Read Online Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry - Free Book Online Page A

harder he threw, and the harder he threw the more he missed.
    Finally he turned around and hollered, “I quit!”
    Uncle Burley picked up the money and put it in his pocket. The man watched him, swelling up and getting red in the face.
    Then he shook his fist at Uncle Burley and hollered, “I’m a mean son of a bitch!”
    Uncle Burley caught him by the necktie and tightened the knot until you could see the veins pumping in his neck. He said, “You don’t look so mean to me, son of a bitch.”
    The man walked off, loosening his tie and cursing to himself, down the tent rows.
    Pretty soon Uncle Burley had as many customers as he could handle. A crowd was gathering and some of the men knew him. They laughed and asked him when he went into the carnival business. He grinned and kept quiet, taking their dimes and gathering the hoops after they finished throwing. One or another of the ducks was always looking over the back of the tank, and that gave them something to try for.
    Brother and I stood around and watched until it got tiresome. Nobody
ever managed to ring a duck. After the first dozen or so customers had tried and failed, we went to see the carnival.
    One of the side show tents had a sign on it that said THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD in red and gold letters. An old woman stood out in front with a loudspeaker, telling what they had inside.
    â€œSee the two-headed baby,” she said. “See the big jungle rat. It ain’t like the rats you got around here—ain’t got no tail—all spotted and striped like a tiger.”
    Another show had a fire-eating cannibal and a woman who weighed eight hundred pounds and a turtle with two tails. We didn’t go into either tent. It was bad enough to know such things as eight-hundred-pound women and two-headed babies could be in the world without paying a quarter for it.
    In the middle of the carnival was a tent with pictures of half-naked women on the front, and a sign that said BUBBLES: BEWITCHING ENCHANTRESS OF THE FAR EAST. A crowd of men and boys had gathered around a ticket stand where a big-nosed man in a derby hat was making a speech.
    â€œStarting right now with one of them old bloodboilers,” he said. “Hottest—fastest—meanest little burlesque show you ever saw. The show starts in ten seconds, gentlemen. Only a few seats left.”
    He stood there a minute, looking over the crowd, then started again. “Gentlemen, it’s as hot as a billy goat in a pepper patch. It shakes—it bumps—it bounces like a Model T Ford on plowed ground. Only fifty cents to see Bubbles unveil the secrets of the East. Gentlemen, if you suffer from heart trouble, high blood pressure or dizzy spells I beg you not to come in here. You won’t be able to stand it.”
    He wound up again and told how Bubbles was the Crown Princess of Mesopotamia, and had been kidnapped and carried on a camel through the enchanted deserts of the Far East, and how she had spent six years in the harem of the Sheik of Araby.
    While he was in the middle of this somebody piped up in the crowd and asked him if she’d take it all off.
    He said, “Gentlemen, you will see Bubbles as fully clothed as she came into this world. That is, you will see her in the garment which the good Lord give her—her naked hide. Come in, gentlemen. We only got
a few seats left. It’ll cost you only fifty cents, one half of one dollar, to see what you can’t afford to miss for any price.”
    A few of the men crowded up to buy tickets.
    â€œLet’s go in,” Brother said. He looked at me and grinned. “Come on.”
    I wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, but I let him go in front and we got into the line at the ticket stand. When we bought our tickets the man said, “Now here are two young men seeking to further their education. Go right in, gentlemen. You’ll never be the same again.” That got him a big laugh from the crowd.