Lyle was just thinking how much of a shit assignment this all was when the clouds above stopped brooding and finally dropped a cool May rain over the faded circus spread. It was late afternoon; a time when the rains tend to come. Lyle turned up his jacket collar and trudged through the sudden muck underfoot. Within a week of arrival, the Edward Farlington Carnival and Traveling Museum of Natural History had transformed Widow Vaughn's back pasture from a lush meadow into a rough and rutted patch of bare dirt.
This annual transformation took place each spring in this same field as a means of slight income for the aging widow ever since her husband died. The Kaiser had claimed her only child a decade earlier during the war, leaving nobody to help work the farm.
And then one year young, handsome, smooth-tongued Eddie Farlington came to town. A man with still much of the child about him and so full of ambition that her heart tumbled and she saw nothing but her own son, Charles, there on her doorstep, asking to use her pasture. Every year ever since, the carnival nomads sprout in the shadow of her house with the coming of spring.
Lyle sighed, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets and hopping across a puddle. He ducked into a nearby tent.
He knew the story of the circus, everybody in Coretta county knew it. The article he had to write was the same article written each year by the newest reporter on staff. It was the same shit assignment; go out to the carnival, get a quote or two from Farlington, recant the history of the troupe in Coretta county, a few "man-in-the-street" reaction pieces for local color, and that was it. It was simple-minded and Lyle was more than a little dissapointed to have it handed down to him.
"Hey Buddy, hey, let's see your ticket!"
Lyle blinked out of his sulky musings and looked down. An old midget in a dirty orange and brown plaid suit scowled back at him around an unlit cigar. He jabbed at Lyle with a sawed off cane.
"Come on in, where's your ticket? Need a ticket to enter."
Lyle fumbled at the badge clipped to his lapel: "The Laslow Chronicle", it read.
He muttered, "Press", hopefully. The midget frowned, holding his hand out. He shook his head.
"Sorry kid, I need a ticket or you go back out there to swim."
The thought of braving the rain and mud of the gaudy midway was enough to make Lyle wince. He pulled out a handful of tickets he had to purchase with his own money. They were already damp in his pockets. With the rain still on his glasses, Lyle could only see a blue pulpy lump in his hands. He picked at it, then stopped, feeling them tear. The midget suddenly reached out and snatched the entire wad.
"That'll do", he grunted and turned to scurry under one of the inner flaps.
"But-!" Lyle stammered, then was silenced by the sharp clanging of a bell from inside. The show was beginning. He sniffed. Water ran down to hang from his nose. He looked through the gaping outer flaps. The rain was falling harder now, causing a wet chill to rise from the soaked earth, to rise and mingle with the empty light of colored bulbs and twisted neons. Lyle sniffed again and turned down his collar. Spreading the inner flaps, he bowed his head and entered the warmth and noise of the tent. He wondered absently what the attraction was, he had forgotten to read the billboard outside.
The stench of stagnant air, humid with all manner of bodily fluids, primarily sweat, was almost overpowering. Cheek to jowl, the decent folk of Laslow had come to see the sights and be enriched. Packed in the dim tent, lit by two lanterns hung on the center support pole, they all resembled neanderthals huddled in a cave, expectant and fearful of the storm outside. There was a buzz of noise, Lyle couldn't quite catch any meaningful phrases, but apparently this was a show to be seen. Down front was a stage of sorts; a platform of wooden slats set over large cinderblocks. A dirty red curtain blocked full view of the stage, but its very presence was working the crowd into anxious agitation.
Lyle stayed near the back, securing himself a seat at the end of a rickety bench. The midget suddenly appeared from under the curtain clenching a bunch of lit incense sticks in his fists like dead flowers. He grunted, hopped down from the planks and busily stuck each stick into the dirt along the base of the stage. The crowd calmed somewhat with his appearance, some laughing malice and taunts at his expense. He finished abruptly and turned hands high over his head.
"Silence!" He shouted, louder than had seemed possible, loud enough to stun everyone momentarily. There was a gleam in his eye now. He scrambled back upon the stage and nodded to someone in the back. The lanterns were dimmed to near pitch. By the smoke and glow of the incense, the old man seemed to double in size, triple; larger than the voice which now boomed from everywhere. Lyle glanced around nervously, seeing others do the same.
