Volledige transcriptie van Jonathan Rogers: The Charlatan's Boy Returns!

gave me a different story. One time he told me, he found me squalling under a palmetto bush and took pity on me. That didn't seem likely, since I never known Floyd to take pity on me or anybody else. Another time he said, he bought me from a circus man who was getting out of the business and selling off his animals. Said he mistook me for a monkey, and the circus man was gone before he realized he was tricked. Which might explain how he got me, but it still don't explain why he kept me, does it? A couple of times Floyd told me, my real mama give me to him because I was too ugly to keep. I truly am one of the ugliest fellers you're liable to meet. I'm short and wiry, sort of monkey ish, I reckon. I got one blue eye and one green, and they're closer together than most folks find pleasing. Instead of having two eyebrows, I got one long. One that don't know where to stop. My ears is too little, but the way they stick straight out from my head makes them look too big. And my chin is so bashful, it just sort of hides all day in the shade of my bottom lip. You can't even tell where my goozle stops and my chin begins if you don't look close. If you ever seen the Fiji folks and one of them puppet shows, you know about what I look like. If you want to know the truth, I'm pretty sure that's why Floyd kept me back when villagers still believed in Fiji folks, which wasn't that long ago. Floyd made his living by giving lectures about fetches and charging a copper for a look at a genuine real life. He. Fiji, which was me. He dressed me up in muskrat and possum hides and slopped gray mud all over me, the way Fiji folks are said to do. And we went from village to village, and that crickety wagon of his from one end of Cornwall to the other. When we got to the edge of a town, Floyd stopped the horse so I could get in my box, and he shut me in. It was a wooden crate with air holes drilled in the top. Floyd used to keep his dancing bear in it before I come along, so it was pretty room ish for a scrawny fella like me. Floyd painted the outside with a picture of a Blackwater swamp with alligators and craney crows and those swell bottomed cypress trees with gray beard moss hanging down so spooky and lonesome and words painted all over it. Professor Floyd presents the wild man of the swamp. See a genuine he fish alive and in the flesh. Amazing. Astonishing. You've never seen anyone like him. There I'd sit while we rode that last mile or so into the village. Sometimes it was so hot. The sweat made the mud run down my face and into my eyes. But it was peaceful in there, with the wagon creaking along and little sticks of sunlight poking through the air holes while bugs and little bits of dust floated in the brightness. Rolling into one of the villages in my box, I felt like I was worth something. Folks in that village was going to give Floyd a copper coin for the pleasure of looking at me. I wasn't just an ugly little boy with no mama or daddy. I was amazing. Astonishing.

I was something them folks had never seen before. When the wagon squeaked to a stop, Floyd set up a foot box like a little stage and started his patter. Ladies and gentlemen, he hollered, sort of stretching it out like he was growling at. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Professor Floyd Mendelson, collector of the rare and the beautiful in the world's foremost authority on Fiji life and habits. My box had a knothole in the side panel, and when I hunkered down, I could see the villagers gathering around the wagon. Things get quiet in the villages, so the commotion of a stranger pulling up in a wagon and hollering about Fiji folks fetched a crowd right off. And once the villagers was in earshot, they wasn't going anywhere. You never seen anybody could hold a crowd like Floyd. He cut a fine figure in his shiny coat and squared off hat so tall and straight his black mustaches wagged when he talked. And even folks who didn't believe a word he said couldn't wait to see what he was going to say next. I knowed Floyd's patter by heart. He rearranged the pieces pretty freely, stretching it out. If folks were slow to gather or leaving parts out, if folks seemed restless. But the main points of the speechifying was the same every time, and they was pretty simple. First, Floyd was the bravest adventurer ever to pole a flatboat, and the only civilized man ever to come out of the Fiji Finn Swamp alive. Second for one night and one night only, Floyd was given a lecture in the village Hall. A lively report of his travels, with a full account of the habits and customs of the Fiji. Folks, the wild and mysterious native inhabitants of the Fiji. Finn. Third. Floyd's lecture would include the displacement of a. He. Fiji he had brought back from the swamp the only genuine Fiji to be found in the civilized world. Fourth, everybody in the village was invited to come listen to Floyd's lecture for the small price of one copper coin per person. Sometimes Floyd started in on all the other so-called Fiji authorities. How they'd just find an ugly boy, diaper him and muskrat pelts slobbering with mud and call him a Fiji. How the mother Fiji experts was all just charlatans and frauds, and only Floyd had the real thing. It took some gumption to tell such a bare faced lie as that. There ain't a lot to admire about Floyd, but the man does have gumption. Sitting in the box and listening to Floyd run on about what a fine specimen of Fiji hood I was. Can you blame me for believing it myself? Wild man of the swamp is a heap better than ugly boy whose mama didn't want him. When it comes to Floyd's tales, you got to pick and choose what to believe anyway. I figured I might as well believe the tales I liked the best. And I never believed in Fiji tales more than in the five minutes just before the box flung open. By the time Floyd got to my cue, I was about to bust. I felt so Fiji fied. He's really quite harmless. That was my cue. When Floyd worked them words into his patter, I commenced a

