Carnival Charlatan

by Skeeter Enright

  “Why’d you start so early? Or, did you end real late?”

  “Ended late.” Her head hung nearly as low as her braless breasts.

  We walked to my motor home, about fifty feet behind my tent. As we climbed the steps, Zach said, “Hell’o” from his cage on the table outside my door. Myra handed him a raisin from the bowl on the table. His feathers were already starting to come back. He looked as though he had black pins sticking out of his bare patches. It looked painful, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was getting more energy every day. He should be able to leave the cage in another week. He actually looked better than Myra right now, if such a thing was possible.

  “Did Sam keep you up last night? I’ll talk to him. He doesn’t need rest like we do. You just have to tell him you’re—”

  Myra cut me off. “I wish it was Sam. He’s sweet.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re drinking alone these days?” I was worried. I had been so preoccupied with all the changes in my life the last few days that I had neglected Myra. Was she feeling left out? I felt a twinge of guilt for being so hard on her about the amulet last night. Something was up with my ditzy friend. “Did somebody hurt you? I’ll cut his balls off.”

  I hoped this would prove an idle threat on my part, but after the trip to the Outlands, I wasn’t sure what I might do anymore. My anger flared up so easily since we came back. As I thought of it, I realized all my emotions were close to the surface. My face flushed as I remembered last night with Doc. I had not thrown myself at anybody like that for quite a while.

  “Nobody hurt me, and I’m not drinking alone. I’ve been drinking to forget.” She hugged herself, arms holding each elbow with the opposite hand.

  “Well, who or what is it?”

  “You’ve been through a lot. I don’t want to bother you.”

  “Bother me! You’re my friend. You can’t bother me.” I mixed the hangover cure for her. Her eyes briefly came up as I handed it to her. She gulped it quickly, stuck her tongue out, and made a retching noise.

  “Is it somebody who needs help? If you can’t tell me, you could tell Mister D or Doc.”

  Sobbing, she settled on my couch. Myra didn’t cry like one of those movie heroines with tears dripping and chin quivering. She had the full-blown wail going, gasping for air in great gulps, snot running from her nose. I sat next to her and hugged her, rocking her gently. I groped around on the counter for a paper towel.

  When she stopped for air, I blotted her and said, “Tell me. You’ll feel better.”

  “I got the…” She hiccupped and gasped for breath. “…AIDS.” She sobbed again.

  I was stunned for a minute. I handed her the paper towel without thinking. I’d told Myra a million times this could happen. A flash of anger at her carelessness almost made me blurt out “I told you so”. I caught myself in time and said instead, “Honey, I’m so sorry.” I hugged her, rocking mindlessly. “You should have told me sooner. You don’t have to go through this alone.” There was no need to ask her who gave her the disease. The list was myriad. Myra loved sex. She would sleep with any male with functional equipment. “Did you see a doctor?”

  She nodded.

  “You getting medicine?”

  Another nod, then a wail, “I’m gonna die.”

  “Honey, everybody’s going to die. You’re just going to need to take better care of yourself now.” Then it hit me. Myra had been all over Sam. Could fairies get AIDS? Myra’s sobs slowed. “Hey, girl. Have you been careful not to spread this around?”

  “I haven’t told anybody but Doc and you.”

  “I mean, spread the disease.”

  “I’ve been real careful since I found out.” Tears were still streaming from her eyes. I handed her another paper towel. She blew her nose with a loud honking, which made both of us smile. “I’ve only been sleeping with Doc since I found out.

  “When did you find out?”

  “I got tested up in Cleveland. I found out right after you left to look for Amanda.”

  My stomach churned involuntarily. “Did you start with Doc before or after he knew about your condition?” I knew if I said AIDS, she would start bawling again.

  “Oh, after. He comforted me when I found out. He has it too, so it’s all right. Doc’s a good guy. I don’t know what I would do without him.”

