Carnival Tales

By: Brian Holliday
(© 2009 by the author)
Editor: Rockhunter

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Part 3
Fish Story
 

I love to fish, always have. Most any kind of eating fish is good, but catfish are just about my favorite. I’d caught a mess of them that morning, got the cornmeal out, and fried them up for breakfast.

I’m not the type of man who enjoys fishing for what some call sport. I never could understand what fun there is in standing next to one of those big ocean sailfish while somebody snaps a Kodak picture to help you can remember what a big man you were that day and then having the useless thing stuffed to hang on your wall. To my way of thinking, if you can’t eat ‘em, why catch ‘em?

Anyway, I fried up those catfish, real nice and crisp on the outside, the way Lucas likes them, and while they were frying I put the biscuits in the Dutch oven and cut open a couple of grapefruit. Grape-fruit, they call ‘em, when they’re as big as your two fists. Imagine. Grapefruit was one of the things I really liked about being in Florida.

Lucas came out of our trailer, stretching up for the sky like he did every morning, and I had to stop what I was doing just to look at him. Then he came on over, looked around to make sure no one was watching, and gave me a kiss, right on the mouth. I smiled up from where I was squatting next to the fire, thinking it would be worth burning those catfish just to take him back to our bed. The only thing stopping me was knowing he’d never agree to it. Once the sun came up, Lucas was up and dressed and out facing the world.

The work ethic had gotten the worst hold on Lucas of any man I ever did see. Even though we only had shows on the weekends while we were down here for the winter, he was always thinking about something, always on the lookout for new acts to add some extra pizzazz to “Caldwell’s Wonders.”

That’s the name of the carnival he owns and I work for. I think it kind of makes Lucas uncomfortable that I work for him, now that we’re together and all, but it doesn’t bother me a bit. The way I figure it, work has nothing to do with our private lives. Still, he’s started telling me that I should take more of an interest in the carnival’s money situation, how much comes in and goes out and such, but that kind of stuff has always been his business and he’s good at it, so why should I butt in? But I listen and try to understand what he’s driving at, because it seems to make him kind of mad when I don’t. Maybe some day I’ll learn everything he wants me to know, or maybe he’ll realize that I’m a lot better at fishing than bookkeeping and let it go at that.

So I fed Lucas his breakfast - he liked those grapefruits a lot too - and we talked about the new act he’d just signed a few days ago, a couple of ladies, sisters, who had some nice dapple gray ponies which would do just about anything you’d want a horse to do. I had to admit, they made a swell showing, leading the way into the main tent in the parade, those ponies prancing with their necks all curved and those two ladies, Alice and Esther Stevens were their names, standing up on their backs and making no more fuss about it than if the ponies were keeping perfectly still.

Alice and Esther were awfully nice people, too – not uppity around those who didn’t have any particular talent, men and women like me. They always talked nice to all the roustabouts, and that would have made me like them even if they hadn’t been so pretty.

Now, don’t think that just because I favor men over women in certain situations where some folks say you shouldn’t, that I can’t see what’s right before my eyes when it’s a pretty woman. These two were as alike as if they were twins, both blonde headed and blue eyed with hour-glass figures that looked good in the skimpy costumes that the carnival customers came to see. Lucas said they’d make the carnival a lot of money and I figured he was right about that.

Well, it was a Friday, and that’s when we start the weekend shows which, like I said, are the only ones we have down here in the winter. First there’s a parade through town, with the clowns and jugglers and those two pretty ponies pulling the calliope wagon and Alice throwing out blown-up rubber balloons, some with free passes inside, while Esther plays songs, or maybe it’s the other way around.

While they do that, the rest of the performers get their acts ready and folks like me feed all the animals and make sure everything is set up just right. One of the best things about working for a carnival is getting to see everything, as much as you want, and never having to buy a ticket. I liked to stand way in the back of the big tent and watch all the goings on. When Lucas got up on stage to do his magic act, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He looked so fine in that top hat and frock coat with his black hair all pomaded and shining. You could see that the ladies liked him just as much as I did, almost, and he charmed all of the folks with his tricks. I always wanted him to pull a quarter out of my ear one time, but he never would do it.

When the big show was over, folks drifted out to see the other things we had to offer. One of the most popular stands was a shooting gallery, three shots for a nickel. I tried that one out from time to time but, no matter how well you aimed, those pop guns didn’t track worth squat. It was no wonder that Bert made such a fine living, hardly ever having to turn over one of his big kewpie dolls because someone made a bull’s-eye. All else I had to do for the rest of the evening was to be around in case there was some kind of problem I could fix. I’ve always been pretty good with machinery and animals too, so there’s not much around the workings of a carnival that I can’t get going again if need be.

