
=head1 Manuel, the Magnificent Mechanical Man: A novel. Book One


=head2 Prologue

This novel is released under a free license. Please check L<its web for
details|http://github.com/JJ/hoborg>. You can help by proof-reading,
forking (that is, creating your very own copy and changing it to your
liking), or just talking about it.  You can follow its evolution L<in
Twitter @hoborg_novel|http://twitter.com/hoborg_novel>. 


=head2 Meet the mechanical man

There he was, gleaming in places, rusty in others, its history written
in its bumps and patches like the history of a person is written in
the wrinkles of its face. Rolling and
whistling and frolicking to the general merriment of the public. 
And I'm using I<he> liberally here, since I'm talking about a
mechanical man. A mechanical being. A mechanical... gimmick that looks
like a man.

I didn't really liked it, or even the idea of it, but I had no other
way out than be attached to it. On the other hand, the
public... filled with brothers, of my own race, of the other races
that had been oppressed since they arrived to this land or since the
paleface newcomers arrived. Even palefaces, because all races are one
and the same in the People's Republic, ain't that?

But I am not a paleface, because my name is Fulgencio
Rivera and  I was born and raised in California from a Guatemalan mother and
a Mexican father. That was twenty and three years ago. 

Now I'm here, at the Circus for the People, amusing myself while I bid
my time to get hold of the mechanical man, which is the main reason
I am here. Here being Freedomville, formerly called Jacksonville, as
in Andrew Jackson, a paleface and slaver long dead and now definitely
buried. 

And now being the tenth year after the revolution that produced the United
All Races People's Republic of Florida, or, if you prefer, la República Unida de Todas las Razas de Florida. 

But a free man has to earn a living, or a better living than the Republic is able to provide. That is why I am after Manuel,
the mechanical man. A real marvel of the People's Republic
ingenuity. Just look at him. All by himself, he has hushed everyone in
this dusty, hot, humid and forsaken place. How can I describe it? I
lack words, because there is nothing like it in the whole wide
world. I can try, even as I received only the barest of educations before
the evil capitalist system started to exploit my juvenile skills back there
in awful California of evil America. But I have no words to describe the
urgency with which I have to grab hold of it, since tonight is the
night it's going to be removed from here to places unknown and likely
more dangerous than here. 

But OK, OK, don't complain, I see that I am jumping over myself. Let me
tell you how it all started. 


=head2 A walk in the sun.

I<revise> 

So this is what you hobos do, right? Sit around the fire in this rail
yard... Jungle? How come you call this a jungle? It's a rail
switchyard! OK, jungle. And you tell tall tales around the fire,
right? 
And you want to
hear mine? OK, Duke, I owe you. So here it goes. 

What do you mean, Gummy? It's the plain truth. I will tell it to you exactly like it happened. Yes,
sir, I'm sure, what are you, a fuckin' people's court?  Do I have to
take the oath or what?

Alright, then. This is the real story of how I came to be in the possession of Manuel
the Man-Made Man starts in Mobile, which is only fitting, given the
circus obsession with phrases with words that all start the
same. Mobile, yes, time ago it was in Alabama, but now is  a
rough and tumble harbor town close to the border of the 
United All Races People's Republic of Florida. That's a pretty long
name for a place that starts at Pascagoula in the 
West and and goes no further
than Brunswick in the East, if only our people  have their way. Which they
will, I have no doubt as a loyal citizen of the Republic. Every
dawning day brings new brothers to our
new republic, brothers of all races, creeds and dispositions. 

OK, you all know that, no hooting, on with the story. But you all
reckon now I'm a loyal Republic 
citizen, ain't I? 

So. It was early winter, but the weather was still sunny and mild. I was walking
in the docks, as I was wont to do. The air was clear and I could see ships
docking and leaving,

ships from all our sister nations of the world, Spain, Cuba, Colombia,
Puerto Rico, but also from not-so-friendly places 
who decided the buck needn't stop here and had resumed trade as soon as the
smoke from the Freedom War settled down and become the smoke of the
smokestacks built during the Planazo, formerly unfriendly places like

the imperialist United Kingdom, the Austrohungarian Empire, those bohunks... The
air swarmed also with the airships about to dock or leave from the
airship port, the Spanish clover-fronted ones, the elegant Cubans,
even the odd bulky and slumbering American, you could just spend the
whole day looking at them, slowly realizing they were no longer in the
place you had first spotted them, in the middle of a cloud, or watching them
appearing nose first from the middle of another. Yes, Gummy, they do look like that sometimes. If
that's what you're thinking about. Which you, no doubt, are.

I was there, looking up and down while strolling alongside the docks, minding my own business,
which was precisely what I was looking for at that early moment of the
day. I needed a hire, was looking to work for somebody who needed a quick mind and a strong pair
of arms, but meanwhile I kept dodging the sun and keeping myself in the shade,
because the sun made  my clothes too warm for comfort. What was it?
Big Winter? Winter's younger brother? Rvfo Cuse or Rakko,  can't
tell,  even less so now that all months have changed their names and
places to
something that does not have gods or umpirators or unpopular
names and reminds us of our brothers that were here before we arrived. But it's always little this or big that or whatever berry,
so... It's Otowosk-rakko now, right? Otowoskuce, you say, Gummy? Can't
be Ehole, Captain no way, not so cold... Well, you see, people no longer know the month they are
in. Not that most of us had ever cared, anyways. And not that I have a
grudge with that, either. It's all for the greater good of the
Republic, ain't it? Keeping capitalists names out of the Republic and
putting the names the great spirit of the people gave them. Whatever.

So, sunny it was and I was walking in the shade. OK? Don't say I keep
repeating myself, you don't stop whining and yawning! Here comes what
happened then: these two dandy types came up to me from the sea
shore, maybe they had alighted from a ship, maybe from one of the airships that had landed a bit
farther up the docks, they were dressed to the
nines and sweating as if they were going to melt right there and then. Sticking out as a
sore thumb, if you ask me, no way to walk in this place crying "Mug
me." Adding insult to injury they were also  yelling "I'm a capitalist
pig." But I was minding my own business, which was for the time being not related to those
guys, but could be.


No, Gummy, they were quiet, not even talking to each other. But they
had their eyes set on me and their walk was taking them towards me.


=head2 Who wants a mechanical man?

What did they look like, you say? Well, they had a pretty normal face and hair and cloth-colored cloth; they were nondescript
besides what I have already said. Although they 
 had probably not been mugged yet because one of the dandies had his
demeanor bolted on, instead of having been born into it. Strong but
nondescript too. Or nondescript for a those-fists-mean-business
meaning of the word. 

Being approached by these two guys I kind of put myself in a position
where, if bad came to worse, I could have many 
options. Walked away from the wall, squinted to see what they were up
to, put my hands in a fist and out of the pockets. 
Was not afraid, though, although they also seemed to avoid the glare and had
their caps set just so you could not really see their face. So
that you could not describe it later. That is why they were
nondescript. Hey, said that already. You weren't listening?

As they approached, the non-strong non-descript guy seemed to be the one that was going to
do the talking, which he started to do as soon as he possibly could 
without shouting. After touching their caps managing not to reveal
even a tiny bit more of their faces and exchanging pleasantries, which was the right
thing to do for well-educated gentlemen that we all were, they offered
me a cigar which I rejected because I don't smoke, as you might have
already noticed, and went down to business, not-strong in front of me
and fists-mean-business by my side and slightly behind me. He really
meant business that way too. Still not afraid, because I still had
options. One of them, by the way, was to listen to them and eventually
do business. 

No, Gummy, I didn't hit them. Why should I? I was down on my luck. If
two nondescript persons make an offer, or one does while the other has
an slightly threatening posture, you listen to them. One's got to earn
a living, and I was just thinking about doing the same the Republic
did with those imperialistic airships. No harm done if no harm is
done, right? Well, you know now that some harm would be I<eventually>
done. But I didn't know back then. 

Besides, their words and general demeanor told me that a good living it might be, too. Ten thousand pesos on the spot,
ten thousand more when I got them something, which they really, really
wanted for no particular reason. They were collectors. They had a hardware
store. They liked shiny, rolling things. Those were a few of the
reasons they offered for  wanting the mech, which they called Manuel
the Mechanical Man. Which they told me was, metaphorically speaking, 
I know, Duke, you like when I speak metaphorically, kicking dust in a
circus.


Before that sunny day in the Mobile docks, I had never heard of the
thing.  What was my business before that day, do you want to know? Dock hand, I
just told you, Dale. Damn, do you want to hear the story or not? 
You had heard about that Manuel that is now stashed in the moored
wagon before I showed up here with it? Well, I hadn't, I was not so 
well informed and educated as you all apparently are in this
jungle. Why did they ask me? I was strong and young and confident. I
still am. Do you want to wrestle? Gee, Dale, how the fuck do you want
me to know that? For all I knew, they had asked every other guy
walking in the docks! And I might have been the only one wanting to
listen to them and to the job, even if I had never heard about
anything like that. 

Which is why the speaking non-descript man described it for me,
just in case I got it wrong and got them a kicking watering can or the
tin man from the Wizard of Oz.


"This gimmick Manuel you've got to get us  is like a a rolling
teakettle with ears," he told me.



=head2 A rolling teakettle with ears

I<revise and write>

Think about the Tin Woodsman. Did you all read it? You didn't? Too old
for it, Duke? Nobody did? Doesn't matter, because this Manuel was
almost, but not quite, completely different from that. And not made of
tin, either. 

Think now about a teakettle. You got it? That's it, thicker on the bottom
and not so much on top. Yes, Count, we all know you served tea to
royalty in your castle in Central Europe. Alright, south by southwest
Europe. Whatever. You picture that, right? That would be a milk pail
for you, Gummy. Please stop smiling or I'll never ever say your name
aloud again. You all got the milk pail? Well, now put it on top of the
teakettle. A small one. Two milk pails for you, Gummy. Lost you? Aw,
what the hell, just go to sleep again. 

Lost you all? Big, roundish, thick-on-the-bottom, metallic, upside-down
bucket with another on top, body and head. Which goes to account for
the name mechanical man, but when I first saw him that what I though
about. It was even steaming a little bit, because he's not actually
mechanical, you see, it's also fuel-powered ad some electrickal cables
to spark it to motion whenever it's needed. Or something like that. I
didn't built it, I just carry it from one place to another. 

And, you see, it ain't have any legs. I don't know why, man, but those
four wheels it has on the bottom just save me a lot of work. Yes, it
did have some sort of midget legs at the beginning, but they made him,
er, it, a piece of larry on stilted legs so they were ripped of and
substituted by this bogie rigged from, gee, I really don't know. A toy
train? A streetcar? But the wheels, they had real tires on them, lest
it could move only on rails. Come to think of it, I'll have to patch
them, they seem the worse for wear now... 

Of course the legs didn't go to waste! They were used for a sideshow
in the ten-in-one called Robbie Lee, the Half-Mechanical Wonder of the
New Century!

So what we have here is a teakettle with ears on wheels. A mechanical
hobo. A hobo mechanical organism? Count, I like that. Cut it down to
hoborg and you've got it! Pass the bottle, man, don't hog it all for yourself!

Arms? Gee, I forgot that. Of course it did have arms! Just two of
them, yes. I always wondered why. Come to build a thing with arms, you
could make it with three or four or what have you. But no, it had to be two and
they looked like those in mannequins, with a joint in the elbow and
another at the shoulder and a grip at the end. No hands, just a
grip. I didn't try to wrestle with him, no way. It was four hundred
pounds of iron and copper. The grips were made with copper, and they
could be so delicate as to grasp a pigeon egg without breaking
it. Great machine, I tell you. 

Yes, let's make it dance for a while, let me just get my driving box. 
Eyes. Did I say anything about the whole fucking I<face>? No proper
face to speak of, really, but as soon as there's something on top of
the body, not that it's a proper body either, but you get my
drift... so if that upside down bucket is a I<head>, the grilled gap on the bottom, that
would be a mouth, right? On top of that a strut could be the nose, and
two holes covered with glass the eyes. Some dummy painted two lines on
top of that that could go for eyebrows, and then there were two holes on the side
of the head with two half-moons behind them. The head could move left and
right, that's it, couldn't nod at all. If it wanted to look down it
had to bend all over. And when it moved it made a screeching noise,
like a door closing. A 
teensy door closing. Well, a teensy but heavy door closing. 

When it walked, or rather rolled, there was smoke coming out of its
neck. Some dummy put it initially in the ass, but it made the eyes of
whoever was driving it sting, so somebody else rigged it to have the
exhaust as hight as possible. Not in the head, it wouldn't look
healthy, people would be all "Your dummy is I<burning>!."

Anyway, the noise. It could honk, did I tell ya? Yes, he can do stuff
all of its own when he wants. When there's something in front, I don't
know how the hell it does that, but he notices and honks the same way
that he avoids to crash into people by just stopping. How do I know
how it does that? Am I a fucking mechanician? So, all things
considered,  it sounded like a car coming at you if you didn't see it
coming. A honking, screeching, clanking little car.

And now, for all of you, a honking, screeching, clanking and dancing
mech. 

Well, enough with the dancing. We're going to spend the fuel, and I
don't have that much to go. Yes, it runs on petrol, like any other
machine. And electricity. And spit. And  that's what the two average guys  told me. Well, not all of that, I
added a little bit on my own, and you can see the rest. Including the
back.

And enough with the talking. Tomorrow, or the day after that, I'll
tell you how I became a

circus roustabout.


=head2 Here's a bit of money to get you started

I<revise and rewrite> 

That's what they told me, and gave me the ten thou. And a neat and very official looking printout of where this marvel could be found, since, to top all
that, it didn't stay in a single place, but kept moving all over the
map. Along with a circus.

"A circus?" I asked. "What's its act? Bite chicken heads off?" I asked them. 

"As far as we know, it could rip off the head of something considerably
bigger than a chicken." Talking-guy said, while Fists-means-business
smiled in a nondescript way. "But yes, we are pretty sure it can do
that too."

I got the money. No receipt, Duke, man, what are you talking about? We just
shook hands and looked each other deep into our eyes. Can't remember
the color, they were rather nondescript. White around and darker stuff in the
middle, all I can remember. After that
I told them I would take it from there, and they were on
their way and I never ever saw them again, and I won't until I do the
delivery in a few days. Now that I've got what they want I'll have to
look for them when I arrive at my destination. Or rather they will
look for me.

Whatever, that's not going to be today. No, tonight I'm not gonna tell
you about my joining the circus either.  Which, by the way, at that precise
moment I didn't really think it was going to be necessary.


=head2 Duke of Poo tells his story

Ladies and gentlemen, or just gentlemen, nobody of the fair sex today
in our distinguished company,  our dear Fulgencio seems to be a bit under the
weather today or just plainly fed up with telling stories, so it's
going to be my pleasure to delight you  with the story of my
life before the Call. No, Gummy Eddy, you've never heard this before, I
promise. I just made it up anew, I mean, this is the real deal, all I've
told you before was a tall tale. Besides, I haven't
even started to drink today! Oh my, I haven't even started to drink
today! Somebody buy me a drink, oh please. Captain Cabo? 

That's better. So, it's my pleasure now to tell you the story. When I was a little boy... 

Gentlemen, gentlemen, please behave yourselves. I
will cut it short and to the chase. To my chase, how I was chased by
that ragtag band of robbers and rustlers. During the  War I was in the Glorious
Confederate Army,  what's with it? That was Macon, Georgia, it was
part of a
confederate state, I was conscripted! I never had any slaves! We
nobility abhor slavery! I've
told you! 

Thanks, Captain, we I<former> soldiers have to respect and care for
each other. I'll go ahead with it. So I when I left my ducal home in
Georgia, all smartly dressed in gray to which I added a foulard which
really suited the rest, I went to the railway station and instead of
being shipped somewhere else in the train I was assigned on the spot
to a crew of railway artillery. I was back and forth, never leaving
the iron path for as long as there was a war, so I learned the trade
from one tip of the train to another: where to consign, who sells
coal, how much is a load of cotton worth. 

