Desdemona, Tag Cavello [classic literature list TXT] 📗

slowly. Her hair was frozen fire. Her face glowed pale, the face of a girl long dead, painted on a locket with loving hand, forgotten, discovered, forgotten again. A girl in the attic, defying time.

“Gorilla, gorilla, gorilla,” Brenton said.

And then it began to happen. Sunny’s breath caught. Several members of the audience gasped with her as, from what Dante could tell, patches of black hair grew on her neck, her hands. Squinting, he once more cast his doubt forth in attempt to penetrate the ruse, to see beneath its mask. Once more it resisted. Its game was elaborate. Hair now sprouted over Sunny’s arms and face. Dante watched, horrified, as her lips oozed forward, became large, misshapen. Primal.

“Good girl,” Brenton told the now half-beast. “Keep your mind on the gorilla. Nothing else matters. There is only gorilla.”

Sounds of ripping fabric came from the cage. Sunny’s dress was tearing. The body within had grown far too large for its seams.

“Gorilla!”

More black hair, bursting from skin turned dry as barren rock left to the flames of Betelgeuse for many millions of years.

“Gorilla!”

Sunny grunted. Growled. Her eyes, feverish yellow, regarded the audience with hungry contempt. She was six feet tall. Maybe more.

“Gorilla.”

Dante could even smell her. It was the smell of animals in cages, to which she had exactly become. Sneering at the audience, she stepped forward. Loped forward. Primeval. A creature from another time. Rudimentary. Crude.

“Sunny?” Brenton called. “Sunny, are you in there?”

Her bulging, neanderthalic head turned, looked at him. Dante could hardly breathe. He felt all alone in the tent. The crowd had ceased to exist.

“It’s me. Your father.”

A slow growl rolled from the beast’s wiry neck. Its lips pulled back, revealing huge, blocky teeth.

“Do you recognize me?” Brenton went on. “Sunny?”

She didn’t. Or if she did, she was too agitated by her confinement to care. Snarling, she seized hold the bars of the cage.

“Sunny, no!”

People in the front row began to move back. Dante and Dawn followed. Worried voices rose toward the canvas roof, growing hotter, more intense, with every moment.

“Sunny!”

What’s going on what’s she doing?

I don’t know!

Move back! Move back!

Sunny’s huge arms shook the bars, which clanged and rattled but did not give. Some of the women started to scream, clawing their way toward the exit.

“Please!” Brenton told them. “It’s okay! She can’t get out!”

The beast’s arms bulged as it shook the bars harder. Harder. Harder. The entire cage began to slide sideways. Dante saw it threaten to tip, then he saw something else. A padlock in front of the cage had broken. It lay on the floor, murdered, its hasp a broken neck.

“Dante!” Dawn yelled. “I think we should leave!”

“Oh my word!” came Brenton’s voice, horrified. “The lock! It’s broken! Be quiet everybody! I need to change her back!”

His command produced the exact opposite effect. Rather than shut up, everyone shrieked and bolted. Bags of popcorn hit the grass. Lollipops. Ice cream cones. Dante turned to run and almost tripped over a little red-haired girl no more than five years old. Tears streamed down her bawling face. Her hands shook with terror.

“Daddddyyyyyy!”

“Whoa!” Dante said. He knelt and put his arms around her. “It’s okay, little girl, we’ll find your daddy.”

“I’m scared!”

“Nothing’s gonna hurt you, I promise.”

A tremendous crash exploded from the stage. Dante turned to see the gorilla had gotten free. It kicked the door of the cage, which flew and nearly struck Brenton a killing blow, missing his head by scant feet.

Dante scooped the girl up. His idea now was to run fast as he could to the exit. Most of the audience had already done that very thing. The way was clear, or relatively clear. He could see Dawn, calling for him to move, move! Behind her was a short, skinny man who had lost his hat. He bent, picked it up—

And then someone—something—picked Dante up.

