Lizard World Read online

  “Just leave her be,” said Uncle Earl. “She ain’t goin’ nowhere. Where you say the Komodo’s at?”

  “Back in the Dragon’s Den, Uncle Earl.”

  “Well, I’m gonna go give her a needle. Fifteen minutes, she’ll be drunk as a Swede. What about you, boy? You gonna stand there all day with your hands in your pockets? Go feed the python or somethin’.”

  Sometimes Lemuel Lee had the feeling that his Uncle Earl didn’t take him seriously enough. Here he was, twenty-nine years old already, with a high school degree and a correspondence school certificate in TV repair and his Uncle Earl still treated him as if he didn’t have an ounce of sense. Some day, thought Lemuel Lee as he walked morosely toward the Snake house and then into the little door in the back marked “Personnel Only,” he’d leave Lizard World for good and become famous -- though he still couldn’t decide whether he was gonna be a TV star or have his horror books for sale in the drugstore.

  Lemuel Lee knelt down, reached into the cardboard box beneath the sink, and by the nape of its neck pulled out a wriggling brown bunny. “Howdy little fella,” he said and walked across the room to the glass enclosure where Beelzebub, the twenty-five foot python, was coiled as inertly as a garden hose. As he dropped the bunny in the snakepit, he thought of all the thankless times he’d shoveled out the gator pens and conducted three shows a day at the Snake house. Some day he’d show Uncle Earl and then he’d be sorry. These were the sad thoughts Lemuel Lee was having as he watched the bunny hippety-hop ever closer to the drowsy python.

  Back at the surgery, the alligator and Komodo Monitor lay on adjacent operating tables while Uncle Earl stood nearby in his green mask and gown. Beside him, on a small table, his scalpels lay neatly lined up on a white cloth.

  “You feed the python?”

  “Yep,” grumbled Lemuel Lee.

  “Cleverest of all the beasts of the field,” said Uncle Earl, who was always quoting Scripture.

  Chapter III.

  In which the dragon lives again.

  As Uncle Earl made his first incision between the eyeballs of the Komodo monitor, his memory drifted back to the hot August day in 1918 when he’d watched his daddy perform a similar operation involving a cottonmouth snake and a gila monster. It must have been a hundred degrees in the shade that day -- and the fact that he was watching his daddy perform surgery in a closed-up tent filled with elephant shit didn’t make things one whit better. Ever since that distant day, which was the day of his father’s great discovery, Uncle Earl had known that he, too, was favored with the gift.

  Pushing down hard on the scalpel so it would cut through two inches of muscle, Uncle Earl finished the first cut at the left eyeball and then began a second cut at a right angle to the first. He knew that once he had a good flap, he could pull it back to the skull and get down to the real work.

  “Gimme that small scalpel, willya boy?”

  “Ain’t you gonna cut the gator, too?” said Lemuel Lee.

  “Jes’ shut up and gimme the scalpel.”

  That day in 1918 had been a breakthrough in medical history. Only a genius could have pulled off that kind of thing. No one except his daddy had been able to do it, which is why they’d laughed at him and called him a goddamn liar. No matter what everyone had said, Uncle Earl had seen it with his own eyes and remembered that Webbs’ Wonder of the World had lived a full three months, long enough to get them through until Fat Flora was signed up as a good replacement.

  Uncle Earl’s daddy, Big Jake Frobey, had travelled as a veterinarian with the Webb Brothers’ Bigtop Circus. Not being a very big circus, Webb Brothers mostly set up at county fairs, where they offered lions, tigers, acrobats, freaks of nature and whores. When Uncle Earl’s father wasn’t delivering elephant babies or getting stinking drunk, he was usually hanging out with the freaks of nature, with whom he felt a special kinship. The fabulous Tucci Brothers, those poor twins attached at the trunk and sharing the same rectum, were Jake’s closest personal friends. So when they died in the flu epidemic of 1918, Big Jake suffered a great personal loss. Uncle Earl remembered very well how his father had moped about for weeks, barely ever sleeping, nearly drinking himself to death. The strange thing was that Big Jake’s misfortune had also proved a blessing. Pushed into coming up with a new act, he’d been given an opportunity to discover the extraordinary talent that, until then, he simply hadn’t known he possessed. Many great inventions are born of necessity and Big Jake’s great discovery after the death of the Tucci Brothers was no exception.