yowling like a panther and growling like a bear and howling like a wolf, thumping around in my box and putting up such a ruckus as you never heard in your life. I kept it up until Floyd wept on my box a few times with his cane. It didn't take much of that business to get the crowd whipped up pretty good. I know Floyd and me was supposed to be the show, but the crowd made a pretty good show of their own selves, and I like nothing better than watching it through my knothole. A few youngins run off hollering, the rest found a grown up to hide behind. They looked like a nation of pop eyed squirrels peeping out from a forest of trouser legs and lady skirts. Some of the women folks raised up their eyebrows and clutched handkerchiefs to their chins, and some of them glowered at Floyd for bringing such a dangerous critter into the midst of their peaceful village. The men folks mostly kept a brave face, putting on smirks as if to show they didn't believe Floyd had a Fiji in that box. But behind most of the smirks you could see a little doubt Floyd made like he was as surprised by the commotion as anybody. Like this wasn't the same routine we'd done 5 or 6 times a week as far back as I could remember. He stammered and acted frustrated, like he was towed off and was struggling to get his wagon back on the path. Really, he was just given the smart alecks in the crowd a chance to pitch in. There was always at least 2 or 3 of them fellers around. What's the matter, stranger? Cat got your tongue? I used to believe in fairies, too, professor, when I was a baby. How about a unicorn, professor? If you got a unicorn, I'd gladly pay a copper to see it. Maybe you should take your Fiji show to the next village. This village ain't got enough idiots to make a suitable audience. The hecklers figured they was being original and clever. They figured they had the upper hold on Floyd because they was taking him off his script. They never understood that they was the script. No smart aleck ever said anything Floyd hadn't already heard a hundred times before, and he might have played like he was flummoxed. But Floyd always had both hands on the reins. He picked out whichever heckler looked to have the most gumption and the least back down, and he gave him a look of astonishment, like he couldn't believe somebody would doubt his word. Then he raised a trembling finger to point at him. You, sir, he said, and he sort of whickered it like a horse. You, sir. Like his feelings were so hurt he couldn't talk right. Do you suggest that I'm a fraud and a liar? The smart aleck jutted out his chin, stood up a little straighter and said, you said it yourself, stranger, not me. It played out that way every time. You'd have thought every smart aleck in every village in Cornwall had studied Floyd's script. Floyd had him where he wanted him. AM I to understand, sir, that you don't believe there is a living, breathing. Hefce in this box. Sounds like you understand about. Right. By now the other

villagers was egging on the smart aleck, and he was puffed up like a rooster. I couldn't help feeling sorry for a fellow who was just about to get so completely and utterly used up. Floyd put this quiver in his voice like he was working hard to control his feelings. Then perhaps, sir, you would like to step up here and see for yourself. Well, what's a fellow going to do? Even if he was starting to feel balky and dubious about the whole thing, he couldn't back down in front of the other villagers. So he made his way to the front, and Floyd gave him a smart alecky bow and a swoop and made room for him on the foot box. Floyd stood there with his hand on the lid of my box for a good long while, to give everybody some time to think about what might happen next. And the quiet and the waiting felt just like the minute before a storm cuts loose. I hunkered there, waiting for the first crack of daylight at the opening of the box lid, and when it come, it was a whole new rumpus. I sprung out like some kind of wild cat and scrambled up onto the smart alecks head. He was so discombobulated he didn't know what to do, and I perched there while he staggered around and waved his arms and I beat my chest and hollered, oo oo oo! Meanwhile, the crowd was hollering and scattering and giving me plenty of room to cut whatever capers I might want to cut. Younguns was crying and dogs was barking, and the grownups was doing a poor job of hiding their alarm. I yodeled some more and did a couple of back flips and scrambled up a tree, and there I crouched where the crowd could get a good look at me. And when I was in the tree and the villagers was on the ground and there was a safe distance between us, I could see the fear and the panic melt into something more like fascination. And didn't I feel interesting about that time? Floyd marched over to the tree and started its palaver again, and it was like a spell was broken. I'm terribly sorry, ladies and gentlemen. He's usually quite docile, I assure you. If you'll