As he puts it, “[Iraqis] are used to blood and war.”

In 1971, Saddam, who then headed Iraq’s network of secret police, imprisoned Ahmed’s mother and grandfather in Abu Ghraib prison on suspicion they were working with the Iranian and Israeli governments, because of their religious beliefs. When Saddam rose to power in 1979, Amhed’s uncle was among the thousands of dissidents who disappeared in the political purges that followed.

After America overthrew Saddam’s government in 2003, the kidnappings began. First, Ahmed’s 16-year-old cousin was kidnapped, but released after a ransom was paid. But as jihadis from neighboring countries poured in through Iraq’s open borders, religious strife between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims pushed the country to the brink of civil war. In 2006, his father, a university professor, was among the first wave of intellectuals kidnapped and presumably murdered.

Fearing for their safety, Ahmed and his family fled Baghdad to Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in the northeastern part of the country. In July 2008, Ahmed struck up an Internet correspondence with Madison resident, Kate Vestlie, whom he’d been introduced to by a cousin. Months later, Kate flew to Iraq to meet Ahmed in person. Not long after, they were engaged and then married. In February, Ahmed’s visa was approved and he moved to Madison, just in time for the birth of his son, Samir.

Ahmed is currently taking classes to improve his English and to supplement the civil engineering degree he earned in Baghdad. The Feral Scribe met up with Ahmed recently to hear about his harrowing journey from one of the planet’s most dangerous cities to one of its safest.

What was life like under Saddam?
I was born in 1983 and there was war between Iraq and Iran. All my life I’ve been from war to war. It’s hard to live because there’s no simple condition to live, no freedom for people who have thoughts. They put my mother in jail for seven years – she was 21 – because she was Bahá’í.

When Saddam came to power, he destroyed all the parties around him. He just wanted his party. He destroyed too many people without any reason. Too many people wanted freedom, so they try to leave Iraq, but he made hard conditions to leave, so they have to stay and follow his rules even more. But we did have a safe life, to be on the safe side, to be close to his party. Anyone against him, they would disappear. Like my uncle; he was against him and we don’t have any information since 1979.

Was the line you didn’t want to cross very clear?
We call it, ‘red line.’ We don’t be close to this line or we get into trouble. He took my mom for seven years because she’s a Bahá’í. After she was out, she couldn’t say she was Bahá’í. Her ID said she was Muslim. She couldn’t ask for her right. We thought the war would solve all of these problems, but what happened is much worse compared to the past. In the past we could live on the safe side. But now, there is no government control on the situation. There is no Iraq power to destroy the terrorists. There is no law.

So under Saddam, as long as you followed certain rules, you were pretty safe?
Before, he was focusing on specific groups against his party. There were politicians against his government. He’s not religious. He doesn’t care what religious do as long as you’re not against his party.

Were the Bahá’ís against his party?
He thought this religion came from Iran. We have a shrine in Haifa, in Israel and he thought we had relationship with Israel and Iran, but we don’t have relationship with them, just relationship with people, not government. But he thought we did so put Bahá’ís in jail in 1971 to 1978… He let them out when he came to power [in 1979].

Obviously things changed when the Americans came. What was that like in 2003 when the occupation began?
We learned from the other wars to prepare for war before it’s coming. We prepare as a family, to be in one place so if we die, we die together. We get food for a long time, water for a long time. In war, there is no television, no water, no electricity. We lived in a dark place for 20 days, in one room and protect each other from the bombs – about 30 of us. It’s so hard. After 20 days we went outside.

Iraqis, we are closed and don’t know the outside and don’t know the American thoughts. We thought the war would solve problems and get us the freedom. We were optimistic about the situation. Like in 1997, they hit special places. In 1991, they hit special places, Saddam’s places and they didn’t hurt Iraqis. We thought they would come and hit Saddam’s places. But they came and opened the borders and broke the Iraqi Army and, before that, Saddam had let out all the people from the prisons. So the borders are open and there is no army. We could see in the street people killing the weak people, stealing, the officers stealing from the banks.

How long after the invasion did you realize things weren’t going as you had hoped?
Iraqis, they think everyday that things are going to get better because the American’s came. They think that American’s came from far away to help Iraqis, but they saw that there was no help for the Iraqis. We see now it’s only politics. Politicians came for a specific purpose, because they don’t try to fix the problem. And the Iraqi politicians think about themselves. Each government thinks about itself. We know now why they came. If we don’t have oil, nobody will come to us. All the problems, all of the wars, because of the oil. Like Jordan, there is no oil, there is no problems.

In 2006, when the insurgency really took root, what was day-to-day life like for you in Baghdad?
I’d go back to the history of Islam, because the problem came from the history. The history began 1,400 years ago, the problem between the two big parts of Islam, Sunni and Shi’a. All countries, they have this problem. Even during Saddam’s time we have this problem, but the government controlled it. Each government in the Arab country control it. After the war, the Shi’a wanted to have their right, because 30 years ago they lost their right, so they started to practice their right and because there is no government, no law and the border is open… there is people in neighborhood countries who think about their politicians and they come from [various] groups. We have Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Afghanistan. So the Shi’a from Iran came to Iraq and tried to make this country Shi’a. They came from Syria and they fight with each other inside the country. They trained Iraqis in Syria how to cut heads, how to kidnap people, how to make fake checkpoints… so all the fighting came from outside the country to Baghdad, inside the streets.

Why was your father kidnapped?
In 2005, the first kidnapping in my family was my cousin. He was 16. The people who kidnapped him… it wasn’t between Sunni and Shi’a. Those people didn’t come until 2006. From 2003 to 2006, it was stealing and kidnapping for money. One day they kidnapped my cousin. When he was done with his school they stop him at a fake checkpoint. They kidnap him for 13 days. His father gave him the money and they let him go.

Did they pick him at random?
They study the situation, the family, if they have money and can pay for him. In 2006, when the government became weak, and the terrorists from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Afghanistan, you could see so easily the terrorists kidnapping people. So we decided right away to leave Baghdad, but I wanted to finish my degree at the college.

So you’re going to school during all of this?
Yes. All the people hope for a better situation. There’s nothing to do but practice your life. We get in troubles with the government if we don’t do our lives. We have to practice our life or the terrorists will get more power. It was my last year. We decided to leave as a family. Everyday we see these terrorists kill people. We decided to leave in September when I finished exams. My father was a professor at the college. The terrorists who came wanted to make life like Islam time, 1,400 years ago.

So they get rid of the intellectuals and thinkers first?
Exactly. They kill all the technology, the doctors and teachers and the histories. They don’t want car or gun; they want sword and horse. So they started to kidnap the people who have knowledge. So we decided to leave after I finished exams, but they kidnap my dad before that, on the 23rd of August, in 2006.

Did you ever hear from his kidnappers?
We heard from a group. After they kidnap him, me and my uncles, we went to the hospitals and the morgues and search for him. It’s hard to recognize, because all of the bodies are in bad shape. So we look on the street. The terrorists put the bodies in the garbage, but they put bombs on the bodies so when the Americans come to take them. We didn’t want to go to the police, because we know when the police get information… but we gave them a phone number and the information. After that, a group called us and said, ‘Your father is with us; we need money.’

We had a little bit of hope, but asked to hear his voice or any proof he’s with you guys and they said he’s fine and that they’d let us hear his voice, but to prepare yourself for the money. They wanted $100,000. We made it to $10,000 and we agreed to meet some place to get him. They ask for only my mother to go there and we asked to hear his voice or call from his cell phone. But they didn’t so we think it’s the police. They used to do this, because they have the information. We told them we can’t pay unless we have the proof. So they told us, ‘Give us the money or we kidnap your mother.’ We decided to leave the same night.

Then, some time later, your cousin wants to introduce you to this American girl, but the Americans have done so much damage to your country.
We know the people are different from their government. We cannot judge the people. There are big differences between East and West, but we share the same religion, Bahá’í. We started on Facebook, then Skype, and we became serious. But it was very hard to get out of Iraq so she came to visit with my sister. We get to know each other. In two months, we were engaged and her family came, then her brother came and we were married in Kurdistan. Then I waited several months to get my visa.

I had to go back to Baghdad for my papers, but there are too many bombs in Baghdad. They had blown up the building, so my papers weren’t there. It was the last stage. I was going to get my papers, but two days before they blew up the building. I didn’t expect that. I went there and saw people dead. They were still pulling bodies. The police ask me what I am doing here. I said, ‘I’m looking for my papers.’ The police say, ‘We don’t care about your papers.’

