Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala Read online

  The trailer parked farthest back, closest to the river, had a huge sign spanning from one end to the other. On it was painted a sensuous-looking dark-skinned woman, obviously naked except for the huge snake that wrapped around her, strategically covering her breasts and crotch.

  LaBELLE—THE VOODOO QUEEN, the sign read.

  As Dennis focused on this particular trailer, its windows curiously darkened and devoid of any activity inside, his mind began to race through several fantasies he would indulge in if only the woman inside that trailer was half as beautiful as the one pictured on the sign.

  After watching for a while longer, as the roustabouts quickly and skillfully began setting up the carnival tents and booths, Dennis—whose gaze was continually drawn back to the darkened windows of LaBelle the Voodoo Queen's trailer—shivered and pushed himself away from the tree. He threw his empty can into the river and then urinated against a tree before starting back home to his pregnant wife and two-year-old son.

  Tomorrow, he promised himself, if only for a little while, he would forget all about being out of a job, and go to the carnival with or, preferably, without Sally and Dennis Jr.

  "Oh, God! This is horrible!" Sally said, wrinkling her nose and pulling Dennis Jr.'s Red Sox hat down so it shielded his eyes.

  She was pushing the umbrella stroller and walking alongside Dennis as they moved slowly past the lineup inside the FREAK SHOW tent. Each ... well, "specimen" was the only word she could think of to describe them; "human being" certainly didn't fit—was increasingly disgusting. From TABOO—THE TATTOOED MAN and VINNY—THE PIG BOY they worked their way past TOM, DICK, AND HARRY—THE THREE-HEADED MAN and MATILDA—THE FAT LADY to LUCAN— THE WOLF BOY and TONY—THE SPIDER MAN, a pathetic individual with sin—"COUNT 'EM, BOYS 'N GIRLS—SIX"—vestigial arms dangling uselessly from his sides.

  "I think I'm gonna puke if I don't get out of here," Sally said. Her voice had that high-pitched, nasal whine she used whenever she wanted to get her way. She was vigorously rubbing the bulge of her stomach as though fearful that exposure to such horrors could somehow mark her unborn child.

  "Aww, com'on," Dennis said, frowning with disgust. "We paid our friggin' money, so we might's well see the rest of what they got."

  "But this is ... This is sick! These things should be ... be put out of their misery, not paraded around in public like this." Sally covered her mouth with her hand, muffling her voice. "We certainly don't have to stand here and gawk at them!"

  "What the hell did you expect? It's called a freak show for a reason," Dennis said, his voice edged with frustration. "You had your chance to say no outside." He was trying to keep his voice low as he eyed the people around them to make sure no one could overhear their argument.

  "I … I didn't know they were going to be real people," Sally said, whining. "I thought it'd be like—you know, two-headed cows and albino frogs and stuff in bottles of formaldehyde or something. And I don't think Denny Junior should have to see these things, either. God, it'll give him nightmares. It's gonna give me nightmares!"

  Dennis waved his hand at her in casual dismissal. "Look, babe—you don't like it? Then drag your sorry ass out of here. There's no reason you should ruin the fun for me."

  "Fun? You call this fun?"

  Dennis stared coldly at his wife; then, unable to stop the words, he poked at her belly and added, "Maybe you saw a little too much of yourself in Matilda the Fat Woman. Is that it?"

  Sally's eyes were brimming with tears.

  "That's not fair," she said, sputtering. Then, sniffing loudly, she spun the baby stroller around, not even bothering to apologize to the people she bumped into as she made her way back out the front door.

  "Good riddance," Dennis muttered.

  Before moving on to the next exhibit, though, he quickly checked his watch. It was a quarter to one—fifteen minutes to go until they started selling tickets for the first show of LaBELLE—THE VOODOO QUEEN. He hurried through the rest of the FREAK SHOW, barely noticing the rest of the wonders as his mind filled with anticipation for La-Belle's the Voodoo Queen’s dance.

