“Furthermore, I was thought to be bad luck by most of the Talent, and show people are greatly involved with the idea of luck. Early in my time on the show I got into awful trouble with Molza because I inadvertently shifted his trunk a few inches in the dressing tent. It was on a bit of board I wanted to use in my writing-lesson with Professor Spencer. Suddenly Molza was on me, storming incomprehensibly, and Spencer had trouble quieting him down. Then Spencer warned me against ever moving a trunk, which is very bad luck indeed; when the handlers bring it in from the baggage wagon they put it where it ought to go, and there it stays until they take it back to the train. I had to go through a complicated ceremony to ward off the bad luck, and Molza fussed all day.
“The idea of the Jonah is strong with show people. A bringer of ill luck can blight a show. Some of the Talent were sure I was a Jonah, which was just a way of focussing their detestation of what I represented, and of Willard, whom they all hated.
“Only the Fat Woman ever spoke to me directly about who and what I was. I forget exactly when it was, but it was fairly early in my experience on the show. It might have been during my second or third year, when I was twelve or thereabouts. One morning before the first trick, and even before the calliope began its toot-up, which was the signal that the World of Wonders and its adjuncts were opening for business, she was sitting on her throne and I was doing something to Abdullah, which I checked carefully every day for possible trouble.
“ ‘Come here, kid,’ she said. ‘I wanta talk to you. And I wanta talk mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches. Them words mean anything to you?’
“ ‘That’s from Numbers,’ I said.
“ ‘Numbers is right; Numbers twelve, verse eight. How do you know that?’
“ ‘I just know it.’
“ ‘No, you don’t just know it. You been taught it. And you been taught it by somebody who cared for your soul’s salvation. Was it your Ma?’
“ ‘My Pa,’ I said.
“ ‘Then did he ever teach you Deuteronomy twenty-three, verse ten?’
“ ‘Is that about uncleanness in the night?’
“ ‘That’s it. You been well taught. Did he ever teach you Genesis thirteen, verse thirteen? That’s one of the unluckiest verses in the Bible.’
“ ‘I don’t remember.’
“ ‘Not that the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly?’
“ ‘I don’t remember.’
“ ‘I bet you remember Leviticus twenty, thirteen.’
“ ‘I don’t remember.’
“ ‘You do so remember! If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.’
“I said nothing, but I am sure my face gave me away. It was one of Willard’s most terrible threats that if I were caught I should certainly be hanged. But I was mute before the Fat Woman.
“ ‘You know what that means, dontcha?’
“Oh, I knew what it meant. In my time on the show I had already learned a great deal about mankind lying with women, because Charlie talked about little else when he sat on the train with Willard. It was a very dark matter, for all I knew about it was the parody of this act which I was compelled to go through with Willard, and I assumed that the two must be equally horrible. But I clung to the child’s refuge: silence.
“ ‘You know where that leads, dontcha? Right slap to Hell, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.’
“From me, nothing but silence.
“ ‘You’re in a place where no kid ought to be. I don’t mean the show, naturally. The show contains a lotta what’s good. But that Abdullah! That’s an idol, and that Willard and Charlie encourage the good folks that come in here for an honest show to bow down and worship almost before it, and they won’t be held guiltless. No sirree! Nor you, neither, because you’re the works of an idol and just as guilty as they are.’
“ ‘I just do what I’m told,’ I managed to say.
“ ‘That’s what many a sinner’s said, right up to the time when it’s no good saying it any longer. And those tricks. You’re learning tricks, aren’t you? What do you want tricks for?’
“I had a happy inspiration. I looked her straight in the eye. ‘I count them but dung, that I may win Christ,’ I said.
“ ‘That’s the right way to look at it, boy. Put first things first. If that’s the way you feel, maybe there’s some hope for you still.’ She sat a little forward in her chair, which was all she could manage, and put her podgy hands on her great knees, which were shown off to advantage by her pink rompers. ‘I’ll tell you what I always say,’ she continued; ‘there’s two things you got to be ready to do in this world, and that’s fight for what’s right, and read your Bible every day. I’m a fighter. Always have been. A mighty warrior for the Lord. And you’ve seen me on the train, reading my old Bible that’s so worn and thumbed that people say to me, “that’s a disgrace; why don’t you get yourself a decent copy of the Lord’s Word?” And I reply, “I hang on to this old Bible because it’s seen me through thick and thin, and what looks like dirt to you is the wear of love and reverence on every page.” A clean sword and a dirty Bible! That’s my war-cry in my daily crusade for the Lord: a clean sword and a dirty Bible! Now, you remember that. And you ponder on Leviticus twenty, thirteen, and cut out all that fornication and Sodom abomination before it’s too late, if it isn’t too late already.’
“I got away, and hid myself in Abdullah and thought a lot about what Happy Hannah had said. My thoughts were like those of many a convicted sinner. I was pleased with my cleverness in thinking up that text that had averted her attack. I sniggered that I had even been able to use a forbidden word like ‘dung’ in a sanctified sense. I was frightened by Leviticus twenty, thirteen, and—you see how much a child of the superstitious carnival I had already become—by the double thirteen verse from Genesis. Double thirteen! What could be more ominous! I knew I ought to repent, and I did, but I knew I could not leave off my sin, or Willard might kill me, and not only was I afraid to die, I quite simply didn’t want to die. And such is the resilience of childhood that when the first trick advanced as far as Abdullah, I was pleased to defeat a particularly obnoxious Rube.
“After that I had many a conversation with Hannah in which we matched texts. Was I a hypocrite? I don’t think so. I had simply acquired the habit of adapting myself to my audience. Anyhow, my readiness with the Bible seemed to convince her that I was not utterly damned. I had no such assurance, but I was getting used to living with damnation.
“I had a Bible. I stole it from a hotel. It was one of those sturdy copies the Gideons spread about so freely in hotel rooms. I snitched one at the first opportunity, and as Professor Spencer was teaching me to read very capably I spent many an hour with it. I felt no compunction about the theft, because theft was part of the life I lived. Willard was as good a pickpocket as I have ever known, and one of the marks of his professionalism was that he was not greedy or slapdash in his methods.
“He had an agreement with Charlie. At a point about the middle of the bally, during one of the night shows, Charlie would interrupt his description of the World of Wonders to say, very seriously, Ladies and gentlemen, I think l ought to warn you, on behalf of the management, that pickpockets may be at work at this fair. I give you my assurance that nothing is farther from the spirit of amusement and education represented by our exhibition than the utterly indefensible practice of theft. But as you know, we cannot control everything that may happen in the vicinity of our show. And therefore I urge you, as your friend and as a member of the Wanless organization which holds nothing dearer than its reputation for unimpeachable honesty, that you should keep a sharp eye, and perhaps also a hand, on your wallets. And if there should be any loss—which the Wanless organization most sincerely hopes may not be the case—we beg you to report it to us, and to your excellent local police force, so that the thief may be apprehended if that should prove to be possible. The gaff here was that when he spoke of thieves, Rubes who had a full wallet were likely to put a hand on it. Willard spotted them from the back of the crowd, and during the rest of Charlie’s pious spiel he would gently lift one from a promising Rube. It had to be very quick work. Then, when he had taken the money, he substituted a wad of newspaper of the appropriate size, and either during the bally, or when the Rube came into the tent, he would put the wallet back in place. Rubes generally carried their wallets on the left hip, and as their pants were often a tight fit, a light hand was necessary.