A Bad Man by Stanley Elkin Page A

tricky double sense that he lived a somehow old-timey life in a strange world. It was his world; he was, by having served his time in it, its naturalized citizen. He had never seen a tenement, a subway, a tall building. As far as he knew he had never seen a Jew except for his father. What was strange about there being a cannon on the courthouse lawn, or a sheriff who wore a star on his shirt? What was strange about anything? Life was these things too. Life was anything, anything at all. Things were of a piece.
    He went to a county fair and ate a hot dog. (Nothing strange there , he thought.) He chewed cotton candy. He looked at pigs, stared at cows. He came into a hall of 4-H exhibits. Joan Stizek had hooked a rug; Helen Prish had sewn a dress; Mary Stellamancy had put up tomatoes. He knew these girls. They said, “How are you, Leo?” when they saw him. (Nothing strange there .)
    He went outside and walked up the Midway. A man in a booth called him over. “Drop the ring over the block and take home a prize,” he said. He showed him how easy it was. “Three tosses for a dime.”
    “The blocks are magnets,” he said. “There are tiny magnets in the rings. You control the fields by pressing a button under the counter. I couldn’t win. There’s nothing strange.”
    “Beat it, kid,” the man said. “Get out of here.”
    “I am my papa’s son,” he said.
    A woman extended three darts. “Bust two balloons and win a prize.”
    “Insufficient volume of air. The darts glance off harmlessly. My father told me,” he said.
    “I’ll guess your birthday,” a man said.
    “It’s fifteen cents. You miss and give a prize worth five. Dad warned me.”
    “Odds or evens,” a man said, snapping two fingers from a fist.
    He hesitated. “It’s a trick,” he said, and walked away.
    A sign said: LIVE! NAKED ARTIST’S MODEL ! He handed fifty cents to a man in a wide felt hat and went inside a tent. A woman sat naked in a chair.
    “Three times around the chair at an eight-foot distance at a reasonable pace. No stalling,” a man standing inside the entrance said. “You get to give her one direction for a pose. Where’s your pencil? Nobody goes around the chair without a pencil.”
    “I haven’t got one,” he said.
    “Here,” the man said. “I rent pencils. Give a dime.”
    “Nobody said anything about a pencil,” he said. “It’s a gyp.”
    “The sign says ‘ Artist’s Model,’ don’t it? How you going to draw her without a pencil?” He narrowed his eyes and made himself taller. “If you ain’t an artist what are you doing in here? Or are you some jerk pervert?”
    Feldman’s son put his hand in his pocket. “Green,” he said, showing a crayon from the inventory. “I work in green crayon.”
    “Where’s your paper?” the man said. “Paper’s a nickel.”
    “I don’t have paper,” he admitted.
    “Here, Rembrandt,” the man said. He held out a sheet of ringed, lined notebook paper.
    “Are we related,” Feldman’s son asked, handing him a nickel.
    He joined a sparse circle of men walking around the woman in a loose shuffle.
    The man at the entrance flap called directions. “Speed it up there, New Overalls.”
    “Hold your left tit and point your finger at the nipple,” a man in a brown jacket said.
    “That’s your third trip, Yellow Shoes. Get out of the line,” called the man at the entrance. “ Eight-foot distance , Green Crayon. I told you once.”
    “Spread your legs.”
    “Boy, oh boy, I got to keep watching you artists, don’t I, Bow Tie?” the man said. “You already said she should grab her behind with both hands. One pose, one pose. Put the pencil in the hat, Yellow Shoes. You just rented that.”
    “Spread your legs,” Feldman’s son said. Nothing strange there, he thought.
    “Keep it moving, keep it moving. You’re falling behind, Brown Jacket.”
    He left the tent, still holding the unused sheet of notebook paper that had cost him a nickel.
    There was an