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Age: 100
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The Freak

2008

MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2009 (11:11 AM)

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The Freak

Ulysses

His mother howled as he was placed upon her belly. (Not quite a howl, but more like a howl than a shriek). She did not shed a mother’s tears of joy when the pain finally stops and her baby is breathing. The sound came out of her at first sight of him. She did not love him, instantly.

His arms were far too short. He did not have hands. Where little elbows should be, small thumbs protruded. He had one blue eye. He had a small hole on each side of his earless head. He was hairless. He resembled some bad sculpture done on acid.

Ulysses quickly became the most popular freak in the traveling freak show, because he could bend his double-jointed body backward and place his thumb-elbows into his ear-holes while singing “Sunny Side of the Street.” Ulysses’ girlfriend, Claire (billed as the “crab lady”), loved his voice.

Claire wasn’t a conversationalist, but Ulysses didn’t desire nor require much by way of a companion. He was content.

Ulysses did not mind the gawking carnival-goers pointing at him with gaping mouths. He knew he was much happier than they, by far.

The Cartwheeling Girl

His mother looked after him in a motherly way, though she was void of love for him. She possessed an immense sense of duty. His father was a weak man, but pleasant enough.

"Plan for the worst, and hope for the best!," his father would say. Ulysses found comfort in those words each time he heard them, which was often.

Ulysses had remarkable vision and hearing for a one-eyed, earless boy. His elbow-thumbs were sufficient for most tasks. Anything he could not accomplish lacking hands, he had learned to do with his feet. He practiced tying his shoestrings with his toes, and he became adept at raising a fork to his mouth with his right foot. Still, his mother insisted on cutting his food and feeding him. She could not bear to see his foot raised at her dinner table.

His mother home-schooled him, ostensibly to spare him the cruelty of others. She had to save herself from the embarrassment of revealing such an offspring.

Ulysses was allowed to play in the backyard bordering the forest, where he could not be seen. Saturday afternoons he wandered through the trees, once arriving at an open field just before dusk. He sat atop a small hill and watched a single child playing. A girl of about eight years old was running around with a long stick. She stopped suddenly when she noticed the figure on the hill. For a moment, Ulysses thought to run back into the forest, but he saw the girl was smiling, so he remained still. She raised a hand and waved. He held one short arm up, and moved it slowly. The girl yelled, "Watch this!" and she began cartwheeling. She managed four cartwheels before falling on her back giggling. She jumped up quickly. "I have to go home now. Bye!"

Ulysses watched as she ran off. Though he visited the hilltop many times more, he did not see his only childhood friend again.

He was seventeen when he found the carnival flyer beneath his father's newspaper. Freaks of Nature! Bearded Lady. Giant 9 foot Man. See the Amazing Crab Lady!. He waited until his parents were asleep to pack a small suitcase and pen a note for his father using his agile right foot.

"Dear Dad, I am going to find work with the carnival. Do not worry. I will always plan for the worst and hope for the best. Your son, Ulysses."

The Crab Lady

Claire never knew who her father was; she barely recalled her mother by the time she spent fifteen minutes with the first Perv on her eighteenth birthday. The Perv paid five dollars for fifteen minutes with her. She got to keep two dollars, which was the amount she formerly earned for a week's work cleaning kitchens, scrubbing floors and making beds. Her extra appendages came in handy when she was a maid. Now they brought good money from Perv customers at the brothel. Not so bad for fifteen minutes work. A person can do anything for fifteen minutes, she thought.

After a year's time, she no longer thought that a person could do anything for fifteen minutes. She found her escape when the traveling carnival came to town. She immediately felt at home among the carnies and other freaks. Her extra appendages assured her top billing at the freak show. Claire, the Amazing Crab Lady, was born perfectly formed except for two additional arms and two additional legs. Her extra arms were somewhat smaller and shorter, sitting about six inches beneath her normally sized arms. Her legs would have been quite nice, but for the smaller leg extending from each upper thigh. Her smaller legs ended in little feet, size three. Her other feet were a perfect size six. She painted all forty nails (fingers and toes) dark red. She wore her curly, dark brunette hair long, which accentuated her dark brown eyes.

Claire's act began with her sauntering onto a small stage holding a large beach umbrella in front of her body as she moved to the beat of You're The Top. Carnival goers never failed to collectively gasp when the umbrella closed, revealing her smaller arms and legs. She would slowly bend forward until her shorter appendages touched the stage floor so she could walk on all eights. She scampered to the left end of the stage, then to the right, crab-dancing to the music. Claire didn't think it was much of an act, but it was a crowd pleaser.

