Free Pages Torn From a Travel Journal by Edward Lee Page A

the peals of a satanic bell.
    Many minutes passed before I could reconstruct my wits. Bloody-faced & half-blind, I stumbled away from the staring crowd that waited for admission. Ahead of me: the vast field of scrub crammed with motor-cars & the smear of twilight-tinged sky. One hand to my head, the other to my groin, I staggered away; away from that screaming, hadean dervish-saturnalia; away from the leering, sin-faced throng; forever away from O’Slaughnassey’s Travelling Show . . .
    I knew not what crested most precipitously in my spirit: my humiliation, my rage, or my horror for Bliss. Would that malefactor O’Slaughnassey really beat her further for sport? Would he anally rape her as he’d implied, & keep her “uglied up” because I’d assaulted him? The prospect made me moan in the most fathomless despair.
    Relocating Nate & the unbecoming bus driver was akin to the needle in the haystack proverb; so, too, was the prospect of finding Nate’s claptrap vehicle. Instead–always one given to lengthy walks–I stumbled straight away from the carnival’s noise, crowds, & infernal lights, re-taking the unpaved road that had delivered me to this pit of lust, thievery, & con men. Soon the wicked din was far behind; & each of my strides away grew longer & more stable. I wiped my bloodied face with my handkerchief, regaining my breath, as reason soon returned to my mind. Ache as my testicles did, a painful but brief physical inspection assured me they’d not been ruptured. The police! I resolved. What other course did I have? Once I returned to the garage, I could use the telephone to call. But then the prospect dwindled. In uncharted backwoods such as these? A domain of “rubes,” “red-necks,” & “crackers?” Local police were surely prone to corruption; O’Slaughnassey himself said that he had them in his pocket. It’s my word against theirs, and I’m the outsider here, I knew. The police would likely arrest me on a trumped up charge, taking payment to do so. Now I felt hopeless.
    Was there no other course I could take?
    In my soul I was at war with myself. Where there was no justice, a real man could effect his own. The greater segment of my conscience wanted nothing more than to return to that dreadful, evil-imbued carnival—that cauldron of greed & indulgence & lechers—infiltrate its perimeter, & then . . .
    Find O’Slaughnassey and kill him.
    A real man, yes, but was I such a man? A soft-handed scribe lacking brawn & bravado? Could I really depart from my sheltered & sensitive ways & be the crusader who ended Bliss’s life-long terror?
    I stared at the moon as if awaiting an answer, yet none was forthcoming.
    Plodding steps took me back the way I’d come, along the dense woodline, while a strange dirge-like litany played in my head–a litany to failure. I knew I’d be back at the garage in little more than an hour’s time, but what then? To pass a sleepless night on the immobile bus, to fret over Bliss & what her perverse father/husband was doing to her? A dense, nearly deafening chorus of crickets & night-birds accompanied the dirge in my head, yet over time, these natural sounds of wildlife ceased. I stopped, taking notice of the silence that shouldn’t be. & then?
    Commotion.
    From the woods, frenzied shouts rose at a distance, but closer came a deliberate thrashing, as of madly running feet through brambles. It all transpired so fast I could scarcely react. & next:
    “Good God!” I shouted.
    From the woods a blocky frantic figure shot out: a man obviously being chased, for in the background those other voices increased in tenor; I heard rough accented exclamations, the likes of “Don’t let the varmint git away!” “Which way’d he go?” “Toward the fields, I reckon!” & “Pray the Lord on High we don’t lose him!” Yet the man to which these voices referred, the frantic figure, had just bolted from the woods & was heading right toward me. The moonlight revealed the terrified