|
Envoy: Memoirs of a Carnival “Let’s go!,” he says loudly, pressing one bold hand against the door of the store where the poster was being spread flat onto the glass, tracing the dates with his free fingers. Flitted away from the checkered carpet squares into the fringed center ring, he makes his way between the midway stalls, then stops where small pingpong balls are tossed into even smaller-lipped bowls. Bending beneath the striped canopy, he can see now how the table is slanted, the water is dyed, the fishbowls themselves are magnified glass distorting their contents. Still, there he is: a tiny form wobbling against the countertop, testing his reach into the matrix of glasses. The mosquitoes swarm around his head, bat against his eyes and their lashes; the wafting temptations of the surrounding booths still distract him. How could he have noticed the slats lowered between the rows to collect missed attempts, the alternating arrangement to prevent ricocheted success, the improbable generosity of opportunities (always provided for in excess of their cost, ten for one or fifteen for two)? The rough, rounded woman who cares for the fish seems vulgar to him now: vigilant but swaggering unsteadily against the frame of the booth. She swats at the tank with her free hand, tortures the prizes into activity and desirability, monitors all of the bowls as though they were votives. Placing his offering into her checkered apron, she pulls a basket of pingpong balls from one of the ambries and explains how he can use only one hand in each attempt. There is his inactive hand, fidgeting at his left side, while the stunted fingers of his right hand grasp each individual ball tightly before releasing them in half-prayers. Two bounce of out of bounds, six or seven fall between the rows, finally one settles into the clear blue liquid, a sea of its own creation with a few small flashes of gold between the curves. “To a carnival?,” more of an indictment than a question, she muffles her laughter before handing him their shopping list. The interruption leaves only his smudged handprint on the glass door. Someone will have to clean it. Ease of eye and slight of hand, the poster could have become anything else, one of their forgotten, thrill-ride-induced embraces instead of that pitiable goldfish. The water had leaked from the bag, the bag had fallen from his hands, the jagged seam had unsealed itself. Even now, pushing the cart between the aisles, his mind was turning the bag over to prevent the leak, opposing the ends of it, but still the bag lost more water than it held. There was nothing left to do; there could be no escape. It was, for all three of them, a contest.
|