I was several times on the brink of being seized by the damn yankees,
I mean the gringos, but the end of the war found me on a southbound
train. Somehow, I made the new authorities believe it was mine and
that I was a loyal yankee citizen. They even paid for repairs, once
all was over. 

That was my first train. I still have it, you can see on the lawn of
the castle I own in the Big Rock Candy Mountain, near the Lemonade
springs. But all that is lost to me. When Florida was no longer a
state of the Union all was taken from me, all the train lines I had
painstakingly gathered were, overnight, property of the people of
Florida.  I lost fuck-all.  It was robbed by these damn fanatics!


=head2 Down and out and with ten thousand pesos in Mobile and Panama City.

In the name of the people, Duke, just stop crying like a
sissy. Somebody buy him more to drink or take him to sleep or
both. Besides, you all wanted hear to my story, right? Here it
goes...

The circus with the mech seemed to be not too far, somewhere in West Florida. There
I went. This was going to be easy as peaches. Go there, get in, grab
it, get out. Except it was not.


The ten thou I had when I arrived at Panama City, where the circus
happened to be a few days later, weren't even enough to have bought a
ride or a privilege
with the circus. Which, come to think of it, was what the two guys
would have done to start with if it had been even possible.  They
wouldn't have needed anyone to do it for them. Or maybe they did, so I
had to check anyways.  For some reason I later discovered, concession
prices had shot to high heaven, even for the concessions on the left
hand side of the ground, which for some reason had the lowest prices. 

Besides, at the moment it was no longer  possible to spend the full amount. I didn't
have the ten thousand any more, a man has 
got expenses and love is not always free, as you may know. Yes, young
men like me don't have it that difficult but I was in a hurry and that
hoochie koochie girl looked like she could give me some information, and
boy, did she give me all she could... so I gave her a few pesos. A
few dozens. I got the gist of all that from here, but to tell the
truth I got most of it from the other guys on the line for the price
of sharing a cigarette, which I carried in quantity even if I don't
smoke. 

But the information I received from the guys was correct. It was late
winter in Panama City, and it 
was one of the first cities in their 1915 tour. All tents were shiny,
all guys seemed jolly and all girls beautiful and caring. I came in
through the gate, yes, the arch, but I didn't know to call it that way
that back then, and
I found the carnival in full swing, tents forming an U with the
circus and menagerie at the very end. It was still a bit windy and kind of
chilly, so people didn't loiter among the tents, speeding from one to
the next to end at the skin show or one of the gambling tents if it was a
man or a couple of friends or at the circus if it was a whole family. 

I would have done the man route, but I needed to get acquainted with
the layout and the possibilities. Stealing something is not too
difficult, but the problem is that always you have to invest. That's
quite American, I know, and I'm a well-behaved Floridian citizen, but
I tell you that happens here and there and everywhere.

The problem is to know how much to invest and where to do
it. Sometimes it's just a ladder. Others you might need to get strong
and arm yourself. At best, you might need a smile and a certain among
of time with a good-smelling but bad-looking girl, or maybe the other
way round. And sometimes you just need to pay the right man. 

But where was the right man? Who was the mechanical man tamer or
whatever you called him? And how much was it worth?

Because it seemed quite obvious that ladder or weapons were going to take
me nowhere. Too many people, too many fences, and I expected the mech
to be heavy enough to not be able to lift it. I was wrong by two or
three men, but I didn't know that back them, so I just thought about
cows and how rustlers would have done it. Not that rustlers even had
to do it inside a carnival, but this mech didn't have horns either, so
I guess it was even, right? Stop mooing, Gummy, it's not funny and I
was really tied in knots there. Short of hiring a small army and a
truck, for which I was a good few thousands shorts, I just couldn't
see the way.

But that didn't stop me from wandering around looking for the mech,
the watchers, the way to get to that and eventually walk away with the
prize. I visited the menagerie, where the mechanical man was exhibited
and actually saw it in the flesh, yes, Duke, in the metal and brass or
whatever, point taken, for the first time.

It was given a privileged position within the menagerie tent, right at
the end of it, where the two rows met. It got the most light, with a
spotlight right below it that made it look like, well, like a statue,
which it was in way, except for the moving thing. I was not awed; I
actually liked the most the cute and fearsome Siamese twins that were
right beside him.

What did it do? Well, it was in a cage and the barker spent most of
the time in front of him saying that it had been studied in the
biggest and baddest, his very words, of the world and found to be a
real marvel, that it had acted in front of the bohunk emperor and the
king of Siam, and that the popists where studying if it had soul or
not. While the barker talked, the mech rocked back and forth,
sometimes striking the jail bars and making everybody step back with
cries of surprise and fear and joy. Nice show it was, really. The Siamese
twins looked actually kind of pissed off and from time to time threw
gobs of snot
or worse at him, making the bearded woman and the rest of the sideshows laugh and mock
them. 

I stayed there for three or four pitches, checking visually the bolts
on the cage, looking how far it was from the door, whether there were
any roustabouts lounging around with nothing better to do than
watching it, and so on. But if there were, I didn't pay enough
attention to them, so that
explains what happened next, when I got out, intending to walk around
the tent and loiter there waiting for the sideshow to close and see where everything
went. 


=head2 Hey, are you interested in the mechanical man?

"I sure am" I answered the besuited man that was calling me from
behind a carriage corner.   You'd be well advised if you walk off calls
made from behind a carriage corner. Hell, you've probably called marks
from behind carriage corners a few times anyways. Yes, you laugh, but
look at it from the point of view of the lugen. Hey, stop laughing!
Lugens do have a point of view! OK, OK, they probably haven't or they
wouldn't be so incredibly dumb. 

So I was dumb, and I know now, but I didn't know them. The whole
circus mission, I mean gig, got into me and it seemed kind of so out
of the way that I just jumped to the opportunity.

"You like that, metal, right? Are you sure you don't want warm, expert
ladies that are able to do what no doll would ever do?" By that time,
I had already had a taste of that, so I just smiled and said "Just the
mech. Can I see it?"

"You can do more than that. You can take it for a ride if you want,
take it home and paint it pink." He had probably seen my enthusiasm
and raised his offer. What the hell, he could have offered me the
whole fucking circus. "How much is that worth for you?"

"American dollars?" I replied, and the suited man snorted. Now I could see that the
suit had been recently cleaned, ironed and starched, but was the worse
for wear and frayed in places. And his hair was not greased back,
just dirty and greasy. He was a lot louse, probably, somebody
wandering around circus lots looking for somebody that can be easily
conned.

Enough with that. I know better now. But maybe you can learn from me,
yes, a young man like me. Stop laughing! Stop rolling on the floor! Aw,
go to hell. 


=head2 The day they took the railway from me

I'm alright now. Liquor and spirits soothe my soul, because I have a
soul and I don't give a rat's ass if you  are going
to run to the next comisaría and denounce me for anti-popular
activities. What could they take from me? My freedom? My life? They
can have it all and good riddance, I've always lived next to a rail
yard and, before I'm caught, I'll do myself and die in them.

As a point of fact, I was about to do exactly that the day they took
my railway from me. The name of Jacksonville had just been changed to
Freedomville and I had a ungodly amount of schedules and train plates
and tickets to reprint, the exact amount I had to retire and pulp lest
it went to waste. I really didn't listen to the wireless when they
talked about factories and plantations and everything becoming
people's property; I didn't know what they meant either. People's
property? I was the people, and that was my property, right? So
nothing to fear although I noticed that day the employees were either
lazy or jittery or both. When was that? Nineteen o seven? Eight? Hell,
eight, ten years ago. Besides, I though, that was for Tampa for the
show, they were not going to go so far as Baldwin, where our offices
were conveniently located, close to the railroad junction.

But they did, for the life of me, they did. It was quite early in the
morning, what, seven or eight, I had been already there for two or
more hours, missus and kids still sleeping with all likelihood. An
injun entered my office without knocking, followed by Ralph, the
general manager of the airline and then so many Guards that you could
think they were going to stage a parade just there. But if that was
the case, I didn't want to know what role I was going to play in
it. Either the parade clown or part of the chain gang.

Initially, they were quite civil about the whole affair. A
bespectacled man elbowed his way to the front row and stood by the
Injun commander, who just stood there without so much as a good
morning. 

"Mr Miles Higgins," yes, my name is Miles, I got the railroad from the
baptismal pile, you know, "by this bylaw the People's Government of
Florida becomes the sole proprietor of the West Florida Railroad and
Wagon Company, formerly owned by one such Mr. Miles Higgins." I stood
up, but the Indian gestured to make me sit down. "Comrade Higgins will
be appropriately compensated by being allowed to work in the
Conglomerate of State Railroads in any posts he thereby chooses,
constrained by his stated abilities and the appraisal of them
performed by the Republic Workers Bureau." So they were taking the
whole thing from me and I'll be allowed to be a conductor if I was
considered smart enough to make holes in tickets. 

I tried to stand up again, but this time the commander did not even
bother to assuage the situation. He drew his revolver and pointed in
my general direction.

"You can stay here for some time. People's Comisario García here," and
he nodded in the direction of the bureaucrat that had just talked,
"will take charge and you'll have to show him the ropes. No hurry,
man, two or three days will be enough."

What could I do? My wife and family left me the very next day, and they
took everything that could be loaded into a carriage. The authorities
didn't like that and seized my home and land, too. I was left
homeless, so when I left the office the last day and assigned a depot
in the middle of nowhere, I took a train and called it home. And you
are my family. 


=head2 Buying elephants from a circus

I have never been in the army. Did you hear me saying I was a soldier? No way, Captain,
I would have said that if I I<had> been in the army, which I
wasn't. The point is, in the army the mates, or so I've heard, try to
con you into cleaning their boots, out of your food sent from home,
whatever. So you learn the looks of somebody who is turning a
confidence trick on you.

I learned the lesson  there and then. He had a look of contempt towards me, but
at the same time he looked desperate. As if that was in dire need of
something. But then, who was I to say anything, I looked as if I
needed a mechanical man then and there. 

He led me into a dark part of the circus, behind the carriages and we
started to dodge chairs, rests of food and forgotten toys. We arrived
at a carriage which didn't stand in any way from the rest; it was
freshly painted but didn't have any mark that indicated that was it,
the mech carriage. He purposefully knocked on the door, looking at me
and moving his mouth in the first phase of a smile that tried to
instill trust but would have failed if it weren't for the fact that I
was beyond worrying about trust, My mind could only focus on what was
inside that
carriage. And he saw that.

"So, how many pesos, real money,  is this worth for you?" he asked me. 

I didn't answer straight away. But that was probably the wrong answer,
because he knew that, come this point, I wasn't gonna get back. 

"Hell, man, I don't know. I'll have to get me some ride or something
to carry it away, and that's gonna cost me... So, listen, say I give
you one hundred pesos..." He was looking away, and drawing his hand away
from the door. I was losing him, and it. "Can't go tops of two hundred." 

"Show me the money." He said, rubbing thumb and index of his right
hand at the same time. Luckily,
I had cached a wad of notes in the front pockets of my pants, which is what you want
to do if you don't want to have it spirited away from you when you
visit full of quick fingers and long arms like a carnival. That is,
you want to secure it so that it's easy to get it
conned  away from you, as it was about to.  I gave it to him and he
made the money disappear in a rustle of its clothes. 

He told me to follow him inside the carriage. Nobody had answered the
knock from inside, which I should have interpreted as the knocks being
a warning call or a check, but I didn't. He opened the door slow and
carefully and we got in. It was dim inside and it smelled sweaty and
rusty; I could barely see anything from the light that entered from
the already dark evening. He lighted a match and waved the other hand
in the direction farther away from me. 

"You see? It's right here." He said, but I barely could see where he
was pointing; I moved in that direction and kept bumping into
things that made a racket that apparently nobody cared about, which
I should have interpreted as another warning sign, but being still wet
behind my ears of circus ways and humbugs, wasn't. 

"I can't see a damn thing, man. Can't you turn on the light?" I
yelled, but not louder than the noise we had already made. 

"Afraid not, it could damage the mechanical man, my friend has said,"
he answered, coyly.


"Damage it? How come? It does its act  in broad daylight," I told him.

"Yes, but it's now being kept off anything bright to be repaired
fixed, it's larry  due to a light... surplus. You
see? It's right here."  I didn't even know who Larry was. Back then. 

What I could see there was, indeed, a teakettle. Not a whole
teakettle, just a part. I couldn't even see if it had ears or not. It
was big, though. 

"That's a fucking teakettle, that's what it is." I launched myself at
him, but he expertly ducked and was talking as he did. 

"No, it's not. It's a head... apparatus. See, here's the... belly
engine." Which looked like a stovepipe, or a part of it that was visible
by the match that he has lighted, anyways. 

"You're full of shit, man." I told him. "Give my money back and I'm
out of here." 

I turned to leave and wait for him outside, by the light where I could
see if he was giving me my money back or a couple of newspaper
clips. Giving him the back, I opened the door and immediately  spotted another guy
loitering by the door. He 
spat a cigarette from his mouth and blocked the end of the stairs that descended
from the carriage, arms loose at the sides of the body, hands into
fists. Ready to mug me out of whatever I had left in my pockets. But I
was not going to make it easy: I jumped from the carriage door on him
and made him fall. I fell too, but stood up pretty quickly and started
running. The two scammers were older than me, and anyway I didn't think they would
make much more than shouting abuse at me for a while. Which they did,
along with a friend of two, for quite a long more than a while, at
least until I was out of the circus grounds. 

So I was out of that circus pretty fast. Same speed I was left without a
plan and two hundred pesos short. Yes, Gummy, there's always a lesson to be
learned and you often learn them the hard way. But learn I did. 

I<revise> 


=head2 It's a plan

"So you're saying the circus is like an office?" I asked the old clown
who had the strange ability of laughing and crying at the same time,
and make you do the same. We were in a cargo wagon, surrounded by
cotton bales on a train bound for Pascagoula, where I was going following
the circus, on the thought that it was a good idea to follow it and wait for the
mech to drop from a carriage or be sold in an auction or
something. Hoboing was a way of doing that and not make a dent on my
budget. The clown had been a silent companion for hours, but he became
jolly the moment I offered him some drink. Making chitchat,  he told
me that he was what is called a tramp clown, one of the three types of
clowns that are out there. You don't know what are the other two,
don't you, guys? Ask the Duke, he'll know for sure. No? Well, tough
luck. So I asked him what
made a tramp clown become just a tramp and we continued from there.

"Man, the whole country is like a fucking factory! Haven't you
noticed?" He cried again. 

"And all that because you made fun of the governor?" 

"Yes, and I think I could because he was white, you see? All races and
all my ass."

"What did you say?"

"Something along the lines of him being circumcised by a precise
kick to her sister in the jaw." 

"He, that is funny. I met these guys up in the hills in New Mexico, I
mean Mississippi, that... " It was funny that I had found this
particular guy in the train, but chance didn't play a role in it. He
was also following the circus, which was a few wagons in front of us,
bumming things out of them or of the people attending the carnival,
making laughs for centavos. 

"It's funny because that what clowns do. They make fun of people. It's
not about making fun of the right people, that takes all the fun out
of it. Like making a circus a factory."

"Come again, how's that office thing?" I needn't tell you that the cotton cargo
wagon is the most comfortable of all. To top it, it's also quiet. Only
problem is you can't smoke or you'll become a ball of cotton fire in
no time. Ain't that true, Eyebrowless Eric?

"Well, it's not called the People's circus for no reason." he
said. "It belongs to the state, as this railway does. So the very next
day that had happened this mean person, dressed in combat clothes, came up to me and he
said.

"Teach me everything, from now on I'll be you. 

"That he said. I don't know what
the rest of the clown posse said, but I think they're not there anymore. And
they the new ones look mean..." But I was only half-listening by now. I had a plan.

"Funny thing is, that new clown was also white," he continued saying.


=head2 I married a bearded woman

Not quite. Although seducing one of them would be a way of marrying
into the circus, I was not amused by that prospect. So I have two words
for you: Fake. Papers. 
With them in hand, a good buttoned-up shirt and my scant belongings in
a burlap bindle over my shoulder I crossed under the circus arch, which had just arrived
to the city of Ferry Pass. 

