Free Walking Wolf by Nancy A. Collins Page B

on our way to our next destination, the Professor would be busy smearing salve on his neck, johnson and other tender parts that had been rubbed raw during his presentation.
    Watching the Professor work a crowd was a real education. He definitely knew how to talk a man into reaching into his pocket and handing over hard-won money for what amounted to rotgut whiskey mixed with horse liniment. I credit most of his success to his way with words. Only the Professor could get away with calling a simple glass of water “a chalice of Adam’s ale.” And for those unwilling to part with a dollar for a bottle of Hard Luck Elixir, there was always a nickel’s worth of amazement in the form of Whatisit.
    In order to lure the townies into surrendering their change, Praetorius puffed up Whatisit’s pedigree from pinheaded imbecile to captured ape-man. To hear the Professor tell it, you were a cast-iron fool is you missed this chance of a lifetime to gaze upon such a unique specimen from Borneo, or Sumatra, or Tierra del Fuego or wherever the hell the Professor decided Whatisit was from that day. He made coughing up five red cents to stare at a caged freak sound not only educational, but morally uplifting to boot.
    In order to show Whatisit, the Professor rigged up a special canvas enclosure to one side of the stage large enough to allow up to twenty people to pass through at a time. Those foolish enough to crowd too close usually ended up splattered with pinhead shit, to the amusement of their companions. It was my job to be sure that the line kept moving and that no one did anything to Whatisit while they took their peek, like poke him with sharp sticks or give him broken glass to play with.
    After the Professor had finished his pitch and wrested what money he could out of the crowd, we packed up and got moving to the next stop as fast as possible. The Professor’s official motto was “Always leave the customers happy,” though the practical translation was closer to “Always leave them before they find out what they’ve really bought.”
    Although Whatisit and I had gotten off on a bad foot, I soon grew fond of him. As far as the Professor could tell, Whatisit was probably in his late twenties, which was fairly old for a pinhead. By and large, he was easy to control and wasn’t hard to feed. The only time he got out of hand was when he had to be washed, but that wasn’t often. Every now and again, I’d take him out of his cage and put him on a leash so he could exercise, but he didn’t seem to like being outside his box. He’d scuttle about on his hands and knees like a dog and make a high-pitched whining noise, occasionally clinging to my pants leg and walking semi-upright.
    The Professor told me Whatisit’s lack of enthusiasm for the outdoors was on account of his natural parents keeping him in what amounted to a crate ever since he was a baby, showing him at fairs and carnivals from the back of a wagon. They sold Whatisit to the Professor a few years back in order to clear a debt. Whatisit’s parents weren’t too broke up over parting with their only son since they had a younger daughter with a parasitic twin that could clog. (The daughter, that is, not the parasitic twin.)
    I traveled with the Professor for close to two years, doing things like tending the mules, mending the banners, walking and washing Whatisit, decanting the foul-tasting Hard Luck Elixir into bottles and pasting labels on them. The elixir itself varied from brewing to brewing, depending on what the Professor could lay his hands on at the time. Often it was little more than watered-down rotgut, but I recall a couple of times when oil of turpentine and green vitriol were tossed in to the mix—not to mention the occasional rattlesnake to give it some extra “bite.”
    During the time we were together, we traveled throughout most of Texas and into Oklahoma, putting on shows wherever