Page 72 of Martha Calhoun

The path ended suddenly at a tall, wire fence separating the fairgrounds from Banyon’s Woods. I’d taken a wrong turn. Aiming for the entrance gate, I followed the fence for a while and came to a sausage-shaped silver trailer that was set apart from the other exhibits. A big-lettered sign on a sandwich board out front said, SEE THE TWO-HEADED BABY. Smaller printing added, A MARVEL OF NATURE! A SCIENTIFIC EXHIBITION! I stopped. A picture of the baby, done in bright, cracking paint, hung on a canvas sheet draped from the side of the trailer. The baby was a girl, and in the painting she looked out with two fresh faces, each surrounded by a halo of curly brown hair. The faces looked happy, the eyes firm and direct. The heads seemed almost eager to talk about their condition: Yes, it’s complicated with two of us, I could imagine them saying, as they tripped over each other’s words. But it’s exciting, too, not at all what you one-headed people might expect. Think of the conversation, the companionship, everything shared.

Outside one end of the trailer, a woman sat in a ticket booth. She was reading a book and not paying attention to the people who stopped to stare. A bulb in a conical shade threw a spreading beam of light across the top of her head and over her book. The rest of the ticket booth was black. I dug into a pocket of my sundress and rolled around a few large coins.

I felt strangely excited, as if there were some useful secret, some kind of relief, inside the trailer. The two faces looked so open and willing. Elro had said the baby was kept in a jar, but, in the painting, she wore a pretty pink dress, with puffy sleeves and a flaring skirt. Two pink normal legs jutted out below.

I edged over toward the ticket booth. Nobody noticed me. People kept wandering by, shaking their heads at the trailer, uttering low words of disapproval, and then moving on. Walking sideways, I slipped up to the booth and placed a quarter in the cradle in front of the woman. She looked up only far enough to stare at the coin.

“It’s fifty,” she said in a scolding voice.

“Fifty?”

“Fifty cents.” The light above her head made deep, skull-like shadows over her eyes.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out another quarter. Nothing else at the fair cost fifty cents, but I paid willingly; the expense seemed appropriate. I pushed the two quarters toward her. A hand darted out quickly and scooped them up. Another dropped a green ticket into the cradle. Her eyes never left the book. “The man inside,” she said.

“What?”

“Give it to the man inside.”

I backed away. The trailer had an open door at one end. A bluish light spilled out from the inside, but there was no sign of a man. I walked a few steps closer, and he came into view. He was sitting on a stool, spooning ice cream out of a quart container. He saw me watching him and stopped eating for a moment to stare back. Then he returned to his ice cream. How could these people be so relaxed? I felt feverish, knowing what was just a few feet away, behind those silver walls.

I stepped toward the doorway, but at that moment, a woman behind me spoke up in a loud voice. “The parents who did that ought to be shot,” she said. I turned. She was about Bunny’s age, with graying hair and wearing a checkered dress. She glanced around to see who’d heard her, and her gaze fell on me. “Don’t you buy a ticket here,” she said. “This place should be boycotted. Imagine, selling your baby like that. They should run it out of town.”

I nodded hesitantly.

“They never used to allow things like that in the Katydid County Fair.” She turned to the man standing beside her. “We should complain,” she said. He stopped shaking his head and started nodding it. “You should complain,” she said to me. “The more people who complain the better.”

“Maybe I will,” I mumbled, stealing a glance at the woman in the ticket booth. She was still reading, as if she hadn’t heard a thing.

“Good,” said the woman who’d been complaining. She stood there, planted, her hands on her hips, ready to take on anyone who made a move toward the ticket booth. I slunk away, all the time feeling she was watching me.

What had I been thinking of? This wasn’t like me at all, I told myself. Being curious about the baby in a morbid kind of way was bad enough, but to give in to the feeling—that was unforgivable. Everything I knew, everything I believed in, had taught me to fight urges like that. Anger pounded at my stomach. Another mistake, another piece of bad judgment. What’s happening to me? I wondered frantically. I can’t trust myself anymore. Do I have to censor every mood and notion? How can you live like that?

I hurried past clumps of slow-footed people. I had to get Bunny, and we had to get out. It was ridiculous coming to the fair on the night before my trial. How do I let Bunny talk me into these things? I asked myself. She’s as much to blame as I am. I’m so busy watching out for her that I don’t have time to watch out for myself.

Almost at a trot, I passed the McCarthy family, strolling along with all six children. The four youngest were holding hands. “Hello, Martha!” yelled Jeannie, who’s six and who was thrilled to see me.

“Hello,” I said quickly, and hurried on, thinking of the look of disappointment on Jeannie’s face.

Since I’d left, the beer tent had filled with a group of men, who all seemed to know each other. I pushed my way through to the counter. Bunny wasn’t there. The men around me were talking loud and crowding me, holding their ground, as if they thought I wanted to butt in front.

“Mister, mister,” I called out, trying to get the attention of the bartender who’d offered me a beer before.

The man to my right didn’t like being jostled and frowned at me. “You’re a little young to be that desperate for a beer, aren’t you?” he said. He was wearing a shirt with parrots on it.

“I just want to talk to that bartender,” I said, pointing. “I have to ask him something.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” He turned and yelled across the bar. “Hey! Jody!”

“Yeah?” said Jody, wiping his brow with his forearm. He was frantically filling cups with beer and handing them to other bartenders.

“Girl here wants to ask you something.”

“What is it?” He didn’t turn around.

I leaned across the bar and tried to talk clearly, without being loud. “Did you see where my mother went? She was here a little bit ago.”

He stopped filling the cups for a moment and turned to see who was talking. Sweat was pouring down his face and under his collar. “Oh, hi. She went off with some guy, some skinny guy.”

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