Tilt-A-Whirl

© John A. Ward

In the summer between my sophomore and junior years at college, I worked on the carnival circuit.  We traveled across the Midwest and set up on vacant lots.  I ran the Tilt-A-Whirl.  The Tilt-A-Whirl was mounted on the back of a truck.  The ride itself unfolded like a hinged box that concealed the truck when the ride was set up.  An ingenious system of gears and drive shafts linked the engine of the truck to the mechanism of the ride.

The ride ran on a circular track that tilted up and down like a sine wave.  Three arms pivoted around an axle at the center of the track.  The end of each arm rode on the track.  Three cars like teacups were mounted on a disk that rotated clockwise while the cups rotated counterclockwise.  The cups from each arm interlaced like the blades of an eggbeater.  Professor Pythagoras built all of the rides in the show.

“How long have you worked for the carnival?” I asked Renée.

“Since the Corps of Engineers built a dam on the Pissant River and flooded my family's ranch,” she said.

“I guess you didn't like the river,” I said.

“I liked the river fine,” she said.  “I didn't like the engineers.”

Why do you call it the Pissant River?”

“Because that's its name.  It had another pronunciation in French, but everyone in the valley called it the Pissant River.  It flooded every spring during the snow melt and washed the piss ant town downstream.”

“The town was named for the river?”

“No, the name of the town was Zephyr.  It was named for the train that passed through it.  I called it a piss ant town because I didn't like it.”

“It's the old story, isn't it?  The railroad is built to serve the cattle and farm markets, then the railroad becomes a bigger business and drives the farmers and ranchers out.  Everybody moves to the cities.”

Farm hands become conductors,” she said.  “Cowboys become brakemen.”

“What were you?”

“I was a wrangler.”

“You worked with horses?”

“Yeah, we had some great horses.  If it weren't for Pythagoras, I wouldn't be able to work with them anymore.”

“The Professor?  You run the pony ride.  There's only one pony.  Is that enough to make you feel you're still working with horses?”

She laughed.  “Take me for a ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl your last night here, and I'll tell you the story, but not before then.”

I had to oil the Tilt-A-Whirl constantly and grease the bearings.  The prairie dust got into every joint and bushing.  The ride swooshed, groaned, rattled and creaked.  Even though the riders screamed with every jiggle and jolt, we on the ground couldn't hear them.  It was a perfect place for a clandestine meeting, because in spite of the cacophony outside, inside a single car it was an enclave of solitude.  That was why Renée wanted to tell me the story on the ride.

“I guess I won't see you again,” she said after the carnival closed for the season and we were strapped into the spinning car, the only ones aboard.

“I'll never work for the carnival again,” I said.  “My future is planned and I'll get leave, but I can visit.”

“We won't be back for a hundred years,” she said.  “You'll be gone by then.”

“That's what you wanted to tell me?” I asked.

“There's more,” she said.  “I want to tell you about Pythagoras.”

“Professor Pythagoras?  Was he really a professor of engineering at the university?”

“When I knew him, he was one of the horses on the ranch.”

“How did a horse become a professor?”

“He's a shape-shifter.  When the Corps of Engineers flooded the valley, he became human and went to the university.  I met up with him again at the carnival after he discovered inter-dimensional travel beyond the speed of light.”

“Nothing travels faster than light,” I said.

“That's not so.  It's just another barrier, like the sound barrier.  Once you're through it, you can go faster and faster,” she said.

“But the light barrier is also the time barrier.”

“Yes, that's why Professor Pythagoras never ages.”

“And neither do you, because you travel with him.”

“That's right, but you don't.  Next year, we'll be in another galaxy, in another universe, because there will always be carnivals.  By the time we're back here, you'll be gone.”

When I went into the military service after college, I felt she was right, and when the roadside bomb blew up my vehicle on patrol, I was sure of it, but armor saved me, or at least what was left of me.  The technology was good.  They rebuilt me with prostheses and transplants.  As more soldiers were needed to support colonization of the solar system, they kept rebuilding us.  Now, we're like the inter-dimensional carnies.  We'll never die, because wars go on forever.

That's why I'm standing here, a century later in a fallow field, next to a lavender farm, waiting for the show to come to town.