  In the darkened tent, the music started out low with a slow, sensuous beat. The air was close, heavy with the smell of sweating men, sour beer, damp canvas, and moldy sawdust chips. Fifteen rows of low, wooden benches were crammed full of men, most of them wearing faded jeans and sweat-stained flannel work shirts. Only at the back of the tent did Dennis spot three or four women—probably college girls from Farmington, there to watch the show on a dare from their boyfriends, no doubt. The rest of the audience, many of whom Dennis worked with at the mill—had worked with, that is—were watching the small stage as the tinny, pseudo-Egyptian music grew steadily louder. A man wearing a frayed tuxedo and battered top hat, and spinning a white-tipped cane in his right hand, strolled out onto center stage.

  "And now, gentlemen ... di-rect from the burning sands of Egypt, to entertain you here today, I present to you— the bea-ut-iful... the ex-o-tic .. . the e-rot-ic ... LaBelle, the Voodoo Queen!"

  The audience exploded with wild applause, catcalls, and wolf whistles. No one, apparently, was bothered by the tenuous connection between "Voodoo" and "Egypt" when they saw a long, slender black arm reach out from behind the side curtain and begin to weave up and down in time with the music, like an entranced cobra. The music rose louder as a shoulder and then a sleek, well-muscled back slithered into view.

  Sitting dead center in the front row, Dennis sat gape-mouthed and staring as LaBelle slinked onto the stage. He had mentally prepared himself for disappointment, but for once, the carnival sign hadn't lied. If anything, it had underplayed the beauty and heated eroticism of this woman, LaBelle. Dennis shifted uneasily in his seat as he felt himself stiffen.

  When she first came out, LaBelle danced with her back to the audience. The smooth muscles of her arms, legs, and back glided in sinuous curves beneath her oiled, ebony skin. Her ample hips shifted and pumped suggestively to the strains of the music. Over a thin bikini top and bottom made of shimmering purple silk, she wore a flimsy white veil that drifted like smoky mist in time with her swaying body. She moved like a river at night—lazy, curling ripples that flowed and eddied. The whole effect pulled Dennis into a silent, mind-numbed daze.

  The audience, meanwhile, was going wild, filling the tent with shrill whistles and hoots. Overweight, unshaven men, who probably had been drinking since early morning, whooped and hollered and whistled.

  "Come on! Turn around!"

  "Take it off, baby! Take it all off!"

  "Com'on! Let’s see some titties!"

  Their shouts all but drowned out the music, no matter how loud it was turned up to compensate for the noise.

  Ignoring their requests, LaBelle continued her slow dance with her back to the audience, her hips thrusting and gyrating in seductive, sensuous circles as her arms coiled and twined like writhing snakes.

  As he watched, his hard-on almost painful now, Dennis found himself wondering what it would be like to feel those arms wrapped around him, to ride those wide hips, and to feel that body twisting and turning beneath his own thrusting pelvis. His mouth went desert dry when LaBelle reached up behind her back and teasingly pulled off the veil, letting it drift in shimmering slow-motion to the floor.

  The audience shouted all the louder, yelling and whistling with delight, but Dennis sat there, silent … transfixed. He felt a stirring of disappointment when he began to wonder if this was how it would be for the entire show. LaBelle would maintain her air of sexual mystery by doing her entire dance without ever once turning to face her audience. He could see the heavy swell of her breasts swaying from side to side as she moved in time with the music, seemingly creating the music with every twist and grind of her body.

  And then, as the music rose to a crescendo that rattled the cheap speakers, it happened.

  With a swirling flourish, LaBelle spun around on one foot.

  Dennis came close to passing out the instant he saw her face.

&
nbsp; Framed in a cascade of frizzy black hair was—not the face of a woman—no, it was the face of a cat. .. or a snake. Her sleek forehead, her high, glossy cheekbones, her delicately pointed chin, and her thin, flaring nose and wide lips were nothing but a frame for her eyes.

  Her eyes!

  In the glare of the single spotlight, against the orange backdrop of sunlit canvas, her slitted eyes gleamed with a golden fire as she looked coldly out at her audience.

