The Incredible Shrinking Man

Chapter Twelve

Thunder woke him. His fingers shriveled in abruptly, his eyes jerked open. There was an instant of blank suspension, consciousness hanging submerged beneath the shock of sudden awakening. His eyes stared mindlessly; his face was a pale, unmarked tautness, mouth a dash embedded in beard. Then he remembered; and the scars of worry and defeat gouged across his brow and around his eyes and mouth again. Staring became sightlessness behind fallen lids, his hands uncurled. Only the faint murmur in his throat acknowledged the pain it was to lie in thunder.
In five minutes the oil burner clicked off, and the cellar became a vast, heavy silence. With a grunt he sat up slowly on the sponge. The headache was almost gone. Only when he grimaced did it flare minutely. His throat still hurt, his body felt encrusted with aches and twinges, but at least the headache was gone and he felt his forehead, the fever had abated somewhat. The able ministrations of sleep, he thought.
He sat weaving a little, licking his dry lips. Why did I sleep? he wondered. What had drugged him when he'd decided to end it all?
He wormed his way across the sponge and, holding on to the edge, dropped to the floor. Pain shot up his legs, faded. If only he could believe there had been purpose in his helpless sleep; that it might have been the act of a watching benevolence. He could not. More than likely it had been cowardice that had sent him off to sleep instead of to the cliff's edge. Even wanting to, he could not honour it with the title "will to live." He had no will to live. It was simply that he had no will to die. At first he couldn't lift the box top, it had become so heavy. That told him what he'd meant to verify at the ruler; that overnight he had shrunk another fraction and was now only two sevenths of an inch tall. The cardboard edge scraped across his side as he dragged himself out from beneath it. It pinned his ankle so that he had to bend over and work at it with his hands. Free at last, he sat on the cold cement, letting the waves of dizziness settle. His stomach was a flagon of air.
He didn't measure himself; there was no point in it. He walked slowly across the floor looking to neither one side nor the other. On unsteady legs he headed for the hose. Why had he slept?
"No reason." He framed the words with his cracked lips.
It was cold. Gray, cheerless light filtered through the windows. March fourteenth. It was another day. After the half-mile walk, he clambered over the metal lip of the hose and trudged along the black tunnel, listening to the echo of his scuffing sandals. His feet kept coming loose from the strings, and the robe dragged heavily along the rubber floor.
Ten minutes of walking through the twisting, lightless maze brought him to the water. He crouched in its shallow coldness and drank. It hurt to swallow, but he was too grateful there was water to care. As he drank, there crossed his mind a brief vision of himself holding a hose much like this one, carrying it outside, connecting it to the faucet, playing a glittering stream of water across the lawn. Now, in a similar hose, he crouched, less than one fifth of its width, a mote man sipping driblets of water from a hand no bigger than a grain of salt.
The vision passed. His size was too common now, too much a reality. It was no longer a phenomenon. When he had finished drinking, he walked back out of the hose, shaking his feet to get the water off his sandals. March forth, he thought, march forth to nothingness. March fourteenth, he thought. In a week the first day of spring would come upon the island.
He would never see it.
Out on the floor again, he walked back to the box top and stood beside it, one palm braced against it. His gaze moved slowly over the cellar. Well? he thought. What happened now? Did he crawl under the box top, lie down again and sleep once more, a surrendering sleep? His teeth raked slowly across his lower lip as he looked at the cliff that went up to the spider's land.
Avoid it.
He started walking around the cement block, searching for cracker crumbs. He found a dirty one, scraped off its surface, and kept walking, chewing ruminatively. Well, what was he going to do? Go back to his bed, or He stopped and stood motionless on the floor. Something in his eyes caught minor fire. His lips drew back from his teeth as he grimaced.
All right. He had a brain. He'd use it. After all, wasn't this his universe? Couldn't he determine its values and its meanings? Didn't the logic of a cellar life belong to him, who lived alone in that cellar?
Very well, then. He had planned suicide, but something had kept him from it. Call it what you will, he thought fear, subconscious desire to survive, action of outside intelligence maintaining him. Whatever it was, it had happened. He lived still, his existence unbroken. Positive function was still possible; decision was still his.
"All right," he muttered. He may as well act alive.
