Carnival

by Marty Roppelt

approached the carnival entrance. His palms suddenly sweated, his temples throbbed. His pulse hammered away with impatience… and dread. He understood the impatience, but –

  “Dave, you okay?”

  “Sure,” he managed. “Why not?”

  A decrepit 1960’s era camper with a large rectangle cut out of its side served as a ticket booth. It loomed before them at the end of the drive. Dave sidled up to the camper-booth. “Two, please,” he said. He paid the attendant and got green ink stamps on the backs of his and Jenny’s wrists in return.

  A hand clamped onto Dave’s shoulder as they stepped onto the carnival midway. A man’s voice, worn by cigarettes, whiskey, and time growled into his ear.

  “Don’t try to hook up with the carnie women.”

  Dave spun around. A gaunt old man with long gray hair and a face of bleached, weathered rawhide faced him. Rheumy eyes squinted above an oft-broken nose and gray teeth. If not for his red polo shirt and blue jeans, the overall effect would have been of a monochromatic man. His breath stank of discards from a fish market. Dave did his best to shrug away from the stranger’s touch without recoiling in revulsion and fear.

  “Get off me.”

  “What?” Jenny asked.

  “He put his hand on me.”

  “Who did?”

  Dave pointed at the old carnie, who was slipping into the stream of people on the midway twenty yards away.

  “You know him?” Jenny asked.

  “No.”

  She put her hand on Dave’s arm. He shrank from her touch without thinking. “Sorry,” he said.

  “The old guy really creeped you out.”

  He took her hand. “Forget him. Let’s get something to eat.”

  “Just don’t puke on the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

  “The Tilt-And-Hurl?”

  They sniggered. Dave bought two corndogs at a nearby concession stand, slathered ketchup and mustard on them and handed one to Jenny. She hooked a free finger in his jeans’ belt loop. “Win me a prize?”

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  They wandered together down a row of tents and trailers that housed the requisite carnival games of skill and chance. All the exhibits, Dave noted, were painted various tints of green, like the faded old semi rigs.

  “Ring toss here!” shouted a pale, skinny young man. “Ring toss! Three rings wins a prize!”

  “It’s rigged,” Dave muttered, noting the knot of contestants.

  “How?”

  “The posts you’re supposed to toss the rings onto aren’t perpendicular to the ground. Makes the target a lot bigger than it should be.”

  “Hmm,” Jenny said.

  "Guess your weight!” called another fit but pasty young man. He pointed at Jenny. “You, ma’am, guess your weight. I’m off by five pounds, you win!”

  Jenny took a bite of her corndog and laughed. “After this thing, I won’t want to know.”

  They approached a carnie wielding an oversized wooden mallet.

  “Hey,” Jenny rasped, discomfort in her voice. “It’s Garbage Mouth. The guy from the water truck.”

  Water truck, Dave thought. What carnival brings a water truck with them?

  The bald barker kept up a steady stream of chatter with the local strongmen trying to ring the bell at the top of a rickety, old tower. Dave’s eyes locked with Mr. Garbage Mouth for a few moments. Neither said a word to the other.

  The atmosphere in the park struck Dave as somehow off-kilter. His odd anxiety increased. He began feeling light-headed. The smells of Belgian waffles, cotton candy and corndogs mingled with flashing lights and bells and whistles and carnival barker come-ons – and warnings….

  “Don’t try to hook up with the carnie women….”

  “Why would I want to?”

  “What?” Jenny arched an eyebrow at him.

  Dave’s mind raced. “Why would I want to risk the Tilt-A-Whirl after a corndog? Let’s go on the Ferris wheel first.”

  “Okay,” she said, doubt in her voice.

  They made their way to the back of the line. A sound behind Dave captured his attention as they waited their turn. The sound meandered through the multitude of other noises surrounding them. Music… A woman’s hum threaded a lilting, sad tune through the roar of a dozen rides, and as many games of skill.

  Dave turned his head. “You hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Jenny elbowed him. They were next in line.

  His eyes fell on a game on the other side of the midway. “Look at that.”

  A young blonde sat on a tall stool in the wagon that housed a water cannon game. The blonde didn’t call out for players the way the other carnies did. Young men and boys crowded around nonetheless – over three dozen by Dave’s count.

  Is she the one who’s humming? He couldn’t tell from a distance.

