The Strong Man and the Strange

Still, it sent her collapsing to the ground with a sharp crack as her chin collided with earth. Her eyelids flicked open with a whispered click, and the feet in her line of vision were familiar. It took a second…the strongman! Mister Hopper, hello!

Frowning, Henry looked down at the automaton. Why wasn't she getting up again? "Get up," he instructed. His voice was gruff. He could make it gruffer if he had to. Could automatons hear? That was a good question. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe that was the look in her eyes. How could she have a look in her eyes? Weren't they made of glass? Henry frowned and leaned forward. He poked her face, examining it. What was she made of?

Sometimes Marni wondered if her husband ever thought of her the way she’d always hoped someone would. She’d always wanted to be thought of like a flower, but as she stood there, staring into the eyes of the man in front of her, she was certain that wasn’t what he saw. "I’m sorry," she said, her voice weak as tears flooded her eyes, threatening to spill over at any moment.

She’d been about to inform Henry that he was hurting her when he let go, and instead she found herself letting out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. "I’m sorry," she said again, this time with more strength behind the words. It was more strength than what she actually had.

Instead of lingering, Marni took one step and then another away from her husband, her eyes cast down as she moved to see if there were any bottle hidden away around the tent. First, she checked under the table near her pottery, only to find that one gone. She must have given it to Henry the last time he ran out, she told herself as she moved away to search for more. Her hands were still shaking. She needed to find more whiskey for her husband or there’d be more than a bruise on her arm to show for it. 

When she reached their bed, Marni knelt down and reached beneath the metal with one of her shaking his hands. "I got one," she called out when her hand came across the smooth surface of the glass bottle. She hadn’t meant to offend him the way that he thought she had. Quietly, in the privacy she had for the moment, Marni reached for her injured arm with another one while she worked to remove the tape from the bottle of whiskey. It was rare for Henry to comfort her, and as a result, she’d learned to first comfort herself, then seek it elsewhere. By the time she got the bottle loose, tears had fallen, but she didn’t let her stop that from going back to her husband to give him what it was that he’d requested. 

Tears clogged her ears. Henry told himself that was why she didn't turn. When she cried, she couldn't hear. He had noticed this about Marni in the past. It was hard for her to hear if she was crying. He'd made her cry. But how? "Marni, you're crying. Why?" he asked her. He approached from behind as she bent by the bed. Good to be sorry, not so good to cry. He hated it when Marni cried. "Why are you crying? Marni." Maybe he'd hurt her. Confused, he stared down at the hand that had gripped her. "Is the arm bad? I hurt you?" he asked. Shaking his head, Henry reached down to take Marni's arm to help her up.

And now he was confused. Henry seemed to be talking in riddles as he spoke of coffee. Choppy speech and unfinished thoughts hit him as the other man spoke and Leo did his best to try and put it all together. "I uh…I had no intentions of going near Marni, sir. Which one is Marni?" It must have been the girl he was thinking of earlier but Leo wanted to be sure so that he really could stay away from her. He didn’t want to upset this man at all. "I’m not a big coffee drinker. I just thought maybe you could use some but I understand if you don’t. But I am willing…just so you know…"

And then the cannibalism came up. The eyeballs comment had Leo looking away from Henry with a feeling of nausea hitting him suddenly. “Yea, I know Hannah. I don’t like eating at her place….unless you want me to like it.” The comment was made under his breath but he meant it. That pat on the back just reassured Leo that he didn’t want the man hitting him for any reason. So, yes, he would like anything Henry wanted him to like. 

"Marnie," Henry said, leaning in close, "is the most beautiful woman in the whole carnival." Never mind that she was often covered in bruises. Forget the fact that she had six arms (at least at present). Who cared that her clothing was often covered in clay? Henry knew the truth: His wife was the most beautiful woman at Bazaaro. Nobody would dare to lay a hand on her. He would kill them in an instant of he found out. 

Morning was rearing its colorless head. Patrons were sleepy-eyed now, and the carnival was all but ending for the night. It was thirty minutes until last call - last chance to ride a ride or play a game before the park closed fifteen minutes after that. And that was fifteen minutes exactly - anyone who was found inside the gates after that quarter of an hour then belonged to the Carnival.

It was at this time that Dottie finally poked her dark little head out from back stage. She checked to make sure no-one was near, and then went back inside for just a moment to pick up her things. She still moved gracefully, as gracefully as she could with her stutter-stop motions and her click-clack joints and the sound of metal scraping against something inside her because it had fallen a bit and now it did not work properly.

Her broom was perhaps the most common thing Dottie could be seen holding, aside from an old lace parasol that matched her dress. Dottie slept things from the dirt off to the side and into bins or under tents or other places where trash and bones and bits of body would not be seen. She picked up coins and pocketed them, to be given to someone later because money was always meant to go to someone important, or else they would go without the important things, and she would hate for that to happen.

Children passed by with their parents, sleepy-eyed or already asleep entirely. Some limped home, having accidentally smashed their foot with a hammer or gotten hit by a stray dart. As people passed, Dottie got distracted. She imagined for a moment that she was flesh. That she was not a stutter-stop girl of brasswork and glasswork, but a real thing who could dance and dream and feel. She was an automaton, Dottie told herself far too often. She could not feel, and, more than that, she could not dream.

