The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll Read Free Book Online Page A

later, a mean old woman from down the block died in her sleep. A big yellow-and-black butterfly was taped to her nose the morning after they brought her to the funeral home. Lucente laughed again, but I felt differently: perhaps Marshall France had been creating his first characters.
    The new apprentice not only got over his nausea, but he soon became a highly valued assistant. He bought a copy of Gray’s Anatomy and studied it constantly. Lucente said that after six months Frank developed an extraordinary ability to model an expression on a face that was as lifelike as any the old man had ever seen.
    “That’s the hardest thing, you see. Making them look alive is the hardest thing there is. Did you ever look in a casket? Sure, one look and you know they’re dead. Big deal. But Martin had it, if you know what I mean. He had something that made even me jealous. You looked at one of his jobs and you’d wonder why the hell the guy was lying down in there!”
    While he was in New York, Frank spent most of his time with the Lucentes, either at work or in their apartment behind the funeral home. But on Sunday, every Sunday, he went out with the Turtons. The Turtons were midgets. He met them when he happened into their candy store one day. The three of them loved trains and fried chicken, so every week they’d have a big fried-chicken dinner at a restaurant and then go over to Grand Central or Penn Station and get on a train to somewhere nearby. The Lucentes never went with them on these jaunts, but when Frank returned in the evening he would tell them about where they’d gone and what they’d seen.
    Lucente never really understood why Frank quit. The longer he worked, the more fascinated he seemed by the job, but one day he came in and said that he’d be leaving at the end of the month. Said that he was going out to the Midwest to live with his uncle.
     
    One of the kids on the hall was standing in front of my apartment when I got home. “There’s a woman in your apartment, Mr. Abbey. I think she got Mr. Rosenberg to let her in.”
    I opened the door and dropped my briefcase on the floor. I kicked the door shut and closed my eyes. The whole place smelled of curry. I hate curry.
    “Hello?” a voice called.
    “Hi. Uh, hi. Saxony?”
    She came around the corner carrying my old wooden stirring spoon. it had a few kernels of rice stuck to it. She was smiling a little too hard and her face was very flushed. I guessed it was half from cooking, half from nervousness.
    “What are you up to, Sax?”
    The spoon had moved slowly down to her side, and she stopped smiling. She looked at the floor.
    “I thought that since you were in the city all day, you probably didn’t have much to eat, with all that racing around …” Her voice petered out, although the spoon came up again and she waved it around in the air like a sad magic wand. Maybe she wanted it to finish her sentence for her.
    “Oh, God, look, never mind. It’s really nice of you!”
    We were both totally embarrassed, so I beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom.
    “Do you like curry, Thomas?”
    Halfway through the meal my tongue was a five-alarm fire, but I winked back the tears and nodded and pointed my fork at my plate a couple of times. “… love it.” It might have been the worst meal I’d ever eaten in my life. First her banana bread, then the curry …
    In his mercy, God made her buy Sara Lee brownies for dessert, which, after three glasses of milk, calmed the fires in my mouth.
    When the dishes were cleared, I began telling her about my cabdriver experience. I had gotten to where Tuto ordered me out of his car when she bit her lip and looked away.
    “What’s the matter?” I was tempted to say something like, “I’m not boring you, am I?” But by then I knew it was wrong and unnecessary.
    “I …” She looked at me, then away, at me, away. “I was really happy here this afternoon, Thomas. I came over right after I talked to you on the phone. I was