Curiosity Industry
Part Tweleve

The final echoes of that last syllable drove like nail through Herman's ear. As the sound of Grady's laughter snapped in his head, he charged at him swinging wildly and landed a long swooping right hand. He felt the reality of McDowell's existence as he followed through with the blow. Grady danced backwards, loosing his balance. Nasty cobwebs splintered in his head and he spilled to the ground. Herman turned back to McDowell, grabbed his arms and pulled them together behind the bully's back, digging a knee into his spine.

Grady cried, pitifully, and begged for mercy from Henry. "Make him stop, please stop." Grady's face flushed. He sobbed as Herman drove his leg deeper into his spine. Henry wrenched Herman from Grady's back and him on the ground.

Drunken laughter returned from the building at an even higher decibel. It flowed over Herman with the early light and woke his mind to anger. Sliding over to the driver's side, he re-ignited the engine.

After swimming all night in the memories of his brother, Herman paused. He tried to imagine what his brother might say to him. "But its wrong, Herman, a sin to steal. Sins stick pins in baby Jesus' crown," the voice protested.

Jim came from the building and screamed at the dust billowing from the road. His Cadillac disappeared into the brown fog, winding up the road to Cincinnati. A green blotch grew smaller, swallowed by the morning light.


THE END

Curiosity Industry
Part Eleven

The air rushed in waves through Herman's ear canal. Cincinnati now lay just beyond what the headlights could see. The black surrounding him felt heavy and his eyelids drooped.

"We'll be in Cincinnati soon boy," Jim raised the whiskey to his lips. "This Greasy Tit's weak. No wonder you like it. Look, I got to stop and see a business associate." He signaled right and pulled off the paved road. The road sign read that Cincinnati was dead ahead, they were on the way to Pempleston.

"Where we going mister?" Herman asked.

"A man who owes me money lives at the end of the road. You got to have money in the big city. Everything costs."

Jim handed Herman the jug. "You want any more of this shit? No? I'm going to dump it then. It's a waste of a perfectly fine jug to put that weak shit in it. My debtor here has some first rate whiskey. Kind’ll make your head spin."

"Just let me out mister."

"Easy son, I'll take you right into the city."

They pulled behind an abandoned brick warehouse. Broken windows breathed dust from their frames, the top third of the building had the name Emperiles painted on it. Trails of fine particles were touched with rusty hues in the morning's first light. The day had settled in as a quiet mist. Birds called from tree to tree in the small wooded area behind the building, the only sound at that hour except for the voices coming from inside. Deep laughter shook through the building's red brick walls. Echoed in the morning stillness, Grady McDowell's laugh now emerged from that buried place inside of Herman.

"Hen-ree are you tryin to be stupid?" He would chortle at him. Grady never got the satisfaction of a reply. His victim knew him well enough to realize that whatever he said would be used against him.

"Henry why don't you go at him?" Herman would plead. “He ain't so much you couldn't take him."

"No, Herman. Don't let him make you mad. Don't let him get you."

"You could take that fat horse’s ass," he encouraged his brother.

In time, Herman embarrassed his brother by fighting his fights for him. Henry never wanted him to get involved. He stuck close to the words of his ma and pa. And what he heard in church about loving your enemy and turning the other cheek.

"Hey dimwit you want to play checkers with Embry (his dog). I bet he beats ya." McDowell called out from his porch. An unbearably hot September morning snaked its way through town. Coils of heat unraveled down the short hill that the boys had to climb to get to school. McDowell glared at them from his lawn and spat black tobacco from between his teeth in their direction.

"Look," he called through the yellow cracks of teeth. "Its the stupids, little stupid and b-i-i-i-g stupid."

Curiosity Industry
Part Ten

"I'm sorry you had such a bad time," Jim said after considering Herman's story. "Not all the shows are like that. That one was meant to frighten young folks. I know the man who runs that one in Foston. He's an old nasty sort. Got a wooden leg hisself."

"I guess I remember him sort scuffling ahead of us," Herman reached out over the side of the car and felt the rush of cooling air. His eyes were dry from the whiskey.

"Yeah," Jim took another snort of Greasy Tit. "Mean old son of a bitch no doubt about that. It'll be a bit before we get to Cincinnati. If you're tired you can go stretch out in back."