What’s it like to see that, the bombings and bodies and bloodletting?
I have a video, about two minutes after the bomb, taken by my friend. Two car bombs destroyed the building by my apartment in central Baghdad. All the windows in my apartment were broken. We used to hear bombs, but this time we saw the affects. We saw hands and heads, arms, legs and tissue. The building is so big that they didn’t go in to help the people. They heard them crying, but they were afraid to go inside. And this is still happening. We hope it gets better. We go from war to war.

What are your hopes these days? Five years from now, do you think it’ll be better?
There have been improvements, maybe a little bit. But the people, they’re used to blood and war. We need a new generation to live without war, to live without blood. We believe now that the war was negative. Nothing about it is positive. We need big energy from God. He is the only one who can help this society. There are too many wars around the world. We thought the war would bring freedom, but the terrorists came and now the Iraqis live with terrorists. I have faith, but my emotions are broken, my heart is broken to see the Iraqis dying everyday… but I cannot do anything. It will take a long time to control the situation.

Click here to see exclusive, unreleased footage of the immediate aftermath of the double car bombing of Iraq’s Justice Ministry building on Oct. 24, 2009. The video was shot by Ahmed’s friend, who, like him, lived across the street from the government complex. Ahmed was en route to Baghdad to finalize his visa application when the bombing occurred. However, the papers he needed, proof that he had no criminal history, were destroyed in the blast, delaying his reunion with his wife in America. He arrived in Madison last February.

Bangor, WI, wasn’t only the last spot I worked before jumping off the carnival, it also has the distinction of being one of the creepiest cities I’ve ever visited. Technically, it’s a village, with an alleged 1,400 residents, all of whom seem never to leave their homes. Day and night its streets were virtually unpeopled. There was no bustle. No commotion. No cacophony of sound suggesting the presence of sentient beings. Its three-block business district lay largely vacant, with the exception of an antique shop, four taverns and a bowling alley. On occasion you’d spy a pedestrian. One lady I passed asked, “Are you finding everything you need in Bangor?” This was a silly question, being that there was nothing in Bangor to find. The grocery store, gas station, library and laundry were conveniently clustered along a bike path. Everyday, Bangor seemed to bake lifelessly in the sun.

Adding to this sense of desolation was the fact that we had been reduced to a skeleton crew. Tim and Danielle were gone, having returned to Milwaukee that Monday. The verbal war Claire and Harley had waged all summer saw its final battle with Harley’s epic meltdown. He packed up his clothes and left, as did Claire the following day, taking Peaches with her. Scott spent a few nights with friends in La Crosse. Taylor had taken the week off and by the time festivities began on Friday, Hotwheels was back home, having been asked to pack his things a day earlier. The week previous we lost Flo and Tim 8.1. And, it being my last week, my fellow carnies were beginning to say their good-byes, post scripting them with encouragements to stay.

The park that housed our camp was incongruent with the rest of the village, with a pulse of its own and a rude aesthetic. Flanked by a skeet shooting range and freight rail line, the noise was constant. When the trains rumbled passed the bunk houses in the early a.m. hours, I could hear Black Nate next door cursing the noise. One afternoon popped with five hours of non-stop shotgun fire. As if this weren’t enough, the siren in the village wailed at regular intervals. What for, we never learned.

Bookending the park were two memorials. One, along the road, honored every Bangor resident who had served in a military. To the left of this was an Army helicopter and tank, protectors of an empty park. At the other end was a monument memorializing John Lennon’s peace advocacy. A steel piano painted white and a placard with the word ‘Imagine’ on it, the memorial also paid homage to Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder for their racial harmony-inspired single, Ebony and Ivory. Being a huge John Lennon fan, Mark wanted his picture taken while standing next to it. Because he’s never used a computer, I told him I’d print the picture for him and send it via snail mail, a term he was unfamiliar with.

Being that it was my last week, I began sorting the things I’d bring home with me and those I’d leave behind. Normally, carnies don’t give three week notices. Either they ride out the season, quit or are fired. The latter two events offer little time for sorting. Upon quitting or being fired, the carnies leave behind a considerable amount of wares that are then vied for by those who remain. When Jeremy quit in Spooner, Tim 8.1 seized on his fridge, which he shared with his bunkmate, Flo. After 8.1’s departure and Flo’s firing, I moved into the bunk and thus inherited the fridge. By then, Jeremy was back and it was rumored 8.1 was also returning, which meant he’d be bunking with me and re-claiming ownership of the fridge. But Jeremy wanted his fridge back, so I agreed to return it before I left, which presented 8.1 with the problem of how to keep his beer cold. Changes in chain-of-ownership can become complicated.

Tim 8.1’s property problems were complicated further by the fact that I had attempted to toss most of his things in the garbage. The new help hired in Spooner was sent packing with Flo when he, too, failed to wake for work call. There was a ton of stuff left in their bunk when I moved in later that day. Assuming Corina had packed up 8.1’s things, I thought everything left behind had been Flo’s or New Help’s. I threw away several pairs of shorts, which Hawaii then claimed. Hotwheels took the shiny new pair of shoes and other items. I left outside an entire suitcase full of clothes that got rained on that night. The next morning, Craig collected what remained for safekeeping until his former cellmate returned. I felt terrible. When 8.1 went to visit his probation officer, he didn’t anticipate the agent prohibiting his return. (The same thing happened 10 years earlier to Carl, who ignored the edict. When his agent caught up with him several months later, she sent him to jail for six months.)

For whatever reason, neither Corina nor Craig had bothered to remove 8.1’s things from the bunk. What bothered him most was that his new shoes were gone, taken by Hotwheels. He also took 8.1’s sandals, which he broke. Before Hotwheels left, I retrieved the microwave I’d let him use after moving in with Black Nate, who already had one. He’d plastered it with bumper stickers. Josh, who was arrested in Monona and is serving roughly 50 days in jail, had given me the microwave. I left the microwave for 8.1 with the caveat that it be returned to Josh when he rejoins the show in Middleton. Corina’s been storing the rest of his stuff.

Everyone had been with the show for some time, so they didn’t have much use for the provisions I had to offer. I gave Black Nate the propane grill my ex-girlfriend’s grandfather had given me. Everything else – skeeter dope, hot plate, poncho, duct tape, bleach wipes, my blanket and pillow, among other things – went to Sarah, who, like me, hadn’t arrived with much. And with her acceptance of the coffee maker, she promised to take my place as the carnie barista. One of the guys even told her she needed to wake at 6:30 a.m., as I did, so that the coffee was ready by the time Corina began rapping on doors at 7.

Because Spooner’s Jack Savage Pine Days ended on a Saturday, we, for the only time this season, arrived in a new spot on Sunday, which left us with three days off, our first since July Fourth weekend. The week was brutally hot, with heat advisories during the day, followed by severe storms at night. The mosquitoes were relentless at all hours of the day. Within days we’d gone through several cans of OFF!, so humid it was that you sweated it off before it could do its work. With no possible escape from the heat or mosquitoes, there was nothing to do but suffer.

On Monday, a couple of kids called the police on Carl, who was, according to the kids, riding his bicycle drunk. The next day, the Bangor police chief visited during set-up to tell the bosses of the call. Then, on Thursday, there was some commotion in one of the park shelters. Inside was a Bangor police officer. Paramedics arrived soon thereafter. Jeremy, who’d just walked passed the shelter, approached us and said, “I think that kid in there is dead. He’s just laying there, not moving.”

I, too, thought this was the case. The paramedics, moving with no sense of urgency whatsoever, lackadaisically lowered the stretcher from the rear of the ambulance, then lumbered up to the shelter. Soon, the kid was sitting up, but needed serious assistance getting onto the stretcher. Jimmy learned later that the kid had drank too much vodka and passed out. His two buddies, who’d also been drinking, were let go without being ticketed.

A few very young local boys, sitting at a table in the park, got a kick out of calling the girls MILFs.

We built it and they didn’t come.

It had been many, many years since there’d been a carnival midway at the Bangor Fundaze festival, organized by the Bangor Lions. Space, which was especially limited, was enough for just eight rides, one game, a lemonade and cotton candy stand. My Fun Slide didn’t make the cut, so I worked the Merry-Go-Round. Redneck Scott was down that Liz decided to set up the Fun House rather than his G-Force. All week we razzed him about it. Black Nate’s Go Gator also was left behind. He worked Hotwheels’ ride, an inflatable Tigger small kids bounce around in.

