The Carnival
Grift
By Moses Levi
(Published in DIRTY CLEAN MAGAZINE, Vol.18,
No. 11)
“The idea of grifting may conjure stylized images of
Finger Lifters, Pick Pockets, Poker Card Mechanics, Petty
Thieves, Dine N’ Dashers, Paycheck Fraudsters, Prostitutes, Drug Dealers, and
Short Changers. Most people associate grifting with small timey con artists, and
assume that everyone who engages in such activity is a criminal. Some even go
as far as painting professionals such as prestidigitators, clowns, gamester
carnies, and sideshow barkers with the same brush, if only because they cannot
accept abnormative performance arts as one and the same as their own cultural
stereotypes. But here, HERE, people of short stature, people of large stature,
women of manly stature, men of feminine stature, knife jugglers, monstrosities,
freaks, geeks, psychics, outcasts and practically minded hucksters, fools and carnival
enthusiasts all have a place at the table. Jesus hung out with lepers,
prostitutes, and the mentally challenged wonksters of his age. We are no
different. We accept those whom you believe to be demons and angels. We
celebrate the differences. And our people are your people, so long as you love
all that is possible by God’s whim under
the vault of the heavens.”
…………………………………………………………
Carnies. They know their own. Hustlers. Gamesters. Anyone
who wants to suffer for a few bucks, usually while sleeping under vinyl tents,
shitting and showering in plastic outhouses, and eating fare less nutritional
than corn dogs and popcorn.
It’s when they realize that the fantasy of “Once Upon a
Time” promised to them by earlier generations of town-to-town rapists and
pedophiles was less than a summer dream than it was abnormality on a stick,
that they begin to romance the same twisted ideals that their parents once
thought represented an American Dream.
But everyone gets excited when the fair comes to town. They
don’t’ stop to consider that the machines which flip and toss them around are
held together with little more than cotter-pins and wishful thinking. Insurance
will cover anything less than the promise of three minutes for a ten dollar
ticket. It’s about memories, right? And if the machine falls apart, then the
memory is worth the price, ain’t it? No? Broken arm? $1000 bucks. Scared to
death? $1001 bucks. Cool? Cool. Now, along with the show. It happens every
single year, in every single town. And everyone knows a story about some
footloose bored teenager who decided to fuck the world and go on the road with
the carnival. And they eventually come back with stories. The stories are
ALWAYS the same. They survived. They made a few bucks. They made some lifelong
friends that they hope never to see again. They got drunk with J. Edgar Hoover
and Amelia Earhart. (They’ve got the scars and tattoos to prove it!) And when
the rubber hits the road, they’ll have just as many memories as the poor
fucking townies that paid their summer wages to play host to bright lights and
fluffy stuffy toyed insanity in the first place. It’s all about having fun,
right?
And in the end, they came back home, intending on an
university education, 2.3 kids (fosters if not biological, because the world is
full of kids that no one wants … but only if the juices have run dry,
otherwise, fuck those vagrant babies), a dog and maybe some cats, and some
sucker normie to pay for it all … at least until the checks bounce and the
social assistance kicks in. Damned if the Carnival didn’t teach them to play it
by the rules.
Every town, every rodeo, every exhibition, every town fair,
every local event, even the ones that happen in Wal-Mart parking lots -- it’s
always the same scheme. The townies are always looking for a shine on. They
want to win. They’ve got to win every so often. The games a rigged, for sure!
But they gotta be beat enough that the townies play and play and play and win
every so often enough that it’s believable. Most don’t win. Not really. The
kiddies are given cheapie prizes sewn together by the thousands in the back of
sweat shop moving vans. It costs more to ship the thousands of pounds of
Styrofoam stuffing from town to town between scheduled stops than it does to
move the Big Zipper and Salt N’ Pepper Shaker Rides combined. Big industrial
factories earn consistent millions each summer by ensuring that each town along
the scheduled tour line gets it’s shipment of puffy plastic toy stuffing on
time, every time, months in advance. Entire trucking companies and logistics
fortunes have been made on Carnival dollars. The venues may not be able to
serve alcohol in certain States, but by damned if Carny dollars didn’t give
local liquor vendors a generous leap in sales, if only for a few days, and well
enough to pay their lease payments for an entire year.