Herman's mind swam in equal measures of alcohol and memory. Cincinnati lay further out in the night. A dull sensation settled like a stone inside him. He could feel the miles separating him from Henry.

He’d spread out his coat and tried to roll Henry off the dirt and hay. Herman held his brother close and whispered reminders that he was there with him. Henry's body shuttered and heaved, the vibrations shook through Herman, who convulsively held him tighter.

"Hen," he whispered, struggling to keep his mouth near his brother's ear, "you want to go and wait for ma and pa where we left them."

"I'm sorry I cried," Henry replied, the fit ending abruptly.

"That's okay Henry. You had good reason to," Herman said and helped his brother sit up.

"Sometimes the boy in my class. The one I tells you ‘bout."

"You mean Grady?" Herman squatted down next to this brother.

"He brings 'em other kids. And tries to upset me."

"I'd like to get that Grady," Herman pulled Henry to his feet.

"He's awfully big Herman."

"Bet you the two of us could cut him down."

"Ma don't want us getting into fights," Henry wiped the dirt off his socks and shoes.

"Ma don't know how mean some people are."

"You shouldn't let them get to you Herman. I don't. I know what they trying to do."

Curiosity Industry
Part Nine

Back amongst the mayhem, whose call a few minutes ago promised freedom and adventure but now sounded mocking, Henry sobbed as quietly as he could so as to not embarrass his brother. Herman took a handkerchief from his back pocket and offered it to his brother. He had seen Henry get upset many times. Knowing how to stop it, was one of the ways he counted himself as a good brother.

"Let's get some candy Henry," Herman suggested, surprised to see that the expression on his brother’s face hadn’t changed.

They made their way through the crowd to the vendors who had set up carts filled with junk food of every conceivable variety. Cotton candy wound like pink clouds on thin wooden sticks, the steam from roasted nuts curled up in a colorful mist beneath multicolored bulbs. Fried food, ice cream and candy of every conceivable variety stretched itself out in aroma trails luring the brothers.

Henry tugged at his brother's shirt, nearly tearing its stitching out of the sleeve. He wanted to find mom and dad. Herman said that they shouldn’t. He told his brother that ma and pa didn’t want to be bothered. He wanted to calm his brother down first. Herman mentioned that they could get some cotton candy, eat it, and then go find their parents.

Henry turned white as a ghost at the suggestion. He watched the candy form itself on a stick out of nothing suggesting a cruel magic at work. A man with a giant squash head, a woman with a beard and her daughter waving her crab claw hands floated above him on a pink cloud. He dropped from his brother's side and collapsed, falling to paroxysms of bewilderment.

Innumerable Sightings of Edward

Before contact with Egyptian sculptors
she had no idea she was a surrealist

Adrift in an era of fading tradition and increasing lawlessness
she tried to recreate her life around memories of her father

She posed men poised against the sky with their children,
planted like trees in mother earth,
rag-taggle families of tinkers and wanderers

Orphaned now for many years
she didn’t know the difference between a family argument
and the purest hint of true violence
which she saw written all over childish faces
she had nightmares about their conflicts for many years

Over the years, innumerable sightings of her father
have proved to be thoroughly and tastefully unfounded

Working in a mental hospital, he photographed incoming patients
his grim, grey 1933 mural transposed to a world of strong light, intense color and heat
melted the eyes of curators in galleries out west

At home in Cincinnatti, he played slow, mournful tunes
and refashioned himself as a bluegrass troubadour

Things looked bleak, the old man's scratchy home made tapes
no longer offered her hope
basking in the tide of international goodwill, she couldn’t say why

A hangover from their days spent photographing religious meeting houses
other women and other women's children behaved in cruel ways
towards her, made her feel incomplete
she didn’t have a mommy

The outcome presented a clear choice
amalgamated with its similarly struggling rival,
mysticism and its connection with the very soil
she took her own life with the very blade
Daddy Edward used to splice together family albums

Small town fairs once attracted big crowds. It was the only game in town. Take a look at the crowd in this photo. It was given to me by my host family the Teeges. Can you spot the hermaphrodite?



Of course, rubes had to be ever wary of swindlers. County fairs were magnets for con artists and "macth stick" men. And worse...........