The softball games in an adjacent field had a better turnout each day, as did Sunday’s classic car show and parade. Many shows this summer were a bust. Rosholt. Wales. Beaver Dam. Darlington. Black River Falls. Spooner. Bangor. Up against the excessive heats and torrential rains, not to mention the battered economies of these small towns, turn out was down to worrisome levels. But of them all, Bangor was the worst. On Friday, I had about 10 riders before it rained. Things picked up a little bit on Saturday during wristbands, but many families it seemed bought just enough tickets for their kids to go on two or three rides. Sarah said many paid for the games in nickels and dimes. All weekend, the midway was just as desolate as Bangor itself.

By Sunday when Ann shut down the ticket booth and we were told to get our teardowns on, it was clear that Bangor came at a substantial loss for the company. You could see the unhappiness on Corina’s face. The highlight of the weekend came early on during teardown. Black Nate, Craig and I were trying to roll a trailer hitch along soggy ground when all of sudden in the distance we heard the loud and familiar, “Yeeeeeeeeeee dawgy!”

Tim 8.1 was back.

Though his agent didn’t want him traveling with the carnival, child support was threatening to incarcerate him for non-payment. Caught between a rock and a hard place, 8.1, figuring he one way or another would soon be re-jailed, tossed caution to the wind and re-joined the show. Always a joker, he told me we were going to arm wrestle for the bottom bunk. The next night, after arriving in Holmen, he funded a sort of going away party for me, giving Black Nate his food-stamp card to go buy brats and Italian sausages we then grilled and devoured.

I’ve never been a big believer in good-byes. Or maybe it’s that I’m not good at them. On Tuesday morning, as everyone was preparing for work call, I sat in my chair outside my bunk sipping coffee and waiting to collect my money from Ann. Some of it she wanted to pay me in Middleton, where I had been asked to work. But with the article coming out I knew that I would not be welcome back. This indeed turned out to be the case.

It’s hard disappointing people you’ve become fond of, whose work you admire and who in countless ways you find so fascinating. I never imagined when I began that it would end this way. Though I’d begun writing generally about the show here at The Feral Scribe, it was only after Ann’s encouragement that I write about my experiences that I began writing more intimately. Only after being told by Liz and Alison they thought their show would make a good basis for reality television did I pitch a story to Isthmus. Once things were set in motion, there was no looking back.

As my fellow carnies headed off to location, there were hugs and handshakes and promises to stay in touch. As I waited for my ride, I packed my things and cleaned up the bunk for Tim 8.1, sweeping the floor and washing everything with bleach wipes. To my surprise, I didn’t feel all that wistful. Though I’d come to like the work and had grown very fond of my co-workers, who I considered friends, I could feel the pull of real life beckoning. The night before, Tim 8.1 asked me, “So what is your life like?” Later, Sarah told me she thought my life seemed “magical.” Others believed that I’m “a famous writer,” and was encouraged to “make [them] famous.”

Truth is, my life is rather everyday and ordinary. In fact, I’d go so far to say that if roles were reversed, and they were writing about me, my life would make some pretty boring copy. No one bought this, which is fine by me. Like carnivals, I can appreciate the seductive power of illusions. I don’t have the power to make anyone famous, but I suspect this week, when Wenzel Amazements rolls into Middleton, they’ll all get a little taste of celebrity. Reaction to the article has been overwhelmingly positive. The article was a nod to their hard work, shattering assumptions people have of carnivals, their owners and the help. Everyone who’s talked to me about the piece has said they may attend Good Neighbor Fest just to meet those I’ve written about, especially Corina.

That is the ultimate flattery for both me and them.

I see it. Everyone else sees it.

I hope in time that the Wenzels do too.

Who’d have thunk that I’d love being a carnie?

Life is a carnival, indeed.

A terrible thing happened in Spooner: the boss ladies didn’t like the article I wrote for Isthmus. Except for Liz, who never made her opinion known. Personally, I don’t think she gives a shit either way. Like Harley, she’s a straight shooter. Tells it like she sees it. No kid gloves. Crass and to the point. Conversely, the others are more sensitive, their nerves more easily unsettled.

To say they didn’t like the article woefully understates their outright rejection of it.

I was at McDonald’s when Ann called that Saturday morning, all but demanding I hightail to Corina’s trailer. When I arrived back at camp moments later, Black Nate, echoing several others I passed along the way, said, “Man, everyone’s been looking for you this morning.” So I knocked on Corina’s door. “Morning, Nathan,” she said, letting me in. “I can’t say that I like your article that much.”

Of course, she had only just begun reading it before I arrived. Ann, however, said she’d been up all night fretting over it. “I thought you were going to write a nice article about us.”

“It is nice,” I said, truly surprised by how they hated it so.

Corina began reading aloud my lead and set-up. “I really don’t like this.”

“Why is all that foul language in there?” asked Ann, clearly pissed. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t like reading smut.”

“That’s how people here talk,” I argued. “The article is about what it’s like working for a carnival. That’s what it’s like working for a carnival.”

“Why isn’t there anything about what a great job Alison does with Kiddie Land?”

“I think the article is very flattering,” I said. “It’s about family and the challenges of running a carnival.”

Alison, I told her, would never commit to an interview.

Alison in particular didn’t like a line about how she’ll swear and holler all day long. She left halfway through the meeting, but the next day, as we were tearing down the Balloons, she caught herself more than a few times on the cusp of swearing and hollering. Even Harley, just hours away from his complete meltdown in Bangor, showed an unusual softness when speaking to his daughters, though I’m unsure if he read the article, though I suspect he did. Each time I saw him following the meeting, which he wasn’t present at, he’d just kind of stare at me, curiously, as though stunned I could actually write a decent story. As Tim 8.1 likes to say, “[I'm] all educated and shit.”

Also at the meeting was Kathy, a friend of the boss ladies, who volleyed the deepest condescension. “I don’t know how much you pay attention to what’s going on in “the real world,” but General McChrystal, who was doing a good job in Afghanistan, lost his job because of what a journalist wrote.”

“Yeah, the Rolling Stone piece. He should’ve known better than to say what he did to a reporter,” I said. Though her analogy was crap, I understood her point, with which I disagreed, wholeheartedly. Ann accused me of preying on weaker people, of basically exploiting the carnies and Harley. Assuming I’d gotten certain information from the carnies, they claimed some events recounted in the story never happened, when, in fact, the info had come from other family members. It went on as such until I asked if we were just going to keep belaboring the same points.

“Well, there’s a lot of rambling in there,” Ann said, pointing to the computer screen.

A week later, they gave me a hard copy drenched in yellow highlighter.

They wanted the story gutted.

I still haven’t told them that, aside from their clarifications and corrections, the substance of the story must remain intact. It’s a good story. I’d argue they’ll even benefit from it. Like my editor wrote when I told him of their unhappiness, “It’s a wonderful piece. You’d think they’d recognize that. Yes, Harley does come off as coarse but he’s such a vivid character, as are all the others. And yes, they do seem like great people, especially Corina, so I don’t know what anyone is unhappy about. I would love to meet everyone you write about; how many stories achieve that?”

I haven’t written much about Hale, a 40-something Black River Falls native who’s worked for the show for several years, but not because he’s uninteresting. Quite the contrary. He’s highly entertaining, but in an unflattering way. He’s a chronic prevaricator, is extremely temperamental and is prone to childish fits of pouting when he thinks people are picking on him, which they usually are. I should note that Hale is incredibly generous and spares us from certain tasks he takes upon himself, although these moves are more in a bid for authority than any genuine pursuit of helpfulness.

He’s always making people aware of what he controls. For example, when Sarah moved into the new bunkhouse, Hale was right there to inform that the breakers for the air conditioning are in his room. A night later, when she asked on a sweltering night why the air conditioner was off, Hale curtly replied, “Because it needs a rest.”

It hadn’t been on all day.

The carnies call him “Mr. Uhm,” because his pronouns and articles are often supplanted with a deep, gutteral and prolonged “uhm.” Tony says he once counted 31 “uhms” in a few short sentences. This exchange you’ll hear quite a bit, “Can you get the uhmmmm… the uhmmmmm?”

“I don’t know what “uhm” is, Jim.”

