The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts(22)

“Is it okay if I unplug these spreaders before I stick the pliers into the socket?” I ask.

He sighs, turns to walk back to his table. “I guess,” he calls over his shoulder. Greenhorn.

I work on my task, moving as quickly as I can to make up for my lack of knowledge. As I hustle back and forth between the junction box and the spreaders, I watch Spif and Ben plug long extension cords into this box and yell at one another to test items in the show and our bunk. All lights and sound and even the little power we get in our bunks are coming from this complicated breaker.

Just as I’m about to finish my task, I hear Red yell, “Unplug the pigtail!” I continue unscrewing the bulb I’m working on and feel a little smug, a little proud for being such a good worker, for finishing this assigned task like a real carnie. “HEY!” he yells. “Unplug the pigtail!” and this time I glance over my shoulder to where he sits to see who is being berated and am surprised to see him looking right at me. “Yes, you!” he shouts. “Are you deaf? Dumb? Unplug the pigtail. Now!”

Again, I have no idea what this means. I jump around to the junction box, study the cords in front of me, hoping one might be—what?—coiled or curly or pink or something. “The pigtail!” he calls again, louder this time. I hold a cord up to him, ask if it’s the pigtail. “No! It’s real easy. Unplug the fucking pigtail!” he says. “The PIGTAIL! The PIGTAIL!” he shouts, and I’m frantic, pulling cords out one by one and occasionally calling over my shoulder that I do not know what the pigtail is. He stands up from his chair and begins marching over, his shadow approaching like a storm, staring me down, chanting, “Dummy! Grab the fucking pigtail!” and I can feel that heat building in my eyes, the emotional response I’ve been warned against, take nothing personally, but who can ever be successful at that, come on, who is divorced from emotional response, I want to know, as I keep unplugging and replugging and Red is hollering at me and the rest of the cast has stopped what they’re doing to stare at our scene, him screaming, me frantic on the ground, and yep, of course, my eyes brim with tears. When he is three or four steps away from me and I’m still crouched, ready like a stray to be kicked in the ribs and sent away, Tommy suddenly appears beside me, swiftly, kindly, with speed and firmness in his voice, points to one of the four pieces in my hand, tells me to twist until the lines meet, pull the plug apart, and then he disappears. I am saved. Just before he reaches me, Red turns around. He walks back to his chair and flops down heavily, as if I’ve exhausted him. The plug looks nothing like a pigtail.

In another version I hear of his story, Red’s baby died and he went mad with grief and so his wife left him, afraid of the monster he was becoming. In one more version, he left to fight in Vietnam, and when he returned, they were just gone. I hear four or five more versions during the season. Reasons why he lives in his van, why he’s been on the road for all these years. How he developed his ability to withstand pain. The number of people he’s lost. Whatever the beginning of the story, the ending to each is the same: a man always on the move, always alone.

*

The next night, when the work is done and fireflies spark, I see Snickers start to walk off between two cars. He catches me watching him and waves me over.

“I wanted to show you a video of an escape act I did,” he says, lighting a joint as he talks. “Want some?” he asks.

“Did Tommy tell you that we’re getting drug tested soon?” I ask. I don’t mean to be a total square, but the threat sounded real.

“Whatever,” Snickers says quickly, holding his breath with a mouthful of smoke. He looks toward our semi’s trailer, its white still easy to see despite the dark. He exhales. “I’ve been drug tested plenty of times. Never stopped doing any drugs. Never tested positive. I have my ways.”

“Fair enough,” I say.

“So?” he asks, offering me the joint again. “A few hits of this won’t even show up on a drug test.”

“No thanks. Thank you, though. Another time.”

“Cool,” he says, pressing Play on his phone to show me the four-minute video of his escape act. He narrates on top of the video’s narration. His wrists and ankles are tied up in ropes and his ankles are chained to two fifteen-pound dumbbells. He is shirtless and shivers, just a little bit, as he and his two assistants are preparing the act. The videographer giggles quietly a few times. Once he’s tied up, an assistant unfurls a black garbage bag over his body and ties the top, and he’s rolled into a river. Within ten seconds, he has torn through the bag and is out. Whatever the video lacks in quality is more than made up for by his enthusiasm. I imagine him as a little boy in the hospital, watching videos about Houdini, a man who can transform his body into a miracle. Past what anyone thinks he can survive.

“Well, I’m gonna go find some trouble,” Snickers says, winking to me as he wanders away from our truck and down into the deep heart of carnietown, the section of the fairgrounds where all the carnie bunkhouses are pressed together, where the real action goes down. “Unless of course you want to join?” he asks, stopping to look back. I do. Every part of me does. All the warnings I’ve heard from Sunshine in these first few days only whetted my appetite to get right down into the ugliest, nastiest part. Some piece of my brain thinks a meth habit might be a necessary part of the experience. Would be forgiven. But I see Tommy’s shadow walking between Tommy and Sunshine’s trailer and the show trailer, and I know enough to try to keep on his—and the rest of the cast’s—good side. I shake my head no.