Others as well expressed their concerns. Chira, the she-wolf, mentioned similar worries for her safety and that of her fellow puppets. Zack did his best to reassure them they were all safe with him, but he still had doubts that he didn’t bother to mention. The truth was he simply didn’t know what to expect. His children’s voices rumbling through his head only confused his thoughts as he tried to sort out this most puzzling event in his mind: Drac’s death and its possible consequences for Zack going forward. Had someone learned of his harmless mind games involving brutal deaths? He pondered the possible answers and couldn’t make sense of any of them.
***
I signed on with Big Jim straight out of college. Morgan’s was encamped in a farmer’s field on the far north side DeKalb, Illinois. DeKalb was best known for its corn seed and the place where barbed wire was invented, perhaps one more thing too. It was home to my alma mater: Northern Illinois University. I had always been drawn to a carnival’s shabby glitz and gritty glamour and Morgan’s didn’t disappoint in those respects. I wasn’t sure why they attracted me so much, but they did ever since I was a kid and been hooked ever since. I never wanted to run away from home to join the circus, but I didn’t want to pass up a chance to be a carny and satisfy my wanderlust and excitement for adventure. I wanted to wait awhile before I had to grow up and jog the mind dulling, nine to five treadmill like my fellow classmates.
My name is Sven Larsen, a fourth generation Swede, who was raised as an only child on a small dairy farm about twenty or so miles west of DeKalb. In the Swedish communities in northern Illinois, there were many Sven’s and I was just one more. Lars was another popular name. Thankfully, my parents didn’t name me Lars. I always thought that particular pairing of names would have been too Scandihoovian even for them.
My first gig for Big Jim was as a 24-Hour Man or Jumper traveling ahead to the next lot and posting arrow signs directing traffic to the carnival site. I’d also place posters in storefront windows and tack handbills to telephone poles and the like. It was simply the carny way of advertising. The job didn’t pay much, about on par with what I could make with my BA degree in Psychology, except I got free meals and a bed to boot. So maybe it was a better deal after all. That was my first job as an honest-to-goodness carny and many more would follow over the next couple of years as I moved upward in Big Jim’s eclectic family.
***
It was show time and Zack handled the first performance of the day as best he could under the circumstances without Drac. He had been the master of ceremonies for Zack’s sideshow act in the Puppet Master of the Macabre. Now Zack had to improvise by selecting Magda, The Crone of Transylvania, as the new MC and changing the script to integrate her new role in the telling of spooky stories. She cackled with delight and waggled her broomstick as she narrated two Grimm’s fairy tales, albeit altered, darker renderings with more gruesome details to pump up the horror a notch or two for the audience. Rumpelstiltskin was a ghoulish character, more monster than human in appearance. Snow White was still beautiful, but the dwarfs resembled scary looking trolls. Zack had chosen well and Magda was a big hit with the children of Podunk or whatever town the carnival might be in at the moment. Zack didn’t remember anything, except for what he’d done the night before. He remembered that particular play very clearly and savored the action over and over again in his mind. Those delicious memories and the fond thoughts of his beloved children were what mattered in his life.
***
Three hots and a cot: that’s what the floaters who moved from one carny to another called Big Jim’s proffered bunkhouse sleeping quarters and meal chits in the backyard of the lot. It was part of the benefits package that went along with the job, in addition to a little walking around money. The money could last awhile if you knew the right grifts, as I quickly learned. My favorite one was to put together a Michigan Bankroll with a ten dollar bill wrapped around a wad of singles. I would go into a fast food joint and flash the bundle so the cashier could easily see it, often laying down a ten spot on the counter in plain view. As the cashier got my order, I replaced the ten with a one dollar bill in the same spot. Often I’d get change for a ten. Those few extra dollars helped stretch my poke.
