The Circus of Dr. Lao (14 page)

V. THE GODS AND GODDESSES

YOTTLE: An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent lump of bronze.
LARES DOMESTICI: The household gods.
PAN: Physically the largest of all the gods. In his troupe were lemures, aegipanes, bassarides, bacchides, evantes, maenades, fauns, and sylvans. They all adored him.
JESUS OF NAZARETH: Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. But on the third day He rose again from the dead, and now He sitteth in Heaven on the right hand of God the Father
Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth.
BEL-MARDUK: The one to whom the Babylonians prayed.
BALDER: The Adonis of the north.
ADONIS: The Balder of the south.
APHRODITE: The beautiful goddess.
MUMBO JUMBO: Lord of the Congo.
SATAN MEKRATRIG: Our old enemy.

VI. THE CITIES

TU-JENG: Solid brick. All about it are red brick kilns breathing reddish smoke into the dead air. And the road past Tu-jeng is red for it is made of chips and slivers of brick. And the water in the canal near Tu-jeng is red and runs through red clay banks. But everything is a dead red, not the cool red of wine, nor the hot red of blood, nor the blood-red of hate.
ABALONE: A desert town founded by the Conquistadores.
ALEXANDRIA: Still glorifies the name of its maker.
TONGSHAN: A Chinese mining town with a railroad station and army barracks.
TIENTSIN: One of the monster cities of the world. Scene of much war. But whenever its buildings are shot down, Tientsin builds bigger and finer ones to replace them.
BEESWAX: A mining town in Arizona.
SEDALIA: A railroad town in the heart of the Missouri farmlands.
PEIPING: Peking. The Northern Capital. Tientsin's huge old sister.
SHANHAIKWAN: The town at the northern end of the Great Wall.
PLACE OF MUD SHACKS AND DARKY PEOPLE: Unidentified.
WOLDERCAN: A hieroglyph on a potsherd.

VII. THE STATUETTES, FIGURINES, ICONS, ARTIFACTS, AND IDOLS

YOTTLE: Bronze.
KATE: Carnelian chalcedony.
SPHINX(MRS. ROGERS'S): Terra cotta.
SPHINX(WINKELMANN'S): Ivory.
SPHINX(EGYPTIAN): Sandstone.
ONE ANONYMOUS MAN: Sandstone.
ELEVEN ANONYMOUS ONLOOKERS: Chert.
TEN DRUNKEN SAILORS: Chert and schist.
THE BUDDHA: Jade.
CRUCIFIX: Gold.
CHIMERA(ALEXANDRIAN): Rags and clay and hide and bones.
CHIMERA(TIBETAN): Porcelain.
CHIMERA(KUBLAI'S): Bronze.
EPHESIAN DIANA: Rosewood.
LINGAM: Second growth black walnut.
YOTTLE'S SACRED STONE AX: Basalt.

VIII. THE QUESTIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS AND OBSCURITIES

1. Was it a bear or a Russian or what?
2. If the sea serpent was as poisonous as it claimed to be, why didn't it kill the chimera when it bit him?
3. Why, after all the discussion between himself and his wife, didn't Frank Tull hunt up the bear and see what it really was?
4. Why should Apollonius of Tyana, who claimed superiority to Christ, fall back on the crucifix to banish Satan?
5. Why didn't the two college punks get sore when they were thrown out?
6. Why didn't Doctor Lao notice anything unusual when he found Miss Agnes Birdsong and the satyr in such a compromising posture?
7. What was the business that the dead man whom Apollonius resurrected had to attend to?
8. What did Mumbo Jumbo do with the fair-haired Nordic girl?
9. If the circus didn't come to Abalone on the railroad and didn't come on trucks, how did it get there?
10. What happened to the eleven people who were turned to stone when the medusa dropped her blindfold?
11. If Apollonius was such a great magician, why did he waste his time fooling around with a little circus?
12. Inasmuch as legend tells us that chimeras were invariably females, how did it happen that Doctor Lao's was a male?
13. Was it for this same reason that Tu-jeng, when Doctor Lao caught the satyr there, was a hamlet near the Great Wall, whereas it is now a suburb of Tientsin?

IX. THE FOODSTUFFS

Pork chops. Lettuce. Ham hocks. Lamb chops. Persimmons. Hay. Soda pop. Duck eggs. Garlic. Little fat brown boy. Candy. Onion seeds. Pie. Pelicans. Grapes. Proteins. Snails. Beer. Snow geese. Sea foods. Carbohydrates. Frigate bird. Butterfat. Chicken. Gooseliver. Fish. Vahine. Frogs. Bananas. Oysters. Brown boy's old pappy. Bugs. Plantain. Fishing worms. Little plants. Lizards. Grub worms. Hot dogs. Rattlesnakes. Noodles. Slop. Nuts.

Tientsin-Tucson, 1929-1934.