Wednesday, 03 February 2010

• Currently Who Is Killing Doah's Deer? By Jeff Markowitz see related

  The Amazing Siamese Triplets of White Sands Beach

  I thought you might like to see a brief excerpt from my first book, Who Is Killing Doah’s Deer? published in 2004 and featured this month at the NJ Pinelands Literature Exhibition.  In this excerpt, tabloid reporter and amateur sleuth Cassie O'Malley writes a story for the tabloid, a story called:

  
  

  The Amazing Siamese Triplets of White Sands Beach
  
  

              Imagine for just a moment that you lived one hundred years ago and that you summered in White Sands Beach.  If so, you might have experienced first-hand the wonders of Captain Barlow’s Sideshow Extravaganza and if you had, you would know that the story you are about to read, unbelievable as it may seem, is the absolute truth.
              You would have begun in the common areas at Captain Barlow’s to view the midgets, the albinos, the snake charmers - the family entertainment - but if you were a gentleman who understood the value of a nickel, you would have paid that supplemental fee to be privy to the entertainment it afforded.  For in a private tent, to the rear of the common areas, you would have been introduced to three young women, girls really, the likes of whom have not been seen before or since.  Clara, Abigail and Sally, the only case in all the recorded history of humankind, of Siamese triplets.  And for the expense of just one nickel, these girls would sing, they would dance, they would tell you their life story and then, at the close of the show, they would contort themselves into the most depraved combinations, for their own carnal pleasures and for yours.
  
  (Bringing new meaning to the phrase, Cassie thought, but dared not write ‘I’ll need that in triplicate.’)
  
              Were that the end of the story, some of you would accept this account as an example of an awesome error of human reproduction and some of you would simply dismiss the story, but in either event, you would be selling Captain Barlow short, for this is not the end of the story.  No matter how much we want to believe in the Siamese triplets of White Sands Beach, we cannot.  And, as we all know, truth is always stranger than fiction.  The truth is, the Siamese triplets appeared suddenly in Captain Barlow’s employ the summer of 1905.  Press clippings confirm the events of that extraordinary summer.  According to reports, Captain Barlow found the girls in the town of Union Forge, near Chatsworth, NJ.  But we find no evidence in any documents of Siamese triplets living in Union Forge prior to the summer of 1905 or, living anywhere, following that fateful summer.  We know from other sources, that sometime around 1890, Siamese twin girls were born in Union Forge, the result of an out-of-wedlock liaison.  They lived in Union Forge until their adolescence, an object lesson for all whom they happened to meet, but references to these twin girls disappear at about the same time that the triplets spring fully formed in White Sands Beach.  We have reason to believe that the Siamese triplets consist of this pair of Siamese twins and a third girl, otherwise normal, already in the employ of Captain Barlow, who was paid handsomely to participate in this elaborate hoax.  The particulars of her apparent connection to the twins has been lost over these many years, but this missing piece of the story in no way dampens our confidence in the story as a whole.
              Nevertheless, we readily acknowledge that this is hypothesis, not proof.  And therefore, we are asking you, our faithful readers, for your assistance.  We are asking each of you to consider whether your family tree may not have borne conjoined fruit and to send us your stories, so that we may, once and for all, prove or disprove the story of the Amazing Siamese Triplets of White Sands Beach.

  
  

  And one of Cassie's readers responded, giving Cassie access to the diary of her long-dead Grandmother. It is May, 1930.  Clara Ederle is in her early forties.  She is a conjoined twin and a retired carnival “performer.”  Clara lives in a small town in the New Jersey Pine Barrens with her husband and children and with her conjoined sister and her sister’s family.  Clara senses that her sister’s health is failing.  This is the final entry in her diary.

   

  Dear Diary,

   

  Abigail’s cough worsens.  The doctors will not say, but I fear she has pneumonia and her days have dwindled to a precious few.  Abigail has lived a full life.  She has known the applause of the audience and the love of an adoring husband and family.  As have I.  But the most profound blessing in my life, and I hope in hers, has been the bond of sisterhood.  I know that many find our situation to be odd, but to me it is very ordinary, and at the same time, special.  As I look back through these pages, I realize that Abigail has borne witness to every important event in my life and I hers.

  It is funny the way the mind plays tricks.  Re-reading many entries, I find that no trace of the event remains in my memory, but if I ask Abigail, she remembers every detail.  Other entries remain so real to me that I can still feel them in my fingertips and in my soul.

  I wonder what ever became of Sally.  Did she find the love that I have found with Patrick, that Abigail has found with Benjamin?  I fear for her tonight in a way I do not fear for Abigail or for myself.

  I have spent my life as a twin and one extraordinary summer as a triplet.  I have carried a secret, buried deep, from you, dear diary, from Abigail and from myself, but that summer, there were days, in the tent, that I performed unspeakable acts of entertainment with the gentlemen.  I am not proud of this, but neither am I ashamed.  If a man wanted to do something to my body, it was only my body, never my soul.  I did what I had to in order to survive.

  Still it was a glorious summer.  I met Patrick that summer.  And I saw the ocean.  I will never forget that first sight of the endless blue-green water, the sun rising on a distant horizon.  I understood that day just how large the world is and how important it is to find your place in it.  For that summer, my place was in Captain Barlow’s tent in White Sands Beach and I did the best job that I could.  But I always knew my place was here in Chatsworth and I have been blessed to live out my days here with Patrick and the children and with Abigail and her family.  Only I wish I might see the ocean one more time!

  Abigail’s cough racks her body with pain.  She needs to rest.  I must put down my pen and attend to my dear sister.  Perhaps tomorrow I will take her outside to feel the warm spring sun on her face.

  • 3:15 PM
  • 1756 Views
  • 12 eProps
  • 8 Comments