give him some room. Then he talked to me real gentle, the way a good horseman talks to his horse. Grado. Grado. Grado was my stage name. My real name is Grady. If I had a last name. Floyd never told me what it was. Grado. He said, it's all right. Nobody's going to hurt you. Come to professor. Come back to your box. I jumped down and everybody sort of gasped and drew back. But Floyd grabbed hold of my arm and walked me back to my box and shut me in it. That's how we fetched folks for Floyd's lectures. And we fetched them, too. Some nights it seemed like every man, woman, and child in a village paid their copper to hear Floyd talk some more and to get another look at me. Floyd's lectures was entertaining enough. One lie after another about how he pulled a flatboat across the peachy Finn, and how the Fiji folks had welcomed him into their tribe and initiated him into their mysteries. Some of that foolishness Floyd got from old nursery stories, but most of it he just made up. He changed things from night to night just to keep it interesting, I reckon. Some nights, he said, Fiji's had magical disappearing powers and some nights he said Fiji's was just so skilled at camouflage that they only appeared to disappear. Some nights, he said, Fiji's was peaceable and some nights he said they was bloodthirsty savages. Some night, she said they was human, and some nights he said they were swamp monsters, and some nights he said they was elves of some kind. Just according to his mood on a particular night. Then he brung me out. Great. Ohere is a full grown Fiji, he said. He said that when I was four years old and he said it when I was 12 years old. As you can see, feces are much smaller than we are and considerably uglier. Wouldn't we a pair? Floyd made his living by telling lies, and I made mine by being ugly. It wasn't a bad living either, but it didn't last forever. Even in the smallest villages, even far away from the cities, the time come when nobody believed in feces anymore, and we had to figure out other ways to make a living. Here's what I want to know. What is this country coming to? If everybody's got two civilized and skeptical to pay a copper to see a real, live Fiji boy. Chapter two, in which we get out of the Fiji trade and I begin my formal education. It was about two years ago that the Fiji trade ended for Floyd and me for a couple of years before that, every crowd seemed a little smaller than the last. There was days when we couldn't get more than a dozen villagers to watch our act. If there's a quicker way for two showmen to starve away to skeletons, it ain't been discovered yet. Floyd got so sullen that you might have mistook him for a cat that was forever getting a bath. But when it was showtime, Floyd and me both put on a brave face. We was professionals, Floyd said, and the show had to go on. Although Floyd never explained exactly why the show had to go on. One day we was in some podunk village near the Bonifay plain, and when I flung out of my box, there wasn't no audience but five fellers standing in a knot. And every one of them a smart aleck. I'm a professional, so it didn't matter to me whether the audience was 5 or 500. I was going to give them folks a Fiji show. I capered over to them old boys and raised my arms and hunkered down and give them a wild eyed look, and went to Ululliin in the worst sort of way. I figured him to run away, but they didn't. One of them spit on the ground between my bare feet and said, why don't you dry up, you ugly thing? Another of them said, I ain't believed in Fiji since long before I started wearing breeches. Well, that got all over me. I didn't so much mind. The feller said I was ugly. Facts is facts. But that fella who didn't believe in feces. It appeared to me that when a feller is right in front of your face. Believing in him is the most basic courtesy in the world. How could that feller say he didn't believe in feces when a genuine. In the flesh he feats

he was standing so close he could touch him. So I knocked him down, which wasn't very courteous either. I understand that it also wasn't courteous of me to jump on top of him and put both my knees on his chest, or to start trailing the tar out of him right there in the village square. I reckon I'd have ruined that feller if two of the other smart alecks hadn't jumped on my back and flattened me. About that time Floyd swum in and flung them two fellers in the dirt, and one of them come up swinging. He gentled up considerable, though, when he seen the other fellow running off instead of fighting. Meanwhile the other two smart alecks had set to howling like a brace of hound dogs, and the locals the same ones that was nowhere to be found when we was trying to put on a show, begun bowling out of every doorway and cranny like ants from an ant pile. I was good and wrathy by then, and Floyd was too. We knocked down about a dozen villagers before the constable come elbowing in, saying, what's this here? And hold on just a minute. He was a solid, barrel chested feller with a close trimmed white beard. I wouldn't have thought Floyd could knock him down, but he did give him a sockdolager right below the eye. The constable staggered back a step, teetered, then crashed down like an oak tree struck by lightning. Then the fighting started in earnest. Then villagers was proud of their constable, and they didn't appreciate a stranger coming in and knocking him down. They fell on Floyd like a pack of yard dogs on a soup bone. They just covered him up. There wasn't enough