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The Doctor Bag
by Ann Hite
We lived way up Black Mountain; We, being myself Oshie Connors, Mama, Daddy, my three younger brothers, and Manyard, my oldest brother. When Manyard turned seventeen he took out for Asheville. The Depression was easing and he had some big notions to find work. I watched his back as he walked down that road. Not many folks had the courage to leave the mountain, I wanted to follow in his footsteps, would have, if Mama hadn’t put her foot down. It was the end of May, one year later, when he came rambling up the road like he had never been away. Now, Mama thought it was the best sight in the world, and hugged him to no end. The younger boys clustered around like a bunch of ants on a piece of candy. I hung back with Daddy. A shyness washed over me like some little kid afraid to leave his mama. Daddy just watched, leaning on his hoe. Maynard opened a sack with presents. Mama got a glass measuring cup. Now Mama didn’t need no measuring cup, but she smiled as if she received a million dollars. The boys got slingshots made out of shiny new metal, instead of carved wood. Manyard gave Daddy a leather wallet and inside was three twenty dollar bills. “Half a year’s pay. I want my family to have it.” Daddy fumbled around like he might turn down the money because of pride, but in the end, he smiled and put the wallet in his pocket. Me, I kept my distance. After all, I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was fourteen. Manyard grinned at me. “You’ve grown two inches.” He came to stand by me, but looked at Daddy. “I’ve been working for the carnival and we travel all over the country. I run the Astounding Freaks Show. I take tickets and make sure all my freaks are happy.” “What kind of freaks?” I couldn’t resist. “Well, we have a bearded lady, the smallest man in the world, fire-eating man, and strongman just to name a few.” Daddy just laughed. “Sounds like a game instead of a job.” Now, I’d only seen mountain folks and a few town folks that wandered up the mountain here and there. The closest I’d come to seeing a freak was Tyler Morgan’s two-headed calf. Boy that was something to look at. It died three days later, but Tyler drank up the attention. The boys were firing the prickly balls from the sweetgum tree in their slingshots. “I want to take Oshie, here, with me while the carnival is in Asheville for a month. He can make good money running the baseball toss. It’s a game where people pay to throw three balls at stacked tin cans.” He looked at me, grinning. “That’s why I didn’t bring you no gift. I figured you’d rather go down the mountain.” And, he figured right. I jumped in before Daddy and Mama could say a word. “You got to let me go. I want to make money. I want to see Asheville.” No was written all over Mama’s face, but Daddy spoke out. “I don’t see why a boy can’t go on adventures.” He looked at Mama. “He has Manyard to look out for him.” So, the next morning Manyard and me set out down Black Mountain for Asheville. Asheville was a big place; instead of wagons pulled by old horses, most people rode in automobiles. That took a lot of getting used to. The two-story houses that lined the neighborhoods, frilly lace curtains that Mama wouldn’t wear as a dress much less put on her windows, big green ferns—like we had near our creek—hanging on wraparound porches with fancy white furniture, and electric lights, made me realize how poor folks on the mountain were. I stuck out like a sow standing in a herd of sheep. Manyard just laughed. “We’re going to the other side of town. It won’t matter there whether you wear patched overalls or not. This is the rich side. People here just come to the carnival and go home. They really don’t even notice folks like me and you. They’re too busy spending money and believing every word we say.” Just when I thought we couldn’t walk anymore, I saw the carnival. Workers pulled on long ropes raising tents, red, white, and blue tops with red striped walls, flags without stars. The Ferris wheel loomed over the fairground like a giant bird. I imagined what it would be like to ride in such a creature. “You think I could ride her?” “Sure! But first we have to help set up.” We worked until sunset and the midway lights flickered on. I saw the night world and the prospects of adventure flash before me. How could I go back to Black Mountain with its backward ways? Then, I saw him, a man bent over, face pulled into his shoulder, shielded from sight, clutching a leather black bag. “Who’s he?” “Stay away from Major Hawkins. He takes care of the animals and minds the funhouse. They say he was in the last war, murdered his whole platoon by setting a fire in the camp. Just stay clear. You hear?” The Ferris wheel made another round, spinning lights in the sky. The hibbie-jeebies ran down my spine as the figure march down the midway. It didn’t take long to make a name for myself as a barker. I took in more money at my game in one day then any of the booths. I guess it was my down home country boy look because all the folks that stopped at my booth acted like they knew me personal. One night, Maynard came up behind me, clapped me on the back, and told me to go have myself a good look around. I’d been too darn tired to look on nights when I finished my fourteen-hour day so I jumped at the chance. It seemed the freak show closed for the night due to a fight between the bearded lady and the shortest man in the world. She gave