Dwarf, bearded lady, smudge

The kids are screaming.  

Blurring flashes of red and white, spinning heads lolled back, clenched fingers gripping. Their voices get closer, further, then closer again in a dizzying maelstrom. Parents watch indifferently or join the screams.  

I hate working the Waltzer. You can’t help but get dizzy even with Dougie’s tricks, finding a fixed point or whatever. None of it works. Dougie goes out every few minutes and spins the cars a little faster. The kids scream louder. He lunges over the warbling metallic waves, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He told me once he keeps an eye out for the kids getting paler, a faint candy green eking out. Then he goes out and spins them some more. 

I’m stuck in the pay booth, making sure no one comes for the lockbox. If they aren’t scared of Dougie, they sure as hell won’t be scared of me. In the last few years, he went from a scrawny kid to a towering carny adult. Even Dad leaves him alone now, for the most part.  

Dad’s doing his showman bit, coaxing the boyfriends over to win prizes for their girls. The poor bastards always think they’ll hook that damn duck. It’s only ever shrapnel handed over, but the house always wins. Carol’s on the donkeys again. She doesn’t seem to mind too much. She doesn’t have to lie to anyone or make them puke. It’s honest work. Carol loves the donkeys. The only part of the job she gripes about is the kids that want to kick the tired mules into high gear. She doesn’t even mind slopping out the piling dung. All the little round pieces littered with hay. It makes that squelching sound when the shovel goes in, like when Dad serves pasta bake. She used to grab a plastic chair and eat with us. Now she takes her food and eats it in the hay among the creatures. She’s been getting so skinny I’m sure she’s sharing. 

She’ll stink out the trailer again tonight, but it’s better than when we shared with Dougie. We all used to muck in with Dad, then Grandma moved into a fancy vase they call an urn and we got our own trailer. Then Dougie shot up and skulked around until he got his own and started chasing the locals of wherever we landed.  

The ride slows down and the greener kids make a beeline for a patch of grass to hurl. So long as it’s not our property Dougie doesn’t shout about loss of earnings. 

I see Carol’s using one of her myriad excuses to the parents of a fat kid that the beasts of burden can’t hack. “Sorry, we got these cheap because they’re allergic to denim. Why don’t you give the ghost train a go instead?” Carol’s the best for these scenarios, the least blunt of the clan and by far the most sharp. She’s always got her head in a book. She talks about leaving the family trade. She talks about brick and mortar. She says if I’m not as dumb as Dougie when I’m his age I’ll talk about it too.  

If we were the kind of family that went to school, Carol would be ahead of all of us. Even though  Dougie would be gearing up to leave, and she’d be gearing up to start. I think I’ll be smarter than  Dougie though. I won’t smoke for starters. 

One night Dad was asleep and Dougie was drinking with some local boys. They were by one of the rides, the magic carpet. He let me have a puff. I remember how smug he was leaning against the purple metal, the dodgy celebrity mural. He was laughing beneath the wonky Will Smith. I coughed my guts up in front of a circle of hooded elders and ran away to the trailer. I cried and confessed to Carol and she said the right thing just like always.  

Sometimes Dougie lets me join in on the older boy stuff. The night before we leave town, we unhook the air rifles and chase the local boys. Nowadays he spends more time chasing the girls. The first time we couldn’t find him, Dad sent us all looking. Dad and Smudge went into town. The only other adults that work the rides are locals. Dad pays them in two pound coins, and sometimes we skip town before it comes to that. So, me and Carol checked the rides. Being the oldest of the two, I had to check the ghost train. Even though the teenagers come out of it laughing, that night, with the generator powered down and all the goofy Dracula laughs and coffin squeaks switched off, it was hell. I navigated through all the comatose monsters with a dodgy flashlight. I could see my breath, and followed the ghostly blue shapes of it forward.

I had to walk just off the track where the carts lock in, through the scenery. Fake cobwebs clinging,  Day-Glo painted murder scenes, Grandma’s creepy dolls scattered everywhere. The only sound was the muffled hum of the generator cooling down and a vicious wind rocking the flimsy walls. The faint commotion made everything rock, mummies mid lurch threatening to finish the gesture. Hanging plastic bats animated into life. I tried to remember the bats close up and in the light of day, stringing them up with fishing wire. The “Made in China” in messy plastic letters. 

There was a faint wailing sound, deep in the belly of the ride. Deep grunting breaths and that damn wailing. It was like those songs that sent sailors barmy and made them crash their ships, or a murder struggle from one of Dougie’s videos I’m not supposed to know about. 

