Nightmare Carnival

She never used my trailer again. Sam surprised us all by buying Alexandra her own trailer the next day. She usually rides with Wilbur in a truck cab so loud you can’t hear yourself think, but he claims they talk opera. “She once performed Madame Butterfly,” Wilbur claims.

When I asked her about it she quickly changed the subject, saying it was nothing. “If I was really any good, what would I be doing here?” she says.

Right. My IQ used to make my guidance counselors salivate, but look at me now, one of those fellows parents can at least be thankful their sons didn’t turn out to be even if the brain surgeon plans didn’t pan out. Good. Just how are you using that term?

* * *

I’m hanging more than thirty feet higher up, near the top of our rich host’s tent, putting up the new rigging, when a fellow, nineteen or twenty, comes in down below. He looks up and asks if I’m the manager. I doubt he’s from the house. He doesn’t look clean enough, pure enough, not to mention rich enough. Even the servants up there look down on us as riffraff.

Even at this height I can see the young man is angry.

I lower myself down, and we step outside to where his battered F-150 is parked, looking like it’s driven a thousand miles through macho TV hell. The rides are going up behind us. We’re not even unpacking the games for this stop. What kind of party doesn’t want games?

The kid’s breathless before he even begins. Tells me he’s been following us. Says his big brother is dead before his time. Wants to know if that fucking witch is still traveling with us. The one who sings and dies.

If you’re going to bother having anybody in a carnival in the way of a working act, a strongman’s always handy to have around, wrestling parts of this and that into place, showing people the door when they get a little unpleasant, even when you don’t necessarily have a door. Otto’s our strongman. At least that’s what he calls himself. Makes a good strongman name. Otto the Terrible. I think his real name’s Christopher or something.

He’s strong, all right. I have him step over to where the young man and I are talking. The fellow doesn’t seem to care the least little bit. His hand’s jammed in his jacket pocket like he has a pistol in there. His face is fierce with rage, and his eyes dart around, seeking his prey. It’s easy to conjure thousands just like him, looking for me. “Where is she?” he asks.

Then the master of the house shows up out of nowhere. Master of the house is an old-fashioned term. I don’t use it lightly. He seems to be living in another century out here. Dressed in immaculate white linens without a wrinkle, he looks like a dogwood in bloom.

The house itself is a big Victorian curiosity with all sorts of gazebos and promenades and whatnot. I’ve spotted him patrolling the grounds pensively in his antiquated gear. He carries himself as if his money matters. Not that it doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no idealist, but all that money doesn’t make him important. That can always change one way or another. Easy come, easy go, unless you’re lucky, and who makes his own luck? Only the fool who thinks he does, all of it bad, but I’m only speaking from experience. Maybe his sense of importance comes from somewhere besides money, despite the showy evidence to the contrary. Maybe he’s thinking great thoughts in that ostentatious pile. He must keep them to himself because Googling the guy turned up nothing but this place. It’s his, the county says so. He paid cash. Sam and I were curious because he’s paying us five times in a single night what we’d be making anywhere else for a whole week. Mr. Bartholomew’s his name. He ignores me and Otto and fixes the young man with a look that says he doesn’t like a ruffian on his premises and tells the fellow to leave immediately. Odd thing is, he does.

It makes no sense to me. I know he was about to pull a gun. I know he was enraged. I know. Nothing really. But I’m very surprised, shall we say, when the young guy says, “Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” gets in his truck, and drives away at a moderate rate of speed.

Mr. Bartholomew turns and walks back to the house without so much as a screw you for me and Otto.

Otto returns to where Wilbur is working on the Tilt-a-Whirl, holding the stupid thing up while Wilbur makes another repair on the ancient mechanism. I hate rides. They always break down. If there’s anybody comes around to inspect these rides, he’s never caught up with us. Sam and insurance companies don’t get along. He thinks they’re crooks — imagine. So if one of these contraptions mangles you, there’s nobody to sue. Without Alexandra, Sam’s Carnival of Dreams is less than desirable, so it’s fairly obvious it’s Alexandra Bartholomew’s paying to see. To watch her dangle at a higher, deadlier height, to hear her hold her final note a little longer than anyone has heard before.

To watch her die.

Death’s death.