"Let me check that." said the improbably named Boris, the circus
manager, a big, dark brother with shoulders one mile long that could
have stood for the strongman or the lion tamer if there was a need for
that. The papers with purple official-looking seals carried me into  the carriage that served as office and as 
ticket booth, these circus guys like to keep all money matters close
together, lest they contaminate the rest of the stuff. I had made a beeline from the
circus arch, which I didn't know yet was called an arch, to the
office. The less people that could intercept you and ask questions
about your business, the better. Circus people aren't known for
cheerful treatments of strangers. 

Besides Boris, that had been fetched from his office, a man and a
woman were idling at their desks, rustling papers and listening to the
wireless, which was broadcasting a speech by one of the high-ups in
our Republic. I tried to listen intently, but couldn't make out the words. He didn't seem
angry, so he was probably cheering up the soldiers, workers and farmers of our
land. I probably had heard them anyways. 

I saw Boris, my not so evidently fake papers in hands, go to its office at one of the ends of the carriage. I
knew the assignment would check out. The official at the People's Party in 
Pascagoula had been paid dearly to request an assignment of one
Fulgencio Ribera, 23, to the Number One Glorious People's Flying Circus, Menagerie, and
Moral Popular Exhibition Featuring Karl the Elephant and the Mysterious
Mechanical Man. Took less for him to take the bribe than to write the
name of the job where I wanted to be transferred. Took him a bit
more to endow the paper with all kinds of stamps and produce a good amount of copies and leave a huge
paper trail all the way to Tampa.

A second bribe
would be needed for the archivist, but that was all. Yes, capitalista
ways in the people's republic and all that. I didn't like it as a citizen, but I
like even less the umpirialist ways of the United-not-for-long
States. Did I say umpirialist? I meant umpirialistic. Imperialist? You
made that word up, Duke, didn't you? OK, OK, OK, imperialist, so what
gives? 

I could hear the circus manager  talking to somebody in his office,
and he was taking so much time that I started to think that what's bad
about crooked officials is that they can bend two or three 
different ways. Yes, Duke, and sometimes it's them that make you bend
and bugger you, I know, old chap... 
And this Boris was having too long a conversation with
the official in Tampa  or whoever the hell he had decided to talk. It was not helping that the clerk and the secretary kept
looking at me with that look of "You don't belong here" which I tried
hard not to return, because that was exactly what I wanted and needed,
to belong there. And this was starting to look like a situation in
which I would have to fight my way out, so I edged a bit closer to the door because you never know.

To avoid their gaze I started to look around. In the walls of the office hanged posters of announcements and
features. "Manuel The Mighty Mechanical Man" featured what looked like a guy
sheathed in gold foil lifting an elephant. "Ray, the Human Radio Receiver"
was on another poster, dressed like a sailor for no good reason and with a
hat from which several wires sprouted; from those wires, wavy lines came
out (or in, who knows) while he seemed to be speaking, arms wide
open. I'd heard about that one, and it looked like a scam. But then I
was not buying this circus, I was here for a reason. A heavy, metallic,
mechanical reason.

I realized Boris had stopped talking; shortly he came back from his office at the end of the
carriage. And he did not seem happy. 


=head2 School years

No, that's Fulgencio Ribera, with a b. I don't know any Rivera with a
vee from
anywhere. Where did I spend my school years? I went to school
in... What's with it, Wireless? Why do you want to
know? Did I ask you where you served, Captain? Does anybody know the
whereabouts of Duke's castle? Yes, yay, in the slopes of the Big Rock
Candy Mountain by the Lemonade Springs. 

Just go to hell. I'm off to sleep. 


=head2 You don't look like a circus person

"Sorry, boy. This does not check out." The circus manager said, handing the papers
back to me. The clerks nodded and continued their rustling and radio
listening. From another poster, Mento the Mystical Miner, eyes wide
open, was looking at me trying to find out what I was thinking.

Which was "What a fucking waste of money." I picked up the paper and
started to rip them out, meanwhile thinking that the paleface clerk
that had taken my money in Pascagoula was going to suffer three
different kids of hell when I laid my hands on him. If hell actually
existed, of course, which I really don't think it does, and you don't
either, right? You have been there, Gummy? That might account for your
lack of hair, for sure!

"Hey, hey, hey. No need to make a racket out of this." Boris told me and I stopped and
started to fold the papers with exaggerated care while looking at them. I
really didn't know what to do. I'd have to hire a band of rustlers to
get the iron dummy out of here. Disappointment probably crept to my
face, and Boris said

"These things happens. Wires go down, Circus Commission clerks gets
asleep, forgets to file the folder where he should. Tell you what: we
need strong and young hands like you around here, the Party knows we
do. So just stick around, I'll pay you by the day, and will check back
in a few days to see what happens. Does that sound fair to you?"

I just smiled and revisited my non-conformant thoughts on the paleface
clerk. This republic is the republic of all races and peoples of
America and the whole wide world, and palefaces, sorry, white people
have also been oppressed. All of you have, even the Duke. Isn't that
true, Duke? 

So that's how and why I entered the circus. Until my cover was blown
or I was off with my prize, whatever happened first. 


=head2 Circus hand. And foot

Do you think it would be easy to steal an elephant from a circus? They
are big, they are heavy, they can trample you or slug you a good one
with the trunk. Plus you need to know how to ride them or it will end
up somewhere else than the circus, but not where you want it. Well, a
mechanical man is pretty much the same, less the trunk. And the
shit. Man, do they shit...  The elephant bulls, Gummy, how could a
mechanical man shit? Bolts, you say? Ha, that's rich. 

Elephants shit their fucking weight and that of two pregnant sows for
good measure every fucking day. This I know because that was the gig I
was given when I started kicking sawdust. Which I did in spades. And 
laying. And wiping. And producing. And fucking breathing and shitting
sawdust all the fucking day, in the company of beasts and sometimes of
comrades. That was all for the greater good of obtaining my prize, which
I could barely see, not to mention touch, during those first two
weeks. 

"Gaucho" was one of the words I learned early and heard often during
those days, sometimes from closed lips, sometimes accompanied by a
sideways spit. That's how they call the people that is not born into
the circus, people sent from the circus commission specially, which
they call I<red> gauchos. That's why I did not have other way out that
stick with them when sticking needed to be done. 

That was usually at lunchtime or when any food was served. As was done
in the army, we went to the mess tent, lined for food and went to a
table to eat. What? No, I haven't been in the army, in no army,
indeed. How do I know about that? People talk, you know. 

As a matter of fact, somebody told me that in the table where we
gauchos sat. There was Jay, who had actually fought in the Patriotic
War and transferred to the circus, and now took care of animals, Bill and Vince, two roustabouts
that helped with anything that was needed, and Gina, who rode horses.
Why do you want to know how Bill and Vince were? Just your average
Bill and Vince, Bill a black Seminole and Vince a black, strong guy from Virginia
or somesuch. He kept talking about his pa being a guerrilla fighter
during the civil war. Couldn't stop, somehow.

But back to the story: sometimes, Rufus the mechanical man man, the one that took care of
the mech, Rufus three-M himself, joined us. He couldn't have been born
into the circus, no mechanical men in the previous generation, no
way. So, despite have been for years in circus life he was still
considered a gaucho. He didn't do it himself, so he joined us
reluctantly and when there was pussy to be smelled. 

That didn't allow him to focus too much on the information I wanted
from him. Which was all for the better, People would have suspected if
I did. So I threw questions at him to see if they stuck, and they did
from time to time.

Did he score? Why are you interested? Hey, stop touching yourself,
Gummy you
old pervert! I'm out of here!


=head2 Gummy Eddie tells his story. Actually, no, Captain Corporal tells Gummy Eddie's story

Nobody understands Gummy Fucking Eddie, so I will tell his story for
him. Yes, I'll be telling you all my story in the army and why I'm a
Captain and a Corporal at the same time, but be patient and all of you
will be satisfied. Gummy, if you don't stop doing that right now I'm
not going to act as your puppet now or never. Really.

What he was saying is that he was fighting for freedom in Cuba. He came back like this. OK,
don't throw a tantrum, I'll start again and tell the whole story straight. 

It was 1905 or 1906, and Gummy was a jobless musician in Chicago. Then
everybody and his mother started talking about war this, war that,
Cuba, defending American interests, and all of a sudden I was in a
train all dressed in khaki with an old winchester and a bag in my
hands, bound for Florida. OK, not me, Gummy, but I'm translating him,
so I is gonna be Gummy from now on. You get it? Yes, you too,
Gummy, I'm so very happy you understand this.

In Tampa we were met by a big, open air camp, filled to the hilts with black people
like me. No surprise here, most people fighting in Cuba seemed to be black, at least from
the sergeants down, although I couldn't tell, we didn't see anybody with heavier brass than
that. It was sergeant this, corporal that, sometimes a sergeant mayor,
always a cracker,
and that was that. They barked their orders, clean this, do that drill,
but mostly it was wait on our butts and roam around. Roaming stopped
fast enough, because as soon as we set step outside the camp whiteys
screamed abuse at us and we couldn't do much, no bars, no candy shops,
no nothing, everything was closed in front of our nose stubs. So we
stayed at the camp, one worry more for sergeants and corporals and
whatnots and one less for us.

But the problem with going to war is that you end up doing it. And on
a boat, to top it. We spent like a day puking our guts off so we saw
fishes in the sea literally get so fat they sunk to the bottom with
all the half-digested stuff we were throwing up and at them. It didn't
help that we were so packed in the boat that people just fell of the
brim from time to time, and some were so wasted they just stayed there
for the fishes to feast upon. Somebody surely missed them, but not us,
we were too busy keeping our guts together and worrying about what was
going to come next.

And that was hell, plain and simple. And I was lucky. The 17th Colored
Infantry didn't run into battle, we rather run from battle. After a
few skirmishes in, hell, in somewhere too hot for human beings, we
established a rearguard supply base in Guantánamo, One Ton of Ammo we
called, some smartass came with that because that was what they kept
telling us, we would be receiving one ton of this, one ton of that,
but the only thing we got was malaria and scurvy.

Yes, scurvy. The supply base didn't even have fresh supplies for
itself and whatever fresh we had was reserved for our sick brothers,
but at the end everybody was sick; we couldn't even move out of the
base because as soon as we did we heard the crack of the
sharpshooters. Many people did anyways, it was better to die quickly
than to do it slowly, painfully and stinking to high heaven.

I lost most of my teeth there due to scurvy. But I lost whatever I had
left when I was ferried back to Florida and was just left
there. "Honorably discharged," I was told, which I gather means
"unloaded," and that is what I was, they took the load off them and I was weaned off any GI
supply and left on my own, not a penny on me. Couldn't even keep the
rifle to shoot for food, just the clothes and the boots. 

I don't blame them,
anyways. They had quite enough on their own, being chased away by the
rebels and all, I mean the Glorious Revolutionary Army, hell, the government
snitch must one and for all stand up and fess up, I'm fed up with
having to put with all this revolutionary crap. We're between hobos,
right? We don't have to keep blabbing this way... no, that's not
Gummy, that's just me. Why do you want to know, Hatless?


=head2 There's a lot of vice in Miami

"We usually play to a full house here," Vince told me while we were
on the road to post papers to announce the circus around town. Elegant
people came after us to check them out. "Look, we are scoring good
hits." Vince told me.

We were very lucky to be there. There were heavier and less amusing
things you could do in the circus that very morning, in the stifling
Miami heat. Besides, I was supposed to learn stuff. There was a method
to posting paper, I was discovering. You couldn't just paste them
anywhere; barns, fences, some buildings, corners, always at eye's
height, those were the places to do it. As a matter of fact, sometimes
they were occupied by other posters announcing past or present
shows. They were promptly ditched, and this was accompanied by war
stories of when two circus met in that place or that other and two
posting parties met and mayhem ensued. I soon get bored of his talk
and started to think whether this could be the day and place where I
could finally escape alive and with a plus one called Manuel.

We had a fair amount of ducat to invite beautiful girls to come to the
attractions and bring the local marks in tow. And man, they were
beautiful. So much cream colored flesh, and so much of them in plain
sight. We run out of ducat much before we run out of money and we
extracted so many promises... 

We had had to turn down a few, specially gringas. We didn't want them
there at the circus, but if they did show up, their pesos would be as good as the
next one, so we weren't gonna stop selling them tickets. Besides, they
had their special seats just for them, they had to be filled, right?

So, by the time Tracy came up to us, we weren't either ready for
conversation or in the mood for gifts. So much paper to post... Besides,
we had considered a couple of times to charley it.


Who is Tracy? You're about to know her and we were about to do it, too. 

For starters, Vince and me didn't feel like talking to her because honkies, even honkie girls,
were always walking around bumming things and whining about this
and that. Besides, she was not that beautiful to deserve one of the
ducats we kept; she was nice, in that transparent way the gringas had;
her hair was flat and hay colored, and her hips and boobs were way too
small, although not disagreeably shaped. She didn't smell good, a bit
musty. And her face had bumps and scar marks where it shouldn't have
had any; her white skin had purple and blue bruises in places. Nothing
unusual for white people, anyways.

Vince sent her on her way, and we went on ours, but she clung to us on our
way back to the circus. Which pissed us off even more since now she
would be witness to us ditching the paper; yes, that's what charley
means, weren't you listening? Am I not talking in fucking English? OK,
Duke, I'll keep it easy, only I get all fired up when I recall all
that.

"How long are you staying?" she  went, from a couple of steps behind us.

"It's right there on the paper, gringa. Can't you read?" She probably
couldn't. These palefaces were too ignorant and rebellious for their own good, they
just liked to spend their days shooting squirrels and drinking. And
fucking their sisters, I tell you. Many of them couldn't read just
because they hadn't enough in their heads to be able to join the lines
to form a letter. Yes, I know, Duke, it's an all-races republic. But including them does
not mean I have to I<like> them, right? I could have liked this one,
though, if only she'd had a nicer and bigger rack. Nothing personal, Duke, you're my man. 

But she continued in our footsteps, asking us where we were from and
what we did in the circus and so on and so forth until we were so
close to the circus that we had either to charley the paper or take
another path and start to paper it. We didn't feel like doing the
second and we needed some independence. 

"You want to earn a few pesos, girlie?" I asked her. If she came
around maybe we could check her for the revue. After seeing her naked,
we could either do her or hire her, or hire her and then do her. Not that I would have the chance to do either, but I could at least check her out thoroughly. And besides,
she didn't know squat, so I could play the part. If was not as if
Vince was going to tell her. At my question, she had opened her eyes and was
smiling broadly; we had her on the hook. She nodded a vehement "yes," opening her eyes and smiling broadly.

"So, do you have a name to go with those beautiful eyes?" I asked
her. Vince went along with me. 

"Tracy." She said while he blinked. Yay, we had her on the hook. Or
the other way round. 

"What do you say if you meet us at the circus in, say, two hours." She
stared blankly, as if the concept of "hour" was something too
difficult to grasp..."OK, to there after a good while, when you see
people coming up to the circus, and you tell the girl at the ticket
counter to send for us. We are Fulgencio and Vince. Can you remember
that? OK, bye now." I waved her with my hand, just in case it was not
clear enough.


She nodded again, and turned back. When she disappeared around a corner we could finally charley the paper, and we might even manage to score tonight. 


=head2 Gringo up, gringo down

As we had expected, that evening the carnival was going full throttle, but I still could spot Tracy,
these gringas really don't know how to mix with the crowd. She was so
white and blond and she had put a white dress on top of that just so that
she could be made out even by night and with closed eyes. 

Trying all the time to look as if we owned the place, Vince and me got her to the ringmaster, with whom we had negotiated as a commission we got to see her naked
while she was checked for the nudist colony. That was the only act she
could make her do on short notice, because there's nothing much that needs to
be done, just be pretty and naked. Beautiful girls and some ugly with big boobs usually started  their career at the circus
that way before they learned something and graduated to the revues or
jig shows if they were whites, or even real circus acts if they were
good at it, and got and assignment from the government. 

