“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have behind these velvet curtains our next performer who needs no introduction but one word:oddity. My friends, our star attraction– your main course – please welcome into your eyes and quite possibly your hearts… LOLA!”
The curtains opened; there stood Lola, a representation of great extremes: a beast and yet not, a monstrosity and yet not, one who was out in the open, and yet so deeply hidden far away. The crowd was afraid, but she was deathly afraid and oh how she quivered and how the crowd gasped in horror with eyes turned away and back again.
She was gargantuan as an ice age animal, her head the size of a great watermelon. Her eyes were wide, sunken and dark as wells, separated by a flattened land, her nose. Tiny, pressed balls of flesh glued to both sides of her face – ears! How very deformed was her neck, so infested it was with hairy moles, and her teeth – like the ruins of an ancient civilization yet uncovered. Lola’s naked breasts hung low and voluptuous, her nipples hard as raisins and on her lower abdomen she grew thick, dense black hair. Even lower and her skin was no longer visible. Her genitals were subtle like a hidden cavity in a tree, as hairy as the rest of her pelvic area; her legs were hirsute as well, with her knee caps jutting out and the only part of her lower body that was partially hairless.
With eyes close to the ground, one would see that Lola had hooves. Lola was crying.
*****
“That was something else, wasn’t it Mel?” Melissa was silent with furrowed brows. “What, Mel? Do you believe it’s real? Well, of course. It isn’t made of make-up, that’s for damn sure.”
The road they were driving on was long. Not many drivers frequented this road. It was solitary, drying up and cracking in the heat of the desert. Sand and small plant life grew restless as the sun crossed the sky. They were a mile away from the carnival that exposed Lola, back before Tonopah when they were still driving along US 6. Mountains stretched across the horizon, a darker blue against the blue of the sky. They dozed off there, the mountains, with nothing better to do but watch as cars drive toward and away from them. The miniscule cars with miniscule people. And the mountains, despite being big as they were, remained helpless and stationary.
Melissa’s tank-top lay low, exposing her collar bone and the upper portions of her chest, as it loosely flapped in the wind of the open windows. Sitting carelessly next to her was Ronnie who drove shirtless, his hairy chest and beer belly enjoying the Southwest breeze of Nevada.
Melissa was deeply agitated. “How do you think Lola was born? Who or what birthed her?”
“Who birthed her? Who cares? She’s a monster, I tell you that.” Melissa winced. “You feel bad for her don’t you? Don’t worry about it. No one else is.” He padded her thigh.
She looked at Ronnie in disgust, then suddenly blurted out, “Jesus, how can you say that Ronnie? You saw how she was . . . she was just standing there on stage with no clothes on, and everyone gawking at her –”
“Yeah, everyone – including you.” Melissa didn’t say anything. Her mind was struck with the image of the stage man, who had smiled as he watched Melissa cower in fright at the sight of Lola.
For the next hour they sat quietly looking for a diner. Melissa imagined Lola’s past and wondered if she had any feelings to claim her own. She then speculated if Lola was even human or animal; that is, if she must be real.
*****
The waitress had curves beneath her stained apron, which did little to cover up the big bust she had on that almost fell out if she had unfastened one more button of her shirt. She brought over the couple’s meals and asked if they wanted anything else. “We’re good for now,” said Ronnie, and the waitress winked at him. He smiled back. Then she walked back to the kitchen swinging her rump left and right as Ronnie’s eyes followed like a pendulum.
“Do you always have to flirt with all the waitresses?”
“I wasn’t flirting. If anything, she was flirting with me.”
“If anything, you encouraged it.” Melissa picked up her fork and knife and began cutting the cheap steak presented in front of her. She angrily whispered, “Enabler,” under her breath, and as she placed a piece of the meat in her mouth, she continued “for all the wrong reasons.” All the while Ronnie sat across from her, not listening to a word she was saying. He was already half way through with his plate.
