“Isn’t the fair open other nights?” asked my co-worker Chet bemusedly. I thought I heard a suppressed yawn, too. He had just flown back into town, but I’d extended an invitation to the fair anyway.
“If I don’t go to the fair tonight, I might never get there,” I told him a bit wildly, driving (in every sense of the word) my red Ford Focus toward Shreveport. The Louisiana State Fair had been in town for two and a half weeks, but getting there was taking some effort. There were so many excuses. Each weekend it rained… I was busy on weekdays… The time changed. But last night I was determined: I was going to the fair, even if it was by night. And this was going to be the night.
Night came fully by the time I parked at about six thirty. There seemed to be shadows everywhere as I crossed the parking lot, and I stayed close to other groups of fairgoers. The entrance tent was also dim, a dirty red, lit by high florescent lights. Kids were excited to be at the fair and their parents were excited about instagramming their kids being excited. If an atmosphere can be described as postmodern, it’s the Louisiana State Fair by night.
This fair doesn’t smell of funnel cakes, like most fairs do; two smells alternate hitting you in waves as you walk. McDonald’s, gyros, McDonald’s, gyros, McDonald’s. I’d never experienced anything like it.
The loudspeakers blared: “THE LAST PERFORMANCE OF CIRCUS HOLLYWOOD! FREE ADMISSION! AMAZING ACROBATICS AND HIGH WIRE ACTS!” I was in the act of walking past the big top on my right… why not? Responding aimlessly to the announcement, I shifted my steps, shuffled into the tent and took a seat on the rickety painted red bleachers.
The atmosphere was so subdued you would’ve thought it was a buttoned-up church service. Dirty red tent curtains, dim lighting: the show ring looked old, but still classic. Like community theatre, part of its charm is when you know the performers are real, and you can identify with them, touch them emotionally.
“Two minutes until the show begins!” blared the announcer, trying to lighten up the atmosphere. And the music started then: a pulsing beat that got under everyone’s skin, no matter how well-mannered their facade. I watched newcomers’ strides match the rhythm; I watched the audience move perceptibly with the rhythm. A shift of the shoulder here, a bob of the head there. It got through to a semi-primal level where we were all there excited to live vicariously through performers of death-defying stunts.
The acts were charming and thankfully light on clowns. As I was mesmerized by the thousands of sequins under spotlights, I considered for the first time as an adult what it would be like to earn a living this way. Fun? Exhausting, more like. Interesting? Without a doubt. Dynamic? Yes. What were these performers’ lives like after they went behind the red curtain? Don’t we think of “joining the circus” in the same way we think of becoming a pirate or moving to a cabin in the woods hiding from the census bureau? But the circus is a legitimate business for those in it – a very real and deliberate career choice. They are no different than entrepreneurs who are told their business will fail, kids who want to be psychologists instead of investment bankers, seniors who start their lives again at sixty-five… or me, traveling America alone all year. In a way, haven’t we all run off and joined a circus?
There were so many other things to see at the fair, even a patient, well-fed giraffe in a petting zoo.
The best job at the fair, I think, is being the guy in the security helicopter crossing back and forth, low and fast overhead. How much fun would that be?
And if I climbed in the cockpit to ask the pilot if they would trade their job tonight for conventionality, stability, normalcy, and more income… I bet he’d tell me he prefers the trapeze.
-The Dauntless Princess-
