The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Page 35

Mr. Morris’s disappearance from our midst was not sudden, though it may have appeared that way to others, for one day at the height of the season he simply did not arrive. It was apparent that my father had been watching Mr. Morris for quite some time, with disapproval and distaste. The two rarely spoke. The Professor often saw what escaped others’ eyes and had a particular knack for spying people’s weaknesses. He preferred flaws that he could exploit and was therefore uncomfortable with an employee who was so intelligent and learned, a man who, had he not been born as he was, would have easily been my father’s equal or better. I’d overheard him say to Mr. Morris, “I hope you haven’t forgotten that I rescued you. Think of where you’d be if not for me. No one else would have you. They’d run from you, stone you, cry out for your captivity. Remember at all times, you are a freak of nature, and that alone is your distinction.”
It was a demeaning thing to say. I understood the sting of such a comment, for my father had often told me that after my mother’s passing another man might have left me in an orphanage, particularly in light of my deformity. But he had been loyal to me, and therefore he expected my loyalty in return. Such a debt of gratitude made me feel as if I had no choices in this world, as if my future lay in only one direction, a path decided upon by my father.
Raymond Morris bowed his head when he was reminded of his time in prison, and quickly offered his thanks for his rescue, but there was a glint of mistrust in his eyes. He was a man of great dignity, and surely this was the reason Maureen was attracted to him. They often sat together, speaking in confidence. She had let slip that she visited him during the off-season and had mentioned that upon one or more occasions she’d brought him a leek and onion pie, one of her specialties. When I questioned her about how frequently she spent time with him, she informed me that polite girls didn’t ask questions about a person’s private life. Once, when they didn’t know I was nearby, I had seen Mr. Morris take her hand. I was not the only one who noticed their closeness. Soon enough Maureen was found in his room by the landlord of the boardinghouse, who then demanded a fee from my father, insisting that a room in which two people cohabited should have the charges doubled.
If Maureen was in love with the Wolfman, she never discussed it with me. I only knew that my father dismissed Raymond Morris, though he was our most popular attraction and made the museum more prosperous than it had ever been. I was surprised at the depth of my father’s fury. Morris was asked to leave the boardinghouse where he’d been deposited after his release from jail. I don’t know where he went, but I do know he left Maureen a token on the day he vanished: a worn copy of Jane Eyre, set out on the kitchen counter, wrapped in brown paper and twine, with her name written upon the wrapping in his graceful script.
I heard Maureen arguing with my father in the parlor afterward. The Professor said she was a whore, so low she would get on her back for a vile dog. That was what he called the Wolfman, Satan’s dog. I thought I heard a slap, but I wasn’t sure. I put my hands over my ears, but I still heard Maureen crying. After that she said no more of Mr. Morris, and although her eyes were often red and inflamed, she didn’t dare to go against my father. She was his employee after all, and jobs were not so easy to come by. If she left she would likely be fit only for factory work, grueling and low paying, and she might even be turned away from that because of the burn marks on her face.
No one mentioned the Wolfman in the days that followed, and a new exhibit soon enough took his place, a young man named Horace, whose older brother brought him from Sunnyside, Queens, in the mornings and picked him up in the evenings. Horace had only half a jaw and could neither speak nor hear, but he had been taught to growl in a menacing manner, as the Wolfman had. My father named him the Jungle Boy and employed the sign maker once more. Horace never complained and he did as he was told. As far as I knew, he couldn’t read.
ONE MORNING, not long after Mr. Morris’s departure, as Maureen and I sat on the back porch peeling potatoes for a stew, I found myself thinking about “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a story of Poe’s that Mr. Morris had read to us in which a murderer cannot escape his own guilt. I was thirteen at this time, and I was especially interested in the ways in which some men felt guilt, while others seemed free to hurt those closest to them without remorse. The protagonist in Poe’s story is certain he continues to hear the heart of his victim beating beneath the floorboards, but it is the pulse of his own guilt that resounds. I wondered if all men’s deeds came back to haunt them and proposed an idea to Maureen: if the Wolfman were to become famous at some other exhibition, perhaps my father would regret his decision and want to hire him again and then all would be well.