of The Tiger
STEPHEN KING
From
Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1978
I first saw Mr. Legere when the circus swung through Steubenville,
but I'd only been with the show for two weeks; he might have been
making his irregular visits indefinitely. No one much wanted to
talk about Mr. Legere, not even that last night when it seemed that
the world was coming to an end -- the night that Mr. Indrasil
disappeared.
But if I'm going to tell it to you from the beginning, I should start
by saying that I'm Eddie Johnston, and I was born and raised in
Sauk City. Went to school there, had my first girl there, and
worked in Mr. Lillie's five-and-dime there for a while after I
graduated from high school. That was a few years back... more
than I like to count, sometimes. Not that Sauk City's such a bad
place; hot, lazy summer nights sitting on the front porch is all right
for some folks, but it just seemed to itch me, like sitting in the
same chair too long. So I quit the five-and-dime and joined Farnum
& Williams' All-American 3-Ring Circus and Side Show. I did it
in a moment of giddiness when the calliope music kind of fogged
my judgment, I guess.
So I became a roustabout, helping put up tents and take them
down, spreading sawdust, cleaning cages, and sometimes selling
cotton candy when the regular salesman had to go away and bark
for Chips Baily, who had malaria and sometimes had to go
someplace far away, and holler. Mostly things that kids do for free
passes -- things I used to do when I was a kid. But times change.
They don't seem to come around like they used to.
We swung through Illinois and Indiana that hot summer, and the
crowds were good and everyone was happy. Everyone except Mr.
Indrasil. Mr. Indrasil was never happy. He was the lion tamer, and
he looked like old pictures I've seen of Rudolph Valentine. He was
tall, with handsome, arrogant features and a shock of wild black
hair. And strange, mad eyes -- the maddest eyes I've ever seen. He
was silent most of the time; two syllables from Mr. Indrasil was a
sermon. All the circus people kept a mental as well as a physical
distance, because his rages were legend. There was a whispered
story about coffee spilled on his hands after a particularly difficult
performance and a murder that was almost done to a young
roustabout before Mr. Indrasil could be hauled off him. I don't
know about that. I do know that I grew to fear him worse than I
had cold-eyed Mr. Edmont, my high school principal, Mr. Lillie, or
even my father, who was capable of cold dressing-downs that
would leave the recipient quivering with shame and dismay.
When I cleaned the big cats' cages, they were always spotless. The
memory of the few times I had the vituperative wrath of Mr.
Indrasil called down on me still have the power to turn my knees
watery in retrospect.