It was like the clearing of a mist in his brain, like a rush of cool wind across a parched desert of intentions. It made, absurdly, perhaps his shoulders draw back, made him move with more certainty, ignoring the pain of his body. And, as if in instant reward, he found a large chunk of cracker behind the cement block. He cleaned it off and ate it. It tasted horrible. He didn't care. It was nourishment. He walked back across the floor. What did his decision mean? He knew, really, but he was afraid to dwell on it. Rather, he let himself drift surely toward the giant carton under the fuel tank, knowing what had to be done; knowing that he would do it or perish.
He stopped before the looming mass of the carton. Once, he thought, he had kicked open its side himself. At the time, it had been an act of rage, of frustration turned to acid fury. How odd that an ancient fury was making it easier for him now; that it had, indeed, saved his life more than once. For hadn't he got two thimbles from that carton, one that he'd put under the water tank, and another that he'd put under the dripping water heater? Hadn't he got the material for his robe from the carton?
Hadn't he got there the thread that enabled him to reach the top of the wicker table and get the crackers?
Finally, hadn't he actually fought off the spider in there, discovering in a flash of astonishment that he did have some efficacy against its horrible seven-legged blackness?
Yes, all these. And all because, one day long ago, he had burned with a terrible, angry desire and kicked open the side of the carton.
He hesitated for a moment, thinking he should search for the needle he'd taken from the carton before and lost. Then he decided he might not find it and the fruitless search would waste not only time, but valuable, needed energy.
He jumped up the carton side and dragged himself through the opening. It was difficult to get in. The difficulty pointed up, disconcertingly, how hard it was going to be to get up to the cliff, much less fight the No. He wasn't going to let himself think about that. If anything could stop him, it was thoughts about the spider. He blanked his mind to them. Only far behind the conscious barrier did they move. He slid down the hill of clothes until he went over the edge and fell down into the sewing box. For a moment panic jarred him as he thought that he might not be able to get out of the box. Then he remembered the rubber cork into which the pins and needles were inserted. He could push that to the edge of the box and then be able to climb out.
He found a cool needle lying on the bottom of the box and picked it up.
"God," he muttered. It was like a harpoon made of lead. He let it fall and it clanked loudly. He stood there a moment, lines of distress around his eyes. Was he to be defeated already? He couldn't possibly carry that needle up the face of the cliff.
Simple, said his mind. Take a pin.
He closed his eyes and smiled at himself. Yes, yes, he thought. He searched around in the shadows for a pin, but there were none loose. He'd have to get one from the rubber cork. First he had to knock the cork over. It was four times as high as he was. Gritting his teeth, he shoved at the rubber cork until it toppled. Then he moved around it and jerked out a pin, hefted it in his hands. That was better. Still heavy, but manageable.
How could he carry it, though? Sticking it into his robe was no good; it would dangle, bang against surfaces, impede his climb, maybe cut him. He'd fasten a thread sling on the pin and carry it across his back. He looked around for thread. No point in going after the thread he'd flung into the cat's mouth; it was probably lost.
He cut himself a short length of rope-heavy thread by dragging the sharp pin point across it until the fibers were weakened enough to be torn apart. Panting in the dark, shadowy cavern, he tied one end of the thread around the pinhead, then tied the other end near the point. The second loop slid a little, but it would hold well enough. With a grunt he slung the pin across his back, then flexed on his toes to test the weight. Good enough.
Now. Was that all he needed? He stood indecisively, brow lined, but not with worry. He didn't actually acknowledge it, but it gave him a good feeling to be calculating positively. Maybe there was something to the theory that true satisfaction was based on struggle. This moment was certainly the antithesis of the hopeless, listless hours of the night before. Now he was working toward a goal. True, it might be self-induced emotion, but it gave him the first definite pleasure he could remember experiencing for a long time.
All right, then, what was needed? The climb was too difficult to be attempted unaided. He was simply too small; he needed apparatus. Very well, then. Since it was a cliff, that made him a mountaineer. What did mountaineers use? Cleated shoes. He couldn't manage that. Alpenstocks. Nor that. Grappling hooks. Nor yes, he could! What if he got another pin and managed somehow to bend it into a semicircle? Then if he attached it to a long thread, he would fling it at openings in the lawn chairs, hook it in, and climb the thread. It would be perfect equipment.
Excited he pulled another pin from the rubber cork, then unrolled about twenty feet, to him, of thread. He threw the pins and thread out of the box, climbed out by using the cork, and dragged his prizes up the hill, throwing them out onto the floor.
He slid out of the carton and dropped down. He started toward the cement block, dragging the pins and thread behind. Now, he thought, if only I could take a little food and water with me...