But no government job was needed to lay stark naked and pout, which she
seemed to be good enough at. She wasn't too reluctant to undress when the ringmaster told her, and she only lingered at the unbuttoning at the interesting parts. She had no bra, as we had been able to make out under her white dress, but she wore panties that had seen so many washes that they were threadbare here and there. She eventually took them off also, standing there on her moccasins. She quickly fell into a pose. 

As I had already noticed with her clothes on, she did not have a great body, even for a
paleface. Too whitey, cute pair of boobs, those pink nipples could win
her a good pouch of pesos, and flat booty. But hey, she was white,
what could you expect. She had a bushy crotch that extended almost
up to her belly button. Nudist colony girls had it shaved, but there
was going to be no time today, the sideshows were about to begin. 

Vince, the ringmaster and me just left her there while we talked in whispers among
us as if we were examining a horse, appraising hers. She started to cover herself and
we knew it was time to hire or kick her off, because if we let it
linger for too long she could change her mind.

Yes, I knew all that by that time. You learn fast in the circus and
you learn a lot of trades, but the first thing you learn is people,
what they do and what you can do to them. That includes girls.
But I know much more now. I know that you can't trust no man and you can't trust women any more. By doing that, she forced us to action. And by forcing us to action, she commanded the situation. What's with girls, I don't know, they always make them do what they want and you end up thinking it was your idea. 

So of course she was hired for the day. Vince and me led her to the
carriage that was shared by the nudist colony girls that came with the
circus. Another day hire, or at least some girt I hadn't seen before, and, boy, had I seem them all in front of me and in my dreams, was also there and she was getting explained
how to pose and what to do and advised on how to avoid farting, conceal warts and
things like that. Just guessing that; we couldn't stay, of course, the mistress shooed us
away. I understand that, we men could be there the whole day and do no
work. Except maybe touching ourselves. Please, Gummy, you've already
done it today once, can't you please stop?


=head2 Somebody's daughter

That night I went to the girl show tent more than usual. I took
advantage of every errand to escape for a few seconds and go there to
see how Tracy was doing. Not that I could actually I<get> in there, you
know. We roustabouts and circus mates weren't allowed in there, we
couldn't see the girls we shared a table at the mess room (not that it
was usual, but even so...) or a seat at the train completely naked and
in fetching poses. However, nobody could prevent us from ripping a
triangle off the tent and check it, from time to time. Before packing
they were checked and fixed, but new ones were open until after some
time the tent had so many patches at eye level (and a few at
midget-eye level) that it was on the brink of ripping the bottom part
off all by itself, so it had to be changed. That goes to say that
circus people are pretty much like the next guy, only a bit dustier
and a bit more skilled on separating marks from their
hardly-or-softly-as-if-anybody-cared earned money. 

I had to push Vince and some other circus guys who had heard about the
new flesh from time to time to check on her. She was doing great, of
course. The barker was barking the presence of new girls to the four
winds and gents were elbowing each other to be on the first row. Tracy
and the other new girl was there, in front of the rest, apparently
playing a table game, or resting, or doing silly dances which didn't
matter because, well, the important thing was the booby swing. The
professor talked about how important that was for health and how
everybody did that in Sweden or Siam or in old Greece or wherever, but nobody paid much
attention to the words. The important part was the swinging.  Yes,
boys, what a swinging. Don't sigh, men, you've all been young and
smelled fresh pussy. Not anymore? Well, tough luck!

I happened to be there, pushing aside one other guy, when the show was interrupted by a racket at the tent
gate. I couldn't see what was going on there, but I could see near the
scenario that several guys came into view shouting, and I first though they were
protesting about high prices or too much time waiting in line or
whatever. But they were yelling something about daughter and honor and
I think I heard the name Tracy and I could see they were wielding
clubs and baseball bats and even a machete. Tracy just stood there, and the men
came up to her, grabbing her arm and covering her with a blanket. The
other girls run to the back of the tent, and I was left there with the
professor, who seemed to be more elsewhere than there, and a few marks
who seemed to think this might be a part or the show or just liked to
be in the middle of things.


When I arrived at the main tent door I pushed aside the people
flooding out from inside and came in, there was a standoff
situation. One of the attackers had put a hand over the shoulders of
Tracy and another was holding another girl, one of our own. The barker
was laying on the floor, bleeding from the head. And I didn't know
very well what to do. First thought was run, but second though is that
the circus always protects their own. I then shouted: "Hey Rube!"

No, Rube was not the circus strongman, although come to think of it,
it might have been some time in the past. He was... have no idea. If
you shout "Hey Rube!" you're saying there's a fight and everybody
bodily available should come to help fellow circus folk. 

Of course we outnumbered them. But this was a losum game, we might
lose even if we won. 


=head2 It's a clem!

There were on my count three, no, four, no, half a dozen guys in front
of the scene.  I couldn't handle them all by myself, no way. So I made
the call for other guys to join me and try to solve the situation.

Which didn't seem easily solvable without a broken limb. Or head. However, it
might be solvable without that limb breaking being mine, if I only got
a few more guys from the circus to lend a hand.

Guy "Indian Giver", the layout man, was the first to arrive, as he always did. That was one
of the reason why he was allowed to boss everyone around even being
white, octoroon he said, but we knew he was white as white wool, that
he was. Hey, all races and all that, no problem, awright? Besides, he
was always there. He didn't even made a fist or expected other guys to
arrive, just pushed me aside and started to talk.

"What the fuck do you want with us?" He asked in the general direction
of the kidnappers. One of them, with overalls, a dirt-colored shirt,
cordless boots and and a baseball bat,
a middle-aged guy going on old age with a single tooth that we could
see, hissed and kind of said: 

"The honor of my daughter Tracy, who you're showing here naked an' all
for all niggers and spics to see..."

"Hey, hey, hey, mind your language, ol' mate. It's also there for you
honkies to see if you pay the price, matey!" He answered, raising his
hands, palms front and laughing. Not the right answer, apparently,
because all six or seven or them started to wield their weapons and
one of them picked up the professor from the floor and put the machete
by the side of his neck. 

"You'se a funny one, you. But you'se paying for this, and you'se
paying it dearly because the honor of a daughter has no price"

"You don't want anybody else but your own family banging her, do you,
matey?" Guy the Indian Giver said. The machete drew closer to the professor
neck, the baton closer to the other girl head, and one of the arms of
Tracy was released, just so the guy that had her, presumably his
brother, could shake the bate more freely with the other hand.

"That's what you niggers do. We white folk respect each other and God,
we do!" Guy could be only proud of being called a nigger, since he was
just getting out of his winter paleness. That might be the reason why
he seemed to change tack and stop insulting them.

"So you're all brothers and fathers, right? What if we call the Guard
and have all that checked out and we see who's right or wrong here?"
Asked Guy, making emphasis on the Guard. More people had arrived, but
the circus act was in full swing, so not many of them were
available. In fact, I think I could see a flicker of Rufus somewhere
to my left. 

"You call the Guard and before they arrive this girl has a new face
and that guy has no face. And any of us escapes alive, and everybody
will know that you called outside people to take care of your
business." Said the old guy. Ouch, that hurt. Guy the Indian Giver didn't
flinch. 

"Now we're talking, matey. How much is that honor thing worth to you?"

"No less than twenty and five thousand" The old toothless guy
answered, straight away. 

"Dollars? That's how much, thirty seven pesos?" The folks around Guy
laughed. In fact, it was closer to fifteen thousand, I
reckon. Eighteen thousand, you say, Duke? OK, around that. But it was
funny anyways. 

"You know better than that, nigger, you know what I mean, don't you," replied the old man.

"She's hardly worth half that amount. You seen her tits? Stupid
question, that's what you have at home instead of radio, as civilized
homes do." The old man took this in stride. It was money talking now,
and that was a language they both understood very well.


So it became an auction, except for the witticisms and the bludgeon
shaking from time to time. Guy was really having a great time, but I
was completely lost. Every word seemed to get them 
angrier and, besides, nobody else seemed to be coming to help. I was
about to run to the carriages to fetch anybody when I saw the canvas
of the tent be ripped open to the right hand side of the honkies. 

Manuel the mechanical man came in faster than I thought he could
through the rip, shaking his grips like a mill and buzzing like a
pissed off old drone. It pushed the honkey that was closer to the
opening, making him drop the machete. The other guys released the
girls, and came to him, starting to batter them with their clubs. They
made one or two dents, but all of a sudden one of them, the I<father>,  realized their prey
had fled and their power to bargain themselves out of the situation
had dropped to nil.


So they used instead the opening left to escape. But he stopped a
moment before going out to waggle his finger at us and yell.

"You'll end up blacker than you are now, you machine-loving mother
raping niggers, when we set you on fire. If you don't give us our
daughter or our money back" 

He shouldn't have done that, because that gave Manuel time enough to
turn around, not an easy thing, I must say, and grab one of the braces
of his overalls, ripping them off, which gave us a sight of his
white-as-pissed-snow hairy butt. He kept his boots on, and he used
them for running. 

We didn't bother running after them. I actually run towards Tracy, who
wore an expression difficult to describe. No, it was absolutely not
nondescript. Rather the other way round. 


=head2 It's a badger game

Somebody told me that Rufus had been hurt by the honkies, and I went
to the office where Guy was tending to him. He had been outside the
tent, driving Manuel from there, when one of the guys that was
escaping hit him in the head. Guy was stitching him, while he said:

"It's a badger game. And we shouldn't have fallen for that. It's us
who badger them, not the other way round." A badger game, something I
know now, is when you sell a mark the key to your I<girlfriend>
carriage and, when he opens the door and finds her there (or not), you
threaten him to give you more money or else. 

The door opened violently and  Ted "Cracker" Armistead, the
blackface clown, the big boss of the clown posse, came in. He didn't seem happy. He never did, because
he was an old grumpy whitey, that, when not in character, looked as if
he was permanently sucking a lemon. When in character, he was the
clown that always wanted the other to do something, eventually being
duped by them, which didn't make him seem happy either. And, in real
life, he was the enforcer of the party line on the circus, the one
that wanted everything to be done by the book, and, as a reward, got
very much the same he obtained in his act. However, some people in the
circus seemed to just vanish when he was in the same room. And Rufus
was one of them. 

His
unhappiness had gone up one notch, his mouth an inverted V foaming with
spittle that was started to give his black mask a ragged appearance,
like monster teeth. Rufus started to shiver when he appeared in the
cracked-open door.

"Why? We were about to get them" he shot, straight away, looking at Rufus.

Rufus smiled a sad smile. "I know. And I know what would have
happened. That's why I came in. Or rather Manuel did." He seemed a bit
defying, but only managed to flash it for a brief second. 

The inverted V in Ted's face became a cruel line. 

"That's funny. Ever so funny." But nobody was laughing. "So you think
you can do our act, don't you?" Rufus did an aborted shrug. "You want
to be one of us, right? You think you're funny enough?" Rufus started
shivering again, and I tried to disappear just by force of will. "Or
maybe your apparatus is?" Guy tried to appease him.

"Hey, Ted, he solved the situation, didn't he? All our guys are now
safe, only hurt was him"

"He solved it, did he? All crackers escaped, and cracked him, instead
of us cracking them" I almost smiled hearing Ted "Cracker" talk about
crackers. Guy started to say something about the Guards, but Ted
continued. "Since your doohickey is so good at acting, what if we put
it in the clown posse? Wouldn't that be just great?"

Rufus just opened his mouth, not daring to say anything. 

"Tomorrow I want to see you both in front of my carriage. We'll start
right away to rehearse. Guy, they're out of the menagerie." Guy threw
his hands up, as if to say "Whatever." Rufus showed a face of pain,
but Guy had finished stitching. 

I said nothing, but was already thinking about possibilities and I
didn't like them a bit. I felt my cheeks burn and I first though I had
flushed, but then I realize there was light and heat coming from the
open door. Something was afire out there.


=head2 We didn't start the fire

I was out of the door a fraction of a second after Ted.   One of the
midway concession shops was afire, and we run there.   There were
horses and confusion and what looked like a bonfire, right next to
the concession.

A jointee run up to Ted, shouting.

"The Klan! It's the Klan!" Ted slapped him in the face. To calm him
down, or just for the hell of it. Maybe that was the reason he went
into clowning. They slap a lot.

"There's no such think in the people's republic! Just shut up and
fetch the ringmaster!" I could see that the bonfire was actually a
cross on fire. And that the riders that were running had pointed white
hats and white robes. 

Ted started to run catercorner  to the fire. The jointee went past me,
looking for the ringmaster, which was still at the office carriage,
tending to Rufus. And I could either try to stop the fire, or go in
pursuit. And then I heard cries coming from the jig show tent.

Actually,  cries and shouts were coming from all directions; It was late already and most
customers had left, but the few dyed-in-the wool marks were still
pouring out of the skin shows and gambling tents. And some of them were
crying their heads out. I noticed
those particular ones for some reason;  that cry was kind of different.

Yes, I know cries. I worked the cows, and know when a cow is calling
its calf, when she wants a hump, when she's broken a leg or when she's
just mooing her happiness. A woman
crying is no different, and I heard that whoever was shouting from the
jig show was crying surprise. And she was
probably Tracy. So I made the choice and run in that direction. 

When did I work the cows? No, I never did that. Did I just say that?
No way, I was raised and lived in California and there are no cows to
speak of there. Just oranges. 

So, as I said, run up to the jug show and what I found there was a group of circus girls beating senseless
one of the honkies that had tried to scam us before. He was still
dressed in 
white rags, so he was part of the raiding party. Which,
come to think of it, was probably just a distraction to get again at
the same person: Tracy.

Tracy was telling them to please stop. The guy was in a pretty bad
shape, lying on the floor and
trying to stand up, but he was being kicked in the general area of his
bollocks and was not going to be able to stand straight for a good
amount of time. But for the time being it was quite clear that he was
not going anywhere, either with Tracy or without her.

"OK, OK, ladies, let me take it from here." I picked up the guy who
spat a tooth out as he stood. He started to curse me and the girls and
tried to look sideways at Tracy, but I slapped him good. 

But once I've done that and pushed him outside, the truth was that I didn't know what to do with him. I was taking him
to the ringmaster when Vince came up to me with a saddled show horse. 

"We're after the Klan guys." He said, and handled me the ride. 

"But..." I tried to say.

"No buts. Mount and come with us. We need all hands."

"And what about this one?" 

"Tie him up somewhere, we'll take care of him afterwards." That's what
I did. When I came back, he'd flown away, obviously. He was the luckiest
one of the whole group. 

We galloped together in the direction of Miami, following the path the
Klansmen seemed to have taken. What we were going to do once we caught
up with them I had

no idea, but I was pretty sure the rest of the posse did, and that
seemed to be the reason they were holding the reins of the horses more
than their will to take proper care of the circus property. 

I<write and revise>


=head2 Clown act

A few hundred yards down the path  the clown car sped past us,
apparently also in pursuit of the attackers in their
horses. Wigs and big shoes were coming out of its windows and they were honking
and laughing and shooting all at the same time. It was not going to take long
for them to reach our attackers and in due time we could see light 
arising from somewhere in the path, a few hundred yards ahead of us. 

I would have stopped right there but didn't, afraid of being uncovered
by the other circus hands. Well, you know, I mean uncovered as not
being part of the circus brotherhood. Nobody could have a hint of what
I intended to do, I hadn't tell no one. 

Not that I was under a cover, mind you. I just didn't want them to
know that my purpose in life was not to live in and by the circus,
just to get something out of it.

But I should have left everything right there and then, because I didn't like
what I saw down the road. It was not nice, you know. Not that they
didn't deserve it, but one thing is thinking that somebody deserves
what comes his way and another wanting him to be done in front of
you. 

It didn't take long for us to arrive there, but the whole time we
listened to laughs and explosions and shoots. And yells, some happy yells, some
not. The yellow light coming out of it and above it danced, as if
something was burning. And the smell. 

One of the horses the Klansmen were using came in our direction and it
very nearly made us fall from our ride; that along with the smoke
and smell frightened them and we could not make them walk back
again. So we tied them to some bush stalks and took from there by feet, half
running. 

