LITMIR.BIZ

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would I?” Jimmie asks.

      “You’re ill, Mr. Rodgers,” Schiaparelli says, “ill with tuberculosis. I know this, I have heard your record—‘TB Blues.’ Catchy. But I am stronger than TB. I will drain you of blood. Without blood, the disease will die. I will feed you my blood. And you will live forever—singing!”

      “Go to hell,” Jimmie says.

      “Mr. Rodgers,” Schiaparelli says, “you will sing for me whether you want to or not. You will sing for your supper—and you’ll be supper!

      “Renfield! See that he’s comfortably imprisoned.” She points a pink fingernail. A pink dinner ring. Dazzles. Pink, pink, pink! “And bring Mrs. Rodgers as well. She’s comely, yes? She will star in my sideshow.”

      “I’d rather die!” Carrie says.

      “You don’t say,” Schiaparelli says. “Then I shall put you on the midway. Slit you open. Twist your intestines into animal shapes. When you rot, you’ll give off gas, your insides will inflate. Abracadabra—animal balloons!

      “I shall drag the midway with you. Do you know what that means? I will stick a meat hook in you, then lug your bleeding, barely breathing body through the sawdust to the wild animal show. The animals will go wild when they smell you coming. The audience will go wild when they smell you, too.

      “I shall put you in the animal show. Do you like animals? Lions, tigers, hyenas—and you! They will snap your neck, then eat your meat, your bones, your brain. Carrie carrion. You’ll be dinner, then droppings. Do you know what carnies call an animal show? The Show that Smells!”

      “A sensational name,” I say.

      Jimmie Rodgers.

      Carrie Rodgers. Jimmie Rodgers.

      Carrie Rodgers. Jimmie Rodgers. Cornered.

      Lon Chaney closes in. Nosferatu nails.

      “Stay away, you fiend,” Jimmie says, “or I swear I’ll—” A cough cuts him off. “I’ll—” He takes a fit. Falls to the floor.

      “Leave him alone!” Carrie’s pink with panic. Perfume floats from her throat, wrists, soft spots in her elbows. Where blood abounds. It rises from Jimmie. A screen of scent. Screen or scream?

      “Aaarrrgghhhhh!” Chaney says. “Chanel N°5!” Worse than wolfsbane. Gruesomer than garlic. Chaney clutches his throat like he’s strangling himself. All vampires act like silent stars.

      Cowering, cringing, crying—Chaney acts like an actress.

      “You’re afraid of perfume?” Carrie lords the bottle over him. She drips a drop onto him. It burns like battery acid. Blended with bleach. Skin smokes. Seared hair. Seared skin. Seared seersucker. Stinks. Chaney N°5.

      “It’s been blessed!” I say. Anointed perfume. Holy eau de toilette.

      “Chanel sanctifies her scents!” Schiaparelli says. “She thinks she can protect her clients from me! She can’t! No one can!”

      “We’ll see about that!” Carrie splashes Chaney. An ounce costs. He screeches in close-up. He’s a master at makeup. His forehead flames. His forehead was frog skin. His nose—mortician’s wax. It drips down his lips. His jaw drops. Off. The things he does with gutta-percha! He hurls himself at a mirror. Smashes through. Splinters stick. He bleeds. Borrowed blood. It’s brown syrup. Brown looks red in blackand-white.

      “Chanel can’t keep you alive forever!” Schiaparelli floats up off the floorboards. André Perugia designed her shoes.

      “Your perfume will fade!” she says, suspended like a chandelier. A chandelier in a Mirror Maze? It’s overkill!

      “Your perfume will die! Your perfume will sell out or be discontinued!” Sequins! She shines chandelierically. The Maze shot through with thirteen shades of white light. “Mark my words, Madame, the moment you find yourself without Chanel N°5—”

      She makes herself into mist. Vampires, like perfumes, vaporize.

      “I will have you on the cover of Vampire Vogue,” I say to Carrie. “Circulation will soar. Madame Schiaparelli always sells magazines—her fans are fans forever—undead couture clients never die!”

      I vanish. It’s done with mirrors.

      Jimmie’s flat on the floor. Carrie crouches, comforts him, coos to him, his head in her lap.

      “Hush,” she says.

      “The vampire’s gone,” she says.

      “Here comes the Carter Family,” she says.

      Jimmie Rodgers.

      Carrie Rodgers. Mother Maybelle Carter.

      Sara Carter. A.P. Carter. Jimmie Rodgers.

      Carrie Rodgers. Mother Maybelle Carter. Sara Carter. A.P.

      Carter. Jimmie Rodgers. Carrie Rodgers. Mother Maybelle Carter. Sara Carter. A.P. Carter.

      Jimmie Rodgers and Carrie Rodgers and Mother Maybelle and Sara and A.P.—the Carter Family—in a Mirror Maze.

      “Fangs?” Maybelle says.

      “Fancy clothes?” she says.

      “Fancy haircuts?” she says.

      “Yes, yes, yes,” Carrie says. “How did you know?”

      “We’re the Carter Family,” Maybelle says. “Down-home singers by day, vampire killers by night!” She cocks her arm like a choir conductor. Carters start to sing. A signature song—“Keep on the Sunny Side.”

      “Vampires love clothes,” Maybelle says. “Vampires love carnivals. Folks dolled up, parading down the midway, flirting in the Funhouse, fornicating on the Ferris wheel—pardon my French!

      “Vampires smell vanity!” she says. “Vampires smell sin!” The Carter Family is not camera-friendly. Sara’s squat. A.P.’s a tent pole. Maybelle’s built like Marie Dressler. She’s gray beyond her years. The reverse of vampires. And movie stars. “We sing our hymns in the opry.” Rag opry is carny slang for a tent show. “We sing, then we—”

      “Stake!” A.P. says. “I see a vampire, I stab him in the heart!”

      “You see a vampire, you poop your pants,” Maybelle says. Sara’s silent. “That’s true,” she says.

      “This is your fault, Jimmie!” Mother Maybelle says. “You stand in here, preening and primping—it’s not natural! It’s not right!”

      “Amen!” Sara says.

      “I don’t always poop my pants,” A.P. says.

      “Stop sulking!” Maybelle swats him.

      “You’re not being fair, Maybelle,” Carrie says. “Jimmie never asked for any of this. Look at him, he’s—”

      “You’re just as bad, Miss Carrie! French clothes and French jewelry and French perfume.” Maybelle’s dress is homemade. Worn out by washboards. Sara’s in hand-medown hose. Runs darned, darned, and darned again. They bulge like varicose veins. A.P.’s suit is second-hand. It shows. “You’ve got Jimmie dressed up like some kewpie doll,” Maybelle says, “smelling like a whore! There’s no place for fashion in country music!”

      Jimmie: Coughs. Coughs. Coughs. Coughs. Coughs. Barfs blood. Blood doesn’t come out of clothes.

2

      Carrie Rodgers.

      Carrie Rodgers. Carrie Rodgers.

      Carrie Rodgers. Carrie Rodgers. Carrie Rodgers.

      Carrie Rodgers. Carrie Rodgers. Carrie Rodgers. Carrie Rodgers. Carrie

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