The Most Tattooed Man
intheWorld
It is more than twenty years since we published Janet Green's
"The Tallest Man in the World"a haunting story that gave
you an intimate glimpse behind the scenes of European theatri-
cal life. Now we offer another of Janet Green's stories about, in
this instance, English show biz . . . Certain backgrounds never
seem to lose their fascination, their glitter and glamor. For
example, the circus: there's something about it, something that
is, as Janet Green's theatrical agent says, "magic all the
way"...
The bell sounded urgent, insistent, the way only a telephone
bell sounds at two o'clock in the morning. I lifted the receiver.
Papa Gaudin was calling from Amsterdam. The Great
Reinheimer's ulcer had finally killed him, and with a cat man
there is never an understudy. Papa had lost his cat act.
I sat up, fully awake now. This was my business as well as his.
It had taken me three years to persuade the old gentleman to
bring his circus across the Channel. He had no regard for English
audiences. He said that his kind of entertainment belonged on the
Continent. But he knew, and I knew, that the truth was he spoke
no English, and felt too old to learn.
It was clear to me that if I did not move quickly he would ask
me to put in another circus. An aqua-show, an ice show, anything.
I said I knew a cat man who was free, and when I cradled the
receiver I knew I had to find one.
The problem stayed with me and would not let me sleep. I
thought coffee might help. I make coffee carefully, slowly. Before
the kettle boiled, I recalled a fellow I'd seen in Los Angeles two
springs before, a young man with a lot of talent, panache, and no
money to buy his own cats. He could step right into the Great
Reinheimer's white kid boots and work the act as it stood.
At once I put in a person-to-person call. I chased it through the
next two days, then ran him down across the Mexican border,
tenting in Ensenata. I was in luck. The end of his engagement
was in sight, he said, and he'd be glad to fly to Amsterdam.
After he'd hung up, I sat for a moment. His voice, throaty, vi-
brant, young, was playing on a memory. Then the picture slipped
from the filing cabinet that I call my mind and I saw Jules. I saw
how he looked, heard how he sounded. And remembered how I
loved him.
I walked the park. Now that I had remembered, I wanted to
forget. Quickly. Jules was the best cat man I ever saw, the
bravest, the most beautiful, till a snow-leopard clawed his face in
love and tore away his beauty. I was the first to see him after it
and I went straight out.
Jules was proud. When they took the bandages off, and he saw
the result of the Judas Kiss, he disappeared. Plastic surgery can't
