~ 1 ~

        “Hey! It’s you!” he hollered, grinning wide, eagerly waving come here, leaning out from behind the counter of a bushel-basket game set up in half an over-lit metal trailer.  Behind him on the booth walls, all sorts and colors and sizes of stuffed animals hung higgledy-piggledy.
        I stopped short and eyed him. “Say what?”
        With one hand cupping an even wider grin my way, and the other juggling two softballs, he said, “It’s a secret. Come here, and I’ll tell you.”
        I scowled, stepped right up, and huffed, “What?”
        He leaned into my ear. “You’re the one I see in my dreams. My dream come true.”
        A dither prickled through me.  “You’re full of way too much coal, mister.”
        “Walt.  Walt Ryder.  Mighty pleased to make your acquaintance.  And I swear on a two-dollar bill, if I took my Instamatic camera into my dreams and snapped a shot of my dream girl, it’d come out to be of you.  Mmm, hmm.  You, with that curly red hair bobbin’ ‘round those wide sparkly-green eyes.  Yes indeedy, you, sweet and petite, that teeny snoot, the pouty lips.  Mmm, hmm.  You be the one.”
        “So you say.”
        “If I’m lyin’ my mama’s cryin’.”
        All aflutter and a mite offput, I leaned back on one leg, my hands on my hips, and told him, “You know what else, mister.  A galloopus lays square eggs.”
        Lifting that ear-to-ear grin higher, he stood up ramrod straight, raised his right hand as if taking an oath, and swore, “I’ve seen a million pretty faces pass by out here.  I’ve known a few gals like wives.  Yet every night I dream of you.  You, who I’m huntin’ for among all the others.  Measurin’ them up to you.  Leavin’ them ‘cause I knew I’d one day find you. And now here you be.”
        Yeah, sure—I thought as I looked him over.  Though several years older and kind of lanky, I admired his big smiley jaw, his long sun-tanned nose, and his wide shoulders in a pearl-button cowboy shirt and brown leather jacket.  I wasn’t so partial, though, to his greased-back sandy hair, Elvis forelock and all.
        I crossed my arms and stared hard at him.  Awaiting my answer, his feathery eyebrows wrinkled up his wide forehead like an actor’s—his crafty eyes startling me with how sincere they appeared, how blue they were.  
        Curious, I asked, “So now what happens?” 
        “I buy you dinner and drinks at the Mountaineer tonight after the show closes.”
        Even though I ought to have reckoned this feller to be some sort of spittin’ snake or worse, he just point-blank felt good to me—then and there, wham, a mountain shaker.  He likely was dangerous. But all I cared about was when it wouldn’t be too soon to say yes.  What did I have to lose?  Either I see what goes with him, or I go back to the apartment.  Slowly, my phony scowl lifted into a feisty smile.
        He shouted, “Yes!  Oh my.  My dream come true. Hey, ha. You, ya!” He yelled it so loud that some in the crowd stopped to gawk at us, and a few carnies leaned out of their tents in the line-up to see what the commotion was all about.
        We sniggered and smiled for a short piece until an awkward hush fell between us for a few dozen heartbeats.  Then we eyed each other up and down for a long look... and saw that we each admired what we were seeing.