  Now things made sense. Doc was a good guy. Shit, AIDS. No wonder he turned me down last night. I felt so self-centered thinking it was me. Doc just didn’t want to pass it on. “Myra, don’t you let anybody know about this. You know how funny people can get.”

  “I ain’t stupid. I won’t tell anybody.”

  So many sad secrets on the carnival lot, they were the bread of life. I’d just added a couple more to my repertoire.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Craig made a quick check of the carnival’s itinerary. It showed Dimitri Brothers had been as far south as Arkansas in the past month. Its next stop was at the Cook County Fairgrounds in Illinois, not far off the turnpike in Skokie, south of Chicago. He could make it in four or five hours. On the drive to Skokie, his GPS was hardly necessary since the signs on the highway were so clearly marked. He kept the GPS running anyway. He liked the machine’s gentle female voice. It made him feel like he had company. The instrumental music he favored seemed melancholy today.

  Flyers attached to telephone poles touted the carnival at the fairgrounds. A billboard above the front gate advertised the Dimitri Brothers Carnival Featuring the Most Amazing Spectacles in North America. Craig could see a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster from the crowded parking lot. He was ten the last time he went to a carnival. As he locked the car, he could already smell the cotton candy and roasted almonds. His mouth started to water. He wondered if they still made corn dogs. The tinny music blaring over the rush of the roller coaster and shrieks of the riders made him smile.

  He decided to just wander the carnival lot and observe before he approached the manager and started talking to the staff officially. He had heard Carnies were an insular bunch. He wanted to get a feel for the people before he talked to the fortune teller. He had found a news article where she had talked about being descended from a Salem Witch. Later, there had been what the paper called a riot and the police report described as an unlawful assembly. The carnival moved on before the situation escalated. If the killer was interested in killing the descendants of Salem witches, she would be his target.

  He hadn’t done too well on the phone with the manager. He needed to work on his interrogation style. He wished he could just explain his theory about the serial killer. It would help get them to open up. It might also cause a panic and damage any case he would have to build when the killer went to trial.

  Craig paid his entry at the gate and followed the crowd into sensory overload. Noise, smells, heat, and chill all vied for his attention. He stopped at a stand and got a corn dog. He leaned over to keep the mustard he had added from dripping on his suit. A large paper cup of lemonade washed down the corn dog.

  He was getting unusual looks and realized his suit wasn’t exactly standard dress for this venue. A stand selling T-shirts solved his problem. A brown shirt emblazoned with “Aim to Misbehave” was the least offensive outfit he could find as camouflage. He found a restroom to change. The mirror showed him the shirt didn’t exactly go with his black pants and shiny black shoes. He shrugged at his reflection. No one at the carnival was dressed in the height of fashion anyway.

  Back on the midway, the Rat Race game drew his attention. A round table had radiating sections, each painted in a different bright color. In the center sat a cage containing a fat white rat with bored red eyes. A hole at the end of each section dropped into darkness. The customers put a token on their chosen color. A buxom woman with red hair, which would have looked natural on a character in a Disney cartoon, lifted the cage off the rat. No longer bored, the rat scurried to drop into one of the holes. The color it chose determined the winner. He played a few times and won once. Jus
t enough to make back his investment. During a lull in the play, he struck up a conversation with the redhead.

  “You seem to get all kinds here,” Craig said.

  “Oh, Honey. If you only knew.”

  “Have you been with the carnival long?”

  “About five years.” She tossed her hair, primping gently with her right hand behind her neck.

  He blushed fiercely, realizing she was flirting with him. “You ever play up near Cleveland?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I live over in Akron, and my wife went to the fair without me. She got hassled by a creepy guy with a big, droopy mole on his face.”

  “We got nobody like that on the lot.” She gave the rat a piece of kibble. She lost her flirty aspect and was now all business.

  “I know. She said it was a local guy, not a Carney. I was wondering if anybody might remember him.”

  “Geez, buddy. You know how many people have been through the carnival since then?”

