The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts(79)



“Thank you?”

“You don’t sound like a showperson. That’s perfect for turning a ding. Do you notice when you turn the biggest crowds?”

I think about this a moment. I’d just perfectly recounted Sunshine’s story. Spoke quickly and with a great rhythm, I thought, remembered all the major events of her life I’d invented, felt smooth and confident. I’d turned only three people.

“Not that last time,” I say.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I thought I had the story down pretty good.”

“Think about it. People don’t trust a used-car salesman who is practiced and smooth, someone whose job is obviously to put a veil over their eyes and best them,” Chris says. “There are lots of styles talkers use, but think about this: less polish. It’ll give them the illusion that this isn’t something you do professionally, that you’re not out here twenty times a day giving the same speech, taking money from people over and over again.”

“That they are in on something special,” I say.

“It’s a game you’re playing. You both know the other one is smart. Let them think that they are a little bit smarter. That they will be the ones, the only ones, who might see behind the veil.”

We are walking back toward his trailer, parked beside our semi. His steps are slow and lumbered, the way it seems a real giant would walk, and I wonder if this is a by-product of being so tall or an act assimilated into every facet of his life after so many years of embodiment.

“Anyway, you’re good at this. And I bet you’re good at a lot of things you try. You’re going to do good things in your life, whatever you do,” he says. “You’re so young still.”

“I’m not that young.”

“Oh Christ,” Chris says. “Be whatever age you want.”

*

By the fourth morning of the Minnesota State Fair, nobody is speaking.

We are up for the 8:00 a.m. work call, all in a row along the front banner line while we hoist and tie, but there is none of the usual chitchat or shit talking. There are a few sounds, Spif grabbing the rope from one of the new bally girls as he says, simply, “No,” and does the task himself. The sound of Big, Big Ben testing the speakers out on the front stage. The soft thwack of Brian the Juggler’s clubs landing in his hand just outside the bunk doorway as he practices in his boxers, hair pointing in every direction. Francine the burlesque dancer sweeping the dirt and bugs from the floor beneath her bunk that have accumulated since the day before. The quiet gurgle of our mini-coffeepot as it brews Folgers. And finally, the swoosh and shuffle of everyone transforming in costume and makeup. Their voices are too tired to come out. We finished last night’s performance just six hours ago and have fifteen hours of performing ahead of us.

Though our crew is made up of very different people, we move like one large breathing organism. Somehow we decide on this silence, pledging ourselves to it for the full hour before we open, letting the first words spoken happen onstage in front of an audience.

The other sound this quiet morning is the hose, always hooked up just down the trailer’s steps. Short E is down there, taking a shower. The bathrooms are far and take too long to get to, he says, so he stands out there in his boxers or swimming trunks with his bottles of shampoo and body wash and lathers up. It looks dreamy, really. The day is getting hot already and the hose water is always cold after you run it for a minute. I fantasize about that cold hose water as the day goes on and I put on the extra costume for Ms. Olga Hess, the Headless Woman (hospital gown) over my own costume, or for Ms. Vickie Condor, Four-Legged Woman (vest, skirt, and knee socks, plus scarf around my head). I think about it as I grow light-headed from the heat, come back to the main backstage area, and press my face against the single box fan we have there to cool us. Greedy, I stand so my face is right against it, blocking the air for a moment from everyone else. It feels like there is no other way to survive. But then Short E, back from his act onstage, will do a handstand in front of it and cool the length of his upside-down body, cool his ass, and I begin to boil at the injustice of it if he stays longer than five seconds—how dare he block that air from us! Can’t he see how many of us back here need it? Require it for survival? But the next time I walk anywhere, I press my face or chest back to it.

The meat-grinders last a month in total. Two big, huge, giant, long, massive, thrilling, nasty GTFM state fairs with that smaller county fair in the middle just to tide us over. Even if you slept every minute you were off work during the meat-grinders—between 12:15 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., or 2:15 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., you could not get enough rest. The full month of August. And then the extra performers we picked up will hop back on buses and planes and trains and return whence they came. And we will barrel on.

I wonder how full everyone’s pee jugs are.

*

“Listen,” Chris Christ says to me as he comes backstage with Short E. “We’re adding a ding that we think is gonna be a real moneymaker. We need you as Short E’s assistant. Okay?” I nod sure, because of course it sounds alluring, though in truth, adding another act to the others I already do is not what I want—those backstage moments to sit or sprint to the closet toilet between acts are precious. I won’t get any cut of this ding, Chris Christ says, but I will get to help Short E. And walk among the crowd. I’m still unsure, until they explain the ding.

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