The chemicals they used to rid your home of bugs were highly toxic and addictive. Note the eyes of the man on the left (Rory McClane), paranoid, down cast. It is the faraway stare of the dope fiend. He cut his powder with baby laxative and shot the rest up himself. Taking intravenously, the powder produced an intense high but left the user feeling sick once the chemical had run its course. Which of course fed into an ever widening circle of addition until before long old Rory could barely get out of bed.

This photo is from his last county fair. Rory died a month after it was taken. His body was dumped in a cheap cemetery plot. There is seldom a stone to mark the passing of the dope fiend.

Curiostiy Industry
Part Eight

Shattered fragments of Henry’s screaming rang in Herman's memory as the empty night continued to peel overhead. Unaware that his passenger had been ignoring him, Jim went into unnecessary detail describing the talents of his clients. Crumbell would have liked to stay away from the subject of his work. A good promoter can't really help himself, though; talking up his acts had become involuntary.

"She's a right good woman. Husband and kids, who I might add show no sign yet of the abnormal hair growth that afflicted their mother." He paused to snort through his nose. The whiskey tasted cheaper than it was and burnt his face from his eyes. "Of course the eldest only seven so it's still too soon to tell."

He passed the jug to his passenger who took a gulp that was too large. Herman coughed violently, dribbling some on his shirt.

"Whoa, watch the interior now son. This thing's practically brand new." The car wove from side to side as Jim struggled to regain his composure, expectorating something through his nostrils. The white glare of headlights illuminated the road with a wild unsteadiness.

"My brother and I saw a woman like that once. At a fair in Foston," Herman interjected at the first chance. The empty moment filled with the memory of that night. He could still hear the barkers, still smell the food and animal scents combining in the air. “This old feller with a stripped suit and a bow tie took our money and told us to follow him behind a curtain into a darkroom. Then some other feller threw the lights on and right in front of us was this fat woman, with curly hair and a beard as bushy and thick as they say Paul Bunyon's was. The old one starts talking in this smart sounding voice: 'Ladies and gentlemen gaze upon on the Lord's cruelest mistake. Fiona was born with the body of a woman but the follicles of a man.' She just stood there with this real hung expression on her face. He went on talking about how she's a mute too and that she can't get a man. So I start to feel real bad for her. I wished that old guy would just clam up. Next thing I know, my brother's bawling and shakin'. Since, I was kind of older, in the head, I led him out of there. While leaving, I heard the old man start up behind me about Simon, this guy that couldn't stand up because his head was too big. This just gets Henry crying all the more. So we get outside and I ask him if he was all right. Hen said he felt bad for the woman cause she looked so sad."

...the very car from our story refurbished.



The author wishes to thank Ben Thorne and David Fisher of Burnham's Classic Cars in Graffville, MD for the photo.

No one knows Classic Cars like Burnham's in Graffville!

The author also wishes to apologize to his readers for the shameless plug. The things we do for favors from guy's whose wives we've slept with, eh?

Curiosity Industry
Part Seven

Herman and Henry turned and ran into a mob of carnivallers, loosing themselves in the excitement. Several large striped tents dotted the field, decorated at the top by banners with triangular tails. Games of chance and skill appeared at every turn; people shot water pistols at balloons and lost at the ring toss game no one had really ever won. Barkers, wearing white hats with a checkered band just above the brim, called out from their stations: "One, two, three rings, three chances for a nickel. Big prizes"; "Don't be shy folks, don't be shy"; "The most outstanding ointment money can buy. Fresh from government subsidies." In the distance at the midway's end, a Ferris wheel loomed over the proceedings, sparkling like a crown of costume jewels.

"I want to see," Henry pleaded and pulled at his brother's arm. He pointed to a blue and white striped tent. From beneath came snippets of alluring sounds: an organist played cheery music to a smattering of applause over a man's voice, which called out in praise of the amazement in the center ring. Herman gave into his brother's gravity and they both drifted towards the tent. Just outside the entrance was a plywood booth tended by a man with greased hair, pulled tight to his scalp. He smelled of liquor and a life misspent.

"I'm sorry boys the show is full," he said, displaying a row of gold and silver teeth.

"Any clowns?" Henry asked up on his tiptoes, resting his elbows on the booth's thin plywood shelf.

"Yes, son. But as I was saying the entertainment has commenced I cannot let you in 'til the next show. Ten o'clock."