  Uncle Earl’s earliest memories were of his father’s animal experiments in the small, smelly veterinary tent pitched near the big top. Most of those experiments were dismal failures, of course, but that operation in 1918 had been one of those rare occasions when genius is allowed free access into nature’s forbidden temple.

  Chapter IV.

  In which the Dentist prepares for an extraction.

  It must have been the throbbing of his tooth which broke his dream -- but as soon as Smedlow opened his eyes to the blindfold, awoke to the recognition that his hands were bound behind him, his chest confined by ropes and his feet tied to the chair, the mere agony of his mouth was nothing compared to this perfect claustrophobia. He tried to scream at first -- but then started to gag on the stuffing in his mouth and could only manage a few inarticulate moans. Since he couldn’t draw air in through his mouth, he was forced to rely on his stuffed nose -- and could hardly move his chest to breathe. He was certain he’d go crazy. But now as he was managing to calm himself down, to get enough air and listen intently, there was only that occasional rustling sound and a lungful of nauseating odor.

  Through his socks he could feel that the floor was cold like concrete but covered with something that crunched like hay. He felt certain that something was moving nearby. He stretched out his foot -- and encountered something pliant, moist, disturbingly warm. And what had happened to his shoes? He remembered, clearly enough, how he’d lost his way, crashed the car, hitched a ride in a truck with that hillbilly and that strange old bitch. But after that, he remembered . . . drowsiness, headache, nothing.

  How many hours had he sat like this? By now his left nostril had closed completely and he could only bring air in through the right. His bladder was disturbingly full and it was only his regard for civilization that prevented him from wetting himself. It occurred to him that by now, back in New Jersey, the people at the nursing home would have discovered the theft and reported the missing map to the police.

  Well Sir, at least they wouldn’t find him here. Through the blindfold, imperceptibly, the light began to grow and he was conscious, to his left, of the sound of a fly buzzing on a windowpane. At length a door creaked open. Nearby someone gathered phlegm and spat. Smedlow tried to scream through his gag, wildly tried to free his hands and feet from the ropes, but only managed to screech his chair sideways on the floor.

  “You better cut that bellyachin, mister,” said a husky voice. “There ain’t nothin’ round to hear you ’cept mesqueeters, gators and a mess a coco palms.”

  “Looks like our guest’s woke up with the sparrows,” said another voice.

  Smedlow smelled strong body odor, felt the duct tape being ripped off of his mouth, the stuffing pulled out between his teeth. Gasping for air, he almost choked as the spoon came plunging in, depositing its load of nastiness. No sooner was the feeding done than the stuffing was thrust back, the duct tape reapplied.

  “You got good kidneys, mister?” said the husky voice.

  Smedlow nodded politely, gambling on appeasement. The distress of his bladder was beginning to become intolerable.

  “Well, mister, yer chassis don’t look none too good. But if yer kidneys is as good as you say, I guess you’ll do.”

  “Can I have his watch?” said the other.

  “Yer Uncle Earl said if we got ourselves a specimen, he’d take care a the overhaul, which ain’t too much to ask, seein’ as how I seed him through the diptheria when he weren’
t no bigger ’n a flea.”

  As the full horror of their plan now flashed upon him, Smedlow again began to groan and struggle. Chafing his hands on the ropes, he managed to pick the chair up with him, but only lurched forward a few feet before crashing sideways on the floor.

  “Mister, that ain’t gonna do no good,” said the man.

  “My kidney’s ain’t been right ever since I was abducted,” explained the woman.

  Smedlow now felt his chair being lifted off the floor and turned upright. He debated emptying his bladder, but resolved to remain a martyr to civilization. He felt a hand resting on his shoulder, the warmth of bad breath on his face:

  “Now if you was a good boy,” said the voice, “I just might take off the blinders and let you go potty.”

  Smedlow nodded vigorously, croaking his approval. Hadn’t he read that, under optimal circumstances, prisoners of war had been able to enlist the sympathy of their captors? He tried to look cooperative, even pleased, as he felt the watch being pulled off his left wrist, the hand searching through his pocket:

  “Well, lookee here: he’s got fifty dollars in his wallet!”

