay yellow newspapers, wilted candy wrappers, burnt cigars, and gum.

    Mr Dark's cry was muffled fury.

    'Lose something?'

    Mr Tetley blinked over his counter.