Dreams of Beautiful People

"When a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps, else he
would awake; that's the way I take it, " said the Torso-man between
drags from his cigarette; his voice was hoarse and cracked and sounded
as if he was fifty instead of fifteen. He'd balance himself on one hand
as he smoked, for he didn't like to dirty his red sequined tuxedo vest.
Mr. Abraham, the circus owner, liked it when the freaks kept themselves
presentable. The vest was stapled about his torso, leaving a small
pee-hole-- there was no need for pants.

Under the wagon's canopy, the pinhead twins hugged each other out of
shyness, their egg-shaped heads bobbing and weaving, their tassels of
hair swishing like a horse tail does when swatting at flies. They
didn't like the sun; it was better under the canopy.

"You think this world is real? " said the Torso-man. The pinhead twins
only grinned shyly, their heads bob-bob-bobbing. "You think you or I am
real, my sweet little chickens? " asked the Torso-man and the pinhead
twins laughed and giggled in their slurred way, then the one pinhead
twin curled over and whispered something in the other's ear. They both
laughed some more. The Torso-man coughed up something black.

Sheila, the He-she, and Horris, the Crawdad Man, walked by and the
Torso-man gave them a wave. Horris clicked his pinchers in the
Torso-man's direction and Sheila turned to wave, showing the
juxtaposition of sex on her/his face.

"Sheila's expecting, " called Horris. Torso-man noticed the slight
bulge in her/his, abdomen, and flicked some ash into the dirt.

"How far along? "

"Six months now."

"Two late for an abortion, " said the Torso-man under his breath but
the couple had already gone by; they were scheduled for the five
o-clock performance. The Torso-man would be on after them. He sat there
in the shade watching the pinheads bob and weave and imagined what the
baby would look like. "It will be a golden baby, " the Torso-man told
the pinheads who smiled in their goonish way, bobbing their heads that
they agreed, bobbing their heads just because. "You get two of us
together and then we kind of cancel each other out. Some sick trick
which only God, the Devil Himself, can explain. Some sick trick?" the
Torso-man said then realized he'd let himself fall down into the dirt
and the bottom of his tuxedo was soiled. "Oh, shit, Abraham's going to
be mad." He tried to wipe the dirt off and got his cigarette ashes
mixed in with the red sequins. Several of the sequins began to melt and
curl up. "Cheep crap, you think they'd be able to get us something
better to wear."

The Torso-man snuffed his cigarette butt on the ground then lifted
himself up on his two hands; his arms were quite powerful-- all his
life they were his legs. The Torso-man suspected he could kill someone
with his arms if he wanted. Maybe he would try it out on Brownman.
Maybe he'd try it out on Sheila's baby.

Across the way, the Torso-man looked at a banner hanging before the
freak-tent were the line of gawkers were curling about like a fleshy
snake: the flesh snake slid its way into the freak-tent, gobbled up all
the deformity it could and came out engorged. The colorful banner read:
"The Unbelievable! The Bizarre World of Abraham's Animal-People."

Torso-man spit in the dirt. He told himself he didn't really care what
Abraham thought. He'd go to Hollywood and make his living in B horror
movies. He laughed as he imagined himself as a legless Dracula.

The Torso-man coughed and coughed up black blood. Circus trash, popcorn
bags, strewn posters, plastic food wrappers, were blowing through the
wagon encampment. The freaks had mostly cleared out, but the Torso-man
saw the Brownman in his potato sack rolling and inching his way through
the debris- dirty pink cotton candy stuck to his hair. The Brownman was
making his way over to the wagon; it was where he slept, on the dirt in
a nest of sticks and collected oddities under the wagon. Torso-man
turned away in disgust. What could be worse than being a leg-less,
arm-less, dick-less man? The Torso-man was twice the man the
Brownman was-- Torso-man thought he could crush Brownman. He'd do it
someday, put that black slug out of his nightmare, do him a
favor.

Torso-man ignored Brownman as the head in the potato sack rolled and
rolled with the wind over to the canopy. The pinhead twins continued to
bob and smile. They seemed to notice Brownman as he came near, but you
could never be sure with pinheads. Brownman said nothing as he rolled
before Torso-man who took a step back and looked away from the black
atrocity. Brownman continued his laborious slug-motion until he was
passed the other freaks and making his way through the brambles under
the trailer.

"Lucky, " said Torso-man, but he was not looking at Brownman nor was he
paying any attention to the pinheads. "I heard tell his mother did that
to him, just so wouldn't have to work in no cotton fields: cut off his
arms, cut off his legs, pickled his dick, just so he could live free.
Crazy story that I wouldn't shake a stick at if I didn't know how
mischievous those nigroids can be."

There was a great collective gasp from inside the freak-tent as the
flesh-snake fed. Torso-man knew that the freaks would come out
exhausted. Some would bathe in the water drums, others would go right
to sleep to dream. Mr. Abraham, he was always the happiest after
performances. He'd come around the wagons then, singing his crazy
songs, and saying how wonderful his pets were. Sometimes he'd go see
one of the dwarf ladies and they'd take care of him for free. Torso-man
would like to get some of the midget stuff himself; he was born with
the urges, just not the equipment. In the proper mood he could rub a
special spot and, sometimes, he'd get a reaction. He thought he felt
like doing it then; the pinheads, they'd probably just go on
bobbing.

Six o'clock came by and Torso-man was preparing for his show: it
consisted of going out and doing simple acrobatics on his hands. The
pinheads all they did was dress-up in frilly Asian suites and bob; the
Brownman, he'd just lay there and sometimes roll about.

Heavy rains began before the show and Abraham made his rounds, saying
that the show was cancelled. He sounded sickened and was whining about
bankruptcy. Torso-man sometimes wished he could worry about things like
that; he made up games where he'd worry over being late for a dinner,
or that he'd forgotten to buy his wife a dozen roses. It was
nice.

He saw the pinheads rushing through the rain heading for their wagon as
he ran back to his own, his hands splashing through the mud.

The winds picked up swirling the trash in small cyclones about the
camp. A piece of newspaper stuck to Torso-man's tuxedo but he didn't
notice it until he'd hopped up his steps and entered his wagon which he
shared with a with the dwarf Grembly, but Grembly was asleep. Torso man
began to strip of the stiff tuxedo and he was fancying some of that
rubbing in the special place when he noticed the ripped paper on one of
his sleeves. He got naked and did a pull-up to his top bunk that was
only a foot or two from the ceiling; it was all the room he needed.
There he curled up in a basket he used for his bed and squinted at the
piece of paper. The ink was beginning to smear a bit, but the Torso-man
imagined he could read it still: "As when a man dreams, he reflects not
that his body sleeps else he would awake; so seem'd he entering his
Shadow. But with him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence
entering, they gave him still perception of his sleeping body."

"I want to kill the Brownman, " said the Torso-man as he looked out the
hatch at the rains. Abraham was across propositioning the dwarf Daniel
with a silver dollar.

Below the Torso-man, in his private nest of twigs and collected papers,
the Brownman rolled back and forth, trying to keep out of the rising
water. He was hungry but there was nothing to eat and he'd never ask
anyone to feed him. He'd found a fashion booklet of full-bodied models;
he kept this booklet inside his nest. There were pictures of both men
and women, gods to the Brownman. He fancied them and nudged at the
pictures with his chin; it was hard work to turn the pages. This was
his Bible, the world of gods, but he was hungry too and he felt like
eating something. It was hard work but manageable and he began to eat
and digest the magazine, eating each whole person one by one until he
had swallowed the entirety of them and then, his potato sack full, he
laid back in his nest and dreamt that he was growing legs and arms.