Floyd to go around, so some of the folks on the edge of the scrimmage begun to take their frustrations out on me. It felt like I had fell into one of them big threshing machines that pounds out wheat with 16 whirling paddles. I tried to give it back to them, but it took me about 10s to understand that the smart thing was to curl up and take it until they got some satisfaction. When the villagers got tired of whipping us, they bundled us up, flung us into our wagon box, and slammed down the lid. Then they give our poor old buttermilk a wet with a hickory switch. And he tore out, running away from the village as hard as he could pelt. I didn't like the villagers very much, but I couldn't help admiring their resourcefulness. I could never get buttermilk to move no faster than an uninspiring clippity clippity. But then folks got him to hoof it like a quarter racer. Floyd and me tumbled around that box like dice and a dice cup. If we wasn't tenderized from the whipping them villagers put on us, you can be sure we was after buttermilk. Run us at 50 leagues an hour over every rock and rut in the Western road for what seemed to me like a day and a half. I reckon buttermilk would still be running if the front axle hadn't broke. The wagon skidded to a stop which flung Floyd and me against the front wall of the box. If you ever flung ripe persimmons against a tree trunk, you got a pretty good picture of what

Floyd and me looked like. Poor old buttermilk went to Rarin and bucking and trying to drag the wagon broke axle and all, but Floyd and me was able to get the top of the box open and drag ourselves out. After a little while, buttermilk settled down enough that I could let him out of his traces and tie him out to graze beside the road. Then Floyd and me stretched out in the grass and laid there, groaning. We didn't even eat supper that night. We just slept where we lay the next morning. Buttermilk seemed no worse for the wear, but I was slow to get moving. I was so stiff from the whipping. I poked Floyd with my foot and he just grunted and moaned, but didn't even do much of that. Didn't open his eyes. Didn't move a finger. Floyd, I said, sort of gentle. He looked like a loud noise might hurt him. Floyd, the axle's broke. O, Floyd, I said again. The axle's broke. Oh, it hurt me to see Floyd in such bad shape. His lip was split, one of his eyes was purple and swole, and his mustaches was set in catawampus like he had took him off somebody else's face and stuck them on in a hurry. I had all I want, he said, real raspy and low. All of what? I asked him. I had all I wanted the Fiji trade. His eyes were still closed. He could have been talking in his sleep. Fiji act is finished, he said. We ain't doing it anymore. My stomach went tight and then flopped over. The Fiji trade was the only life I'd ever known, and I couldn't picture me and Floyd doing anything else. Boy, ain't you ever wondered. Floyd's eye was still closed while he talked. Ain't you ever wondered why every other Fiji showman on this island has quit the trade and gone to sell a miracle? Cures and running games a chance because they're all frauds, Floyd. My voice came out a little higher than I meant it to, because they don't have a genuine in the flesh hefce like you do. Floyd smiled a little and wagged his head. Oh boy. They quit because they seen what I should have seen a long time ago. There ain't no money in Fiji trade anymore. Them days are over. It's time we figured out something else. What are we going to do, Floyd? Get jobs. Floyd's good. I popped open and he barked a little laugh. But then he groaned again and raised a fist to his forehead. Oh. My head. He felt around with his other hand, found a money purse and held it out to me. Go find a village boy. Take buttermilk and get us a new axle and drag me over to the shade of the wagon box before you leave. I strapped the pieces of the broken axle onto Buttermilks back, and I let him down to the western road. We hadn't walked more than 2 or 3 leagues before. We come to a little village called Ardmore. It was a pretty little village. Folks kept the yard swept and put flowers in the windows on the street. Everybody nodded to one another. Real friendly. I always wondered what it would be like to live in a village, to wake up every morning and see a dozen folks you seen the day before, and the day before that, and every day since you was born. I seen Floyd every day in my life, of course, but that ain't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about neighbors, friends, old ladies that pinch your cheeks, little fellers that look up to you and try to be like you. I always wondered what it would be like to have people you pass on the street know your name. Seems like it would make a feller feel mighty important. Like he matters to somebody. Just imagine it. Hello there. Grady. Why, hello there, Miss Genie. Ain't it a pretty day? It sure is, Grady. If it don't get too hot, you go into a village and folks is having them kind of conversations every single day. Just once in my life, I'd like to have a conversation like that. One. That don't mean nothing. Except we're friendly, ain't we? And don't we have a lot in common? I don't reckon one person has ever asked me how I felt about the weather. Here's the other thing. I always wondered about living in a village. What do you do when you make your neighbor mad? Whenever Floyd may make folks mad, we run off to another village. But if you're a villager, you can't just run off. You got to live with the