                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        A few sideshows down, a neon sign on the awning over the back end of a trailer painted up with dozens of mysterious symbols, stopped me flat.  It read—in yellow tubes of light surrounded by flashing red-and-blue bulbs—INSIDE! THE 3-ARMED MAN! ALIVE!  
        Fixy wrought-iron treads led up to a curtain of colory beads veiling the entry beside the ticket window.  I dug out the half-dollar admission and handed it to a gum-chewing girl in the window.  Pushing the clattery beads aside, I entered a dim hallway for a few steps, and then turned left through another curtain of beads.  Spreading them cautiously, I faced a wall filled with photos, newspaper articles, and posters—all about this so-called three-armed man.  Paying them little heed, reckoning it all to be just more carny ballyhoo, I stepped on through, and turned to see what else was in the room.
        I squeaked when I saw him there, swiveling in a black-leather high-back armchair, like a boss man in his office.  Large colory cards were laid out in front him on a carved crescent-moon-shaped table.  And for a fact the little old feller had three arms!  
        Two normal hands along with a smaller weirder one busied themselves shuffling and flipping onto the table the big cards of a thick deck.  With a black beret, scraggly white hair, a suntanned wrinkly face, and a scruffy goatee, his noggin held a favorance to a moldy acorn.  A lackadaisical look in his droopy eyes browsed over the cards he shuffled and flipped, shuffled and flipped.  The somehow-cute little freak sported a turtleneck sweater onto which was knitted an extra sleeve to fit the extra arm—a smaller arm that sprouted from the armpit of his other, near-normal-size, left arm, which set higher on a humpy shoulder.  His right side appeared almost ordinary, though a mite lopsided.
        He lifted soft brown eyes to me, and offered kindly, “May I read your fortune in the cards?”  His calm metalic voice had a strange echo within it, like a kicked tin can.
        “I... I don’t know,” I stammered.  Then, realizing I was gawking at his third arm, I turned away and fluttered my eyes around the room for something else to land on.  In a nook in a corner stood a small statue with four arms, dancing on one foot and kicking up the other.
        “Don’t be uncomfortable.  You paid to look at me, so look.  I’m quite used to it.”
        I studied his extra arm.  It was for real.  He swept up the cards and shuffled and cut them mickety-tuck, again and again—his third hand not near as limber as the other two, but shuffling cards better than any hand of mine might ever could do.  
        I asked, “What’s the price to read my cards?”
        “It costs your purse three dollars for three cards, and ten for ten.  But what it’ll cost your soul to know what shall be, that’s a whole other deal.”
        “What does your soul spend on knowing what?”
        He didn’t answer—his eyes puzzling at a flipped-up card on the table, which had just popped out of the deck, a miscue from a shuffle.  When he realized I was standing there waiting for an answer to my question, he said, “Pardon me?”—cocking his extra arm and cupping its tiny hand behind a long earlobe.
        “You said that it’ll cost my soul something to know what shall be.  What does a soul spend on knowing that?”
        He set the deck on the table, leaned back into the squeaky leather, and with a sly little smirk he thought on this for a piece, scratching the scruff of his neck with both left hands, murmuring, “Hmm, good question.”   I stood rigid by the table, like a possum in headlights.
        Then he answered matter-of-factly, “Your innocence.  When you gain knowledge, your innocence is spent in the bargain.  Then you must thereafter make your own choices.  Ignorance is bliss.  Blessed be the pure of heart.  And when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the innocence of the Garden of Eden was traded in for our ability to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.”
        Appearing pleased with his answer, he leaned forward, shoveled the deck into his third hand, and shuffling cards in and out of his other two, he asked, “Three cards or ten?”
        “Three,” I breathed.

                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        Before I got thirty steps up the midway, a big gruff rascal, his left eyelid at half-staff over a bulgy eyeball, leaned out to me from the corner of a tent in the line-up, croaking, “Say, Red!  Did you get one of these when you came in?”  
        He held out a card, and waved it at me with come-see gestures.  Behind him on stepped shelves sat some radios and tape players, a small TV, his-and-her watches, and several huge teddy bears.  Two other rascals stood to his right—all three on a platform behind the high counter—a pair of shaggy, yard-high, red-and-white stuffed dogs sat between them upon the counter, dividing it into thirds.
        He reached out as I neared, and handed me the card.  It read, GOOD FOR ONE FREE GAME ~  AT THIS STAND ~ TODAY ONLY.
        “No,” I said, searching his good eye, “I didn’t get one.”
        His hound-dog jowls beardy, he heaved up his swaying bulk and growled toward the far end of the counter, “Hey, Boss.  She didn't get a ducat at the gate.”
        The slick slouching there whined, “Give it to her now.”
        “Okay.  You're the boss.”  He took back the card and handed me a leather cup, rattling under my nose the half-dozen red marbles in it.  “Just spill ‘em out into the box, and we see what you get.  Free game.  No money.”
        I took the cup and dumped the marbles into a wooden tray, about a foot square with short sides and numbered holes in rows on its bottom.  Each marble rolled to rest in a hole.