My favorite place to loaf is next to the special attractions tent. That’s what Lucas named it. He doesn’t like it when people call his friends in there ‘freaks’. Our friend Joe, who’s billed as the ‘Alligator Man’ because his skin is kind of rough and scaly, says he doesn’t mind what the marks call him as long as they lay down money to see him. Joe says that standing around in that tent is the easiest way to make a living that he knows of. You might think from that that Joe’s a lazy man, until you see him working as hard as anybody to keep things set up and running around here. Joe’s modest that way.

Joe is an awful nice guy, never mind how he looks, and he has a nice wife and family too. Mavis, his wife, will sew a button on for me any time I ask. She’s a good cook and she taught me to cook some better than I could before. But those sweet kids of theirs are the thing.

Way back when I was just a youngster, I thought I’d grow up and marry a girl and have a family, just like my papa and the other men I knew. When I found out that wasn’t going to happen I didn’t feel too bad about it. Especially now that I had Lucas in my life, I figured I was as lucky as any man could ask to be. But one thing I envied Joe for was his children. He had two of them already, a little boy of about eight years old, and a little girl of five or six, and Mavis was showing signs that there might be another member of the family along in a month or two. I liked little Amos enough to take him fishing with me, and little Emma had just about adopted Lucas, like he was her uncle, maybe. She hung around him as often as her mama would let her, and she even put up with me being around too.

Emma wasn’t much for fishing, but she rared up and took notice when she saw my old hunting rifle. It was one I’d had for years, but I’d kept it oiled and nice and mostly used it for target practice now. There wasn’t much hunting around the cities where we went with the carnival, like there had been where I grew up. My rifle was too heavy for Emma, but Joe said that I could teach her to shoot with an old .22 he had, so she and I would spend some time plunking away at a painted target set up against a bale of straw, well away from the horses and those ugly, temperamental camels.

I always told Joe just how lucky he was to have a family like that. Children were the only thing Lucas and I could never have.

Tonight there was a better than ordinary crowd at the special attractions tent. I was standing around, just chewing on a piece of straw, when I first saw him, a bearded old man in a shabby captain’s hat and navy blue wool coat. He was talking up a storm at anyone who’d listen.

“Humph. Those things in that tent ain’t nothing compared to the wonders I’ve seen,” he said. It sounded like he might have had something to drink that was a tad stronger than sarsaparilla, but I thought that maybe I’d best step over and listen too, just in case. A feller could always learn something.

“Seen some interesting things, have you, old timer?” I asked him. He fixed me with a bright blue gaze that, in spite of his age, was sharp as a tack.

“Damn right, young fellow. I’ve seen things fit to make you weep for joy, and terrors enough to curl your hair. The paltry things in that tent aren’t a patch on a one of them.” He bent and spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground at his feet.

“I’d be interested in hearing about some of those things, sir,” I said.

He looked up at me, squinting one eye against the lights. “I can do better than that, young fellow. I can show you something marvelous that you’ve never in your life seen. It’s not a day’s ride from where we stand.”

I’d heard many a similar boast. Most were only fancies, but some were real and some of those had become a part of our show, one such being the two headed calf that was presently eating a whole lot of hay in the special attractions tent. It didn’t do to ignore such claims entirely.

“Well, sir, what sort of wonder might I expect to see if I were to come with you?”

He looked at me for a minute, perhaps trying to figure if I was serious or making fun, then came to a decision. He nodded his head and beckoned me forward until he was close enough to put his lips to my ear. “A mermaid, young fellow, a gen-u-wine mermaid.”

Now, I’d heard tell of such things before. Lucas had read to me from a book called the “Odyssey” or some such about a feller who ran afoul of some women called sirens who just about ruined him along with his boat and crew. ‘Course, I knew that story was from a long time ago and maybe not exactly true, but one other thing I knew was that a lady who was half woman and half fish would make a dandy addition to our show. I couldn’t figure what one of them mermaids might be doing down in Florida, but it was still something to think about. I introduced myself to Captain Rawlings and took him on back to meet Lucas.

Lucas was glad to see the Captain, once I explained, and we both wanted to hear more of what he had to say about the mermaid. The Captain didn’t fail us.

“Yes indeed,” he went on, and Lucas hung on every word. “I can take you to see this glorious sight. She swims not a day’s ride from here.” The captain puffed out his chest and grabbed hold of his lapels with both hands, looking right proud of himself.