  “Well, his clothes ain’t worth a damn,” mused the woman. “But his eyes and his liver gotta be worth somethin’ to the trade . . . and we can junk his fancy car . . . and that expensive-lookin’ antique map you found in the glove box, maybe we could auction it on Ebay.”

  Smedlow was beginning to find composure difficult: they would chop him up, use what they needed and sell the rest; but first they would fatten him up with slops; what’s more, they had the priceless map for which he’d so idiotically risked everything. He tried to distract himself from his misery by doing his best to remember the location of the Conquistador’s fabled fountain -- the place names, the rivers and contours of the seacoast preserved in faded ink on the ancient drawing. But this was impossible since he began to think of what he’d endured to get this far, how everything had gone wrong. . . . And it had all seemed so ridiculously easy -- that whimpering old hag in the nursing home with the abscessed molar, the signed photos of dead TV stars on the wall and this extraordinary map which she seemed to think was just one more kitsch memento -- handed down from some undoubtedly equally clueless ancestor who had been present when Ponce de Leon had drawn it on his deathbed. So of course -- the minute the demerol kicked in and the old girl was snoring -- he, Max Nathan Smedlow, had taken the map off the wall, driven all night to Florida . . . and found himself here in the swamps. And now he’d reached the summit of humiliation -- held captive for his meat like a head of common cattle.

  “Well, hon, since you’s such a good boy, we’re gonna let you go outside to the powder room.”

  His bladder almost mutinied in anticipation of relief. He felt his eyebrows being torn off as the duct tape was removed and sudden light tore into his eyes: in the aftershock he saw the vast interior of the barn, the chickens, the troughs, the piebald backsides of cows and, to this right, the huge alligator burying her eggs in a mass of golden hay.

  “Berenice won’t harm you none, mister,” said the woman. “She’s all tired out from layin’.”

  There was, as Smedlow had suspected, a window to his left (a ragged cloud, a goat, the blessed outhouse) and -- on the shelves above the window -- huge dunnish glass jars catching the first rays of morning sun. Looking more closely at one of these jars he thought he saw eyes, blonde hair, emaciated arms and what looked like the hindquarters of a mackerel.

  Chapter V.

  Containing Mr. Frobey’s proud reflections upon the accomplishments of his family; with an encomium upon the art of splicing and an explanation of the Frobey Debt.

  Lemuel Lee had heard tell that, as far back as three hundred years ago, one of his ancestors had spliced a monkey’s head onto a spaniel. Of course that particular splicer hadn’t lived for more than a month, but the thing back then was to do yer splicin’ just before the circus opened. Since the circus was only in town for maybe five days, yer splicer didn’t have to stay fresh much longer than a gallon a milk. Some a them real old splicers that by now had begun to grow moldy or to fall apart was pickled and stored in the barn. Lemuel Lee liked to think of that collection as his own private museum. After all, Uncle Earl always said that splicin’ was an art and that just as you wouldn’t never throw out a damaged Leonardo, it was a sign of respect to the old masters to preserve their achievement for posterity. But of course the really topflight and well-preserved splicers was on display for the general public in the Gardens of Sodom. It had long been Uncle Earl’s policy to charge a separate admission to the Gardens of Sodom, not only because that meant an additional source of revenue, but also because it tended to discourage little kiddies and thereby allowed him to maintain that he was protecting the innocent while displaying Sodom’s monsters as living symbols of God’s vengeance upon the wicked. The laminated deck of playing cards -- bare-tittied lamias, voluptuous hermaphrodites cavortin’ with goats -- fulfilled the same educational purpose and sold like hotcakes at the Lizard World gift shoppe.

  So Frobeys had been makin’ splicers for a long time, although nowadays county fairs wasn’t what they used to be and so there wasn’t much demand. Lemuel Lee was proud that it was a family tradition that Uncle Earl had continued and now was passin’ on to him. Uncle Earl’s daddy, Big Jake Frobey, had taught Uncle Earl and told him how he himself had learned it from his daddy, who had learned it from his daddy and so on -- all the way back to Hezekiah Frobey, the one who was married to Mad Rosalie, whose brother Edgar Poe was the writer. The first Frobeys in America had brought splicin’ all the way from England, cause they was carnival folks even back then, and they musta had Black Fungus back in England since without the Fungus you couldn’t never, for example, put a rat’s head on a rabbit seein’ as how the goddamn rabbit would reject it so the splicin’ wouldn’t take. Lemuel Lee had heard that families that was furriers passed on the secret formula for tannin’ hides from generation to generation; folks that was diamond cutters did the same with cuttin’ secrets, and he figured that splicin’ lore was a similar kind a guild secret and at one time just as valuable. In 1849 P.T. Barnum himself had paid a thousand dollars for a Frobey splicer -- and back then that was a heap a money.

