Féria

If you’ve never been to a Mexican carnival, it’s exactly like the county fairs that came through Eugene, Oregon in the 1980s. Except if the fair was on a little bit of LSD. And had recently broken up with his girlfriend. And was possibly a little unstable.

There are all the flashing lights, and all the rides, and all the crazy sounds. But nothing feels quite right. Everything looks like it’s been drawn or made with your left hand. The plastic parts of the rides are spray painted with all the Disney knock-off favorites in a sort of gruesome uncanny valley.

In the small Mexican town where I live, the carnival comes once a year on the week of the town’s Feria, or town’s celebration. It sets up in the sportsball field at the side of town. As you walk in to the field you walk along and step over dozens of extension cords leading from a power unit at the side of the field to the dozens of rides scattered amongst the outfield and north goal.

The cords are not bright orange like the extension cords you see in Home Depot. These are green and black and whatever dirty color spliced into another color as two become one and you see they’re wrapped haphazardly with tape and you step over them thinking, “This really doesn’t seem safe.” But you notice everyone just going about their business and you shrug your shoulders and think surely people wouldn’t leave exposed wires in the middle of a field where kids play if it wasn’t safe, right? And you continue to step over them carefully and lift your baby-stroller up and over the wires and continue on to the lights and sounds ahead.

When you get there after dinner, at 6pm just as the sun is setting, you’re already thinking it’s too late and you’ve missed everything and that it’s closing. It’s empty and feels forgotten and you wonder if you’re allowed to be there at all. You see a few workers going about their business and they tell you the fair begins at dusk, it’s not until after the workday ends and the sun sets that anyone comes. You learn you’re not late; you’re just way too early.

But the trampolines are open. You see young kids bouncing in a two- and three-story trampoline palace. Round trampolines literally just stacked on top of each other three high and set in a row all connected. Kids held in with a soft chicken-wire net stretched into diamonds except for the giant rips and holes and tears that are everywhere.

Again, you think and question the safety of what your eyes are seeing, but you notice everyone going about their business and you think why not and you pay the $20 pesos for 20 minutes of trampoline palace bliss and your kids run in and are suddenly lost in a sea of electrons bouncing off each other and you look at your wife and say, “wanna grab a beer?” Because of course you can get beer and margaritas and micheladas and shots of tequila or whatever you want. It’s the Féria Mexicana.

And now you’ve been coming to the fair for years. You’ve watched carefully as your 3 and 5, then 4 and and 6, now 5 and 7 year old boys, as they hold on so tight to the handles of the smallest rides and then later wave with just one hand but still holding on tight with the other, until soon they are a bit bored and bouncing around and now it is you holding your breath and now they only see the big rides that are probably not safe for their tiny frames.

You enjoy bringing the boys and it’s fun. But you yourself are also very excited about getting over to the rock throwing game. It’s $40 pesos – but it used to be $30 – to throw 3 rocks at empty glass bottles. You throw rocks at beer bottles and win beer for the prize. That’s the game. Rock, throw, smash, win beer. It’s perfection.

Three rocks and if you break a bottle from 20 feet away you get a beer, and if you break two bottles with your three rocks you get two beers, and if you break three bottles with your three rocks you get a six-pack of beer and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted in a carnival game.

You throw the rocks and whether you hit a bottle or miss, every rock is a winner because you throw them hard and if you miss – the rocks fly past the bottles and hit the layers of tin roofing set up behind the bottles. A giant crash symbol you throw rocks at. It’s so satisfying you don’t mind the fact that you only hear it when you miss. Because when you don’t miss the rock doesn’t smash into the tin but instead you hear the beautiful delicate tinkle of glass chipping or shattering or exploding… No matter how the rock hits the bottle it’s the best sound you can hear because you just won a beer and you feel pride and your friends cheer and you laugh and you open the can and take a swig of victory.

‘Can we hurry to the beer toss’ you think as your kids eye all the rides.