"Ten?" Herman cried. “Come on Henry, we ain’t got time.”

"Any place got clowns?" Henry dug his elbows into the counter.

"I don't think so. The closest thing might be the Oddities Exhibition over yonder," the ticket taker indicated a similar booth off in the distance. "No show time, folks can go in and out continuous."

"Oddities Exhibition? Never heard of it," Herman stepped towards the booth and peered at the man over his brother's shoulder.

"They got some unusual folks in there to be looked at. It's the closest thing to clowns, I guess or you could see the world's largest yellow squash in the back there," he nodded his head back behind his tent. "422 pounds, that's something to see."

"Their faces painted?" Henry continued his questioning.

"No but they got a woman with a beard. And I think they got a girl with crab claws for her hands." He beamed with pride, describing the unfortunates on display.

Henry shrieked at the image suggested by the ticket taker's description, a girl brushed a woman's beard with the crab claw comb that was her hand; its serrated edges separating the coarse hair. Herman pleaded quietly with his brother to quiet down and not make a scene. Henry became embarrassed and not wanting to further annoy his brother agreed to go see the "Oddities."

Curiosity Industry
Part Six

The street that ran through the center of Kendricksburg was wide enough to allow for parking on either side. Herman had never seen so many cars before. He followed the moonlight as it passed quivering in silver over each model.

They pulled up to the general store. A heavyset proprietor waddled towards the car, his lungs worked hard to keep the flow of oxygen going. Sweat soaked through his dirty white shirt and apron.

"We're closing wait do you want?" he gasped.

"Carolina blend and a big jug of Greasy Tit Whiskey, please," Jim tilted his head towards Herman and offered a smile. The shopkeeper grumbled, turning with some effort back towards the door.

Above the store, the name Finn Brothers called out in a blinding number of tiny light bulbs, twinkling on the hood of the car. Their reflection reminded Herman of the first time he and his brother were permitted to wonder off by themselves.

Odd to be back here


Driven out by government offensives
getting stuck in traffic
the refugees could face death
or worse capture, then enslavement
at the hands of mysterious figures
who haunt the west coast
like vestiges of an age when men
still measured themselves with iron
and women were content to follow them

A California couple was rumored to have created
a mini-savannah replete with zebras, giraffes, cheetahs
free range humans will complete the menagerie

the husband spoke on condition of anonymity
his words echoed eternally in the famous war photo
of the soldier who decoded the coffee bean’s genes

as slaves they will adjust to life,
breathe on their own
as they recover from operations
anthropomorphization in reverse

Curiostiy Industry
Part Five

In his line of work, Crumbell met shysters of every size and shape. At first he thought the boy could be a thief. The flesh on his face pulled so tight that his cheekbones rose up with their full shape defined. Around his eyes, the skin had been tenderized by exhaustion, probably too many nights of sitting up hungry. Crumbell found that hunger turned honest men into thieves and forced folks to do things they ought to refrain from. Still, Herman couldn't give big Jim any trouble. It looked to Crumbell that he was lucky if he had strength enough to pull on his own pants.

"I'm headed up river myself, junior. You can ride with me to Cincinnati." Jim motioned for the boy to get in the car.

"I got money for fuel," Herman proudly produced a wrinkled ten dollar bill from his breast pocket as he shut the car door. Cupping it in his hand, he extended it for Crumbell to examine.

"Hold on to it son," Jim put the car into gear. "We're going to be coming up on Kendricksburgh you can buy me a bottle of whiskey when we get there."

"Only if we get Greasy Tit, that's my brand." Herman announced.

"Hell for ten dollars we can get a month's worth of old GT. I say we go high class and get Berman's. That's my brand." Jim pushed the accelerator pedal down and the car lurched forward.

"You're on mister," Herman thought about life in the big city, of how it must be full of adventure. New automobiles, top shelf hooch, women, parties and money for his family all colored his hopes as they headed down the road.

"What kinda work you headed to the city for?" Jim asked, conversation would keep that dull ache from his head.

"Why you wanta know?" Herman crossed his arms over his chest.

"Just making conversation boy," Jim laughed.

"What do you do?" The boy took a challenging tone.

"I'm a promoter in the curiosity industry." Jim's voice carried a note of pride as he carefully announced his self-appointed title.