  Craig felt stupid. He knew the story was lame as he said it. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just wish I could find the guy and kick his ass. He really scared my wife.”

  Well, there is nobody like that here. I’m going on break now. I’ll see you later.” She stalked off carrying her cash box, the rat on her shoulder.

  “So much for my interrogation plan,” Craig muttered to himself.

  For his next attempt, he struck up a conversation with a grandmotherly woman, wearing bib overalls and a little flat cap. She was running a stand where the customers threw ping-pong balls onto little cup-sized goldfish bowls. If the ball landed in a bowl, you won a goldfish. A ball in the top of the pyramid of bowls in the center of the table won a stuffed animal. It seemed a simple enough game. Craig bought four balls for a dollar. He threw his first ball. It bounced off the rim of a bowl and fell to the canvas along the edge of the table. He asked the woman, “You been with the carnival long?”

  “All my life.”

  “Are there a lot of different carnivals working in the Midwest?”

  “There’re a few. The business isn’t what it once was. The corporations are buying us up and ruining the whole idea of a carnival.”

  “My brother got divorced in June. He said he was going to run away and join a carnival or a circus. I wonder if you might have seen him.”

  “We haven’t had anybody join up lately, but we always have a wobbly or two hanging around looking for work every show.”

  Craig threw another ball. “He’s easy to remember. He’s tall, thin, and has a big mole next to his nose.” The ball bounced two, three times before it bounced off the table.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Can’t say as I’ve seen anybody like you described. You ought to talk to Mister Dimitri. If anybody saw him, it would be Mister D.”

  Craig’s third ball bounced up, bounced again, and plopped into a fishbowl.

  “We have a winner.” The old lady poured the fish from the bowl he had won into a plastic bag and tied the top shut.

  As he accepted the bag, he said, “I always wanted a pet.” He handed his last ping-pong ball to a slight blonde moppet about eight years old. She thanked him, looking up with ardent green eyes. He didn’t care how cute she was. She wasn’t getting his fish.

  His new pet in hand, he worked his way to the fortune teller.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Skokie was good to me. I was working my ass off, but between Tarot readings and selling potions, I’d made over twelve hundred in the past two days. At this rate, I would be in the black by the end of the season. I was doing a reading every half hour or so. I was exhausted, but you have to make hay while the sun shines. At least I found a scarf that didn’t have itchy dangles.

  It was three o’clock. I was trying to sneak out to get some lunch when two pear-shaped women in their fifties yoo-hooed. “Could you give us a Tarot reading?”

  “But of course,” I said, using my best Bela Lugosi imitation. “Madam Magda sees an interesting aura around you and your sister.” The family resemblance was unmistakable, as was the necklace on the bigger pear, which said, “Big Sis”.

  “Oooh, how did you know?” they chorused in unison.

  “It is but a small thing. I am the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. I see much. The cards foretell many wonders. Come inside, ladies.” I led them through the tent flap.

  My fee for the reading was stowed in a cloth bag. I didn’t stuff my bra for women. The little sister, who went first, was wearing some sort of elaborate religious pin. As she shuffled the cards, I said, “Did you know the original Tarot cards came from deeply religious people who had a bit of a second sight. They used the cards to invoke Saints, the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary to give them inspiration.”

  “Really?” they chorused again. That would get irritating pretty fast if they kept it up.

  “Of course.” What I said was patently untrue. The Tarot was invented in the 1500s as a card game for bored Aristocrats. A hundred years later, charlatans started using the cards for fake occult readings. Sometimes, it is wiser to lie. “God gives sensitives our gifts,” I continued. “The cards are just a guide.” This was my standard shtick with religious types. It was going to work with these ladies. I remembered the crazy sky pilot I had chilled in Cleveland. The line would not have worked on him.

  The women today were wearing homemade skirts and hand embroidered blouses. I took a chance. “All our gifts come from God, like your skill with sewing.” I tilted my head and smiled my best enigmatic smile.