And you love to negotiate with the barker and use your shitty Spanish to try and get your kids a few free throws, maybe a 4th throw for yourself if you miss with your first three. Sometimes they just laugh when you bring a friend who can’t even hit the sheeting and they let you keep throwing. Just for the LOLs. And they don’t really care.

Once your friend was so terrible they handed out beers for everyone and you all laughed and kept throwing.

They let you win because even though you think you’re good at this game, you’re shit. The guy carrying two plastic bags of beer because he went 3-for-3 three times in a row? That guy is good at this. but you don’t care, you’re feeling good because you had a beer earlier and maybe a margarita and you’re feeling like those rocks are gonna feel so good in your hand you can’t wait.

But first your son wants to go on the Ferris wheel with an older kid. Your son who’s almost 8, desperately wanting to hang out with the cool kids. He wants to ride with the older quiet boy that would never mess around on the ride or be dangerous. And you say of course they can go because why not. Everyone is having fun, people just going about their business. So you take a bunch of photos of him going around and you see his small face and giant smile whiz by at Ferris-Wheel speed.

The ride is over and the other parents are gathering. The rocks are calling all of us. We’re going about our business when suddenly a gaggle of kids are climbing into a Big Swinging Boat Thing. More than a dozen little pairs of hands holding on as it swings back and forth. Both of my boys next to each other, four little pairs of hands.

The girl in the back of the Big Swinging Boat Thing has long hair and whenever the boat reaches the highest point in the backx` and starts to go back down, her hair suspends for a moment, then flies behind her. She’s in free fall as she drops down and we all laugh because at first it looks silly but then it just keeps happening, over and over and over again. Because in Mexico the carnival rides don’t go for a set period of time. They go until the carnie gets bored, or finishes a cigarette, or the parents ask him to stop because it’s been over ten minutes and your kids are starting to look either restless or sick or concerned that they’ve been forgotten.

Subconsciously, you hear a little commotion behind you, it’s drowned in the noise and lights and stimulation and you continue chatting with a fellow dad about the rocks and behind him is your kids, still on the boat, the little hands waving and smiling and you’re kind of watching them over his shoulder and you wave back and you’re all just going about your business hanging out with the other parents. The atmosphere is buzzing and your beer is cold in your hand and the ride is about over.

The boat begins to slow and the little hands are about to get off but then that commotion behind you is really serious now. There’s an energy and a sharpness to the noise that rises above the million other sounds and it catches your attention.

You turn and see your friend at the Ferris Wheel. He’s with his 5-year-old. You’d chatted with them as they were getting on. You were holding their bag and water bottle while they rode. They’re getting off at the bottom. But there’s something wrong and your friend is really really upset and he’s yelling but you can’t quite hear but it starts to register that he’s in trouble and he’s screaming ‘help me’ but it was in Spanish so it took you a second and you wonder why isn’t anyone helping him and you realize because who is there to help him and so your feet start running before your mind asks them to. You’re running and you’re pulling the bag off your shoulders and fear is charging in and fear is taking command because something is really wrong and your friend is screaming for help and his 5-year-old is pressed too tight against him and they’re screaming and there’s someone there helping but he’s not helping enough and they’re stuck and they’re stuck holy shit fuck what’s happening why isn’t anyone else helping and it’s so loud and you just shove the small worker out of the way and the cage is tilted and they are being held in by a chain across their waists so you help lift up your friend and his son and help unhook the chain and the man and his kid both fall out.

They’re just hitting the ground and the father is a wave crashing out of the cage and into the four workers that had assembled and his giant fist careens off the face of the first guy he finds and the father goes back for another and there’s so many bodies suddenly but the man is a tsunami and there is no one here who can hold him back and you scoop up this small quiet child who’s screaming and is so scared and you hold him and hush him and comfort him and turn him away so he sees the concerned faces of those around you and he doesn’t see the wave after wave crashing into the workers.

The screams of the man roar and his voice is hoarse and dry and desperate. It is raw and pure. It is fear and anger and there’s a space behind his eyes. He was a father who almost saw his child fall from the top of the ride but somehow he had held on tight enough it didn’t happen and now they’re down and he is rage.