Then what might you call this? She asked herself in her mind. Dottie assumed the stance of what she thought a very wise and scholarly person might say, and gesticulated to show what she meant, so that the curious automaton she “spoke” to would know exactly her meaning.

Well, I…I do not know what I call it, sir scholar! She replied to herself. At this, she turned to face the other direction, to be the other half of the conversation and assumed a more effeminate and demure stance.

A boy stopped. He tugged on his mother's hand. The boy carried a little book, and he waved it at Henry. Henry stopped, pausing on the dirt tract. His brows furrowed together and he reached for the book without hesitation. What was this? The boy thrust a pen toward him, and Henry took it. Autograph? This boy wanted his autograph. Scribbling his name on the paper, Henry thrust it back to the boy. He went on walking. Boys took up too much time. Kids were a pain. Better things occupied his mind. 

Henry subsided. The boy wouldn't want his head sewn back on. He wasn't making fun of him. He had to be smarter than that, even if he was stupid. It was stupid to mess with Henry, stupid not to give him his bottles back. With the bottle now in his hand, Henry clapped Leo on the shoulder. "You bring me the bottles. When you find them, bring them to me." His mind was working too hard. Sometimes it did that. The gears and cogs that represented Henry's mind had to struggle. Somebody should oil them more often. Whiskey worked well as an oil, didn't it? Surely it loosened him up. It made him happy. Yes, whiskey made him happy. Smiling, Henry nodded his head at Leo.

"Marni makes the best coffee. You stay away from Marni. She's my wife. She makes good coffee. Do you want some?" He'd lost the thread of conversation. Frowning again, he looked down at Leo. "Hannah makes coffee too. It's not as good. Know Hannah? The cannibal." Maybe Leo didn't understand. The coffee his wife made was the best. How hard was that to understand? Henry didn't want Hannah's coffee because it wasn't as good as Marni's. Leo might prefer Hannah's coffee though. It was sweeter because she made it sweeter. "Sometimes she gives me the eyeballs." Out of context, as always. Grunting, Henry gave Leo a glare.

His shaking hands and sour attitude were enough of a warning to tread lightly, but Marni being Marni, she simply couldn’t resist."Henry, I already told you that I have things to do today," she said as she reached out to take the empty bottle from him, only to set it down on the counter behind her with a thud. "Just like I told you not to drink through all of your supply last night." This wasn’t the first time that she’d warned her husband that he was low, only to have him ignore her like she’d said nothing then later take it out on her.

She didn’t have time for that today.

Swiftly and silently, she removed the covers from her body and got to her feet, securing her robe tightly around herself as she did. "I don’t know where you expect me to get more from, Henry. I told you not to drink through it so quickly,” she told her husband, then sighed and went to go check the cabinets, just in case he’d forgotten. This wasn’t the first time she’d awoken to demands, and just like she always did, she’d decided to approach the situation rationally. "If you drank through it all, I don’t know what you want me to do," she said as she ran one hand over the smooth surface of the wooden cabinet while two others picked up the glass bottle that should have contained the whiskey Henry was looking for.

It was something Leo had only dreamed about a million times, even before he was lost in the twisted maze; being surrounded by people. It had been a dream of his once, to rise to stardom and have random people all around him. But now…no, now things were completely different. He hated the noise that came with the constant flow of patrons. He jumped every time someone brushed against his shoulder or a kid shrieked with delight. And it was all because it reminded him of the terrors he had experienced throughout the four decades he had been “missing.”

So as opening night went on Leo found his way to the tents that housed the carnies during the day. Surely no one would be back here now since the shows had started and everyone was supposed to be entertaining and all he needed was a minute to collect himself so he could get back to doing his job. 

A noise to his right caused Leo to gasp slightly, the breath he took in catching in his lungs as he looked wildly around him. But all he could see was the edge of a glass bottle rolling into a crevice of one of the tents. Litter…it had to be litter. Sighing, Leo moved towards the bottle and picked it up, noticing that it reeked of alcohol…bad whiskey if he had to make a guess. And then his eyes landed on the gorilla like man leaving the very tent he was standing next to: Henry Hopper. Clearing his throat, Leo was cautious as he stepped forward, trying to get the man’s attention. 

Brow lowering, Henry looked over the man. He didn't know this fellow. His big right hand shot out, offering to shake. If Henry didn't know the man, that meant the man was new. New people had to learn about Henry, because Henry was an important man. Hearing his name spoken in the carnival made Henry happy. This man needed to know who he was, if he didn't already. "Henry Hopper," he said to the newcomer. Then he reached out his hand for the bottle. "I bottle my own. Need that." The open palm waited for the newcomer to put the bottle into it. He'd use it again. At least there were still people here who did their jobs. Now he wouldn't have to ask Madame Cruentifer to kill anyone. Henry was an important man. Madame Cruentifer would listen to him.* If people weren't doing their jobs, he would have to help her dispose of them. Maybe use them in his show. That would teach them not to do their jobs.