The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [157]
Hank told the reporter, “He’s near deef. Talk loud.” The reporter repeated the question loudly.
“I can’t be certain,” replied the World’s Oldest Man, “but several years past a hundred, I can assure you.”
“How did you manage to live that long?” asked the reporter. “Are you an abstainer?”
“I’ve never tasted alcohol, no,” replied the old man, “but I don’t think that had anything to do with it.”
“Well—?” the reporter waited, then persisted, “To what do you attribute your longevity?”
The old man was silent, as if thinking, then he said quietly, “I kept moving. I never slowed down long enough for death to catch me.”
The reporter admired that answer and commented, “You seem to have all of your wits about you.”
“Thank you,” replied the old man. “I do.”
The reporter pursued the question. “But why did you keep moving?”
Again the old man was silent, as if meditating and discovering the answer for the first time, and when he spoke the answer it was with a self-wonderment. “I felt there was something I had to do. Ought to do. Was foreordained to do.”
“No fooling?” said the reporter. “And what was that something?”
“Whatever I have done,” said the old man, and would not elaborate.
“How long have you been with this circus?” asked the reporter.
“Oh, it’s hard to remember. Maybe twenty years.”
“And what did you do before that?”
“I traveled. I was engaged in various sales campaigns.”
“Where are you from, originally?”
“Connecticut.”
The reporter thanked the old man for the interview and went on to interview the tattooed man. Hank wandered back to the crumb castle or chuck wagon or whatever it was to see if dinner was ready yet. After eating, he saw that the Midway was open, and he strolled it, keeping an eye out for any of his folks, whom he did not want to see until he had his clown suit and make-up on. But there weren’t many people on the Midway. He had two dollars and seventy-five cents in his pocket, which was all of his life’s savings after the stock market crashed, so he spent some of this to ride the Ferris Wheel and get a cone of cotton candy. Then he realized he’d better go practice his juggling before the Big Top opened. As he was leaving the Midway, he passed a peanut vendor and was surprised to discover that the peanut vendor was the World’s Oldest Man, hawking peanuts out of a tray that was suspended from his neck on a string. Not very loudly, the old peanut vendor was calling, “Fresh roasted peanuts! A nickel a bag!” Hank went up to him and gave him a nickel. The old man looked at him and gave him a bag of peanuts but refused his nickel.
“You’re an Ingledew,” said the old man. “I can’t charge an Ingledew anything.”
Hank commented, speaking loudly, “That thar sideshow must not pay ye very well, that you’re obliged to sell goobers on the side.”
The old man shook his head. “No, boy, I don’t need to sell peanuts. I’ve been selling things all my life, and I just can’t give up the confounded habit.” And he hobbled off down the Midway, croaking, “Fresh roasted peanuts! A nickel a bag!” Hank wondered again about how the old man was so old that he knew everything and therefore knew that Hank was an Ingledew, although that didn’t explain why he would give away a bag of peanuts free of charge to any Ingledew.
Hank went to Phil’s trailer and with Phil’s help put on his clown suit and his rubber nose and greasepaint. He confessed to Phil that he was a bit nervous about appearing in front of all those people. Phil snorted. “What’s the name of this place? Jasper? Well, in circus lingo a ‘jasper’ is a local person who buys a ticket. There’re not many jaspers in Jasper.”
Phil was right: when Hank went into the Big Top for the first time, he discovered that there weren’t more than fifty people in the audience, and none of them were Stay Morons. Although