Not that we could do much when we arrived at a small clearing at the
highway, from where the laughs and smells and smoke seemed to be
coming from. The four Klansmen, robes on fire, were lying down, writhing. One of
them was still trying to stand up,
yelling, The clown posse was going around them, using their squirt
guns to douse them with something that kindled the fire, while they
were laughing. And  doing the routine.

"Oh my oh my oh my, my guests are on fire" said Clippo, the Auguste.

"They are just keeping warm, my boy," answered Ted, the
Blackface clown. The other six were dancing around them, keeping a distance
and amusing themselves. Another one had gone to fetch the Klansmen's
horses.

"Oh my, they seem a tad too warm, ain't they." Said Clippo.

"Here, help them with a blanket." Answered Ted, giving him a 
handkerchief. Clippo made all a show of throwing the handkerchief on
what seemed now just a pile of ashes of a man.

This went on for a while, and the rest of us that had arrived later on
horseback couldn't do anything but look. Eventually Ted produced a
gun with a barrel as long as his leg and shot one of them, the one who still
was whimpering and moving, in the head.

All was quiet after that, except for the fire crackling and the laughs of the clowns getting
back into their car and driving back to the circus.

"Let's go. Let the Guard take care of this mess."  We walked back to
our horses, not speaking at all. We arrived all tired and sooty back
at the circus and we went straight to our carriage; we could hear
laughs coming from the clown carriages for a while still.



=head2 Rebuilding

Fortunately, nobody was badly damaged by the fire at the circus. And
you have to fight fire with fire, so no big deal here. But didn't mean
I had to breath the same air as the clowns, and I tried to keep as far
away from them as possible. 

As did, apparently, Rufus. Back then I did not know why, but he became
a bit twitchy every time a clown was getting close to us. And if that
was Cracker, the boss, he was invaded by twitches so bad that he was
incapacitated. That made 
him almost a permanent fixture in the gaucho crew, even if there were
no revue girls around. 

He even  paid attention  sometimes when I talked to him, but he seemed
to have some difficulty staying focused, trying always to steal the
focus of the conversation to talk about other stuff. Which was just a
well, since from time to time he gave me tidbits I could later one use
to grab hold of Manuel. 

And then there was Tracy. Couple of days after the I<incident>, when we
were moving somewhere else, she was found under a carriage, a true
possum belly queen. 

The morning after her real or make-believe family all went to wherever
those guys go where they die, ha, ashes to ashes, that's rich,
Captain, she hanged around the circus grounds and the 
back lot looking derelict and not doing much else, a lot louse among
many.  I let her stick around and gave her some food, hell, she was not
guilty of what had happened, at least not completely, and she was an
oppressed minority all by herself in that family that used, and
probably abused her. But the rest of the circus mates thought
she was gaucho, she was not trusted, and for them
she was like the fly that buzzes around you and your food, you just
wave and wait until it finds a bigger shit to hang around. But  hell,
she was pretty and she didn't seem to have any place to go, why the
hell would she hang around a circus otherwise, for hell's sake. If
somebody bothered to  think about her, which they probably didn't,
they would think she'd had her day in the sun but but now she'd
probably be somebody else's problem.

And that somebody else happened to be me for no other reason that
Vince was nowhere to be found when she was discovered as a stowaway
under the belly of one of the carriages. When did that
happen? Well, couple of days after the arson and the Klansmen barbecue. We had loaded
the carriages into the flatcars of the train that was taking us to
Fort Lauderdale. That was late Tasahcé, it was becoming hot and we had
to stop to water after a few miles and one hour, we were barely past
Aventura, that's a little town up the East Florida Coast, never mind
the name... And those trains are shit, people's technology and all that,
but man, are they older by the day... Yes, Duke, that wouldn't have
happened if you'd been in charge, but people's got priorities...

So we stopped there at the watering depot and everybody was down their
carriages to stretch their legs, clowns started shooting at a tree
trunk just for the hell of it, elephants were bellowing and from between a flatbed and a
carriage, so black with soot she seemed almost beautiful, there came
our friend Tracy. 

Somebody fetched me and a few moments later, there she was in front of
me, after the find went down the 
command line from manager to ringmaster to whoever wanted to be in
charge of her. Which, barring anybody else, happened to be me.

I was pissed at the beginning. She was a piece of work, and she was
white on top of that. But she knew how to earn a living if we only
gave her a chance. 

Plus she was pretty. Bad hair, but pretty. Yes, I already said that. 

So she was adopted. By me. 

¿Manuel? He was somewhere else in the train. Should be, at
least. And Rufus with him. I couldn't care less about it in that
moment. 

Neither I did care for a week or so, but I'm not going to talk about
that, you jerks. We were talking about Manuel, right? Well, I was. So that's all
the talk you're gonna get today or tomorrow. 

I<revise> 


=head2 The second greatest show on earth goes to New Orleans

So we were going back to the United States of America. What was left
of them, 
anyways. They still seemed all too happy to shoot the odd border
patrol or even taking an useless pop at an airship, but was mostly
happy to get rid of second-rate citizens, or so it seemed. 

That was apparently not enough to restore the broken railway links
between the Republic and the US. Beyond Mobile, the railroad was blown
up to, at least, Red Bluff. So the easiest way to go from here to
there, from the real Land of the Free to the purported Land of the
Free, was to sail from Pensacola. 

So it was Noah's Ark all over again, as  Boris the circus manager said at
least one zillion times before, during and after boarding. Not that we
did not know already that all that Noah stuff was a big steaming pile
of elephant dung, but if you put lions and horses and bearded women
and whatnots inside a steamer they're gonna get mighty nervous, I tell
ya. So no way Noah would have made it for forty days. Unless he got him a
circus manager like we did. Friend of saying platitudes, but a good organizer
all the same.


Yes, I would have preferred an airship. The circus comisario was on its
way to New Orleans already. But, pray tell, how the fuck do you expect
to put an elephant in an airship? You did it once? Really? Why didn't
you stick a couple of wings and a rocket up its butt and made it fly?
No way, man, absolutely no way you could put the thirty-odd carriages
in airships, you would have needed so many of them. Yes, you love
airships, Commodore, that's a fact.

This was my first chance to actually drive the mech. Aw, man, we are
calling it a hoborg, but just from a couple of nights ago! Just let me
call it the way I've always done. You want to hear the story? As I was
saying, you already know it has to be driven. On its own, he is barely
able to repeatedly bump into a wall or wander aimlessly like a chicken
whose head has just been bitten by a geek. Or a frog, yes,
Frog-Eatin'.  Grease was the one usually driving the mech, but he was
too busy disengaging carriages from the tractor, securing them on the
deck and trying at the same time to put the poor beasts at ease. The
space occupied by the mech was needed for something so I got to drive
it for the first time. 

No, it does not even come close to driving a horse and I ain't never
piloted a car. It's a metal box with a wheel and several levers and
knobs. I was told to never get farther than a dozen feet from from it,
this wheel for turning, this lever forward, this knob to make it
faster. Grease gave it to me, and I swear it turned its teakettle head
to look at me. Yes, it does that. It's not only levers and knobs and
whatnots. I still don't know what half the driving box does, but I do
know that the fucking mech has a mind of its own. No soul, Blackie, no
soul, man. No man's got a soul, nobody. It's humbug the American
capitalistas have been feeding you. So how come a fucking mechanical
contraption have a soul if not even you have it!  But, boy, does it
have a mind. A cat's mind, if you ask me.

So after checking me out he mostly did what it was told, turn right,
turn left, up the plank, to the prow. To tell you the truth, it kind
I<wanted> to get to the very end of the prow; every time I veered away
to let it rest near the castle it kind of tugged to the right, as if
wanting to be there, looking at the sea. Ever seen the sea? Yes,
Count, you watched it for hours on end from your own boat. It's mighty
beautiful. No wonder even a mech would want to stand where he could watch it. Or maybe it
was just a bit cranky. Who knows. He could not have gone there,
anyways, because the space was taken by a bulk covered with a
tarp. Nothing related with the circus, it should have been there
before us, because the tarp had a different color, ours were green,
this one was tan. 

I didn't have the time to stay around to watch it any more because the
Boris the circus manager grabbed me again and had me doing Chinese, putting
things in cabins, covering the carriages with tarpaulins and hauling
supplies belowdecks. Which is a nice word that somebody shouted while
we were doing there and means in the basement of the ship. 

I got myself a cabin with Shorty and one of the windjammers, if one
played and the other danced we could keep ourselves amused during the
whole trip. Which I
only discovered after I woke up to the sound of explosions
somewhere. Some mighty thunderstorm might be happening, but that was
unlikely since the boat did not seem to be swinging too
much. Something completely different might be going on, and I got
dressed and went up to the deck to check it out.

I<revise>


=head2 Attack on the high seas

When I arrived at the main deck, everything seemed to be quiet for a
few seconds. The sea was calm and deep blue, the sky only sported a
few wispy clouds, and the ship was rocked just a bit back and forth. I
took a breath and thought about going back to my cabin to properly
finish the dream I was dreaming when I heard a second explosion and
started to see what looked like the whole roustabout crew running to
both ends of the ship. Some of them were pointing up and above, a bit
to the left, "fore and port," somebody was yelling.

It was difficult to make out, but a few hundred of feet in that
direction was an airship. It was mostly painted in blue, sky blue but
its cabin had some struts coming out of it that were pointing directly
at us and apparently popping some rounds. 

"Some mark that has not been happy with our act, apparently." Raúl the
ringmaster was by my side, smiling with part of his mouth and smoking
his pipe. I hadn't heard his coming, as I never did. This guy was the
master of the ring and made himself heard and seen but his special
skill was to make that happen only when and if he wanted. 

"The airship was not on the table, then." I answered. "Or he would have
lost it." That made his smile extensible to almost three quarters of
his mouth. And he snorted, too.

"They are probably pirates from Texas. The airship model is not
Spanish, They will fold as soon as they realize we can resist their
attack" He said, while returning his face to the standard smirk, and
he was on his way to the deck or wherever he was meant to be, leaving
me alone. 

The mystery of the tarp to the front of the ship was soon revealed
along with the long tube that was below it. It was quite obviously a
gun, and it didn't even need to be loaded; it had a big gunsight in
front of a seat which was quickly occupied by what I thought to be a
deck hand before. It didn't take long to have it shot; something came
out of it sprouting flames and unrolling a cable while the guy manning
the gunsight was moving a stick and turning knobs from time to time. 

"Looks like we are going to hunt us a big fat evil capitalista whale."
Raúl said, the crooked smile never leaving its face while the harpoon
wiggled towards the airship, which seemed to be getting farther and
farther up. Small geysers raised above the otherwise quiet surface of
the water, and we all seemed like the public of a lion taming act
without a jail, just looking on as if the air was protection enough to
what could happen. I knew it was not. And I knew I had to protect what
could be my property, so while everybody was looking up I run to the mech, which was just a few feet
behind the harpoon gun, unfastened it from the deck, retrieved the
driving box and started to move it.

It was stupid, of course. But nobody was there to tell me that at that
moment. No, it didn't sink, Gummy, you moron. Can't you see it is
right there. Please stop crying!


=head2 Rocking Manuel

I<revise>

Give me a mud puddle and I can tell you how to pull a wagon out of
it. Give me a mare and I can get a foal out of her pussy. Give me
fourscore of bulls, and I'll tell you how to iron them in no time
flat. How do I know that? You know, people talk. 

But don't you give me anything over the water. Because it fucking
rocks and moves and can fucking sink to the bottom. So, get my advice:
grab anything that floats and don't move away from it. That's exactly
the opposite of what I did. I went for the most sinkable thing there
were, and I unfastened it and started to move it using the box. 

The damn guy wanted no part of it. I pushed the forward lever several
times, and it kind of shivered, but stayed there. I heard the faint
sound of voices and the fizzling sound of something being dropped into
the sea; sometimes a zing here and there, but nothing to worry
about since it didn't look as if it was getting closer. So when
Three-M eventually decided to move I just had to worry about
keeping my two feet and its four wheels on deck, which was not the
easiest thing on earth. 

I moved to the left, which was starboard I think, trying to keep the
bulk of the deck cabins between us and the airship, a good amount of
Spanish steel, but we were moving
in fits and starts and I started to hear some muffled thuds not so far
away from me, like metal drums covered in blankets. And I started to get worried, but not
enough to avoid the seasickness that was growing from my belly and
swelling up little by little.

It was not helping that I was walking backwards, keeping Three-M in
front of me and moving towards me. It didn't help either that Three M was not
helping. It moved sideways, trying to keep itself away from the sea, and kept bumping with
things, hatch locks and rivets and loose tools, at the same time it kept
turning its head to try and look at the airship. And, I swear,
I didn't touch the head-turning knob, I didn't even know which one was
used for that, forward and turning and backwards was all I knew back then. 

So, unhelpful and all, cursing through my teeth as I was, he
eventually saved my life. 


=head2 Biting the bait

The sound of bullets hitting on us was getting too close for comfort
and soon I was more intent on dodging bullets or rather the sound of them than
trying to move Three-M, although I was trying to bring him to a ramp
that led to the belly of the ship, 
where at least there would be a few inches of steel between us and the
rest of the world, where all people who still had their wits about
should be now, except maybe the guys manning the gun. But Manuel
turned slightly his head to kind of look behind me and blink, buzzing
at the same time. I turned my head to see
what the hell was that about and I saw some strange shapes in the
direction we were heading, towards the back
of the boat and right between the ramp that was my destination and
where I was standing now. I then turned completely, oblivious of the
mech and paralyzed like the rabbit caught in front of a light.


Those shapes revealed themselves into three guys, dressed in tights; one of
them run to stern (abaft, I should say if I knew the first word about
nautical terms, which I don't), gun in hand, and the other two just started to
shoot. 

No, Captain, they hadn't descended from the airship, that was well and
away and it had stopped shooting or I wasn't hearing anything. We later gathered that they had used the airship as a bait so that
everybody got undercover and didn't see them approaching and boarding
the ship from a speed boat. Its intention then was run and look for valuables that
could be easily loaded and get on their way. 

Except that in this occasion they had found me and Manuel. Either
they considered Manuel a strangely shaped buoy or they chose not to do
anything about him, but no sooner had they spotted me they started
to shoot their guns against me. But at the same time, Manuel had
decided to move forward and pushed me aside, making me fall face first
on the ground, from where I couldn't do anything,  I didn't even dare to raise my head for fear it got a new
hole that afforded me a change of jobs to the shop of horrors of
the circus.

But the whole thing didn't take long. I heard them cursing and yelling
and then the sound of an object falling to the water. I then raised my head and saw
Manuel was rolling past where the guys had stood and was slowly coming
to a halt. 

I really didn't find out what had happened, other that there were
smears of blood in Manuel's claws. If he had just kept going, the two
pirates could have dodged him or pushed back. He did something to
throw them into the water, I just didn't know how or what. And he was
not gonna tell.

The third guy? He was given to the clown posse. I am not gonna talk
about it. No, really. 

I<revise>


=head2 Parade of the monsters in New Orleans

No more pirates until we arrived to the port in New Orleans, where My main concern was to keep an eye on Manuel, just in
case these capitalist pigs wanted to lay their hands on it and keep
for them. How did I know they wanted it? Well, who wouldn't? Yes,
myself a few weeks before, but I wasn't a capitalist but a loyal
Republic citizen, so what would I know?
That is why I stayed at the circus all the time and I mostly missed what I am about to tell you. But is as
true as it gets, since I knew it from a first hand account. Where was
I? You know, here and there, doing stuff, busying myself. 

I expected to be busier than usual, since a dockworkers strike had
been announced. However, we were surprised to see mainly black
fellows, but also the occasional whitey
coming up the plank and helping us unload our shit to the docks. No
shortage of workers was available, indeed, and we had everything ready
at the harbor in less time that it usually took to unload a train. 

It was all for the sake of workers' union and stuff, so we were
expected to join the demonstration that was going to take place as
soon as the parade was ready. A demonstration with elephants, the
world hadn't seen the like of it before that. It was going to be
awesome, but I wasn't going to participate in it, since just the cages
and floats and artists were participating in it, we roustabouts went
straight to the circus grounds to take care of laying out the circus
grounds, set up the big top and all the rest of the business we
usually did.

