The Carnival Papers

Carnival Papers

Step right up!” the barker’s voice called out.  “You will never forget what you see in this tent!  See the amazing Mermaid!  Half beautiful young woman, half slimy fish!  Captured in a fishing net off the Philippines and taken from her undersea world, she swims now for your amusement!  Only fifty cents!”

Steve Gregory considered this proposition.  It was probably a trick, like the World’s Strongest Man who lifted hollow barbells and shook Steve’s hand with a grip limper than his grandmother’s.  That was how they did everything at the carnival, with smoke and mirrors to make you believe in what didn’t exist. 

Not long ago, Steve would have believed in at least the possibility of a mermaid in the sideshow tent.  That was before he caught Stacey necking with the World’s Strongest Man behind the Tilt-O-Whirl.  Steve had pretended not to notice at first, hiding among the crowd until he knew they were finished.  Then he sidled into sight.  Stacey waved him over, her hair still mussed from her necking session.  “Steve, this is Brian, the World’s Strongest Man.”

Brian took Steve’s hand in that limp, clammy grip, such an effeminate grip that Steve’s jaw clenched in fury.  Stacey took no notice of this.  “You should see the things he can do,” she gushed.

“I bet it’s amazing,” Steve managed to get out through his teeth.

“It’s not hard,” Brian said.  “With exercise and proper diet you could do it too.”

“I bet.”

On the way home, Steve couldn’t believe Stacey’s temerity.  The nerve of her cheating on him behind their ride!  They had met on the Tilt-O-Whirl ride, or rather near it.  Stacey had just gotten off the ride, her legs rubbery as she stepped off the platform.  She wobbled forward before tripping over her own feet, plunging towards the queue waiting to get on the ride.  Reaching out, she used Steve to brace her fall, clamping one hand around his left forearm for support.  Her breasts mashed Steve’s chocolate ice cream cone into his shirt.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Stacey said, her voice sounding as tipsy as her legs.  She wiped ineffectually at the chocolate ice cream dripping down Steve’s shirt.

“It’s all right,” he said, instantly smitten by the blush in her cheeks—and of course the breasts that had pressed against him.

He had refused to let his mother wash the shirt, keeping it hidden in his closet.  After a while he took to keeping the shirt underneath his pillow so he could take it out at night, studying the stain like a Rorschach test.  In those heady days soon after he met Stacey, he saw them kissing behind the Tilt-O-Whirl.  Later he came to see Stacey kissing the World’s Strongest Man behind the Tilt-O-Whirl.  Not long after he threw the shirt away, along with every other keepsake of his three years with Stacey.

Even her physical presence was gone now; Brian had retired from lifting hollow barbells to take Stacey to Chicago.  His other friends had left too, except Jimmy and Walt were bound for Korea to be part of the “police action” there.  Steve would have volunteered to go with them if he hadn’t ruined his knee while blocking a punt in the homecoming game.  Even his parents were gone this weekend, to Iowa for his second cousin’s funeral.

This loneliness had prompted him to break down and go to the carnival, despite all the memories of Stacey lurking in the night air.  There was nothing else to do in Reynoldsville on a Saturday night in July, at least not without a date.  Looking out the window, the glow of the lights playing across the sky like the Aurora Borealis had called to him, the organ music filling his ears.  So he had gone.

Standing in front of the sideshow tent, he wished he hadn’t.  From what the barker kept shouting, they hadn’t replaced Brian, at least not with another strongman.  Besides the mermaid the barker boasted of a bearded lady, a mystic, a magician, and a goat with two heads, all of them “astounding” or “amazing” or “magnificent.”  Steve checked his watch and saw it was eight o’clock, far too early for bed.  With a sigh he took fifty cents out of his pocket; maybe seeing the freaks would make him feel better about his situation.