Lucas looked at me and I looked back and I thought I knew what he might be thinking. If the mermaid was real, then we’d have something no other carnival had and, if she wasn’t, then all we’d have lost were a couple of days to sightseeing. I nodded and Lucas told Captain Rawlings that we’d meet him at the lodging house in town first thing Monday morning. That and a half dollar coin for the captain’s time and a promise of more later on convinced him that we were serious and the bargain was sealed.

In bed that night Lucas and I got to talking. “Wouldn’t that just be something, to have the only real live mermaid in captivity?” He snuggled up into my shoulder.

I’d been thinking about it too, and some practical matters. “How would you keep such a thing? Would she have to be in water all the time? That would need a mighty big tank. And what would a mermaid eat?”

He responded, “Well, in Hans Christian Anderson’s story, the mermaid could stay out of the water for quite a while, sitting on rocks and such.” He looked up at me, smiling. “A mermaid would eat fish, and you could take care of that. We’d build her a tank for swimming in during the show, and she could travel in a bathtub.”

I nodded. Lucas could figure the answer to anything with the help of somebody he’d read about. “And we’d have the one and only mermaid around,” I stated proudly, forgetting the most important rule of fishing, the one about not counting on fish for supper before it’s hooked and landed at your feet.

“Well,” he said. “There are some other so-called mermaids to be found.”

“There are?” I was taken aback.

“Yes, I’ve seen women dressed up with oilcloth fins and such in other carnivals and shows, but also some dead things in glass jars that were called mermaids. When you got close they looked to be only some sorry joining of a human sort of upper half and a big fish’s tail. Most of the glass jars were full of a murky liquid. It was hard to see more than a shadow, really.”

I blew out my breath, gathering Lucas closer. “Well, nothing you could be sure of then, nothing alive and swimming.”

“No,” he allowed, smiling a little and turning his face up to mine. “But ours will be different.”

That was all we said that night that was any of your business.

The rest of the weekend shows were busy and I was ready for a little trip come Monday morning. Captain Rawlings had measured our traveling time on horseback, so we figured we could cut it down considerable if we rode in an automobile.

A carnival is kind of like a big family and, before long, word of our little expedition had gotten to about everyone. That was alright. We carnies might gossip among ourselves, but no stranger could drag a single secret out of any of us. Alice and Esther had a fine big 1921 Lafayette touring car. It could carry five people in comfort, which was good because the girls’ price for lending it to us was to let them come along. I couldn’t understand why those sisters would want to take their almost-new car on a drive into who-knows-where, but I’d figured out from conversations with them that their family had a bit of money, so maybe to them it was just a lark. Joe’s kids, Amos and Emma, begged to go too, but their mama forbid any such thing, handily keeping Lucas from having to be the naysayer.

So, the four of us pulled up in front of the Captain’s lodging house early that morning to find the Captain out front and waiting with his sea bag beside him. We’d thought it might turn out to be an overnight trip, so we’d packed the trunk of the Lafayette with everything we’d need – blankets, food, drinking water, tent, and a big net to use to entangle the mermaid. I’d even thrown in my old rifle, just in case. Where we were going sounded pretty far from any kind of human habitation and it always paid to be prepared. There might be a mermaid out there somewhere, but for sure there were alligators. I’d yet to see one of them, but had heard they weren’t real friendly.

Alice had showed me the little lady’s pistol she kept in her bag for protection. When I asked her if she knew how to shoot it, she gave me a look, whipped it out and kicked up a rock I pointed out that was more than 20 feet away - which was good shooting for that little sawed-off gun.

Esther was driving, so the Captain sat up front to point the way. Alice bundled herself into the back seat with Lucas and me and we started out. The Captain took quite a shine to pretty blonde Esther in her blouse and slacks and kept up a stream of amusing conversation while we drove. He spoke to enlighten us on a number of subjects concerning almost anything you could imagine, from the eating habits of the fruit fly to why the world was round. I suppose it helped pass the time, though I would have liked to have heard something from someone else, once in a while.

The roads the Captain sent us down were wide and flat for a while but, as we went on, they got a little narrower and a little bumpier until by noontime there was nothing but two muddy ruts between a lot of tree stumps. I’d been born and raised on a farm, so the droopy, close-in trees with a lot of ragged grayish stuff hanging down from them were strange to me and downright spooky in places. I’d heard tell that certain poisonous snakes liked to dwell in those mossy branches and could maybe drop down onto the unwary. We’d all put on wide brimmed hats, except for Captain Rawlings who kept to his cap. As we traveled, it occurred to me to question why a man of the sea might have been prowling round in these swamps to see his mermaid, but about then we topped a little rise and took in a view of a nice little cove with a flat-bottomed boat floating in it.

