Within thirty seconds of seeing the freak, I'd stumbled back out into the midway and gasped for breath to fill my burning lungs with something other than utter fear. I'd never considered myself one for swayed emotions. It's a live or let live world - does it matter in truth if, for a split second, I could look into the eyes of another and know who they are?
Hovering above the canvas tents and rusted frames of carnival rides, a weak smoke in a stagnant layer. Glowing slightly through, a slow candle burn of a sun, flickering & dying in the west. Rolling in the easy breath of passing feet and frantic kicks, a mixture of cigarette embers and sucker sticks and cellophane wrappers, crackling. And among the swirling toxic fumes of humanity, a crowd of faces pulsating in and out of consciousness, mirrored reflections of the hive mind.
I couldn't understand it, further reinforcing the horrible clash with reality I'd had back inside, back between the fat man in the trucker hat swilling Milwaukee and the wrinkled black lady screaming quietly, "oh law' mama...come to mama" and then behind me the short little miserable man in the tucked collared shirt, uncomfortably peering into the freak's eyes, reflecting like a soul mirror.
Did we love the freak because we knew we were better?
And standing in that midway, like a shellshocked scarecrow in the way of everyone, a sudden clarity came to me. Everything slowed down a little bit and I felt a little bit better.
If we're all like this, I thought, then maybe it evens out in the end.
Maybe, I thought, it wasn't all that bad.
Maybe, I thought, it was merely an illusion.
But then even as I paused and wondered about the reality of pain, the truth which had been lurking in the back of my mind came to the front. And I knew that the truth wasn't something to reject merely because it suffocated.
Back there in the tent the freak had screamed at all of us.
The neon pulses of the clockwork ship, pendulating back and forth with the screams of ignorant children, drew my attention and I looked up into the dimming sky. There was a child at the very end, and with every pulse back and forth he would catch the high, and his stomach would drop out and you could see the wretched emptiness in his body every time it hit, even from far below in the dust of the midway.
Someone holding a hot dog in each hand ran into me, and relish smeared down my sleeve, and the person looked at me with a disgusted impudence and ran off into the swarm.
Screams came from behind me, and I saw the black lady stumble out of the tent with a face as white as mine. We locked fearful eyes and read the horror in each other's and she said something about mercy and heaven and the Lord, and I said something about damnation and hell and the Devil.
The trucker with the can of Milwaukee came out next with a red face and a string of curses underneath his breath, and he caught up his belt underneath his bulging paunch and tried to look as if he was okay, but his insecurities shown through like they were burning coals inside his gut. And after the trucker the little miserable man came out, eyes rolling in his head and his tongue visible between his stumpy little teeth. And then the rest of them came as a horde, the used car salesmen and the drug dealers and the gas station clerks and the prostitutes and the waitresses and all of us were wondering if what we had seen was real.
We knew it was, and the Belt had lied to us all.
Inside there still remained a few of the upright, the ones with the morality to stomach the sight of the freak and not become reminded of their own being.
I walked over to the opening of the tent, pushing through scum like me to get there, and I stood at the door and looked in and saw the one or two dozen who stood, transfixed at the sight of the freak, listening to the freak scream, and I slowly began to doubt that they saw the same thing I saw.
The grandmothers, and the deacons, and the men with keyrings to Chryslers, and the teachers, standing like alabaster statues in the righteous limelight of the freak, like perfect receptors of truth. Standing like those who have entered into the sacrosanct and been found clean in the eyes of heaven.
The freak stood on the stage, lights piercing down upon him and illuminating his holiness, and he stood and held a leather book up into the stratosphere of the tent and screamed down righteousness into the upturned faces.
And those outside looked back in, sick, and the ghastly truth is that we loved the freak, because we knew we were better.
Hovering above the canvas tents and rusted frames of carnival rides, a weak smoke in a stagnant layer. Glowing slightly through, a slow candle burn of a sun, flickering & dying in the west. Rolling in the easy breath of passing feet and frantic kicks, a mixture of cigarette embers and sucker sticks and cellophane wrappers, crackling. And among the swirling toxic fumes of humanity, a crowd of faces pulsating in and out of consciousness, mirrored reflections of the hive mind.
I couldn't understand it, further reinforcing the horrible clash with reality I'd had back inside, back between the fat man in the trucker hat swilling Milwaukee and the wrinkled black lady screaming quietly, "oh law' mama...come to mama" and then behind me the short little miserable man in the tucked collared shirt, uncomfortably peering into the freak's eyes, reflecting like a soul mirror.
Did we love the freak because we knew we were better?
And standing in that midway, like a shellshocked scarecrow in the way of everyone, a sudden clarity came to me. Everything slowed down a little bit and I felt a little bit better.
If we're all like this, I thought, then maybe it evens out in the end.
Maybe, I thought, it wasn't all that bad.
Maybe, I thought, it was merely an illusion.
But then even as I paused and wondered about the reality of pain, the truth which had been lurking in the back of my mind came to the front. And I knew that the truth wasn't something to reject merely because it suffocated.
Back there in the tent the freak had screamed at all of us.
The neon pulses of the clockwork ship, pendulating back and forth with the screams of ignorant children, drew my attention and I looked up into the dimming sky. There was a child at the very end, and with every pulse back and forth he would catch the high, and his stomach would drop out and you could see the wretched emptiness in his body every time it hit, even from far below in the dust of the midway.
Someone holding a hot dog in each hand ran into me, and relish smeared down my sleeve, and the person looked at me with a disgusted impudence and ran off into the swarm.
Screams came from behind me, and I saw the black lady stumble out of the tent with a face as white as mine. We locked fearful eyes and read the horror in each other's and she said something about mercy and heaven and the Lord, and I said something about damnation and hell and the Devil.
The trucker with the can of Milwaukee came out next with a red face and a string of curses underneath his breath, and he caught up his belt underneath his bulging paunch and tried to look as if he was okay, but his insecurities shown through like they were burning coals inside his gut. And after the trucker the little miserable man came out, eyes rolling in his head and his tongue visible between his stumpy little teeth. And then the rest of them came as a horde, the used car salesmen and the drug dealers and the gas station clerks and the prostitutes and the waitresses and all of us were wondering if what we had seen was real.
We knew it was, and the Belt had lied to us all.
Inside there still remained a few of the upright, the ones with the morality to stomach the sight of the freak and not become reminded of their own being.
I walked over to the opening of the tent, pushing through scum like me to get there, and I stood at the door and looked in and saw the one or two dozen who stood, transfixed at the sight of the freak, listening to the freak scream, and I slowly began to doubt that they saw the same thing I saw.
The grandmothers, and the deacons, and the men with keyrings to Chryslers, and the teachers, standing like alabaster statues in the righteous limelight of the freak, like perfect receptors of truth. Standing like those who have entered into the sacrosanct and been found clean in the eyes of heaven.
The freak stood on the stage, lights piercing down upon him and illuminating his holiness, and he stood and held a leather book up into the stratosphere of the tent and screamed down righteousness into the upturned faces.
And those outside looked back in, sick, and the ghastly truth is that we loved the freak, because we knew we were better.
