Herman Fuller Presents: The Beastly Quasimodo
rating: +23+x


The Beastly Quasimodo

A

hideous

freak!



A

hairy

fool!

Behold a fascinating specimen! It is not a man or a bear! It is a true freak from among the trees! Come and see it!

One night only! See it to believe it!


The following is a page from a publication entitled To the Circus Born: Herman Fuller's Menagerie of Freaks. The identities of neither publisher nor author have been established, and scattered pages have been found inserted into Circus-themed books in libraries across the world. The person or persons behind this dissemination are unknown.

Billy

In the earliest days of Fuller's circus, he had quite a few freaks to lure in the crowds. Among them was Billy. He was one of the Children of the Night, who are widely known as Sasquatches or simply as Bigfoot.

Billy was different from his typical brethren. He was born with a hunched back, walked on his toes, and had crooked facial features. His brain was damaged, presumably from complications during birth.

He was brought to the circus after Fuller paid a visit to Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd. Billy's parents were killed during an organized hunt by MC&D for their wealthy patrons that searched for interesting game. Some say it was Marshall who saved Billy, and had him taken back to London. He was presented to Fuller for purchase, and so he became property of the circus.

Fuller publicly presented Billy as the Beastly Quasimodo, but he had many horrible names for him behind the curtains. It was only us performers that ever called him Billy, and he seemed to like it. He was a friendly thing that could not hurt a fly, however, Fuller advertised him as a foolish savage.

Billy's act was to do degrading tricks like he was a dog. Fuller would call him names, and encourage the audience to heckle him. Fuller would sometimes provide the audience with fruits to throw at Billy. There was also slapstick comedy with clowns. It was painful to watch for Billy was not aware of what was happening. He just smiled and carried on with the act. I remember the time he was made to balance himself on a metal ball only for Fuller to have a clown push him off. The audience laughed, ignorant of how one sided the performance was. Billy wailed on the floor that sounded strange, making the audience laugh even more. No one who has been at Fuller's circus is a stranger to the cruelty that went on, but that always stuck with me out of the many things I witnessed. Fuller treated us poorly behind the curtains in secret, but there he was doing it before an audience that were happy to see it.

That wasn't the end to Billy's mistreatment. For some reason Fuller went out of his way to make Billy suffer. He would put weights over Billy's chest, starve him, freeze him, waterboard him, shock him, or simply beat him with whatever he could get his hands on. There was a rumor that Fuller had something against the Children of the Night, which he took out on the helpless Billy. Some of us had to sneak Billy food so he wouldn't starve to death.

Billy would later succumb to his injuries, and be found dead in his cage. Fuller had Billy's corpse skinned by Manny so they could send it to MC&D for their exotic furs collection. The last time I ever saw Billy was when I passed by the tent where he was being skinned. Manny casually walked out with Billy's skin slouched over his right shoulder. He wore an undershirt that was covered in splatters of blood. Manny gave me a cold, expressionless look as he carried off with Billy to Fuller's tent. Billy's meat was fed to the clowns while the rest were sold off.

All I have left of Billy was his poster, and a sketch that I drew of him while he was inside his cage. I wish I had a photograph, but I will always remember that innocent smile.

67

The following piece of paper was found taped to the back of the page.

Billy

billy.png
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License