fellow that's mad at you. You got to see him in the high street the next day and. Howdy, him. Or maybe you don't. Howdy, him. I never understood how them things worked. I found Ardmore's Waggoner shop and dropped off the busted axle. The Waggoner said he needed an hour to get the wheels on the new one, so I got buttermilk, a bag of oats and tied him outside the shop to eat it while I kicked around the village. I heard young'uns voices busting out of a building on the other side of the high street, and I knew it was the schoolhouse, so I sauntered over in that general direction. I never spent no time in school. Floyd, me, was always too busy making a living. I never seen much use in it anyway. There ain't but so many letters and so many numbers, and I knowed all of them by the time I was as high as Floyd's belt sash. When Floyd showed me how to string letters into words and stack numbers to add and subtract, that was the end of my formal education. My lack of schooling never bothered me much. I gathered from Floyd's lectures that fetches don't go to school anyway. I never understood what young'uns did in school all day, day after day. But I was curious. So I snuck over to the window and peeped in to watch the education while it was happening. The ma'am at that school was a young woman, so trim and so big eyed that she put me in mind of a she deer just looking at her through the window, I could tell she smelled good. I reckon there was two dozen younguns in the class. The little ones on the front row looked to be 5 or 6 years old, and the big ones in the back was quite a bit bigger than the schoolmarm. The young ones were so robustious, and the marm was so soft voice that I don't reckon anybody was learning one thing. But that young marm looked so sweet. I thought about taking up schooling then and there, just so I could look at her every day. She had

written on the blackboard the cow says, Moo! And she was pointing at the words and saying, I'm real slow to the little fellers in the front. Poor lady. I wouldn't want the job of educating such thick headed young'uns. What five year old don't know what a cow says. The ma'am had just begun explaining that the dog says, bow wow! When I felt a big rough hand on my shoulder and heard a voice just as big and rough right in my ear. Hi there, mister, the voice said. You get back in that schoolhouse. He was a big farmhand looking feller. He had me by the shoulder so tight that my feet hardly touched the ground. As he steered me through the schoolhouse door and into the room with all the other young'uns. Good morning, Miss Parmelia, the farmhand, said he. Let go of my shoulder so both hands would be free to fumble with his hat. I found this one outside skipping school. He shoved me down onto a bench. I reckon he'll behave himself now. Miss Parmelia. The farmhand's face went red, and the young ones that had been staring with their mouths open begun snickering, and Miss Parmelia looked mighty perplexed. But I could tell she was too sweet to hurt the Farmhand's feelings by telling him that it wasn't one of her students he dragged into her classroom. So she said, thank you, Abe. That'll be all. Abe backed out of the room, bowing at Miss Parmelia 3 or 4 times and dropping his hat twice. Thank you, Miss Parmelia, he said. Thank you. I don't know what exactly he was thanking her for. I reckon it was just for speaking to him and shedding so much beauty, which was reason enough to be thankful. When Abe had craw fished out the door. Miss Parmelia. Give me your full attention. Good morning, young man, she said, and welcome to our classroom. My name is Miss Parmelia. What's yours? I thought on that one. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to give my real name or not, for fear somebody would come find me once I'd quit school. But I couldn't look right into a face like Miss Prometheus and tell a lie. Grady. My name's Grady. Miss Parmelia nodded at me. Real kind. The little feller's in the front were still staring, gape mouthed like they did when Abe first shoved me through the door. But the older ones in the back were starting to whisper and snicker. Miss Parmelia, said Grady, and it sounded like music when she said it. How old are you, Grady? I shrugged. I don't know. 12, probably. I didn't keep up with it when I was little, so now it's hard to say. The ones that was gaping gaped wider, and the ones that were snickering snickered louder and. One of the boys in the back row sung out. You sure piled up a heap of ugly in 12 years. Miss Amelia's eyes flashed at the boy, and she said, isum real sharp, and he melted back into his seat. Miss Parmelia turned back to me, all sweetness again. How much schooling have you had, Grady? None, I told her. As we say in the show business. This here is my debut performance. There was more snickering at that, but Miss Parmelia shut it down pretty quick, and then she invited me to set up in the front with the little fellers. Grady, she said, we were just finishing up our reading lesson when you came in. So why don't you join us for mathematics while the older students finish their essays? The axle wouldn't be ready for another half hour or more, and I had nowhere else to be, so I said, sure, Miss Permelia, why not? She gave me kind of a long look and some of the young'uns snickered. I had a feeling I had said something wrong. I just didn't know what. The little ones on the front bench scooched over to make room for me. I nearabout tipped the whole caboodle over. I was so much bigger