Stupid is as stupid does, and when the carnival hits town,
the local law-boys fall in line. Carnies may be drunken pedophiliacs, but
they’re good for business, and by damned if the show doesn’t hit the road
smooth, like. Jail stays by traveling event staff rarely lasts longer than it
takes to find whatever missing pre-teen girls that might be found shacked up in
clown tents, stuffed half-pregnant under piles of bingo-hall furniture, and
generously coated in shame and chlamydia inside game booth lockers. Clownies
are pretty predictable. And local law enforcement are better to pass the
trouble on to the next town’s justice than to have to spend limited local tax
dollars keeping ditches dug.
No end of cheap labour is the biggest game played in the
carnival enterprise. The promise of quick, easy money on the regular, a free
ride out of small-town life, the razzle dazzle of flashy lights and the
nostalgic scent of popcorn, corndogs, and cotton candy is often enticement for
every kind of under privileged youth with any sense for adventure.
Most such wide-eyed vagabonds will wise-up to the reality of
underpaid hard-labor and retire within a few short weeks, hitch-hiking back to
the safety of familiarity, with stories they’d drunkenly reminisce with their
grand-children, about “That time when I ran away and joined the Circus”, or
“Once I was initiated into a satanic
clown cult”, or “When I was a whipper snapper, I dropped out of school and married the Bearded Lady, and look how I
turned out!”. Endless exaggeration and wild revisions are to be expected as
typical fare during such light hearted recitals, but beneath it all is that
distinctive shame that tastes like “jerky”.
Jerky, short for “Beef Jerky” is a Ciazarn (Cizarnizy, a secret slang language used by Carnival workers) term referring to a female carnival worker’s underwear, which has been reworn inside out so many times that they look, feel, and taste like dried strips of jerked meat.
…………………………………………………………
Val was Queen of the Midway, tough as nails, carried a snub
nosed .38 in her right hand jacket pocket, cocked and palmed, ready to knock
off anyone getting too close, anyone who even twitched an eye in her direction,
anyone who smelled funny, anyone who seemed to know more than they should.
Every carnie on the fair ground circuit knew her, but not a single one could
pick her out in a crowd on any given day. Her long curly dark hair framed her
face like someone straight out of an
European lifestyle magazine, oversized glasses, gaudy flower print dress
that showed off her tanned freckled cleavage, and a dark brown three quarter
length leather jacket that looked like something out of a detective film, only
minxier, Mediterranean. She carried a large leather handbag that closely
matched her jacket, long straps slung over her left shoulder, hand loosely
grasping the straps, which, if one were inclined to notice, was also wrapped
around her wrist, close to the fashionably fringed flap. Her lips were stained
a dark shade of burgundy that she was fond of. It reminded her of zinfandel.
She was slim, and carried herself like a woman of class, attractive, and
unsmilingly unapproachable. She did not glance around too much, maintaining an
aire of bored ambiguity, and her leisurely pace did not make it seem as if she
were aiming for any particular destination, nor that she was in any hurry to
get there. She strolled casually, ignoring the bright flashing lights, the
carnival games and sideshow barkers calling out to the crowds, skillfully
sidestepping gaggles of people. She moved through the crowd like she was a part
of it, smoothly, but without any sign of interest in the spectacle around her.
A beautiful phantom.
From one end of the midway to the fairground exit, she
walked through the gates, past parents trying to reign in tired and sugar
coated children, people carrying armloads of stuffed toys and young lovers
moving off to more romantic destinations. As she approached the parking lot,
cars stopping and starting again through clutters of pedestrians, some coming,
some going. She stepped towards a nondescript tan Volvo which pulled up in
front of her, and honked briefly. It was driven by a clean-cut, olive skinned
young man, dressed casually in a light brown leather bomber jacket, sunglasses,
white shirt and a slim black tie. His name was Will, sometimes Billy, and he
had worked with Val for nearly three years. He was a marine, enlisted right out
of high school. Served seven years before deciding to try out life as a police
officer for a few years. He was not cut
out to be a cop. He couldn’t agree with the kinds of crap he was seeing badges
pull. He hated corruption. As a soldier, he felt like a part of a team, useful,
and important. Disciplined. Organized. Soldiering, he thought, was not just
about shooting a gun, but was also about being there to help when there was a
need. They were not just about war and peace, they were also about disaster
response and protecting America. As a cop, he felt like he was faking it,
seeing his fellows taking liberties, overstepping their authority, acting like
the criminals they were supposed to be keeping the world safe from. Will
couldn’t stand the charade. He was half Puerto Rican, and racism ran deep in
the force. He couldn’t abide by it. So, one day he quit – gave his notice and
once back in the civilian world, was encouraged to get into private
investigation and security.
