Geek Love

Arty is working the crowd during his act, making them feel sorry for themselves and seducing them with his words. Arty points to a weeping young woman in the crowd and asks her what she wants. Arty expects her to be silent, so that he can tell the crowd what she wants. Instead, the woman echoes the thoughts of the whole crowd as she screams, “I want to be like you are!” (178). Arty is shocked to stillness and he tells the crowd to go away and come back the next day, so that he can give them what they want.

The next day, Oly finds the obese woman who had said she wanted to be like Arty waiting in his performance tent. Her name is Alma Witherspoon and she is desperate for help. Alma is the pen pal of a man incarcerated in prison and this man has asked her to marry him, but she is afraid he will reject her because he doesn’t know what she looks like. Arty has Alma sent to Dr. Phyllis’s trailer and plans are made to amputate Alma’s toes, with Chick keeping any pain at bay with his powers. Dr. Phyllis wants to go ahead and amputate Alma’s arms and legs, but Arty wants the process to go slowly. Arty is deeply happy, happier than Oly has ever seen him. Alma later begs to have more of her limbs removed.

Alma begins testifying before Arty comes out for his act, telling the carnival audiences about the wonderful life-changing experience she has had. Alma’s message captivates people in the crowds and they flock to join Arty as well. His group comes to be known as “Arturism” or the “Arturan Cult.” Alma leads the converts and “takes over the process of organizing with a smug zest that made [Oly] want to kick her” (184). Alma calls the new followers the “Admitted”; they are required to give Arty all their worldly possessions. The Admitted trail after the carnival in their own vehicles; within a few years, the group strings out for a hundred miles. Dr. Phyllis works on removing fingers and toes, with Chick providing pain relief. Alma has the last portion of her upper arm removed and grows frail, then leaves the group for an Arturan “rest home.” 

Oly talks about changes to the family. The twins turn seventeen and fight constantly. Lil has deteriorated further, physically and mentally. Al busies himself with the carnival crew to distract himself from the fact that he isn’t the boss anymore. The followers of Arturism, Dr. Phyllis, McGurk, and a newspaper reporter named Sanderson all belong to Arty.

Reporters become increasingly interested in the carnival and in the uniqueness of the Admitted. One reporter, named Norval Sanderson, is a writer for a national news magazine. At first, Sanderson is highly contemptuous of Arty, calling him a “transcendental maggot […] who used his own genetic defects and the weakness of the unemployed and illiterate to create an insanely self-destructive following that fed his maniacal ego” (189).

Soon, however, Sanderson finds himself beginning to understand the appeal of Arty to the crowds. During the brief amount of time Sanderson watches Arty’s show, he gets caught up in the aura of Arty’s power. Sanderson begins to see how Arty makes his followers believe that he can free them from the immense pain of their lives.

Oly, in the present time, says that she kept a folder of Sanderson’s news clippings and private notebooks. There are several clippings concerning grocery stores in various towns being robbed of foodstuffs, with rumors that the perpetrators were missing fingers or toes. Suspects who were arrested in Spokane committed suicide.

Al and Arty grudgingly decide to start feeding the hordes of Arturans when the police come to complain that groceries are being ransacked by Arty’s followers, who have given Arty all their money. 

Oly describes how Norval Sanderson has become more and more captivated with the carnival and with Arty. Sanderson roams around the camp, quizzing the Admitted about their experiences, talking to every type of carnival worker and vendor, hanging out on the midway talking to customers, examining the workings of the rides and machinery, and watching each and every act. In particular, Sanderson is fascinated with the Fly Roper, a newer addition to the Fabulon, who ropes and ties houseflies with strands of hair.

Sanderson closely studies Arty’s show, examining the hierarchy of attendees in the tent, which fits 10,000 viewers. In the very front are the most sanctified, the limbless, while at the back are newcomers and the curious, with devotees of every other level in between. After two months, Sanderson leaves the carnival, takes a leave of absence from his newspaper, and goes back to his home in Georgia. After a few weeks, he returns and goes to see Arty. Sanderson hands Arty a glass jar with something dark and hairy inside, then drops his pants to show that his testicles have been removed. Arty chuckles and says that if Sanderson wishes to become one of the Admitted, he must “still go through the finger and toe basics before [he’ll] get any credit for that grandstand play” (199). Sanderson goes out to move his van into the Admitted camp and Arty tells Oly that the testicles in the jar are not Sanderson’s, because Arty knows Sanderson lost his testicles to a land mine in North Africa. Oly sees that Arty likes Sanderson.

Sanderson sets up a business for himself in the carnival, selling “Transcendental Maggots” from a tent. Sanderson collects amputated body parts from Dr. Phyllis, cuts them up, and puts them into jars, where they grow maggots that visitors to the carnival flock to buy.