My meeting and subsequent befriending of Zackary Woolsey began when I was assigned as the lecturer for The Baby Show, an odditorium, located directly across from his puppet stage on Sideshow Alley. For a dollar per rube, patrons could enter the tent and view stillborn babies and aborted fetuses, some with umbilical cords still attached, displayed in large, glass bottles filled with formaldehyde. We insiders called it the Pickled Punk Show. Little did the gullible realize that most of the jars contained nothing more than bouncers, rubberized reproductions of the real things. That helped keep the authorities off our backs with their pesky laws and regulations. The show’s main attraction was the Devil Baby: a gaffed exhibit, ostensibly a freak, featuring hoofed feet, horns, fangs and claws. It was constructed to appear mummified or otherwise aged to give it authenticity. The Devil Baby was the centerpiece of the show and the one the townies found most disgusting and exciting. They sometimes lost their lunch or dinner peering at the faux creature. Unfortunately for me, I had to clean up their messes afterwards.
I approached Zack after one of his shows and sincerely complimented him on the performance and especially on the beautiful workmanship that went into his puppets. They were works of art or so it seemed to me. His mastery of manipulating the puppets in a choreographed sequence of moves, all the while telling a story, was simply amazing. I envied his ability to create the various characters from scratch and make them perform as perfectly as they did. The voices were equally impressive, switching seamlessly from falsetto to basso profundo to precisely match each puppet’s lines. The range of his intonation was absolutely amazing. He was a master puppeteer in all respects and I told him so. Although pleased, he bemoaned the fact that he was limited in his ability to do more with his hand puppets since he only had two hands to operate them. I took the opening to offer my help, at least on a part time basis. He readily accepted and that’s how I joined Zack, the Puppet Master of the Macabre. Our relationship would only get more complicated and bizarre over time.
***
Life at the carnival continued at a usual, hectic pace. The one day shows were particularly brutal on everyone. Bring everything down and set it up in the next town and then do it all over again. These were sixteen hour days with early morning lot calls for every member of the troupe. No one was exempt from the punishing schedule. We all looked forward to a longer stand where we could settle back into a more normal routine, staying at least a week in one location before moving on once again.
On those rare occasions we had some downtime, I’d draw the awnings and help Zack with his puppet show. He’d created a collection of twenty or so and each was a work of art. He tutored me in the manipulation of the live-hand puppets saying that his hand puppets were his family and no one else could work them. Live-hand puppets were larger than the hand variety and required two people to operate them. This was the type of puppeteer Zack wanted me to be since it would increase the breadth and range of his storytelling. I found Zack’s comment about his family strange, but I didn’t object since I was getting a free education in this art form. I just believed he was a bit eccentric, even more so when he spoke to his children as if I wasn’t present. All the carnies knew he was a loner and recluse, but never suspected he was much more than an ordinary puppeteer.
***
Alison’s body had been found a couple of days after Big Jim’s carnival had torn down and jumped DeKalb for the next town. Reportedly, she was a beautiful, twenty year old sophomore at the same school from where I graduated. Her disappearance from her dorm room at Douglas Hall was reported to the police by her roommate. Her partially clothed body was discovered in a cornfield by the farmer who owned the patch. The location was only a quarter of a mile from her dorm and the cops theorized she’d been forcibly taken to th
e spot, tortured and then strangled to death with her own panties. Burn marks from lit cigarettes dotted her face and neck. She hadn’t been sexually assaulted, but the authorities were puzzled about her disfigurement, wondering about the underlying, psychological motive for the vicious act.
I first heard of her death from Jimbo, the A&S Man. He was the age and scale operator just off the main arch who guessed the ages and weights of the chumps. I was reading the midway with my head down looking for a ground score of lost change or other valuables. I’d gotten into this habit some time ago and it occasionally paid off with a piece of jewelry or, if I was really lucky, a fiver. He said the police had been asking questions around the lot about Alison’s murder given that the carnival had recently showed there. I was surprised the cops hadn’t questioned me since I was a NIU grad who’d lived in DeKalb before joining Big Jim. Alison’s investigation went nowhere and she soon faded from my thoughts.