"What? You talking in circles mister. What do you promote?"

"Midwest talent in the entertainment industry."

"What? I don't get it. Are you in the movies?"

"Hardly," Jim snorted. "I'm respectable. I work in the live theater."

"Are you that smart ass who tried to put those sacrilegious Shakespeare plays on up in Fosston?"

"No, no I don't go in for them foreign entertainments," Jim explained. "My interests lie primarily in small local amusements."

"Freak shows?"

"I prefer the term Curiosities son." Jim spoke deliberately, a little annoyed at having to explain the complexities of his work. "These folks are my friends, they are not freaks. No more so than a great singer, great actor, or a great musician. They are performers with unusual and spectacular abilities. It's starting to get late," Jim informed Herman, anxious to change the topic. "We'll stop in Kendricksburgh soon and load up with some supplies."

"I need some tobacky too," Herman said.

"Tobacco and whiskey, you live pretty hard for such a youngin." Jim trailed off with a chuckle.

"I work for the family that gives me the right to do what I want, " Herman followed his declaration by spitting through his teeth the way his pa used to, before he got sick and couldn't get out a bed no more, let alone hock a decent luggie.

Slum

increased consumption of a much loved and admired thinker
because of his love of architecture and modern cities
proves that ideas about where we should live and how
are at the heart of global questions

slums filled with
men and women who have chosen to stay at work because they
claim to adore their jobs
playing out a nervous and unconvincing love scene
a pair of fleeing convicts, chained ankle to ankle and hip to hip
by a kind of debilitating lust

at the heart of the thinker’s considerations,

how burdensome failures and disappointments
turn into victories
how the unique and mundane
travel hand in hand so often
in the modern world

how to reconcile it all
so that we can live with one another
no matter the overcrowding or how much our jobs
make us feel like prisoners
indentured to faceless masters
who would do well to curb our
natural appetites for love or at the minimum
real human contact

...from a flier passed out at an unidentified Protestant Church in Southeastern Ohio around the time of our story.

BEWARE THE HUN!!!!

Dear Brother,

Are you planning a trip to visit the various of jewels with which our Lord has blessed the Ohio River Valley? Well, do as all good Christians do and keep Cincinnati off your eye-tinary. It is a veritable Hun’s Haven on the shores of God’s land. These dirty migrants come to ruin farmland and embibe alcoholic spirits.

THE HUN IS A MENANCE! AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS!!!

Yours in God,
Rev. D. Beautreau

Curiosity Industry
Part Four

Jim saw Herman ahead on the shoulder of the road. To his eyes, the boy looked more an outline, a suggestion in a shadow than a person. Not too long gone were the days Jim suffered himself, thumbin’ and dreamin’ not of tomorrow but of being down the road a piece. He slowed and pulled close.

"Where ya headed?" Jim asked using a white handkerchief to shield his mouth and nose.

"The Queen City, mister."

"Cincinnattitown! What you headed there for?" Jim asked.

"My uncle's got work for me in his shop."

"Uncle eh? What's your name?"

"Herman Matchstow."

"How old are you?" Jim searched over the young hitchhiker, thinking he might be a run away.

"Sixteen sir."

"Sixteen? Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Times tough for my family....," Herman paused and eyed his benefactor suspecting some trickery or another were afoot. "What's your name?"

"Jim Crumbell. Kinda young to be going to Cincinnati for a job ain't ya?"

"Times are real tough."

“I know times are tough son. I’ve been all over. I know folks is struggling.”

"It's real rough for my folks right now."

"How so boy?" As a businessman, Crumbell needed details not vagaries to close a deal.

"My papa's sick. Mama tries to make money but it ain't easy for womenfolk to make enough to feed a family all on her own." Herman glanced away from Jim hoping to make it appear that his hungry stare was a trick of the twilight.

Curiosity Industry
Part Three

A checkered bandanna to his mouth, Herman steadied himself in the breeze coming down the highway, the teeming dust all aswirl around him. Long for his age, in the middle of those awkward teenage years, his arms and legs had outgrown the rest of his slender frame. Resembling a scarecrow come to life, he lurched down the road with his thumb in the air.

His family was in a bit of a rough patch. His pa had been sick and his ma had four kids to mind. Herman's leaving at least made it one less for her. He hoped to earn enough money to send something back.

