Enigmatic Pilot

“No, it doesn’t,” Lloyd objected.

“Mine does,” the showman replied, tipping his hat to a woman with a rustling bustle who shuffled by. “But never fear, the instance of instantaneous combustion you have just witnessed was a complimentary sample-gratis, without obligation; in other words, free of charge. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“You didn’t say what happened to the monkey,” Lloyd pointed out, reaching for the man’s coat sleeve as he tried to turn away toward the tent.

“No,” agreed the professor, wheeling back and chomping on his cigar. “I have neglected to fulfill your request for further intelligence and so have left you in a state of sustained bewonderment and speculation. And there you shall remain. I have work to do.” Once again he made a move toward the tent pitched beside the wagon, nodding at a man with a thimble hat who ambled past with a frown of suspicion on his face.

“Is he dead?” Lloyd asked, refusing to budge.

“As a matter of fact, poor little Vladimir was consumed by some sort of cave lion during our recent sojourn in Kentucky,” the professor announced, glaring down at the boy. “Most distressing. Now, if you’ll excuse me!”

“Did you shoot the cave lion?” Lloyd inquired.

“Go home, young lad!” The professor waved. “I must prepare. Magic doesn’t just happen!”

“I thought that was exactly what it did,” Lloyd replied. “That’s why it’s magic.”

“Touche,” the showman retorted, appearing to bow, but really examining the boy’s sorry excuse for footwear, which confirmed his initial impression. “But if I were truly a master of the art,” he continued, “then I would wave the wand of this cigar and you would disappear-back to wherever it was you came from.”

“Zanesville,” Lloyd supplied. “Ohio. I saw you there.”

“Aha,” the professor returned, his eyes following a blooming lass with a rose-hips complexion, who giggled behind a handkerchief as she passed. “Where on earth did you say your parents were?”

“I have neglected to fulfill your request for further intelligence regarding that,” Lloyd answered.

“Touche again, my effervescent little friend. But circumstances beyond my control, otherwise known as life, require that I spin gold from straw, separate wheat from chaff-in a word, earn my daily bread. Now please, leave me to my fate as I bid you goodbye and good luck with your own.” He gave the boy a hearty pat on the head, the universal sign of condescension in adults toward children-and one that he felt certain this particular child could not fail to comprehend.

“And what about the pretty lady?” the boy asked. “Did a cave lion get her, too?”

“Boy! I am going to perform some magic on you yet if you don’t move on!” This time the showman took a decisive step away, prepared to fend off the lad with an elbow if necessary.

“Do you still sell the powder made from tiger penis?” Lloyd asked.

This inquiry caught the professor by surprise, and was made at too loud a volume for his liking. He glanced around, thinking, Damn this boy. What he said aloud was “Shush, please! Here, my friend. Come now. Take this delightful toy as a token of my exasperation and carry on.”

The medicine man produced from inside his coat a sheet of heavy paper neatly folded into the shape of a bird, which he un-creased, and adjusted, and then lofted into the air. The flat wings carried the construction several feet toward a scowling lady who was hawking carrots.

“Now, go and collect that novelty and it is yours to have, without payment or condition, save that you leave me to the tasks at hand!”

Lloyd scoffed at this offer but went and retrieved the paper bird-and then whistled at the showman, who, in spite of himself, spun around.

Lloyd then tilted both wings upward and sent it soaring over the head of the carrot woman, where it caught an updraft and sailed well out of the market.

“Inclined wings produce more lift and also more stability,” he called out to the showman, whose eyebrows had arched in surprise. “Now, what about the tiger powder?”

“Please, my young friend!” the showman entreated with nervous gesticulations, buffaloed at last. “Just come in here and let me give you something to take your mind off all these questions.”