*****
Back on the road, they had decided to make it to Esmeralda County where, if anything, they’d sleep in the car until morning and go sight-seeing during the day. The true destination was even further down: Death Valley.
The sun and moon were switching shifts. The sky was a divine tapestry: a homogeneous wave of fuchsia, deep orange and translucent yellow, all interwoven one into the other; and rolling in on the other side of the vastness of sky, a blanket of dark blue and indigo, sprinkled here and there with innocuous dots of white, unblinking eyes worshiping the moon. It was a dreamy, transcendent ordeal, this switch. Hypnotizing in a way.
For, like the exchanging of celestial bodies, it was now Melissa’s turn to drive, and she was in a most pensive state. She had been driving for the past hour and a half as Ronnie fell asleep, lying flat on the inclined passenger seat. The car dove into the night. Melissa was deep in her thoughts, thoughts of Lola and the sheer look of her. Or it? She still hadn’t decided if she wanted to see Lola as a human or animal. Never had she seen such a creature; even in her wildest dreams she couldn’t believe such a thing could exist. A bastard woman and half breed, the stage man had called her after giving a fantastical introduction, romanticized, as she was, as a supernatural creature in a dark child's imagination. Was it an act of bestiality that brought Lola into the world? If that were the case, it would surely be on the news, or not? Or was she, incredibly, an artistic piece of fiction so expertly made up for the sake of a carnival show to garner looks of tickling curiosity?
It was with reluctance that Melissa admitted to herself the grotesqueness of Lola. In her heart she wanted to believe Lola was living in full knowledge of her identity: of the fact that she was different from other humans – different from other animals – and the fact that she could escape the embarrassing and degrading life she has been living as a freak in carnival act. A slave she was to all sorts of torments brought on by the ridicules of others because she was one belonging to the realm of the “in-between.”
But the way others reacted when the curtains parted, even the way Melissa’s face cringed and her heart jumped (as she herself jumped!) forced her to believe in the perceived ugliness of Lola’s nature – the ugliness of humanity as it slipped from its nobler standards. We are creatures of temptation that can sometimes roam into sadistic woods. And we cannot look away once our eyes lie (and then prey) on what we deem the Godforsaken.
Melissa shivered at the thought of this, moving the steering wheel and causing the car to swerve, noticeably enough to awaken Ronnie.
“What’s wrong,Mel? Where are we?” he asked sleepily with a hoarse voice. He got up and re-adjusted the passenger seat. Melissa handed him the map and poked it with her finger.
“Nothing’s wrong. We’re not too far off. We’ll make it there by two in the morning. Go back to sleep.”
Ronnie rubbed his face and stretched. “Need me to drive?”
“I’m good. You just go back to sleep, Ronnie. I’ll wake you up when we’re about an hour away.”
“Well, all right.”
Melissa waited until he was dead asleep to turn the car around.
*****
Every now and then she turned her head over, keeping one eye on Ronnie and one eye on the road. Her heart drummed with wild exhilaration as she made her way surreptitiously toward Tonopah and then US 6 with its barren landscape now hidden in the dust of the night. Hours slipped by measured by the beads of sweat running down Melissa’s temple. Ronnie was encapsulated in the worlds of his dreams, which spilled out in airy flights of snores and visceral sounds. Finally, with a storm of anxiety, Melissa’s eyes followed her headlights as they shown on the familiar tent inside which she first laid eyes on Lola.
She parked the car on the grass on the side of the road about fifty yards from the tent. It was silent and cold out, and Melissa felt the chill beneath her top; goose bumps climbed her arm. She stopped the engine and turned to look at Ronnie whose drool created a white river down his chin. Her heart racing, she opened the glove compartment across from Ronnie and pulled out a yellow flashlight and checked it on her palm to make sure it still worked. Her palm lit up, and she got out of the car, closing the door as gently as possible.
What was she to do now? She looked around, as if searching for an answer in the air, as if the answer were some molecule floating around, waiting to be touched. She didn’t think this far; in fact, she thought only of Lola and Lola’s life. Melissa felt as if her skin were a dam, strong concrete holding back oceans of sympathy for Lola. But what could she do? More importantly what was she willing to do?
