by JC Konst
muster, he rotated his shirt, and took off his pants and flipped them inside in, with his mother still fighting the giggles all the while. He finished, stood in front of the door, and spread his arms out wide in an exaggerated pose.
“How’s this?”
“Perfect. Okay bud, let’s go.”
The drive took forever. It had been so long since they’d driven to the fairgrounds, both mother and son had forgotten. The mother, in order to avoid an unending loop of “Are we there yet?” told her son stories of how she’d gone to the carnival when she was a little girl. Her grandfather always took her, and he told her stories about how his uncle had taken him when he was young. She started describing all the amazing things and fun times she’d had, but her son wasn’t listening. Jeremy was nodding his head at all the right moments, and muttering agreements or astonished exclamations at the right time, but his heart wasn’t in any of it. Carnivals were only things he dreamt about, and he wouldn’t settle for second hand accounts. He was so close to experiencing the real thing for himself, he didn’t pay attention to the stories. After they parked, but before they got out of the car, Jeremy’s mother turned to him.
“Jeremy, if we get separated, for any reason, just head for the big tent, ok?”
“Ok mom.” It was one of those typical mother things. Jeremy swore there was some sort of checklist they had to mentally go through every time they took kids out in public. He soon forgot about it as they walked up to the ticket booth.
Although it was barely noon and the gates had yet to open, there was still a sizable crowd, waiting with all the patience of a lynch mob. Jeremy and his mother bought the tickets from a kind-looking, middle-aged man, who smiled and winked at Jeremy as he handed him his ticket. They joined the milling mob, but weren’t waiting too long before a man climbed up on top of the entrance gate. He looked a lot like the man from the ticket booth, except he hadn’t shaved, he wore a straw top hat, and carried a shiny trumpet in his left hand. He raised the horn to his lips and belted out one low, pealing note, then slid it along the scale until it became a piercing soprano sound. The isolated mumblings silenced almost immediately, and the man flashed them all a big, toothy smile.
“Thank you, ladies and gentleman, for honoring our humble traveling road show with your most appreciated patronage.” He had a smooth, honeyed voice that didn’t seem to be straining even though it carried over the entire crowd. “My name is Himdle, and I’m here to make sure you all follow the rules we have here at the Northern Lights Carnival. Folks, you will see amazing things beyond these gates. Things your eyes can’t believe, and your minds can’t conceive. Amazing feats of daring, shocking freaks of nature, exhilarating experiences of fear, all these things are yours for the asking here at the Northern Lights.” He was marching up and down the narrow top of the gate. He never looked at where his feet went; his eyes stayed locked on his audience.
“We have but one simple rule, ladies and gentleman: have fun. Lose yourselves in the spectacle, surrender to the sounds and lights, laugh, sing, scream, anything. Through these gates, you have no worries, no fears, leave them all where you are standing right now. Believe in the magic we’re working so hard to make for all of you, and we’ll all get along just fine. Everybody got that?”
The crowd was so enraptured by the man’s agility and his silky rhetoric that no one even heard his question. He stopped, and sighed in mock disappointment. The mob was shaken out of their stupor. He cleared his throat.
“Let’s try that one more time. Are you all ready to have some fun?” This time, the sea of people answered his question with an inaudible roar. “Then let ‘em through!” He put the horn to his lips and the first lines of “Charge” split the afternoon air. The crowd started pushing through the big metal gates so fast that they didn’t even have time to slam shut before the next patron came through.
Jeremy and his mother followed the crowd through the gates, but soon broke off from the main push. The vast bulk of the mass was heading toward the Ferris Wheel, and the Slingshot, and all the other popular rides, anxious to get there before long lines put a halt to their fun. Both Jeremy and his mother were sociable enough, but disliked large groups of people, so they chose to take one of the many avenues, which eventually led them to Freak Row. Jeremy had never been to the Carnival (since he couldn’t remember it, it didn’t count), but his mother soon recognized the darker, more menacing tents and the big, billowing banners that announced the oddities contained in each one.
