I had a somewhat unnatural relationship with the traveling carnival, during high school. We happened to move (back) to my old hometown during the week it was in town--the County Fair runs for a week, and in between the rodeo, and musical acts, and dirt track racing, there was always a carnival on the midway of the fairgrounds, to keep folks entertained. So the year we moved back, mother trotted over there, and hired several guys, who were otherwise just standing around, I'd guess, to help us unload our belongings, and move into our new rental house. The rental was just two blocks from the fairgrounds. I think they walked over.
Perfect strangers, unvetted, handling all our worldly goods. Neat trick, huh? Nothing went missing, it was quick and easy, and they earned a small windfall on a hot summer day. I'm not sure whether to chalk it up to small town mentality, the goodness of strangers, or mother's luck. We went back to see the sights, and ride a few rides, the next day.
By the time the next year's carnival rolled into town, we'd moved twice more, and I was just barely old enough that they'd hire me to work in the vending trailer. Sodas with ice, candy bars, someone else ran the cotton candy machine, but I made change and handed goodies out the window for several hours every night. Hot, sweaty, exhausting, but there were elements of fun.
The next year was the best, in my opinion. I was hired to work in a "stick joint" (meaning it was a wood-framed tent, of sorts) where people could come and wager on which hole in a spinning wheel/table, a rat would run to. No rats were harmed, I swear. They were well-fed, spent most of their time in a shady cage, off-stage. Was I hired because of my looks? I dunno, and I didn't care. That was the year that their next stop (the next week) was the next town west of us, and I traveled over every day for the second week, and worked there, too. I liked my boss, I liked the other folks on the crew, my best friend spent a lot of time on-site when I was off duty, so we could just bum around and have fun; it was just generally fun all the way around. (There was extra drama after the last night wrap up, but I'll get to that in a minute.)
The next year wasn't a favorite. And if it had been my first, I likely wouldn't have tried again. I was set up in a trailer, with cork guns, letting folks shoot cups for prizes. Have you ever used a cork gun? Not the most accurate weapon. I don't care who "loads" it, the corks aren't the most aerodynamic missiles, and if you push them in too tight, they won't come out at all, and... yeah, lots of grumpy customers. If they had been BB guns, perhaps some of the complaints might have had merit (or not--I wasn't instructed to fool with a customer's chances) but no matter what I did or didn't do, people who couldn't get their corks to fly true blamed me. That was my last year on the carnival. By the next year, I had moved out, and was living somewhere far, far away. Something of a sour note, but hey, sometimes life just turns that way.
But back to the extra drama from year three. I'd been working for two weeks, every evening, and since that second town happened to lie on the other side of the time zone line from my home, I was getting home (for that second week) every morning around 2 am. At which point, I'd generally fall into bed with a thud, and sleep 'til mid-day. All except that last day. I got home, and fell into bed just like usual, except that mother woke me up about an hour later. Note that time: roughly 3 am, Monday morning. She had a friend, who "desperately" needed to get to Nashville, Tennessee. Like, Right Now. And mother had decided that, while we couldn't afford to give her a bus ticket, we could drive her there. And I was elected to drive.
I was less than enthused, but mother tended to have these little adventures, and it was best to just roll with it. So I rolled out, and got dressed again, and we all (all four of us) stumbled out to the car. And headed east. I had never been to Nashville, and I wasn't the navigator for this trip, so I simply got on I-70 and booked it. Snacks and drinks were all we could manage for the first leg, so I was scarfing Pringles, and drinking DrPepper, trying to stay awake. Somewhere around Hays, when we stopped for gas, I picked up some NoDoz, because I was already flagging a bit. Let me just say, the minty NoDoz, plus Pringles, plus DrPepper, when burped back up--not a good combination. But I was buzzing just enough that I hit my second wind, and we kept on rolling. Stopped somewhere at a rest stop, I'm thinking it was in the general vicinity of Topeka, and took a picture of me and this woman we were helping.
Zoomed through the rest of the state, and on into Missouri, struggling with heat, and exhaustion, and just general dont-wanna-be-here, and managed to get mother to drive for maybe 30 minutes a couple of times. But she was shaky, and claimed to be tired, or sick, or whatever it took to always hand it back to me. (What she was, was in the ramping-up stage of a manic episode, but there really wasn't anything any of us could do about it.)
Crossed the bridge at St. Louis, and headed into Illinois, and that's where things got weird. Why nobody could be arsed to look on a map, I can't say. Could have been a manifestation of mother's mania, but we got all the way to Indiana before someone (it might have been me) asked just where we were going, anyway? My memory (now) is hazy. I'm almost certain we stayed on I-70 much longer than we should have, but that heads way up into the relative middle of IN, which, well, we might have, I can't say for sure. I think it was the act of crossing the Indiana line that actually woke someone up, to look at a map. So then we headed south, on whichever was the closest major route, and washed up in Nashville, where our passenger could begin to give directions.
And what directions they were! We literally left her under a bridge, because that's where she told us to drop her off. There was a little camp, there, with tents and a general air of hobo chic. If memory serves, it was rolling around to suppertime, or later, like dusk, and we found somewhere to get a bite, but couldn't have a sit-down dinner, because no, mother was in a BIG hurry, now, to get home again. My head was pounding, and I had gone through my second wind hours ago, so I begged to stop at a pay phone, to call ahead of us, and see if my boyfriend could give us a chunk of floor to sleep on, if we could make it back to Kansas City. First place I tried, there were a bunch of kids throwing newspaper machines at each other in the parking lot, whooping and hollering, and I snatched up the handset, and backed against the wall, not wanting to put my back to them. No telling what might come flying my way. Except that the brick wall had a stub of broken pipe sticking out of it, sharp, and I backed into it. Stabbed MYSELF in the back, ha ha. Icing on the cake for that was, the phone wasn't working. The handset had been ripped out of the base unit, but I hadn't noticed that until I had it to my ear.
Mother was not at all pleased that I was bleeding on the seat, since she was in such a hurry, but consented to let me stop and get some gauze and peroxide. I think I used a pay phone at the pharmacy. So now all I had to do was make it back to Kansas City, and I'd be golden, right? Yeah, right. I really don't remember much about that leg of the trip. Mother kept insisting that she couldn't drive, and I had a migraine roaring behind my eyes, so it's probably just luck that kept us on the road.
Rolled into boyfriend's driveway at, oh, I think the sun had risen again, or was just about to. We all trooped inside, and I tried to fall into oblivion. But no, we couldn't stay. Mother had to get back on the road. Boyfriend helped me with the migraine--dialed it down a few notches for me--and off we went again.
At the I-70 turnpike gate, or more correctly, just before it, mother had me pick up three hitchhikers. A married couple, and a single man. I made it to Topeka, where the toll road ends (at least in terms of I-70) and gave up. I was done. Mother had, by this time, had plenty of time to chitchat with our passengers, and the single man claimed to have a license and all, so HE drove us the rest of the way home. I went to the way-back, and fell asleep. I remember waking up, just barely, to groggily notice that mother took over at the I-70 ramp, (let them out to seek their next rides) and got us the last five miles home. Stumbled into the house, and collapsed in a heap. It was Tuesday afternoon, about 3:45 or so. Google Maps, today, says that is a 29 hour trip. (Assuming we really did take I-70 all the way to Indiana.) Allowing for stops along the way, I figure that comes out just about right.
Wednesday, the three of us got back on the road, again, and took mother to Hays, where she stayed in the hospital for a while. All in all, we lived, and no harm was done beyond a dent in the bank account, so I suppose I'm just as satisfied that I didn't skip that.
