I got up early the next morning, packed, settled my bill with the motel in Loganton, hopped in my car and took off for the three-hour drive to Xavier County. By now, it was mid-November, and as I traveled up into the mountains, the weather got colder.
I arrived at the town of Oldbury a little before noon and got a room at the local motel, the “Dewrock Inn”. After throwing my gear in my room, I stopped for a quick bite to eat and decided to get a quick lay of the land before I started asking questions in and around town.
Xavier county was located smack-dab in the middle of the Appalachian mountain range that ran from Georgia, through the Carolinas and Tennessee, on up into Virginia and West Virginia. It is rugged, rustic country that lays claim to some of the most scenic and awe-inspiring sights in all of North America. While not as majestic as the Rockies, its beauty can be best be appreciated up close, where you can touch and smell nature around you. It’s also home to large tracts of wilderness that remain uninhabited and untouched to this day.
It’s not a land that takes to strangers lightly. Despite the abundant vegetation and wild life, the hard, rocky soil is quite inhospitable to the civilizing efforts of man in general. During our nation’s migration west, most pioneers choose to keep going west, in search of softer and easier land to tame rather than to settle here. Those that choose to stay were hard sons-of-bitches whose greatest strength lay in their stubborn will to survive. These people and their descendents were proud to a fault.
Unfortunately, they were historically also some of the poorest and most uneducated people in the country. Arable land was scarce and the lack of roads and infrastructure meant industry was unwilling to establish itself there. It created a vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance throughout this area’s history.
By the mid 1970s, this cycle, while still rolling, was beginning to show signs of strain. America’s affluence was creating a tourist boon as people sought to escape the crowded cities for the peace and tranquility of the mountains. Indeed, some of the earliest to realize the beauty of this area were the millionaire Vanderbilts who built one of America’s great summer homes in Asheville at the turn of the century.
In the 1950’s, enterprising individuals realized that the mountains of Western North Carolina—home to the highest peaks east of the Mississippi—would be perfect for ski resorts. This idea, coupled with the introduction of the artificial snow machine, had led to the development of quite a few sophisticated ski resorts in and around Xavier county. While not a complete solution to the area’s historical woes, it did offer some hope for the future.
So it was with some surprise that as I drove around the area, I saw nestled in the hills and mountains expensive ski chalets and small, exclusive stores, all concentrated around the various ski resorts. However, once I was past the resorts, the old patterns of poverty and trailers reasserted itself. Dirt and gravel roads were prevalent and other than the resorts and the occasional small town, the entire area was rural. It was still a situation of the have and have-nots, and the haves only visited there during the winter.
I made my way back to my motel, and it was then I saw the billboard, advertising the “Xavier County Fall Carnival” featuring “Ranson’s Riding Devices”. The gala event was taking place at the Xavier County Fairgrounds, and I noticed that tonight was the last night of the carnival. I figured, what the hell, that was as good a place as any to start showing the picture I had of Susan Bowman around to see if anybody recognized her and maybe have a little entertainment as well. I’d try there and if I had no luck, I'd check in on the local authorities the next day to see if they could help.
I took a quick shower, grabbed a bite to eat at the motel diner—even showed Bowman’s picture to the waitress, no luck—got directions to the fair and by six o'clock I was pulling into the large field that was being used for parking. After putting my gun in the car trunk—didn’t want to scare the kids—I made my way into the Xavier County fairground.
The fairground was a couple of football fields in size, located on some of the rare flat land in the county. Sawdust had been spread all round, and the entire area was ringed with lights. Inside were the various attractions that one finds at rural fairs. There was a small Ferris wheel, bumper cars, the swings that spun you round and round, high up in the air. Indeed, most of the rides were variations of spinning you in a circle. The air had that carnival smell; a mixture of cotton candy, greasy hot dogs and kids vomiting from riding the rides after eating the aforementioned food.
The carnies were out in force, operating the rides while drunk, shilling you to try your luck in a game of chance; ring toss, shoot the target, throw the ball and generally trying to separate you from your hard-earned money. Along one side of the fair was the tent that held the freak shows such as the two-headed goat, the contortionist, the bearded lady and the like, all which can be viewed for only a mere five dollar entrance fee.
The good citizens of Xavier County were having the time of their lives, a little color and cheer in an otherwise drab, hard tack existence. Couples were escorting squalling kids shoveling crap down their guts, all the while dodging teenagers who were running amuck, jumping from ride to ride and marveling at the oddities inside the freak show. Lovers walked hand-in-hand. Young Romeos were wasting paychecks in futile attempts to win their sweethearts a stuffed toy that, in reality, cost only fifty cents.
Life, for a short while, was good.
I made my way slowly around the fair, politely stopping people and showing them the picture of Susan Bowman. After a couple of tries, I had the routine down pat.
“Err…excuse me, I’m trying to locate anyone who might know the lady in this picture. We have information that she might be originally from around these parts. The authorities and myself would be most grateful if you could shed some light on her identity—What’s that? Never seen her—well thank you and sorry to have bothered you.”
And so it went for the next hour or so, the sidling up to the person, the humble interruption, the sly hint that the 'authorities' were interested, so they would take me seriously, and the same result every time, nothing.
I was beginning to tire of the routine and had decided to call it quits for the night and enjoy the fair a bit by going to take a gander at the freak show. By then I’d wandered to the back of the fair, to the less well-lit section. It was there I noticed a tent off in the back, apart from the rest of the activities. Men—and a few women—were making their way through the entrance of the tent, only stopping to pay a man money before entering. Intrigued, I made my way over there.
The tent was of middling size and there were two plywood signs on either side of the entrance. The sign to the left of the entrance had the word “SPICY” hand painted in red on it, and the other sign had the words “WRESTLING -- $20.00” written on it.
What’s this? A bit of spicy adult entertainment at the fair?
I got in line and waited. Admittedly, twenty bucks for entry seemed a bit stiff, but I was bored and looking for some entertainment. I would put the cost on my expense account. I'd make sure to show someone Susan Bowman’s picture inside, just to make it legal.
In all honesty, at the time I thought I was entering the latest variation of the old “hootchie-kootchie” show. I’d gone to one as a young boy growing up. Usually, it was located at a major fair or some other similar attraction. You paid some money and went in a tent—separated from the rest, just like this one—to see some woman strip for you. The Barker would always claim the lady was from some exotic far-off place like India and had traveled to your town with the express purpose to entice you with her womanly wiles.
What you got was some cellulite-ridden dame from Alabama, with poor personal hygiene, copious amounts of hair in the damndest places and almost always covered in bruises from the beating her pimp/boyfriend had recently given her. Even so, for many a young man of the south, it was his first introduction in the mysteries of the female body and sent shivers of orgasmic bolts through his body.
Unfortunately(?)
such shows have disappeared from the scene, another victim of HBO.
So it was with some sense of nostalgia that I plunked down my twenty bucks and headed into the tent, fully expecting to see a couple of nude women beating the crap out of one another in a wrestling match.
Boy, was I wrong.
Scrambled Hard-Boiled Page 33