He also grossly exaggerates the quantity of Mountain Dew he drinks. In Waunakee, he came up to me outside the balloon game just before Corina fired up the generator. “Uhm, you know those two six-packs of Mountain Dew I got this morning?”

“No, Jim, I don’t.”

“Well, uhm, I got two six-packs, 16-ounce bottles, of, uhm, Mountain Dew from the, uhm, Piggly Wiggly at 6 a.m. this, uhm, morning. I drank’em all.”

Yesterday, he told Sam he drank 864 ounces of Dew the day previous. A simple conversion showed this was equal to 72 twelve-ounce cans, of which there was no evidence of in the trash cans. (Hale says his record is 125 Dews in one sitting.) When confronted with the unlikelihood of this, he got defensive. His numbers shifted. His story fell apart. He became angry. Some carnies vowed to never quit until finding the truth. Then Mark asked the most probing question of all: Why do we even care?

Hale also has an endless supply of aunts and brothers, a few of whom, every summer, die. This year, when told Hale’s aunt committed suicide, Corina replied, “Do you know how many aunt’s he’s had who’ve died?” Apparently, he’s had a brother die just about every summer, too. In Waukesha, he waved at someone he said was his brother, but who never stopped to say hi. By my count, he has three kids, but we know only one is for surely real.

In Black River Falls, he told us he was going to Minneapolis with his niece. The next day, he brings a very large, lumbering girl back to his bunk. When asked if it was his niece, he told us it was none of our business. When the Black River Falls police arrested him at his ride, Hale told us they had to put five pair of cuffs on him, “Just to be safe.” In Monona, he’d tell us that he worked a second job after everyone went to bed. What this job was, again, was none of our business.

I imagine it’s guys like Hale that McCartney had in mind when he wrote Eleanor Rigby.

I’ve always tried being polite to Hale, but he makes it difficult. Last week, because his ride wasn’t being set up, I was stuck working with him on the Merry-Go-Round. He wanted me to feed the canopy up to Mark a certain way. When Mark and I told him a way that is far easier, he threw a temper tantrum and, in angry fits, began fastening the canopy’s clips.

He was on the truck, I was middle man on the platform and Mark was up top, waiting to raise the colorful canvas. Being on the truck, Hale is supposed to let the middle man know when he’s spinning the ride so they can duck under the passing steel sweeps, with their blunt edges and steel protrusions. Go figure that, in our showing him an easier way, Hale gets all pouty and doesn’t tell me he’s spinning the ride. In fact, he spins it faster than necessary and I only narrowly avoid being struck by the sweep coming straight at my face. “Let me know before you spin the ride, you motherfucker,” I screamed at him.

“Uhm, I’ve been putting together this ride a lot longer than you have,” he yelled back.

I was hoping he’d storm off to go pout, but when he didn’t, I did. I hopped off the trailer and watched him clip and roll the canopy by himself. I guess we showed each other.

One thing I enjoy most about my company here are the slices of life the carnies have brought with them, the unspoken things that reveal a little something about who they are. Mark, who runs the Monkey Mayhem ride, loves monkeys. In his presidential suite, he has inflatable monkeys, wind-up monkeys, monkey posters and t-shirts. I showed him an article published in 1966 where John Lennon told a reporter the only possession he liked was his gorilla suit. Monkeys aside, Mark’s most prized possession is the gold-colored marijuana leaf belt buckle he purchased in the early 1970s, which is covered by his work shirt when he’s running the Monkeys.

Redneck Scott, whose belt buckle is “Bubba” written over the stars and bars, once showed me cell phone pictures of the fish he’s caught, but released. He has a fishing pole that he sometimes keeps at his ride. If we’re near water, he’ll cast a few during his breaks. But mixed in the series was a picture of a dog. “Is that yours?” I asked, surprised.

“Yup, even us country boys like our pitbulls.”

Then there’s Jimmy, a quiet little guy from Milwaukee, unassuming and shy. You’ll find him drinking beer outside his bunk listening to club mixes and, after tossing back a few, will bust out some moves. In Black River Falls, he danced with some locals a 70s boogie I can’t recall the name of. Whenever the dance tracks come over the Rock-O-Plane speakers, you’ll find Jimmy getting down atop the Hurricane.

Jeremy has a remarkable invention for rigging his bunk for optimum space and comfort. He’s an obsessive cleaner, his bunk being the sparkliest of them all. Carl keeps a book of old photos from carnival seasons past. Hawaii loves sleeping. As such, you’ll often catch him snoozing in his long lawn chair. After arriving in Bangor, he simply laid his pillow beneath a tree and napped until the bunks were ready for setting up.

On his breaks, Tony often jets over to the Fun Slide for a quick ride. He also likes cutting the sleeves off his t-shirts and looks forward to the weekly Wal-Mart runs so he can weigh himself. He’s lost 35 pounds since May.

Like Tony, Tim 8.1 wears t-shirts with the sleeves cut off, but he accessorizes with various colored bandanas. He has a tiny red backpack he takes with him to the store to hold his four-packs of cheap beer.

Black Nate is the resident chef. Pulled pork, braized chicken legs, stewed potatoes, steaks, brats, you name it, Black Nate is cooking it up. The eats are best around the first of the month when the state deposits money on everyone’s food stamp cards.

Sam has decorated her bunk in all pink and listens obsessively to Eminem’s Recovery album. Sarah likes putting flowers in empty wine bottles and scouring the night sky for constellations. Hale constantly putters around with his multiple cell phones and headsets, most of which don’t work. Did I mention he also likes Mountain Dew? A lot?

Flo had his Bible. Brian had his Wii. Carny Scott had a guitar. Claire had the big umbrella she sat under, rolling cigarettes she then sold on the cheap. Peaches had her wonderfully goofy sunglasses, a sketchbook and markers. Andy, the Scotsman, had his tea kettle. Josh had his skateboard. Shawn had a picture of his wife.

And me? I have my laptop and camera and books. I’m also the coffee guy. Each morning I hear, “Hey, White Nate, you got any coffee left?”

One by one they stop by.

Redneck Scott. Jeremy. Craig. Black Nate. Sarah.

Cups in hand. Sleep in their eyes.

Then we stand around, sipping Joe, and rehashing the dramas and comedies of the night before.

Time with the carnival doesn’t pass like time in regular life, but more like it does in rehab or other institutional settings. Everything is accelerated, the good times, the dramas, the chill moments and other shenanigans. Missing an hour can feel like missing an entire day. A simple walk to the store can be fraught with possibility. In the course of 24 hours you can fall in love and have your heartbroken. Alliances, friendships, romances are ever-shifting as time itself ebbs and flows to an irregular rhythm. Though our days are governed by a routine – packing up the bunks on Mondays, set-up on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Thursday trips to the laundry mat and Wal-Mart, Friday, Saturday and Sunday running the rides, then tearing down Sunday night – it’s being in constant proximity to the same people, living, working, hanging together, everyday that gives these relationships an immediate and intense intimacy.

This also is owed in part to the fact that this carnival has bunkhouses, private living quarters for its crew. Most carnivals, from those I’ve spoken with who’ve worked for other shows, aren’t as generous. Jimmy, who’s worked for a few other shows, says that Carnies typically sleep in generator trailers, stock and ride trucks, in the semi cabs or under the trucks. There is no space for belongings, no walls for privacy, no bathrooms for showering. On this show, there’s plenty of room for the amenities we’re accustomed to, like microwaves, electricity and refrigerators. They even have little closets in which to hang our clothes. But one thing all shows have in common is the impossibility of hiding one’s dirty laundry and the consequent gossip.

Here, the rumors grow from whispers that just might contain a whiff of truth, but most times do not. It’s amazing how so much can happen and yet be missed or distorted among 15 to 20 people. Yesterday, for example, I learned that I’m on the list of possible daddies of the baby Sam might or might not be having. Whether Sam is or isn’t pregnant is open to speculation, but whether she’s carrying my progeny is silly since we don’t know each other in that way and never will. But people talk and rumors, like tumors, grow, sometimes with grave malignancy. Add to this the profound drunkenness that fuels the petty jealousies among the haters, the misconstruction of ordinary behaviors and the hazy memories of what was and wasn’t said, and the time becomes as fragmented as broken glass. No matter hard you try putting back together the pieces, you can never fully shake the sense of being tarnished.

On Monday, Harley lost it. Literally, lost it.