So I didn't see but the start of the parade and demonstration, that
formed right there on the docks,  and it was slated to go march through the French quarter, place of vice
now and ever, but that rhymes with circus, right? Yes, in Latin, ha ha
you're fun, Duke. And smart. 

As soon as it left Jackson Square, the people started gathering around the parade, some palefaces but mostly
brothers. The stiltwalkers that went on front gave out ducats pretty much to everybody on
sight who was a shade darker than chalk, the circus
management wanted to be a big party for America's workers, a gift from
the All Races Republic of Florida to the workers of America. Not all
of America. Just the workers. Of course, all folks in the
demonstration got their ducat and even helped to carry placards saying
"More workers, why not more jobs?", "Screwmen or bust!" or "Union shop or no shop". A
general strike had been called by the workers, and in the middle of the morning of a working day
there were many able young men who, apparently, had skipped work and
joined the strike or
simply didn't have one to go to. They started to swell the ranks of
the ranks of the demonstration, and soon there was more people on the
parade than outside it. And those who did were armed and had a
sideways look that spelled trouble for the demonstration.

But that was later. The parade was great and dramatic and epic and
millions of people participated in it and mingled with the elephants
and the camels and even some smart watched it from the
balconies and perched on top of street lights. It proceeded down Royal
street and then went right on Canal street to go left again on Loyola
Avenue. People cheered all the way to the train station esplanade, where the
circus was due to mount again in carriages and go back to the
esplanade. Apparently the Southern Pacific railway workers, who were
also on strike, were going to help us anyways. People told me that it
was all beautiful and pacific and a bit workers party.

But elsewhere, trouble was brewing and already brewed. And I didn't see it or anything,
but I'm pretty sure it was not our fault.

I<revise and write>


=head2 Terrible Trouble in Tremé

The capitalist press said afterwards that we had been inciting the masses to
rebellion, but that was not true, well, not completely. The only papers they posted were
circus paper, nothing that told the emaciated, overworked and
exploited brothers of the still United States of America that workers'
paradise was just a hundred miles away, in the Republic of
Florida. People talked in the parade, exchanged addresses for keeping
in touch, all normal
among educated workers. And yes, people and elephants held a few
placards. So what? Is that forbidden now in democratic America?

Maybe it's not so democratic, and maybe
they heard the paper posters talking, or maybe they were just on the
brink of rebellion, all the United States are, ain't they? Yes, I see
you all nodding, you know it's true, people were just asserting their
rights and that was that.

It was nobody's fault either but the repressive Louisiana cops that a couple of our own clowns ended up
in jail, but that was somehow how it all started. Why the clowns were
sent to that jail in a neighborhood called Tremé and inhabited by brothers is not clear, since as I said they had not been on the
parade, I said that, right? They might have been drunk and on the
wrong side of a police officer, or just too black for the Irish copper
that apparently arrested them.

So it was not our fault either that Ted, as white as it gets but all
dressed up and with the blackface makeup on went, or rather should I
say paraded down Claiborne Avenue, up to there in the circus clown car
followed by the marching band and the elephants and a few acrobats and
eventually a few thousand locals to demand early release of his
mates. 

When they arrived at the police station, it was very unlikely that
jokes would be the only thing to be cracked. Never was when Cracker was in charge. 


=head2 Knock, knock, knocks who?

The metropolitan police locked and bolted all doors of the police station and started to
crack windows and put stuff behind them to prepare for the siege. 

But the action didn't take long to start. The clowns, to the blaring music of the
marching band and much dancing from locals and circus people alike,
unloaded the mech which Ted had commandeered. Then the clowns went around
the mech singing "Police home is coming down, coming down" while the
coppers where kept at bay by distractions and the occasional shot to
make them hunker down. Which they did, mostly, until a slightly bent forward
Manuel crashed into the main door, prying it wide open; elephants
eliminated one of the main floor windows by tearing them up, they were
angry after taking  useless pot shot from the coppers. After that,
everybody came in. And everybody came out. Clowns and not a small amount
of brothers who had been detained for no good reason.

Yes, I said I was keeping an eye of Manuel, but to keep it from the
capitalist pigs. I couldn't do anything about the circus people. Even
if I had known. Yes, sometimes I'm a lousy eyekeeper, but what the
hell, I can't keep it company for ever! Well, I do know. Where is it,
by the way? Wireless took it for a ride? Aw, c'mon, Wireless, bring it
back! You're going to break it!


=head2 Who's that mech?

That night's act would have been quite a success if we hadn't got wind
that the national guard had been called and was likely to crash our
party. So we had to leave too soon.

But I didn't know any of that I was putting up a tent pole at the circus site and I saw them coming, still
parading, with the band in a truck bed playing fast and loud. Rufus
came running from my right to retrieve the mech from the clowns, who were with
their car in front of the convoy. Manuel was in a truck bed, still but
with its claws up, and somebody had given him a ball cap that sat
precariously on top of his head.  Rufus climbed up and started to
untie it, making the cap to finally fall down and the mech itself to
swing dangerously.

The clown car stopped and Ted "Cracker" Armistead, the chief of the
clown posse, came out of it. tiptoeing on his apparently too small
dancing shoes. His blackface mask was 
starting to melt due to the New Orleans heat and it was becoming a
pink and gray mess leaking goo on his white gown. He came up to the truck
where Rufus was struggling to 
get Manuel loose.

"Leave that thing alone." Cracker said, not very loud, but so clearly that I
could hear it among the din of the parade and the rest of the
circus. Rufus shivered, but kept going at the straps.

"Stop the truck!" He yelled this time. The truck shuddered to a
stop, and Rufus fell back on his bottom. 

"I would ask you to let that go and come down from there. You don't
need to worry, you'll get it back in time for the show. For
now, let it bask in the glory of the people. He's a hero. Manuel, the
Manly Mechanical Man!" Ted said,
extending his arms in a way that managed to be threatening at the same
time it asked for the applause of everybody surrounding them. 

"But..." Rufus said, while trying to stand up.

"Boy, get it running again!" Ted said to the truck driver. Rufus was
barely crouching and fell down again.

"But... It's dented!" Rufus managed to say from the floor.

"Yes. You don't dare repair it. They are combat wounds, and must be worn with
pride!" Ted said while walking back to the clown car. 

Rufus didn't dare to try anything after that. He lied there for a
while and eventually, when he noticed the truck was picking up speed, crept down from the truck and walked crestfallen back to his
wagon. The rest of the parade proceeded loudly and I continued doing
my job and wondering if this was a chance or a trap. I would discover
soon enough.


=head2 By the people, for the people

After New Orleans, something had become  loose in the head of Rufus the
mechanical man man, mirroring whatever had happened inside Manuel when he had
rammed is way into the New Orleans police station. Besides, now the
clowns were taking the mech away from time to time and every time it
happened he became increasingly nervous and jittery. The circus
assembly was approaching so he decided to take the matter there to see
if it could be settled.

You probably have been in an assembly, right? Did you, Captain? Yep,
you probably had them in the army all the time, didn't you? Not any
more? Why, they're such fun. The assemblies at the circus were a
hoot. They were held in the circus tent, and sometimes they were used
to present new acts and let us vote on them, have people ask for
change of shifts, present their grievances with their bosses... yes,
and sometimes for self-criticism that led to circus exile and
sometimes to other things I didn't really wanted or cared to inquire
about. Nasty things, probably, but that is what awaits the enemies of
the people.

We were in Freedomville, and assemblies were held right after the
show, that show I mentioned at the beginning of my story, don't you
remember? Hell, I don't even know why I bother to amuse you with my
story, I could as well be talking about cucumbers and pink ponies and you
would remember exactly the same... 

Don't know why do I care, but once I've started, it's better to end,
right, Duke. Hey, wake up! If we did an assembly here I'd get you
blacklisted from the fire and taken to sleep in the flatbed car!

OK, the assembly. Circus of the People's assembly, everybody sitting
in the bleachers, a few matters brought to the circus manager and the
ringmasters, Bobby, one of the Siamese twins owed money to the other
one, Bob, who
said he had returned it to him, putting it directly in the pocket his
side of the body, but Bobby was saying he didn't find it there, so he
might have stolen it from him or just plainly used some sleight of his
hand, while Bob said that he wasn't handling the hand at that
particular moment, so it was probably himself who has stashed it
somewhere and forget it, and they went like that for a while until
Boris told them to shut the fuck up or they would be exhibited as the
Siamese twins which also shared a mouth and he was personally going to
sew them together. They would share all the money and that was that. 

A few stuff like that was settled in a similar way; the elephant tamer
wanted to become the smart dogs caretaker, and the professor that was
presenting the jig show wanted to switch with the one that presented
Frank Fuertote, the strongman, and there were a few laughs here and
there because we all knew which side of the road the professor was on
and that was precisely the reason why he was doing the jig show. 

And then Rufus was called to talk about his problems with the
clowns. And silence descended on the bleachers. Even the gamblers
stopped gambling, and the smart dogs
that were frolicking here and there hushed and sat down on their butt.

I<revise and write>


=head2 Settling accounts with the clowns

"Rufus, be short and to the point. We all know what's going on, so
tell us only what we don't know." Said Boris. Rufus was visibly
shivering. Cracker and his sidekick Clippo had came down and where now
at the other side of the center of the circus ring of where Rufus
was. Boris, ever the master of ceremonies, was in a lectern placed
close to one of the ring gates. Cracker was in his full clown suit and
had even retouched his black makeup to look as if he was going to do
his act. And Clippo seemed to be there for no reason other than to
laugh at every movement. 

He opened his mouth to talk several times until he managed
to produce a sound.

"Manuel the mech was assigned to me by the People's High Commission of Science
and Technology. I was specially trained to command it and make repairs
that don't require special machinery. I am the only person qualified
to do that in this circus"

"But you are, aren't you, Rufus? You're the greatest mechanical man
man there! Let's all give an applause to this most excellent of
mechanical men men!" Said Cracker, and Clippo started to walk around
the ring clapping his hands over his head. All the people followed,
clapping and hooting. It actually took a while until it died down.

"So all I'm asking is to let the most qualified person... " Continued
Rufus.

"Which you no doubt are, Rufus. Let's give him another round of
applause for qualification!" Same thing again, although it took less
for it to die down. 

"The mech is about praising and showing the people's technology. It
can't be used for..." Rufus tried to say.

"But it can't, can't it?" He moved away from his position and started
to make a ceremonious introduction, "And now... with all of
you... Manny The Mechanical Clown!" And into the ring came Manuel, all
painted in checkered maroon, blue and white colors, the colors of the
republic, waving flags with both hands. After him came the full troupe
of clowns, who tried to ride him, climbing on him and falling down,
legs up, to the general merriment of the circus people. The band
started to play and highlighted falls with bass drum strokes.

"Can't... I can't do that!" Said Rufus, and started to try and follow
Manuel, who had now changed to pursuit mode and was trying to catch
the clowns who were all running in a row in front of it. A game of cat
and mouse followed, whenever Rufus was approaching Manuel it slowed
down and when it was about to grab it it sped back again, to the sound
of the band and the roll of the drums. Cracker started to go around
the ring making people clap their hands, and it was all laughs and
cheers and the discussion was pretty much over.

Cracker had the last word, as he always did. After a while like that,
Manuel turned around and caught Rufus off-guard, surrounding him with
its arms and raising it a few inches over the floor. Rufus' face
contorted, trying to escape. Manuel brought him to confront Ted.

"Who's controlling who, now, Rufus? Who's more qualified? Who should
be in charge? We'll let you have it alright, but only after and when
we want. Is that right, Boris?" He said, addressing the circus manager.

"I couldn't care less and I had a great time here, so whoever attends
will too," replied Boris. 

Manuel dropped Rufus, who fell to the floor. "All out and
over, all out, all over." That was the sign that the assembly had
finished and that we had to clean up whatever we dirtied and go to our
carriages and sleeping tents, so people shuffled out of the ring, the clowns circled it with
Manuel in tow, and Rufus was just left there, a rag of a man. I came down
to him and helped him to stand up, brushing his clothes. His eyes were
all rage, but his mouth was clapped shut. He let himself be helped for
a moment, but brushed me off and walked briskly to his carriage. 

Yes, Captain, I really felt bad about him. He would probably feel
worse when I took the mech away for him, but I didn't plan on
humiliating him first, it would probably not be necessary. By the by,
what's happened to Gummy? It's been a few nights already he's not been
around, ain't he? Just a day? 


=head2 Closed for repairs

I<write and revise> 

After that day, Rufus was to and fro, sometimes waiting at the clown
quarters for a good while before getting Manuel back, lost for hours
when he was not in possession of the mech, and looking lost the rest of
the time. I wasn't feeling very good either. since the clowns didn't
let me anywhere near the mech, but at least I had some chances as long
as it was returned to Rufus from time to time. 
But I thought he was just moody until one day, when we were taking the
mech back from the clowns to the menagerie, he flatly
told me that he was taking Manuel away from the circus to have it
fixed for some reason or other. 

There was something funky going on there. Funkier that whatever the
clowns, or myself were
up to, at least. Yes, I am not a people's guard, but funky is funky,
OK? 
Up until a few days before it was
working perfectly and all of a sudden the mech breaks down and has to
be taken somewhere for repairs. To tell the truth, it had been dented and had chipped in
some places, but it wasn't that bad. Well, it was also a bit rustier
than before it had sailed; the hot funk of New Orleans and the sea are
no good for him, I tell you. But nothing a bit of paint and a hammer
here and there could not mend. 

"Where again is it going?" I asked Rufus. He looked to his right and
answered. 

"Well, he can only be fixed at the Estación Naval at Pensacola,
that's the only place where..." He was shuffling his feet and looking
as if he wanted to be somewhere else. 

"Can't we have a look? I've seen you mending it from time to time,
so maybe I can help you with..." I said, groping for a way to keep it close. 

"No way. This time it's broken real good. It's the photoelectric cell
that activates head movement so... Besides, the Torres Quevedo engine
has to be revised and reprogrammed... and while we are at it we'll
repaint, grease, change a thing here and there..." Maybe he didn't say
those words, but it sounded like that or something that sounded as queer. 

"How long will that take?" I asked. Maybe not too long. I could stand
that.

"Who knows. It will be on the workshop queue along with other military mechs,
and while it is refurbished I have to undergo retraining and... " He said this while he was
leaving. So no joy here. But still I couldn't allow that to happen. It
couldn't go anywhere, not for long, maybe for ever. I had to look
for a way of keeping him in so that I could get it out. I went to
Boris.

"I can't do a damn thing, son. He's given me a wad of papers that seems
legit as far as I can tell. Besides, neither me nor anybody else in
the circus know squat about
those things, so it's got to be taken elsewhere to have it fixed real
good." I tried to "but" him, but he waved his hand to shut me up. "So
enough with that, if you're our of that job until he returns you can
go back to help the rest of the crew, don't 
worry about that." But I wasn't worried about I<that> part. That 
was indeed the least of my worries. 

"But, gee, I don't know, It kind of didn't seem to have any kind of
problem, so..." 

"What do you mean?" Said Boris. 

"Well, what I was saying is..." What  I was  saying was what? That I
intended to take it away myself? That if I didn't manage that, just
out of spite I
was going to snitch on Rufus to the clowns  who were going
to maim and slay him? Couldn't do that, either. If the clowns knew
about it and didn't suspect anything it wasn't going to be this son of
Tarsicia who was going to put them on the track.

"I understand you're worried about falling back to a less qualified
work, Full. That's a genuine  concern for a worker and citizen of the Republic, and I will address it
in due time. But let me check back with the ministry and I'll see what I
can do, whether I can get some other act or something, OK?" 
Out of a robot and in a dancing poodles act, I was seeing myself doing
that. Yes, they are cute, Captain. Get yourself a dozen and make them
dance a nice polka. 

I didn't expect anything out of that, if he even cared about doing
what he said. So I went back
to Rufus to try another angle. 

He was in his carriage workshop, tweaking at things inside
Manuel, who was slightly bent and with a hatch in the back wide
open. He closed it tight when he heard me opening the door to his
workshop. 