The wind seemed to grow stronger further inside the dark labyrinth. Bolts rattled in their confines, thin sheets of metal throttled. The clattering of a gathering stampede sounded just around the next corner. Then there, behind an upright coffin in the weak light of my torch, a pale squirming mound of flesh. Animal sounds spewing from behind the black plywood casket. Some hideous abomination, a featureless creature with four legs. I screamed an infantile yawp before the creature took a recognizable shape, and my eyes began to make sense of things.  

“What the bloody hell are you doing, you little pervert?” 

“Dougie?” 

This was last year before I’d smoked a cigarette or swiped a video from Dougie’s other collection I’m not supposed to know about. I know now that Dougie had wooed some local girl and taken her somewhere private, back before he had a whole trailer to himself. All those jokes Carol and me don’t quite get? They were doing that. 

Carol had led Smudge and Dad to the ghost train when she heard me scream. Dougie’s girl gathered her clothes and ran the long way through the ghost train, past all the zombies and chainsaw killers and juicy stuff at the end. When Dad and Smudge found us, they just laughed and led us out. Dougie smacked me over the head before following in a huff.  

———

A different patch now. A different horde of overweight families and bored teenagers, all laughing or complaining or asking for refunds. Dad puts Carol on the Ferris wheel, says she needs to learn the particulars. She’s run out of reading material so she’s going through the engineer’s manuals for the rides. Dad’s on the donkeys tonight. Stodgy, red hands picking the kids up by the armpits and plonking them down. If his technique hasn’t changed, he’ll grip too tight and you’ll feel your body weight crush down into his knuckles and rings. Dougie’s on the dodgems, hopping on the backs of the little cars and terrorizing the placid teenagers with their hands hidden in their sleeves. Smudge is working the ghost train, which is marketing 101. He’s a thousand times scarier than the Dracula mannequin. Paint chipping off its hook nose, fang missing. 

I should probably tell you about Smudge.  

Way back when, when Dad was more like Dougie and Dougie was more like nothing, Grandpa ran the show. Dad says they had monkeys. All huddled up in the lorry, buried in the hay right along with the donkeys. Dad says one was so smart he could ride the donkeys and eat candy floss. And that another was so dumb he tried to climb behind the mules and do what Dougie did to that girl by the coffin. Back then Grandma used to put on a funny hat and make up stories about people’s futures, and they’d pay her for it. 

They also had what Dad calls a freak show. Dad talks a lot about how punters used to be easier to impress and harder to upset. They had a dwarf, they had a bearded lady (which was really Dad’s cousin in a dress), and they had Smudge. 

They all had little boxes they stood on, with signs underneath reading Dwarf, Bearded Lady, Smudge. One look at Smudge and you would know why he qualified. His silhouette made the shape of a rectangle, his small stump of a head peering out from square shoulders. About the width of two men. Strange folds and protrusions jutting from every inch. If a punter ever worked out they’d been duped by uncle Derek in Grandma’s dress, Dad would make up the difference by having Smudge eat glass or hammer a nail into his nose. Dad says Smudge never said much against it, but Smudge never says much about anything.

Due to changing times and dwindling value, the freak show part of the racket ended. Uncle Derek didn’t wear Grandma’s dress anymore, he worked the rides until he got a girl pregnant and moved to Wales. The dwarf lady was left some place as she couldn’t carry much and Smudge stayed with us because he could. 

One time, some bad men came when me and Carol were supposed to be asleep. They came shouting about how Dad hadn’t paid for Dougie’s trailer, or paid enough at least. I could hear Dad talking through the wall, saying he’d give them what he could. Then the sound of the pounds and pennies shaking in the lock box. One said he’d have to do better than that and made the click-clack sound like the good guys in films before they go and kill the bad guys. The next two sounds were Smudge’s trailer door and that sound like when times get tough and we crack open one of the coconuts and share it out. Then there was running and not much else. Then Dad came in and said we were leaving.

———

Who’s that? There, by the coconut shy. They’ve got their hood up, and they’re holding something weighty. They’ve got eyes for Dougie. They haven’t moved for a while now. Haven’t stepped out of the rain to one of the spots by the hot dogs or the duckies. God, they’re walking over now. Should I get Dad? Maybe it’s one of the bad men. Maybe whatever they’ve got in their arm is something bigger to scare Dad. Maybe it’s a bomb. They’re marching now, knocking into teenagers and prams. Dougie hasn’t noticed, he’s sliding around on one of the empties knocking into kids, using the rest of his brain and body to smoke. They’re right there. Adjusting the bomb under the flashing bulbs and sirens.  

