Thalidomide Man grinned at Randy, then faced Lucy once again. “To answer your question, ma’am, no, I wasn’t born like this, not exactly. I had problems with my legs as a kid—don’t really remember what the disease was called, but my legs didn’t grow at the same rate as the rest of me. I had to use leg braces and crutches. My daddy hated me ‘cause I was damaged goods, a cripple. Said something about his manliness, I guess, that he sired a crippled son. My daddy was a rotten-mean drunk. One night he went on a real toot and killed my mother with a hammer right in front of me because she was always defending me to him, and then he started in on me—my legs, to be specific. Hammered my kneecaps into pulp and then mashed holy hell out of the rest of the bones below the knees. He was getting ready to work on my skull when the police broke in and shot him dead on top of me. I was seven. Doctors couldn’t save my legs, so they amputated them from just above the knees down.”

Lucy stared at him.

“I leave something out?” asked Thalidomide Man. “My story, I think I hit all the high points.”

“How long have you been with this carnival?”

“This one?” A shrug. “Couple of years, I guess.” Then: “How did you know I wasn’t born like this?”

“I honestly don’t know. The way you rubbed your stumps, I guess. I don’t remember much about it from school, but Thalidomide babies whose limbs are…malformed…there’s not supposed to be any feeling in those limbs, I think.”

Thalidomide Man considered this, then nodded his head. “Huh. I gotta remember that. Don’t think I’d much like gettin’ arrested for fraud. The lines of work I’m qualified for are a bit…limited, as you might guess. Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Have we met before?”

Lucy nodded. “You sold my daughter a couple of your carved figures.”

“I did, huh?” He stared at her face a few moments longer, then shook his head. “Wish I could say that I remember you and your daughter, but the fact is, I see so many people in the course of any given year, all I remember’s the money in their hands and the way the kids giggle.”

“There are programs you can get into, training programs. You could—”

He held up one of his gloved hands and shook his head. “You wanna know why I do this?”

“I guess so, yes.”

He watched the families wander by.

The mothers. The fathers. The teens.

The children, most of all.

Finally, he looked at Lucy and said, “Look at them, will you?” He gestured toward a group of children who were being led along by two harried-looking mothers. “Everything’s still new to them. Even if something bad’s happened to them recently, they still laugh and giggle and, I don’t know, hope, I guess. Remember when we were that young? How nothing bad ever followed us to the next morning? Maybe something bad happened before, but now’s fun, you’ve got a ball to bounce or a model plane to fly or a doll to pretend with, and the day’s full of mystery and wonder and things to look forward to and—” He stopped himself with a shake of his head. “—and there’s that funny-looking man over there selling his little carved figures, let’s go see him.”