“You seem to disapprove, not that I give a damn about your opinion.”
“Tell you a little story. Back in the days when I was likely to shake a loose leg, meanin’ I did a bit of travellin’. I was with this fair that went up north of England. Small towns we played, puttin’ on a good show for the folks. Tumblers, acrobats, fat ladies, horse racin’ and gypsies what could tell yer future for a bit of silver.”
Figg nodded, remembering. Poe watched the boxer’s right hand go to his bare chest, the back of his hand stroking three six-inch scars on the right side of his rib cage, scars that were now a faded white. In the flickering gaslight, Poe found the scars on Figg’s face, chest and arms repugnant as well as fascinating. For brief seconds he empathized with the pain the man had obviously endured in his miserable existence. But he forced that small bit of compassion from his mind and resumed listening indifferently to what Figg was telling him.
“Now this here fair I was with was nothin’ like the elaborate establishment of Master Phineas Taylor Barnum, which we visited tonight. Master Barnum has done himself most splendid, but let me tell me own tale-”
“I am all agog.”
“Now I had me a little booth, see, just like me father and his father and his father before him. Nothing different. I charge a few pennies to teach a man the use of knife, cudgel, broadsword and towards the end, see, I puts up a pound or two as prize money and I says that any man in the crowd what feels he is able, let him come forward and challenge me in boxin’. Two rounds, no more. Usually there is some local boy what thinks he is good with his fists and his friends encourage him to try his luck. But the lad don’t last long ‘cause it ain’t just what you do with your body, see.” Figg tapped his forehead with a thick finger. “Man got to use his mind in the ring.”
Poe said, “For the present, I shall take your word that anyone stepping into a prize ring is possessed of a mind. Do continue. I find this account of your past life most entertaining.”
I crave drink, thought Poe, and instead I get a pugilist reeking of sentiment. So desperately did he crave alcohol, that Poe would gladly have downed a cup of New Jersey Champagne, that putrid concoction of turnip juice, brandy and sugar. A disgusting blend enjoyed by those with puny purses and little pride in what they swallowed.
Still sitting up in the bed, Poe clenched both fists under the sheet and wondered what harm he had ever done to Charles Dickens to deserve such a fate as Pierce James Figg.
“Now, Mr. Poe, I am comin’ to the point of this story. There was a very important man in England, or so he believed himself to be. This important man owned a huge circus and ofttimes our small little fair would be in competition with him. It was always a race to see who would get to a town first, him or us. Whoever got there first, naturally got the customers’ money first.”
“I am impressed by your logic. Do go on.”
“Well, one day we gets to a town up north near Manchester and we makes our pitch, we sets up camp. We got a good spot but it is a spot that this important man wants for his very own circus. So what does he do? He sends his wagons speedin’ down a hill and crashin’ into ours, damagin’ our goods, our property not to mention our very lives.”
“Not to mention.”
“So what do we do to this most important man what has got a lot of pride?”
“Ah, now I see. The story of a proud man brought to heel.”
“Indeed, Mr. Poe. What do we do? Now you gots to understand that the travellin’ life ain’t for the timid soul. It is a hard existence and them what takes it up ain’t your every day petunia pickers. What we do is we get some clubs, some tools and we sneaks up behind the wagons belongin’ to this most important man and we gets to openin’ them. We starts to let his animals loose. Lions, leopards, elephants, we opens a few locks and before you know it, this most important man is weepin’ and wailin’, not to mention bein’ somewhat terrified ‘cause now some of these very valuable and I might add, very hungry animals, is strollin’ about the countryside.”
Poe found himself smiling.
“Now Mr. Poe, this very important man, him and his henchmen are forced to stop whatever they is doin’ and set to work recoverin’ all these very valuable-”
Poe chuckled in spite of himself. “And hungry-”
“Indeed, sir. And hungry animals. Need I say we never had anymore trouble with that most important man, leastwise whilst I was with the fair.”
“Those scars on your rib cage, were they-”
“Ah Mr. Poe, Master Charles Dickens was correct, sir. You are a most observant gent. These here scars decoratin’ me body was a present from a lion what I turned loose that day and by way of thankin’ me he waved a cheery bye. Except he has got these claws, see, and each one is as sharp as a Jew’s nose for money and I failed to remove meself from his way of passage at the precise moment the lion would have preferred I so move.”
Poe fell back on the bed and roared. He cackled, he shrieked. Figg’s silly story released the tension caused by bad dreams and fear, tension over concern for Rachel Coltman, tension from a growing fear of the mysterious and deadly Jonathan.
Pierce James Figg and his lion.
Phineas Taylor Barnum and his bald eagle.
Leaving the Astor Hotel earlier tonight, Poe and Figg had plunged into the Broadway crowds, joining them in making a precarious trek across muddy Broadway jammed with horses, sleighs, carriages. Humans and vehicles all seemed to be heading to Barnum’s brightly lit American Museum which shone in the darkness like a five-story jewel. Here Figg hoped to find those associates of Jonathan he had pursued from London. Poe, who had a slight acquaintance with Barnum, was to make the introductions.
Phineas Taylor Barnum, the man who had made the American Museum the number one entertainment attraction in all of America, as well as one of the wonders of the world, agreed to meet the two men. But he insisted that business not stop because of mere conversation. Barnum, American’s first and most bombastic showman, worked seven days a week promoting both his exhibits and his ego, an ego Poe found too large to be contained by the huge museum, which Barnum claimed housed over six hundred thousand examples of the freakish and outlandish.
Barnum was an amiable fraud, a champion hoaxer and humbug specialist who always managed to entertain and therefore offended no one. He took your twenty-five cents at the door and delivered illusions, jokes, songs, dances and the most interesting nonsense available. He had created what he called “the show business,” none of it as impressive as Phineas Taylor Barnum himself, a man who had made self advertising an art form. He was world famous, wealthy and a believer in his own maxim that “There is a sucker born every minute.” He should have added, thought Poe, that there is also a Barnum waiting outside of the womb to fleece the newborn fool.
The thirty-seven-year-old highly successful showman was 6’2”, fleshy and running to fat, with a nose the size of a potato, blue eyes, full mouth and fast disappearing curly hair. Tonight he wore a suit of bright pink squares outlined in dark green, a frilly yellow shirt, red cravat and his squeaky voice hit Poe’s ears like an icicle, particularly when the squeak was intense, as it was at this particular moment.
“The goat is shitting!” Barnum’s heated squeak was aimed at a pockmarked blond youth who cringed in the doorway of the small basement room. “I know goddam well the goat is shitting! What I summoned you down here to learn, most callow youth, is why the goat is shitting and what is being done to stem this particular tide.”
“Mr. Barnum, we have tried everything imaginable to get the goat to stop-”
“Dear Homer. Tonight on the five stories of these very premises are thousands of Americans, a goodly portion of whom will undoubtedly repair to the lecture hall where they will expect our goat to tap out a lively, though simple tune on a toy piano. Now get upstairs and do not reappear in my presence until you are able to assure me that the goat will not fail those Americans who have come to expect P. T. Barnum to deliver in full.”