The Funhouse Read online

  Zena worked hard at the marriage, trying to make it last in spite of her husband's explosive temper. There were two Conrad Strakers, she hated and feared one of them, but she loved the other. The first Conrad was a brooding, pessimistic, violence-prone man, as unpredictable as an animal, with a shocking talent and taste for sadism. The second Conrad was kind, thoughtful, even charming, a good lover, intelligent, creative. For a while Zena believed that a lot of love and patience and understanding would change him. She was convinced that the frightening Mr. Hyde personality would fade completely away, and that in time Conrad would settle down and be just the good Dr. Jekyll. Instead, the more love and understanding she gave him, the more frequently he became violent and abusive, as if he were determined to prove that he was not worthy of her love.

  She knew that he despised himself. His inability to like himself and be at peace in his own mind, the frustration generated by his incurable self hatred—that was the root of his periodic, maniacal rages. Something monstrous had happened to him a long, long time ago, in his formative years, some unspeakable childhood tragedy that had scarred him so deeply that nothing, not even Zena's love, could heal him. Some horror in his distant past, some terrible disaster for which he felt responsible, gave him bad dreams every night of his life. He was consumed by an unquenchable guilt that burned in him year after year with undiminished brightness, turning his heart, piece by piece, into bitter ashes. Many times Zena had tried to learn the secret that gnawed at Conrad, but he had been afraid to tell her, afraid that the truth would repel her and turn her against him forever. She had assured him that nothing he told her would make her loathe him. It would have been good for him to unburden himself at last. But he could not do it. Zena could learn only one thing: the event that haunted him had transpired on Christmas Eve, when he was only twelve years old. From that night forward, he had been a changed person, day by day, he had become ever more sour, increasingly violent. For a brief spell, after Ellen gave him his much-wanted child, even though it was a hideously deformed baby, Conrad had begun to feel better about himself. But when Ellen killed the child, Conrad sank even deeper into despair and self-hatred, and it wasn't likely that anyone would ever be able to draw him out of the psychological pit into which he had cast himself.

  After struggling for two years to make their marriage work, after living in fear of Conrad's rage all that time, Zena had finally faced the fact that divorce was inevitable. She left him, but they didn't cease to be friendly. They shared certain bonds that couldn't be broken, but it was clear to both of them that they couldn't live together happily. She rode the carousel backwards.

  Now, as Zena watched Conrad venting his rage on the table, she realized that most, if not all, of her love for him had been transformed into pity. She felt no passion any more—just an abiding sorrow for him.

  Conrad cursed, sputtered through bloodless lips, snarled, pounded the table.

  The raven flapped its shiny, black wings and cried shrilly in its cage.

  Zena waited patiently.

  In time Conrad grew tired and stopped thumping the table. He leaned back in his chair, blinking dully, as if he were not quite sure where he was.

  After he was silent for a minute, the raven became silent, too, and Zena said, “Conrad, you aren't going to find Ellen's child. Why don't you just give up?”

  “Never,” he said, slightly hoarse.

  “For ten years you had a bunch of private detectives on it. One after the other. Several at the same time. You spent a small fortune on them. And they didn't find anything. Not a clue.”

  “They were all incompetent,” he said sullenly.

  “For years you've been looking on your own without any luck.”

  “I'll find what I'm after.”

  “You were wrong again tonight. Did you really think you'd stumble across her kids here? At the Coal County, Pennsylvania, Spring Fair? Not a very likely place, if you ask me.”

  “As likely as any other.”

  “Maybe Ellen didn't even live long enough to start a family with another man.

  Have you thought of that? Maybe she's long dead.”

  “She's alive.”

  “You can't be sure.”

  “I'm positive.”

  “Even if she's alive, she might not have children.”

  “She does. They're out there—somewhere.”

  “Damn it, you have no reason to be so sure of that!”

  “I've been sent signs. Portents.”

  Zena looked into his cold, crystalline blue eyes, and she shivered. Signs? Portents? Was Conrad still only half-mad—or had he gone all the way over the edge?

  The raven tapped its beak against the metal bars of its cage.

  Zena said, “If by some miracle you do find one of Ellen's kids, what then?”

  “I've told you before.”

  “Tell me again,” she said, watching him closely.

  “I want to tell her kids what she did,” Conrad said. “I want them to know she's a baby killer. I want to turn them against her. I want to use all of my power as a pitchman to convince them that their mother is a vicious, despicable human being, the worst kind of criminal. A baby killer. I'll make them hate her as much as I hate her. In effect, I'll be taking her kids away from her, though not as brutally as she took my little boy.”

  As always, when he talked about exposing Ellen's past to her family, Conrad spoke with conviction.

  As always, it sounded like a hollow fantasy.

  And as always, Zena felt that he was lying. She was sure that he had something else in mind, an act of revenge even more brutal than what Ellen had done to that strange, disturbing, mutated baby twenty-five years ago.

  If Conrad intended to kill Ellen's children when (and if) he found them, Zena wanted no part of that. She didn't want to be an accomplice to murder.

