WITHOUT A NET

HEAT LIGHTNING

(Without a Net)

The Carnival feels odd perched on the edge of this Indiana steel town.  Out of place.  Sure, it has been pitched a trillion times outside dirty-brick mill towns and podunk junctions from Maine to Miami and back again--but today is different. The Carny is edgy.  Maybe because it's so goddamn hot.  Noon air hangs simmering over tent canvas and erector-set rides like an overworked short-order grill.  Even the Tanzanian pygmy over at the freak tent’s turned cranky.

Dusk.  The Giant Wheel lights blink on.  From somewhere a calliope's “Heartaches by the Numbers” sweet-talks randy smoke stacks poking at the tarp of night, while the town floozie hustles farm boys down on River and Main.

After supper, mill folks leave dishes in the sink, turn off radios (or the new bought-on-time TV) and slam out screen doors lured by Calliope’s end- less siren song.  It croons of bright lights, little Lady Luck and big Cupie Dolls; of night air laced with perfumes of Caramel Corn, Chili Dogs, fried onions, dust-trampled straw, and dung--though there’s not an animal in sight except for a couple of strays looking for scraps.

The parking lot’s filling up with folks coming into town from all direct -ions.  Chevy and Ford jalopies rub fenders with big-finned Packards. Paneled station wagons eyeball Willys jeeps and rusting two-tone sedans, while covens of motorcycles plot violence against the natives. A pickup truck swerves in over dead grass, old folks balancing on kitchen chairs in back where kids tussle on metal-ribbed floorboards.

The Midway's gaudy entry arch is the “magic carpet” where a family can climb on board for a quarter per member--“Just one-fourth of a dollah, Folks! Kids Free!”--and fly.  Polish women, families in tow, waddle in on wedgies with anklets, passing under the RUSSELL BROS. SHOWS entrance banner and on to the ticket booths with quarters clutched in damp palms or knotted into hankies.  Then, regrouped, they saunter on down the Midway, fanning themselves with open programs they splurged on for a dime on (because of the handsome trapeze man in tights on the cover). Big hips sway to the lilt of  “The Rock and Roll Waltz” feeling young and frisky again. Sweaty lovers (with a sprinkle of Korean vets on leave) wander in trance-like states, not touching for the first time since spring, until the Cuddle Up ride tumbles them into each other's arms again.  And the Suckers -- always the Suckers!  Rough-    necks sporting “I LIKE IKE” buttons and Ace Hardware caps: sunburned Suckers in Florida, windburned in Texas, and fireburned here in steel  country, all lusting for a sniff of that funky “girlie show” jazz their snowed-in trailer-park prisons kept off-limits all winter.  And nobody would guess that, by closing time, all they'd take home would be empty pockets and sweat-stained Jockey shorts. 

Christ, it's hotter than a little red wagon!

Laird Simpkins closes the flap of the wrestling tent and flips the “NEXT BOUT 8:00 -- 50¢” sign over to read “MATCH IN PROGRESS” as he has done for thirty-five years now--give or take a couple there during the Second War.  He could be a small-town grocer in his straw boater and white shirt (fresh and starched just an hour ago) with sleeves rolled up over pudgy wrists.  One would assume that it’s his girth that caused him to give up on belts and resort to colorful suspenders to hold up baggy seersucker trousers. He puffs and wheezes climbing the steps up to his barker’s stand, which brings on about of dry coughing.  Gaining control, he settles on the stool, at once aware that his “hangover” is more pronounced than the last time he looked. Laird admits he’s gotten fat, but not “serious fat.” Hell, most Americans run to fat like it was something ordained in the Constitution.  Glancing at the passing shadow-splashed crowd, he knows there’s plenty of bouncing beer-bellies and fat rubbing-together thighs out there tonight.  Oh, he will admit that he hasn’t seen his pecker for a decade or more without assist from the mirror on the bathroom door. But he’s no defeatist. He refuses to chuck that gaggle of belts on the hook in the closet whose ends don’t “meet up” anymore. You never know, he rationalizes; he might get sick and stop eating. Then, again, one of his erratic diets might just work. Miracles do happen.