  Dennis couldn't move. He was afraid even the slight friction of his pants, shifting, would bring him to orgasm. He had forgotten how to blink his eyes or take a breath as he gaped in awe at the woman. The noisy audience and the blaring music all vanished in an instant, and LaBelle was staring at him—him alone … dancing … moving for him. She coiled and uncoiled her arms, her long, delicate fingers waving like slim branches in the wind, reaching . . . beckoning—

  To him!

  She's looking right at me! Dennis's mind screamed. She wants me!

  He was all but lifted out of his seat as he was drawn deeper into the twin golden pools of her eyes. He barely noticed when LaBelle reached behind her back, unsnapped her costume top, and shrugged it off her shoulders. After swinging it around a few times in the air, she tossed it backstage. Now freed from confinement, her heavy breasts bounced and swayed to the rhythm of the music. When Dennis shifted his gaze downward from her eyes, all he could imagine was his own, trembling hands gently caressing and squeezing and massaging those magnificent globes.

  As LaBelle continued to twirl and spin on the narrow stage, Dennis was swept away by her motion. Slowly, she peeled away the rest of her costume, sloughing it off like snake skin, but he barely noticed, so lost was he in the whirlpool of her dance and her flashing, golden eyes.

  When—at last—she slinked offstage, stark naked, the crowd exploded with cheers and whistles. Dennis felt himself only partially pulled out of the spinning daze he had fallen into. Another dancer followed, but Dennis, his groin aching as if he hadn't found release in years, got up and stumbled out of the nearest exit.

  The sudden burst of sunlight and the blaring sounds from other carnival booths and tents was like a cold, hard punch to the gut. Dennis walked on legs as stiff as broomsticks as he made his way over to the kiddie rides, where he had left Sally and Dennis Jr. When he saw his bloated, pimple-faced wife, the last vestiges of the illusion LaBelle had cast disappeared like smoke. It wasn't until later that afternoon, after he and Sally and Dennis Jr. had left the carnival, that Dennis got an idea of what he could do about it all.

  Sunday morning dawned bright and cold as Dennis tiptoed to the back door, clutching a battered suitcase in one hand. Every floorboard creaked as loud as a gunshot with each step he took, but he slowly made his way through the kitchen and out the back door without waking either Sally or Dennis Jr. Closing the door quietly yet firmly behind him, he started down the road without a single backward glance.

  What the fuck difference does it make? he asked himself.

  He had a wife he didn't love—maybe had never really loved. He had married Sally right out of high school only because he had gotten her knocked up. He had a two-year-old brat who was driving him crazy as it was, and now another one was on the way because Sally said she "forgot" to take her birth control pills. And now, on top of everything else, he didn't even have his lousy job at the mill.

  So there was nothing to keep him here in Hilton.

  But none of that mattered. If there was even the slimmest chance that he could—somehow—get to spend a night—just one night—with LaBelle, it would all be worth leaving this behind.

  The night before, after Dennis Jr. had been tucked into bed and Sally was dozing in front of some lame-brained TV reality show, Dennis had gone down to the river again and watched as the roustabouts dismantled the carnival, packing it up for the trip to the next town. Before Sally had gone upstairs to bed, he had quietly packed a few changes of clothes into his old suitcase and hidden it in the downstairs closet.

  The morning air was crisp, with just a hint of actual springtime warmth. The woods were damp with dew and filled with bird song as Dennis made his way quickly down Marsh Street to the bridge that would bring him by the most direct route to Moulton's Field. As beautiful as the morning was, though, it all paled beside the burning memory Dennis had of seeing LaBelle, the Voodoo Queen, dance ... dance naked just for him!

  He hoped, he prayed that no one from town would see him. It wouldn't take a powder-keg mind to figure out what he was doing, walking down the road with a suitcase in hand. In some ways, he felt the same stirrings of freedom and joy he had felt when, as a boy, he had run away from home because of the whopping his father had given him for some long-forgotten offense. But the image that drew him onward now—the sensuous beauty of LaBelle the Voodoo Queen—was something no ten-year-old could ever have imagined. He no longer wanted just to watch. No, he wanted to touch … He had to feel LaBelle do her dance all around him!