***
Every trouper who worked a full season had a unique handle. Mine was Svengali, a play on my given name. It made sense to the other carnies. Zack’s was Wooly Bully, a play on his surname and popular 60’s song by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. My handle was abbreviated to just Golly and Zack’s was shortened to Wooly. That was simply how we addressed each other on the lot. No one used their real names for purposes of anonymity. Perhaps they were running from cops, creditors and/or ex-wives. Nonetheless, it was a longstanding, carnival tradition. So Golly and Wooly it would be until we parted ways.
I sometimes dated townie girls who I’d met at The Baby Show. Surprisingly, female suckers outnumbered males about two to one. I wasn’t sure why, perhaps it was a maternal thing that drew them to the show. I’d hook-up with them for a one night stand and maybe more if I was really lucky. Wooly let me know that he wasn’t pleased with the dating because it took me away from his tutelage and my practice sessions with the puppets. He was like a jealous, petulant lover and I resented his peevishness. But I did pare back my dating to spend more time learning his craft. I really enjoyed working the puppets and I had to admit that Wooly was a patient, first-rate teacher. One morning, he mentioned I was almost ready for my first performance. I was pleased, but I’d already performed once to my satisfaction. Hopefully, there would be an encore to follow.
***
We were operating a Sunday Schooler, a toned-downed, less raunchy show in Kokomo, Indiana on an April morning when it happened. An F-2 twister from the southwest popped-up out of nowhere and cut a swath of destruction as it slowly moved through the city. The sky had been overcast, but otherwise the weather was calm, perhaps too calm thinking back on the event. Just before we saw it, the sky turned a weird, greenish-gray color. We didn’t have time to secure the tents, banners or much of anything else before we took shelter. Fortunately, we were closed to the public. It was the beginning of the tornado season and it was the one thing that frightened all of us.
It was over in just a few minutes, but what the blow down left behind on the lot was devastating. The arcade tent housing the coin-operated games was a complete loss. Big Eli, the Farris wheel, had tilted to one side and its stanchions had been uprooted in the process. Tent canvasses had been ripped and lifted off their anchors. The large, colorful Bally Cloth ones with text and drawings suffered the most. Our living lot behind the show was damaged as well. The sucker netting separating the two sites was completely gone. A stretch of lineup concession booths, located close to the arch, were blown apart as well. The only good news was no one had been killed or injured. That was a miracle in itself and we rejoiced in our luck despite the property damage. It took us six long days working a soft lot to put the layout back together. Big Jim’s commercial liability insurance covered most of the repairs, even the sundry fees from the blank days when we were closed for business. His legal mender would later go back and suck the last bit of moola out of the insurance company. That was the way Big Jim operated, a tough taskmaster in some respects, but otherwise a decent and fair boss.
The show must go on and it did when we opened a week after the tornado. It was my night to assist Wooly with a loose adaptation of Rapunzel. We’d worked together to manipulate the oversized puppet and practiced long and hard to put on a great show. I even had a small, voice part, a short line spoken in my normal voice. I’d enlisted Crock, The Gator Man, to spell me at The Baby Show. I really liked the guy as he was an affable, down to earth human being who’d been damned at birth with icthyosis giving his skin a scaly, reptilian appearance. Crock was just one more freak and geek in a home that warmly welcomed them.
I admitted to being a little anxious since I didn’t want to disappoint Wooly or myself. As I recalled, Rapunzel grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair or so the Brothers Grimm story went. When she reaches her twelfth year, the witch shuts her away in a tower with neither stairs nor door, only one room with one window. When the witch visits Rapunzel beneath the tower she calls out: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair so I may climb your stairs.” Of course, Rapunzel does as commanded.