He let go the girl an instant before he was spun around to face what it was. The gorilla had him! Bulbous yellow eyes, buried in a black mop of tangled hair, burned inches from his own. Hot breath puffed onto his face. Its mouth scowled, drew in air, and bellowed a furious roar load enough to shake the lights.

“Daddy!” the girl behind him continued to scream. “Dadddddyyyyy!”

“DADDY!” the monster barked at Dante, mocking her. “DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!” Then it dug its claws deeper into his arms. “I’M GONNA EAT YOU LITTLE BOY! EAT YOU, EAT YOU, EAT YOU!”

“Dadddyyyyy!”

Dante could do nothing but stare in horror at the beast’s terrible face. Its maw opened to reveal teeth strong enough to break bones. And so they would.

“TIME TO BITE OFF YOUR HEAD!”

“Dadddyyyy!”

Roaring again, the beast brought Dante’s face to its jaws.

“Daddy? Daddy. Helloooo, Daddy.”

“Hello, sweetheart,” Brenton said pleasantly from over the beast’s shoulder. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, sure,” the little girl behind Dante replied. “But I think the show’s over.”

The beast spoke next. “Yeah,” it agreed, putting its victim down. “We’re good.”

As soon as his feet touched the ground Dante whirled to find that the little red-haired girl had aged approximately seven years. Through some trickery he had yet to understand, or even question, Sunny Desdemona now occupied the place of the bawling child. Her glimmering face appeared quite calm. She smiled at Dante.

“How?” he plumed, for want of anything better. “I…I don’t get it.”

“You got it all right,” Sunny told him. “Got it good!”

People were now filing back into the tent. Some of them pointed. Others laughed. Dante turned around to see that the beast had removed its mask. Beneath shined the grinning face of the crier.

“My apologies,” he said.

Furious, Dante was about to tell him where he could stick his apology, when it suddenly became clear that the crier was asking forgiveness from somebody else. Namely, the man behind him. Brenton.

“We’re not lost yet,” Sunny’s father assured.

Still looking at Dante, the crier asked: “No?”

“Not at all. You can go get dressed. We’re through here.”

Without another word the costumed man turned and disappeared behind the stage, leaving Dante as he’d entered this place, with Brenton, Dawn, and Sunny.

“Why is he mad?” Dante wanted to know. “I’m the one who should be mad. I am mad.”

Brenton raised a brow. “Are you?”

In truth Dante wasn’t sure, which probably made the answer no. Flustered, yes. Confused, absolutely. “Just tell me why he apologized,” he demanded. “Did the act fail? It sure felt scary enough to me.”

“No,” Brenton replied, icy calm in the unvigorous light. “Not scary enough. You hesitated. Revealed empathy.”

“What’s wrong with doing that?”

“Ah.”

Sunny put her arm around his waist. “It’s okay, Dante,” her soft voice purred. “You’re coming along fine.”

But rather than provide comfort, the remark puzzled him even further. “Coming along to what, Sunny?”

A new voice broke in before she could answer. It belonged to Dawn. “Didn’t you know,” she asked, “that the little girl was actually our Sunny? Isn’t that why you stopped to save her?”

“I didn’t—“ Dante began.

He got no further. “Think before you answer!” the mother warned, her green eyes shimmering. Then she seemed to relax a little. Her shoulders dropped. A warm smile opened on her face. “Think. Carefully. You knew the girl was Sunny. Right?”

“Well,” he tried again, following the woman’s instructions whilst hardly knowing why. “Maybe. Maybe I did. She had red hair like Sunny’s.”

“Yeah!” Sunny said. “She did! And even if you thought she was somebody else, the hair made you think of me! So you became…” Her eyes leaped to Brenton. “What’s the word, Daddy?”

“Chivalrous is what I believe you’re searching for,” the man replied.

“That’s the one!”

Brenton nodded. “Of course it is. So perhaps tonight was not a total failure after all.” He smiled at Dante. “My wife and daughter often remind me that even in setback there are…possibilities to seize upon, and hold dear.”