  Dave fixated on the blonde. The young woman wore very short shorts, revealing legs that were not long and slender, like Jenny’s. Her hips and waist were toned, not flabby – but not exactly delicate, either. She was a little busty, almost top-heavy, not the lithe athletic type. Not his type. This, he decided, was a girl he wouldn't normally notice.

  Except for her eyes – they fascinated him. He had no desire to look at anything else. He didn’t know why.

  Jenny became rigid beside her fiancé-to-be. “She’s cute,” she said, her words clipped and forced.

  “Dark eyes,” he said in the blonde’s direction.

  “Nice hair, too,” Jenny muttered, dismissing the girl’s straight, long blonde hair. “Three words, honey: wash, rinse, repeat.” She reached across Dave’s back and pulled his hip against hers. “Let’s get on the wheel,” she said.

  “Let’s get a prize,” he burbled, his voice sounding far away to his own ear. He took a step toward the water cannon.

  “No,” Jenny said, anger edging into her voice.

  Tyler and Nichole approached from the ticket trailer. Dave took no notice of their arrival.

  “Hey guys,” Nichole said.

  Jenny fumed at Dave, who remained unresponsive.

  “What’s up with him?” Tyler followed Dave’s empty stare to the object of its enthrallment. His own face lit up. “Oh.”

  “Oh?” Nichole echoed. She drove her elbow into Tyler’s ribs.

  Tyler gasped. He shook off both his girlfriend’s bruising elbow shot and the carnie woman’s strange appeal. “Dude, you’re kidding, right? Come on, knock it off. It’s not funny.”

  “Prize,” Dave mumbled. He began shuffling again toward the water cannon game, his face set in rapt determination. “Let’s get the prize.”

  Anger replaced shock on Nichole’s face. “You total jerk,” she growled. She reared back to slap Dave. She stopped, though, snatched Jenny’s ketchup-dripping corndog and stuffed it into his jeans pocket instead.

  Jenny didn’t hesitate. She slapped Dave with enough force to make the impact sound almost like a gunshot.

  He reacted with a blink and another step toward the blonde.

  “Come on,” Nichole said, leading Jenny out of the park.

  Tyler took another brief look at the carnie girl. “Fleet week,” he said. “I don’t get to say this much, Weller, but you’re an idiot.” He ran to catch up to the girls.

  Dave picked the corndog out of his pocket and dropped it at his feet. He focused only on the carnie girl’s eyes. All else became a heaving sea of colors with the girl’s eyes at its center, at the center of his existence. Those eyes scanned the surrounding group of men before locking on him. A hint of a smile, a raised hand held out toward him, and Dave felt himself being reeled in.

  He reached the water cannon trailer. Two teenaged boys and a middle-aged man shot their cannons at plastic clown’s heads. They missed the open mouths, which would have activated the balloons that were then supposed to blow up and pop. None of them paid any attention to the clowns; the girl sat within a few feet of them. A youngster, eight or ten years old, seemed immune to the carnie’s allure. He took the pri
ze with ease.

  Prize, Jenny wanted a prize… Dave’s hazy mind mused, Where’s Jenny?

  Dave waded through the crowd. He reached the trailer and took the blonde’s hand despite his conscience’s feeble, cursory resistance. Brief thoughts of Jenny scattered and disappeared like sea spray. The blonde’s full lips smiled just a touch more. He helped her down from her perch, and let her lead him.

  The girl guided him through darting masses of oblivious people. Dave experienced an impossible rush of excitement as they approached the carnies’ makeshift encampment. He wanted this woman with his entire being.

  “Fleet week,” he heard Tyler say, “what’re you gonna do your first Fleet week?”

  The grip on his hand tightened. He let her tug him to the darkness beyond the encampment, where she stopped. She pulled him closer. His conscience foundered in the depths of this stranger’s eyes. He began to submit as she pressed herself up against him. A soft hand brushed his cheek as it slid around his head, drawing his face down toward her half pouting, half smiling lips.

  Weird color for eyes… not like Jenny’s –

  The supple body tensed. The hand that pulled his face close now pushed him back, and he faced stormy, dark eyes and an angry sneer.

  The blonde’s spell wavered.

  Dave shook his head, rousing himself. He broke free from the girl’s embrace and turned to run. Blocking his path of escape were a half dozen pale-skinned carnies, led by the ancient, broken-nosed, monochromatic man.

  “Don’t try to hook up with the carnie women,” the ghoulish man growled.

  Dave scurried behind the blonde, ducking behind a row of Porta-Johns. The group followed, gaining ground. Dave didn’t know why he was running, didn’t understand why he was being pursued.