The Carousel

By Hamish Dee

It was a few minutes to ten o’clock and the trailer doors swung open at irregular intervals in the lot adjacent to the Oakdale Harvest Days Carnival. There was a high picket fence blocking any outside view and a gap opened in the direction of the carnival where the workers would exit in packs then spread out in the direction of their rides and stands. The terrain was of compact dirt with uneven patches of crab grass, and trees bearing the colors of autumn could be seen in the surrounding hills.

Tracy had woken up that morning to find her husband leaning facedown over the edge of the bed. She peered over his hairy shoulders to see he’d been vomiting into the metal bucket they used as a trash can. She felt the same uneasiness, but not as badly as Heath. She knew neither of them drank that much the night before.

“Damn it, woman. You poisoned me,” sputtered Heath.

“Ah, the sausages,” she thought. The smell of them was still lingering in the trailer. She rubbed his freckled back and said, “I’ll take your shift, if ya’ don’t feel good enough.”

He responded by throwing up silently, and then spitting the remainder into the can. She scooted her heavy body across the bed and put her bruised legs over the side. The linoleum cracked as she walked the length of the low, narrow trailer to her blue, twice-worn sweatshirt that was lying on the table. She put it on with the brown, netted ball cap she usually wore over her peppered gray head. Heath had fallen asleep with his hands gripping the bucket by the time she opened the rusted door to leave.

Tracy flipped the power switch, starting that alarming and disorienting second when the high-pitched whistles of the carousel began playing mid-song. The golden bulbs lit the upper edges and an array of well-polished beasts, all facing the same direction, shimmered beneath. Most other attractions required the worker to yell to get attention, but the shining, musical ruckus of the carousel drew perked everyone’s ears on its own.

She sat on a stool in the motionless center, as a handful of patrons wandered outside the circle to find the animal they liked best. Tracy walked the circle to make sure they were ready. There was a small, brown-haired girl with a white hairband seated on a black stallion on the outside ring. Tracy called, “Is yer Mom or Dad here?” A woman in a brown kashmir standing below the girl waved. “Could you stand with her and make sure she don’t fall off?” The woman took a high step to get on and stood next to her daughter. Tracy flipped the switch and the ride began to move. The horses, lions and dragons started bobbing up and down, making sense of the repetitive music.

Soon after, crying could be heard over the music. Tracy muttered, “Every day,” and stopped the ride. She crossed the circle to where the girl had fallen off her horse and was holding her shin on the ground below. A thin stream of blood was running down the inside of her leg. Tracy peered down on the petite girl. She looked at her mom and pointed, behind them. “First aid’s that way. They’ll fix her up.” Without waiting for the mother to respond, Tracy went back to her stool and started the ride again.

Heath had only gotten the job because they don’t do background checks at the carnival. Tracy and he had married five years earlier, after she became pregnant. One month after the wedding, Tracy lost the baby, but she decided to stay with him because now he was the only family she was ever going to have. The work may have seemed tedious, but Tracy learned to ignore it and was no longer restless. She wasn’t allowed to read or wear headphones, in case of rowdy, stupid kids, so all she could do to pass the time was smoke and go over her usual thoughts.

It was twilight and Tracy stood on a horse to screw in a light bulb, until it flickered back to life. She got down, collected tickets from the next group and returned to her stool in the center. It started again. Tracy was mildly upset at not hearing from her husband all day, but she didn’t really expect to. Still, it was night. She preferred working by night because the darkness obscured the middle of the carousel, as it did the outside. For the rider, the pageantry of the carousel was the whole of existence. Hearing the laughter and gazing at the lights hopelessly drew people to the spectacle.

The dark center was different though. The rotations were faster and the passing figures, just a blur. The music was loudest from the center. Sometimes it seemed like nagging and other times like pure folly. The familiar animals that took passenger after passenger become something quite grotesque as the lights drew shadows across their faces. The young couples riding the same horse passed in the blink of an eye. She remembered enjoying the merry-go-round once, but she would laugh at the thought.

Tracy didn’t wait for midnight. The cold autumn drove them away. The lights gave a loud thud and quickly dimmed as they switched off, and the music rapidly wound down, as always, halting mid-song. A chorus of insects followed Tracy back to the lot, where lights shone through the small trailer windows. She entered her trailer and found it empty. Heath wasn’t there and his clothes were gone with him. Tracy turned off the lights and collapsed on her empty bed. She would do plenty of crying, but she decided to sleep first.