him a black eye. I made a b-line to the live animal exhibit. The elephant stood, chained to a big metal ring in the ground. How in the world did people believe such a beast could be held down by some puny chain? I’d only seen drawings of elephants at school, and this was a dream come true. The magnificent animal swung its trunk back and forth as if bored with the whole world. When I turned to leave Major Hawkins stood right in front of me, his bag close to him, his eyes locked on me, or should I say eye. The right side of his face looked like melted candle wax, gathering at the jaw with a blob of skin. But, that one eye held a hateful stare. I could only compare it to Hobbs Pritchard—he was the meanest soul on Black Mountain. Not a person cried when he disappeared, not even his little wife. Anyway, Major Hawkins stared at me with all that hate until I just couldn’t look anymore and turned away. I went back to my booth and kept to myself the rest of the night. One morning the week before the carnival moved on to the next stop, and I went back to Black Mountain, I was watering the breaded lady’s horses—she did stunts on their backs—when Major Hawkins walked by with determination in every step, looking this way and that; he didn’t see me because I moved behind the flank of the horse. The way that man held his bag to him I thought he must have gold or something valuable inside. He was crazy; you could see the craziness in the way each foot hit the path. That bag planted a thought in my mind that setup a fester like a splinter left under the skin too long. That night in my bunk, I told Manyard what I saw. “Why do you think he carries in that bag?” Manyard rolled out of his bunk next to mine and squatted real close so no one else in the bunkhouse or tent could hear. “You keep away from that man, Oshie. He’s bad through and through. You’re going home in a week, and I’m going to get you there in one piece.” Manyard went back to his bunk. I propped my head with my hand. “Yeah, but don’t you wonder what’s in that bag?” “You ain’t never been a listener, little brother. Stay away from him.” Manyard laid his head back on his pillow and was snoring before long. Instead of scaring me off, I thought about that bag every minute of the day. Then, the world’s shortest man told me the Major was the only survivor of a flash fire, which wiped out his whole platoon, I started imagining that black bag was filled with eyeballs that came from the dead soldiers. I dreamed about it at night until finally the day before I was to head back to the boredom of Black Mountain, I seen Major Hawkins step away from his personal tent without his bag, and I snuck inside. The tent was simple, not scary like I thought. The bag sat on the ground close to the neatly made cot. If Major Hawkins was an evil murderer, he sure was clean. I sat on my knees, my hand on the bag. A traveling trunk stood open in the corner. Tacked on the inside of the lid were old photographs and a medal hanging on a purple ribbon. The photos were of men wearing white coats leaning against cars, talking, smiling. His victims? I opened the bag, holding my breath, pulling back to arms length just in case. Inside were instruments. Did he murder his victims with these? Then I realized what I held was doctor’s instruments. I rubbed my finger across the shiny surface of the scissors. “I guess privacy doesn’t mean much to you?” In the door, the sun shining behind him, stood Major Hawkins, and I was trapped. I knocked the bag spilling the contents all over the ground as I stood. “Now I will have to sterilize all my instruments.” He sounded disgusted not evil. “Do I dare ask you why?” My words dried in my throat like a wad of Mama’s oatmeal. He moved from the door. “What story are they telling now? Am I a butcher who chopped to death his victims? Or am I still the Major who killed his whole platoon?” I just stared at his weird eye. “I gave you more credit young man. The way you treated those animals I thought for sure you were different than these ignorant people. I thought to myself, one day he’ll be a Vet.” I looked at my feet. He shook his head. “Get out of here!” I started to run for my life like some coward with his tail tucked between his legs, but I thought of how he saw me as an animal doctor. Nobody ever saw me being anything but a poor farmer on Black Mountain. This man with the melted face saw something I couldn’t even see in myself, my dreams. “I was raised better. I want to thank you for seeing the good in me. I’m sorry I didn’t look for the good in you.” He nodded. I ran right into the owner of the carnival standing just outside the tent. “Your Manyard’s brother?” “Yes Sir.” “Dr. Hawkins is a good man. You know how he got that face?” I shook my head, wishing I could crawl under a rock. “He pulled twenty patients out of a hospital fire fifteen years ago. He was a brilliant surgeon on his way to the easy life. Works for me now, doctoring the animals here and there and watching the funhouse. It’s kids like you, full of meanness that made his life miserable. The mayor of Chicago gave him a medal for his courage.” The owner looked me in the eye. “You can collect your paycheck and head home.” And, that’s just what I did, but in the back of my mind a plan formed just as plain as day. I saw myself handling animals, caring for them. I knew once a person left the mountain, they never really went back home, or so the old folks said. |
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