Nightmare Carnival

Young men with guns — I understand them and know to avoid them — but I’m developing a serious aversion to Mr. Bartholomew that has my back up.

As soon as F-150 leaves — nobody got his name — I go to Alexandra’s trailer. It’s set apart from the rest. Nobody wants to be too close when she wakes up screaming in the night. I asked her once, and she said it’s always the same nightmare: she opens her mouth to sing, and nothing comes out. She lives to sing, she says.

She’s not surprised to see me, imagining I’m here about the rig. I ask her if she knows anything about the young man’s brother, figuring she’ll say the whole idea is ridiculous.

Instead, she says, “Is he the first?”

“First what?”

“The first to say I killed someone — a brother, a husband, a wife? Have there been others?” She looks into my eyes as if I might have been harboring this secret knowledge from her.

“Not that I know of,” I say. “Why do you ask?”

She looks around her little trailer at her little knickknacks and souvenirs she’s accumulated over the last couple of years — mostly gifts from adoring fans. Swans. Lots of little swans. Mostly glass, some wood. A fine pewter fellow that must weigh a couple of pounds. None of them mangled and bloody and broken. Clippings on a corkboard, featuring her in her sexy swannish but disposable attire. Alive. Photography is strictly forbidden during her act. I notice for the first time obits scattered among the clippings from the towns in our wake. Samuelson, Michael, passed away peacefully. Blunt, Donna, departed this earthly life. Cort, Obadiah, died in his home in the early morning hours. In every case, the survivors were snipped away, nothing but the name and the fatal sentence, a grainy photo from another time.

It occurs to me that the reason the young fellow left so quickly is he plans to come back. Maybe with the law. Maybe I shouldn’t have made such a fuss over a simple inquiry concerning a performer. A singing witch? No idea what you’re talking about, no idea at all.

Alexandra ends her survey of her tiny trailer, gathering her thoughts. It’s finally here, the moment I thought I was waiting for — when I learn the truth about her — but everything inside me is screaming, Stop!

“I take their lives,” she says. “They die. When they hear the song, it awakens the longing for death they carry with them always, held back by fear or religion or false hope, but the song takes them to such a height they’re beyond fear, and they long for the release of death. They take mine if they’re ready. It’s how I come back to life. They give me their hearts, the will to live they don’t want anymore. It’s time.” She picks up the pewter swan, admires his plump, smooth belly. The one who gave her that one proposed, I believe. She puts it down. “They don’t die right away. A day or so, but they’re finally ready, you know? They say their goodbyes, die peacefully, still hearing the song — the death they’ve longed for.

“They confide to those who will be their survivors — the same ones who would find them if they just put a gun to their head or slit a vein — how in the middle of my performance, time seemed to stop, and there was nothing but my voice and the music, and they knew they were ready to die, so they surrendered their lives to me. It’s the simplest of transactions: Our spirits meet, they give me their lives, and I draw a fresh breath and stand, so I may sing again.” She looks me in the eye, barely holding it together now, her lip trembling. “They thank me.”

I believe every word, but I don’t want to. “You’re crazy. There are that many who long for death? Someone every night?”

“More. Too many. They clamor to save me. Usually, there’s more than one, and I must choose. Sometimes I choose the oldest, sometimes the one in the worst pain, sometimes the one in the deepest despair. I hate that part. Who am I to choose? Only there’s no one else.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll have a tent full of happy people some night? Wouldn’t that be the end of you?”

“It’s not funny.” She laughs sadly, sniffles. “Or maybe it is. God, how I wish there were such a thing as a tent full of happy people.”

“Maybe Mr. Bartholomew will provide. He seems pretty happy with himself at least. Far as I can tell, this whole thing seems to be for him. Nobody up at the house but the help — and even they’re too good for us. We’re a fucking carnival, for Christ’s sake. Somebody’s supposed to be excited we’re here.”

“He has company coming,” she says. “The tent will be full. Believe me.”

“How do you know that?”

She looks into my eyes. “Oh, Orlando. Never mind.”