  Back in England, the greatest philosopher a splicin’ -- the one who figured out that a splicer has at least two minds like a schizo -- was Doctor Josiah Fludd, the first member of the family to get pieces off a dead folks. But the guy who invented splicin’ was Dr. Fludd’s father-in-law -- who went by the name of Meister Gerhard Frobin (cause back then they spelled the name a little different); and this Meister Frobin must sure as hell a been some kind a big deal -- or else that English earl (the fella Uncle Earl was named after) wouldn’t otherwise never have called him in to fix him up when his parts started fallin’ off or gettin’ lizardy or otherwise goin’ bad. Well, this old Frobin (who was the same guy who made that splicer outa the monkey) must a done a damn good job. Cause that earl fella was so tickled pink, he tells him that if the Frobeys was ever to come to the colonies (cause that was all they was back then) they could kill his pigs, farm his land and smoke up his tobacco -- and he wouldn’t never ask for nothin’ in return, except that if his old body ever got all messed up again, they’d honor the Frobey Debt and give him a spare part. So that’s how come they was all Americans now, eatin’ burgers, puttin’ up with all this goddamn bullshit and doin’ the best they could.

  The greatest maker of splicers in the family once they was all settled in America -- the one who sold that splicer to P.T. Barnum -- was Hezekiah Frobey, Edgar Poe’s brother-in-law. Hezekiah was also the one who learned to make perfume outa gators and built that bad old factory in the swamp.

  Lemuel Lee figured Edgar Poe was his great-great-great-great-great uncle. Some people even said he looked real similar, exceptin’ he was taller than his Uncle Edgar, but the black eyes was the same, and the slicked back hair, and now that he was tryin’ to grow a mustache, the resemblance was kinda spoo
ky, though his mustache wasn’t growin’ in too good and he knew he’d never have his Uncle Edgar’s class. Once he’d seen some a Uncle Edgar’s old notebooks in his Aunt Bessie’s attic, but he guessed they’d been throwed out when the attic had been cleaned up and turned into bedrooms for his cousin Ida Frobey and her brats.

  All in all Lemuel Lee was proud a where he come from and had a real family feelin’. If he didn’t have a family feelin’, he sure as hell wouldn’t be helpin’ his Aunt Ligie to get that brand new kidney she was always whinin’ about.

  Of course the Poe gene was a bitch, but that was the way it was when you was favored with the gift. All in all, he figured that nine of his kin had killed themselves or someone else in one way or another. His Aunt Bessie had hanged herself. His Uncle Abner had stuck his head in an oven. His cousin Jeb hadn’t killed himself, but had killed an old woman by mistake when he was robbin’ a gas station. And they all wrote ballads or was good on the harmonica or could tapdance, which was why he himself was an artiste and his own moods went up and down like some goddamn rollercoaster.

  Chapter VI.

  In which the Artiste falls prey to melancholy thoughts.

  While he was cleanin’ up the surgery after yesterday’s operation, throwin’ away the itty-bitty pieces and puttin’ the big pieces in a plastic bag, Lemuel Lee was thinkin’ that one a the really good things about gators is that they’re useful even when they’re dead. Aside from the skin, which was made into wallets and change purses which made toursists go apeshit and which Uncle Earl sold in the Lizard World gift shoppe alongside the seashell art and coconut candies, a dead gator could be sold for meat. A dead cow or a dead sheep wasn’t none too good for sellin’, cause in that case you’re forced to compete with the A&P. But gator, though it’s tough as chewin’ on an inner tube, was somethin’ you could always sell for good money to the Magnolia diner, where tourists -- and especially their little brats -- always gobbled it up as a genuine Florida treat.