We arrived in Bangor, near LaCrosse, where the girls met with festival committee and the Bangor mayor. It’s a new location for the show. Before anything, we needed to set up the bunkhouses, which required the drivers to back them up over a small, but very steep hill. Complicating things further is the ground here, which, being near a river, is very soft. Harley, who is neither listened to by his daughters or wife, saw an easier, probably more practical way to get the bunks on location. But did anyone listen? Nope.

And this pissed Harley off. Royally. He began screaming at Ann and then Liz screamed at him. “Don’t talk to her like that!”

His face red with rage, he circled the bunks, calling his wife a cunt and a twit. He threatend to choke Alison. Then Claire had to insert herself in the mess. Claire and Harley argue constantly. And just when you think it’s impossible for his rage to climb any higher his head basically exploded. He hurled every invective his heated brain could spit. All of this in front of the mayor. Even long after the girls returned to Spooner to pick up the rides, Harley was still ranting and raving, threatening to shut down the show. Instead, he packed up the red Ford with his things and high-tailed it out of Bangor and hasn’t been seen since.

Harley once told me the only reason his wife doesn’t divorce him is because he owns the generators. “You want me to tell you a story?” he liked to tell me. “Well, it’s going to be a horror story, one that’ll give you nightmares.”

I feel bad for Harley. It must be incredibly difficult to watch the carnival he built wrested away, his opinions and wisdom shrugged off as though he were green help.

Because it rained on Sunday, we finished tearing down Monday morning, then loaded up our bunks and made the three-hour drive from Spooner to Bangor. Our camp this week is flanked by a shooting range and a very busy pair of railroad tracks, which makes for some noisy living. The mosquitoes here are brutal. Before stepping from our bunks each morning, we lather up with skeeter dope, but in the heat, the most intense it’s been all summer, we just sweat it off and reapply as necessary. Drinking also lessens the burden of these bugs, which we’ve had to contend with all summer, being that we spend the better part of our lives outdoors. Sarah and I are the two here that don’t drink much. Two, maybe three beers and we’re good. It’s nice having someone around sober enough to watch the other Carnies frolick about in a drunken stupor.

Monday, being a day off, sort of, everyone made haste to the store for their 30-packs of Keystone Ice and in no time were drunk to gills. When Sarah and I returned from the store, Jimmy, 36, was stumbling about the grounds in nothing but shorts. Carl and Hotwheels were trying to get him to go to bed, but he refused. Instead, he kept trying to enter the presidential suite, where Mark and Carl live, but was refused entry. He hadn’t done anything, but could hardly stand. At one point, Carl, who earlier had the cops called on him for riding his bicycle drunk, had to raise his fists after Jimmy, normally a very demure and kind man, became a little too aggressive and began throwing chairs into the woods and knocking over bikes.

You could see in his eyes that he wasn’t going to remember a thing.

Sarah and I watched this unfold, the epic ordeal to get Jimmy to bed. But it wasn’t happening. Then Sam, who was also wasted, came and sat by us, and tucked a watermelon beneath her shirt. “Look guys,” she said. “I’m having faggots.”

This shouldn’t have been so funny, but it was. Sam gets up and, holding up the melon with one hand and gulping from a beer in the other, paraded about the camp yelling, “Look everyone! I’m having a faggot! I’m going to name him ‘faggot!’”

This went one for a solid 15 minutes. Eventually, Jimmy plopped in a lawnchair near us and Sam, barely able to walk herself, says, “Look Jimmy, I’m having faggots! You want to help me birth my faggots?”

Jimmy tried standing but couldn’t.

“Here Jimmy,” says Sam, handing him her beer, “I don’t think you’re drunk enough. I’m going to have faggots.”

And as Jimmy drank the beer, Sam crouched down and gave pretend birth to a watermelon. When Black Nate showed up, she hands it to him. “Look at my faggot!”

“You know,” he says, “You’re supposed to eat that.”

“Nooooo,” she replied, sad faced, “I just birthed it. No one’s going to eat my faggot.”

Meanwhile, Carl, 43, was trying to coax Jimmy into bed. “You’re my brother and I love you,” he said, sitting with him face-to-face. “But you need to go to bed.”

It was endearing the way Carl, who becomes very sentimental when drunk, tried reasoning with Jimmy. “I have a box of Twinkies. I’ll give them to you if you go to bed.”

“I already have Twinkies,” Jimmy replied, clearly running out of steam anyhow.

“How about Suz-Q’s?”

“I don’t have Suzy-Q’s.”

“Okay then,” Carl said, excited to have made some progress. “Go to sleep and in the morning you’ll have a box of Suzy-Q’s.”

The next day, Jimmy, as he retrieved our lawn chairs from the woods, said he didn’t remember a thing. I don’t know if Carl ever gave him the Suzy-Q’s.

Of all the Carnies, I think Hawaii is my favorite. I’ll never meet another person like him. Being from Hawaii, he has a funny accent. He also has an infectious smile and generous sense of humor. He’s one of the dedicated drunks. Last Saturday, Corina had to send him back to bed because he hadn’t slept all night. And when this season ends, he’ll be homeless. His mother his dead. Not sure where his father is, but he has a brother in Hawaii, who is married and successful. “My brother told me once, ‘David, you’re going to regret these choices you’re making one day,’” he told me. “Just like Corina. Last year she goes, ‘David, why do you do this to yourself?’ ‘Ah, I dunno, Corina.’”

Last night, Hawaii was dispensing sex education to Hotwheels, who was bragging about all of “the hot bitches I get.” Hawaii asked if he used condoms. Hotwheels said that he didn’t, which led to a long, drunken discussion on STDs and pregnancy. But Hotwheels was worried about neither. Regarding STDs, he only sleeps with clean girls. Regarding fatherhood, Hotwheels says he simply pulls out.

We all suspect he’s still a virgin, but Hawaii shot down his explanations anyhow. “NO! You won’t pull out. You know why?” he yelled. “Because it feels good. Then nine months later there’s a baby Mack running around.”

Today was Hotwheels’ last day. Though we don’t like working with him, we will sort of miss his bullshit. Hawaii told him, “I have faith in you, boy. It’s all I have for you.”

What makes a spot bad or good? Proximity to things – bars, stores, laundry mats. County fairs tend to be self-contained, with the local 4-H chapters selling burgers and ice cream, as well as food vendors other than those provided by the family I work for. Some spots, like in Wales, are so far out that the nearest gas station is close to a mile away with nothing but the rides and bunks on-site. The best spots are in the hearts of cities and towns, like Spooner in far northern Wisconsin, which last week celebrated 100 years of existence.

The week had bumpy beginnings. I’ve already written about my harrowing drive from Black River Falls, pulling a ride in a pick-up without brakes, then getting pulled over by a state trooper for an inspection. But that was nothing compared to the tectonic shifts that occurred in this little community of carnies.

Black Nate and Sam fought for much of the week, as did Tim and Danielle, who usually only work weekends, but because we were so far north, ended up traveling with us. Danielle didn’t like that Tim was spending so much time with Sarah and Sam, so she dumped him. He was going to leave, but when Jeremy quit, Tim took his bunk and avoided Danielle, who never hangs out with any of us.

On night, Sam spent most of the evening in Tim’s room, fomenting Black Nate’s jealousy. But Black Nate was cool about it, didn’t make a scene, but privately he and Sam warred over it. Of course, like girls do, she played dumb, pretending to not know “what the big deal is,” knowing full well that she’d achieved her objective in both hurting and humiliating Black Nate.

Thursday night, after the show closed, everyone went out drinking for Tony’s birthday. Around 3 a.m., when everyone stumbled back to camp, Black Nate overheard Tim talking about him to Sam, and the two came close to blows. The next day, Sam announced that it was official: her and Black Nate are dating.

In Spooner, the carnival was set up in a street right in the heart of town. Hanging around was a 12-year-old boy named Dougie, who everyday begged us to let him help us so we yelled at him a lot. The ground was particularly uneven, which made leveling the Tilt-a-Whirl track difficult. At one point, Dougie came over and asked, “Can I make a suggestion?”

“GET OUTTA OF HERE!” Carl screamed at him.

Dougie was fond of Flo, who, at 25, is a like a kid himself. They began hanging out and Flo ended up spending a few of the nights in Spooner at Dougie’s house. Dougie’s father, a big burly man with missing teeth, didn’t seem bothered by this arrangement. In fact, he came to the Fun Slide several times over the week to drop food off for Flo. One morning, just before work call, we were sitting around talking about how weird it was for a 25-year-old man to have sleepovers at a 12-year-old boy’s house.

