by J. Bryan
The midway looked sad by day. No colored lights, no steam-powered calliope music from the carousel. The morning sun washed out the giant paintings of clowns, gorillas, and dragons—instead of weaving a fantasy world, they simply looked like drab, flat cartoons, painted onto wooden booths with all the games, toys, and other flash packed away inside. Without the mystery of the night beyond the lights of the midway, even the Ferris wheel looked small and pathetic. Spooky Manor, the haunted house, just looked silly, with its yarn spiderwebs and the skeleton peeping out the front window, though it could look convincingly scary at night with the proper lighting and sound effects.
Most of the carnival was devoted to crafting illusion, making a pretend world of color and magic to open up wallets and purses. Even the rides were meant to inspire a false feeling of danger, the games rigged to conjure a false sense that the mark might win big.
Juliana wasn’t a trick or a scam. Everyone in the carnival assumed she was, of course, that she’d mastered a kind of theatrical illusion using some combination of makeup and lighting. Probably most or all of the customers believed that, too, once they had time to think it over and wrap the memory into a familiar packaging. They might even tell each other how obvious the fakery had been, later, when they were well away from the sideshow tent.
Juliana walked off the fairgrounds and followed the dirt road into town, which wasn’t much more than two strips of brick and wood buildings, a well, and a corral. The largest building was the train depot.
She drew odd looks and whispers from the crowd of townspeople gathered in the street. She’d dressed as plainly as she could, in her brown dress with a few flower designs sewn here and there, a scarf to help shield her head from human contact, a white straw hat for the hot sunlight. Of course, she had to wear the black gloves unrolled all the way along her forearms, something very out of place in the Missouri summer. Everyone knew she wasn’t local, and so they would correctly assume she was with the carnival camped outside town.
Along the street were multiple wagons with people piling in, ready to ride to the next town, just as she’d hoped. A man in a tie, possibly the town preacher, was yelling at them not to go, telling them they’d be damned, that they should instead attend a proper church, such as his own, for example.
Juliana approached a woman sitting in the back of the wagon with three small children, one of whom was a boy, five or six years old, with a badly shriveled leg. It looked like polio.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Juliana whispered to the woman, who wore a dress that had once been fine but was now patched many times over. “Is this wagon going to the revival?”
“We are,” the woman said. “You must be from the circus.”
“Yes ma’am,” Juliana said, trying to sound a little Southern. “Might I ride with you? I could pay you a penny or two for it.”
“Not on the Lord’s day, you don’t!” the woman snapped. She might have been in her late twenties or early thirties, but her sun-wrinkled skin made it hard to tell. She turned toward the bearded man in the big brown hat who sat on the driver’s bench, holding the reins of the two horses. “Henry, we can take this circus girl to see the preachers, can’t we?”
“Don’t see why not.” Henry puffed his pipe, not even looking back at his new passenger.
“Let me help you up.” The woman reached down a hand.
“No!” Juliana jumped back, not wanting to infect her with the demon plague. “I can manage, thank you.”
She climbed up into the straw-littered wagon and sank into a back corner, as far from the family as possible. She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them.
The three children stared at her. The crippled boy seemed the youngest, but his brother and sister couldn’t have been older than nine or ten years.
“Are you in the circus?” asked the boy with the bad leg.
“Yes,” she told him.
“Are you a clown?” the older boy asked.
“Or an acrobat?” the girl asked, hopping to her filthy bare feet. “I can do flips. Want to see?”
“I’ll burn your hide if you step down from this wagon, Izzy May!” the woman snapped. “Sit back like you were.”
Izzy May quickly sat down beside her brothers, next to a trunk roped into place. The mother sat on another large trunk. It looked like they planned to be away from home overnight.
“I’m nothing special,” Juliana said. “I work a sugar shack.”
“What does that mean?” the girl asked.
“I make cotton candy,” she told them, and the kids looked very impressed.
“Do you have some?” asked the boy with the bad leg.
“Sorry, I don’t,” she said, and the kids immediately lost interest. Juliana turned to their mother. “The next town isn’t a very long way, is it? You’re returning tonight, aren’t you?”
“These can last for days,” the woman replied. “We won’t be back until the Lord sends us.”
“I have to be back for my show tomorrow.”
“Oh, honey,” the woman replied. “If the Lord wants you back here, He will find a way.”
Juliana couldn’t argue with that.
The wagon finally started to move. A train of half a dozen crowded wagons rolled out of town, kicking up a cloud of brown dust from the dry dirt road. Juliana tilted her hat forward to keep it out of her eyes, but the rest of her was soon covered in earth. Her sweat under the hot sun slowly converted it to a thin sheen of mud.
During the long, slow ride, the children peppered Juliana with endless questions about the carnival. She described how cakes were fried and cotton candy was spun, detailed each of the games on the midway from the ring-toss to the rifle-shoot to the test-your-strength. She explained that she did not have her own elephant or giraffe. She told them about each of the characters in the sideshow, except for the attraction behind the final curtain, Juliana Blight. She explained how they jumped from town to town by rail.