He trained with a few different firms, each filled with
talented specialists, dealing with different scenes, working with the kinds of
tools he always thought were kind of cool. Like being a spy, without the creepy
spy stuff. He was pretty good at it, too. Then he met Val, and they took a
liking to each other. The truth is, she had headhunted him the second that he
left his badge behind. A friend had recommended him. Young, capable,
intelligent, keen, and most of all, well trained. And decent. Friendly, but not
overly so. He was in his mid thirties, and had already seen his share of the
world. He was a perfect fit for her needs, and he was more than happy to do
something a little different. Corporate security? Sort of. Carnival security?
Weird. Different. And not at all what he expected. What he expected the least
was that he would enjoy it.
She climbed in through the passenger side door, and locked
it as she closed it. He nodded, and continued to move the car past the throngs
of people, glancing this way and that, grim faced and keenly watching the
pedestrians, traffic, and taking in every detail around the car. His movements
were casual, ordinary, but also trained to appear so while checking every
mirror, noting the cars behind him to see if there were any unusual patterns,
familiar faces, repetitions in body and behaviour, anything which stood out as
potential threats. There were none.
Val made this trip several times each day, from morning to
the closing hours of each night, blending in with the crowds, never wearing the
same wig, glasses, or outfit. She was never the same person twice, the singular
unchanging feature was the cocked and ready handgun, cradled gently in her
right hand jacket pocket.
The Volvo, finally freed of the crowds of festival goers,
took its first turn away from incoming and outgoing traffic, aiming through
side streets to the next bank drop. Every trip she made was to different
locations, each appointment scheduled in advance, often entering through rear
entrances of buildings, every time she was greeted by a bank manager who was
accompanied by at least one guard and a teller or two. Meetings were always
covert arrangements to businesses unrelated to the banking institutions she was
dealing with, transactions being exchanged in back rooms of restaurants, shops,
salons, garages, factories and warehouses. In all cases, all matters were held
in the strictest of confidence, with guarantees promised by the agents of each
bank, the same as if these interactions had taken place in broad daylight in
the comfort and familiarity of their own offices.
Once Val and her driver were ushered in and the entrance
secured behind them, she produced a small black notebook from her breast
pocket, no larger than a cigarette pack, but boldly stamped on its front cover
with the gold logo of Lloyd’s of London. She flipped to the most recent entry,
marked in pen, and read it allowed, unclasped the flap, and unzipped it to
reveal hundreds of carefully wrapped straps, most of them singles and fivers.
The group of bankers quickly unwrapped each strap and ran it
through a money counting machine twice, rebound each strap, and deposited it in
a metal box, noting each count in a ledger of their own. The whole process took
less than an hour. Timing was important. Efficiency was important. Accuracy was
important. Each strap’s verification took less than a minute, double checked
and registered. Val and the bank representative compared numbers. They always
matched. Not once in her whole career had there ever been an unmatching count.
The bank manager signed, dated, and sealed a bank draft, made out to Val’s
employer, which she enclosed into the black notebook and tucked back into her
breast pocket. The bank manager stowed the metal box somewhere else in the building,
likely a floor safe or a security vault loaned to the bank manager by the host
business’ owners. Val was never informed of third party arrangements, and was
less than curious about what happened to the stacks of bills once they were out
of her custody. The signed bank drafts were as good as cash, but
untransferable, and could not be refused by the issuing bank, but more
importantly, were worthless paper to anyone except the party named on the
cheque: the company that operated the travelling carnival show, Val’s employer.
They filled her handbag with several small balloons, so that
it looked as full as it was when they entered the building, and drove off in
the Volvo, back to the fair grounds, where she retraced her steps past the
games and food vendors, past flashing lights and rampant teens with their
armloads of stuffed animals, faces filled with fountain sodas and popcorn.
