The crowd pulsed through the narrow cacophonous alleys of the county carnival like blood in a vein, pumping in a furious circle, desperate to live in the chilly night. Thin, steel knives of clouds stabbed into the harvest moon as it hung oppressive, bloody, lifeless.
Shadows licked from between the carnie booths like fingers beckoning the locals, closer, closer, play the games and win the prize, guess your weight, win a prize, it's easy to win a prize. Sirens go off and the customers, like so many sheep, gawk in that direction. Their anxiousness is quickly overcome by boredom when they realize it's just a strong-man hammer game. The staccato click-rumble of dispensing skeet-ball machines compete with the rolling thunder of the balls as the players roll them back again, forming an organic white-noise rhythm of the unconscious.
...He's real...
Guns popped at the shooting gallery, and a jaunty, raucous tune filled that corner of the midway as someone hit the target over the piano, and the crude animatronic player, dressed in his red pin-stripe shirt, went through his jerky motions all over again.
A miasma of piquant odors lurked amongst the people like the masque of the red cholesterol death, a mélange of cotton candy, greasy hamburgers, fried Twinkies, hot dogs and cow patties straight from the livestock show.
...He's Chang Ming...
A motorcycle rumbled in dizzying donuts through its spherical cage, and the rider was hunched over the handlebars, wearing a grin that bespoke of the sheer madness that filled his heart. He defied gravity, but he defied the carnies, too, for he alone among them did not seem steeped in blasé boredom.
The yellow and red folk-art busking for Chang Ming had been carefully painted by an artist who had obviously never been to neither Paris nor China. Lines of elephants flanked Chang Ming, and the beast had been adorned in the armor of an ancient Chinese emperor, and it breathed fire onto terrified onlookers.
...The Elephant-Skinned Dog...
The fire-breathing elephant-skinned dog's real name was Patches. He suffered from the worst cases of halitosis and psoriasis that any canine should ever have to endure. He had come to the carnies six months ago, begging for scraps. They had teased the thing, both horrible to regard and smell, before recognizing one of their own and by the second night, Patches had a new home with the carnival. They carnies named him Patches because he still had a few swatches of hair. Last month he'd lost the rest of his hair and they put him on display.
"That dog's right ugly," one of the carnies had said.
Now his nights were a steel cage, with barely enough room in which to turn. People passed him in his dungeon, disgusted and jeering as they went, and to each he would give the same silent, desperate plea: take me home, take me home, take me home. Will you take me home?
The carnie on the mic echoed his own mantra, drawing customers, over and over and over to lure the suckers out of their curiosity dollar.
...He's alive...
...He's real...
...He's Chang Ming...
...The Elephant-Skinned Dog...
Copyright (c) 2012 Patrick Riot
