Mr. Payment

Mr. Payment is a student in FPC Yankton’s Writing and Publishing class.

CARNIVAL

Nonfiction

Every year in the month of April the carnival came to town. Flashing lights filled the small city park in the center of town. Big band music echoed between the buildings, and the smell of corn dogs and funnel cakes permeated the air. Warm breezes drifted throughout the fairgrounds, always hunting; it was midsummer rather than the earliest moments of spring. The fountain in the center of the town square shot jets of crystal clear water into the cloudless sky after a long and dormant winter. Frantic workers hustled to collect patrons to ride their rides. Gamers would try to sway a gentleman to attempt to win his girl a prize by throwing a dart or rolling a ball. These are the memories that often came when the carnival came to town.

It was around 5:30 in the evening when my best friend Pip and I were wandering around the town, and we saw the first of many trucks come down Main Street. Pip stood about five feet eleven inches with bleached-blonde hair that hung to his square jawline, a cigarette in his hand, and a “Don’t mess with me” attitude. We were two outcasts against the world. Pip and I became friends when we were twelve years old a few years after my family made the move from Michigan to Iowa. We both came from broken homes and seemed to understand one another.

Pip and I made our way down to the town square to watch as one by one the semi trucks pulled their trailers into location; gamers opened up their trucks and began filling their stock, and the ride jocks chocked tires and set safety fences. We watched as the workers prepped, placed, positioned, and maneuvered them all along the midway. Thirty-two rides and twenty-one games filled the outside edges of the square, while the food trucks and ticket booth stood center stage. The year was 1999 and I was just fourteen years old.

We strolled around smoking cigarettes and talking to a

few of the other kids that walked the park when a guy yelled at us to either get out of the way or give him a hand. We told him that we didn’t work there and weren’t allowed to help, but he just laughed. After a few moments he walked up and asked me for a smoke. I could smell the E & J brandy on his breath and the grease on his hands. He wore dirty jeans and a blue T-shirt with the logo of the show across the front. He stood about five feet ten inches with dark skin and braided hair with wisps of grey that seemed to make him look older than he really was. He had a slick smile and carried himself with an Old School attitude. So that’s just what I called him.

I took a crinkled pack of Marlboro reds out of my jeans and gave him one. Old School smiled and sank to his knees as he took a drag off the cigarette. After he exhaled he looked up and we started to chat. After a while, he explained that if we were interested in making a few bucks, we could help and the owner would pay us thirty dollars apiece. Pip and I just looked at one another and figured that the old guy was just trying to trick us into helping, but soon enough the owner, Mom as we would come to call her, walked up and asked if we would like to earn some cash.

Mom stood about five feet six inches with mediumlength black hair, hard eyes, and a deep-set smile that always made you think you were in trouble. She was a strictly no-nonsense woman who loved her show, her family and most of all her “kids.” With Mom, work always came first, but if you needed anything, all you had to do was ask and she would do all in her power to help. She was just that kind of person. Pip and I told her we were more than happy to work but told her we were just fourteen. She said she didn’t mind; after all it was just for a few hours. She told Pip and me to go and help Old School on his ride, and she was off.

Old School was the operator of the Gravatron. The ride held about thirty-seven people, including the operator, and looked like a giant spaceship. When you got into the ride you stood against beds that were fastened to the wall and the ship started to spin. As the ride spun, the force of gravity

held your body to the beds as they rose to the ceiling. The ride gave you the feeling that you were going to fly out through the roof, which only added to the excitement. Growing up, I always saw it as one of my personal favorites and that evening I learned to build it.

The hardest part about setting up a carnival ride is running the power. Each ride takes about three or four cables that are about two-and-a-half inches thick and they’re about 400 feet long. You have to drag them from the generators to the individual boxes and then to the rides. The cables weigh about 300 pounds, so that in itself was a workout from hell. Two of the other guys working damn near quit right then and there. Pip and I though, we just grabbed the cables and kept on rolling. After the ride was powered we started the real work.

The diamond plate steel floors twinkled under the deck lights as we lowered them onto the drive wheels. The three of us picked up the twenty foot long I-beam and placed it over the first station, as one by one we placed each tub into its numbered location. Sweat poured down my arms and chest, and I hoisted each 800-pound tub with the chain hoist: three master bolts in the floor and four in the head topped with r-keys and bolted in tight. One tub at a time till all were locked and secured. One by one we greased the wheels on the beds, checked to make sure all lights were bright and shining, and tested out the sound system. Everything was good to go.

It was about 3:30 in the morning by the time we started the finishing touches on the Gravatron. The temperature was falling as dark clouds clustered the moonlit sky overhead and for the first time all day I was starting to wish I had worn my jacket. I climbed to the top of the ride and began to tie off the canvas that covered it when Mom called us down so she could give us our pay. She told us that we did a great job and if we were interested in helping again at the end of the week, we were more than welcome. We accepted and thanked her for the opportunity as Old School headed back up to finish.

