From: "Robert Borski" 
Subject: (urth) the dog-boy of Carnies Past
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 01:25:46 -0500

Adam S. pondering:

"And why does Charlie not mention the second picture in his letter?"

Not sure if you think we don't know what is in the second photo, Adam, or
simply that Charlie Turner never mentions its contents.

The first one, obviously, is of stripper Candy. Says Charlie: "The other
girls in the show all consider this a pretty modest picture because as you
have probably already seen, she is wearing a G-string and pasties, which is
as far as they are allowed to strip in Sunday School towns where our patch
can't fix the cops much."

Secretary Hadow looks at the photo and says, "Well, the woman is an obvious
tramp, though I must say her face reminds me of Carole Lombard's--do you
remember her?" [The heyday of Lombard's file career was from 1934-1942; she
died in a 1942 aircrash.]

Then, though neither she, Den, nor Wolfe say anything, she looks at the
second photo, saying, "The tall man--well, what can you say about him? He's
terribly tall. I don't think that other man with him is really very tall,
but still that other man must be--oh, I don't know. Six foot ten? Perhaps
more."

(Why would Candy, attired so scantily, have a picture taken with the two
men, anyway? As Charlie notes, "Candy had pictures of _herself_ taken" and
they appear to be self-promotional glossies or souvenirs--possibly for sale
to lonely horny men.)

Den asks Miss H. if she believes the pictures are of living people and she
uses the plural in refuting this idea: "Well, for one thing, the pictures
just look old." She then first describes the clothes of the two men since
they are in the uppermost picture, the one she has just looked at; then she
shuffles the pictures (again, without comment) so that Candy's is again on
top and describes her as having "an old-fashioned kind of hairdo."

The dated aspect of clothing and hairdo, plus the sepia tone of the
pictures, suggests to me that both pictures are from a much earlier
time--and clearly predate the Golden Year, when supposedly the encounter
with Charlie Turner takes place. Moreover, the second male figure in the
photo is described as being not "really very tall," implying rather he is
simply tall. Roy has suggested that this mystery figure may be Julius Smart,
but Julius Smart is so small he has to buy boy's shoes for his tiny feet,
whereas Den, as we know from his medical checkup, is 6 feet tall. (President
Smart is also described as wearing old-fashioned clothes: "He wore a vest,
and a gold chain across the front of it during that period when it seemed
the vest had vanished never to return." Compare this to what the tall
man--Tom Lavine--in the sepia-tinged photo is wearing: "He's even wearing a
vest with a watch chain across the front." But are his clothes contemporary
or hand-me-downs from a long-ago era?) The fact that Miss Hadow does not
recognize photo-bound Den further indicates some passage of time--as anyone
who's been to a high school reunion or two knows, some people look exactly
the same as they did when they were younger, while others morph into
something else altogether. Den lies when he says he's never met either
figure in the photographs--i.e., Candy and Tom--perhaps not wishing to be
tainted by association with "the obvious tramp." But he's also never met the
third figure in the photographs--since it's impossible to meet yourself. And
if the second picture is a snapshot of Tom and Den--taken after the latter
possibly checks out the carnival as potential home for his illegitimate
child, or after having trysted with part-time hooker Candy--this might
explain why Charlie sent it to him.

Robert Borski


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