His waves are legion and when the men have scattered he grabs the giant flood lights of the ride and grabs them tight and rips them down. He screams that it’s unsafe, to get back. He’s looking for someone to blame, someone to fight. Because he was up there at the top with his kid. They were up there and the cage somehow became stuck at a bad angle and the safety gate swung open and they were falling. They had started to fall and he had grabbed his son and held him tight and he grabbed the chain that held them in and screamed. And nobody saw them. Nobody heard.

The ride continued on, as the carnie failed to pay attention, as nobody could hear him at the top of the ride, above the people and the noise of the games below, and nobody noticed when he screamed and went around again.

And nobody can tell you exactly what happened or how many times they went around up and down. The girl with the freefalling hair saw. She had seen them going around and hanging. Hers is the best version you’ll hear. So despite the violent failure of the carnie, nobody knew what to do.

And you look into the dad’s eyes and they’re vacant because his soul has dropped into his stomach and his heart is squeezed too tight. You see his beard. There’s spit, or maybe it’s foam. It’s a thick white spot on his beard.

This was every part of the disaster but the heartbreak. Somehow, nobody is hurt. But everybody feels damaged. The sounds and the rides and the lights continue on and are an assault and no longer an invitation.

In the moment at the top of the ride the father’s phone falls. It falls and his child doesn’t. The phone is lost. It is gone. And suddenly in safety it becomes the focus. Everyone is looking for the phone. Everyone knows it’s not important. But it’s something to do when nobody knows what to do.

Because you don’t have the mental capacity to wonder about what to do next after what almost happened so you all just look at each other. Are you supposed to laugh and sigh and get on the next ride? Do you hug for an hour? Do you hug? So you throw yourself into finding the phone. It becomes a job for everyone and everyone gets involved finding it. Except the scared kids who huddle with the family on the side and cry. And those of you that can’t cry or don’t cry or will cry later, you look for the phone until finally it is clear the phone is gone and you’ve exerted enough energy to dissipate the fear and the chaos and your heart pretends to return to normal and you all slowly start to gather.

Of course none of you know how to feel. You keep looking for someone to be in charge. For someone to tell you what to do. To take your names and your stories and to make you feel real. But instead you just wait and make small talk and you hear over and over the same questions that nobody can answer.

Each of you think through so many thoughts you don’t want to have. You don’t want to let your heart feel. You’re feeling too much so you build a little wall around those ideas and you promise you won’t think about them ever again and every time a new one pops up you put it in the cage with the other ideas and you shush them and you silence them and you look into the eyes of every parent doing the same thing and you wonder if you’ll sleep tonight.

So a few of you go and throw rocks.

And once you’re there you laugh again and begin to breathe. And you miss and you hit and you throw too many but only break two. And a guy with a double-bagged plastic sack full of beers he’s won watches you miss three in a row and hands you one of his prizes and you take it without shame because a victory beer is still sweet and sharing is caring and you’re gonna need seas of beer to deal with tonight.

You watch your boys throw a bunch of rocks and you shoot glass bottles with paint ball guns because your kids beg you and why not you’re not feeling like saying no very much if you don’t mind but your instincts are still trying to tell you to be a good dad.

So you teach them how to gamble on the jankiest homemade roulette table and it’s awesome and your kids don’t understand and you also sort of feel like a monster watching your 5-year-old gambling, holding on so tight to the five peso coin and crying when he loses and has to give it up. But you also have gotten three in a row on black and have doubled each time so now you’re sitting on 80 pesos and thinking bout another round or two of rocks. You trickle the last of the tequila from your flask.

It’s time to go home and you walk slowly with your pesos and your victory beer and your thoughts are a river and you don’t notice as you step on the extension cords and cables as you chat with your wife.

And the wires continue to lie there. And in the background the Ferris Wheel continues to go around. And you walk home. And people go on about their business. Becuase it’s 10pm, and the fair is just getting started.