The Girl Who Would Be King(34)

When I wake, the tinny carnival music is still heavy in my ears. I can’t shake it and, for a moment, worry I’ve trapped myself in some half-dream, half-waking state. After a few long moments however, I realize that the music is real, and that it is, in fact, the music that must have brought on the dream and not the other way around. I pull my duffel bag together and hop off the train car and into a dark, empty field. I turn around, trying to feel where the sound is coming from.

It’s behind me.

I climb up the ladder on the outside of the car and pull myself onto the roof. As I do, I see the bright colored lights of a traveling carnival illuminating the horizon. I smile, excited for the first time in a long while.



People are streaming into the front gates. It looks like admission is free, which is good because I don’t have extra money to spend on carnivals. I don’t know if my sense of what is right would allow me to sneak in, and I suddenly know I have to go in. I jog across the field with my bag slung over my shoulder and wander in casually, mesmerized by the lights, my eyes peeled for anything that looks like a sideshow. I see conjoined twins manning a corn dog/hot dog kiosk and wonder if everyone here will be as interesting as the girls running the food stands. Toward the back of the carnival, on the right, past most of the rides and across from the funhouse, I finally see it: a real live sideshow. I’m honestly shocked that they still exist – it seems like something from olden days, but beautifully painted posters line the walls up to the entrance not unlike the way it looked when I followed my mother in so many years ago. The first poster reads ‘Casanova - The Most Handsome Sword Swallower To Ever Walk The Earth!’ It’s followed by a newer looking poster of ‘Mona & Nona – The Singing Siamese Twins – Joined At The Hip With Perfect Natural Pitch!’ which is weird because the women look nothing like the conjoined twins I saw at the corn dog kiosk. Next to the twins is an ominous poster for ‘The Fabulous Mr. & Mrs. Ink!” and an image of an intertwined couple that appear to be covered entirely in tattoos and nothing else, Next is the ‘The Maddrox Family of Miracle Midgets!’ which is mostly broad smiles plastered on tiny faces, bodies clad in bright spandex. But the poster next to the Maddrox Family stops me in my tracks. A poster for ‘JOAN – THE WORLD’S STRONGEST WOMAN!’ and suddenly I am oblivious to everything else around me. Underneath the bright red text is a fairly realistic rendering of an enormous, beautiful woman with dark hair and long limbs lifting a huge barbell above her head. I take the next few steps toward the poster with my arm outstretched and trace the slightly fading red words with my finger, surprised how important they feel to me.

I’d never thought of this before; that there could be someone else like me out there. That instead of getting lost and becoming someone else I should instead be looking for others like me, to find where I really come from and what I really am. It all seems so clear staring at Joan’s poster. Seeing her looking back at me through the canvas I can’t believe how much I want there to be someone like me; how much I’ve been yearning for it without realizing it. Tears pool up in my eyes at the thought of the loneliness falling off of me in sheets as I confess all my secrets to someone who can understand.

I buy my five-dollar ticket, a painful price for my meager remaining funds, and walk through the doorway. Inside, I hear what must be Mona and Nona’s lovely singing pour from one tent and the ‘oohs and ahhs’ of people watching the Maddrox Family, and a few girls emerging from Mr. and Mrs. Ink’s tent with disgusted looks on their faces. “I can’t believe they are totally naked. So gross!”

But I have my eyes on only one prize so I ignore all of this and push through to Joan’s tent, located at the very end of the sideshow. When I get there, it’s empty, people not having made it to the end yet. I carefully pick out what I deem to be the perfect seat, right in the middle, third row, and wait for the small, tiered benches to fill. Props cover the stage: a huge barbell, a giant tree trunk, a massive boulder, a medicine ball, a partial hull of a rusted car with two front seats still intact, and in the background, a massive scale.

Within ten minutes the tent is filled to capacity and there is a strange buzzing inside me that I’ve never felt before, like a giant butterfly is beating its wings furiously in the cage of my chest – equal parts terror and excitement, nauseous but exhilarated. I’m not sure what’s happening to me, but I’m trying to chalk it up to anticipation, even while my body screams out something different. My vision blurs and the room spins. I clutch at the edge of my wooden seat until my palms bleed as I try to keep myself upright. My heart is hammering and my throat is dry, I’m not sure if I’ll faint or fly. This is the moment.