"Ladies and gentlemen..." He began to walk the length of the stage, hands behind his back.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please...if you will. Consider yourselves for a moment. Creatures of God, children of God fashioned and molded in His divine image..." It was completely quiet now, save for the rain against canvas. All eyes were on the old man, strung on his words, his presence. He leaped down from the stage and scooped dirt into his hands. Holding them up, he slowly turned them over, letting the earth fall out.
"Creatures of dirt and earth, of stones and worms...taken and pressed like clay into His image, His divine image." He dusted his hands together, all the while his eyes alive and on fire, wide and wet and unblinking. Moving into the crowd, slow and inexplicably menacing, hands up and active, molding and working imaginary figures, somehow god-like himself.
"And we live our lives, secure in the belief that what we see in each other as beauty... youth... age... or as grotesque... that all these things are reflections of God and are still somehow, good." He paused briefly with each step, fixing the audience one at a time with his withering gaze. Then he suddenly spat on the ground and turned violently, storming back down to the platform. He leapt up and leered.
"But good people, I'm here today to tell you that there are things, creatures like you and I, creatures that stand and walk like a man, that can think and kill and bleed blood as red as yours...and mine...but exist outside the light of the Almighty! Yes, things that take and twist the divine image of God Himself into the most hideous perversity..."
"Ahh, but I sense some disbelief still lingering in the room...I see that I will have to do more than just tell you, my friends... I will have to show you."
He grinned, obviously pleased to have all these mortified faces upturned and pensive, awaiting his next merest gesture. He quickly paced over to the curtains edge and deftly reached behind it, pulling down on the drawing cord with a flourish.
"And so, now I ask you... Is this too, a man?"
The curtain parted, splitting down the middle to the sound of a hundred gasps and a backstage cymbal crash.
Nothing but rain and the clinking of chains from inside a large cage. It was too dark to see what it was clearly, and for a brief moment, the imagination conjured images of tentacles and beaks and wings and snouts and barbs and, and... But then there was movement. A cry from the front row. It was still too dark and Lyle squinted, wishing someone would relight the lanterns. As best he could see, there was a large shape shuffling about inside the cage. The midget strode into view holding a small torch. He circled the cage once, twice, tapping the bars with his cane.
"Can you see it?" He yelled to the crowd. There was a low murmuring now, a young man stood up and pointed.
"It's just a nigger, he's got a nigger in that cage!" Others stood, looking and leaning forward. Nods of agreement, questioning shrugs. The old midget came to the edge and motioned for them to all sit back down.
"Oh no, young man... I know what you are thinking. But no, what is before you is not that simple freakish creature from the black pits of the jungle. Beasts that were so common in the fields and plantations of these parts. No no, this is so much more...look closely, look carefully, see for yourself the abomination within..." He thrust the torch into the cage. The resulting howl and clamor knocking him back, knocking the torch out of his hands. In the flare of light, what reared up and shook the cage was the oddest thing Lyle had ever seen before in his life. It looked human, meaning it had two legs and two arms and a head and so on. And in places, the skin did look a rich dark brown. But splashed over and criss-crossed, sometimes in patterns, sometimes in rough blotches was white skin. Its head was covered with thick black ropes of matted hair, tangled locks that hung away from the face like a great mane. On the left temple though, sprouting from a small patch of white skin, was an obvious length of straight, blonde hair. An delicate young woman had apparently noticed that "it" was definitely male and suddenly screamed, fainting dead away. There was a tumultuous uproar of confusion and the preliminary motions of a rush on the stage en masse, when the midget regained his footing and shouted for everyone to be quiet.
Lyle snapped out of his stupor almost immediately, never before had this show be mentioned in the yearly carnival synopsis. Farlington must have just added this attraction. Now here was a story, a chance to actually record something new. The midget was speaking, but ineffectually since the crowd was all trying to get down front, passing by the cage and babbling loudly. Lyle decided to wait it out and get the story after the show.
When the last straggler was rather rudely ushered out, the old man came after Lyle, cane out front.
