Carol Mcleod's "Speculation
INTERVIEWER
That's the character who makes a brief appearance in Something Wicked This
Way Comes, right? And you've often spoken of a real-life Mr. Electrico,
though no scholar has ever been able to confirm his existence. The story has
taken on a kind of mythic stature-the director of the Center for Ray Bradbury
Studies calls the search for Mr. Electrico the "Holy Grail" of Bradbury
scholarship.
BRADBURY
Yes, but he was a real man. That was his real name. Circuses and carnivals
were always passing through Illinois during my childhood and I was in love
with their mystery. One autumn weekend in 1932, when I was twelve years old,
the Dill Brothers Combined Shows came to town. One of the performers was Mr.
Electrico. He sat in an electric chair. A stagehand pulled a switch and he
was charged with fifty thousand volts of pure electricity. Lightning flashed
in his eyes and his hair stood on end.
The next day, I had to go the funeral of one of my favorite uncles. Driving
back from the graveyard with my family, I looked down the hill toward the
shoreline of Lake Michigan and I saw the tents and the flags of the carnival
and I said to my father, Stop the car. He said, What do you mean? And I said,
I have to get out. My father was furious with me. He expected me to stay with
the family to mourn, but I got out of the car anyway and I ran down the hill
toward the carnival.
It didn't occur to me at the time, but I was running away from death, wasn't
I? I was running toward life. And there was Mr. Electrico sitting on the
platform out in front of the carnival and I didn't know what to say. I was
scared of making a fool of myself. I had a magic trick in my pocket, one of
those little ball-and-vase tricks-a little container that had a ball in it
that you make disappear and reappear-and I got that out and asked, Can you
show me how to do this? It was the right thing to do. It made a contact. He
knew he was talking to a young magician. He took it, showed me how to do it,
gave it back to me, then he looked at my face and said, Would you like to
meet those people in that tent over there? Those strange people? And I said,
Yes sir, I would. So he led me over there and he hit the tent with his cane
and said, Clean up your language! Clean up your language! He took me in, and
the first person I met was the illustrated man. Isn't that wonderful? The
Illustrated Man! He called himself the tattooed man, but I changed his name
later for my book. I also met the strong man, the fat lady, the trapeze
people, the dwarf, and the skeleton. They all became characters.
Mr. Electrico was a beautiful man, see, because he knew that he had a little
weird kid there who was twelve years old and wanted lots of things. We walked
along the shore of Lake Michigan and he treated me like a grown-up. I talked
my big philosophies and he talked his little ones. Then we went out and sat
on the dunes near the lake and all of a sudden he leaned over and said, I'm
glad you're back in my life. I said, What do you mean? I don't know you. He
said, You were my best friend outside of Paris in 1918. You were wounded in
the Ardennes and you died in my arms there. I'm glad you're back in the
world. You have a different face, a different name, but the soul shining out
of your face is the same as my friend. Welcome back.
Now why did he say that? Explain that to me, why? Maybe he had a dead son,
maybe he had no sons, maybe he was lonely, maybe he was an ironical jokester.
Who knows? It could be that he saw the intensity with which I live. Every
once in a while at a book signing I see young boys and girls who are so full
of fire that it shines out of their face and you pay more attention to that.
Maybe that's what attracted him.
When I left the carnival that day I stood by the carousel and I watched the
horses running around and around to the music of "Beautiful Ohio," and I
cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I knew something important had happened
to me that day because of Mr. Electrico. I felt changed. He gave me
importance, immortality, a mystical gift. My life was turned around
completely. It makes me cold all over to think about it, but I went home and
within days I started to write. I've never stopped.
Seventy-seven years ago, and I've remembered it perfectly. I went back and
saw him that night. He sat in the chair with his sword, they pulled the
switch, and his hair stood up. He reached out with his sword and touched
everyone in the front row, boys and girls, men and women, with the
electricity that sizzled from the sword. When he came to me, he touched me on
the brow, and on the nose, and on the chin, and he said to me, in a whisper,
"Live forever." And I decided to.
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