“I first saw her from my ship on the ocean, my friends,” he said. “But she fled before me and I jumped into a rowboat and followed her into this very cove. Here was where she turned and began to sing and, had I not been a bit hard of hearing, I doubt not that she would have lured me to my doom. As it was, I became afraid, rowed hard back out to sea and felt that I had barely escaped with my life.”

I looked around, wary of what sort of doom a mermaid might lure a man to in these swamps. We hadn’t yet seen an alligator, but there could be one of them floating close by looking like nothing more than a dead log. I knew there were any number of poisonous snakes too, and other creepy-crawlies.

The Captain shook his gray head as we climbed from the car. “Years later, I found my courage and came back in hopes of seeing her again. I purchased this little skiff and searched for days and weeks on end, sometimes catching a glimpse of her from afar, sometimes hearing a snatch of her song carried on the wind. I should have gone with her that first day. Why should one feel fear in the face of such beauty? And her singing… oh, her singing!”

We’d given some thought to the mermaid’s habit of singing to take control of a man’s mind. In the story, Ulysses had stopped his men’s ears with wax and then roped himself to the mast of his ship just be able to listen. I didn’t think that a mermaid’s song would probably bother men like me and Lucas, or have any effect on women at all, but we’d brought along some beeswax and I had every intention of filling my ears with it, just in case. Lucas agreed with that wisdom and I went to get the wax out of the trunk where I’d stowed it but, when I opened the little rear compartment, out popped young Emma, as big as you please.

“What the hell?!” swore Lucas, which he only did when sorely pressed. Emma proudly told us how she’d tucked herself away in the trunk space under a blanket so we wouldn’t leave her behind. After a loud sentence or two, Lucas saw the futility of chastising Emma for something that couldn’t be helped now. It was too far to take her back and not safe to leave her behind at the car and we knew she’d have to go with us in search of the mermaid.

Alice and Esther tried half-hearted to take charge of Emma, but she clung to Lucas and that was that. What with all the excitement, we only ate a bit of lunch and then bundled ourselves and our gear into the flat bottomed boat and the beeswax was forgotten.

The idea seemed to be that we’d pole around near land for a while, looking for any signs of mermaid, whatever they might be and, if we saw her, we’d try to cast our net over her. It was beginning to sound more and more like a fool’s errand to me, but the Captain was in his element now, and Lucas and the girls seemed to be having a high time as well. Little Emma was just glad to be off with us on an adventure, so I thought I’d relax and see what would unfold.

“Captain,” I asked while I stood and poled the little boat through the shallow water. “What’s this mermaid look like anyway?” I thought it might be good to know what we were looking for, not that there was likely to be more than one mermaid around to find.

“Oh, my soul,” he soliloquized from his seat in the bow. “She was as beautiful as the dawn. She had long blonde hair - the most beautiful of colors, I think.” He glanced over at blonde Esther, who obliged him with a smile, “and limbs and bosom of creamy white. A young man’s dream and an old man’s salvation. I’d give my life to see her again.” He subsided as Esther patted him kindly on the arm.

All this poetic talk made me kind of uneasy. I was thinking we were out to tame a wild animal, but the Captain made her sound like some sort of long-ago goddess. Maybe our plans to capture such a thing were wrong. How would we keep and control such a creature, and what might she think about traveling with a carnival? I caught Lucas’ eye, but he seemed to be focused on the water ahead and only smiled before he turned away.

The sun was getting kind of low and my shoulders had started to ache from the work of poling, even though Lucas and the girls had all taken their turns. A mist was rising from the water and I was glad to hear Alice suggest finding a place to camp for the night. Little Emma, who had been the best little girl you could ask for, was nodding in the rear of the boat, head pillowed on the canvas tarp that covered our gear.

About that time I heard something, something strange, something more than the endless whine of mosquitoes, something different than the shrill call of the long legged white birds hunting fish in the shallow water. It sounded almost like… singing.

Now, Lucas would sing to me from time to time. He had a nice voice and sometimes I’d sing along with him in harmony, but this was nothing like that. The sound of this song caressed my ears like a lover would, flowing right inside my head and touching me where I lived. The singer was singing just to me, the song telling me I was it’s heart’s desire, that all it wanted in life was to take me and show me its love and care till the end of time. My heart rose up in my chest and I looked, eyes bright, for the first sight of my new love. Ahead, the mists parted, and I saw a shape rise up from the water.