  The Pears looked at each other, their eyes widening.

  Most of what I do is simply pay attention. Watching people at the carnival since I was a child, I can guess a lot of information. Most people didn’t realize how obviously their body language projected what they were thinking. I threw in a little pop psychology guided by the random turnover of the cards, and voila, I create a mystical experience.

  I had Religious Sister cut the cards. The first card turned was the Ace of Swords. “You have overcome much in the past. Through your studies and careful examination of your motives, you have persevered.” I watched Big Sis nodding slightly. The Page of Wands was next. “Ah, a messenger of good fortune for your career. What do you do, my dear?”

  She giggled. A woman of a “certain age” should never giggle. It’s creepy. “I’m a secretary at a church. I don’t know how my career could change?”

  “The next card should tell us what your good fortune might be. Trust the cards, my dear.” I loved rolling my r’s when I said trust. The Two of Cups came up. “Most people would think the Lovers card represents romance, but actually, the Two of Cups is the real romance card in the Tarot deck. Have you made a new friend recently?”

  “I bet it’s the new visiting Pastor. The one who came to speak at our services for the next few weeks,” Big Sis interjected.

  Religious Sis said, “He does seem friendly, in a stern sort of way.” Her eyebrows rose questioningly.

  “This card says if you are your best self, a friendship may develop…possibly a romance,” I replied with a tilt of my head and a Mona Lisa smile.

  The incongruous girly giggle made my jaw clench. A few more cards turned, and her budding romance led to a wonderful life with all she could want.

  The cards for Big Sis foretold the gift of healing of a minor medical complaint, and all her children marrying well. The sisters were too easy. They broadcast body language and told each other possible scenarios for every turn of the cards. All I had to do was give the standard explanation of each card, and they filled in the blanks.

  They bought a wrinkle elimination potion, also known as face cream. They left, as we say in the trade, a couple of Whistling Gophers, as happy as a mark could be. I was happy too, as well as sixty bucks richer.

  Myra came in, pulled the door flap, and flipped over my closed sign. “You need to eat, or you’re going to drop over.” She shoved a steak gyro in my face.

  My
stomach rumbled in anticipation. “You are a life-saver, girlfriend.” I wolfed down the spicy meal in a pita. “The lowly gyro, everything a growing girl needs.”

  “Not quite.” A large lemonade emerged from the Bugs Bunny sack Myra toted around.

  “If I were gay, I’d marry you.”

  She grinned at me. “I’m not gay, and I’d still marry you, as long as you didn’t mind me getting a little bit on the side.”

  “No way. I’m the jealous type. You just want me for the glamorous lifestyle which you would soon become accustomed to,” I said.

  She gave me the finger. Myra was staying at my place at night. Normally, she slept in the bunkhouse with a bunch of other girls. I told her I was still spooked by my trip to the Outlands with Tom and wanted company. What I really wanted was to make sure she took her medicine and stayed reasonably sober. Today, it looked like she was doing a better job taking care of me.

  “You don’t have to take care of me,” I said through a mouthful of gyro.

  “It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it,” she replied. “I have to get back to work. Skinny Phil is a slave driver.” Myra was running Phil’s Basketball Shoot Off stand this week.

  “Flip my sign on your way out.”

  “Got it.” She sashayed out. She had lost more weight and had started with a rough cough. I needed to talk to Doc and see if there was anything more we could do for her, or him for that matter.

  My next customer was a tall blonde man in his early thirties, carrying a bewildered goldfish in a bag. He must have been visiting Janie’s fish drop stand. He was kind of cute, in a nerdy sort of way. He wore a T-shirt over dress pants and shoes. He was very fit. The shirt was tight enough to see his six-pack, which wasn’t quite as good as the ones on the centaurs. I appreciated his more though, since we were the same species.

  “Hi,” he said earnestly. He had a nice voice, a rich baritone. The kind of voice you want to hear with your ear on his chest. “Can I get my cards read?”