They’re walking right into the miniature traffic. They’ve flicked their hood back. They’re a she with pigtails trailing behind. She’s holding the bomb up. I look at Carol and she sees it too. She’s got her arms spread out, and her head on one shoulder like that Jesus on Dad’s necklace. That see what I  put up with? gesture. That what do you want me to do? The girl’s shouting at Dougie but I can’t hear over all the sirens and bells and music. Dougie’s head follows her from the back of the empty. His face is screwed up like he’s shouting back.  

She’s unwrapping the bomb and showing it to Dougie. It’s stretching its little arms out to hug him.  It has curly blonde locks. The dodgems are swerving. A word that sounds like “responsibility” climbs out of the mayhem. Carol’s Ferris wheel queue is dispersing and heading to the row. They’ve got a better view from down here.

Dad shouts something to Smudge, and he barrels toward Dougie and the girl and the baby. Dougie hops off the empty, and she slaps him across the face. The baby’s screaming now and it’s shrill enough to cut through everything else. Everyone’s looking now, air rifles and candy floss and fishing hooks dropped. They’re watching Smudge shove the cars out of the way like King Kong.  They’re watching Dougie and the girl jab each other with pointed fingers and using words they shouldn’t. They’re watching Smudge grab the girl’s head in one giant palm and push her in a way that her body and pigtails have to catch up. They’re watching a dodgem interrupt her trajectory and send her and the crying baby flying before they’re separated midair. They both lie facedown on the cold copper floor as miniature rush hour traffic darts between them.

The crowd covers every inch of the scene. All I can see is the top of Smudge’s misshapen head and the rods from the cars moving in every direction. I see Carol abandon her post and I run over too. They’re all shouting now. It’s all shouting and bells and sirens and overlapping oldies from all the rides. The kind of sound soup that makes you dizzy. Then a grinding sound. Mechanism meets flesh. Like a melon in a blender. The shouting turns to gasps. One of the rods stops and rattles violently in place. The punters rush in and converge at one point. Smudge’s head sinks into the crowd, arms flying up like they’re tearing chunks out of him. Dougie slips out with a split lip. Carol’s crying. Dad’s nowhere to be found.

———

It’s been a week and I can’t sleep. We skipped town early that night. We packed down in a hurry and left the dodgems and Smudge behind. Dad thinks me and Carol are asleep, but we can hear him.  He’s shouting at Dougie. He’s yelling “mouth to feed.” He’s yelling “reputation.” He’s shouting about three damn kids and not a pot to piss in and where the hell is his bloody wrench? I listen until  Carol’s crying sends me to sleep. 

I wake up to sounds that make me wonder if ghosts can haunt mobile homes. Wind whistles through the holes dotted around the trailer. Chains rattle somewhere close. I wonder if Grandma’s lurking somewhere by the chemical toilet, behind the curtain. Maybe she’s come back to tell me and Carol stories about our future. Maybe they’re nice. 

I’m keeping my eyes closed tight just in case. Maybe those people got to Smudge so bad he’s dead and standing there, silent like always and watching us sleep. Folding his neck down so his head doesn’t scrape the roof. I’m sure I can feel his dull eyes burrow into my neck. I try to wake Carol up so we can talk until the haunting is gone. I look over to her bed and she’s not there. I’m sinking into the bed. She did it. She’s gone. Like uncle Derek, she’s got herself a home and a job and a kid and a life. She’s laughing by a fireplace, surrounded by books. I bet she’s got a dog too. She asked for a dog every birthday and Christmas until she learned to stop. Until they were days like any other, and the family doesn’t stop needing money just because. I bet she’s sitting there with a puppy on her lap right now, laughing at me. Laughing at me in this trailer with sheets that don’t get cleaned, shivering in the cold with Smudge or Grandma waiting there behind the curtain. 

———

I can’t do this without her. Dad and Dougie staying up late and smoking and yelling, and me here in the trailer on my own like this. I know this will be my fault. I bet Carol’s howling. I worry until my thoughts stop making sense and I drift. 

The going’s good here. No one knows what went on in the last town apart from us. A local’s filling in for Smudge. They’re joking with the punters and smiling. They don’t know there’s no breaks or that they won’t get paid. I’m on the candy floss stand. Dad’s working the magic carpet and Dougie’s on the ghost train. Carol’s made up, she’s back on the donkeys. I’d never been so pleased to see anyone. Lying there snoring, dribbling on her pillow. Engineer manuals piled up next to her bed, black oil all over the pages, staining her fingers.

This morning I’d woken up, sun backlighting my eyelids. Waking up to nothing but red. That point of first stirring when you can’t remember the dream or your life and find a lost comfort in belonging to neither. Then I remembered Carol in her nice big house and felt the hole in my stomach and the incoming storm that would be my day. That would be all the days. Then I heard her snoring and felt like I’d heard an angel singing.  

