Standing by the railing of the exhibit, the lean war veteran spoke up. "That don't apply to freaks. That's just people."
The portly men flushed. Waving his candied apple earnestly, he answered: "Mister, maybe they think we're freaks. Who says who's a freak?"
Disgusted, the veteran said: "I can tell a freak." He eyed Cussick and the portly man with distaste. "What are you," he demanded, "a freak-lover?"
The portly man sputtered and started over; but his wife seized his arm and dragged him away, into the crowd, to the next exhibits. Still protesting, he disappeared from sight. Cussick was left facing the war veteran.
"Damn fool," the veteran said. "It's contrary to common sense. You can see they're freaks. My God, that's why they're here!"
"He's right, though," Cussick pointed out. "The law gives anybody the right to live as he pleases. Relativism says—"
"Then the hell with Relativism. Did we fight a war, did we beat those Jews and atheists and Reds, so people could be any damn kind of freak they want? Believe any kind of egghead trash?"
"Nobody beat anybody," Cussick answered. "Nobody won the war."
A small knot of people had stopped to listen. The veteran noticed them; all at once his cold eyes faded and glazed over. He grunted, shot a last hostile look at Cussick, and melted off into the group. Disappointed, the people moved on.
The next freak was part human, part animal. Somewhere along the line, inter-species mating had occurred; the event was certainly lost in the nightmarish shadows of the war. As he gazed up, Cussick tried to determine what the original progenitors had been; one, certainly, had been a horse. This freak, in all probability, was a fake, artificially grafted; but it was visually convincing. From the war had come intricate legends of man-animal progeny, exaggerated accounts of pure human stock that had degenerated, erotic tales of copulation between women and beasts.
There were many-headed babies, a common sport. He passed by the usual display of parasites living on sibling hosts. Feathered, scaled, tailed, winged humanoid freaks squeaked and fluttered on all sides: infinite oddities from ravaged genes. People with internal organs situated outside the dermal wall; eye-less, face-less, even head-less freaks; freaks with enlarged and elongated and multi-jointed limbs; sad-looking creatures peeping out from within other creatures. A grotesque panorama of malformed organisms: dead-ends that would leave no spawn, monsters surviving by exhibiting their monstrous qualities.
In the main area, the entertainers were beginning their acts. Not mere freaks, but legitimate performers with skills and talents. Exhibiting not themselves, but rather their unusual abilities. Dancers, acrobats, jugglers, fire-eaters, wrestlers, fighters, animal-tamers, clowns, riders, divers, strong men, magicians, fortune-tellers, pretty girls... acts that had come down through thousands of years. Nothing new: only the freaks were new. The war brought new monsters, but not new abilities.
Or so he thought. But he hadn't seen Jones, yet. Nobody had; it was too early. The world went on rebuilding, re-constructioning: its time hadn't come.
To his left glared and winked the furious display of a girl exhibit. With some spontaneous interest, Cussick allowed himself to drift with the crowd.
Four girls lounged on the platform, bodies slack with ennui. One was clipping her nails with a pair of scissors; the others gazed vacantly at the crowd of men below. The four were naked, of course. In the weak sunlight their flesh glowed faintly luminous, oily, pale-pink, downy. The pitchman babbled metallically into his horn; his amplified voice thundered out in a garble of confused noise. Nobody paid any attention to the din; those who were interested stood peering up at the girls. Behind the girls was a closed sheet-tin building in which the show itself took place.
"Hey," one of the girls said.
Startled, Cussick realized she was speaking to him. "What?" he answered nervously.
"What time is it?" the girl asked.
Hurriedly, Cussick examined his wrist watch. "Eleven-thirty."
The girl wandered out of line, over to the edge of the platform. "Got a cigarette?" she asked.
Fumbling in his pocket, Cussick held up his pack.
"Thanks." Breasts bobbing, the girl crouched down and accepted a cigarette. After an uncertain pause, Cussick reached up his lighter and lit it for her. She smiled down at him, a small and very young woman, with brown hair and eyes, slim legs pale and slightly moist with perspiration. "You coming in to see the show?" she inquired.
He hadn't intended to. "No," he told her.
The girl's lips pulled together in a mocking pout. "No? Why not?" Nearby people watched with amusement. "Aren't you interested? Are you one of those?"
People around Cussick tittered and grinned. He began to feel embarrassment.
"You're cute," the girl said lazily. She settled down on her haunches, cigarette between her red lips, arms resting on her bare, out-jutting knees. "Don't you have fifty dollars? Can't you afford it?"
"No," Cussick answered, nettled. "Can't afford it."
"Aw." Teasing, pretending disappointment, the girl reached out her hand and rumpled his carefully-combed hair. "That's too bad. Maybe I'll take you on free. Would you like that? Want to be with me for nothing?" Winking, she stuck out the tip of a pink tongue at him. "I can show you a lot. You'd be surprised, the techniques I know."
"Pass the hat," a perspiring bald-headed man on Cussick's right chuckled. "Hey, let's get up a collection for this young fellow." A general stir of laughter drifted around, and a few five-dollar pieces were tossed forward.
"Don't you like me?" the girl was asking him, bending down and toward him, one hand resting on his neck. "Don't you think you could?" Taunting, coaxing, her voice murmured on: "I'll bet you could. And all these people think you could, too. They're going to watch. Don't you worry—I'll show you how." Suddenly she grabbed tight hold of his ear. "You just come on up here; mama'll show all of you people what she can do."
A roar of glee burst from the crowd, and Cussick was pushed forward and boosted up. The girl let go of his ear and reached with both hands to take hold of him; in that moment he twisted his way loose and dropped back down in the mass of people. After a short interval of shoving and running, he was standing beyond the crowd, panting for breath, trying to rearrange his coat... and his savior faire.
Nobody was paying attention to him, so he began walking aimlessly along, hands in his pockets, as nonchalant as possible. People milled on all sides, most of them heading toward the main exhibits and the central area. Carefully, he evaded the moving flow; his best bet was the peripheral exhibits, open places where literature could be distributed and speeches made, tiny gatherings around a single orator. He wondered if the lean war veteran had been a fanatic; maybe he had identified Cussick as a cop.
The girl exhibit had been a sort of all-man's land between freak and talent. Beyond the stage of girls stood the booth of the first fortuneteller, one of several.
"They're charlatans," the portly curly-haired man revealed to him; he was standing with his family by a dart-throwing booth, a handful of darts clutched, trying to win a twenty-pound Dutch ham. "Nobody can read the future; that's for suckers."
Cussick grinned. "So's a twenty-pound Dutch ham. It's probably made of wax."
"I'm going to win this ham," the man asserted good-naturedly. His wife said nothing, but his children displayed overt confidence in their father. "I'm going to take it home with me, tonight."
"Maybe I'll get my fortune told," Cussick said.
"Good luck, mister," the curly-headed man said charitably. He turned back to the dart target: a great eroded backdrop of the nine planets, pitted with endless near-misses. Its virgin center, an incredibly minute Earth, was untouched. The portly, curly-headed man drew back his arm and let fly; the dart, attracted by a deflecting concealed magnet, missed Earth and buried its steel tip in empty space a little past Ganymede.