He stopped, squinting at the box top. Suddenly he remembered, there were still pieces of cracker on the sponge! He could put them inside his robe somehow and take them with him. And water? On his face there was a look of concentration bordering on exultation. The sponge itself!
Why couldn't he tear off a small piece of it, soak it with water from the hose, and carry it with him?
Certainly it would drip, it would run, but some of the water would stay in it, enough to see him through. He didn't let himself think about the spider. He didn't let himself think about the fact that there were only two days left to him, no matter what he did. He was too absorbed, in the small triumphs of conquered detail and in the large triumph of conquered despair to let himself be dragged down again by crushing ultimate's.
That was it, then. The pin spear slung across his back, the cracker crumbs and water-soaked sponge in his robe, the pin hook for climbing.
In half an hour he was ready. Although he already felt tired from the tremendous effort required to bend the pin (which he had done by shoving the point under the cement block and lifting at the head), hacking and tearing off a fragment of sponge, getting the water and the crackers and carrying everything to the foot of the cliff, he was too pleased to care. He was alive, he was trying. Suicide was a distant impossibility. He wondered how he could ever have considered it.
Excitement faded, almost died when he tilted back his head and looked up toward the soaring top of the lawn chairs as they leaned against the Everest heights of the wall. Could he possibly climb that high?
He lowered his eyes angrily. Don't look, he ordered himself. To look at the entire journey all at once was stupidity. You thought of it in segments; that was the only way. First segment, the shelf. Second, the seat of the first chair. Third, the arm of the second chair. Fourth He stood at the very bottom of the cliff. Never mind anything else, he told himself. He had the resolve to get up there; that was what mattered.
He remembered another time in the past when resolution had come. Thoughts of it ran through his mind as he flung up the hook and began to climb.
It was a giant's toy; a glowing, moving, incredible toy. The Ferris wheel, like a vast white-and-orange gear, turned slowly against the black October sky. Scarlet-lit Loop-the-Loop cages blurred across the night like shooting stars. The merry-go-round was a bright, cacophonous music box that turned and turned, the grimacing, wild-eyed horses rising and falling, endlessly rising and falling, frozen in their galloping postures. Tiny cars and trains and trolleys, like merry bugs, raced around in their imprisoning circles, overflowing red-faced children who waved and screamed. Aisles were sluggish currents of doll people who clustered like filings around the magnetism of barker stands, food concessions, and booths where balloons could be exploded with broken-feathered darts, wooden milk bottles toppled with scratched and grimy baseballs, and pennies tossed upon mosaics of coloured squares. The air pulsed with a many-tongued clamour and spotlights cast livid ribbons across the sky. As they drove up, another car pulled away from the curb and Lou eased the Ford into the opening, pulling out the hand brake, and turned off the engine.
"Mamma, can I go to the merry-go-round, can I? " Beth asked excitedly.
"Yes, dear." Lou spoke distractedly, her gaze moving to where Scott was sitting, dwarfed in a shadowy corner of the back seat, the carnival glare splashed across his pale cheek, his eye like a tiny, dark berry, his mouth a pencil gash.
"You will stay in the car," she said worriedly.
"What else can I do?"
"It's for your own good," she said.
It was a phrase she used all the time now; spoken with a hopeless patience, as if she could think of nothing better to say.
"Sure," he said.
"Mother, let's go," Beth said with determined anxiety. "We'll miss it."
"All right." Lou pushed open the door. "Push down your button," she said, and Beth punched down the knob-topped rod that locked the door on her side, then scrambled across the seat.
"Maybe you'd better lock yourself in," Lou said.
Scott didn't speak. His baby shoes thudded down slowly on the seat. Lou managed a smile.
"We won't be long," she said, and she closed the door. He stared at her shadowy figure as she twisted the key in the lock; he heard the button clicking down.
Lou and Beth moved across the street, Beth tugging eagerly at her mother's hand, and entered the crowded carnival grounds.
He sat for a while, wondering why he'd been so insistent on coming when he'd known all along he couldn't go into the carnival with them. The reason was obvious, but he wouldn't admit it to himself. He'd yelled at Lou to hide the shame he felt at forcing her to give up her job at the lake store; the shame he felt because she had to stay home, because she didn't dare get another sitter, because she'd had to write her parents and borrow money. That's why he'd yelled and insisted on going with them. After a few minutes he stood up on the seat and walked over to the window. Dragging a pillow over, he stepped on its yielding surface and pressed his nose against the cold window. He stared at the carnival with hard, unenjoying eyes, looking for Lou and Beth; they had been ingested by the slowly moving crowd.
