Tucker’s Grove (23 page)

The ushers stopped their offertory and uncertainly marched toward the back, glancing at each other as if they had never dreamed they might have to act as bouncers. Soon most of
the congregation was shouting.

The pastor banged his hands on the lectern for quiet and turned his attention to the freaks. “
I think it would be best for you two to leave now.”
His voice was low and menacing. “
You
’
ve caused enough trouble in my church.”

A
s Scarecrow gripped the slick tine with his overlong fingers, he heard an echo in his head, shadows of words, as if he could see into what the self-controlled pastor was actually thinking, the phrases the man really wanted to shout.

We hate you! You
’
re too
ugly, too strange! You are not wanted here. Go back
where you belong, despicable freaks! You
’
re loat
h
some. You
’
re not NORMAL
like we are.

Scarecrow stood, slowly unfolding himself from the hard pew. His long legs made him appear to be rising, rising, like
a cobra from a snake charmer
’
s basket. The Raven hopped onto the pew seat, glaring at the congregation with his vulture-like face. Saying nothing to the pastor or the people, Scarecrow nodded to his companion, unable to express his disappointment. “
Come
o
n,”
he said, “
let
’
s go.”

The Raven gave an excited caw and leaped over the back of the pew to the rear aisle. As they walked toward the church door, adjusting to each other
’
s gait again, Scarecrow expected the pe
o
ple in the sanctuary to cheer their departu
re. The large ushers followed them to the door, like Mafia enforcers.

All welcome!
If any sideshow in Collier & Black
’
s tried such false advertising, Scarecrow thought, the owner would be locked up for fraud.

The morning was fresh and full of sunshine as h
e and the R
a
ven stepped outside. Behind them, the church door closed, and Scarecrow heard the click of the lock. Muffled through the walls, the organist threw herself into playing a hymn so that the whole congregation could heave a joyous sigh of relief.

W
ith the church barred behind them, Scarecrow and the R
a
ven stared out at the masked town of Tucker
’
s Grove. Few other man-made sounds came to them: an occasional car driving by, some people working outside, three children playing. Several blocks away, the
Presbyterian and the Lutheran church would be having their services; Catholics would be at Mass. He and the Raven would receive a similar reception no matter where they went.
All
normal people
welcome.

Scarecrow pulled the metal tine
out of his pocket, feeling it cling to his fingers as if it had been coated with drying slime. The curved shape gleamed like a claw in the humid air. The idea came into his mind, but he couldn
’
t tell if it came from himself or…
something else.

The Raven hop
ped a step back. “
Whatcha gonna do? Whaaaat?”

“
I
’
m giving them a gift. A show like they
’
ve never seen b
e
fore.”

Scarecrow bent at the knees, extended his long body forward, and stretched his arm down to the ground.

He hesitated as other, innocent images c
ame to him: church socials with kids and their parents, old people, teenagers laug
h
ing and working together, children squealing as they jumped into piles of leaves, bankers and dentists pulling up weeds in their yards, housewives serving up orange drink an
d almond windmill cookies to everyone. He thought of the congregation praying for one another when they grew sick, helping out when times were hard, laughing together at church craft fairs or bake sales or ice-cream socials.

Then he thrust the tine
’
s sharp
metal end into the manicured lawn with a sound like an icepick going into meat, then he stepped backward and pulled the curved piece along. The lawn and the dirt parted like flesh in a rotten fruit, opening a bloody furrow in the earth and leaving a puls
i
ng red-purple wound that glittered with shadows. Heat and lava-light rose from the gash, exuding an odor like the breath from a furnace cooking spoiled meat.

“
Follow me,”
Scarecrow said to his companion, listening to his instincts, to what the unearthly ar
tifact
wanted
him to do. He recalled the ruined old farmstead and wondered what sort of poisoned life the farmer had led.

With the Raven keeping his distance, Scarecrow worked his way across the lawn, ripping the gash open wider. He passed u
n
der the staine
d-glass windows, pulling the furrow along with him. Inside, he heard the pastor reading a passage from the New Testament.

One step at a time, Scarecrow scribed a bloody ring around the church, where all were
not
welcome. When he had dragged the scarlet tip
across the clean cement of the sidewalk to meet the beginning of his circle, he thrust the tine into the dirt like a nail to hold the ring together. There, that would be his offering to this congregation.

When he let go of the tine and stood all the way u
p to survey the raw furrow he had made, he saw nothing other than a scratched line in the dirt. His sharpened/distorted vision had r
e
turned to normal.

Inside, the pastor raised his voice in benediction, and the o
r
ganist played the postlude as the churchgoe
rs buzzed with co
n
versation, no doubt tittering about their freakish visitors.

Scarecrow and the Raven stood under a tall oak tree near the street. “
Watch,”
Scarecrow said.