"Alright, let's go, show's over." Lyle was sitting on the back bench at the time, and almost made the mistake of standing up before he spoke. Looking the old man in the eye he said,
"I'm a reporter, with the Laslow Chronicle, remember?" He fingered his badge again. The old man grunted.
"So, you want a medal? That was the last show for today, beat it."
Make or break time, Lyle thought.
"Now wait just a minute, think about this: I saw something this afternoon I've never seen or even heard of before. If I write about it, if you'll let me get this story, I garauntee you a good write-up... Think of it as free advertising."
"Nothing in this world's free, kid." He relented, chuckling...and turned from Lyle shuffling away, no longer the dynamo on stage but a grizzled old man. Over his shoulder,
"If you want to see him so bad, his trailer's out back. He don't like questions too much", he turned, "And he's not too keen on white boys either, so watch your step. We take care of our own around here." Cigar from pocket to mouth, patting himself for matches, he exits out the flaps and is gone.
"Out back" turned out to be the least helpful way of putting it. After wandering around the rainy backside of the circus tents, stepping in first camel then zebra shit, Lyle stumbled upon a rusting trailer with a stream of smoke pouring out the top. In smeared black letters was painted the words "Jigsaw Man". Hopeful, he stepped up to the door and knocked. Through the rain, he heard a radio from the next trailer. A tent was pitched out front and several clowns, in various stages of costume were busy smoking, applyling makeup, swapping lies and dirty jokes. One was painting another's lips blood red, acting as a mirror. He turned, hair slicked back for his bald cap, and stared Lyle directly in the face. The others looked over at him as well, then started to laugh at something Lyle couldn't quite hear. They made him nervous and he banged a little harder at the trailer door.
"Who is it?" from inside. The trailer shook slightly. Lyle stepped back, in view of the curtained window in case he meant to look out. But nothing happened. The eyes of the clowns like coals on his back. Reach out to knock again and the door clicked open then partially shut.
"Come on in, it's open now."
In time, his pupils relented, dilating to suck in the meager candlelight. That was the first thing he could see, a large candle, melting in a mason jar, the ashes of flies curled around its base, some trapped in the cooling wax. The Jigsaw Man was sitting on a crate, washing himself by a basin at his feet. Lyle cleared his throat. It was warm inside, the same scent of incense filled the cramped room as in the tent.
The Jigsaw Man lifted a cupped handful of water and tilted it into his face, splashing everywhere. Reaching for a towel, he wiped himself dry then flung it at Lyle.
"Here, you look fit to drown, yourself." The voice was calm and low. Not the howls and screeches from the performance. And Lyle came to realize that it actually was a performance, a show. The creature in the cage was here before him, washing and humming and cool and collected. Obviously a man, ridiculously so in this setting. Lyle tried to remember the intensity from the tent, the air charged with tension and xenophobia; a fear that eluded him at the moment. He looked around awkwardly. The Jigsaw Man stopped scrubbing greasepaint off his foot and pointed, black soap in hand, at a low stool.
"You can sit there if you like." Back to his ritual, humming softly. Lyle sat and took out his notepad. He clicked his ballpoint, almost dropping it.
"Um, I'm Crawford, Lyle Crawford, uh... I'm with the Laslow Chronicle - the paper in town." The Jigsaw Man picked at his toenail, nodding. Lyle continued.
"I'm here to do a story on the circus coming to town and all.. It's nothing much, but it'd be nice if I could ask you a few questions." The dark man, satisfied with the state of one foot, switched to the other; immersing it into the basin. Lyle sat near the edge of the stool.
"Here's my badge." Outstretched in his fingertips. The Jigsaw Man didn't even notice, didn't even look up. Lyle put his badge away. He sighed.
"Look, they didn't give me a budget for this; it's supposed to be a simpleminded article, but I'm willing to pay you for your time. I don't have mu-"
"Keep your money, boy." Lyle stiffened. So now he was "boy", eh? Fine, let this black fool keep his damn tale. He -
"Now, calm down. Sit. Be still. I'm not a reporter myself, but I believe that's unethical." He looked at Lyle carefully, then let the soap plunk into murky water. He reached out to Lyle, reaching out for the towel. Lyle gave it back to him. His hands...