He watched the Ferris wheel revolving, the little pivoted seats rocking back and forth, passengers holding on tight to the safety bars. His gaze shifted to the Loop-the-Loop. He watched it flip over, the two cage-tipped arms flashing past each other like clock hands gone berserk. He watched the merry-go-round's rhythmic turn and heard faintly the clash-grind-thump of its machinelike music. It was another world.
Once, long ago, a boy named Scott Carey had sat on another Ferris wheel seat, transfixed with delicious terror, white knuckled hands clutched over the bar. He had ridden other toy cars, twisting the steering wheel like a chauffeur. He had, in a perfect agony of delight, flipped over and over in another Loop-the-Loop, feeling the frankfurters and popcorn and cotton candy and soda and ice cream homogenized in his stomach. He had walked through the glittering unreality of another carnival, overjoyed with a life that built such wonders overnight on empty lots.
Why should I stay in the car? The question came minutes later, belligerently, demanding satisfaction. So what if people saw him? They'd think he was a lost baby. And even if they knew who he was, what difference did it make? He wasn't going to stay in the car, that's all there was to it. The only trouble was that he couldn't open the door. It was hard enough to push one of the front seats forward and clamber over it. It was impossible for him to get the door handles up. He kept jerking at them, angrier and angrier, until he kicked the gray-lined door and butted it with his shoulder.
"Well, the hell..." he muttered then, and impulse driven, rolled down the window. He sat on the thin ledge a few moments, legs kicking restlessly. The cold wind blew up his legs. His shoes drummed on the door. I'm going, I don't care. Abruptly he turned, lowered himself over the window edge, and hung suspended above the ground. Carefully he reached down one hand and caught hold of the outside door handle. After a moment he swung down.
"Oh!" His fingers slipped off the smooth chrome and he fell in a heap on the ground, banging against the side of the car. Momentary fear nibbled coldly at his insides when he realized he couldn't get back; but it passed quickly. Louise would return soon enough. He walked to the end of the car, jumped down the steep curb, and moved into the street.
He flinched back as a car roared by. It passed at least eight feet away from him, but the noise of the motor was almost deafening. Even the crisp sound of its tires on the pavement was inordinately loud in his ears. When it was past he darted across the street, leaped up the knee-high curb, and raced around to a deserted area behind a tent. He walked beside the dark, wind-stirred canvas wall, listening to the din of the carnival.
A man came around the corner of the tent and started toward him. Scott froze into immobility and the man walked by without noticing him. It was a thing about people. They did not look down expecting to see anything but dogs and cats.
When the man was out on the sidewalk, Scott moved on again, ducking through the triangles the ropes made with the ground and the tent side.
He stopped before a pale bar of light that poked out from beneath the tent, blocking his path. He looked at the loosened canvas, delicate excitement mounting in him. Impulsively he got on his knees, then fell forward on his chest on the cold ground, lifted the flap, and, wriggling forward a little, peered in. He found himself looking at the hind end of a two-headed cow. It was standing in a hay-strewn, rope enclosed square, staring at the people with four glossy eyes. It was dead. The first smile Scott had managed in more than a month eased his tight little face. If he had jotted down a list of all the things in the world he might have seen in this tent, somewhere near the bottom of the list he might conceivably have put a dead two-headed cow pointed the wrong way. His gaze moved around the tent. He couldn't see what was on the other side of the aisle; clustering people hid the view. On his side, he saw a six-legged dog; (two of the legs atrophied stumps), a cow with skin like a human being's, a goat with three legs and four horns, a pink horse, and a fat pig that had adopted a thin chicken. He looked over the assemblage, the faint smile wavering on his lips. Monster show, he thought.
And then the smile faded. Because it had occurred to him how remarkable an exhibit he would make, posed, say, between the chicken-mothering pig and the dead two-headed cow. Scott Carey, Homo reductus.
He drew back into the night and stood up, brushing automatically at his corduroy rompers and jacket. He should have stayed in the car; it had been stupid to leave.
Yet he didn't start back; he couldn't make himself start back. He trudged past the end of the tent and saw people walking, heard the clatter of wooden bottles being struck by flying baseballs, the pop of rifles, and the tiny explosions of burst balloons. He heard the dirge like grind of the merry-go-round music.
A man came out through the back doorway of one of the booths. He glanced at Scott. Scott kept walking, moving quickly behind the next tent.
