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The Carnival Is a World that Has Always Scared and Fascinated Me
My son’s new bedtime story captures the what-could-have-beens of this world only without the human frailties and sorrow
Traveling carnivals and circuses freak me out. Since my very first experience, which was in Britt’s parking lot (The master of ceremonies kept calling it “Brites,” which caused most of the assembled crowd of locals to giggle), I have always been “lucky” enough to stumble upon the darker sides of these shoddily slapped-together expressions of desperation.
My feeling of luck stems from my own penchant for travel and the need to spend my life in places where outside observers couldn’t neatly predict me. I never wanted my reactions, actions, and future life to be assumptions or educated guesses made by strangers whose only claim to knowing me was that they happened to be in my hometown. The traveling carnival could have easily become the kind of out, an entrance into anonymity chock full of cathartic escapes had it not been for a broken neck, a broken arm, an abusive father (not mine), and a heroin needle. Those brief, random moments broke the spell for me, and the life of the traveling entertainer became a bottom that I have tried my whole life to avoid at all costs.