than my bench mates. Miss Permelia held up a money pouch and said, class, we're still learning how to count money. She reached in and pulled out some wooden chips. Some of them said one copper, some said five coppers and some said ten coppers. Grady, she said, we'll start with you since you're new. Say you have ten coppers. All right. That seemed easy enough for a first assignment. I cleared my throat and said, I have ten coppers. No, miss Permelia said. Her smile didn't look quite as stretchy in the corners of her mouth. I mean, pretend you have ten coppers. I patted my money purse. I don't have to pretend I got ten coppers and more. Miss Palmer would give me a squint, and her smile shrunk just a little bit more. She turned toward a little feller on the other end of the row. Actually, I think I'll let Burke answer this first one, Burke. Let's say you have ten coppers. Burke nodded at Miss Parmelia. He was listening close. And let's say I gave you three more coppers, she continued. Why would you give them three coppers, I asked. I don't see what kind of work a six year old could do to earn three coppers. No, Miss Parmelia said Burke didn't earn the three coppers. I'm just giving them to him. Oh, I said, I get it. He's skint. You for it. Skint me. You know. Skint tricked you, cheated you. If you give him money he didn't earn. Seems to me he must have skint you. Miss Parmelia was finished smiling by now, but the youngins in the class were smiling more and more. No, Grady Burke didn't skin me. We're just pretending for teaching purposes that Burke had ten coppers and I gave him three more coppers. My reasons for giving him the money don't figure into the problem in the show business. A person's reason for giving you money always figure into the problem. But I decided not to get into it. I shrugged. All right, Miss Permelia, if you say so. Burke had pulled one of his bare feet onto the bench and was counting on his toes. 13, he said in a high, squeaky voice. If I started with ten coppers and you give me three, I would have 13. Good, Burke. Miss Permelia held up three one copper pieces and one tin copper piece. Now, Burke, she said, if I told you I would give you three one copper pieces or one tin copper piece, which should you take? Burke looked at the three coppers in her one hand, and the tin copper

piece in the other. He pointed at the three coppers. I take the three, he said. Three moneys is better than one money. No, Miss Permelia said, real gentle. The three coppers may look like more money than the tin copper coin, but you should take the ten piece. It's the same as ten coppers. No, I said Burke had it right the first time. Take the three coppers, Burke. Miss Parmelia wasn't looking quite so patient anymore. Grady, a ten copper piece is worth more than three times as much as three one copper pieces. Oh, I know all about that, I said. That ain't the problem. It's just that it don't pay to be greedy. You skin a feller for three coppers, and he may not notice. You skin a feller for ten coppers. He's going to set up such a collaboration that you're never going to see another copper out of that village. No, Burke, take the three coppers and hope for more. Miss Parmelia was gaping at me, and so was the whole class. Class, she said, why don't we take an early recess? That sounded good to me. I'd had enough education for one day. As the Younguns filed out of the schoolhouse, I slipped off to the Waggoner's, picked up my axle and strapped it on to buttermilk. The students was back on their benches when I passed back by, so I gave them a wave as I headed out of town. There's a reason nobody's ever heard of a school, and I had found out the hard way. Chapter three, in which I take up a new trade and get flabbergasted. You can always count on Floyd to land on his feet. When I got back to the wagon that evening, he had already painted over the old dancing bear box, blotted out the swamp picture, and had started fresh with new words. The ugliest boy in the world. You never seen anybody this ugly. Buzzards can't stand to look at him. Makes a possum feel gorgeous. I give Floyd a squint, and he give me a wink. And just like that, we was in a new trade. Next day we fixed the wagon, and the day after that I was back in the box and we was in a village called Elrod, where we hadn't ever done the act. Floyd launched into a powder about how he had the ugliest boy in the world, and for the small price of one copper coin, the fine looking people of Elrod could have a look at him. Somebody sung out, pay a copper to look at an ugly boy. This village is full of ugly boys we can look at for free. Floyd looked the crowd over with that appraising eye of his like he was tallying up the ugliness on display before him. He gave a look like he wasn't impressed, and peeking through the knothole, I could see the hackles rising on some of the villagers. I don't mean no disrespect, Floyd said. And I hope you don't take this the wrong way. But you folks don't know the first thing about ugly boys. There was a grumbler, too. Nobody likes to be told. They don't know what they're talking about. Floyd plowed ahead. The last village we visited. You talk about ugly boys. He was touching on their civic pride, and they felt it. Now, wait a minute, the blacksmith hollered out. These ain't even our ugliest boys. These are mostly shop boys. You should see the farm boys. Compared to them, these boys are the village beauties. Floyd didn't say a word, but he gave a little shrug and raised his eyebrows in