Nightmare Carnival

The Bishop had climbed onto Mae’s wagon, balancing precariously. “Free tickets!” he bellowed. His ringmaster’s voice cut through the caterwauling, greedy eyes turning toward him, the violence ebbing. “Ladies and gentlemen! Free tickets to tonight’s performance under the big top! That’s right, all seats at absolutely no charge for the good citizens of Ashton! Tonight only! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Get them while they last, every ticket absolutely free, yellow, blue, and red, first come, first served!”

That did the trick, the rush toward the nearby circus tents and ticket offices churning up a quagmire in a near stampede.

“You all right there, Mae?” North asked her, unsure whether or not she was a prisoner inside Madelaine’s embrace, his ankus readied in one hand.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine, just go,” she said, then closed her eyes, leaned against Madelaine, and sang softly. “Memories, memories, dreams of love so true. O’er the sea of memory I’m drifting back to you. ”

With the crowd thinned out, the crew and rousties quickly corralled the four younger elephants, who helped push the pony wagon back upright and replace the wheel. It took only a few minutes to get them turned back to the lot, leaving Mae and Madelaine surrounded by skittish police officers unsure of what to do, puffed up with more bravado than authority. North returned with a team of roustabouts carrying more chains, binding the big elephant’s whole body so securely she could barely walk, then led her back toward the circus, where he secured her to a log behind the colored workers’ rest tent, out of sight of the public. The local police stood watch, one at each corner like an honor guard around a coffin.

The big top was packed out for the evening’s performance, the stalls and star backs and blue stringers overflowing. Kiddies squeezed together on straw spread out in front of the general admission seats and still they pressed up clear to the hay bale rings. But it seemed both spectators and performers knew this was not an ordinary evening, the rangy cheering and laughter bordering on thin hysteria. From inside her exhibition booth in the sideshow top, Mae tried to relax, sheathed in her tight costume and going through her routine every time the curtain was pulled back to admit another lot of slack-jawed gawpers, clacking her hands together and waving her feet about in absurd parody of a lobster. She had never expected empathy or pity, long immune to the gasps of horror, nervous giggles, even the occasional lewd proposition made more to impress mates than in expectation of success. But this crowd was subdued, predatory, their eyes small and mean as they stared and sneered, bought a souvenir penny postcard, and left.

Outside, the calliope rattled through its repertoire of screamer music, band organs cranking out paper roll tunes for the carnival rides. Kiddies and women and even men shrieked in delight and fear and excitement. Candy butchers hawked popcorn, cotton candy, toffee apples, and pink lemonade while grinders reeled through their repetitive ballyhoos, right this way folks you can’t afford to miss this absolutely petrifying freak of nature, half price for the next five minutes only, be astounded, amazed, and thrilled, once seen, never forgotten.

It was a relief when Max, tattoos hidden by his oversized bathrobe, finally left the pit where he did his strongman act, and came to get her. The noise of the crowd swelled in the blowoff as they were herded down the midway and out of the circus lot, then evaporated, leaving the twilight air to be filled instead with cicada chittering. She draped her arms around Max’s neck like a sleepy child as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the dressing top. Once she’d changed out of the lobster costume into more comfortable clothes, he carried her across the eerily quiet midway to the back yard, past the pole wagons, the main cookhouse tent, the spec floats behind the horse tops empty and deserted. The gorilla rustled in his bed of hay and newspapers, “The World’s Most Terrifying Beast!” emblazoned in red and gilt over his cage, drew a torn broadsheet over his head, and curled back to sleep, snoring softly. Flags snapped atop the top poles, a horse nickered, mosquitoes whined in the humid heat. The entire company had gathered in the dressing top, kerosene lanterns flickering shadow puppets on the sidewalls.