"Your hands!" The Jigsaw Man furrowed his brow at Lyle and turned over his hands, not understanding the young man's outburst.
"You had your hands in all that soap and water, but those spots-"
"Ah, I see." Thin smile. He moved, fast, shifting off the crate and kneeling before Lyle. The smell of lye soap and new sweat. Bright eyes, one dark brown, one brown with a pie slice of ice blue. He held his hand close to Lyle's face.
"You want to look? One show not enough for you...boy?" The skin was not just mottled, that he had seen before. He'd seen an old Negro one time whose forearms speckled and faded to bone white from the elbows to the fingers. But that was a sickness; that was nature, God even, at work. There was no pattern to vitiligo. Yet the Jigsaw Man's hands were the strong hands of a black man with lines, zebra stripes, circles and polygons of flesh with skin tight and pink. Fine blonde hairs growing from the patches of white skin. He stood, smiling humorlessly, pushing back the fallen lock of limp hair. A streak of gold against the black mass around his face. He could see Lyle's bulging eyes and blinked slowly, stepping away.
"There, I think you see now.. yeah, I think you do." He sat down again and resumed his wash.
"No, ain't all paint and bullshit for the stage, was it? Naw, you could see it wasn't. Of course I couldn't just show the truth like I did just now. The only reason they eat it up, they love it so, is cause at the end of the day they can leave that tent and believe it was all a trick, a show. They can leave and feel secure about who they are. Cause in a cage, I'm safe...
"See, put me in a cage, and they can go home and sleep. Home to their pure little girls and wives. Don't wanna think about me, don't wanna see me unless I'm locked up. 'Less I act it up and make it seem fake and phony-like, they gonna be scared of me. Scared of what I might mean."
Lyle looked to the door. The Jigsaw Man chuckled.
"You think I'm crazy. You wanna bolt like a rabbit 'cause you thinking that right now, you're trapped in this tiny room with a crazy nigger." He nodded and tapped his forehead.
"Yes, I can tell how you think. You see this? It don't just stop at the skin. It goes deep. Deep inside... My brain is a little like yours, Mister Crawford." He hissed "mister" as though it were an ancient curse. The sun was beginning to set. A blue-grey twilight cast through the trailer's curtained windows. The Jigsaw Man yawned and stretched, rubbing his stomach. The markings, in the gloom and at a distance, appeared as scars. They erupted everywhere on his body, curling around muscle patterns, straight lines like knife wounds. The Jigsaw man turned at his waist, reaching back into the dark recesses of the trailer. He came up with a loose shirt and threaded into it. Buttoning it, he watched Lyle watching him.
"Sorry Mr. Crawford, but I charge admission for my... show", he grinned. "As it is, you've already seen me up close for next to nothing and you still gonna want a story ain'tcha?"
Lyle swallowed and nodded, remembering his pen, his pad, his job.
"Oh, yes. Yes, that's right.. thank you for co-operating. Um, perhaps you can tell me more about your.. your-"
"My stains?"
"Well, yes. Were you born this way?"
"Like this? Oh naw... I'm an old fashioned colored boy, just like my mama."
Lyle shifted his weight.
"...Or am I, eh reporter man? I mean if I admit to being born this way then you can set in your mind that some sorry fate has befallen this poor negro. So here he is and the world is sane again. But what if... what if I was some misfortunate white man in the last stages of some horrible disfigurative disorder. What then? Would that add some drama to your report?" Lyle listened, hearing the man's tone shift fluidly as he spoke, from one dialect to another. He was like a two headed coin spinning on edge.
"I think the readers would like to hear the truth, mister, uh.. ah.."
"'Smith'...'Mr. Smith' will do fine, and I don't think your readers would know the truth if it bit them in the neck or would even want to hear it."
An awkward and hostile silence.
"Mr. Crawford, are you a reading man? You script for a newspaper, but do you read yourself? I mean, are you familiar with the concept of assimilation? Of identity loss? Of slavery? Oppression? Emasculation?"
Lyle stared blankly.