Claire was usually reticent, having the rare and enviable quality of talking only when she had something to say. She did not speak when Ulysses was introduced to her by the bearded lady, she merely gave him a nod and a smile. She watched his act standing behind the small stage curtain. From the moment she heard him sing, it was love at first sound.

BigHead

Ulysses didn't care for loud people. He would not intentionally go out of his way to avoid them, since they were everywhere, but he would not seek them out either. So it was, with Bighead Thom.

Thomas' head was three sizes larger than the norm. Notwithstanding his height and girth (he was a large man), his huge head was the single unique thing about him. He was dumb, but not so dumb that he did not keenly feel his less than average existence. He drank rank gin and warm beer daily, which gave him the ever present stench of old cigars, stale beer and gin. He was the most pitiable of freaks, so he talked and laughed the loudest.

His act consisted of lifting heavy objects, which didn't draw nor retain the attention of paying freak-peepers. Until he added the chickens. Adorned in a large red leotard and garish make-up, he stood growling as the caged chickens were ceremoniously placed on the stage. One by one, he killed them with his hands and ate their bloody heads and feet. He was moved to top of the bill within a week.

There were few things Ulyssess didn't understand, the appeal of chicken-killing-blood-spurting-eating-of-heads-and-feet was one of them. Two days before Bighead Thom passed-out and choked to death on gin vomit, Ulysses and Claire packed it up.

Ulysses' natural gift for exceptionally good timing was proven a few months later when the traveling carnival went belly-up.

Waves of Clarity

Both Ulysses' fluency in reading Latin and his friendship with the doctor paid off. The good doctor, having relocated to Jacksonville, Florida, provided work in medical transcription. It was the perfect form of employment for a one-eyed, elbow-thumbed, Latin-reading, toe-typing freak.

As the good doctor's practice expanded to several partners, so grew Ulysses work, and it paid well enough. The sound of typewriter toe-pecking eminated from within the trailer as Claire tended to her small garden, holding four trowels. She was quite the multi-tasker. The trailer, situated on a remote spot between Jacksonville and St. Augustine Beach, suited the couple nicely. The companionship of dogs and one another was enough for Ulysses and Claire.

Ulysses read about the nearby ocean, and he longed to see it for himself. He mentioned the notion of making the long trek to the beach to Claire, who nodded in agreement. They departed at dusk, walking several miles before smelling salt air for the first time. Claire held Ulysses' thumb with her smaller left hand as they walked. As they neared the beach, Ulysses asked, "Can you smell that Claire? That must be the scent of the ocean!" Claire replied, "Yes. I smell it. It's wonderful."

Reaching the top of a large dune, they stood and looked at the sea in silence for more than an hour. Claire, uncharacteristically talkative in her excitement, spoke again, "Let's go down. I want to touch it."

At the waters edge, they kicked off their shoes. Claire rolled Ulysses' trouser legs up, and they walked forward until their feet were covered in waves. The sound of the waves crashing caused Ulysses to raise his voice; he yelled at the sea "Plan for the the worst and hope for the best! Hope for the best!" He laughed and kicked at the water. Claire's smiling face was wet with spray when Ulysses looked at her. He noticed she had perfect skin in the moonlight.

He was more than content.

(c) 2009 by SillyLeslie All Rights Reserved. Posted for commentary,only. Does not constitute publishing.

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Posted Aug 9, 09 by NatureJunkie (

)
I loved this mini series. All the characters were so well drawn and with so few words. There was just enough absurdity to keep it light and colorful, and just enough poignance to make it unmistakable as SillyLeslie.

Posted Aug 1, 09 by wheresthesea (

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Got me thinking. I think everyone should have someone to love. What does it matter who, what age, what they look like, whether they are 'suitable' or not.

Posted Jul 27, 09 by LittleStar (

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I'm here when you need me..... :D

Posted Jul 27, 09 by SillyLeslie
@ LS - I need a copy editor. (typo has been corrected) :)

Posted Jul 27, 09 by LittleStar (

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SAD and yet Rejoiceful....too bad he joked to death (wink)

Posted Jul 26, 09 by jessicapeanut (

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love
it:)

Posted Jul 25, 09 by Its.Wes (

)
Hello my dear. It is great to see you posting web blogs again. ((hugs))