her full name because it’s a very personal question. But I’m going to ask Emma to think about what she is trying to tell me mentally.”
Stan switched off the flashlight, crept out of the understage compartment and tiptoed up the stairs behind the side curtains. Parting them carefully with his fingers he placed his eye to the crack. The marks’ faces were a mass of pale circles below him. But at the mention of the name “Emma” he saw one face-a pale, haggard woman who looked forty but might be thirty. The lips parted and the eyes answered for an instant. Then the lips were pressed tight in resignation.
Zeena lowered her voice. “Emma, you have a serious problem. And it concerns somebody very near and dear to you. Or somebody who used to be very near and dear, isn’t that right?” Stan saw the woman’s head nod involuntarily.
“You are contemplating a serious step-whether to leave this person. And I think he’s your husband.” The woman bit her under lip. Her eyes grew moist quickly. That kind cries at the drop of a hat, Stan thought. If only she had a million bucks instead of a greasy quarter.
“Now there are two lines of vibration working about this problem. One of them concerns another woman.” The tension left the woman’s face and a sullen frown of disappointment drew over it. Zeena changed her tack. “But now the impressions get stronger and I can see that while there may have been some woman in the past, right now the problem is something else. I see cards… playing cards falling on a table… but no, it isn’t your husband who’s playing. It’s the place… I get it now, clear as daylight. It’s the back room of a saloon.”
A sob came from the woman, and people twisted their heads this way and that; but Emma was watching the seeress, unmindful of the others.
“My dear friend, you have a mighty heavy cross to bear. I know all about it and don’t you think I don’t. But the step that confronts you now is a problem with a good many sides. If your husband was running around with other women and didn’t love you that would be one thing. But I get a very strong impression that he does love you-in spite of everything. Oh, I know he acts nasty-mean sometimes but you just ask yourself if any of the blame is yours. Because here’s one thing you must never forget: a man drinks because he’s unhappy. Isn’t anything about liquor that makes a man bad. A man that’s happy can take a drink with the boys on Saturday night and come home with his pay safe in his pocket. But when a man’s miserable about something he takes a drink to forget it and one isn’t enough and he takes another snort and pretty soon the week’s pay is all gone and he gets home and sobers up and then his wife starts in on him and he’s more miserable than he was before and then his first thought is to go get drunk again and it runs around and around in a circle.” Zeena had forgotten the other customers, she had forgotten the pitch. She was talking out of herself. The marks knew it and were hanging on every word, fascinated.
“Before you take that step,” she went on, suddenly coming back to the show, “you want to be sure that you’ve done all you can to make that man happy. Maybe you can’t learn what’s bothering him. Maybe he don’t quite know himself. But try to find it. Because if you leave him you’ll have to find some way to take care of yourself and the kids anyhow. Well, why not start in tonight? If he comes home drunk put him to bed. Try talking to him friendly. When a man’s drunk he’s a lot like a kid. Well, treat him like a son and don’t go jumping on him. Tomorrow morning let him know that you understand and mother him up a little. Because if that man loves you-” Zeena paused for breath and then rushed on. “If that man loves you it don’t matter whether he makes a living or not. It don’t matter if he stays sober or not. If you’ve got a man that really loves you, you hang on to him like grim death for better or worse.” There was a catch in her voice and for a long moment silence hung in the air over the waiting crowd. “Hang on-because you’ll never regret it as much as you’ll regret sending him away and now folks if you really want to know how the stars affect your life you don’t have to pay five dollars or even one dollar I have here a set of astrological readings all worked out for each and every one of you let me know your date of birth and you get a forecast of future events complete with character reading, vocational guidance, lucky numbers…”
For the long haul the Ackerman-Zorbaugh Monster Shows took to the railroad. Trucks loaded on flatcars, the carnies themselves loaded into old coaches, the train boomed on through darkness-tearing past solitary jerk towns, past sidings of dark freight empties, over trestles, over bridges where the rivers lay coiling their luminous way through the star-shadowed countryside.
In the baggage car, among piles of canvas and gear, a light burned high up on the wall. A large packing case with auger holes bored in its sides to admit air, stood in the middle of a cleared space. From inside it came intermittent scrapings. At one end of the car the geek lay on a pile of canvas, his ragged, overalled knees drawn up to his chin.
Around the snake box men made the air gray with smoke.
“I’m staying.” Major Mosquito’s voice had the insistence of a cricket’s.
Sailor Martin screwed up the left side of his face against the smoke of his cigarette and dealt.
“I’m in,” Stan said. He had a Jack in the hole. The highest card showing was a ten in the Sailor’s hand.
“I’m with you,” Joe Plasky said, the Lazarus smile never changing.
Behind Joe sat the hulk of Bruno, his shoulders rounding under his coat. He watched intently, his mouth dropping open as he concentrated on Joe’s hand.
“I’m in, too,” Martin said. He dealt. Stan got another Jack and pushed in three blues.
“Going to cost you to string along,” he said casually.
Martin had dealt himself another ten. “I’ll string along.”
Major Mosquito, his baby head close to the boxtop, stole another glance at his hole card. “Nuts!”
“Guess it’s between you gents,” Joe said placidly. Bruno, from behind him, said, “Ja. Let them fight it out. We take it easy this time.”
Martin dealt. Two little ones fell between them. Stan threw more blues in. Martin met him and raised him two more.
“I’ll see you.”
The Sailor threw over his hole card. A ten. He reached for the pot.
Stan smiled and counted his chips. At a sound from the Major all of them jumped. “Hey!” It was like a long- drawn fiddle scrape.
“What’s eating you, Big Noise?” Martin asked, grinning.
“Lemme see them tens!” The Major reached toward the center of the snake box with his infant’s hand and drew the cards toward him. He examined the backs.
Bruno got up and moved over behind the midget. He picked up one of the cards and held it at an angle toward the light.
“What’s eating you guys?” Martin said.
“Daub!” Major Mosquito wailed, taking his cigarette from the edge of the box and puffing it rapidly. “The cards are marked with daub. They’re smeared to act like readers. You can see it if you know where to look.”
Martin took one and examined it. “Damn! You’re right.”
“They’re your cards,” the Major went on in his accusing falsetto.
Martin bristled. “What d’ya mean, my cards? Somebody left ’em around the cookhouse. If I hadn’t thought to bring ’em we wouldn’t have had no game.”
Stan took the deck and riffled them under his thumb. Then he riffled again, throwing cards face down on the table. When he reversed them they were all high ones, picture cards and tens. “That’s daub, all right,” he said. “Let’s get a new deck.”
“You’re the card worker,” Martin said aggressively. “What do you know about this? Daub is stuff you smear on the other fellow’s cards during the game.”
“I know enough not to use it,” Stan said easily. “I don’t deal. I never deal. And if I wanted to work any angles I’d stack them on the pick up until I got the pair I wanted on top the deck, undercut and injog the top card of the top half, shuffle off eight, outjog and shuffle off. Then I’d undercut to the outjog-”
“Let’s get a new deck,” Joe Plasky said. “We won’t any of us get rich arguing about how the cards got marked. Who’s got a deck?”
They sat silent, the expansion joints of the rails clicking by beneath them. Then Stan said, “Zeena has a deck of fortune-telling cards we can play with. I’ll get them.”
Martin took the marked deck, stepped to the partly open door and sent the cards flying into the wind. “Maybe a new deck will change my luck,” he said. “I been going bust every hand except the last one.”
The car shook and pounded on through the dark. Behind the open door they could see the dark hills and a