"You'll need help for the transport." I told him.

He looked up and dropped his hands from the mech, who turned around
and looked at me, too, wide open eyes. 

"A truck from the Estación will be sent with two Navy orderlies to
help me. Don't worry about that". 

"Well, anyways," I said, "they are not skilled, you know, they
might..."

"They won't, don't worry. If I need you, I know where I can find
you. Don't worry." Too many don't worries to not actually worry. I
stood there, thinking what to say. Rufus resumed his tinkering  with
sparks flying out of the wires;

Manuel looked away from me. I left.

If Manuel left, this could be the end of my circus days, which I expected to arrive
anyways sooner or later, but not like this. But the first day I was
there 
came back to me. That day I saw Manuel for the first time and I was
conned out of a good amount of pesos.

And then I knew how to grab hold of Manuel. So the circus day would
truly be over, but it would be over my way. And a good way it was, too. 


=head2 Gaffe building for fun and profit

I couldn't build it myself, of course. But if you've got the money and
the determination and the original model, nothing is impossible. What
I was thinking about building? Wireless, you were here the first day,
a week ago,
ain't you? When I told everybody how I was conned in the circus using
a gaffe that I<looked>, in fact, nothing like the real Manuel? 

So the idea was not to recreate the mech, but to create something that
looked like the mech, at least from a distance and weighed like the
mech, so that when Rufus asked me to help him load it somewhere, I
would give him the gaffe instead of the real thing. The second part of
the con was, of course, to coax Rufus into having me help him take the
thing away.

Rufus himself helped me to get away with it. He wanted so much to make
everybody think Manuel was broken, that he loosed a screw or something
so that he, I mean it, Manuel, stopped working altogether. That made
easier to substitute it: I couldn't for the world make something that
looked and I<acted> like the mech. 

Luckily, there were bits and parts of the mech in Rufus's workshop and
I took them to the circus blacksmith together with a wad of pesos to
keep his mouth shut and instill due diligence in him, at least for a
while. Since everybody knew that sooner than  Manuel was going
away soon I told him we were building a replica for the menagerie, but
since Rufus was very jealous of his act we didn't want him to know
what we were doing, right? That was a few pesos more. And then a few
more when the diligence vanished after just a day. And then it was the
I<act> part the one that had to go. No way something that actually
moved could be built in so short a time and by a blacksmith. 

And the questions increased in the same proportion that the will be
build it went down. Who was going to
be in charge of the gaffe? Did I want just one or several to sell?
Could the thing be traced back to him? I had to answer yes to that
one, there were nobody else in the circus with the tools to do it, and
that answer had to have more pesos attached. 

But he eventually could not get himself to finish it. A day in which
his sweat could not entirely be justified by the heat in his workshop,
he gave me a burlap bag stuffed with clanking things and sent me on my
way. 

I was then at a loss. Rufus could leave any time now. And then I
remembered Tracy.


=head2 White help

I needed Tracy to keep him busy and focused on something other than
the gaffe. I talked to her, she owed me, and, honkie and all, she
paid her dues so she not-so-reluctanctly agreed to keep Rufus
distracted when needed. Which might be any time now. 

But her abilities didn't lie in the building trade, so I had to have
the other part of the business covered. I took everything to a city car mechanic and gave him the sack and some
money up front, and a dozen of ducats to watch the show so that he could see the mech in
action and have an idea of how to rig what I gave him together to make
it look like that. And to have him keep his mouth shut, no question
asked, no sideways looks when I was bullshitting him about what I
wanted the stuff for. 

I didn't have much confidence in the guy, but actually it didn't take
him long to have something that if seen in the dark, 
and from a distance, and if you really had seen Manuel just a couple
of times, could pass for the original. He did a really good job on the
driving box, though. It really looked like the original one, wear and
tear and all. It couldn't work a damn thing, but made all the right
noises so if you worked it you could think something was larry
somewhere. 
All in all, there was no fucking way
Rufus could be fooled for a long time, even if he didn't have all his
wits about him. And I had spent two days and lots of pesos
doing this. 

I<revise>

That day, at dinner after the show, Rufus told me that somebody from
the naval station was coming the next day at dawn to pick them up. I
had actually seen him talking to a couple of look-alike guys with
moustaches that look exactly like what you saw in your mind when you
thought about a bohunk, and nothing like what you see when you think
"sailor." Yes, they had that. No, not that. Well, a bit. But, you
know, we are the rainbow republic, bohunks and whiteys and everything
it between, so what the hell.

Besides, I
was relieved. Dawn was good. I was damn good.  Yes, a damn good
dawn. Why are you laughing?


=head2 Dawning on her

I<revise and write>

"I just wanted to have a nice and wet farewell from you." Tracy told
Rufus with a voice and hip motion that would have had the Pope of Rome
convert to a life of sins right there and then. Tracy  was good at this, she had been born for
this. Honkies were not good for much else, Gummy, are you smiling?
Can't tell, without all the teeth.

Anyway, the face of Rufus and his dropped jaw told me that he'd fell bait, hook and switch
for it.  But, at the same time, he was stealing looks back to the carriage
where Manuel was stored, it was just a couple of hours away to dawn
and the other honkies were coming to get him away. Come to think of
it again, it was queer how many honkies were there in the Navy, two of them. And they
had worn nothing that looked like an uniform when I had seen them before.

But I didn't care. "Rufus, should I help you with Manuel? I can drive
it to the truck, while you, er, do other stuff" He didn't even look back to me since his mouth was anchored to
Tracy's by a long line of tongue and concomitant fluids. That was what I needed to make the
first switch. 

That part was easy. Most people were sleeping or doing nasty things in
their beds, so they were beyond care when I drove Manuel to the tigers cage
and hid it there. This might seem more difficult than it actually
was. Tigers sleep very soundly, not having a care in the world, and
the only thing you have to care about when entering their cage is not
to step on them. This they don't like. I<revise and write>
 I put the gaffe in place of Manuel and covered it
with a canvas.

The difficult part was going to be to drive the gaffe into the truck bed. But I
still had Tracy. 


=head2 Gripping gaffes

"Not only I have to hump that drooling geek, but I also have to help
you to haul stuff." Said Tracy.

"You owe me." I told her. She opened her mouth to say something. Then
she closed. She looked lovely when she did that. Then she opened it
again and she stopped looking anything like lovely.

"How much do you reckon I still owe you?" she said, crooking her mouth
and joining her eyebrows until they formed a thick bush in the middle
or her forehead. In fact, she had a single eyebrow, so frowning made
her look as if she had a moustache. Which, come to think of it, she
also had. Man, do cracker women have hair in all the wrong places... 

So well, she helped me to carry the gaffe to the truck bed; a truck
that didn't look either like a Navy truck, but who knows actually what
Navy trucks look like. I had seen the sailors coming off it, maybe to
have a quickie with the girls as the sailors are wont to, yes, Gummy,
as any man does, well, whatever, they were not there and we managed
with a bit of work and a few ropes to load it up the truck and stow it
there. 

We were finishing when the light was starting to shine in the horizon
and the circus was, lazily, coming out of their wagons and rummaging
through the grounds to start their daily chores. I could hear the
elephants baying and the horses neigh but yawns were even louder. I
could also smell animal smells and tobacco smells and could hear and
smell at the same time the sound of fat on frying pans. A new day
kicking sand in the circus, a day less for me. 

Tracy vanished with a yawn and left me loitering around the truck. The
sailors came back after a while, buttoning their pants, laughing and
giving each other palm strikes in the back. Happy and sleepy, just the
way I wanted them, and in pretty much the same shape Rufus showed up a
while after that.

But the sun was already over the horizon and that's a situation in
which gaffes shine just the way they are: humbugs, hoaxes and plainly
not the thing they're supposed to be. So I had to make them not look
under the burlap. 

Easier said than done. No, Captain, I couldn't hit them, they were
three and I was one. No, Duke, I couldn't bribe them, my pesos had run
out and I only had the money I had managed to oach when handing the
popper.


In fact, the very moment Rufus looked at the covered lump in the truck
the only thing I could think about was to start and cry.

I<revise and write> 


=head2 Crocodile tears

I cried like I've seen the clowns doing in their act. Close your eyes
just so, open your mouth, and wail a trembling I<a> for as long as you
don't care to breath. That might be a long time, indeed, just enough
to be noticed by Rufus, who came up to me and put an awkward hand in
my back.

"What's up, man?" Glancing sideways I could see the bohunks were
growing restive and showing it by standing by the truck and casting
their own glances back and forth.

"You're leaving... and Manuel... and the circus..." I repeated this
over and over between sobs that were also interrupted by some
non-words I put in for good measure.

"Well, yes, but I, you know, I will... well, I mean it's got to be
fixed, so it shouldn't take long... " He paused here and I took the
cue to continue sobbing all over again; damn tears, they resisted to
get out. "Well, it could take, but when, er, we come back I'll let
you, er, drive" As if.  Meanwhile, the not-quite-revolutionary sailors
had started the truck and were stepping on the pedal making noises for
good measure. I stopped crying and hugged the guy.

"Gee, thanks, Rufus. It's all I need now. Have a safe trip, and so long" I pushed him lightly on the
shoulder. "Goodbye." 

He didn't even look at the lump the truck was carrying. I had some
time until they noticed. At least, until they stopped to take a pee,
which might take long, as long as they've had all their piping well
cleaned before leaving.  They left through the gates of the circus,
being waved here and there by some people. Nobody waved back, and the
truck left among a dust cloud. 

I went back to the cage, where I was received by a few hungry tigers
doing the rounds and roaring and moaning. I was going to need some
good time to get the real Manuel back from there.  I was only hoping I
could do that before Rufus realized something was amiss with their cargo.

I<write>


=head2 Lunch with tigers

Yes, folks, you're about to enter the tale, but you know that part
already, you don't want me to tell you, right? Yes? You want?  Gee,
guys, you're so full of yourselves... Yes, man, stories is all we've
got. We'll, I got a mech! Just kidding... 

So you want to know how Manuel went to be in a jail with tigers to
where you found us. First thing you need to know about tigers in
cages: they don't spend all the time there. And when they're not
there, nobody pays attention to the cage. Which is the moment you can
use to sneak in the back lot dodging any task you had assigned, which
weren't any for the time being, since the circus manager hadn't found
yet a new job for me.

That's usually the moment when somebody comes in looking for a quiet
place to poop or for a quick hump or just lay there under the cage for
a nap. 

So that's exactly what happened. It was Bill, the black Seminole who
had a taste for conversation while pooping, something I had had to
endure several times at the beginning, when we shared a crew. And we
talked about old times, he laughed and exerted himself, and I sweat
because tiger stretching and training never took too long. Hopefully,
longer than Bill's pooping.

He finally took a round stone from the floor and cleaned himself, hey,
Duke, no fuss about that, how do you clean yourself? Newspapers? No
wonder you're nobility, man. 

Enough laughing, so I was sweating black ink because I could hear what
was either the tiger roaring or Bill's fart factory functioning,
which, come to think of it, would make a nice name for a circus
attraction. But then he left and there were no more roars and it took
me a second to draw the straw-covered canvas away from Manuel, make it
stand up and use the gear box to get it moving somewhere else. 

There was no other way of doing it that make it move by itself to my
carriage, where I intended to hide it exactly where we had found
crazy: in the possum belly. 

Of course, in my way to my carriage with Manuel in tow I found
everybody and his mother. But I had expected that, so I disguised
Manuel with a burlap bag, a dab of paint here and there and a bit or
mud thrown over liberally over it all. As soon as I didn't find the
circus manager or Ted, everything would be OK. 

I<write and revise>


=head2 Talking with the circus manager

"What the hell is that, boy." Boris asked when he met me a few yards
away from my carriage.

So far it hadn't gone too bad. Whoever cared enough to ask me
something received a tale about this being a substitute for Manuel,
Manuel's twice removed cousin, not knowing anything about Manuel
having been taken anywhere else, or replies about why the hell do you
want to know. 

But Boris was Boris, He was the second worst person to meet, with
Cracker being the first, but he was rarely seen mingling with the
crowd, exactly the opposite of Boris, who was seen in his office only
if absolutely necessary. He was always where something, like the
transport of a mech that was going to be eventually misplaced, was
going on.

"Well, it's exactly what you see, boss." I answered,
noncommittally. My body tried to say the same, I tried to seem
completely relaxed, although I was starting to sweat again. He
probably smelled fear somewhere.

"So, it's... Manuel's poor cousin." He said, after pausing a few
heartbeats.

"Exactly!" I answered happily, and turned to continue walking.  But he
was again at it.

"But where did you get it?" He was frowning, and that was not good. It
wasn't good either that people were starting to notice us on the back
lot and were starting to gather around.

"Me? I didn't, it was just there, so..."

"Where do you mean?"

I haven't gone so far as to invent a whole story. So I started to make
it dance, moving one of the wheels at the same time it spun one of the
arms. The pebbles on the ground made its head bob. Somebody started to
beat his feet and clap their hands, yes, the first mechanical jig in
history. Do you want me to make it dance just the way I did it then?
Of course you do. 


=head2 Forget about it

Do you remember what I was talking about? Yes, Manuel and something or
other about him, right? The manager left us alone after that, although he didn't
seem amused when he elbowed his way out of the ring that had organized
itself. He was probably busy or something, and I was relieved. The
small crowd that was milling about there remembered they were required somewhere else
as soon as I
stopped the show and were also on their way to something more exciting
or their duties, whatever came first. So I was left alone with Manuel
in shallow disguise.

Sometimes the easiest way to hide something is to show it in plain
sight. But you don't have to push it too far: from there I took it to
my carriage, and in a while it was in the
possum belly of my carriage, something he did largely by himself by
catching the beam under the carriage belly and pulling himself up. It
was only the second or third time I was let with Manuel all by myself,
and I really started to why the thing was so wonderful and was coveted
by so many people. So flexible, so strong. So obedient. And so
cute. Why aren't there so many of them? They're the spawn of
capitalism, you say, Dale? Please, go ahead. I'm listening. It might
seem as if I'm sleeping, but I'm not, I swear, I love revolutionary
rhetoric as much as the next man.


=head2 Mechanical workers or the gears of capitalist evil

Don't you what this spawn of capitalist evil is really like? I, Henry
Dale, don't call me Hatless, call me Daring Dale, since I dare, and I
dare for the revolution, which is freedom for all people. Freedom that
will be taken away from us if this nefarious thing takes over from the
honest worker.

Can't you see it? Never sleep, never die and if they do they are fixed
or replaced. Never tire, never do anything that is not required from
them. How can you not see that? They don't drink, they don't
dance... well, they dance, OK, they dance, but listen to Henry Dale,
they dance to the tune of capitalism! No worker will be able to earn
his wage if all industries, all companies are subdued by these
tireless robots! They must be destroyed and I've heard enough. Help me
or I'll do it all by myself!


=head2 Flying with mechs

Hey, hold that guy! What's with him? Take the torch away from him or
he'll, well, do not much to Manuel, but maybe make him a bit
sooty. Anybody? Nobody? Well, since I have the driving box right here,
what do you want? A cat-and-mouse game or an uppercut? Uppercut it is,
then. Yay! Sorry, guy, didn't want to hurt you, but you seemed out of
your mind. Don't run!

Well, he's run so he's going to miss the last part of the story. Where
was I before the rant? Yes, the perfect worker was under the belly of
the carriage, where we usually carried clothes and whatnots and the
occasional Tracy. 
I
covered it with lots of stuff, ropes, cabling, and anything I could
find there. The platform was sagging due to weight. It probably
couldn't stand a long trip, but I intended to alight it as soon as I
possibly could. 

We were going to the train station as soon as the performance was
over. Next stop for the circus, DeLand. Next stop for me, freedom and
financial independence. By way of Hobos Jungle, where I am right
now. But that was not gonna happen. At least not as intended.

The camp was lifted a while after the last show. Carriages were
dragged using horses and trucks to the train station, and I struck a
conversation with Guy Hillcrest, the octoroon, who always knew
everything and was a good proxy for the trainmaster, who was the one
that actually organized the trip. 

"Take a good pee, Full." They called me Full. Not Fool. I<You> are fools. 