"No, of course not. Want one?" he asked, hand out with a package of cigarettes. Lyle took one and held it. The Jigsaw Man pulled out another with his lips, deft despite their lopsided appearance. Match flare, smoke.
"How 'bout in your life, then.. you been beat down for who you are, for no better reason than who you are? Hell, you ain't got to read a book to know what I'm getting at. We all think at one time or another how things would turn out "If only this" or "If I were only that". And sometimes, you get to hating yourself so bad that you dream about it. That you go to sleep at night and dream about it, about waking up and being different, about being like "Them". Them that's got the power over you. Like a caterpillar going to sleep and coming up a butterfly. You dream about it and then after a while when things get too bad, you crave it; reaching for it so long and hard that you'd do anything, give anything to slip off your skin and your old life."
He inhaled deeply, red embers aglow.
"See, I made this man a promise, a deal, a long time ago. Funny thing is, at the time, it was what I wanted; at least, what I thought I wanted. Times was hard then, harder than now for colored folk if you can imagine, and I was desperate, eager to change my world. He came and offered me a way out and I took it, just as any man would..."
"Of course, just like any man, I couldn't see the truth beyond my desperation, the truth of the price he asked.
"I've got your story, Mr.Crawford. Here, write this down:
* * *
I've been with this bunch for about four months now. And before that, I was with another show traveling out west. Yes, I've seen every state in this damned country; some more than once. Never could stay put, even before It happened. In fact, I've been across the water. Down south on a galley out of New Orleans, sailing over to the islands. The Carribean, Haiti. You see me smiling? You see this? This the smile I get when I think of my homeplace.
Was born there years ago, many, many years ago. And I aim to die there too. I was son to a slave - yes a slave, to my mother, Ma Mary, and my father who she said was a tall big man with nine fingers. Yes, nine... lost the little finger off his left hand for slacking in the fields. Old Joe was a slacking negro, he was. It was a way we had to swing back... to needle the Massa and cut holes in his pockets. We all claimed to be lazy and shiftless; fighting back without fighting back, you see? They'd whip my daddy to strips, she'd tell me. I don't remember him none. I was still suckling when he got killed trying to head for the bush. The dogs tore him down, she said. He had gone to meet a few others in the hills, they were coming together in knots out there; plotting in the dark. But he didn't make it...
And my mama, she got sick.. badly sick, a few months after. One of the white hands, I think it Massa's cousin, took to my mother when Joe died. He was young and mean - a evil man. Came by the place to scare us and smack Ma Mary around all the time. Came sometimes with this small whip or switch in one hand, his cock in the other. I was the man then, had to be with Joe gone, though I was no more than 12 or so. Couldn't let that happen, you see. First time, I jumped him like I'd seen cats do. Low and fast and all tooth and nail. Made to kill him if I could... He broke my arm and then left. Came back that night with Massa and that shit nigger foreman, Cain. "Cain", do you believe that? That's what they called him. That's what he was. Did the whippings when Massa wanted to make a point.
So they all come down into camp looking like the wrath of God and call my mama to bring me out. And I'm hurting bad with my arm swollen and stinging. And that man had me whipped... had this child whipped. Wanted to show me and the rest what acting up was going to cost me. Wanted to put me in my place and I cried and screamed, not so much from the pain as from the bound
helplessness.
It ate at my soul. I was just a child, but dry and angry inside... brittle as glass. Left me in a bloody pile in the dirt, torn open from the lash. I don't remember this, I passed out, but Ma Mary told me later that Massa wanted me fit to work by week's end or I had to go.
Don't look at me so.. I don't give a damn if you believe or not.
I almost died that week. Word went out bout what happened, and folks kept coming by to see. All kinds of people, but mostly other slaves to see for themselves the child that was whupped for fighting a white man. I think back now, and I could almost feel lucky I wasn't killed outright. What it was, I believe, was that Massa was more mad at the idea of Ma Mary and his cousin. He wasn't a righteous man, mind you, but it was known that he had his eye on mama for himself. And I knew that too. I could see the boiling pit we all were in, black and white alike; we were cooking out in that heat. Under a wet sun that burned us to cinders inside, left us empty. No hope, no redemption, just pain and suffering and death.