Lloyd’s eyes adjusted to the change in light. The tent was much larger than it had looked from outside, and set out like a room in a house, except that over in one corner was another tentlike structure, like the sort of cloth- screened cubicle one might find in a doctor’s surgery. Worn Turkish carpets had been laid down, with satiny pillows strewn about, creating an ambience that was both cozy and exotic, although a distinct mix of odors permeated the enclosure: a chamber pot, perspiration, lice soap. Lloyd felt at home.

This impression was strengthened by the presence of two women. The first Lloyd recognized as the beautiful Anastasia he had been wondering about (who in truth was as worn as the carpets, but still richly patterned). She was seated on a camp meeting chair mending clothes, dressed in a forget-me-not blue frock that showed off her figure in a manner that he found quite compelling. His enthusiasm intensified when his eyes took in the other woman, who was standing a few feet off to the left-on her head. She was dressed in tight-fitting mannish garb that accentuated her curved shape. Lloyd was soon unable to hide the prominence of his enthusiasm.

Amazed but sympathetic to his condition, the professor gestured broadly. “Ladies, meet a persistent new friend. Your name, young sir…?”

“L-loyd,” the boy stammered, transfixed by the gymnastic calm of the other woman, who in his mind’s eye he had transposed into a conventional standing position and realized that she was the spitting image of Anastasia. So that was how the trick was done, Lloyd thought.

“Young Lloyd hails from Zanesville, where he made something of our acquaintance during one of our past peregrinations,” the showman explained, and took more notice of the boy’s fatigued clothing and unscrubbed state. Here was another child of misfortune trying to find his way. Rather like the son the professor had lost long ago, only more touched by the sun. Anastasia looked up from her sewing and smiled. The woman, whom Lloyd took to be her twin, or at least her sister, waved one of her feet.

“Hello,” Lloyd tried, but the two women just repeated these gestures as before.

“Ah,” the Professor said, shaking his head. “Don’t be offended. I’m saddened to say that both my lovely ladies have been deprived of speech, a diabolical punishment that was conferred upon them as children by a mad father.”

“Anastasia can’t talk?” Lloyd asked.

“Mrs. Mulrooney,” the professor corrected. “Or Lady Mulrooney, as I prefer to think of her. For Mulrooney is the surname I was born with. The other monikers and personae I use are but stage machinations to heighten and enhance the mystique necessary to build confidence and create an atmosphere of possibility, credibility, and awe.”

“And she… is your wife?” Lloyd asked, digging his right hand into the pocket of his dirty knee pants.

“Yes, son. In a word, we are matrimonially united, conjoined, and conspicuously complementary.”

“And who is the other woman?”

“Technically speaking, she is my wife’s sister-twin sister-and how beneficent and expeditious it has proven to have two female assistants who look virtually identical! I mean from a stage-magic point of view. But privately, confidentially, and just between you and us, she too, is a partner in the adventure of my life that combines entertainment and enlightenment to provide illumination and enjoyment for all those who experience it!”

“You mean you have two wives?” the boy asked. Now, there was a goal worth aspiring to, Lloyd thought.

Mulrooney blinked at this, for he realized that he had just let his staunch guard completely down and offered far more detail regarding his personal affairs than he had ever intended to with anyone, let alone a strange boy.

I must be slipping, the showman mused. Apart from the somewhat darker skin tone and the green eyes, the lad did remind him very much of his lost son-perhaps that was why.

“Well, now, sonny boy,” he humbugged, trying to regain mastery of the situation. “Let’s not put delicate matters quite so baldly, eh? I think if we are discoursing privately and confidentially, in a manner of speaking, one could answer in the affirmative, while conceding that the arrangement is not to everyone’s taste. In some regrettable cases it is not at all celebrated with the level of tolerance and understanding we would like, so we do not normally make a habit of announcing the status of our little family outside our little family. Coming from a place like Zanesville, I’m sure you understand. I would therefore appreciate your respecting that fact and this rare confidence-and, for reasons inexplicable, I have sufficient faith in my assessment of your character to believe you will.”