a way that said he didn't believe a word of it. And didn't that send them? Somebody go get Hiram's boy. Hollered a shopkeeper. And Tilly's boy, too. You can fetch a hundred farm boys, Floyd said. But ain't one of them going to be uglier than my boy? How much you want to bet somebody hollered? Any amount of money you feel like putting up? Floyd said. He had a real smug look on his face. Things was going his way in this new trade. The game wasn't charging admission. It was taking bets. The villagers sent the shop boys to fetch the ugliest farm boys, and folks started putting up their bets. Floyd kept the crowd going. There was something about his coolness that made people act crazy. He gave off a confidence so complete that people thought it had to be false, and they couldn't wait to see him get taken down a peg or two. Folks fairly threw money at him. They wanted so bad to beat him in a bet. Before long, the shop boys got back to the village square with the ugly farm boys. When Floyd got a look at him, his eyes widened just the tiniest bit, like he was surprised or a little scared. He got Ahold of himself after a split of a second, but it was too late. The villagers was watching close and they'd seen that look in his eyes. They went to digging around in their pockets for more money to bet. Floyd raised his hands. No more bets, he said. No more bets. Not a bit of it. Hollered one of the villagers. You said you'd bet as much money as we could put up. Floyd bowed his head. They had him all right. A deal's a deal. He took their bets. When the betting was done, the villagers lined up the challengers in front of the wagon. They was all slapping one another on the back and whooping and hollering and speculating about how they was going to spend the money they was about to win. And let me say, those truly were some ugly boys they had rounded up. They just wasn't ugly enough. When Floyd opened the box and I climbed out, the backslapping stopped and folks got real quiet. Floyd never gloated, but sometimes he come right up to the edge of it. Ladies and gentlemen, he said, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the ugliest boy in the world. Folks shook their heads and kind of wandered off. What could they say? One look at me and they knew they'd been beat fair and square. It didn't take Floyd long to realize we had something better than the Fiji Act. With the Fiji Act, we couldn't make more than one copper for every person in the village with the ugliest boy in the world routine. It looked like we could make however, many coppers happen to be in the villagers pockets when our wagon rolled up. We cleaned out 8 or 9 villages, I reckon, and had a pile of money like I had never seen appeared to me. We had more than enough to go straight to buy a

farmer, too. But on Floyd's list of hopes and dreams, going straight ranked pretty low. Being the ugliest boy in the world hurt my feelings a little. On the one hand, it feels good to know you're the best in the world at something, whether it's wrestling or skipping stones or shooting a bow and arrow or being ugly. But on the other hand, it made me feel bad knowing I had an unfair advantage. I tried to talk to Floyd about it one night. Floyd, I said. I don't exactly feel right about what we're doing. Floyd was counting his money and seemed aggravated at me for interrupting. How's that? He said, you don't feel right about having plenty of decent food and staying in decent public houses for once. He started back with his counting. It ain't that, Floyd. It's just that I ain't sure it's fair to put up my kind of ugly against them village boys kind of ugly, Floyd grunted, but he kept up his counting. They're just civilizer boys, I said. How are they ever going to be as ugly as a genuine hefce? Floyd stopped counting and gave me a funny, narrow eyed look. Then he started laughing. Ain't you scrupulous, he said. For such a fussy feller you sure picked a peculiar line of work. I started to tell him I never picked my line of work, but I figured it was best just to let him get back to his counting. Every time we done the ugly boy routine, it'd give me a knot in my stomach, and it got worse as we went along. Not better. I just couldn't get used to it. I loved the show. It felt like honest work to me. Folks paid a copper to see a feature and I showed them one. Floyd could lie as much as he wanted about pulling a flatboat into the feature Fin Swamp, or about the Fiji folks nature and habits. For my part, I give the folks an honest show. Floyd was used to pretending to be somebody he wasn't. It didn't bother him none. But it hurt my feelings to have to pretend I was the ugliest boy in the world when I was really something. A whole lot more exciting. It was like a wildcat pretending to be a opossum. Opossum is interesting in its way, but it ain't half as fascinating as a wild cat. We've done the ugliest boy in the world routine and a few more villages, and it looked to me like we had enough money to buy us a village if we wanted one. But Floyd still wanted to keep it up. We can't quit now, he told me. We just got a big enough grubstake to make some real money. You don't want to spend your whole life skinning podunk villagers, do you? Well, no, Floyd, that's what I've been trying to tell you. A talent like you ought to be skinning townspeople whole cities. But Floyd ain't. He put his hand on my shoulder the way I'd seen village Daddy's do to their boys the way he did when he was about to tell me to trust him. Trust me on this one, he said. They're going to love you in greasy cave. Greasy cave, I hollered. Greasy cave is the size of ten of these villages we've been skinning. I know it, said Floyd. I wish it was the size of a hundred. With that many folks, Floyd,