The doors flew open, and four rowdy
—
but well-dressed
—
children burst out, crossing t
he invisible bound
a
ry, and brought themselves to a standstill. Other congregation members strolled out looking smug and self-important as they chatted about their business, the crops, the weather.

A broad-shouldered and jowly man caught sight of the two fr
eaks on the sidewalk in front of the church. He pointed at them while grumbling to another deacon beside him.

“
Uh, we should go!”
the Raven said, flapping his arms in alarm. “
Go!”

But Scarecrow remained where he was, rigid and watching. His vision sharpen
ed, darkened
—
and as the people crossed the line he had drawn in the soil, he watched their masks peel away. He snapped up his awkward head and stared at details he had not seen before.

—
The little bald pharmacist, with the twinkle in his eye and sugar-free
candy for little kids, who added a little “
extra”
to some of his prescriptions for people he didn
’
t like, giving them an a
t
tack of diarrhea.

—
The tallest boy in the choir, desperately clean-cut, out in the darkness of the milking barn with three of his fr
iends, whispering “
Hold her steady! Hold her steady!”
as he thrust his erection i
n
side the confused cow. The others would each have their turn, after the first had “
loosened her up.”
They made a pact among themselves never to tell anybody….

—
The old woman
who fed stray dogs hamburger laced with ground glass to “
teach them a lesson for pooping on her yard.”

The crowd stopped in their tracks, milling about. Some people screamed at what they saw in the faces of those they had known all their lives. Some were a
ppalled by their neighbors, while ot
h
ers were repulsed by
them
in turn. It was a regular freak show.

—
The Sunday School teacher who had been planning how to invite several of the young boys over to his house, where he could have some “
fun,”
the details of
which he himself had not yet decided.

—
The unmarried bank teller who took a vacation each year to visit mythical relatives in Milwaukee, though her primary obje
c
tive was to hang out in pool halls and have sex with as many city men as possible, preferably t
wo or three a day. Last time, she had come back home to Tucker
’
s Grove with syphilis….

As Scarecrow watched, he felt more than vindictiveness or revulsion; he sensed an eerie fascination to witness these shames of others. He realized with a start that this
must be what the spectators experienced when they pointed and tittered at the freaks in the circus. He pitied them
—
voyeurs who felt superior only when they saw other people
’
s flaws.

Hearing the frightened commotion, the pastor himself strode out of his ch
urch. When he saw the freaks on the sidewalk, he marched forward, intending to throw them off the church pro
p
erty. And then he crossed the line.

—
The pastor had false backs to the drawers in his dresser, where he kept bras and panty hose, negligees, and ot
her items of women
’
s clothing that he liked to try on and model for himself in front of a tall bordello-style mirror. Even this morning, as the pastor gripped the lectern, flecks of bright whore-red nail polish still clung to his cuticles.

The congregation
members turned on him like a wolf pack, howling at yet another exposed small-town secret.

“
It
’
s only right for them to know just how normal they really are,”
Scarecrow said.

As he turned to leave the screams behind them, he could still see the shadows of
the real people here, the fat women and the ugly men, the pimple-faced teenagers, scarred and morally r
e
tarded people who had no other place in the world. They had turned their scorn upon Scarecrow and the Raven
—
even more obvious misfits upon whom they cou
ld dump their shame and revulsion.

He also realized that the previous night
’
s rose-tinted dream
—
him steadfast and hardworking, the Raven good-natured though eccentric
—
was not how things
might
have been without their freakish exteriors. Rather, it was how t
he two truly appeared in their hearts.

As they walked away, Scarecrow hesitated once, looking back toward the church. He had left the wondrous artifact behind, thrust into the dirt. The mysterious object pierced the masks that all people wore, and h
e could imagine its incredible power. If he took it with him back to the circus, he would be able to see Co
l
lier and Black for who they really were
—
harried businessmen full of bluster but caring deeply for their show
—
or the big-hearted fat lady, or the gam
e hucksters who sometimes gave the most wonder-filled kids an extra chance at the games, or the cook who always did his best to help them get by….

No, Scarecrow didn
’
t need the tine after all. He might not be a perfect judge of character, but he knew his f
riends well enough. He felt the empty pocket of his shirt. The skin on his chest ti
n
gled where it had touched the tainted metal.

Scarecrow and the Raven walked without shame down the main street of Tucker
’
s Grove as the day grew brighter and warmer. “
If we
hurry, maybe we can catch the show before they pack up and leave,”
Scarecrow said. “
I don
’
t think there
’
s any need for us to part company with them.”

“
Nope,”
said the Raven, who hopped ahead, excited. “
Ne
v
ermore!”

He awoke after seven c
enturies of God
’
s Slumber, with the v
i
sion of the Crusades still burning inside him. He remembered leading his army across Europe and down into the Holy Land, fighting against the Infidels and sending great sacrifices of blood to the Divine Creator. He rem
embered trying to cross the swollen and churning Calycadnus River…
and he remembered drowning. It had been cold and mysterious.