by Salvatore DIFALCO

Rudy and I were head­ed to the an­nu­al au­tumn pup­pet fes­ti­val — Pup­petalooza — in Strat­ford, On­tario for the week­end. I wasn’t that in­to pup­pets, but Rudy said he’d dri­ve and pay for the ho­tel room, so I went along for com­pa­ny. He had elect­ed to be a pup­peteer in this life and if I want­ed our friend­ship to con­tin­ue, I had to re­spect that, and to a great de­gree I did. We’d been room­mates in uni­ver­si­ty, and Rudy had nev­er been any­thing but unique. A bril­liant en­gi­neer­ing stu­dent, his fas­ci­na­tion and pas­sion for pup­pets had al­ready been sparked by then. He be­gan col­lect­ing vin­tage mar­i­onettes and con­duct­ing lit­tle pup­pet plays for me and a few of our oth­er friends who were tol­er­ant of this be­hav­ior. I must ad­mit, Rudy had a tal­ent for pup­pets. He could re­al­ly make them come alive.

In any event, we lost touch for a few years and re­con­nect­ed at a uni­ver­si­ty re­union. I was quite hap­py to see him. I missed his brand of crazy. He was im­mersed in pup­petry at that point. In­deed, he had been tran­si­tion­ing from man­ning mar­i­onettes in pup­pet pro­duc­tions aimed at chil­dren to work­ing a so­lo act as a ven­tril­o­quist with a pup­pet, or dum­my as they are more com­mon­ly known. He had all but mas­tered the ven­tril­o­quism end of it, but was hav­ing trou­ble with the dum­my — or ven­tril­o­quial fig­ure as he force­ful­ly re­ferred to it. Co­or­di­nat­ing the fa­cial ex­pres­sions of the dum­my and snap­py jokes proved tricky.

Any­way, a few weeks af­ter we start­ed hang­ing out again, he con­vinced me to join him on a lit­tle jaunt to Strat­ford, bet­ter known for its Shake­speare­an pro­duc­tions, and for be­ing the birth­place of Justin Bieber. The week­end would con­sist of pup­pet-mak­ing work­shops and mas­ter class­es and a gala “pa­rade of pup­pets” to close out the fes­tiv­i­ties. “You can join me and ob­serve,” he said, “or do your own thing. Stratford’s pret­ty cool.” I couldn’t imag­ine sit­ting through pup­pet-mak­ing work­shops, but Strat­ford was a charm­ing place, and I was open-mind­ed enough to let things play out as they may.

“I think Thorold needs a rest stop,” Rudy an­nounced about an hour in­to the trip.

I stared at him as he con­tin­ued to dri­ve with­out turn­ing to me.

He was re­fer­ring to his most re­cent dum­my — propped up in a cus­tomized child seat in the back — a cross be­tween the Norse god of thun­der, Thor, or at least com­mer­cial in­ter­pre­ta­tions of him, and the in­fa­mous Har­ry Reems, the thick­ly mus­ta­chioed star of an an­cient porno­graph­ic movie, Deep Throat. Af­ter a suc­ces­sion of botched at­tempts — soft foam gnomes, rub­ber mon­strosi­ties, and horny ba­tra­chi­ans of la­tex — Rudy earnest­ly hoped to show off his ven­tril­o­quism skills with this dum­my. He had watched Deep Throat on­line and de­light­ed in the ironies that he thought would be at play. I tried to warn him that not every­one was fa­mil­iar with Har­ry Reems and Deep Throat, and that Thorold in his cur­rent form could be in­tim­i­dat­ing or con­fus­ing at the very least. But Rudy wouldn’t hear it.

“That’s right,” he side-mouthed, in a rough falset­to I as­sumed was his cur­rent try at a con­vinc­ing Thorold voice. “I have to drain my snake posthaste, heh heh.”

I turned and caught quick peek of Thorold, star­ing at me. Not a hand­some mug, by any mea­sure. And some­thing else, some­thing dis­cor­dant or dis­qui­et­ing about this pup­pet that I could not pin­point. Maybe it was the eyes — a lit­tle off­set, or askew, such that in a hu­man would hint at psy­chosis or per­haps de­range­ment by psy­chotrop­ic drugs.

Rudy had fash­ioned him from wood and rub­ber — the tor­so and head al­most life-sized — and had fixed him with a long blonde wig and a lux­u­ri­ant dark brown mus­tache. The eyes were white mar­bles with blue iris­es paint­ed on — re­sult­ing in an un­for­tu­nate prop­to­sis. Rudy had dressed Thorold in a flashy gold lamé out­fit. He had al­so sup­plied him with a tremen­dous pack­age — notwith­stand­ing his nec­es­sar­i­ly flim­sy legs, as it’s com­mon knowl­edge that heavy or well-pro­nounced legs in­hib­it a ventriloquist’s ma­neu­vers. But more im­por­tant­ly, pack­ages were seen as taboo among most pup­peteers. At least that’s what Rudy ex­plained to me. Most pup­pets and ven­tril­o­quial fig­ures had no gen­i­talia what­so­ev­er, and cer­tain­ly not im­pres­sive pack­ages. So per­haps he was hop­ing to cut a dash at Pup­petalooza with his vir­ile and well-en­dowed dummy.

So we pulled in­to a rest sta­tion. Rudy lift­ed Thorold from the back­seat and car­ried him off, yip­ping. I fol­lowed them in the di­rec­tion of the rest sta­tion. A woman wear­ing coke-bot­tle glass­es and draped in a red plas­tic rain­coat stopped and ex­changed a few words with them that re­sult­ed in her throw­ing her head back, fling­ing up her arms and has­ten­ing away.

Whirling with out­rage, the woman loped up to me and asked if I knew those men.

Rudy stood near the en­trance­way of the rest sta­tion watch­ing us with a smirk. Thorold waved.

“I do know them,” I admitted.

“The blond one said some­thing very sug­ges­tive to me,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“The blond man said some­thing of a lurid na­ture to me.”

“Lurid, eh?” I glanced over at Rudy, look­ing very pleased with himself. 

“Yes. I’m deeply of­fend­ed,” she said.

“The blond man is a ven­tril­o­quial fig­ure,” I said.

The woman leaned back star­tled, or ap­palled, I couldn’t say which. A mo­ment of ra­di­ant in­ten­si­ty passed. I could feel my ears burn­ing. Then the woman threw me a hate­ful glance and stalked off grum­bling to her­self. Life could be a bas­tard, agreed.

Filed under Fiction on August 29th, 2025

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