"Why? Ain't we stopping after a while?" I asked as if I cared. Which I did. 

"No, not this time. We'll try to make good time to Lake City. Please
get your stuff together and get ready for the long haul." Not the long
haul, please, I thought. No way I could make it with everybody around
when we arrived. No way. I was going back to take a pee by the rail
tracks. And then I saw you. Yes, you, Duke.


=head2 Helping those who help you

Yes, young man, just that day I had felt the need to be on the road
again to visit the ducal house and since that was the first train that
was getting formed in Freedomville, I thought of buying myself a
ticket in first class to travel as far as it would take. 

These kinds of vehicles are, to tell you the truth, not my favorite
way of conveyance to my destiny. Razorbacks might be worse than
brakemen and they can be brutal if they find you in I<their>
train. Plus you can be shanghaied and surgically changed to become part
of the menagerie. Don't protest, I know it from first or maybe no more
than second or third hand, that happens.

But the ducal house was beckoning and I couldn't find anything else
that precise night a couple of days ago. Jesus! Just a few
days and you are like the child I had and was taken away from me by
these revolutionary bastards! I thank God Hatless has gone away for
good, I couldn't stand his very sight! That bastard cheap bum! I could
curse him all the way to Chattanooga and still have some to go. Leech! 


=head2 Making a hot box

In fact, he will continue cursing this way until dawn if we just give
him a chance, which will not help us hear the story. Allow me,
Wireless Jim, to continue with it for the benefit of those of you who
weren't there. I wasn't either but I got it, you know, from the radio,
I can hear the radio in my mind and it tells me about things that have
happened or could happen or will happen in the future. It's talking
right now, for you, for all, about war, war in Europe, which is not of
our concern, but could be, you know. 

But, unlike our Duke here, I don't let myself be carried by the
voices, wireless is here to keep you company and I'm here to relate what
happened. After being spotted by that guy named Guy, you dig it, guy
the Guy, ain't that a crack, and the guy a cracker, that's even
funnier, I can hear the laughs, this guy spotted Duke or maybe he just
smelled it as a distance, really, Duke, take a hike to Lemonade
Springs and dive there, fully clothed, or hear this word from our
sponsors, Ivory Soap, makes your skin smell like something it's never
done before, back to the Duke who was spotted crouching there, by the
side, and ready to run and this guy Guy was going to call somebody to
kick him in an artistic way but then Full, our very dear Half and
Half, jumped up to the occasion and there he was, "Let me take care of
him, I'll show him." Or something to that tune, but instead of kicking
him in the ribs, he took him to his carriage, bought him a drink,
yessir, a drink for our Duke, and then asked him a question. "You know
trains, do you."

Why did he ask that question, you say? Or better, why did he invite
and treat our Duke? Out of generosity, since we all know this Half and
Half of ours is the kind of guy who is always generous to fellow
citizens with boobs, and that's not the case of our Duke, or rather
is, man, you're fat, ain't you, there he is, still cursing, it will
not slim you down even a bit, but there you go, our Half and Half
wanted to stop the train not to far and Duke, who knows trains as if
he owned them, that is rich, because he I<actually> owned them, and
you're not laughing, explained him how to create a hot box. Which I'll
explain in a moment, as soon as this station starts the Popular
Mechanics program. Right now... it's happening.. now.

Well, I'm glad you ask that question, dear Juan from Palatka, because
having a hot box is not something that should be wished on anybody
except maybe whatever capitalist pig comes your way. Well, well, a hot
box happens, when it does, when whatever carries an axle, you know
what's an axle, right, you should since you seem to be acquainted at
least with these terms, gets too hot for comfort and maybe for
continuing being solid. Well, you say here you want to know how can
that happen, right? I expect that if you want to I<actually> do it, my
dear friend, is only for the greater good of the Republic but anyways
rest assured your friendly neighborhood Guard has been duly notified,
ha ha, just joking, we all know you're a good citizen even if your
real name is not Juan but Jaime, ha ha, actually not joking I<at all>
now. So I'm not telling you how to do that. And that's all from your
Popular Mechanics program. 

But our Duke, yes, our Duke, didn't have any qualms about telling this
young boy, yes, for a good reason, maybe for a good reason, let's just
all agree that's it's a good reason, will we? Well, well, so he up and
told him that it was a matter of taking a few rags out of the box or
just cleaning up the oil. Easy as peaches, right? And then you have a
train running in the dark, there goes the train, full of hopes, of
dreams, of elephants, oh boy the stink of the elephants, and what will
happen to then when the train derails, oh boy, what will happen to
them? 

We'll tell you. After the break for public service announcements. 


=head2 Fast train burning

And this is your friend Wireless Jim, talking from the People's Voice,
or rather My Own Voice, but I am part of the People, so it's People's
Voice anyways, don't you think so? Yes it is and I remind you we left
our heroes, Fulgencio and Reuben Poole, also known to his friends and
foes alike as Duke of Poo, don't take this in a bad way, a Duke is a
Duke and he know his shit, ha, ha, that's rich, which in this case is
how to derail a train, something he know so well he might as well have
done it a couple of times, no offense, here, Duke, we're all fellow
hobos in the Jungle here, don't care if you did it out of spite after
they were oh so callously taken away from you, no? Ah, before that,
for insurance, and it was a coal train, so no death of human being
involved, only a big payment from the insurance company, which is good
and well and even revolutionary if you ask me! Three hoorays for our
friend Reube Poole The Comrade of Poo!

This comrade was rather worried, after a while, a good while, of what
was going on a few carriages in front of him. He could see the sparks,
o beautiful sparks, lighting the night, but harbingers of doom and
derailment and general maiming. And he asked Fulgencio about the
trainmaster and his whereabouts and whether anybody was checking for
that kind of things, which is what any sensible person in charge of
trains should do, but nobody was doing squat and the Duke was fretting
and Fulgencio was fretting and the little mech was just sleeping under
the carriage, oblivious of anything happening around him or not, who
knows what's in the gear and machinery mind of those things. 

It was exactly the opposite which seemed to be in our friend
Fulgencio's mind, as if there were anywhere else there any time. "Save
the mech, he though, save him." Not save it, he was "him" already for
him, what with having saved his life and all, you know, his buddy, his
friend, a friend he had been paid to retrieve and he was going to give
back after the second installment, but friends to that for each other
all the time, mainly if they have no say in it, right? Is that the way
of the revolution? Well why not? Besides, he wanted to save it and he
picked up the driving box and, blindly, moved it back and forth from
under the carriage until he could see his face, and then, deftly
moving it in the flatbed platform, jumped in the direction of the
train. Yay it jumped!

What happened then? You all want to know? Did he crash and burn and
killed an elephant puppy? No he didn't! Did he fall straight on
another rail and kept running parallel to the train, extending its
arms and picking the Duke and Fulgencio in his arms with love as if he
were his tin grandfather? No he didn't! Did he...?


=head2 Jumping Fulgencio

Will you shut the fucking fuck up, Jim? Hell, we could be here the whole night
listening to your description of a train whistle! Here, have a drink
on me, and let me continue with the story, our story. Duke, want to
say something? He's asleep, which is just as well.

No, Gummy, Manuel didn't pluck us from the train with its strong arms and deposit us safely
in the ground. In fact, he was first to go and then we jumped a few hundred
yards from him when the train slowed down to go uphill. And then it
was a matter of walking down the tracks until we found him lying in
the bushes. There was much whining and huffing by the part of our
Duke, whose feet are not made for this kind of things, but other than
that it was no big deal.

No, we didn't turn back to say goodbye to all that. Goodbye to Tracy,
to sawdust and elephant dung and to waking up and not knowing where
you were or, what's more important, where the reason you were there
was at that particular moment. From that moment until now and from now
until delivery, Manuel will be close to me and that will be that. 

The train didn't say goodbye to us, either. If they didn't crash, I
doubt they would notice me missing. Or the mech, for that matter,
since whoever cared to thing about it would think it was in the Navy
station at Pensacola. Maybe, some time from now, somebody will find a
Manuel poster among others and will wonder where the hell it will be
and why it's not returned. 

Rufus, that's another story. Their deal with the bohunks must have
gone sour. But it's not as if he can go back to the circus and say,
"Hey, did I happen to leave a mech lying around somewhere? I need it
for, you know, the naval station thing" because by that time somebody
must have called the naval station and the guards must be on him. If I
pity him, you ask, Gummy? Well, if I stop to think about it, yes,
well, a bit. But, you know, it's a tough ride. At least I did it when
he was away from the clowns. 

Tracy... well, she's a piece of work, she'll manage pretty well
without me or, for that matter, without anybody else. Mark my words,
she'll get far, is what I say.

All that left with the train. Except Rufus, who was somewhere
else. And we had to get somewhere from Nowhere depot, where we had
fallen. And all we had was a little money in the kick, a veteran hobo
and a perfectly serviceable mech that was, in fact, a bit the worse
for wear. 

The cool part was when we actually rode the mech. No, not in the
actual rails, but the track was wide enough to ride inside. And the
mech was strong enough to 
fit us riding piggyback on it. Well, one of us piggyback, that was me,
and the other standing somewhere and hanging on to his arms. That was
way cool. No, we hadn't 
thought what we were going to do if another train came our way. I
guess jump and fuck the mech to hell. But it just didn't happen. 

Besides, we didn't ride all the way back to the station, the fuel in Manuel, hey, that
sounds nice, was petering out and we just went to the closest water
depot and waited for the next train, inbound or outbound, did not
matter. And eventually we arrived here.

End of the story. Applause, applause. Tomorrow I'm taking the weekly
coal train to, well, does not matter, away from here and we might not
see each other again. So let's drink and dance and be merry. Yes,
Manuel will dance too.

I<revise>


=head2 With the hobos around the fire

"I'm gonna get me one of those dummies, I'm gonna do it" The first
hobo announced, with just a hint of a threat in his voice, veiled by
the amount of moonshine he had already taken. José sat slumped a few
steps away from the fire, out of fuel or simply not working. Fulgencio
just spat at the fire, raising a small flame that made José look alive
for a brief moment. 

Fulgencio had found this group in the rail yard in Tallahassee, trying to be unobtrusive. But there was no
way he could pull that out while 
being trailed by a two hundred and fifty pound walking cash register.
He was immediately hailed by them and asked to join them by the
fire even before they saw the Duke. Liquor was passed, bread and cheese shared, and histories
and local tips swapped. Then, more alcohol had flowed and everything
became a bit blurry as Fulgencio started to tell them his history, as
hobos do when gathered around the fire. 

Now it was time to leave this jungle and deliver. Enough time had passed for any
pursuer to quiet down and in a few hours he would be contacting the
Pinkerton office in Tallahassee. They would be taking care of him and
the mech and he would get a few months of rest in his home base in
Albuquerque. 

He loaded Manuel in a buggy, secured it with ropes and covered it with
burlap and blankets he'd gathered these days in the jungle. It was
heavy, tiring work but the best way to go unnoticed when he walked to
downtown.

He left the switchyard to a convenient opening the hobos had shown him
and started to drag the buggy towards the city. Nobody noticed him and
nobody paid attention to him, he could be any collective farm  or
factory worker doing an errand in the middle of the day. He passed
armed guards, party officials in uniform, American refugees begging,
being this town close to the border, it would not take long before
they were picked up by guards and forcefully assigned some job
somewhere. Quite a few cars surrounded by smoke plied the streets, but
there were even more bicycles. 

From Railroad avenue he made a right in Neamathla street, where he
noticed some armed mechs guarding the doors of the official buildings there. They had that tarnished
look, and the legs, Manuel had had at the beginning of its life, but
their arms ended in blunt guns and sharp bayonets. When he went past
them, Manuel started to shake and move towards them with its wheels,
all by itself. It was well tied and it didn't manage to get himself
loose, but if he kept trying for a while he would probably manage to
do it. And the mechs were starting to turn their heads in their
direction. That wasn't good. He started to hurry, but there was not
much he could do with so many pounds in drag. Pinkerton office was not
so far away, at All Races and Boulevard St. a couple of blocks away,
but he was seeing a few more mech guards and he doubted he could make
it.

And then a white truck, dirty with mud, stopped by him. On its bed a
woman dressed in overalls and a straw hat stood up and jumped to land
by him. She was muddy and dirty and smelled of cow dung, but it was
Tracy. 

"Need a ride?" She said without blinking and a nod to the closest
mechanic guards.

"Hell, yes!" They slid down the truck bed a couple of boards to be
used as ramp and dragged the buggy up it to a rest in the truck
bed. They secured it there with a few more ropes and chains. 

He opened his mouth to question Tracy, but she just sat down and
looked pointedly at some Guards that were approaching them from
behind. She remained that way until they entered a warehouse in the
outskirts of town. The door was half open, and when the driver came
down from the cabin he realized it was the same person that had
debriefed him in the Pinkerton Albuquerque office, a big black guy
that went by the name of Cyrus. That was the one he expected so he
directed all his attention to Tracy.

"How come? I mean, how come? Are you...?" Tracy was cleaning her face
and didn't even make an attempt to greet him in anyway. She seemed
about to leave to an office at the end of the warehouse, which was
filled with machinery of different kinds, some covered with tarps. 

"Same as you, Frank." He was a bit startled to listen to his real name
spoken by her, whom he had met in very different circumstances. "A
Pinkerton agent on a mission."

"And a successful mission, Frank. Congratulations!" Cyrus interjected,
shaking his hand with both his. A couple of persons were descending
from the office, one of them shouting.

"Here's my man!" He hugged Fulgencio, or Frank, and patted him in the
back. "I knew you would make it." 

"Did you?" Frank pushed him away. "Yes, you did, did you? So you sent
Tracy..." 

"Claire. In fact, her name is Claire and she comes from our office in
St. Louis."

"Thanks, Gary, many thanks, I was doing pretty well without her,
thank you, and in fact, I put my ass on the line for her several
times..." 

"Yes, Frank, you acted as a team, that's all we ask from Pinkerton
agents. Even if you don't know you're in the same side. Rest assured,
Frank, we all acknowledge your contribution to the cause an' all..."

"If you had told I had a team we could..."

"Yes, of course, it would have added a kink more to your lovemaking,
wouldn't it? Fucking a Pinkerton agent and all... Not to mention it
would have made you an asset being able to spill the beans on your two
team members?"

"Two? Was there another one besides Tracy, I mean, Claire?"

"Did I say two?" Said Gary, acting surprised. "Silly me, I meant one,
our beautiful and loyal Claire, as good as two."

He'd lost sight of the white muddy truck with Manuel on it. 

"What now?" Said Frank.

"In a couple of days you're taking the airship to Albuquerque, take
one week, or two, and report to the office there." 

"I knew that, man. I meant what happens to Manuel." 

Gary smiled broadly.

"I don't think you should be concerned with that. You mission is over,
and we are all very grateful for it. But I can tell you that he's been
taken to one such Doctor Tesla for examinations. And then, who knows."

"This Doc. Will he break it up? It's working perfectly, you know."
Frank Said.

"Of course it is, my good boy, of course it is. What it's not is your
concern right now. Take a rest now, write your reports when you're
done, and then go back home." Said Gary, giving him the back and
returning to the office. He motioned the man who had come with
him. "Clark, show him around and keep him comfortable, cuddle him if
he asks to. He's a hero of the democracy and the American dream, you
know."

"And who isn't?" Answered Clark. "C'mon, boy, it's over now, let's
go."

"Yes, over and out. All over and all out." Answered Frank, and he
accompanied Clark without saying another word.

I<revise>


=head2 Table of contents

=over

=item *

For your peruse and joy, here's the table of contents (actually, this line will go)
{:toc}


=back


=head2 Acknowledgements

This book started one fine day of May, but would not have been
possible without the help of many people around me, most of them
unknown. So I would like to dedicate it to the people that L<answered
my question on symbols on the History
StackExchange|http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8894/looking-for-a-symbol-for-southern-usa-communism> and then L<another
question on circus layout|http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8942/where-can-i-find-american-circus-or-carnival-grounds-plans/8972?noredirect=1>. Marian,
the librarian of the Clarke College was also incredibly helpful. 