Death came for me that week... just as sure as us talking right now, Death came to claim me after that beating. I remember it clearly. One of the house niggers had just left. It was Marcus, stopping by with a little food.
Heh, he told me... he told me that I was a damn fool. That I was too smart to die like that. Marcus claimed to know the facts of life, of living in the white man's world. He said I was born a nigger and was going to die a nigger slave's death if I didn't learn to stop fighting it. I didn't say a word, I was crazy with pain, but not crazy enough to think he was right. I could see I was different, that I was somehow special. And then I heard this voice. Laying there alone on my stomach, I couldn't see who it was. It was an easy voice, like honey and flies, flies on my back; landing and crawling over dried blood and pus. I could only barely feel them, but it suddenly sounded like hundreds were dancing on my wounds. And this sweet voice in my ear. It was a man's voice, but low like thunder. He says to me, "You are special". It was the truest thing in the world from those lips; he said it and I knew it was so.
"Too special to pass in this manner." It was strange how he spoke, calming me with those buzzing flies, almost as if his voice was the music of their wings like a sweaty bebop band. I felt a light hand on my neck move and vanish into the nest of pain along my spine. He was touching my welts, but there wasn't any sting... just cooling honey over my wounds.
"There is a man outside, here to take you away." Images in my mind of the shack from above, covered in shadow and the dust of ground bones.
"But I can keep him busy for you. I can make him bide his time," he says. And I'm seeing my father, just standing there waiting for me to come and go with him. I want to be with him, I want this pain to end, to go into the bush with Old Joe and be free and upright. And this voice goes to shushing me and the shack gets a hot as the sun, almost full with flies from the sound of it. I can't see anything but my daddy shot with holes all over, just waiting outside.
"You don't want to die like this, do you? No... You are too young, there is so much you don't know about... life. A real life, with no whips and dogs and burning fields. When you die, do you want to die like this?" The voice is in my head now, coming out Joe's mouth like its always been his. And I see that he's right, I'm bout to die wallowing in scabs and flies and-
"You deserve a white man's death. And the respect that comes with it. I can give it to you. I can help you. Will you let me?"
Well, that room started to spinning and my heart seized up tight and all could keep thinking was that I was afraid and didn't want die. So I said yes.
I said yes, you're right. Help me, please. But them flies just got louder and louder and though I couldn't see, I could feel them burrowing and sinking into my back, into my bones. And next thing I knew...
* * *
He shrugged, letting the smoking butt fall into the basin to sizzle and spit one last time.
"Well? And then what?" Lyle was gripping both pen and pad tightly. Now covered in a sheen of perspiration, now leaving greasy print marks on the blank yellow page. His heart was pounding and he didn't know why. It was stifling in here, he needed some air. The Jigsaw Man watched the reporter loosen his tie and top collar. Standing from his shadowed corner, he stretched, cracking several joints at once. Then shrugged at Lyle.
"What do you mean 'then what'? Then I blacked out." He bent and lifted the basin with a grunt.
"'Scuse me." Lyle shifted his stool so he could pass. At the front door, the Jigsaw Man propped the tub on his side, letting himself out. It was evening now. A welcome cool breeze flooded the room, the sounds of crickets just starting to screech. He heaved the water out to the ground, drawing the attention of someone nearby.
"Naw, you go on, I got company. Huh? Hell no.. get out of here with that." he drew back inside, chuckling in darkly good humor. The door closed with a bang. Closed darkness, a loud piercing roar. The two sounds came so close together in time, it made Lyle jump. The Jigsaw Man set the tub down and kicked it under a cluttered counter.
"Oh, that's just the tigers; they always get hungry around this time." He raised his shirt on the side.
"See this? That's where one bit me, when I first got here." Lyle blinked, his hand moving before he knew it, to touch, to feel the large, jagged white ring, an eclipsed sun emblazoned on the skin. The Jigsaw Man staring down at him knowingly.
"It's pretty innit? Better then a goddamn tattoo. Look, look right there. You can see where each tooth went in."
"How does this happen to you?" asked Lyle, wide-eyed. The Jigsaw Man shrugged.
