Nightmare Alley

shovel a couple months later by a big crazy fellow, worked right next to me on the chain. Now that captain’s dead and I ain’t mourning.”

A fear without a form or a name was squirming inside Stanton Carlisle. Death and stories of death or brutality burrowed under his skin like ticks and set up an infection that worked through him to his brain and festered in it.

He forced his mind back to the reading. “Let me tell you this, friend: I see your future unrolling like thread from a spool. The pattern of your days ahead. I see men-a crowd of men-threatening you, asking questions. But I see another man, older than yourself, who will do you a good turn.”

The Negro stood up and then squatted on his haunches to absorb the vibration of the car. “Mister, you must of been a fortuneteller sometime. You talk just like ’em. Why don’t you relax yourself? You last a lot longer, I’m telling you.”

The white hobo jumped to his feet and lurched over to the open door, bracing his hand against the wall of the car and staring out across the countryside. They roared over a concrete bridge; a river flashed golden in the moonlight and was gone.

“You better stand back a little, son. You go grabbing scenery that way and somebody spot you if we pass a jerk stop. They phone on ahead, and when she slow down you got the bulls standing there with oak towels in their hands, all ready to rub you down.”

Stan turned savagely. “Listen, kid, you got everything figured out so close. What sense does it all make? What sort of God would put us here in this goddamned, stinking slaughterhouse of a world? Some guy that likes to tear the wings off flies? What use is there in living and starving and fighting the next guy for a full belly? It’s a nut house. And the biggest loonies are at the top.”

The Negro’s voice was softer. “Now you talking, brother. You let all that crap alone and come over here and talk. We got a long run ahead of us and ain’t no use trying to crap each other up.”

Dully Stan left the doorway and crumpled into the corner. He wanted to shout out, to cry, to feel Lilith’s mouth again, her breasts against him. Oh, Jesus, there I go. God damn her, the lying, double-crossing bitch. They’re all alike. But Molly, the dumb little tomato. Quickly he wanted her. Then disgust mounted-she would leech on to him and drain the life out of him. Dull, oh, Christ, and stupid. Oh, Jesus… Mother. Mark Humphries, God damn his soul to hell, the thieving bastard. Mother… the picnic…

The Negro was speaking again and the words filtered through. “…take on like that. Why don’t you tell me what you moaning about? You never going to see me again. Don’t make no difference to me what you done. I mind my own business. But you’ll feel better a hundred per cent, get it off your mind.”

The prying bastard. Let me alone… He heard his own voice say, “Stars. Millions of them. Space, reaching out into nothing. No end to it. The rotten, senseless, useless life we get jerked into and jerked out of, and it’s nothing but whoring and filth from start to finish.”

“What’s the matter with having a little poontang? Nothing dirty about that, ’cept in a crib you likely get crabs or a dose. Ain’t anything dirty about it unless you feels dirty in your mind. Gal start whoring so as to get loose from cotton-chopping or standing on their feet ten, eleven hours. You can’t blame no gal for laying it on the line for money. On her back she can rest.”

Stan’s torrent of despair had dried up. For a second he could draw breath-the weight seemed to have been lifted from his chest.

“But the purpose back of it all-why are we put here?”

“Way I look at it, we ain’t put. We growed.”

“But what started the whole stinking mess?”

“Didn’t have to start. It’s always been doing business. People ask me: how this world get made without God make it? I ask ’em right back: who make God? They say he don’t need making; he always been there. I say: well then, why you got to go bringing him in at all? Old world’s always been there, too. That’s good enough for me. They ask me: how about sin? Who put all the sin and wickedness and cussedness in the world? I say: who put the boll weevil? He growed. Well, mean people grow where the growing’s good for ’em-same as the boll weevil.”

Stan was trying to listen. When he spoke his voice was thick and flat. “It’s a hell of a world. A few at the top got all the dough. To get yours you got to pry ’em loose from some of it. And then they turn around and knock your teeth out for doing just what they did.”

The Negro sighed and offered Stan the tobacco, then made himself another cigarette. “You said it, brother. You said it. Only they ain’t going have it forever. Someday people going to get smart and mad, same time. You can’t get nothing in this world by yourself.”

Stan smoked, watching the gray thread sail toward the door and whip off into the night. “You sound like a labor agitator.”

This time the Negro laughed aloud. “God’s sake, man, labor don’t need agitation. You can’t agitate people when they’s treated right. Labor don’t need stirring up. It need squeezing together.”

“You think they’ve got sense enough to do it?”

“They got to do it. I know.”

“Oh. You know.”

The lad in denims was silent for a moment, thinking. “Looky here-you plant four grains of corn to a hill. How you know one going to come up? Well, the working people, black and white-their brains growing just like corn in the hill.”

The freight was slowing.

God, let me get out of here… this damn, slap-happy darkie, whistling in the lion’s den. And Grindle… every second, moving closer to the fort…

“Hey, watch yourself, son. She’s still traveling.”

The train lost speed quickly. It was stopping. Stan jumped to the ground and the Negro followed, looking left and right. “This ain’t good. Got no business stopping here. Oh-oh-it’s a frisk.”

At either end of the train, lights appeared, brakemen walking the tops carrying lanterns; flashlights of railroad bulls playing along the body rods and into open boxcars.

The young hobo said, “Something funny-this division ain’t never been hostile before. And they frisking from both ends at once…”

On the other side of the freight a train whistled in, hissing, glowing, the red blaze of the engine shining under the boxcar and throwing the hoboes’ shadows across the cinders ahead of them.

“Hey, son, let’s try and jump that passenger job. You a fast rambler?”

The Rev. Carlisle shook his head. The furies were drawing close, Anderson’s web was tangling him. This was the end of it. Dully he clambered back into the boxcar and sank down into a corner, burying his face in his bent elbow, while with hoarse voices and a stamp of feet the furies moved in…

“Hey, bo-” The whisper through the door barely penetrated. “Come on-let’s nail that rattler. We make better time too.”

Silence.

“So long, boy. Take it easy.”

Doom had stepped onto the roof; then a light stabbed into the car, searching the corners. Oh, Jesus, this is it- this is it.

“Come on, you bastard, unload. And get your hands up.”

He stood, blinking in the glare of the flashlight, and raised his arms.

“Come on, hit the grit!”

Stan stumbled to the door and sat down, sliding his feet into darkness. A big hand gripped his arm and jerked him out.

From the top of the car the head-end shack peered over, holding his brake club under one arm. “You got him?”

A voice behind the flashlight said, “I got one. But he ain’t no coon. Way we got the tip, the guy was a coon.”

The brakeman above them signaled with his lantern and from the dark came the chug of a gasoline-driven handcar. It sped up and Stan could see that it was crowded with men-dark clothes-it was no track gang. When it stopped the men piled off and hurried across the rails.

“Where is he? On the freight? Who’s shaking down the rattler?”