I’d let go the pole by then and when Alice stood up next to me I almost lost my balance. She was saying something in a loud and angry voice, but I couldn’t understand what it was. She brought up her pistol and fired three times before her hands opened and the gun splashed into the water. Then she started to cry and wail, “No, you’re not real, you’re not my Georgie, stop it! Stop it!”

Her words, though I heard them, made no sense, because the figure I could see clearly now was very real, and so beautiful. Not a mermaid, but a merman – his hair seaweed green on his broad white shoulders, his eyes the color of the ocean in a storm and his strong hands reaching out to me as his curved lips parted and he sang my name. The scales on his long tail were shiny green and gold. There was other noise around me, men’s voices and women’s but I didn’t mind them. I made to step up on the side of the little boat, ready to jump in the water and swim to my beloved.

The shot that rang out was louder than the end of the world.

I blinked, and saw so many things at once – Alice in a faint on the bottom of the boat, Esther with her hands pressed against her mouth, Lucas standing hip deep in brown water in front of the boat, clutching the Captain in his arms and sobbing hard, as though his heart had broken. But mostly, I saw something slide under the dark water maybe ten yards ahead of where we drifted. I heard a noise behind me and looked around to find little Emma, my old 30.06 still pressed to her shoulder, where she’d fallen backwards on the tarp. I took the rifle from her hands and pulled her up. She looked at me, eyes big and serious. “Karl,” she asked, “is it dead?”

It took us a long time to find our way back to where we’d left the car. The sun would be down in an hour or so, but none of us wanted to stay out there for one minute more. Alice and Esther comforted each other in the back seat and Lucas seemed shaken to his core, just holding Emma close on his lap. So it was left to me to drive us home, though my mind was also far from easy.

The headlights of the Lafayette cut us a way through the fog and back towards town, the Captain’s body wrapped carefully in a blanket in the trunk and another, canvas wrapped bundle, roped across the hood.

Heart failure was the town doctor’s verdict about the Captain’s death. We didn’t bother asking the doctor about anything else, just left the captain’s remains there to be buried. Likely, jumping in to swim was just too much for the poor old fellow. I only hoped he’d died happy, with a vision of his love before him.

We’d all seen something different. That was certain when the four of us finally sat down to talk, a day or two later, with a jar of homemade liquor to fill our cups and try to warm up our insides. Alice had seen her dead fiancé, George, Esther only a handsome and irresistible stranger. Lucas had seen his first love, Thomas, and I shared my own vision. Of us all, it seemed that only Emma had seen the thing for what it was. She’d shown no surprise when we gingerly unwrapped it.

So we have our mermaid, even though it’s not exactly the same as we’d planned. Lucas ordered a special big jar, and a quantity of a liquid called formaldehyde, from the apothecary in town. In the meantime, we kept the body of the thing packed in ice, as much as we could. Ice is awfully expensive in Florida, even in the winter.

Lucas and I stood, him holding little Emma’s hand, in the tent in front of our newest exhibit. A couple of weeks had passed and it seemed that things were almost back to normal. Alice and Esther had gone home for a little rest, but they assured us they’d be back in time to move on with the carnival, in the spring.

I didn’t enjoy the special attractions tent like I had before. Looking at what floated in that foul-smelling liquid made me doubt myself too much and so, mostly, I stayed away. But tomorrow the public would see it for the first time, and it seemed fitting that those of us who’d been there have a look at it together.

Yes, like many another show, we have a mermaid. You can see it pretty clear through the curved glass walls of the jar, the gray-green scales beginning to flake away from its tail in patches, the body, arms, and sharp clawed hands purplish-black. A fin runs down its back and the rounded head has no nose, just a pair of flat fish eyes and a lipless, sucking mouth filled with a lot of sharp little teeth. I wonder if ours is the only one with a bullet hole, right in the center of its forehead.

Emma still has a nightmare, now and then. She says she wakes up scared she’ll still  see Lucas swimming toward the mermaid. That idea scares me, too.

So tonight, when we go to bed, I’ll hold him extra tight, and maybe we’ll both be able to sleep right through ‘til morning.

And when I wake, I’ll go out and catch us a mess of catfish for breakfast. I still like fishing but, from now on, I’ll remember to only fish for what I can stomach.

End Part 3

Posted: 12/11/09