“Why does everyone think it’s weird that Flo stays at my house?” asked Dougie. “Is it because he’s queer?”

We all kind of looked at each other, befuddled.

“It’s just weird,” someone said.

Flo was having a hard week. He missed work call numerous times. Plus, he developed a crush on Sarah, who has a crush on me, and whose game was next to the Fun Slide all week. But Flo works the top of the slide and I work the bottom. Because the Jack Pines Savage Day festival was incredibly slow, Sarah and I spent a lot of time talking, while Flo paced a top the slide, as though debating whether he should jump.

On Monday, he missed work call again. Walking by Liz, she said, “Flo, go pack your shit.”

He didn’t believe her. Then Corina asked if he wanted a ride to the bus station. As we packed up our bunks, Flo packed up his things and walked off into Spooner with $80 and no cell phone. There is no bus station there, so Flo said he’d have to hitchike the six hour drive to Mineral Point.

Unless Dougie’s dad agreed to drive him home.

Being Tony’s birthday week, there was a lot of drinking going on, especially Thursday, when, at one of the local bars, there was a stripper, who was less topless dancer more farmgirl from a county over. But Tony, who last year ended a five-year dry spell after shacking up with a 58-year-old obese woman, isn’t one to consider appearances.

A bunch of us went to the bar, where we watching Tony, by himself, sitting up close by the dancer, tucking dollar bills into her sports bra and coochie-cutter shorts. But this was no ordinary stripper. As Tony later noted, there is usually some distance the strippers keep between them and the objects of their tease. But as we stood there watching, the girl, hanging on a pole, threw her legs over his shoulders, wrapped them around his head and shoved his face straight into her thang as she gyrated her hips.

“I’ve been going to strip clubs since I was 16,” he said later. “I know all the moves by heart, but I’ve never in my life had that happen.”

That night, after she got fired, Tony implored her to join the carnival.

His calls to her went unanswered all weekend.

The Spooner festival was a bust, yet there was no lack of excitement at the Fun Slide. On Friday, a little boy stood outside the gate eating a big block of rock candy. “You’re lucky,” I said. “My mom still doesn’t let me eat candy.”

“My mom let’s me eat candy all of the time. My grandma says that’s why my teeth are brown,” he said, smiling widely to show me his little mouth full of rotting teeth.

Two teenage girls made repeated runs down the slide, racing and pulling at each other as they slid down, until the one nearly tore the shirt off the other, ripping her bra and exposing her breasts for the world to see. Then they stood at the bottom, next to me, as the one tried fixing the other’s bra, seemingly oblivious they were putting on a show. When it was clear they weren’t going to fix it I asked if they needed some tape, which seemed to do the trick.

After talking with one guy for a while about the carnival, he said, “You seem awfully intelligent for a carnie,” which, now that I know these people and have become rather fond of them, I took it kind of personally.

On Saturday, it rained, turning the Fun Slide into a water ride. With more rain in the forecast, I didn’t even bother wiping it dry after the first two downpours. Plus I was a little peeved that I received quite the talking to about the article I wrote for Isthmus newspaper in Madison, WI, about the carnival, which I’ll write more about later.

Really, I just wanted the weekend to end.

Each of the three days of the show were so slow and by evening on Saturday, everyone, after a long week of longer days and even later nights, was anxious for Corina to call it so we could get on with tear down. But the show went on and on and what was originally guessed to be an early night, turned into a 10:00 p.m. close, even though Corina knew that the storms were coming.

Not long after getting our tear downs on, a cold, heavy rain began to fall, yet we tore down the rides hurriedly in the night, our only light coming from the flickering and flashing rides themselves. Finally, after two hours, Corina called it, and we scampered back to our bunks for a few hours of sleep before the next day’s 7 a.m. work call to finish tear down, load up our bunks and make our way to the next spot.

Once there, I packed up my things and moved into Flo’s bunkhouse, where I’ll spend my final week with the show, giving Black Nate his space, and enjoying some of my own.

Carnies bridge jumping in Spooner, WI.

Yesterday we decamped Black River Falls, tearing down our bunkhouses in the rain. Having come off a five-day spot, and without a full day off since July 3, everyone’s in a fairly foul mood. Making matters worse is Sam, our suspected pill-popper who now openly crushes and snorts her opiates. The girl has a black cloud over her, which she brought with her today when she rode with us for the three-hour haul to Spooner. After Sam decided to hop in our truck to hang with Black Nate, Jeremy jumped ship to ride with Tim, unable to tolerate Sam.

We turned out of the fair grounds, onto Black River Falls’ main drag, which, after a sharp bend in the road, segues into a steeply sloped stretch of road that also bends. Picking up speed, I tapped the breaks, but there were none. With a ride in tow, we were spit across the right hand lane, into the curb, and spit back into the left lane and fishtailed down the hill. Carl noted later that had we not hit the curb the way we did we would’ve flipped. Had we been on a road without a curb, we would’ve rolled.

We stopped for gas at the edge of town. Something was clearly wrong with the brakes. After topping off the brake fluid, we hit the highway toward Spooner, but still no brakes. Just outside of Spooner I rolled to a stop inside the HWY 70 junction intersection. Across the road was a state deputy who then followed me for some 10 miles before pulling me over.

He was pleasant, saying he pulled us over because the truck I was driving didn’t have the company name on the side, as is required for vehicles hauling loads over 10,000 lbs. (the ride I was hauling was 9,000 lbs.). He did a full inspection, checking lights, blinkers, brake lights, fire extinguishers and more. For an hour or more we sat there as he ran our names and filled out paper work, which was a list of warnings. Even I received a personal warning for not keeping a log of my driving time, which I had no clue was required. So he basically put me on a time out from the road, explaining that the law prohibits me from hauling loads for 10 hours, enough time I guess to begin a log of hours.

Of course the Wenzels weren’t happy, and instantly presumed it was something I’d done that attracted the attention, when, of course it is I who should be pissed at them for not explaining what to do if pulled over while hauling a goddamn kiddie ride. Today, rumors circulated that I don’t have a valid license and am on probation. This morning, Ann drills me on the license thing, then Harley approaches. “What the fuck are you on probation for?” he asked.

“Haven’t been on probation since I was 16, Harley.”

“That’s not what they’re saying.”

“Who’s they?”

“The people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

Instead of White Nate, I’m now called Outlaw.

Never have I seen such a concentration of gimps, limps and cripples as I did in Black River Falls, leaving us scratching their heads. Each night we asked the same questions: Did you see the guy with no legs or the girl with no arms or the old man with wobbly legs or the lady with a fupa so large it nearly scrapped the ground as she walked. It reminded me of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. All along the midway people limped or hobbled along, their faces listless. Even a photographer from the local paper, who asked to snap a few shots from the top of the slide, had twisted little fingers on stubby little arms. Adding to this sort of bizarro aspect were the preponderance of cowboys and Indians. There aren’t many natives out east, so successful was the government’s policies of forced relocations west of the Mississippi, as well as genocide. But in Black River Falls, little boys in cowboy hats and native children with long, shiny black hair shot each other outside my slide with water guns to cool down in the heat.

But Black River Falls, aside from having no phone signal or Internet access, was a riot. Sam and Black Nate’s fuckfest last week birthed an epiphany in the heads of a few of the carnies that yes, carnies too can get laid, sending them on a mad quest for some hanky-panky. Flo managed to meet several goofy looking obese chicks while working the slide. Each night he went home with them, but was never able to close the deal.

Tony chased after a mustachioed woman with missing teeth, until her mother, in front of him, began disparaging carnies. “Hey lady,” Tony told her. “I’m a carnival ride operator. For chrissakes, this is 2010, not 1976.”

When that failed, he chased a woman we called “Biggins,” because she was large, but not anywhere near as large as the woman Tim 8.1 chased. She had the height of giant and the girth of bull. Massive. Tim 8.1, who is on probation for leading police on a drunken low-speed chase on a riding lawn mower, danced the night away with her. Both Tony and Tim 8.1 failed in their efforts.