The next day the show opened at noon, packed with thousands of customers. The rides and ticket booth had lines halfway down the midway. Once Pip and I got to the booth, Mom stood behind the glass window training a new worker. She smiled and gave us each a bracelet and told us that it was on the house. We thanked her and rode the rides all day. We had to have ridden each ride about twenty times that day as we wandered the park.

The show went on for a week. Every day we stopped by and talked with Old School and the others and every day we rode the rides for free. We ate our fill of corn dogs and funnel cakes and drank stale Dr. Pepper that always seemed to have a popcorn taste and every night Old School would let us walk through the safety checks and check the rides for what they called ground scores. A ground score was anything that was lost during the ride. Wallets and cell phones mostly, but loose cash, packs of smokes and cans of chew along with purses and drugs were other things found often. Most would be turned in to the lost and found but only items of importance. What can I say, we were dumb kids.

Finally Sunday night came and we headed back to the Bayless Park. We figured we could earn a few bucks helping them tear down the rides. Once again I headed to the Gravatron and helped Old School disassemble it. For some reason it took us longer to take it apart than to put it together; still to this day I can’t explain that one, but that’s just how it was. I remember I was on top of the Tron removing the canvas top and Old School pulled the canvas. My left foot was still on it and I lost my balance and fell from the top down to the diamond plate floor. I busted my knee open and it bled like a sieve, but I just put some gauze on it and got back to work.

After we were done Mom came up and paid us for the help and asked if we wanted to work for the summer. I reminded her that I was only fourteen, and she just nodded. She said that if I got a permission slip signed by my mom that I could travel, and I would be back home by the end of

summer. She gave me the slip and the next morning I went to where my mom was staying and talked to her about it, told her I needed the money and I would be working. It took a while but she eventually signed it, and I packed up my belongings and headed for the show. It was the summer of 1999 and I was fourteen years old.

ARE YOU TEN YEARS AGO?

Nonfiction

ARE YOU TEN YEARS AGO?

Last night I finally got a hold of you after so many years of being locked away. We talked about the old times, the carnival days and the childhood that neither one of us ever had the chance to live. We talked about the drama and the beatings, the abuse and the tears. We talked about the trials and tribulations we faced throughout the years of our friendship, the girls that broke our hearts, and the friends who betrayed us. You and I spoke about our children and how they have grown, how your boy is playing baseball and your little girl is hell on wheels for a toddler. We talked about your new wife, your work and the life that you now live. We spoke of the gatherings and culture we were raised on. You asked about the future and what that holds for me but I hear it in your voice, that single question that everyone is afraid to ask:

“BROTHER, ARE YOU TEN YEARS AGO?”

Last week I got an email from my little girl. She told me that she missed me and that she is now being homeschooled.

She tells me that life is hard because she and her sister are always fighting. I assure her that this is just what siblings do.

She tells me it’s not fair and I ask her what she means. She explains that she is the only one that remembers me from better times and that she tries to tell her sister that I wasn’t always such a screw-up, that I was always there to take them to school, braid their hair every morning, play with them at the park, even go on camping and fishing trips. She reminisces about the horses I bought for her and her sister when they were small girls, too young to even ride. She talks about her new crush and it is hard for me to comprehend. For when I last saw her she was only eight years old and her sister was five. She has so much faith in me that I will come out and be the father that she wants to believe that I am, but

I can read between the lines and within her fears lies the

same simple question:

“DADDY, ARE YOU TEN YEARS AGO?”

My mother wrote me a message wishing me a happy thirtyfifth birthday and I stared at the screen for what seemed like eternity. I thought about the fact that it has been thirty-five years since a scared seventeen-year-old child gave birth to a child of her own. Lost in her own world of abstract views and codependency, she was bound and determined to raise her baby boy with love and security. She never tells me that she is disappointed in my actions or that she believes I am better than the person I had become. She just always tries to sound cheery and act like everything will be OK. She says she is proud of me, that she thinks that I didn’t deserve all this time, that everyone makes mistakes and that she knows I have learned from it. She says that everything will be better when I get home and start my life over. She says that she and my family will be there to help me any way that they can, but I can hear the words that go unspoken. The ones that she thinks can go unsaid, the question that she fears the most:

“MY SON, ARE YOU TEN YEARS AGO?”

As I stand here and stare at the man in the mirror, I don’t recognize the figure staring back at me. The cold blue eyes seem to remind me of a man I knew a long time ago, but the hardened facial features seem to have aged with the years behind the fence. I cannot help but hope that I have grown into a better man, that these years spent behind the wall have somehow transformed me into a productive member of the community. Part of me wants to desperately believe that I won’t fall into old habits and that I have learned from my mistakes, that I can be the man I was created to be -- a good father, a decent brother, a loving son and most of all, a respectable man. I pray that I can be a person that my family is not embarrassed about, a person that is not afraid of his past but a man who can embrace his future. So with all sincerity I ask you from the depths of my soul as I search every feature and detail of the man staring back at me from within the mirror:

“ARE YOU TEN YEARS AGO?”