Infinity Wheel: Chapter 3

The mustache was limp. There was no helping it now. The wax was used up and Cosmo had resorted to styling it with lard. Sometimes the lard-coated hairs hung in a sad Fu Manchu over his mouth. Cosmo would endeavor to speak only to inhale them and cough them out. Although the texture was horrid, the taste was not all that bad. Still, it was infuriating. “Curse these bucolic tiny villages and their backwards cretins devoid of niceries!” he thought.

Cosmo lingered in front of his warped mirror fussing with his facial hair. He could only stand to look at himself in small patches. The ripple and shadow in the mirror hid all the parts he didn’t want to see. He could not look at himself all at once. It was too much to take in the sagging jowl, the vertical lines in his cheeks and neck, the hollows around his eyes. He did like his nose, high and narrow. He loved his mustache when it behaved. His mouth could be called beautiful, he thought, as he spun his fifty-cent words to impress.

And his eyes, deep and black, pupils distended to give the appearance of love were his best feature. They were also his mightiest tool. He never looked into his own eyes, never thought of them as windows to a soul. They were keen tools, masked with friendliness. They were adept seekers for hunting a mark, two twinkling liars to beguile the rubes, mesmerize the lost, and avoid those of no value.

“Done primping, Mister Cosmo?” Elgin Batterby peeked around the caravan door. “Sun’s down and crickets a-creepin.” Elgin was squat, beefy, and hairy. He wore a striped, green vest and white chinos. Cosmo always thought of him as monkey who lost his organ grinder.

“We can move ahead, dear Elgin. But look at this first.” Cosmo pointed to one of his many maps. The maps were filthy and old. They were creased and ragged with lines and marks, some towns rubbed out entirely as they had been tapped.

Elgin ventured closer. He feared Mister Cosmo in a way he couldn’t understand. The man was always friendly and charming. He treated Elgin well and asked repeatedly if he was happy. Elgin was happy, but never got too close to his benefactor.

Cosmo drew a circle on the map with his brown, glassy fingernail. “We have skirted it twice now, tapped everything around it. And there is it! In the middle of this dry, soulless desert, Vesta! Vesta, my boy!” Cosmo whacked the star next to Vesta, Illinois on the map. “Our oasis, our salvation. Salvation destination!” Cosmo hooted with delight.

“Our Vesta-nation, Sir.” Elgin offered.

“Why, my boy! You are a wit!” Cosmo’s eyes twinkled to show his appreciation. Elgin made a pun and now he was a star. “Tell me Elgin, would you care for a banana?”

Elgin lit up, “Love ‘em, Sir!”

Cosmo pointed to the vacant spot on the dressing table and smiled. Before Elgin’s eyes a fulgent yellow bunch appeared from nowhere. “Take the whole bunch.” Cosmo said slowly and watched Elgin grasp at light and shadow.

In Elgin’s eyes, it was real. The smell, the bright promise of tangy, mallowy fruit opened up his broad smile. He cradled the bananas with joy. Electrical synapses fired under his skin and he glowed like hot wire. “Thank you, Mr. Cosmo!” Elgin hunched out of the caravan and headed to the front to start the procession moving east.

Cosmo sighed. The longer his wards stayed with the carnival, the more magick it took to feed them. Elgin’s two years were a blink. He could still raise the magick from within and did not understand that it would run out if he didn’t feed it. He could still starve on illusion and be happy.

And there were so many now, so many who needed to be fed and recharged. The last famine cost Cosmo most of his carnival family. So much depended on what people believed anymore. People lost their fear, they lost their fun. They were empty snacks when true magick was needed to sustain his family.

“Vesta-nation…heh…Elgin, you may have hit it on the head.”

The caravan moved through the heavy night under a moonless sky toward Vesta. The fat lady, the geeks, the chimeras, the puppeteer, the strong man, and Mr. Cosmo Legerdemain all lay awake sharing thought forms of hunger and need, aging and ache.

“Take comfort, children. This time we use the wheel. Fear and fun, my dears.” Cosmo sent out a wordless reply to their misery.

“Fear plus fun equals magick, darlings. Now close your eyes and rest.”