  Yet she continued to assist him in his search. She helped him only because she didn't believe he would ever find what he was looking for. Helping him seemed harmless, she was merely humoring him. That was all. Nothing more than humoring him. His quest was hopeless. He would never find Ellen's kids, even if they did exist.

  Conrad looked away from her, turned his gaze on the raven.

  The bird fixed him with one of its oily black eyes, and as their gazes locked, the raven froze.

  Outside, on the midway, there was calliope music. The hundred thousand sounds of the closing-night crowd blended into a rhythmic susurration like the breathing of an enormous beast.

  In the distance the giant, mechanical funhouse clown laughed and laughed.

  3

  WHEN AMY stepped into the house at a quarter till twelve, she heard muffled voices in the kitchen. She thought her father was still awake, though he usually went to bed early Saturday night in order to get up in time for the first Mass on Sunday, thus freeing the rest of the day for his hobby—building miniature sets for model train layouts. When Amy got to the kitchen, she found only her mother. The voices were on the radio, it was tuned to a telephone talk show on a Chicago station, and the volume was turned low.

  The room smelled vaguely of garlic, onions, and tomato paste.

  There wasn't much light. A bulb burned above the sink, and the hood light was on over the stove. The radio dial cast a soft green glow.

  Ellen Harper was sitting at the kitchen table. Actually, she was slumped over it, arms folded on the tabletop, head resting on her arms, her face turned away from the doorway where Amy stopped. A tall glass, half-full of yellow liquid, was within Ellen's reach. Amy didn't have to sample the drink to know what it was, her mother always drank the same thing—vodka and orange juice-and too much of it.

  She's asleep, Amy thought, relieved.

  She turned away from her mother, intending to sneak out of the room and upstairs to bed, but Ellen said, “You.”

  Amy sighed and looked back at her.

  Ellen's eyes were blurry, bloodshot, the lids drooped. She blinked in surprise. “What're you doing home?” she a
sked groggily. “You're more than an hour early.”

  “Jerry got sick,” Amy lied. “He had to go home.”

  “But you're more than an hour early,” her mother said again, looking up at her in puzzlement, still blinking stupidly, struggling to penetrate the alcohol haze that softened the outlines of her thoughts.

  “Jerry got sick, Mama. Something he ate at the prom.”

  “It was a dance, wasn't it?”

  “Sure. But they had food. Hors d'oeuvres, cookies, cakes, punch, all kinds of stuff. Something he ate didn't agree with him.”

  “Who?”

  “Jerry,” Amy said patiently.

  Her mother frowned. “You're sure that's all that happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Seems . . . funny to me,” Ellen said thickly, reaching for her unfinished drink. “Suspicious.”

  “What could possibly be suspicious about Jerry getting sick?” Amy asked.

  Ellen sipped the vodka and orange juice. She studied Amy over the rim of the glass, and her stare was sharper than it had been a minute ago.

  Exasperated, Amy spoke before her mother had a chance to make any accusations. “Mama, I didn't come home late. I came home early. I don't think I deserve to be subjected to the usual third degree.”

  “Don't you get smart with me,” her mother said.

  Amy looked down at the floor, shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

  “Don't you remember what Our Lord said?” Ellen asked. a Honor thy father and thy mother.” That's what He said. After all these years of church services and Bible readings, hasn't anything sunk into your head?”

  Amy didn't respond. From experience she knew that respectful silence was the best way to deal with her mother at times like this.

  Ellen finished her drink and got up. Her chair barked against the tile floor as she scooted it backwards. She came around the table, weaving slightly, and stopped in front of Amy. Her breath was sour. “I've tried hard, so very hard, to make a good girl out of you. I've made you go to church. I've forced you to read the Bible and pray every day. I've preached at you until I'm blue in the face. I've taught you all the right ways. I've done my best to keep you from going wrong. I've always been aware that you could go either way. Either way. Good or bad.” She swayed, put a hand on Amy's shoulder to steady herself. “I've seen the potential in you, girl. I've seen that you have the potential for evil. I pray my heart out to Our Lady every day to look over you and guard you. There's a darkness deep inside you, and it must never be allowed to come to the surface.”

  Ellen leaned very close, put a hand under Amy's chin, lifted the girl's head, and met her eyes.

  Amy felt as if ice-cold snakes were uncoiling inside her.

  Ellen stared at her with a peculiar, drunken intensity, with the burning gaze of a fever victim. She seemed to be looking into her daughter's soul, and there was a mixture of fear and anger and hard-edged determination in her expression.

  “Yes,” Ellen said, whispering now. “There's a darkness in you. You could slip so easily. It's in you. The weakness. The difference. Something bad is in you, and you have to fight it every minute. You have to be careful, always careful.”

  “Please, Mama. . .

  “Did you let that boy touch you tonight?”

  “No, Mama.”

  “Unless you're married, it's a dirty, filthy thing. If you slip, the Devil will have you. The thing inside you will come to the surface for everyone to see. And no one must ever see it. No one must know what you've got inside you. You've got to wrestle with that evil, keep it caged.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Letting the boy touch you—that's an awful sin.”