"Hey, kid," he heard the man call.
He broke into a run, looking for a place to hide. There was a trailer parked behind the tent. He raced to it and crouched behind a thick-tired wheel, peering around the edge.
Fifteen yards away he saw the man appear at the corner of the tent and, fists poked on hips, look around. Then, after a few seconds, the man grunted and went away. Scott stood up and started to leave the shadow of the trailer, then stopped. Someone was singing overhead.
Scott's face grew taut-browed with attention. "If I loved you," sang the voice, "time and again I would try to say..."
He moved from under the trailer and looked up at the white-curtained window glowing with light. He could still hear the singing, faint and sweet. He stared at the window, feeling a strange restlessness. The happy screams of a girl in the Loop-the-Loop shook him loose from his reverie. He started away from the trailer, then turned and went back. He stood beside it until the song was ended. Then he walked slowly around the trailer, looking up first at one window, then at the other and wondering why he felt so drawn to that voice.
Then he became fully conscious of the steps that led up to the windowed door of the trailer, and convulsively he jumped up on the first one.
It was just the right height.
His heart began to throb suddenly, his hand clamped rigidly on the waist-high railing. Breath shook in his shallow chest. It couldn't be!
He moved slowly up the steps until he stood just below the door that was only a little higher than he was. There were some words painted under its window, but he couldn't read them. He felt his skin alive with strange, electric pricklings. He couldn't help himself; he moved up the last two steps and stood before the door.
Breath stopped. It was his world, his very own world, chairs and a couch that he could sit on without being engulfed; tables he could stand beside and reach across instead of walk under; lamps he could switch on and off, not stand futilely beneath as if they were trees.
She came into the little room and saw him standing there.
His stomach muscles jerked in suddenly. He wavered there, staring blankly at the woman, sounds of disbelief hovering in his throat.
The woman stood rooted to the floor, one hand pressed against her cheek, her eyes round and still with shock. Time stood stricken and apart while she stared at him. It's a dream, his mind insisted. It is a dream.
Then the woman slowly, stiffly started for the door.
He shrank away. He almost slipped off the step edge. He flailed out at the railing and jerked himself rigidly upright as the woman opened the tiny door.
"Who are you?" she asked in a frightened whisper.
He couldn't take his eyes from her fragile face; her doll-like nose and lips, her irises like pale-green beads, her ears like faded rose petals barely seen through hair of fine-spun gold.
"Please," she said, holding the bodice of her robe together with tiny alabaster hands.
"I'm Scott Carey," he said, his voice thin with shock.
"Scott Carey," she said. She didn't know the name. "Are you..." She faltered. "Are you... like me?" He was shivering now. "Yes," he said. "Yes."
"Oh." It was as if she breathed the word.
They stared at each other.
"I... heard you singing," he said.
"Yes, I-" A nervous smile twitched her pale lips. "Please," she said, "Will you... come in?" He stepped into the trailer without hesitation. It was as though he'd known her all his life and had come back from a long journey. He saw the words that were on the door: "Mrs. Tom Thumb." He stood there staring at her with a strange, black hunger.
She closed the door and turned to face him.
"I'm... I was surprised," she said. She shook her head and once more drew together the bodice of her yellow robe. "It's such a surprise," she said.
"I know," he said. He bit his lower lip. "I'm the shrinking man," he blurted, wanting her to know. She didn't speak for a long moment. Then she said, "Oh," and he didn't know what it was he heard in her voice, whether it was disappointment or pity or emptiness. Their eyes still clung.
"My name is Clarice," the woman said.
Their small hands clasped and did not let go. He couldn't breathe right; air faltered in his lungs.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, drawing back her hand. He swallowed dryly. "I... came," was all he could say. He kept staring at her with stark eyes that would not believe. Then he saw a darkening flush creep into her cheeks and he sucked in a calming breath. "I'm, I'm so sorry," he said. "It's just that I haven't-" he gestured helplessly-"haven't seen anyone like me. It's..." He shook his head in little twitching movements. "I can't tell you what it's like."
"I know, I know," she answered quickly, looking intently at him. "When-" She cleared her throat.
"When I saw you at the door, I didn't know what to think." Her laugh was faint and trembling. "I thought maybe I was losing my mind."
"You're alone?" he asked suddenly.
She stared at him blankly. "Alone?" she asked, not understanding.
"I mean your, your name. On the door," he said, not even realizing that he had alarmed her. Her face relaxed into its natural soft lines. She smiled a sad smile. "Oh," she said, "it's what I'm called." She shrugged her small round shoulders. "It's just what they call me," she said.
