With a pinch of Lavender

The Amazing Poulayterani

* * *

“I don’t really have anything to say about my summer break Miss Junston.”

“You must have done something.” She crinkled her face, little pieces of her dry forehead floating towards the desk.

“Me and my family went to the fair last week.” Johnny licked his finger. Definitely ink.

“That’s something.” She wasn’t impressed. He saw her lips tighten her smile, like when his father used a screwdriver on his mother’s birdhouses.

“It doesn’t count. Everyone went to the fair…but I did go to my cousin’s house and we played with his pet shark. His shark is named Cody and we fed him huge fish, and it got the tank all bloody.” Johnny looked around the room, Freddie tried to look bored, but Johnny could tell he was impressed like the rest of the class. Miss Junston blinked a couple of times. George nudged him. “Yeah, you totally have to meet my cousin; he’s got a tiger too.”

* * *

Johnny’s mother walked him to his trumpet lessons after school. He took the trumpet in band class, but his mother wanted him extra good. On Fridays, he went to Mr. Dunlap’s, and learn reverie, and camp town ladies, and Mr. Dunlap would watch the metronome, until five thirty, when Johnny’s mother came back for him. Johnny liked the trumpet, because it made him think of Africa. He saw an elephant once, and every time he blew his trumpet, he thought about lots of elephants, all walking around in the desert. Johnny was tiny when he saw the elephant; his mother framed the picture she bought for five dollars. Johnny liked to think that the elephant would remember him too, since they have good memory. The elephant probably smelled like Africa. Africa smelled dusty.

* * *

“Johnny, come get this bag of grain down for Mr. Parker.”

“Right away Mr. Comstock.” Johnny felt his starched shirt crinkle under the weight of the grain. His mother put his clean collars out for him before he left for work on Saturdays, but today was too much starch, and his bowtie choked him. The burlap was rough against Johnny’s face, and he tried not to sneeze from alfalfa particles wafting up his nose. He knew that the proper way to hold the sack was over his shoulder, but it worked better when he held the bag to his chest and crab walked to Mr. Parker’s cart. While Mr. Comstock told Mr. Parker about the new folks who moved to Maple, Johnny took a handful of grain to Mr. Parker’s horse, Elsie. Her tongue was warmer than her lips, with white in the corners of her big mouth. Johnny knew that Mr. Parker wouldn’t mind Elsie having just a nibble. He patted her nose, and since Mr. Comstock had started in on the new county fire house, Johnny figured he had time to give Elsie a little water too.

* * *

Uncle Kenneth took the photograph. Johnny didn’t want to sit still. The new uniform, all green and woolen, was itchy. Uncle Kenneth didn’t photograph anything below Johnny’s chest, but Johnny wished he had, because of how fine the rest of his uniform fit him. In the photograph, Johnny looked stern. Johnny’s father said that he looked just the same when he was in uniform. Something about it. Johnny thought that maybe his puttees were too tight. His mother was cooking the casserole, for the grange hall pot luck, and when she was finished, they would all walk over.

* * *

“Monsieur, Ho-ow mu-uch? Uh… Com…Combien? Monsieur, combien? Seize? Seize…seize… Oh, sixteen. Bon… Bon. Sam, you have got to see this! This man, he made this. Merci monsieur.”

“What in the hell is it?” Sam turned the thing over

“I’m not sure what it was originally, but doesn’t it look like an evil swan person?” Johnny touched one of the feathers, which fell off.

“An evil swan person that died screaming.” Sam handed the thing back.

“I’m just wondering how he did it. It looks pretty damn real.” It looked like the head of a monkey, but Johnny wasn’t sure. The monkey head, if that’s what it was, had it’s mouth open, most of it’s teeth gone. Then, from the supposed monkey neck, there was a convergence of fur and feathers. The swan body, like the rest of the godless creature, was fairly well preserved. Johnny found barely any stitches on the beast.

* * *

“Is anyone in here?”

“Yes sir, how may I help you?” Johnny hopped to the counter, balancing himself with both hands.

“You make all these?” The man looked up the nose of the deer above him on the wall.

“Most of them. I shot that buck myself last winter. Ten points.” Johnny wondered if there was anything interesting inside the deer’s nose.

“This is an interesting piece. How did you come by this?” The man scowled at the evil swan person.

“Well that I picked up during the war. It’s not for sale.”

“How about fifty dollars? Would it be for sale then?”

* * *

Johnny hopped out to the street. He knew the fall air was supposed to smell crisp, but the formaldehyde of the shop was still in his nose.

“Come tonight to the circus! See the amazing pinhead twins from Brazil! A lost civilization in your very town! See the blue people of British Kolombeea, a phenomenon not yet understood by modern science! The lion tamer! The tattooed woman of the Far East! Come and see the man whose skin is the product of his mother being frightened by an alligator, and his sister with her crocodile skin! And the most amazing of all, the gooseman, a strange and unholy union of a goose and man, found in the far off country of Kammeroon! We’re here for the week! Two dollar admission!”

* * *

“You’re going to have to run that by me again…Jack.” The manager scratched his beard.

“I’m just saying, I heard that the monkey from you show died from drunkenness, and I would like to buy it from you.” Johnny tapped his apron.

“You want to pay me for a dead monkey?” The manager squinched his eye. “What are you going to do with it? Voodoo? Because I don’t condone none of that voodoo majumbo.”

“No, I don’t do voodoo. Actually, if you have any other animals you need to get rid of; I’m willing to pay a great deal.” Johnny smoothed his mustache.

“Peoples can do what they please, but none of that heesty jeesty business.”

* * *

“Hey Johnny, did you buy a horse?”

“Oh, yeah, I figured it’d be easier getting around this way, haul things.” Johnny hopped down next to Elsie. “And since Mr. Parker didn’t need her anymore…you know.”

“Is it sick?” Mr. Comstock looked sideways at Elsie.

“ No, why’d you say that?” Johnny hopped to stand between Elsie and Mr. Comstock.

“You’ve got a…bandage over her forehead. You sure she’s all right?”

“Oh yeah, right as rain. She just…grazed a branch a few days ago. You know how it is… you put blinders on them and they’re practically sightless.” Johnny giggled.

“Well, it’s nice to see you both. Bye Elsie!” Mr. Comstock patted her head and went into the drugstore. Johnny checked under the bandage to make sure Mr. Comstock hadn’t disrupted anything.

* * *

“Come to Johnny Poulayterani’s amazing show of horrors! From all across the globe, wonders you’ve never before faced! See the human skeleton, five feet tall and fifty pounds! See the fairy woman of the Ukraine, just a foot and a half tall, dainty as lace! Johnny’s unicorn Elsie will be on display! A normal horse for years, until a horn grew out of her head! See the amazing mermaid of the Antarctic! Not the beautiful woman you expected, a hairy lady with the tail of a fish, carefully preserved for thousands of years in the ice, just three feet long! See them all! We have the werewolf family of Oodon Moo! The rubber man whose skin stretches over his head! We have the elephant headed tiger from deep within the African jungles! You’re going to have to see it yourself for just five dollars! See the Bearded lady, married to the trout skinned man! See the oldest woman alive, 130 years old, John Adams’ cook! See the extinct race of Fish monkey’s, part fish, part monkey!One night only!”

---