In time, they reached the tent of the revival, almost as big as a circus tent, pitched on a grassy pasture by the wide, slow Mississippi River.
People had flocked in from all around, judging by the wagons and tents jammed in on either side of the road. There were even a few automobiles and trucks. The center of the action was the single large tent, from which she could hear pained shouting, music, and stomping. It sounded louder than a tavern on a Saturday night.
Juliana thanked the family for the ride and quickly scurried out of the wagon. She didn’t want the kids following her around, asking more questions about candy, magic tricks, and carnival games, because then she would have to make an effort not to kill them.
She drew her arms in tight around her as she walked toward the revival tent, trying to avoid any contact with the ever-thicker crowd, where people didn’t mind doing a little elbowing and jostling. She hoped her gloves, dress, and headwear were enough to protect them from her.
The revival traveled the same general railroad circuit as the carnival, so they often saw each other’s posters in the towns they visited, though they’d never pitched tent in the same town at the same time. There wouldn’t have been enough money for either group.
Juliana had heard of miraculous healings at this particular revival. Naturally, she’d first assumed that the performances were trickery, either making people feel momentarily better using dramatic stage techniques, or else the healed people were just shills in cahoots with the preacher.
However, she’d heard repeated stories from town to town. An old blind man who could now see, a World War I veteran who’d regrown an ear he’d lost in combat. A woman who’d been coughing up blood, dying of consumption and too weak to walk, who was now well and could take care of her children and work around the farm.
After hearing one miraculous story after another about locals in one town after another, Juliana had begun to believe something magical might actually be happening at that revival. She’d become determined to visit it the next time it passed close to the carniva
l. With the carnival shut down by local authorities for Sunday worship, it was the perfect time for Juliana to sneak off and see the revival for herself.
The front flaps of the tent wall were tied open, and nobody collected an admission fee. People were free to walk in and out of the tent, if the thick crowd allowed it.
She eased her way inside. The tent was packed full, everybody cramming in to stand under the shade and listen to a preacher on the stage at the far end of the tent from the entrance. He was a white-haired, pudgy man in a gray suit, dabbing his sweaty double chin with a handkerchief, his eyes bugging as he shouted at the audience, who responded with shouts and cries of their own.
“The devil is not some character in a radio program or a child’s picture book!” the preacher shouted, and a number of audience members shouted back, agreeing. “The devil is real, brothers and sisters. The devil walks among us, wearing masks! He can come in any form at all! But when he does, you’ll know him! You’ll know him because he tempts you with gold! With fornication! With sin and worldly pleasures...but those pleasures are false! Yes, they are! And those tempting, earthly pleasures will fall away, and you’ll see they come drawing hellfire behind them! Yes, sir! The Lord is great...abh ah loch tay moota howklo tarris be hock bot a mok nay hapa tah...” His eyes closed and he raised one shaking arm, clutching the handkerchief in his fist.
Juliana didn’t understand what the preacher was saying, but lots of people in the crowd started making similar nonsense words. Some waved their hands high and closed their eyes, while others went into convulsions, crashing into those around them and finally flopping on the dirt like dying fish. Many of them simply screamed or howled. She didn’t know what to think as the crowd seemed to turn rabid.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” A hand seized Juliana’s arm, and she gasped. It was the woman from the wagon, with kids and husband in tow. The husband carried the boy with the crippled leg. With the heavy crowd, Juliana hadn’t penetrated far into the tent, and now the family had caught up with her.
Juliana looked down at where the woman clutched her—fortunately, her sleeve protected the woman from a rapid, painful death, but Juliana didn’t feel comfortable about it.
“Is this the preacher does the healing?” the husband asked. He bounced the little boy in his arms, and the boy cried out in glee.
“Is he?” the woman asked Juliana.
“I don’t know,” Juliana answered. “I hope so.”
The preacher went on and on, getting louder, stomping the stage, sending the crowd into hysterics. The kids from the wagon joined the rest of the audience in screaming, howling, and flopping around, except for the smallest boy, who just watched from his father’s shoulder, unable to join the fun.
Juliana couldn’t believe how long the preacher continued. The sound of rain battered the tent top, and people drenched from the downpour pushed their way into the packed tent. Soon the crowd was twice as large, and the air in the tent turned steamy and foul with the odor of so many bodies.
After a long, long time, and much more speaking in tongues, the first preacher finally staggered offstage, exhausted, while the audience cried and clapped.
A tall, gaunt man carried a woven basket onstage, followed by three other men. From their look and their ragged clothes, Juliana thought they might be mountain people. The gaunt man addressed the audience while the other three lingered behind him.
“The Lord says, if we have faith, we may take up serpents without fear,” the man told the crowd. “For even the sting of the serpent is nothing next to the power of God.”
The audience chattered excitedly.
“We have come to show the power of faith as a testimony.” He lifted the lid from the woven basket, and the crowd pushed forward to see. “For the tempter comes in the form of a serpent, hissing lies into our ears...But we show him that only the Lord is our master!”
From the basket, he lifted out a pair of thick, long rattlesnakes, one in each hand, both of them shaking out a warning with their tails. Screams erupted from the audience, and a number of people near the front tried to push their way back, by they were trapped in place by the rest of the crowd.