"Oh." He nodded. "I see." He kept trying to swallow the hard, dry lump in his throat. He felt dizzy. His fingertips tingled like frozen fingers being thawed. "I see," he said again. They kept staring at each other as if they just couldn't believe it was true.
"I guess you read about me," he said.
"Yes, I did," she answered. "I'm sorry that..."
He shook his head. "It's not important." A shudder ran down his back. "It's so good to-" He stood motionless, looking into her gentle eyes. "Clarice," he murmured. "So good to..." His hands twitched as he repressed the desire to reach out and touch her. "It was such a surprise seeing the, the room here," he said hastily. "I'm so used to-" he shrugged nervously- " vast things. When I saw those steps leading up here..."
"I'm glad you came up," Clarice said.
"So am I," he answered. Her gaze dropped from his, then rose instantly as if she feared he might disappear if she looked away too long.
"It's really an accident I'm here," she said. "I don't usually work the off seasons. But the owner of this carnival is an old friend who's feeling the pinch a little. And well, I'm glad I'm here."
They looked at each other steadily.
"It's a lonely life," he said.
"Yes," she answered softly, "it can be lonely."
They were silent again, looking. She smiled restively.
"If I'd stayed home," he said, "I wouldn't have seen you."
"I know."
Another shudder rippled down his arms.
"Clarice," he said.
"Yes?"
"You have a pretty name," he said. The hunger was tearing at him now, shaking him.
"Thank you Scott," she said.
He bit his lips. "Clarice, I wish..."
She looked back at him a long moment. Then, without a word, she stepped close to him and laid her cheek against his. She stood quietly as he put his arms around her.
"Oh," he whispered, "Oh, God. To-"
She sobbed and pressed against him suddenly, her small hands catching at his back. Wordlessly they clung to each other in the quiet room, their tear-wet cheeks together.
"My dear," she murmured, "my dear, my dear."
He drew back his head and looked into her glistening eyes.
"If you knew," he said brokenly. "If you-"
"I do know," she said, running a trembling hand across his cheek.
"Yes. Of course you do."
He leaned forward and felt her warm lips change under his from soft acceptance to a harsh, demanding hunger.
He held her tensely. "Oh, God, to be a man again," he whispered. "Just to be a man again. To hold you like this."
"Yes. Do hold me. It's been so long."
After a few minutes, Clarice led him to the couch and they sat there holding tightly to each other's hands, smiling at each other.
"It's strange," she said, "I feel so close to you. And yet I never saw you in my life before."
"It's because we're the same," he said. "Because we share the pity of our lives."
"Pity?" she murmured.
He looked up from his shoes. "My feet are touching the floor," he said wonderingly. His chuckle was melancholy. "Such a little thing," he said, "but it's the first time in so long that my feet have touched the floor when I've sat down. Do you-" He squeezed her hand. "You do know; you do" he said.
"You said pity," she said.
He looked a moment at her concerned face. "Isn't it pity?" he asked. "Aren't we pitiful?"
"I don't..." Distress flickered in her eyes. "I never thought of myself as pitiful."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he said. "I didn't mean to-" His face was contrite. "It's just that I've become so bitter. I've been alone, Clarice. All alone. Once I was past a certain height, I was absolutely alone." He stroked her hand without consciousness. "It's why I feel so, so strongly toward you. Why I..."
"Scott!"
They pressed against each other and he could feel her heartbeat hitting at his chest like a little hand.
"Yes, you have been alone," she said. "So alone. I've had others like me, like us. I was even married once." Her voice faded to a whisper. "I almost had a child."
"Oh, I-"
"No, no, don't say anything," she begged. "It's been easier for me. I've been like this all my life. I've had time to adjust."
A shuddering breath bellowed his lungs. He said, he couldn't help saying it-" Someday even you'll be a giant to me."
"Oh, my dear." She pressed his face to her breasts, still stroking his hair. "How terrible it's been for you; to see your wife and child magnifying every day, leaving you behind." Her body had a clean, sweet smell. He drank in the perfume of it, trying to forget everything except her presence and her soothing voice, the blessing of each moment as it was.
"How did you get here?" she asked him, and he told her. "Oh," she said, "won't she be frightened if-" His urgent whisper cut her off. "Don't make me go."