She unlocked the door to a large tour bus, parked behind a
fenced-off enclosure, it’s rear exit attached to a small secret entrance tucked
in between the Hall of Mirrors and the Wild! Wild! West Photography Booth,
hidden away from the eyes of the public, the details of its operations and
security were never discussed with the carnies, vendors, or support staff.
Runners were kept under strict instruction to maintain absolute secrecy, and
were themselves under discrete supervision, every activity scrutinized by a
small group of undercover spies acting as members of the carnival staff. Even
these secret informants were kept anonymous from the others. No one knew that
there were paid snitches hiding amongst the carnies, and it would be expected
that any informants whose true purposes were revealed would find themselves on
the receiving end of swift and brutal
carnie justice. No one likes a snitch, especially one who believes
themselves to be a paid spy acting like a carnie, instead of a simple carnie
who is also paid to be a snitch. Perspective makes all the difference in the
world.
The bus served as the depository for every vendor on the
fair grounds. Throughout the day, runners would pick up all of the cash at each
vendor, including a copy of their till slip, tuck it into a money belt hidden
under their clothing, and walk it over to the Hall of Mirrors or the Wild!
Wild! West booth posing as ordinary customers. Val’s counters tallied up all of
the receipts, noted them against the till slips, marked down any short or long
counts, and bundled all of the bills into straps of 100 bills each, triple
counted and double checked by hand. Not a single dollar spent at the carnival
went unaccounted for by Val’s team. Since she began her career, everything
moved smoothly, simply, and without error. On her watch, everyone got paid, on
time, every time. Hers was a smoothy run machine.
She looked over the next drop, noted the amount in her
notebook, called the next bank manager in line to confirm their arrangements,
and changed into a new outfit. She was dressed less fashionably this time
around, yellow sun dress, simple cream coloured knit jacket, wavy auburn wig,
dull brown floral patterned carpet bag, and knee high leather boots. Hippier.
Younger. The dress accentuated her ass. She picked up the bag, and exited
through the Hall of Mirrors. And again, she meandered toward the exit from the
fairgrounds to the next drop, without incident, as it had been for nearly
twenty years, in hundreds of towns, thousands of times. Clockwork. Every time,
her .38 was cradled in her hand, loaded, cocked, and ready to kill. And every
time, she craftily wound her way through crowds of people, her driver timed to
meet with her at the exit to the grounds, and travel a different route each
time to a pre-arranged location, to meet with bankers who would exchange the
wads of cash for a single piece of paper. Not even the carnies who were
familiar with Val from “around camp” knew that she had passed right by them,
like she did several times each day, right under their noses, effortlessly
unnoticed.
…………………………………………………………
“Around Camp”, the accounting staff were sworn to secrecy,
told to let anyone who asks think that they were involved with the team of
laborers who sewed and filled the thousands of stuffed toys offered up as
prizes in nearly every game on the midway. It was an easy lie to pass off,
since there were several transport trailers which acted as traveling toy
factories.
Carnival toys are one of the biggest gimmicks around. They
cost pennies to produce, and any one seamstress is capable of knocking off a
few hundred each day, simply due to every conceivable short cut imaginable
being employed. Stuffed carnival toys are not known for their high quality nor
longevity. If nothing else, they’ve kept the chemical plants which produce
foamy plastic fluffins from instead being employed as single use plastic straw
manufactures, or single use utensil factories, or napalm producers. In the end,
it all becomes unrecyclable plastic fodder for land fills. But, for a few brief
moments, that plastic fluffin stuff is beloved by American children in every
town, city, and state across the nation. Their dreams are filled with fluffin
foam filled toys, and for those few moments, they are the thing that makes
happiness happen.
(TBC) Notes
And, in amongst the after hours
gatherings of Carnies winding down from hours of unending standing, aching
backs, varicosed legs, unbathed bodies, drug addled brains, and horny as fuck
libidos fueled by hard alcohol and easy pickin’s, the accounting staff keeps
its secret, the snitches report their secrets, Will and Val pretend to be a
part of the logistics and c and the remaining
the gamesters and hucksters and
barkers and entertainment and dancers and food vendors and maintenance, and
janitors, and general management, and auditors, and quality controllers, and
paramedics, and human resources, and uniformed security, and ticket sellers,
and administrative staff, and craft services staff, and logistics staff, and
teamsters, and (TBC)