there's bound to be somebody uglier than me. I was getting scared. And besides, Greasy Cave is a mining town. What's that supposed to matter? Floyd asked. You've seen miners. Miners is a heap uglier than farmers. I got a bad feeling, Floyd. Well, I don't. You know what I see when I look at you? What? The ugliest boy in the world. You just saying that? No, I ain't. Floyd hoisted his money bag, groaning with the weight of it. I'm willing to bet this much money on it. That made me feel better. Floyd had told me a hundred times that the most important thing in the show business is to believe in yourself. Believe that you are the part you're playing. And if you want to know the truth. Ugliest boy in the world wasn't a hard part for me to believe in. When we got to Greasy Cave the next day, Floyd took enough bets to double our stake if we won or to ruin us if we lost. I give the greasy cavers every bit of ugly I had. It just wasn't enough. When Floyd let me out of the box, I was face to face with the ugliest boy I ever seen in my life. How can I describe how ugly this boy was? I might as well try to describe how wet water is. His ears was like plates glommed onto the side of his head and his teeth stuck out in every direction except straight. His nose must have been six inches long, but it curled up at the end like a pig snout. His eyes was 2 or 3 different colors, and his eyebrows met up with the hair on his head, which had so many cowlicks that no two hairs pointed in the same direction. On top of that, he was covered in coal dust. It made your eyes water to look at him. Me and Floyd just stared at the boy for a good quarter minute. Then Floyd went to waving his arms and pointing at the ugly boy. It ain't fair, he hollered. You can't enter a boy in an ugly contest if he's covered in coal dust. The innkeeper pulled out a rag and swiped it across the boy's grinning face a few times, but it only let more of the ugly show through. We was beat. There was no two ways about it. Floyd made a lunge for the money pile, and 3 or 4 miners made a lunge for him, so I grabbed his coat collar and fairly pulled him into the wagon seat. Let's go, Floyd, I hollered. I ain't ready for another village whoopin, and I don't think you are either. I wiped the rains down on Buttermilks haunches and he hoofed it out of there a heap faster than usual. That night. Floyd still wanted to fight somebody since he couldn't whip all of Greasy Cave. He soothed his feelings by wading into me. You can't do anything right, can you, boy? I already knew you wasn't smart enough or talented enough or good enough. Turns out you ain't even ugly enough. I don't ask much of you, boy. I just ask you to stand there and be ugly. And you can't even do that, right? Well. That hurt. I always took pride in my work, and I already felt bad about losing all that money without Floyd grinding on me. Floyd, I said I was as ugly as I knew how to be. That other boy was just uglier. I don't want your excuses, Floyd hollered. You're a loser. And I never should have let myself get mixed up with you. I wish you wouldn't say that, Floyd. I ain't lost, but once Floyd snorted. Ain't lost. But once. But it was a time duzela, wasn't it? Didn't take you but one loss to lose every copper I own. You the one bet every copper you own, Floyd, not me. Floyd reached back as if to hit me, and I hunkered down to take it. But then he got this ugly smile on his face, a smile that looked even meaner than his frown. He worked his mouth around like he was sucking on some sugar candy, like he was getting all the goody out of the words he was about to say. I stayed hunkered down. I figured some kind of hurt was still coming. Remember how you said it wasn't fair to put a boy like you up against a civilized boy in an ugly contest? I remember several lives. A boy couldn't be uglier than a boy, could he? I wouldn't have thought so. So how you reckon you lost today? My belly felt like there was a king snake wrapped around it and squeezing down. Somehow I knew what was coming. What are you saying, Floyd? I'm saying you obviously didn't have no unfair advantage. The snake squeezed down another notch. I just meant me being a Fiji and them civilized boys. That's what I'm talking about, boy. You ain't no Fiji. There it was. There was the wallop I'd been waiting for. Floyd's face was twisted up and the moustaches of his waggled as if they was making fun of me separate from the rest of him. Sorry, boy. I know you like pretending you was a feature, but it turns out you're just a ugly boy. So ugly your own mama didn't want to keep you. What hurt so bad? I knew he was right. The Habit podcast is brought to you by the Rabbit Room, where art nourishes community and community nourishes art. You can support their work, including this podcast, by becoming a member. Visit rabbit.com/membership. Special thanks as well to Taylor Leonard for letting us use her song diamonds as the theme music for the Habit podcast. You can learn more about Taylor and follow her work@taylor.com. The Habit Membership is a library of resources for writers by me, Jonathan Rogers. More importantly, the habit is a hub of community where like minded writers gather to discuss their work and give each other a little more courage. Find out more at the habit.co.