The gaunt man stalked slowly across the front lip of the stage, holding out his arms while the deadly rattlers coiled around him. The crowd gasped and shrieked.
Behind him, his three cohorts approached the basket one by one, each taking one or two rattlesnakes and letting them wrap around their arms and necks.
Juliana’s heartbeat raced as she watched, waiting for one of them to suffer a fatal bite. In the carnival, the show would have been a fraud—the snakes would be a harmless species that only looked dangerous, most likely, or their venom would have been removed—but she’d heard that the snake-handling preachers used fully lethal wild snakes.
The children stopped playing at flopping and fainting, and they watched quietly, eyes wide open. The whole tent had gone from boisterous to silent. In the silence, the gaunt preacher’s voice seemed to echo back from the canvas walls.
“Faith is not some small thing we do once a week,” he said. “We must hold faith inside of us all times. With faith, there is no danger, for there is no door through which Satan can enter. Close your hearts against evil, and open them to the Lord!”
Voices whispered throughout the crowd as the largest rattlesnake nosed its way up the preacher’s neck and cheek, its forked tongue tasting his ear.
“We have no need to fear,” he continued. “God has already vanquished the devil, and He will do it again, and there will be a final Judgment. If the Lord chooses to take us today, or ten years from now, or a hundred years from now, it’s all the same...we’re all going to face Him, we’re all going to answer for our sins...and there will be a reckoning!” He thrust a fist into the air to make his point, startling the rattlesnake, which drew back and opened its jaw, poised to bite his face.
The preacher fell still and quiet, looking right back into the snake’s eyes.
“Go ahead,” he said in a loud stage whisper. “Go ahead and try, Satan. God is with me. I’m filled with the Spirit and the light.”
The entire audience stayed silent. After a minute, the rattlesnake relaxed and turned away, crawling back down his arm. The preacher resumed his sermon, while his three acolytes walked to different areas of the stage, letting the audience see the snakes in their hands.
He spoke on and on, like the previous preacher. As he wrapped up, the three men returned their snakes to the basket and picked up buckets on long rods. They held these out to the audience, collecting coins and cash from the stunned crowd.
The next preacher was a different sort. He wore an odd pastel-colored suit, and his dark, curly head of hair looked like a wig to Juliana, because it didn’t quite match his handlebar mustache. He was followed by a chorus of three young women wearing high-neck dresses and no makeup, who stood together at one corner of the stage. Behind him, a black man in a green snap-brim hat and matching suit took over the piano.
The preacher walked to stage center, looking around, apprising the crowd, with the automatic bright smile of an experienced showman.
“I hope this is him,” the woman from the wagon said. “I’m exhausted.” Night had fallen, and the rain hadn’t let up, so the tent remained crowded and humid. Everyone was sweating. Juliana worried that her sweat might fall on somebody, like one of the two children who insisted on staying close to their pet carnival girl. She didn’t know whether her sweat could harm anyone, and she certainly didn’t want to find out the hard way.
“He don’t look no healer to me,” commented the woman’s husband, Henry.
“I’m sleepy,” their little girl complained.
“I want to play with snakes!” the older boy announced.
“Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, let us pray,” the preacher finally said. Nobody was going to argue with that, so everyone lowered their heads and closed their eyes, and many grasped the hands of the people around them. The little girl,
Izzy May, grasped Juliana’s gloved hand and wouldn’t let go, which made Juliana edgy and nervous.
“...as Your wonders are limitless, oh Lord, we beseech you to bless this humble house of worship with Your grace today. As Your Son healed the blind and the sick, we ask that You pour Your love upon our brothers and sisters here, those who are in need, those are ill, those who live in pain...”
Juliana opened her eyes and looked up. Maybe this was the healing preacher, after all. If so, he didn’t inspire much confidence.
“Amen,” the preacher eventually said, and many people echoed him. “Children of the Lord, we have been called together for a great purpose today,” he began. “And that purpose is to recognize the Lord’s place in our lives...” As he spoke, the piano player went to work, providing a backdrop of fast, punchy notes that helped rouse the crowd as the preacher continued. Soon the preacher was keyed up, racing around the stage. “...and when trouble arrives, what do we say? We say oh, precious Lord, take my hand!”
This was the cue for the three women to sing the hymn ‘Oh, Precious Lord, Take My Hand,’ a hymn which a lot of the crowd seemed to know, because they sang along. The piano player immediately switched from his jazzy melody to a deeper gospel sound.
When the song ended, the preacher resumed strutting up and down the stage, talking up the healing powers of God and recalling the stories about Jesus and the lepers. He grew more and more animated, slapping his hands together and stomping his foot for emphasis.
“Hallelujah! I feel the Spirit!” cried out one of his chorus girls. She closed her eyes as if in ecstasy and brushed her hands from her bosom down to her hips. “It’s in me!” She moaned and toppled backwards. The audience gasped as the two other girls scrambled to catch her. It looked like a rehearsed move to Juliana, but she supposed most of the crowd hadn’t seen five years’ worth of midway tricks.