Journal

Long Time

Back in Los Angeles. Alive. Writing.

All quiet on the home front.

on a dusty side street

In some ways, Minneapolis reminds me of New Orleans.

Wet

I was going to go buy food. and the grass and the trees smelled so good after the rain that I decided to go for a walk. And I wished it would rain. I would have loved to be walking in the rain. And I walked far away from my makeshift home, and it began to drizzle. And I smiled. And it began to pour. And I laughed. And now I am shivering and soaked to the bone.

But content. Sometimes to get the things you want, all you have to do is ask.

it's a circus

This weekend brought the county fair. I never knew that county fairs had travelling staff, like circuses-- I assumed the talent was local.

I was wrong.

I had the pleasure of finding this out through two fascinating conversations with two of the men running the fair. The first man was young, lean, white. He wore mirrored sunglasses, and had muscled arms. He ran the rope game-- climb the rope ladder without flipping over and you'd get a prize. He demonstrated this, and often, to show it was easy. It wasn't. He told me he was planning on going to South Africa in the off season, because you could buy bricks of pot for nothing. He told me he would take me out, anywhere I wanted to go, because he made lots of money. Sometimes a thousand dollars in a day. He amassed his fortune $2 at a time.

The second man was thirty-four, stocky, skin a dark, dark brown. Most of the staff were white. He was quiet. He ran the bumper cars. Let a few people in. Let them sit in their seats. Make sure they are sitting. Flip the switch. Watch. Watch. Wait five minutes. Flip the switch off. Repeat.

I stared at him for a while, and at the bumper cars, not quite grasping that the metal grate that served as a ceiling conducted electricity, powering the cars. I asked him how it worked. "I flip the switch. It turns on the power." He tells me.

"Yes, but how exactly does that make the cars run?" I asked.

He looked at me. "The power," he repeats, indicating the red on/off switch. As if that explained everything. I watched the cars bump into eachother for a moment, and then asked him how long he'd been travelling in the fair. It was his third year. He'd left a bad relationship back in Mississippi, and he wanted to travel. When he met the right woman he'd settle down, and that's why he was in the fair, travelling from town to town looking for the right woman.

He didn't look at me when he said this, and spoke quietly, and without confidence. "You're very shy," I noted.

"Don't talk to people much. I mind my own business. People don't seem to want to talk to me. I just do my job."

"What makes you like your job, if you never talk to anyone?" I asked.

He was silent for a minute, staring at the kids giggling and ramming eachother with their bumper cars. "The children. I love watching children. I want to have some someday. When I meet the right woman."

I smile at him. "You're gonna have a hard time meeting the right woman if you never talk to anybody," I tease.

He smiles self-consciously. He asks me how long I'll be around tonight, because they broke down the fair in an hour, and there was nothing to do after that, if I wanted to, maybe, he could take me out to dinner. Maybe I was the right woman. "Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked.

I was just listening to him. Asking his story. Nothing special.

"You making me nervous looking at me like that. Ain't nobody ever listen to me the way you do. Do you want to maybe go out tonight?" He doesn't look at me when he says this, and I say I might be back later, I wasn't sure. I wouldn't be, I knew this already.

He looks up at the bumper cars. "I've got to stop this." He gestures the switch. I realized the ride had gone on ten minutes longer than it should have, distracted by my questioning. I told him goodbye, and he nodded, tight-lipped again.