A Night at the Fair

"Well, what do you want to do?" he asked her, grabbing her hand.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, smiling shyly. "What do you want to do?"

He laughed. "You're not very helpful, you know," he said playfully. She shrugged. The wind blasted, carrying with it the smells of funnel cakes, livestock, barbeque, and hundreds of people.

"Well," he said, nudging her, "do you want to ride some rides?"

"Sure!"

"Alright! Which looks good?"

Sara laughed; obviously he didn't know yet that it was silly to leave all the decisions up to her. When she said nothing, he only shrugged.

"Okay, we'll just walk around until you see something you like."

"Fine by me," she said, tightening her grip on his hand. They could walk around the fairgrounds for the rest of the night, for all she cared, as long as they went together, hand-in-hand.

They passed the tilt-a-whirl, screams and laughter blending as the egg-seats with their cracked purple paint whirled past.

"Oh, the tilt-a-whirl!" she exclaimed. "That's a classic! It always used to be my favorite."

Ben smiled. "That sounds good to me!"

They stood in line at the dingy ticket booth to get an over-priced sheet of perforated yellow paper from a haggard-looking woman who spoke English poorly and was even worse at making change. Their smiles never flagged as they handed their tickets to another blue-vested carnie.

"That one?" Ben said, pointing to an empty capsule. They started to climb in, but the carnie stopped them.

"Not that one," he growled around his cigarette. "Not unless you want a bloody pulp for a head."

Ben frowned. "As nice as that sounds, let's find another one."

Sara agreed and let him lead her to another. They scooted in and pulled the lap bar down with a fatalistic creak and click. Most of the ride was spent in sheer jealousy of the kids in the cars on either side of them, which were spinning like tops, warping the shrieks of joy from the occupants. Their own didn't even spin all the way around until the last ten seconds of the ride.

She felt bad, as the carnie let them off with a leer, for picking a ride that had obviously bored him - although she'd enjoyed it, simply because of his proximity - and she proclaimed that he should pick the next one. They made a slow circuit around the rides as Ben looked them over; spotting the Sizzler, Sara rold a quick anecdote about being crushed by her sister the first time they'd ridden the ride. That made up Ben's mind - a minute later they were handing in another wad of tickets and sliding into the seats of the Sizzler. Following the helfpul instructions printed on the back of the seat, (Bigger person sit here, smaller person sit here) they arranged themselves appropriately.

Immediately once the ride had begun, Sara (as the smaller person) found herself slung against Ben, giggling hysterically.

"Wow, I see you've warmed right up to me," Ben gasped out against the centrifugal force. "And I didn't even have to use that charm your dad's so worried about!"

Once again, as the ride ended, Sara felt bad - this time for crushing Ben into the side of the ride, however unintentional it had been. Therefore, he picked the next ride as well.

It took him very little time at all to decide which ride they would go on this time: The Tornado. For those unfamiliar with carnival rides, the Tornado is one of those spinny, up-and-downy, circle within a circle kind of rides in which you spin yourself by pulling on that big wheel in the center. It is clearly meant to inspire nasuea in even those with the strongest of stomachs - a group which Ben was clearly a member of, as he had no problem at all with the spins and turns.

Sara was fine, too, until, in a moment of foolhardiness, Ben cheerily told her to "look at all the people standing out there on the ground!" She spent the rest of the ride with her eyes firmly closed, or focused on Ben across from her, to avoid quite disastrously losing the contents of her stomach on the people below. Seeing her discomfort as the ride finished, he helped her out of her seat and led her to the 'rest area' - groups of plastic-made-to-look-like-wood benches huddling under faded blue awnings.

She took full advantage of this chance to lay her head on his shoulder and recover her composure. Desipte his mumbled apology about having a bony shoulder, she found it quite comfortable. It was a few minutes later, having fully recovered and opened her eyes to people-watch, that Sara spotted a particularly seedy-looking carnie in the dart-throwing booth right across the way. He was waving at her with obvious interest. Ben followed her eyes and spotted the guy too, and, being a rather too nice fellow, he decided to see what the carnie wanted. Sara tagged along, getting a bad feeling that Ben was about to be swindled out of a ridiculous amount of money.

The carnie started his spiel, "Win your little lady a stuffed animal, just throw this dart. If you don't win, i don't want you money anyway. So just throw it, and you only pay me if you win." Ben, being a thoroughly kind-hearted and gullible individual, threw the dart. POP! "That'll be two dollars," the carnie said, holding out a grubby hand. Ben grudgingly handed over the money and waited for the prize. "Well, the first one's the worst, everyone knows that, but here they are, and i gotta give 'em out," the carnie said, all in one breath, as he pulled a tiny tiny pink unicorn from a basket under the counter. Ben grimaced as the carnie laid it on the counter. "yeah, yeah, nobody wants these, but you can upgrade it. you throw these three darts right here and i'll let you trade this little unicorn for anything on that wall, anything at all, she gets to choose."

