The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts(92)
“Give it a try,” she says, handing me the whip. She keeps her hand on it, though, and presses herself against me from behind, guiding my body with hers as she connects the fluid motions of the stance to the arm’s swing.
“Don’t lean into it,” Rash says. “Keep your body upright, let the whip do the work.”
The noise has attracted some carnies from down the way, who lean against a ride beside our tent and, sipping their beers, watch us whip. Tommy has brought out a third whip and is practicing a ringmaster’s move, and Sunshine is learning from Rash how to wrap the whip around a pole, and I have the third, a little ways away from the others, since the movement of my cracker, the end piece that makes the sound, is still relatively unpredictable. It can hurt. The carnival is powered off, no lights glowing from the rides themselves, but some streetlights behind the big wheel are on, and they cast long strange shadows onto our outdoor nighttime circus.
Whip acts in a sideshow come in a few forms. There’s a solo act, where the performer will come onstage with the whip and perform a bunch of fancy cracks in rapid succession, wrapping herself up in the whip between sets, doing the whole thing in time with music so it looks like a dangerous dance. There’s also a tandem whip act, where one performer will hold a newspaper or flower in his hands, between his legs as he bends over, in his teeth. The other performer will crack the whip and knock the item down. It’s better to master the solo act before attempting the tandem, since an imprecise crack can be painful for your partner.
I do not improve immediately. It’s not something like escaping from the handcuffs or turning the one-dollar bill into a five that you master as soon as you learn the mechanisms involved. There is progress to be made. There are techniques to learn. But I can tell already it’s a much more likely prospect than getting a sword all the way down my throat. I feel powerful with the whip, like this could be an act that would actually amaze the audience. Within fifteen minutes, though, I’ve given myself a small cut on the cheek. It stings, is red and swollen, but doesn’t bleed. I don’t slow down.
“Wear your sunglasses when you practice,” Sunshine says as we’re wrapping up. “That way you’re less likely to lose an eye.”
*
The next night, after the fair closes at eleven, we blare Tom Waits inside the closed tent. Rash the Clown plays Rain Dogs on repeat, an album that sounds like the sound track to a demented circus in another universe. Though there had been some hangouts after hours with smaller clusters of people earlier on in the season, the last month hadn’t provided much time for leisure. Here in Kansas, for the first time, the night hours become a circus of our own.
Though the midway’s power is shut off each night, we have the stereo and one big cage light at the top of the tent’s center pole plugged into our generator. The edges of the tent are shadowed, the Feejee Mermaid and Queen Kong barely visible in their nightdresses. But the music is loud and keeps getting turned up louder and louder.
Rash the Clown and Short E are throwing knives. They’re playing some kind of knife poker–meets–darts, where playing cards are stapled to an old board and the knife you throw must land on a certain one. It’s a little alarming how often they don’t hit the target, considering most of the time a female body is standing in the way of any room for error.
Sunshine is teaching Lola a fire transfer from the tongue, and Spif is practicing a tarot card reading on himself. He cleansed his cards with the last full moon, he says, so now is a perfect time to reenergize the deck. Cassie has her practice sword out and is trying to get the metal down. Tommy has stretched a sheet of newspaper between two ladders, clipped them to the rungs, and I am cracking the whip to try to split the sheet in half. Mostly, I knock one side off the ladder rung, walk back to set it up, whip again, knock it, walk back. I’m determined to get better. Red is in his van, as usual, and Ben is in his bunk in the semi’s cab, but the rest of us are here rehearsing for the acts we won’t perform.
Once Tommy turns in for the night, each of us pauses to sip from the flask on the stage or pass one of the circling joints, some voices increasing their volume with each pass, others getting a little quieter. The official policy here is no substances, and though I’m sure Tommy knows what goes on, he seems fine turning a blind eye as long as people can hold themselves together.
There’s something both playful and serious in the focus on learning new acts after hours. They are fun to do in and of themselves, but there is always also the small, distant tease of what might just possibly happen should you get very, very good at it. A TV appearance, maybe. A movie gig. Money. A role in one of the few other shows like the one in which Short E sometimes performed, where you had one gig a night in a bar full of excited, drunk enthusiasts, an inconceivable kind of luxury.
But anytime one of those possibilities was mentioned, people were quick to dismiss it. Too easy. Not hardcore. Shirking from tradition. There was something about lasting a season here that was a kind of rite of passage, though it was never clear to me what was on the other side. For me or for anyone else, really.
“Once you’ve performed with the World of Wonders,” Rash the Clown had told me earlier in the day, “you can do anything. You are learning from the masters.”
“Like, you can perform with any of those other shows?”
“Like, you can do anything.”
*