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Show 349 carnival at night. There are three men with him, and though he can't see their faces, they seem to be directing where he should go. At the end of a long boardwalk they enter a tent, on whose walls hang a phrenologist's diagram of a human head in profile and enlargements of pictures he recognizes as taken from the Tarot deck. Bleachers are set up against the walls, but at a greater distance than the interior of the tent seems able to contain. People in dark suits with hats pulled over their faces are sitting at random intervals on the benches. On an upturned apple box in the middle of the floor stands a man, pale and naked, with an enormous erection. Lorin has never in his life seen another man's erection than his own, so he is not sure of the visual source of this part of the dream. The man is lean and muscular, with short-cropped hair, standing at parade rest, his feet slightly spread, his hands clasped loosely behind him, his chin up, his expression serene, his eyes fixed on some point above the doorway to the tent, his penis red and heroic, his balls tightly packed. One of Lorin's guides points to a small doorway behind one of the bleachers, and presently an old woman in a leather jacket comes in through it, carrying an axe. She nods to the people in the bleachers, who haven't noticed her, and then walks up to the man on the apple box, pretends to be surprised at his massive arousal. She says, "I knew it," and raises the axe. Lorin does not care to watch his part, so he wanders over to look at the phrenology exhibit, but as he does, an enormous white asparagus stalk flips past him, end over end, and is swallowed by a duck he has not noticed before, sitting in a cage on the table. He looks back and sees the man, white as polished bone, on a black pedestal, holding a baby with one hand and a bunch of grapes high in the air with the other. His eyes are blank and his white hair is curly. His balls hang easily below the tragic chip left by the axe. |