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        I strolled down the midway to the back end, where on a long narrow stage under a row of canvas banners strung up in front of a large tent a barker held high a blazing torch. Decked-up in a dusty black tuxedo, sparkling with sequins, and hanging loose on his gaunt frame, he yelled out over the heads of the people, a squinty smirk across his raw-boned horse-face, “Seven shows for the price of one!  Sev-en shows for the price of one!”  I sidled over near the belly-high stage, and joining the gaggle of other folks, gawked up at him.
        “Sev-en shows for the price of one,” he chanted again and again while waving the torch, striding back and forth, cock of the walk, with a hint of a limp.  After a few dozen folks had gathered in front of the stage, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen.”—his voice pitched high and urgent, but cracking wearily—“Under the big top behind me,”— he swept the torch backward, casting a dancing light onto the tent’s patchwork of repairs—“you shall see, absolutely alive and in person, you shall witness, agog and in absolute awe, seven of the most extraordinary exhibitions you shall ever come face to face to.  I say, ever!  And every and all, all seven shows, for the price of only one ticket.  All seven shows for just ninety cents.  Just a dime less than a dollar, and you shall witness seven expositions of eclectic eccentricities utterly unseen today in the whole wide world.  Here!  Now!  Not just one.  Not two, or five.  But, seven.  Yes, seven!”
        Like a preacher selling salvation, he hollered, “You shall see swords of cold steel swallowed to the hilt.”  And he waved the leaping torch-light in front of one of the canvas banners, big as bed sheets, hung on ropes and poles behind and above the stage.  Painted in cracked and drinted colors, and drawn like something belonging in a comic book, a bare-chested sheik at a desert oasis plunged a huge sword down his upturned gullet.  
        Next to me in the crowd, a schoolgirl drawled, “Yuh-uck,” and her huddle of girlfriends all giggled.
        He crowed, “You shall behold The Human Pincushion,” striding over to another canvas and waving the torch at it—this one painted even cruder, but in fresher paint, and no doubt by a different artist—of a cockeyed swami in a diaper, sitting cross-legged on a bed of nails, his body run through with dozens of hatpins.
        The schoolgirls twisted their faces and rolled their eyes at each other, and followed the prettiest one away from the stage.
        He swung the torch to a chipped canvas of a curvy lady getting zapped in an electric chair—eyes bugging out of her head—and shouted, “The Battery Woman shall electrify you with her amazing powers.”
        Leaning forward, he swept his hand over the crowd and stabbed the torch toward the colory cartoon of an aired-up feller tied above the tent tops like a blimp.  “Be carried away by The Human Balloon.”
        “And... you shall not believe your eyes when you witness The Human Blockhead.”  On this banner, a goofball with a claw hammer was pounding a spike up his big nose.
        “Yes!  All for the price of one ticket.  Oh, and how can I forget?  In the tent behind me, obesely corpulent with stupendously pendulous blubber, sets Lula, The Fat Lady.  The chuffiest cherub this side of Charleston.” And he waved the torch under a sitting portrait of a long-haired red-head, wider than she was tall.
        “And now....” He held the torch in front of his face, and paused for drama. “I shall give you a taste of what can be experienced inside for only one mere dime less than a dollar.”
        He grabbed an unlit torch from behind The Fire Eater’s banner—center-stage on a newer canvas, by a better painter—of a man blasting dragon fire out of his mouth into the carnival night, and who looked a lot like the feller up on the stage.  He lit this smaller torch from the other, and held it high over his upturned head, the larger torch held an arm’s length away beside him.  Lowering the small torch slowly, till fire nearly kissed his sneering lips, he licked at it like an ice cream cone—the little blue flames dancing on his tongue.  Snapping his mouth shut, snuffing the flames, he then licked the torch again for more fire to eat.
        After a few minutes of this, he raised the torch high, threw his head back, lowered the flame into his wide-open mouth, and closed his lips over it.  Sliding the snuffed torch out, he tilted his head down to the crowd, pursed his lips, and puffed out a smoke ring the size of a wheelbarrow tire.  And then with a flourish he lifted high overhead the torch ablaze in his other hand and blew a mighty breath into it.  A blowtorch blasted from his mouth up into the night, just like the picture on the banner.  The crowd shrunk back from the tongue of fire—some raising their hands to fend off the heat and light, some shrieking, and many breathing, “Ooooh!”
        The Fire Eater bowed, and announced, “Much, much, more inside.  The show begins in a few minutes.  Step right up and get your tickets.  Seven shows for the price of one.  Plenty of room for all inside the big top.  Step right up!”

                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
copyright © 2012 by S.M.Fernand