So far, Wooly’s story pretty much hewed to the original version. Now a handsome prince rides by the tower and hears Rapunzel’s lovely, ethereal singing and he was immediately smitten. He begged her to let down her hair so he could climb her stairs to see her beautiful visage. But when he reached the room and saw Rapunzel’s face, he was repulsed. She was an old, ugly hag! It was something so horrible that he couldn’t imagine her countenance in his worst nightmares. She then promptly pushed the prince out the window and he fell to his death. It turned out Repunzel was a seductive siren who lured men to her room and their doom. She loved the witch who was her surrogate mother and would never leave the tower without her permission: an obedient, good girl, but with a very wicked heart and perverted sense of humor. That was Wooly’s twist on the story line. He’d constructed the castle tower out of plywood and cardboard and it was a fabulous prop. I congratulated him on his work and storytelling and thanked him for letting me participate in this most macabre fairy tale. I was still amazed at his many talents and told him I could relate to his Rapunzel because I’d been raised by an evil witch as well.
As I looked out across the alley, I could see the teaser curtain to the Cootch Show. Despite the pitchman’s spiel, the women’s performances tonight would be rather tame, really mundane; no real skin, just flesh-colored tights to entice the male audience. It was a tease and nothing more. But the men still loved the performance despite being shortchanged on the flesh. Just perhaps in another time and place, they might have seen the real thing and indulged their fantasies, but not tonight. That wouldn’t happen to their collective dismay because Big Jim had ordered the whole show to be operated on the up-and-up: no skin or prostitution, rigged games or other gaffs. The local cops had refused his juice so the show couldn’t operate wide-open. The carnival’s profits would have to suffer as a result. Big Jim would miss making his nut for awhile.
***
The DeKalb detectives were back and this time with a vengeance. They’d compiled a short list of their potential suspects and Wooly and I were on their radar screen. Apparently, someone at the carny had tipped our names to the cops. I worried how Wooly would hold up under the pressure of an interrogation. He’d withdrawn further into himself or I should say selves since he would carry on lengthy conversations and interactions with his puppet family. Those exchanges didn’t have anything to do with the plays, but rather other topics that popped into his head. Frighteningly, many of them involved violent rape scenarios where the puppets, i.e. Wooly, acted out dark, disturbing scenes. It seemed Wooly’s mind was being split into different parts, sort of a multiple personality disorder as I recalled from studying the DSM-V as an undergrad. Perhaps he was suffering from post traumatic stress from the death of Drac. My professional diagnosis was that Wooly had gone bonkers. He was mentally impaired and vulnerable, a perfect patsy for the cops. The note he’d received only worsened his state of mind.
<
br /> Wooly found the note one morning taped to the back of his small stage. The letters had been cut from the carny’s various handbills and pasted on a single sheet of paper. It simply read: We know what you are. It was unsigned, which wasn’t surprising. He showed it to me and asked what was going on, first Drac’s murder and now this. He was confused and scared and I continued to worry about his sanity. We discussed people who may have a grudge against Wooly for some slight or wronging in the past. He thought of a couple candidates, but couldn’t believe they were responsible for the acts. He mentioned carny people were family and it would be like a brother or sister viciously turning on him. The first name he offered was Needles, the human pincushion, who operated a Bed of Nails joint down the alleyway. A few months back, Wooly had watched his show and then chatted with him afterwards. For reasons unknown, Needles badly dissed Wooly and treated him like a rube when Wooly asked how he’d done the trick. That was something very much against the unwritten, carny code of conduct; again it was a family thing. Sort of like saying “you don’t bullshit a bullshitter.” Perhaps Needles still harbored a beef. A second possibility was Madame Nina, the bearded lady who Wooly was romantically attracted to, but she didn’t feel the same towards him. She finally told Wooly to quit hitting on her and that was that. I had a hard time understanding Wooly’s love interest in a bearded lady. It didn’t seem to fit with the person I knew, but I didn’t argue the point. I told him that Needles might be the culprit, although I didn’t believe it likely. A beef was usually settled by talking things out to square disputes rather than exacting revenge or resorting to violence. That was the way carnies handled heat among themselves.
Macabre Memories Page 7
