The sky is blue. Well, pretty close.
Stepping up to the gate I hand over my ticket, but the hairy collector seems suspicious. He holds the thing to the light and squints and even tastes a corner, before graciously outstretching his arm. “You’re good.” Such thoroughness doesn’t bother me. Absolute professionalism is the only way to keep order in such a frenzy. Yes, security golems like this man here may smell bad, but they’ve been keeping America safe since the Second Vietnam War.
Before me stretches out a river of gut-fat and hypnotization. The stars have lined up just right and I’m finally here at the 152nd North Carolina State Fair. It’s pure carnage. It’s perfect.
Down the line of stalls, all sorts of things being deep-fried to perfection. The air is viscous and gold. Red velvet cheese enchilada funnel cakes, whole ears of corn, emu burritos and divorce lawyer’s heads. Anything with a good bite to it, fried up. People waddle. Skinny men with thin mustaches and blotchy skin come down from good meth and twitch on by to try their luck shooting water into giant plastic clown mouths. Everyone seems to be winning. But are they seeing this? I crane my neck. There’s a school of kids flopping in a line for some miniature version of a roller coaster. Most of them are being stamped out by their lady handler. She’s killing them. The bitch! Don’t any of you see this! I’m pretty sure I say. These fish-kids and being stamped into fish-kid-paste!
“What rides do you want to do?” my brother asks, snapping me out of my staring. He’s got on a red bowling shirt and his thick chest hair is creeping up like lava. His eyes are covered by Asos wraparounds and the toothpick in his mouth is already ripped to shreds. He spits the shreds out.
“How about the one where it spins you around and then the floor drops out,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No, I’m still full from the BBQ at lunch. I’d puke and then it would just hover there because we’re spinning so fast. Like a puke ghost.”
I look to my left and hear screams coming from the very contraption were debating. I’m lucky to have such a brother that can look out for us in our state. A high-speed spin while on Demerol and micro-doses of hillbilly acid can be catastrophic. I’ve seen people stumbling out of various Cyclone Fury or Whirl-o-whips, spun back into Neanderthals. In some cases, if the drug-ratios relax you just right, you can devolve into a sort of flesh-colored amoeba.
I point to a ride that looks like a spider called “Candy Colored Clown Express”. It looms in yellow and red and mania-blue. “What about that?” I propose.
When we get to the front of the line, I don’t have enough tickets, but the small Mexican operator lets me on anyway. Pats me on the back and winks and everything. I feel a wave of perfect goodwill, like all of humanity, is conspiring to bring about my maximum enjoyment. I love it here.
We strap in and take off. In dreams, I talk to you.
The real North Carolina is below me in all its glory. The best and the worst have all congregated on these grounds. Good honest hicks and terrible frothing racists. Families with confederate flag stickers over their hearts. Ones that say “I’m not ashamed of my heritage.” From the ride up here, it all becomes a blur and then I see nothing but black. In the black, a giant slice of apple pie floats just above my head.
It looks down and says, “We’re all rooting for you. Just let go of the bar. Loosen your grip and let us take you to pure lovely sedation.”
“Is it the American way?” I ask.
“It’s pie you’re speaking to, son. I think if anybody knows that, it’s pie.”
The small Mexican operator is standing in front of me tapping his foot. He seems annoyed about something but he just smiles and pushes me in the right direction. “Please exit the ride, sir.”
After a bit of exploring, my brother and I find our way to the metal stands overlooking the dirt patch being used as a raceway. Frankenstein tractors grumble there with oversized black rubber tires and rows of engines jutting up like blooming chrome. They wait for the light to turn green. It does and they tear ahead. Thick plumes of black smoke shoot straight into the sky. The sky is all-black now and it’s good, since it was getting hot anyway. It’s the minds of many deranged and sick men who’ve come up with such beautiful creatures. Us in the stands drink our beer and curse and smoke cigars. We cheer.
“Did you win anything?” my brother asks when the race is done.
“No. You can bet on this stuff?”
He smiles and hands me a wad of bills. “I placed one for you. We won.”
Just then, an explosion sends people sitting at the other end of the stands flying into the air. No one panics. It’s typical to get Neo-Viet Cong attacks in places like this. Either way, we decide to take our winnings a move on.
As we leave, I see a dirty Vietnamese soldier in fatigues holding the severed head of— from what I can tell by the marbling—a Peterbilt truck driver. The soldier is screaming, “We will no more listen to your McDemands! We come to your McLand and you now wake up and McSee!”
“Not very original,” I whisper to my brother. “Think he copied that speech from Bruce Springsteen.”
“What guy?” my brother asks wiping sweat from his forehead. It’s a good joke. Never safe to settle on one single hallucination when your surrounded by Nixon-era carnies—could wind up with a tattoo of the full cast of Gunsmoke on your back. Or a permanent mullet.
The crowds of people step out of our way as we hurry out with our money. People look scared or disgusted and jump to the side, but I know they are only being polite. They know I’m in from out of town and they want me to have a comfortable time.
We try to keep moving forward, but the stuffed animals get bigger and bigger and the path becomes too narrow to move. I now know we’ve offended the great old State Fair god, and it’s doing its best to get us to stay and repent for all the trouble we’ve caused. It wants us to learn we can’t just take our money and run. But rent is high in New York City, so I squeeze through bunnies and Tweety Birds and giant poop emojis. They have sharp teeth and they start laughing, but then, yes, I punch through and the light shines back down upon me.
Two men are dragging my brother and I by the arm. They have slick shiny bald heads. I’m grateful for their service. They’ve saved us! They are doing their best to protect us from the beasts back there chomping on caramel apples and dreams of placid heaven. If we hadn’t been so lucky as to be dragged from the nest just then, surely we’d have turned into one of them.