She drew him more securely against the yielding swell of her breasts. "No, no," she said quickly. "No, stay as long as-"
She stopped. He heard her swallowing again and he asked, "What is it?" She hesitated before answering. "Just that I have to give another show in-" she twisted slightly, looking at the clock across the room-"ten minutes."
"No!" He clung to her desperately.
Her breathing grew heavier. "If only you could stay with me a little while. Just a little while." He didn't know what to say. He straightened up and looked at her tense face. He drew in a shaky breath.
"I can't," he said. "She'll be waiting. She'll-" His hands stirred fitfully in his lap, grew immobile once again. "It's no use," he said.
She bent forward and pressed both palms gently to his cheeks. She put her lips on his. He ran shaking hands over her arms, his fingertips scratching delicately at the silk robe. Her arms slid around his neck.
"Would she be so frightened if-" she began, breaking off as she kissed his cheek. He still couldn't answer. She drew back and he stared at her flushed face. Her eyes fell.
"You mustn't, please, you mustn't think I'm just an, an awful person," she said. "I've always lived decently. I just..." Nervously she ran smoothing fingers over the lap of her robe. "I just feel, as you said, so strongly toward you. After all, it's not as if we were just two people in a world of people all alike. We're, we're only two of us. If we went a thousand miles we wouldn't find another. It just doesn't seem the same as if-"
She stopped abruptly as a heavy shoe sounded on the trailer steps and there was a single knock on the door. A deep voice said, "Ten minutes, Clar."
She started to answer, but the man was already gone. She sat there shivering, looking toward the door. Finally she turned to him. "Yes, she would be frightened," she said. Suddenly his hands tightened on her arms, his face grew hard. "I'm going to tell her," he said. "I won't leave you. I won't.."
She threw herself against him, her breath hot on his cheek. "Yes, tell her, tell her," she begged. "I don't want her to be hurt. I don't want her to be frightened, but tell her. Tell her what it's like, how we feel. She couldn't say no. Not when..."
She pulled away and stood, breathing harshly. Her trembling fingers ran down the front of her robe, undoing buttons. The robe slid, hissing, from her ivory shoulders, catching in the crook of her bent arms. She wore pale under things that clung to the contours of her body.
'Tell her!" she said almost angrily. Then she turned and rushed into the next room. He stood up, staring at the half-open door that led to the room she had entered. He could hear the quick rustle of clothes as she dressed for her performance. He stood there motionless until she came out. She stood apart from him, her face pale now.
"I was unfair," she said. "Very unfair to you." Her eyes fell. "I shouldn't have done what I did. I-"
"But you'll wait," he interrupted. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it until she winced. "Clarice, you'll wait for me."
At first she wouldn't look at him. Then suddenly her head jerked up, her eyes burned into his. "I'll wait for you," she said.
He listened to the faint clacking of her high heels as she ran down the trailer steps. Then he turned and walked around the small room, looking at the furniture, touching it.
Finally he went into the other room and, after a hesitant moment, sat down on her bed and picked up the yellow silk robe. It was smooth and yielding in his fingers; it still smelled of her flesh. Suddenly he plunged his face into its folds, gasping in the perfume of it. Why did he have to ask?
There was nothing left between Lou and him; nothing. Why couldn't he just stay with Clarice? It wouldn't matter to Lou. She'd be glad to get rid of him. She'd...
... be frightened, be concerned.
With a weary sigh, he put aside the robe and pushed to his feet. He walked through the trailer, opened the door, moved down the steps, and started back across the cold, night-shrouded earth. I'll tell her, he thought. I'll just tell her and come back.
But when he reached the sidewalk and saw her standing by the car, a heavy despair fell over him. How could he possibly tell her? He stood hesitantly; then, as some teen-aged boys started out of the carnival grounds, he darted into the street.
"Hey, ain't that a midget?" he heard one of the boys say.
"Scott!"
Lou ran to him and, without another word, snatched him up, her face both angry and concerned. She walked back to the car and pulled opened the door with her free hand.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
"Walking," he said. No! cried his mind. Tell her, tell her. The vision flitted across his mind; Clarice unrobed, saying it to him. Tell her!
"I think you might have considered how I'd feel when I got back and found you gone," Lou said, pushing forward the front seat so he could get in the back of the car.
He didn't move. "Well, get in," she said.
He sucked in a fast breath. "No," he said.
"What?"
He swallowed. "I'm not going," he said. He tried not to be so conscious of Beth staring at him.
"What are you talking about?" Lou asked.
"I-" He glanced at Beth, then back again. "I want to talk to you," he said.