"I don't try to reason it anymore. The day after He came, I woke up to the sound of birds in the trees. That was the first time, it was what saved me and is what's keeping me alive today. I've been alive for a little less than a hundred years. What do you think of that?
"I said, how does that strike you, Mr.Crawford?"
Lyle blinked. Too many odd things in succession, unbelievable revelations. He was actually astounded.
"That's what I thought. I've gotten pretty skilled at reading people, Mr.Crawford. And I think you understand what I am, what kind of man I am, what I did that day, long ago, to save my hide." He grinned, boring into Lyle.
Lyle stood up, stepping back, knocking over the stool, almost falling himself.
"Stay back! You, you sold your soul didn't you? You made a pact with the devil!"
"Oh, well I don't know who He was. Can't say for certain; lot of odd things crawling around over this earth. And I didn't 'sell' anything, far as I'm concerned. I don't know what He wanted with me. Shit, I've never seen anyone like Him since, either."
He looked away from Lyle and sighed.
"All I do know is I been around a long time, long enough to scare me if I think about it too hard. And the bloody cuts that could hurt and kill another man, heal faster than you can blink. But you seen my scars, you know how they leave me. I'm turning white bit by bit, scratch by scratch, hunk of flesh by hunk of flesh. The way I see it, I won't die till I'm a white man, I won't even bleed-
"Oh sit down, Mr.Crawford, and stop looking at me like that."
"No, no, you're not human! You're evil or crazy or.. or, both and-"
The Jigsaw Man scowled at him.
"And just what the hell do you know about me? That was an act out there. You struck me as being smarter than that, Crawford. Now sit down and be quiet, I'm not finished."
Lyle relented hesitantly, the man's demeanor was disturbingly calm and rational, at odds with all he was saying, all that he appeared. He pulled together some spine.
"I think I'll stand right here, thank you." The Jigsaw Man cocked his head, assessing Lyle. Then he arched his brows, nodding.
"Suit yourself. I won't make you stay, but you want to get the whole story, don't you?"
"...yes"
* * *
Like I said, that Man was good on his word; I didn't die after that beating even though by all rights I should have. The next day, I felt fine, better than fine even. No pain, no aches.. not even my teeth were bothering me, and I'd always had rotten teeth. Which was dandy as far as I was concerned. See, to me that Man had kept his word. I reached around to feel my back and the skin was smooth as ever; almost like it'd never happened. And my arm was better too. Heh, the way I was feeling right then, I had a mind to go jump the first white man I could find and tear him to pieces. Ran outside with no shirt and no shoes, just ragged pants Massa's boy had outgrown. Ran outside laughing and whooping. Tore into the fields to find Ma Mary. Folks stopped picking and came around me to see... They all knew what had happened. But when I got right up to her, all flushed and breathless, someone out that field screamed. And she pointed, they all were pointing and staring.. with faces twisted up into hard masks. Looked round to mama to find she was backing away, they all were; like you just did. Oh it's alright now, I got used to it and worse after a while.
But that first time, when others saw me, saw the white streaks criss- crossing my back in angry bolts...
Well, of course I couldn't tell... But one ran off to get the foreman and I knew something was wrong. Ma Mary came up behind me then, held me by the shoulders shook me.
"Boy, what's wrong with you?" she cried. And I wanted to tell her nothing, that I was fine and that nothing was ever going to be wrong with me anymore.
They got a doctor out there to look at me. Massa was afraid I had some disease, something that might be catching, you see. We was in the Big House, in the kitchen. Smell of cooked meat tainted with alcohol. Stripped me down and poked me with his metal rods. Master had Cain hold me, but I wasn't squirming, I was calm. All of them, in that room, quiet and scared of me... looking at me like I fell out the sky. The doctor is nodding and perspiring, stinking in the heat. He tells Cain to be ready and pulls out a scalpel. Puts his hands on me and draws a thin red line into my chest. It hurts for a second or two, then closes up just as fast, leaving this white streak over my nipple. They all get quiet and look round at each other. Then the doctor just grits his teeth and stabs me with that knife... right here in the belly. And I wriggle fishlike in pain, but before I can cry, it passes and I feel fine. Cain is bugging his eyes at this point, digging into my arms as he's holding me.
