Free Imperfections by Bradley Somer Page B

between some folds. Someone giggled. The fat man squealed with surprise and began to jiggle. His arm emerged and flailed back to extract the pen, but it was too short to work its way around all of the flesh. A few people laughed. A few, with haunted looks in their eyes, broke from the group and wandered off to other corners of the tent.
    I felt revulsion at the fat man but also pity for him. It was an instinctual clenching of my stomach at the smell of unwashed flesh, the sight of the sores and bruises, and the innocent smile that spun by.
    How did a human come to this? I wondered. To care so little that he wound up a mountain of flesh, crippled and immobilized by his own weight, trapped on an industrial weigh scale by the size of his own body. The strength of the trauma to the psyche to get the fat man here, whatever caused it, would have been immense, and would have hurt worse than anything I had ever experienced. Then to be on display day after day, the jeers and pen pokings would have perpetuated that trauma. This fat man would die early and poorly. I couldn’t escape the idea that I was watching a dead man flail on that pallet, in a freak show, covered in bruises and sores born from obesity, surrounded by prying eyes and poorly checked snickers, people looking in wonder at his death.  
    Not being able to extract a pen from your own fat folds is not a good place to be.
    I glanced at Leonard. He was smiling, his eyes fixed on the quivering, squealing invalid on the pallet.
    I pushed under the rope, put one hand on the fat man and leaned into his bulk to extract the pen.
    The man stopped squealing.
    I stood, instinctively wiping the hand I had touched him with on my pants, the pen in the other hand.
    The spotlight blinded me to the audience so I couldn’t see who said, “Stupid kid.”
    â€œThank you,” a muffled voice came from the fat man. His head was on the other side of the pallet. His voice was high-pitched, faraway and lonely.
    The light flashed from bright to dark as I ducked back under the rope into the crowd.
    â€œYou touched him,” Leonard winced.
    â€œI had to,” I replied, thinking Leonard was looking for an explanation. “I couldn’t reach otherwise.”
    â€œWhat did he feel like?” He asked.
    I wiped my hand on my pant-leg again. “Like a big turkey,” I said, “before it’s put in the oven.”
    Leonard pursed his lips.
    We wandered past a display case that was not unlike Mother’s china cabinet. Instead of shelves packed with trinkets and cups, these housed jars. There was a two-headed fetus. A snake with a scorpion in its mouth swirled in a cloudy yellow fluid.
    â€œLook close,” Leonard said, his nose pushed up against the glass. “The two-headed thing moved.”
    â€œIt did not.” I didn’t want to put my face close to it.
    â€œI guess not,” Leonard said and then he stood on his toes and pointed. “Look. You can see where someone stitched the other head on.”
    â€œReally?”
    I had questions like…
    Where would someone find a spare foetus head?  
    Who would think to stitch it to the body of another?
    â€œIt’s so fake,” Leonard said.
    Apparently he didn’t think about the things I did.
    â€œThe fat guy was real,” I said.
    â€œLook, over there. Come on.” Leonard was off.
    I caught a glimpse of the carnie with the rusty nail in his mouth out of the corner of my eye. He seemed to be watching us. Then a few dark figures broke my view. For a moment, I feared I lost Leonard in the shadowy crowd. Then I saw him, waving me forward. The crowd around this spotlight was not as thick as the Mighty Mite or the fat man.
    â€œLook,” Leonard said, “Teen Wolf.” He pointed.
    I looked. My stomach seized.
    Mother’s voice: “He’s not going to turn into one of those Mexican wolf-men, is he?”
    Standing in the light was a boy my age. He was