I’ve been in the business for a long time. A very long time. I’m a little weary now, getting tired. Nothing I can do about it, though.

I tend to stick with things, whether I want to or not. Wasn’t really my choice so much, this carny thing, maybe not at all, especially at the beginning. Wasn’t called “carny” back then, I’ve forgotten the word or hieroglyphic for it, can’t remember the sound of the spoken word. It had a lot of glottal stops. I didn‘t have a choice about the length of it, but I had a choice about the way to fulfill my…..contract. So I reckon I was able to have a little fun with things, and maybe the rubes did too, over the years.

I did the Clay Pot Pigeon on the banks of enough rivers to run your mind dry. Receipts in Coptic, paychecks in shekels. Trick-Me-Hand. Stone Through Hoop. Split-Arrow Candle. Yessir, those were all me. Then came the

Rides.

The rides were different over time. I’ve overseen waterwheels powering trundles of excited rubes through a stone-rail track, I’ve controlled steam power shooting them vertical and horizontal, heard their screams of fear and excitement in languages long dead. Sandstone mazes with chasing dogs and scorpions in the cul de sacs, children wide-eyed and crying in the fun and fear of the ride. This involved the

Controls.

Pretty much always the same. Forward, back, depending on the ride and the epoch and technology, side to side to shake things up. The crowds, they ebb and flow. Mostly kids, but not always, you never know what you’re gonna get any day. Then came the

Guns.

When guns came around, it maybe got my interest a little, spiced things up in this long haul, but still the same. Rubes with weapons. I guess by then I was a little bit jaded. But I got a real kick out of seeing the little rubes, little faces contorted in concentration, focused on the mortality of a clay pipe in the face of a bird and the hope of a Teddy bear sewn from towels. No idea of the power, and the pain, in their little rube hands. Then came the

Tobacco.

The ability to leash fire onto my own lips. Let me be clear here. That really was a day, that first burning bush into my lungs. Everything else, the rubes, the rides, the guns, the immortality, fade into the background.

It keeps the flies away.