The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts(34)
“No, no, it was nothing,” I said. “He said nothing bad.”
“Doesn’t look that way,” Devin said.
“I gotta get back,” the man said.
“What?” Devin asked, not looking away from me. “What was it?”
“Let’s have a drink,” the man said, sipping his beer.
“He just—” I said, trying to decide how much truth to tell, deciding to tell all of it. “He asked me to run away to the carnival. I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to say that.”
“Jesus Christ, kid,” Devin said. “Jesus Christ.”
THE MOON IS APPLE PIE
Day 14 of 150
World of Wonders
July 2013
It’s the Fourth of July, a Thursday, and our seventh day performing. Sunday will be our last day at this first fair, and we’ll tear down through the night and immediately move on to a fair in Ohio.
But not yet. It’s 9:00 p.m., and the sky has just darkened. We have three more hours of performing ahead of us. Suddenly, a boom causes everyone to flinch as fireworks begin behind our tent, shot, it seems, from a big parking lot on the other side of carnietown. We can mostly see them from the stage, pausing our ballys because we can’t talk over the boom of the explosions, and people are holding each other around the waist, back to front, like they are getting their portraits taken and pointing and sipping beers in big plastic cups, the whites of their eyes like little moon mirrors for the colors in the sky.
Tommy watches the fireworks, too, but looks out over the crowd every few seconds, a little fidgety. We haven’t made nearly as much money at this fair as we should have to keep everything afloat, and there are only a few more days until we close here and move on to the next fair. We have a big audience primed to go inside if only these damn distractions would stop. The show’s financial calculations were worked out before the season began, and include minimums for how much the show needs to make in each spot in order to go on to the next spot. This information isn’t discussed with the cast, but I can glean it from the stress each day as the midway’s thin crowds walk past our tent.
“Inside, you’re going to see an Icelandic Giant—” Tommy begins, but a firework explodes and drowns out the rest of his sentence. “Free show, free show,” Tommy calls, and a few heads turn toward him for a moment but snap away when a series of booms take over the sky. Even I can’t look away.
Tommy nudges my arm.
“Light up your torches,” he whispers into my ear.
“Now? Isn’t it, like, un-American to take attention away from fireworks?”
“What’s more American than trying to make a buck?” he says.
I light them up.
I remember that in my fire-eating class our teacher had warned of gasoline burps, teeth cracks from heat, tongue blisters, and scolded me, sternly, not to get pregnant while sucking in gasoline fumes. None of this matters when I ignite the torches onstage. All I can see is the gas canister beside me, into which I dip the torches, shake off the excess liquid, and pick up the lighter. I am aware of the audience watching me ready the flame. I am not thinking about how many brain cells I lose each time I swallow some of the gas, which happens, just a little bit, each time. I light one torch, then touch my fingers to the other gas-soaked head and squeeze. I bring my hand to the lit torch and pick up the flame. It stretches, like a piece of chewed gum, between my thumb and pointer finger. I carry the flame to the unlit torch and light the head with my fingertips.
Fire eating, long used in Hindu, Sadhu, and Fakir performances to signify spiritual attainment, became popular with sideshow and circus performances around 1880, a mainstay of touring acts. It’s not hard to see why. The eyes that are within fifty feet of our bally stage flicker over to me, then back to the fireworks, then back to me. What’s happening in the sky is spectacular, but the brightness of those lights is farther away, and one by one people start a slow zombie walk toward my fire, the same sort of draw I often see when the torches are lit, like there is never any choice but to seek the flame. We gather a small crowd as I run my fingers through the fire, wipe the torch across my arm, blow one out, and then light it again using my fingertips to carry the fire. The crowd grows, the fireworks still behind us, and I feel a little thrill to have stolen the attention. Tommy begins his bally, working it extra slow and long to give more time for a larger crowd to draw, the thunder of the fireworks lessening, the glint of his sword bright, reflecting the fire as he licks it and lets an audience member feel its heft, the burn of the fire in my mouth, the weight of our responsibility here to keep ourselves afloat just like real, good, hardworking Americans.
We turn a huge crowd. The show will go on.
*
The next morning when I wake up, Tommy’s massive shadow is blocking all the light from the doorway as he stares at the bunk beside mine. On it, Snickers is stuffing clothes into a duffel bag. Tommy’s arms are crossed, a more serious posture than I’ve seen him make, a throwback perhaps to his days as a professional wrestler in New Jersey. I sneak over to Spif, who is connecting cables on the far side of the trailer.
“What’s going on here?”
“Snickers got the boot,” he says.
“Third strike?”
“Guess so,” Spif says, attention still on the cords in front of him, as if this event didn’t merit even the smallest glance.