  Getting drunk out of your mind every night is a sin, too, Mama. Using booze to escape from your worries is sinful. You use booze and the church the same way, Mama. You use them to forget your troubles, to hide from something. What are you hiding from, Mama? What are you so afraid of?

  Amy wished she could say all of that. She didn’t dare.

  “Did he touch you?” her mother asked.

  “I told you – no.”

  “He touched you.”

  “No.”

  “Don't lie to me.”

  “We went to the prom,” Amy said shakily, “and he got sick, and he brought me home. That's all, Mama.”

  “Did he touch your breasts?”

  “No,” Amy said, unsettled, embarrassed.

  “Did you let him put his hands on your legs?”

  Amy shook her head.

  Ellen's hand tightened on the girl's shoulder, the talonlike fingers digging painfully deep. “You touched him.” she said, her words slurring just a bit.

  “No,” Amy said. “I didn’t.”

  “You touched him between the legs.”

  “Mama, I came home early!”

  Ellen stared at here for several seconds, searching for the truth, but at last the fire went out of her dark eyes; the debilitating effect of the booze became evident again, and her eyelids drooped, and the flesh of her face sagged on her bones. When she was sober she was a pretty woman, but when she was drunk she looked haggard, much older than she looked otherwise. She let go of Amy, turned away, tottered back to the table. She picked up her empty glass, carried it to the refrigerator, dropped a couple of ice cubes into it. She added a little orange juice and a lot of vodka.

  “Mama, can I go to bed now?”

  “Don't forget to say your prayers.”

  “I won't forget.”

  “Say the rosary, too. It wouldn't hurt you.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Her long dress rustling noisily, Amy hurried upstairs. In her bedroom she switched on a lamp and stood by the bed, shuddering.

  If she failed to raise the abortion money, if she had to tell her mother, she couldn't expect her father to intercede. Not this time. He would be angry and would agree to any punishment her mother proposed.

  Paul Harper was a moderately successful attorney, a man who was in control in the legal arena, but at home he relinquished nearly all authority to his wife. Ellen made the domestic decisions, large and small, and for the most part, Paul was happy to be relieved of the responsibility. If Ellen insisted Amy carry the baby to term, Paul Harper would support that decision.

  And Mama will insist on it, Amy thought miserably.

  She looked at the Catholic icons her mother had placed around the room. A crucifix hung at the head of the bed, and a smaller one hung above the door. A statuette of the Virgin Mary was on the nightstand. Two more painted religious statuettes stood on the dresser. There was also a painting of Jesus, He was pointing to his Sacred Heart, which was exposed and bleeding.

  In her mind Amy heard her mother's voice: Don't forget to say your prayers.

  “Fuck it,” Amy said aloud, defiantly.

  What could she ask God to do for her? Give her money for an abortion? There wasn't much chance of that prayer being answered.

  She stripped off her clothes. For a couple of minutes she stood in front of a full-length mirror, studying her nude body. She couldn't see any sure signs of pregnancy. Her belly was flat.

  Gradually the medical nature of her self-inspection changed to a more intimate, stimulating appraisal. She drew her hands slowly up her body, cupped her full breasts, teased her nipples.

  She glanced at the religious statuettes on the dresser.

  Her nipples were erect.

  She slid her hands down her sides, reached behind, squeezed her firm buttocks.

  She looked at the painting of Jesus.

  Somehow, by flaunting her body at the image of Christ, she felt she was hurting her mother, deeply wounding her. Amy didn't understand why she felt that way. It didn't make sense. The painting was only a painting, Jesus wasn't really here, in the room, watching her. Yet she continued to pose lasciviously in front of the mirror, caressing herself, touching herself obscenely.

  After a minute or two she caught sight of her own eyes in the mir
ror, and that brief glimpse into her own soul startled and disconcerted her. She quickly put on her flannel nightgown.

  What's wrong with me? she wondered. Am I really bad inside, like Mama says? Am I evil?

  Confused, she finally knelt at the side of her bed and said her prayers after all.

  A quarter of an hour later, when she pulled back the covers, there was a tarantula on her pillow. She gasped, jumped—and then realized that the hideous thing was only a painted-rubber novelty item. She sighed wearily, put the phony spider in the drawer of her nightstand, and got into bed.

  Her ten-year-old brother, Joey, never missed a chance to play a practical joke on her. Ordinarily, when she encountered one of his tricks, she went looking for him, pretending to be furious, threatening him with grave bodily harm. Of course she wasn't capable of hurting the boy. She loved him very much. But her mock anger was the part of the game that Joey enjoyed most. Usually, in retaliation for his pranks, Amy did nothing more than hold him down and tickle him until he promised to be good.

  Right now he was in bed, probably awake in spite of the late hour, waiting for her to storm into his room. But tonight she would have to disappoint him. She wasn't in the mood for their usual routine, and she didn't have the energy for it, either.

  She got into bed and switched off the light.

  She couldn't sleep.

  She thought about Jerry Galloway. She had told him the truth when she had ridiculed his skills as a lover. She had seldom had an orgasm. He was a clumsy, ignorant, thoughtless bedmate. Yet she had let him touch her night after night. She got little or no pleasure out of the affair, but she allowed him to use her as he wished. Why? Why?