Carol’s spoiling the donkeys rotten. Dad’ll have to do a carrot run tomorrow, and he’s watching from his spot like bad weather. Dougie’s lowering safety bars and counting out change even colder 

than usual. The last few days it’s been like there’s an itch he can’t scratch and everything he says is short. He doesn’t want to unhook the air rifles or throw rocks anymore. I only hear him talk when it’s late and him and Dad are clinking bottles.  

Dad’s got quite a queue for the magic carpet. The punters are being thrown into the air in large circular swings, throwing their arms at the peak and screaming. Dad’s taking the kind of money that folds as he lines up the next batch. It’s funny, what ride gets the most attention in what town.  

I swear the generators are humming louder than usual. They’re resting just under the usual wails of everything else. Dad’s unloading the batch and showing the new punters to their seats. His pockets are bulging with notes, and he looks cheery for the first time since Smudge got swallowed by all those hands. The hydraulic safety bars are going down, and they’re all smiling at each other in suspense. The magic carpet slowly starts its circular motion just as I’m making a new stick for a  punter with a giggling little boy. His jacket’s so big on him he’s the shape of a stick man even when he puts his arms down.  

I stir the stick in a circle and turn the pink ghost into food. The motor’s giving me more grief than usual. More forceful, more frantic. The kid’s looking at me as baffled as every kid that age looks at everything. The stick’s rattling against the rotor. It’s like I’m a rookie. It’s like I haven’t been doing this since forever. Making little cups of it for Carol when she was still waddling and drooling like  Smudge used to. The mother’s looking at me concerned. The rotor’s getting faster and the stick rattles violently against the metal rim. 

The generator’s getting louder. It’s rising from a hum to a growl. I smell fire. The rotor spins until it gets loose and turns the circle into a spasming oval. The heating filament is turning the pink sugary mist into a black bubbling mass. The ghost becomes burning flesh and grips the gurning rotor.  Sound booms from every direction. The other generators are heating up too.

The mother’s looking at me horrified. She’s grabbing the kid fiercely by the wrist and marching him off. His cries are smothered by the growling generators, kicking off a daunting heat right along with the candy floss machine. The screams from the magic carpet sound more real than usual. Through the smoking bog of the sugary burn victim, I see it’s swinging more wildly. Dad’s head is tilted up and he’s watching. He never watches.  

The hydraulics fail and the safety bars bolt up. They’re all screaming and gripping on to the metal pipes above their heads. Another crowd is forming now. Everyone screams on their behalf. I try to catch Carol’s eye. She’s getting all the kids off the donkeys in a hurry and waving her arms at the parents. A few rag doll shapes are flung into the air and crash into various attractions or scraps of grass. One woman sinks through the tarp roof of the duckies and splashes among them, hooks and all. The crowd disperses into small herds rushing back and forth between the flailing bodies flung in every direction. 

A loud screeching bite cuts through the sound of the screams and the generators. One of the arms of the magic carpet gives out, and one maniacal arm swings the remaining punters around like a clacker. It hammers the seats down into the metal floor and swings out again. Now the bystanders are getting flung too. The platform’s digging into the ground. 

Dougie looks at me with the same face as the cartoon ghosts behind him.  He’s about to run over to Dad when a clatter and shriek comes from inside the ghost train. The side with the picture of the giant werewolf vomits out a series of mangled cars and limbs. They spill out on the ground and vague human shapes try to crawl out from their seats. 

Dougie stands over the writhing pile. He looks like he’s trying to work out which hand to grab and who it might even belong to. The generators amp up again, and I’m glad I’m on candy floss duty.  Carol’s rounding up the donkeys and unlocking the gate. The generator by the Ferris wheel lets out a  painful gargle before it bursts into flames. The motor shows some mercy and slows down. Then one of the gondolas screeches before hurtling to the ground. It’s part buried. Like a bomb in a garden. It’s all screams and chaos and blurs now. The Waltzer’s flinging kids and parents, the metallic floor spinning into a silver fog. The locals at its center can’t do anything but scream along. I can’t see Dad or Dougie now. It’s all a mist of bobbing heads tearing themselves to shreds.  

Carol’s got all the donkeys lined up now. She mounts the youngest and calls back to the others. She’s kicking her heels in and yelling. They’re bursting through the gate and parting the sea of angry faces. She cuts a thick line through them and bolts. She’s waving as she passes. She’s making her way to the main road. Her head bobs among the shrinking row of tails and hooves. And then she’s nothing at all.  

I bet she’s howling.