Now, Ben realized he was being played, and he seemed ready to walk away with the tiny unicorn as the only souveneir of this silly escapade. But the carnie pulled out the big one. "Is she not worth it?" he asked, nodding his head toward me.

Ben's mouth dropped open, he frowned, and he snatched the darts out of the carnie's hand. What else could he do? He threw all three at once, not really caring what they hit, and they all found their mark. Tiny unicorn was traded for slightly larger pink monkey, for the additional five dollars that came with the three darts. Sara was embarrassed; she really would have understood if he'd just walked away. Still, the monkey was cute, and she was glad she was worth the seven dollars he'd cost.

"What now?" Ben said, a little miffed, apparently, that he'd been suckered in.

"Well," Sara said carefully, not wanting to cost him any more money, "we could go look at the displays and stuff, or see if there are any shows."

Ben nodded and they set off for the other end of the fair. Along the way, they encountered a stunt man on an incredibly tall unicycle who juggled flaming torches, which was moderately entertaining, a band playing live music, which was slightly less entertaining, and the round building filled with local artists' work, which was the least entertaining of all, as there weren't even any other people in there to watch and laugh at.

Having exhausted the opportunities for free entertainment, they wandered back to the rides. They passed Alpine Bob's.

"That looks fast," Ben said hopefully, and Sara agreed.

"And it goes backwards, too!" she supplied.

They made their way to the line, and were shunted onto the ride by a mean-spirited man who seemed to spend his time yelling at children who got too excited, whistling impatiently at people who moved too slow for him, and scowling at happy young couples.

Sara and Ben climbed into a car, Sara having to climb over him to get to the inside, and they set the monkey - which they named JoJo - between them on the seat. The ride was jerky, painful, and thrilling - it was just what you come to the fair for. When it was over, Ben peered up at the sky thoughtfully.

"What are you looking for?" Sara inquired.

"I was seeing if it was dark enough," he replied.

"Dark enough for what?"

"For the ferris wheel."

Sara smiled. "I think it's dark enough."

"Okay."

They were the last ones into a creaking gondola, and then the ride started. As they were hoisted up into the cool breeze above the colored lights of the fair, Ben yawned and stretched theatrically, and one of his arms just, oops, happened to fall around Sara's shoulders. She snuggled in a little closer as they got higher and the night air got colder, and leaned her head over on his shoulder.

"It's really nice up here," Ben said conversationally.

"Mmhmm." Sara was too comfortable to come up with any really appropriate responses. The rest of the ride was made in silence except for the quiet strains of some easy listening music drifting up to them from the ground.

Without a word, Ben took a deep breath to steel himself and tilted Sara's chin up, giving her a brief, sweet kiss before breaking away with an awkward smile, which Sara returned enthusiastically.

Ben laid his head on top of hers, and Sara was so comfortable that she might have fallen asleep had the ride not come to a jarring halt at the bottom of its arc and the carnie told them gruffly to push down and in on the door to get out.

Ben took hold of her hand again as they walked back across the fair. "Are you hungry? Thirsty?" he asked as they passed the food stands.

"You know what i could really go for?" she said. Ben raised his eyebrows. "A funnel cake."

"Alrighty then, a funnel cake we'll get."

Ben earned a dollar back from the fair because the lady at the funnel cake stand couldn't make change. A very small way of sticking it to the man.

They found seat at a picnic table and chowed down, pulling the piping hot pastry apart and dropping powdered suger all over themselves and the general area. On a whim, Sara, giggling, flicked a streak of sugar onto Ben's cheek. He looked over primly at her and wiped it off, suppressing a grin. He sniffed and went back to eating. Sara got some powered sugar on herself, and Ben, laughing, dusted it off of her.

They held now-sticky hands again as they walked in circles around the fair again. There was a lot of walking, but Sara certainly didn't mind, and she sincerely hoped that Ben didn't either. They grabbed a couple of drinks and watched a pair of lumberjack men speed-climb giant wooden poles and try to roll each other off of floating logs. And then, their money and their energy expended, they decided to leave.

It was a long walk back to the car, and it started to sprinkle as they walked. Sara smiled at every drop that landed on her, and felt that rain was the nicest send-off they could have.