Herman couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in his gut at leaving his brother, Henry at the mercy of the town bully. But Herman's family was counting on him to hold a job and help them out, the best he could. He had been the protector almost as long as Henry been alive. It was time Henry learned to take care of himself.

Curiosity Industry
Part Two

Jim headed east, following the mighty Ohio. He had rolled back the top. The wind whistled through his ears and played humbly in his thinning hair. Filled with the kinda confidence only luxury provides, he felt the world would soon be at his feet. He pulled up to the Toad Stool Bar in Wrensville, wanting to see how the new car would play with the fairer sex.

“Your car?” the blonde next to him asked, pointing to the picture window, Jim had been careful to park in front of. Otherwise, what was the point of owning such a fine machine.

“Yeah sugar it’s mine. Want to go for a spin around the block.”

“Can’t. Meeting someone. You could buy me a drink, Mister?”

“I’m Jim.”

“I’m Miss Michelle Anderson.”

Miss Michelle Anderson claimed to be a dancer. Jim said that he was a manager. Neither of which was a total lie. She danced sometimes. Mainly to get the juicier parts of her package a-jigglin'. And he “handled talent” as he put it. Though some folks could question exactly what his performers were talented at besides scaring rubes.

Jim didn’t come here to impress with the whole story, just half of it. He’d planned to let the car fill in the rest. Happily, he found that Michelle was quick to cotton to the charms of a man who could call such a marvel of engineering his own. Before she left his side , she checked to make sure they were unobserved then leaned to Jim and whispered, “I'm leaving soon back to Chicago. Come back in two days and I’ll let you drive me home.” The afternoon heat combined with her gin breath produced an intoxicating aroma. Jim inhaled her greedily, like a horse sniffing after a coming storm.

Newport Preservation Society





frosted electric light bulb,
lone decoration on a Christmas tree
a trailer truck east of New Orleans

heard about the place from acquaintances
who grew up in the neighborhood where
an official of the agency in a position
to rededicate himself to Creole
or develop another, more natural language,
rules out a communications pay off
for those who can’t follow

instead he wrote a decree
in the middle of a heat wave:

“there were from time to time,
instances in which the modern world would lose itself
like Baghdad in April”

live music and outlandish cocktails high atop
a light-filled space from where visitors can orient themselves
offers memorable photo opportunities of places destroyed
before they are blown completely from memory
by vulgar wind sonnets and ten thousand bombs

...from an Ad in the Newport Examiner

Hey friends! Does night time make you anxious? Are you unable to sleep? Does the Sandman refuse to visit your bed chamber? Well, you can rest easy! The good folks at Ortho labs in Newport,Louisianaa have developed the safest, most effective sleep medicine money can buy. Through their patented opiate blending process, Orthonax provides a restful night's slumber. No harmful heart murmurs. No groggy wake ups. The only side effect of Orthonax's patented sleeppotion is you won't be able to get the same deep, restful night's sleep any other way! So pay a visit to you local druggist today and sleep the sleep of ages this very night!

Curiosity Industry
Part One

Finally, it was his brother’s turn. After years of waiting for the worm, that slithery old varmint finally turned. Now, Jim was the one with the fat stack of bills and high social friends with deep pockets and tailored suits. Bob, on the t’thur hand, had seen his salad days go to rot. Folks’ll tell you there was something never right with old Bob. In a sense that was true but it wasn’t nothing so dark as his neighbor’s speculated. Bobby just had a touch of the old agoraphobia that cropped up every now and again. No big deal…unless you need to meet folks face to face to make your daily bread.

Bad thing was, Old Bobby did.

Heavy in the grip of paranoid terror over how he could even load up and try to move a few cases of Orthonax Sleeping Powder out in the wide, scary world, Bobby decided a time of restin' and refugin' was in order. He figured selling his car would buy him some time till he got his head straight. He didn’t know what it was called but he knew he had to get a fix on the agoraphobia. He knew some serpent down deep in his soul was crushing his dreams and allowing his blowhard of a brother to leap frog past him in their life contest to see who could get richest, fastest.

"The color of money," Bob sighed, removing the protective tarp. The almost new Roadster shimmered like moss on a sunny stretch of water. A promise that Jim had made to himself way long ago was coming true. The machine wasn’t something his old man would have ever afforded.