She felt her heart in her throat and her mouth became as dry as the road. Her legs moved her swiftly toward the tent. Her breath quickened and her palms grew sweaty. She ran with no course of action, but conviction only. She heard the crickets, yes, the chorus of the night, chanting, egging her on this stage of dry will power, this rage of hers for Lola’s misfortune. The million stars in the night sky ran with her and the moon was leading the way as the North Star did, the three Wise Men. Something was going to happen and it was going to be because of her. She forced herself not to look back.
She had had the flashlight on while running toward the tent but, now approaching it, she thought it best not to keep it on. In the dark, she felt the tent with wandering hands, searching for an opening and assuming Lola was hidden inside. Then she heard a metal clanking from behind the tent. She walked stealthily toward the sound, wondering what in the world it was.
In a rusty cage, there stood Lola in handcuffs. She was hitting them on the bars of the cage. When Lola saw Melissa and Melissa saw her, both in the darkness of night with nothing but moonlight, they were not frightened at all. Melissa’s eyes swelled with tears as she caressed Lola’s face with her hands through the bars. Lola herself made a weeping sound. It was then that Melissa noticed a plenitude of scars and lacerations on Lola’s body, even across Lola’s breasts -- the bruises she sustained! The cruelty, Melissa thought, was all too inhumane. It was only in a moment of intimacy that the true horrors of Lola’s life revealed themselves to Melissa. The formality they had with each other was instinctive, for Lola recognized Melissa; that much Melissa knew, that much she felt.
Melissa thought hard:there must be something she can do. Suddenly her eyes saw the pallet jack on which was Lola’s cage. It was simple, she thought: she could wheel this back to the car. All consequential thoughts were absent in her mind, such thoughts of how Ronnie was going to react, how to get Lola in the car, potential care of Lola for she’ll surely be a kind of burden to her. All these thoughts slipped her mind as she was blinded by the determination of freeing Lola from a life of slavery. She didn’t even stop to think of any prospect of getting caught “kidnapping” Lola. She commenced pulling the pallet jack with all her might, but it wouldn’t budge. If pulling it wouldn’t work, perhaps pushing it will.
The crickets continued chanting, but a voice – the stage man’s voice – broke their song. “Don’t move, my dear,” he said. Melissa turned around and saw the dark figure: man in an overcoat, with his arm raised, pointing a gun at her. “This doesn’t have to be like this. You leave Lola with me, and get the hell out of here, and I won’t shoot.” Melissa didn’t say anything, but simply raised both arms to the air. The flashlight fell out of her pocket and instinctively, she bent down to pick it up. But when she did, the stage man yelled, “Don’t move,” as he walked toward her, the gun held steadfast, pointing at her head. “Oh I know you. Coming back for a second look, I suppose?”
But freedom rang through the air, for Melissa heard the stage man’s keys jingling from his coat pocket. Immediately she had the image the keyhole of Lola’s cage. The sweet scent of freedom flooded her nostrils.
Looking at the whole scene from her cage, Lola wept loudly into the night. The cry was like that of a sad mother elephant weeping at the death of her baby. Lola’s voice cracked, and pierced the ears of Melissa and the stage man, who covered his ears with his hands. Melissa took this chance to run for the gun. They struggled and finally, it the fight, the agitated dust, the pistol shot out a bullet. The crack of the gunshot silenced Lola.
Melissa fell to the floor, as did the gun from the stage man’s hands. He breathed heavily and bent down to check Melissa’s pulse to make sure she was dead.
Yet as he was checking, he heard the sound of someone cocking the gun. He turned around and saw Lola and all the pain concentrated in her eyes. All the fury that was pent up in her body, as she herself was pent up in the cage. For years upon years, she and the stage man put on a show for those looking for a freak of nature. This was finally all going to end.
Lola pulled the trigger.