“And one day,” Dawn said, “you will remember that without us.”

Sunny laughed. “No,” she insisted, “not Daddy. Never.”

Brenton could only shake his head. His hand reached out and came to rest on Dante’s shoulder. “Women. Delectable, aren’t they?”

Dante did his best to agree that they were. His mind spun in a whirlwind of questions quite likely too dangerous to ask, at least for the time being. Better to watch, and wait. Perhaps later he could persuade Sunny to share more information. Had the entire act been planned, orchestrated, as some sort of suitor’s test? If so, why? And what exactly had he done wrong by protecting the girl—the girl who had somehow transformed into Sunny Desdemona while a jester in a costume distracted him with grunts and growls?

“Good show,” an audience member told Brenton. “Worth every penny.”

“Thank you,” the other said.

More people soon appeared to compliment the family performance, so it took nearly ten minutes to reach the midway, which was still busy with customers and criers.

Half an hour later the Desdemonas, along with Dante, strolled through this section of the park again, this time on their way home. All of the freak tents were still going strong. All except the Girl To Gorilla tent, which had closed. The flap was sealed, the poster removed.

“One show only,” Dante muttered as they passed.

He hadn’t intended the remark to be heard, but Brenton caught it. “Oh no,” he said. “There’s more to come. Much more.”

“Wait and see,” Sunny told him, for the second time tonight near this very spot. And then a third: “Just you wait and see.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Dinner and a Phone Call

He did not see Donati the following day. Breakfast time words proved unmovable clay.

 

“I got an interesting phone call last night,” Dante’s father said over toast and coffee, “from Janet Jones. Seems she recently lost ten dollars from her purse.”

Dante swallowed a mouthful of Corn Flakes. Both parents were looking across the table. As always their appearances nearly matched, like mannequins in a window. But for a low simmer of accusation, man and woman were posed expressionless. Dark hair framed carved faces, one of glory on the battlefield, the other of freedom.

“Sorry,” he told them.

“Sorry for what, exactly?” asked his father.

“I’m sorry that…you know, she lost the money.”

He finished eating in silence, not looking up from his bowl. Minutes later he was heading out the door to visit Donati. His father stopped him.

“Dante! I need you to grab a rake and take care of the lawn.”

He froze, his hand on the latch. “Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

“But I’m on my way to Mr. Donati’s. He needs help with reading his newspaper.”

This was a lie—one of them anyway—he’d manufactured to help justify his visitations with the old man. Never once had his father questioned it. Until today.

“You raked his lawn last week? Or was it the week before?”

“Dad—“

“Now it’s time to rake yours. Get to it.”

After the lawn his mother asked him to wash the breakfast dishes, which she had inexplicably left to harden in the sink. After this, she sent him on an errand to buy postage stamps. Postage stamps on a Sunday.

“Who are you writing to?” Dante asked. To whom are you writing? Mr. Wolfe corrected in his mind.

“Nobody,” his mom shrugged.

“Then why—“

“Just go.”

Dante went. Once home, it was time to tidy the basement. He cleaned the card table, dusted the stereo. A small trash bucket in the corner needed changing. He did that, too. Then a creak on the steps announced the presence of his father. The older man looked at Dante stonily as he had at breakfast. A pipe simmered in his mouth.

“Why don’t you tell me,” he began, without coming to the bottom step, “where you put that ten dollars? Then this nonsense can come to an end.”

“I don’t have ten dollars,” replied Dante. This was the truth; thus, it came out as such.

His father didn’t care. “Young man,” he said, “I grow weary.”

“I don’t see why you think I would steal ten dollars. I have everything I need here.”

“Indeed,” the father puffed, now beginning to look a bit like Sherlock Holmes. “Right now only you know the answer to that question, Dante. I’ll strike you a bargain.”

“A bargain.”

“Yes. Call Janet. Apologize to