Stranger still, I learned that Sarah, a sweet-faced 21-year-old game jockey we scooped up in Waunakee, has me fixed in her carnal crosshairs. Tony last week asked if we were talking. I laughed, because Sarah and I had never talked at all. Then he informed that all she does is talk about me. Then Sam, her bunkmate, relayed a similar message, asking me what I thought about Sarah. I smiled and asked Sam if we were still in high school and that maybe we could all begin passing notes. It went on as such all week, the talk, the weirdness, the attention. Then Friday, Sarah laid her bait, asking me, via text message, on what I think was date.

It read: Let’s get stoned and go for a walk tonight.

The week has gotten off to a rocky start. On Sunday, Hale, a Black River Falls native, was arrested at his ride for an outstanding warrant for fishing without a license. An hour later he came walking back up the midway toward the Scrambler after Ann paid his fine.

Liz, one of the Wenzlow girls, has taken to calling Sam a whore at every opportunity. Yesterday, I came back to the bunkhouse and my door was shut, the entire trailer shaking. A bunch of people were sitting out front watching it shake. Shit was being knocked off walls. The jack stands looked like they were going to buckle. Suddenly, Liz appears. “Who’s fucking in there?” she screams.

“Nate and Sam,” someone answered.

“You fucking whore!” Liz screamed into the door. “Why don’t you have some self-respect?”

Today, Corina told Sam that sex is no longer allowed in the bunk houses.

It has also been a week of injuries for the best hands. Today, Carl, who runs and assembles the Tilt, busted his ankle. Then the Hampton’s canopy collapsed on Mark’s head. Craig still has cracked ribs. And, to make matters even worse, Jeremy quit. Sadder still because Jeremy was one of my favorite people here, but Liz, who definitely wears on people, became too much for him to bear. He told me in Darlington that he was sick of her. Then today, when he missed work call, she stormed into his room and berated him.

An hour later he was packed up and gone.

For all of you fair-skinned people, the picture above is what third-degree sunburn looks like. This is Aaron, who is white to the point of translusence, except for his neck, which sustained this serious sunburn. Of course, Aaron made it worse by refusing offers of sunblock, refusing to wear a shirt during set up, and refusing to see a doctor. I was amazed he was even able to work. The burn has just gotten worse and worse. He’s not with us this week in Spooner, which everyone was happy about until Jeremy quit and Carl snapped his ankle. Aaron has an opinion on everything, but he’s a good worker. We could’ve used him this week.

Last weekend in Waunakee, Flo, the Romanian orphan, was placed with me on the Fun Slide. He worked the top of the slide, helping the kids onto the gunnysacks and ensuring the long line kept moving. I worked the bottom, taking tickets and dealing with parents.

I’ve written previously of how Flo talks incessantly, often about nothing, so before the carnival opened I stressed to him that under no circumstances was he allowed to leave the top of the slide. Throughout the day, whenever he needed something, he’d begin miming messages to me, making ridiculous gestures until I finally motioned him down to convey the message verbally. Usually he just wanted water or cigarettes.

I like Flo and feel bad everyone is cruel to him. Even I sometimes lose patience with him. After the crowds died down, I felt bad watching him pace back and forth from boredom at the top of the slide, so I allowed him to hang out with me on the ground where I learned more of his life story. I’ve already written about how he grew up in a Romanian orphanage after his parents died and was adopted by missionaries from Mineral Point, WI. Flo helped tear down the carnival last year in Darlington. Since then he’s gotten his life in order enough to travel this year with the carnival, which he calls his life dream.

At 25, he is already divorced. He explained to me how his wife used to beat him and one night while eating dinner they got into an argument and she cut his throat with a knife. They had two children. Once, he was playfully pinching his daughter’s cheeks, he informs, but pinched a little too hard and left a bruise. When his wife asked what the mark was he panicked and said he thought it was grease. When it became evident that it was a bruise, she had him arrested for child abuse.

When he needed a car following the divorce, his father agreed to purchase one for him on one condition: that he get a vasectomy. He did and got the car, only to have a teenager crash into it on his way home, causing $6,000 in damage to a $2,500 vehicle.

That is the kind of luck Flo has.

He arrived at the carnival with Sam, a 21-year-old opiate addict who everyone suspects is still popping pills. Flo has a crush on Sam, but Sam has already hooked up with at least two of the carnies, which has led to several arguments between them. Harley can’t stand Sam. He doesn’t like loose girls. In Waunakee, he was up early when he saw Sam come out of Jeremy’s room. Later he tells us, “That girl has a hot twat and she’ll visit each of your rooms to cool it off, just watch.”

The next morning, Harley was complaining about her again. “Did she come out of your room this morning, Harley?” I asked him. “You’re not doing a very good job at being a comedian,” he shot back. “You won’t ever find her stinkin’ thing in my room.”

Now she’s letting my bunkmate, Black Nate, cock on her. The other night, the entire trailer was rattling and shaking, because someone forgot to put in the jack stands, which prevent bounce. People were banging on the walls, telling them to stop or hurry up. They did stop, but resumed moments later. Sam’s new bunkmate, Sarah, apparently slept through the entire ordeal.

The bunkhouses are now full, but every new help that’s joined us since Monona has been utterly worthless, forcing the rest of us to work twice as hard during set up and tear down. They’ll walk from ride to ride, searching for easy tasks, but when asked to help with something major they balk or go elsewhere.

Hotwheels, the indolent 16-year-old with a major chip on his shoulder, has mastered this. Anything that requires the least amount of effort he walks away. Ask him to help with something and he gives you attitude. Some of the newer guys during this week’s set up got into his face, hoping the threat of physical violence will at least compel him to keep his mouth shut. Unfortunately, he knows none of us will hit him due to his age, and the fact that our boss, Corina, is acquainted with his mother and is therefore her responsibility.

But when you’re lifting hundreds of pounds of steel in the scorching sun and see him standing there smirking, refusing to lift a finger, telling us we’re doing things wrong, talking shit, socking him in the nose becomes more than a little tempting. At this point, it’s almost obligatory.

I’m writing an article about the carnival for Isthmus newspaper in Madison, WI. I think Corina and her sisters were skeptical about my credentials when I asked them for interviews for an article I wanted to write about them. It took a lot of coaxing and reassurances and pleading on my part. After all, I was hired as a Carnie and what Carnies say is always suspect. But last weekend the paper sent a photographer out to take the girls’ pictures and mine, too! Some of the other Carnies were upset that the photographer wasn’t interested in them, so I had to explain how newspapers function, that I have no say over how my stories are packaged.

For the last few nights I’ve begun working on the article, which is a little weird since it’s about them that I’m writing. One by one they creep around to sneak-a-peek at what I’m writing, so I have to explain that it’s not ready to be read yet. And, of course, everyone wants to be interviewed so his or her names too can be in the paper. Some have grumbled about asking too few questions, too many questions, not the right questions, etc.

There is also a whiff of jealously. Redneck Scott’s brother, Aaron, started with us last week. Aaron is a talker of tall tales and behind his back people call him “Never Ending Story.” Harley calls him, “The Guy Who Has Done Everything.” He has hot-wired every kind of car, has licenses and certifications for just about everything, is an excellent cosmetologist but will never work as one because he fears people will think he’s gay. Naturally, he has a better camera than I do, but he doesn’t know what kind of camera it is, only that it cost more. With Aaron, everything centers around fighting, his likes and dislikes, what he’s done and capable of doing. He has an opinion about everything. I can’t vouch for his integrity one way or another, but the consensus is that he’s full of shit.

Last week, Tony and I were discussing sports when I mentioned that I’ve never cared much for them. “Even if you had free tickets you wouldn’t go to a game,” Tony asked. “Probably not,” I replied.

Aaron, seeing an opportunity to insert himself in the conversation, says, “I would never write. I hate writing. I think it’s a huge waste of time.”

This weekend, the Fun House, which he operated, was next to my Fun Slide. During the slow times I read a book. After we closed on Sunday, Aaron, an alleged cage-fighter-in-training asks me, “Man, your arm must be tired from lifting that book all day. I know mine would be. That’s why I never read.”

I figured this is a true statement, why with all his time spent accumulating amazing credentials, hot-wiring cars, cage fighting, styling hair and taking pictures with his expensive camera, he probably doesn’t have much time to read anyhow.

Then yesterday for some reason he gave me a copy of Eminem’s new CD, which I appreciated greatly.