"Jesus Christ," he says.
Heh, I was on top of the world.
* * *
"But now, that was a long time ago."
"Could you say that last part again?" asked Lyle, looking up from his frantic scribbles.
* * *
[torn from _The Laslow Chronicle_ ]
"...clowns certain to delight children of all ages and those still young at heart.
By far the most intriguing attraction at this years carnival is surprisingly not to be found under the big tent, but on the midway. Daniel Smith, a mulatto performer with the circus and part-time actor, is presenting a unique show entitled, "The Jigsaw Man". His costume and antics are bizarre enough to merit a second or even third visit to the midway, and make for a interesting contrast to the sugary world found beneath the striped tent. While Junior is enjoying himself with the lion tamers, a stop at "The Jigsaw Man" is highly recommended for the more adult patrons to..."
* * *
"Yeah, I read it."
"Well what are we going to do about it?"
Thin lips and hot blue flecks of ice.
"Come on, Samuel, we got to do something. Can't have that -"
"Abomination!"
"- Right, that abomination loose right outside of town. Hell you know how those circus folks are. They're probably all part nigger anyhow. I almost took little Emma to see that damned thing. She begged me to see it for God's sake!"
Hard stares, slight nods all around.
"Samuel, we got to do what's right. What's gonna happen if we don't? What if we just sit here on our asses and don't do anything? They come here every year, you know that."
"Yeah, Emma's almost 12 and so are most of her friends. What's going to happen when they get a little older? What if that thing decides to come to town for a drink before the show? Or does something to one of our kids he sees down in the audience?"
"What about your boy, Samuel?"
Slow blink.
"And what will the others say if we sit here and do nothing?"
Fists clench and uncurl and squeeze shut again.
"Right. Get Bobby and Earl, tell them tonight to come over to my house before we go. I know Earl done lost his, but I got a spare uniform in the attic."
"We're doing the right thing. It's God's will."
* * *
The Jigsaw Man awoke with a start. The same dream of a thousand nights lingering in his head. He is back in the room, the room with the flies and savannah heat. There are drums resounding outside. It is a rhythm he can't quite catch; non-repeating, ever changing. It is his father calling him out of this cracked and peeling room. Turning over to get up, he disturbs the flies on his back. There, standing beside the bed, a man with skin like honey, shining and drizzling onto the dirt floor. He smiles, holding out his hand. Drums in his ears and he wakes.
Not drums, pounding fists at his front door. The trailer shifts uneasily on its cinderblocks. Bang. The windows crash. Small eager flames dance from the landing torch to catch and devour. The Jigsaw Man leaps from his cot. There is fire everywhere now, crowding him out of the small trailer.
He tumbles out into the night, into screams all around. The suddenly beautiful and terrible sight of the Big Tent ablaze snatches his breath away. Still tangled in sheets he feels around for a foothold. The earth is spinning in crazy loops. Burning monkies screeching and howling, rolling by like tumbleweeds. Hands pulling at him. The sound of gunfire all around. His head pulled back by his hair, his neck cool and exposed to the night. White shadows snap into view. White ghosts with hollow black eyes.
"That him?" A nod and a sack cinched over his face, drawn tight at the neck. He is dragged to his feet. More sounds of Hell; the tigers are loose and clawing back. Someone screams. His heart pounds itself into an aching bruise. He feels he will explode soon from sheer adrenaline. More hands on his body. Rope. Around his neck. Around his hands. Wet tree bark against his bare back. Sweat filling his nose and blackness his eyes. A bright light and heat, even through the sack, draws near. Dogs barking now. Smoke rising around him. They set him on fire to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers".
* * *
In the quiet morning that followed, Coretta county police and volunteer fire fighters, picked through the charred bones of trapped elephants, dispensing consolation and wide-eyed looks of disbelief. Those that escaped had come back during the night, scavenging the tattered calico for keepsakes beneath the ashes.
On a nearby hill, an old dwarf pokes a burnt tree stump and shakes his head sadly. He can't meet the perfect blue eyes of a naked white youth quite alive and sobbing in the dirt. He kicks at a rock and looks up at the sky, just now turning red with the dawn.