"Can't it wait till we get home? Beth has to go to bed."
"No, it can't wait." He wanted to scream out in fury. The old feeling was coming back, the feeling of being useless, grotesque, a freak. He should have known it would return the moment he left Clarice.
"Well, I don't see-"
"Then leave me here!" He yelled at her. There was no strength, no resolution now. He was the stringless marionette again, pulling for inconsequential succour.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked angrily.
He choked on a sob, cut it off. Abruptly he turned and started across the pavement.
"Scott!"
A mind-jarring flurry of sights and sounds; the roar of an oncoming car, a blinding glare of headlights, the crunch of Lou's running heels, the bruising of her fingers on his body, the head-snapping jerk as she pulled him out of the car's path and around to the back of the Ford, the screeching of the other's car's tires as it lurched across the centre line, then back into the proper lane.
"What in God's name!" Her voice was furiously agitated. "Have you lost your mind?"
"I wish it had hit me!" Everything flooded out in his voice, all the anguish, the fury, and the shattered hopes.
"Scott!" She crouched down so she could speak to him. "Scott, what is it?"
"Nothing," he said. Then, almost immediately, "I want to stay. I'm going to stay."
"Stay where, Scott?" she asked.
He swallowed quickly, angrily. Why did he have to feel like a fool, like an unimportant fool? It had seemed so vital before; now it seemed absurd and trashy.
"Stay where, Scott?" she asked in failing patience. He looked up, stiff-faced, going on with it willessly.
"I want to stay with... her," he said.
"With-" She stared at him and his gaze fell. He looked along the broad length of her slack-covered leg. He gritted his teeth and pain flared along his jawline.
"There's a woman," he said, not looking up at her.
She was silent. He glanced up at her. In the light of a distant street lamp he could see the glow of her eyes.
"You mean that midget in the sideshow?"
He shuddered. The way she said it, the sound in her voice, made his desire seem vile. He dragged his teeth across his upper lip. "She's a very kind and understanding woman," he said. "I want to stay with her for a while."
"You mean overnight."
His head jerked back. "Oh, God, how you can!" His eyes burned. "You can make it sound so-" He caught himself. He stared down at her shoes. He spoke as distinctly as possible.
"I'm going to stay with her," he said. "If you'd rather not come back for me, all right. Leave me. I'll get by somehow."
"Oh, stop being so-"
"I'm not just talking, Lou," he said. "I swear to God I'm not just talking." When she didn't reply, he looked up and saw her staring down at him. He didn't know what the expression on her face meant.
"You don't know, you just don't know any more," he said. "You think this is something... disgusting, something animal. Well, it isn't. It's more, much more. Don't you understand? We're not the same any more, you and I. We're apart now. But you can have companionship if you want. I can't. We've never spoken of it, but I expect you to remarry when this is done, as it will be done.
"Lou, there's nothing for me now, can't you see that? Nothing. All I have to look forward to is dissolution. Going on like this, day after day, getting smaller and smaller and-lonelier. There's nobody in the world who can understand now. Even this woman will one day be as... be beyond me. But now, for now, Lou, she's companionship and, and affection and love. All right, and love! I don't deny it, I can't help it. I may be a freak but I still need love and I still need-" He drew in a quick, rasping breath. "One night," he said. "It's all I ask. One night. If it were you and you had a chance for one night of peace, I'd tell you to take it. I would."
His eyes fell. "She has a trailer," he said. "It has furniture I can sit on. It's my size."
He looked up a little. "Just to sit on a chair as if I were a man and not..." He sighed. "Just that, Lou. Just that.''
He looked up at her face finally, but it wasn't until a car drove by and the headlights flared across her face that he saw the tears.
"Lou!"
She couldn't speak. She stood biting at a fist, her body shaking with noiseless sobs. She struggled against them. She took a deep breath and brushed away the tears while he stood beside her, staring at her even though it hurt his neck muscles to look up so high.
"All right, Scott," she said then. "It would be pointless and, and cruel of me to stop you. You're right. There's nothing I can do."
She breathed in labouredly. "I'll come back in the morning," she blurted then, and ran to the car door. He stood in the wind-swept street until the red taillights had faded out of sight. Then he ran across the street, feeling ill and miserable. He shouldn't have done it. It wasn't the same now. But when he saw the trailer again, and the light in the window, and the little easy steps that led up to her, it all returned. It was like stepping into another world and leaving behind all the sorrows in the old one.
"Clarice," he whispered.
And he ran to her.