Clerkmanifestoland: An encounter with the King

 

I have been working on this for several days, and though I wrote the text story today, I have been piecing it together all day with pictures and lore I have been developing all week. What is it? You might ask. Metafiction, sort of. It's a way of showing you my amusement park Clerkmanifestoland, and I may include more little illustrated stories like these in the future to show off the park. 

Think of it as a short short story, or just someone's online magazine account of his day at Clerkmanifestoland.

A Jacket, a Beggar King, and a Book: My Day in Clerkmanifestoland

I had never planned to go to Clerkmanifestoland.

I’d heard of it, of course—everyone has. The internet churns out anecdotes about the crowds, the surprise White Stripes reunion, the philosopher bartenders, the animatronic Holden Caulfields. But it always seemed like something for other people. I’m not an amusement park person. I never have been.

But this spring, traveling solo and with a free day on my hands, I found myself just outside its gates. I booked a last-minute stay in one of the park’s official accommodations—a beautiful, simple room within walking distance of the entrance. No perks, no early admission. Just economical design, a surprisingly good restaurant, and the sense that everything existed for the sake of the park alone. There’s nothing else in the area. No distractions. Just the park.

I didn’t plan. I barely read the park map. I showed up at opening, showed my ticket, got a required temporary tattoo (don't worry, it really does wash off, eventually), and just... wandered.

I didn’t make it into the famous Borromini vs. Bernini Martin Buber Memorial Theater. 

The line was constant, stretching down cobbled alleys, people waiting for mystery performances and rumored musical apparitions. I’d heard Dylan had performed there, more than once. George Clooney read from the blog. But I wasn’t in the mood to wait. Not then.

Instead, I drifted through the park, wide-eyed and slowly disarmed.

The Fox and Skunk in Arles ride caught me off guard.

 

I’d seen their images—the park mascots—but didn’t expect much. Yet the ride was painterly and strange, dreamlike and warm. The boats glided past animatronic Fox and Skunk seated in The Night Café with Van Gogh himself.

 But the trip through the lavender fields with fox and skunk waving and our whole boat disappearing into a flowering hill was the moment that I understood that an amusement park ride might actually be able to be art. The whole thing moved at the pace of reverence. I loved it.

Other things amused or confounded me. I ended up at Pooh and Piglet, a café in Library Storyland, and ordered a honey flight, because that’s literally all they served. It was absurd and oddly moving. Everyone was taking pictures. Some were asked not to sit down unless they ordered. So I did. And I tasted six kinds of honey. It was good, but it was honey.

But the best thing—by far—was my encounter with the King of Schnorrers.

A friend had told me, half-seriously: “Bring something good. If he notices you, you might get picked.” I had this old, theatrical red-and-white velvet show jacket. Vertical stripes. Knee-length. From a theater production I’d done years ago that had a great costume designer. I wore it without much thought, maybe a little hope.

I was in Bugheart Sur Mer, one of the five lands of Clerkmanifestoland, near The Philosopher’s Café, when he found me.

“Can you help a man out?” he said, in a deep Yiddish-tinged accent. “A man with nothing... while you have so much.” He was enormous. Later I learned he’s exactly seven feet tall, though at the time I thought he might be larger. He’s dressed like a 19th-century Eastern European beggar king: hat, vest, a suit once opulent, now worn to threads.

He asked—no, begged—for my jacket. And I gave it to him.

He was delighted. Triumphant. He asked for more. A ten-spot. My cookies. He quoted the Talmud. I laughed and gave what I had. It was ridiculous and theatrical and unexpectedly touching. Then he handed me a small paper ticket.

“Your time is 3:15 to 3:30,” he said. “Don’t be late.”

Yankele, his apprentice and assistant (as well as his in-character suitor for the King’s daughter, Deborah da Costa), quietly gave me directions. 

I was to go to New Saint Minneapolis (one of the five lands in the park, for those of you not in the know) and find the statue. I’d seen it earlier: the solid bronze likeness of the King of Schnorrers beside an old wooden door not too far from a ride about The Catcher in the Rye.

At 3:15 sharp, I stared at the door. Finally I figured out what I was (probably) supposed to do and slipped my ticket through the slot that literally just said "Here".

The door opened. A British butler greeted me with a bow. “Do you have a guest with you, sir?”

I did not. I stepped into another world.

The interior was lush and lightless. No windows. Plush, upholstered walls. Quiet music. A lounge like an English drawing room, complete with library shelves and crackling fire. The butler served champagne and caviar canapés. He offered me a book. I declined, too stunned.

There was another guest already there from the slot 15 minutes before mine. We talked. He had given the King his wallet, practically emptied it, not knowing why. With his earlier time slot he was called and Yankele appeared with a wink to me and escorted him to the treasure room.

Later, they came for me.

“Because you give to the poor,” Yankele explained, still half in character, “you earn your reward in heaven.”

I entered Your Reward in Heaven—a chamber filled with strange and dazzling objects. I could take one.

I browsed. A signed Joe DiMaggio baseball card. An antique pocket watch. A tiny sculpture carved from translucent stone. But then I saw it: The King of Schnorrers and Other Grotesques, first edition, signed by Israel Zangwill himself.

I took the book. It felt right.

The butler thanked me. Yankele gave me a second ticket—gold-colored this time—granting access to a hidden boutique later that evening. I never even found it, but I didn’t mind. The whole experience felt like a dream.

Afterward, I walked back into the sunlit crowds, champagne still fizzing in my blood. I found a picnic spot in the Maze of Cataloging and ate a bento box lunch I’d picked up in Bugheart Plaza. Salmon, pickled vegetables, perfect rice. I watched other guests pass, some wide-eyed, some exhausted, all a little altered.

That night, I read from my Zangwill book in the courtyard of the Bookstore across from the Bugheart Carousel. A quiet wind moved through the brick alleys. And somewhere in my mind, Fox and Skunk were waving to a boat.