  He made it to Moulton's Field, and it didn't take him long to find the trailer belonging to the carnival boss—a man named Josh Hannigan. After telling Hannigan how he had lost his job at the mill—and conveniently forgetting to mention the fact that he was leaving a family behind—he had himself a job as a roustabout. The pay was minimum wage, as he had expected, but he would share a trailer with several other men and be provided with a bed and three squares a day. All in all, Dennis thought his prospects were looking damned good. He’d be able to keep body and soul together ... hopefully at least until he could see LaBelle again and maybe meet her. After that, he might think about going back home to Sally and his snot-nosed little brat.

  Maybe ...

  By nightfall, the carnival crossed the state line into New Hampshire. Dennis spent most of the night with his new workmates, setting up the carnival in an open field just outside of Franconia. The work was much harder than anything he'd ever done at the paper mill. Even though the regulars treated him a bit standoffishly, he began to sense a spirit of camaraderie among them, like a secret brotherhood, and he felt that—given time—he’d be able to share it.

  But none of that mattered because what he had come for, what filled his mind all night as he worked, was a vision of LaBelle with her long, sleek, black arms wrapped around him, pulling him close . . . her legs locked around his back, squeezing in a wild tempo as he drove deeper and deeper into her.

  The only disappointment Dennis experienced that first night on the job was that he never caught a glimpse of LaBelle. Apparently she kept to her trailer when she wasn't performing, and she never came out, even during setup or for the late evening meal. Whenever Dennis got close to her trailer, a queasy discomfort would fill his gut as he stared at her closed door, fully expecting to see some man—maybe Josh Hannigan—step out of her trailer with a satisfied grin on his face. What were the chances that a woman like her didn't already have a man—or dozens of men—in her life?

  The few times Dennis even mentioned LaBelle to his co-workers, everyone either looked away as if they hadn't heard him or else cast their eyes to the ground and shook their heads, muttering something under their breaths that Dennis never quite caught.

  It was well past midnight when the carnival was finally set up and ready for the crowds the next day. Bone-tired, Dennis was making his way back to his trailer for some much needed rest. Out of a habit he knew he would follow until he at least caught another glimpse of LaBelle, he wandered past her trailer first.

  As he looked up at the full-length sign depicting her dance, his head felt bubbly and light, but the darkened windows stared back at him like cold, uncaring eyes. He knew he would have to seek out his cot before he collapsed right there on the ground, but he lingered, staring at the closed trailer door and letting his fantasies run amok. He was turning to leave when a faint click sounded in the night … then the high-pitched squeak of a door hinge, opening.

  His heart was throbbing heavily in his chest as he looked up at LaBelle's trailer. He almost conv
inced himself he was hallucinating when the door slowly swung outward and then stopped, less than halfway open. From the darkness within, Dennis saw a soft flutter of motion, black shifting against the darker black of the doorway.

  "It's very late," a woman's voice said.

  The voice came to him, sultry and soft, from out of the darkness. Like the sound of the opening door, this voice seemed more imagined than real. It floated on the gentle night breeze like a moth, fluttering close to his ear—a light, powdery sound.

  "I—umm, yeah ... yeah, it’s late," Dennis stammered.

  He felt a momentary rush of fear that someone would pass by and see him standing here, talking to an empty trailer doorway.

  "You must be very tired," the voice said.

  Dennis took two or three halting steps forward, his hands flopping uselessly at his sides.

  "Yeah, I am." He paused, his breath feeling like fire in his lungs. "My—umm, my name's Den—"

  "I know who you are, Dennis," the voice said, light and lilting … and teasing, now.

  But there was no mistake. The trailer door swung open a bit more, and Dennis could see a long, sinuous arm reaching out into the night. The arm was dark—darker than the night as the forefinger curled up in a subtle “come-hither” gesture.

  "Uhh—Miss LaBelle—my name's Dennis Levesque. I'm a—"

  "And I know what you are, Dennis."

  "Well—uhh ... I was ... umm." Dennis shifted nervously from one foot to the other and then took a single, halting step closer to the trailer. "I mean—well, you see … I don't want to intrude or anything, but I was—"

  "Why don't you come inside my trailer and rest?" the voice whispered softly. “Would you like that?”