WaunaFest was busy. It’s one of the busiest spots the Wenzlow carnival works because unlike the rural county fairs, Waunakee is a fairly affluent community. Everyone was dressed very nicely and the kids wandered the grounds with $60 worth of ride tickets. But with affluence comes a lot of griping about costs. At the Fun Slide, one father bemoaned the $3 cost after watching his daughter slide down. “That’s not much of ride,” he complained.

“It’s not a ride at all,” I replied. “It’s a Fun Slide. You walk up and then slide down. That’s it. The kids love it, but the parents for some reason always feel cheated.”

At the G-Force, Tim 8.1, who earned the name because he drinks cheap, high-octane beer, was covering for Redneck Scott, who had the week off for a concert up north. He had a bunch of pukers on the ride, but for some reason failed to clean it all up. During set up this week, he caught hell when Liz, who owns the ride, saw dried vomit everywhere. And so in the blazing heat of Black River Falls, Tim 8.1 scrubbed puke off the hot metal steps and steel caging.

We all laughed at his oversight or laziness, which ever you believe, but only because it was on Liz’s ride. Next to Harley, Liz, 30, has the fiercest temper of the Wenzlows. She is also considered to have the sexiest body of the three girls, even though most of the guys covet Corina, who possesses the rare combination of brains, brawn and beauty. Liz knows she is sexy and flaunts it at every turn. If you stare too long, she’ll tell you to stop undressing her with your eyes. She has a sixth sense for the guys staring at her rear. She’ll call you dingbat or moron or lazy piece of shit, but for some of the guys the only affect this has is a waking of their inner-masochist. Liz hates carnies, at least most of them, saying they’re the worst part of her job.

Yesterday she stormed into our bunk area and screamed, “It smells like dick over here! Fucking dirty carnies. Take a shower!”

Tim’s failure to clean the puke of her ride underscores her point about dealing with the help, and reiterates my point about the lackluster initiative the newbies exhibit. Smelling like dick, as Liz puts it, is gross, and so is failing to clean puke off the ride. Mark put it like this, “I don’t give a shit if I have a line of kids to Tokyo, if there’s puke on my ride, I’m cleaning it up.”

There’s something spooky about a deserted carnival midway just before a storm hits, the canopies whipping in the wind, their colors all the more salient against the darkened sky, and the Carnies huddled beneath the awnings of the game carts waiting for the rain. We hadn’t even begun selling wristbands Thursday when the tornado sirens began wailing in the distance and in the far off sky we noticed the inky black storm clouds rolling our way.

An accurate forecast was elusive. Even though everyone was listening to the same emergency broadcast, we all heard different things. It’s going to pass us. It’s coming straight toward us. It’s moving at six miles per hour. It’s moving at 40 miles per hour. It’s a big storm. It’s a small storm. The only certainty was that the black sky was coming at us.

Most of the girls ran toward the bathrooms, which were locked for the festival. Others professed that if a tornado came, they preferred to die in their bunk while smoking a bowl.

Some time passed and the sun peeked through the clouds. We reached a consensus that it was going to pass us by, that WaunaFest would go on. Then it poured. When it stopped, we waited to see if the rain would hold. Being payday, everyone had a fridge full of beer they were eager to drink. But carnival goers then began arriving, so we returned to our rides. Miraculously, the rain came even heavier the moment Corina kicked on the generator and everyone ran back to stand beneath the Dozer’s awning. There we awaited word from the festival committee about how to proceed, which didn’t come for some time.

Close to 30 minutes passed before Corina, who’d been working through the rain most of this time, told us we had the night off, but first we had to put our height sticks in the Dozer, where they’re kept at night. My roommate, now officially Black Nate, volunteered to fetch my height stick since I’d let him borrow an extra poncho I had, sparing me a long, wet walk to the Fun Slide.

Living, working and hanging out with the same people for weeks on end might sound tiresome, but even privacy and change are easier than you’d think around here. During set up and tear down you’re working on a ride with just three or four guys, if that, with distance between you and everyone else. In the off hours, some guys hang out in their bunks. Others venture into town. Some, like Tony, make the rounds, meaning he’ll stop by each bunk, hang out for a while, then move on. During operation hours, each Carnie ventures toward his or her ride, which I like to think of as autonomous little kingdoms where each Carnie is King.

Once, Jeremy climbed atop the Funnel Cake stand and, while raising the flag like Iwo Jima, yelled, “I declare this Funnel Cake Land!”

But ruling a kingdom isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. In the beginning I liked working the rides best, but now it’s set up and tear down I enjoy most. I think most other Carnies agree with this. Most don’t have great customer service skills, which is fine, because none are that expected. As long as you don’t swear, aren’t too rude or do anything untoward, things will be okay. Sometimes that’s hard, especially during wristbands, those $15 bracelets that mean unlimited rides for four hours. Every Carnie deals with those kids who get off the ride just to get back on it. Over and over again. They’ll ride and ride dozens of times and as much as you want to tell the kid to scram, you can’t.

In this regard, I’m fortunate to work the Fun Slide. The fences are set up as such that riders must exit in order to re-access the steps. During wristbands, I simply keep the gate unlocked. I motion the kids in, point to the gunny sack and watch them come down. When they try to hand me the gunny sack, I point to the fence, indicating to hang it back there. I barely have to speak at all!

One thing everyone likes is not having to tear tickets. I don’t know why tearing tickets is such a chore, but the only redeeming quality wristbands have is that you can simply open the gate and let the kiddies run in. They eliminate a thought-requiring step.

When a Carnie makes a mistake or does something stupid, it’s because he’s still “in wristband mode.”

Yesterday, Harley told us that Black Nate is the only black he’s seen work here that’s worth a shit. When Nate started a week after I did, I was a little nervous about how it would play out. After arriving in Waukesha, my second day with the carnival, I had breakfast with one of the younger guys. I was telling him about Philadelphia. He said he hates cities, because “I don’t like niggers.”

It had been a long time since I’d heard that word used that way, in person, not to mention over breakfast, but it wouldn’t be the last either. Taylor, who everyone is adamant they’d never fuck no matter how drunk they get, has had her entire womanhood reduced to being a slab of “nigger meat.” Many of the guys have claimed they’d never even touch a girl who had slept with a black guy.

Brian, the pranksta gangsta from Burlington who quit after Corina banished his sex offender friend from the camp last weekend, got Nate the job with the carnival. Brian, who is white, had no qualms with calling Nate, “My nigga,” as in, “You’re my nigga, dawg,” which he always affirmed with a hand shake. Nate hasn’t indicated his thoughts on this, thoughts I suspect he suppresses so as to avoid conflict. The only time we’ve seen him upset is when on the phone with his baby’s momma. But he has to be aware of the chatter. In fact, the sheer volume of racial jokes bantered about make me think it’s impossible for all of the N-bombs to have bypassed his ears.

Because everyone likes Nate – he’s easy to be around, thoughtful and works hard and well – there’s a bit of postscripting these days to the comments and jokes, usually a sophomorically trite distinction between “blacks and niggers.” Nate isn’t a nigger, they say, because he’s not like other blacks who are lazy, loud and prone to fighting or stealing.

I don’t use the word nor do I enjoy hearing it, but it doesn’t make me cringe, either. That a single word possesses the singular power to tap the full spectrum of human emotion fascinates me greatly. Only when considering its grotesque origins and the level of subjugation it still imposes to this day do I feel guilty for finding any beauty in its vileness. I don’t believe for a minute that any of those I work with are filled with the level of hate the word implies. Most of those who’ve used it listen to hip-hop, have black friends, and would never think of assaulting Nate’s dignity on account of his race, except for when it comes to using the most racially violent word to ever enter the lexicon.

Even the kid who professed to me his hatred of blacks harbors a fondness for Nate.

What bothers me is that they see Nate as an exception to his race. But in defense of the indefensible, the blacks being referred to, that the Carnies complain about, are the blacks wrapped up in the gangsta culture, the thugs, the blacks they typically encounter on the streets and in jail. Culturally, the differences here are substantial, as sociologist Elijah Anderson articulated in his seminal essay entitled, Code of the Street. Because Nate isn’t a thug, doesn’t use a lot of ghetto slang and is over all an agreeable person, people like him. I suppose on some level this is progress.

Maybe one day I’ll have the nerve to ask Nate his thoughts on this. But how do you even bring up such a topic without it being awkward or becoming explosive?

Those of you who’ve encouraged to me stay with the carnival a little while longer will be happy to learn that I’m keeping with it until Aug. 17.