“I don’t know if you’re old enough for this yet, Jeremy, it might be a little too scary.” She smiled as her son immediately met her barb by defiantly jutting out his chin.
“Oh yeah? I bet I’ll go in to every one and not be half as scared as you!”
“Alright then, we’ll see who screams the loudest at each one.”
They passed underneath an arch that declared the area as Freak Row, and a swinging wooden sign hung from the arch with a disclaimer written in red ink: “Warning: This is not a place for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. All those too afraid to enter should turn back now!” Jeremy read this, stuck his chin out further, and walked in stride with his mother as they neared the first stop.
Each tent along the row had a wooden block beside the entrance, and on each block stood a man who looked a lot like his neighbor, and they all looked a lot like the ticket-booth man and the mesmerizing Mr. Himdle. They all wore some combination of white and red pinstriped shirts, white pants, and straw hats. One had a pinstriped shirt, white pants, and a hat, while another had a white shirt and pinstriped pants with no hat. They all were also in various stages of beards, ranging from clean shaven to hasn’t-shaven-in-months. All of them carried horns as well, although the Freak Row hawkers carried primitive, tapering megaphones instead of trumpets. As soon as Jeremy and his mother took their first steps inside the gate, the hawkers raised their horns to their mouths and started hawking their respective wonders:
“Come, see the amazing Helena,” the first one said, “The woman who’s half dead and half alive! From her hair to her bellybutton, my friends, you’ve never seen a girl so lively, but from her belt to her boots, you won’t find anything more dead. Come see the girl who’s half captivating and half desiccating! You won’t believe your eyes!”
Jeremy and his mother went into every tent along the row, each one making them scream both in mock fear and glee. The only one to elicit genuine fear was Helena, who didn’t have skeletal feet, but actual rotting flesh, complete with smell. She wasn’t behind a cage, like the other attractions, but sitting at a table, waiting for rubes to come into her tent. She wore a long dress, but when Jeremy and his mother walked in, she stood up and started walking around, oblivious to the audience. Both the onlookers gazed in anticipation, and when she sat back down, she hiked up her skirt a little and crossed her legs, revealing some very convincing rotten flesh. Jeremy and his mother ran out, and they’d argue the rest of the day as to who left the tent first, but out in the midday sun, their fear soon became laughter, and they resumed their examinations of the terrifying spectacles.
By the time they reached the end, they no longer had Freak Row to themselves. There were others screaming in terror inside the darkened tents. The last show on the row was in a tent much larger than the others, and the hawker didn’t seem to be doing any hawking. When Jeremy and his mother tried to walk through the flap, his horn was suddenly in front of them, blocking their way.
“I have to warn you, my friends, this is not for the weak of heart.” This particular hawker had the longest beard they’d seen yet, and was decked out all in pinstripes. His voice was hushed, and gravely serious; his eyes were wide with concern. “Through those flaps, you’ll find Sirfen, the biggest wolf ever to be held in captivity. We had to make a deal with the wolf so he’d let us capture him for our little roadshow.”
“What kind of deal?” They were so caught up in the performance, Jeremy and his mother answered in unison.
“Well, I’m not really s
upposed to say…” the hawker looked around, and then gestured for his two audience members to come closer, “but we had to agree to keep him tied down only by a ribbon, so he could eat any unsuspecting customer he desired. His handler, Tyron, hasn’t lost any of our patrons yet, but he has had one close call.”
“How close was it?”
“That, you’ll have to ask him yourself.” He drew back the tent flap with his megaphone, and motioned the two inside. This tent was far darker than the rest. A man sat in a wooden chair, staring intently at the center pole. Jeremy walked towards the man, his mother following close behind. They’d taken a few steps when he turned to them and brought the index finger of his left hand to his lips, telling them to be quiet. He got up, and walked over to them. The man was gigantic, almost three heads taller than Jeremy’s mother, and probably wider at the shoulder than the her and her son put together.
“He’s asleep right now, so you can get a good look at him, come on.” He had a gruff scratchy voice, and walked with a slight limp. He brought them closer to the center pole. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they could make out a massive shape laying down beneath it, and they saw a flimsy red ribbon
