~ THE CHILDREN of SIN ~

The County Fair is the biggest event of the summer. Everyone, young and old, looks forward to this week-long celebration that brings in people and animals from all over the state, plus carnival workers from all over the world.

When we were little, Mama and Daddy would take us, giving each of us a certain amount of money to spend to go on a ride, buy cotton candy, or maybe splurge on a crushed ice cone. Daddy still had a job then. The money went fast, but afterwards, we’d make sure to enjoy everything free at the fair, never wanting to go home, eager to come back another day.

Night time was a whole different experience there. Colored lights flashed and spun everywhere. The overhead sky was illuminated with circling lights from the Ferris wheel and sparkling patterns from other high rides. There was twinkling magic wherever I looked.

When Mama and Daddy stopped taking us, we had to go with the bigger kids, who’d drag us all over to see stuff we didn’t want to see, and do things we didn’t want to do.

They were always giggling with their friends, dawdling in places we were anxious to get away from. They had to bring us home before dark, too, so I didn’t even get to stay and see the dancing lights of night time.

The County Fair Grounds is on the other side of town. There’s a big chain fence surrounding lots of barns, buildings, and a big grandstand. The day the Fair opens, you can hear the music and noise from most any part of town, and even see its glowing lights coloring the night sky. You just want to be there as soon as you can. Waiting seems to take forever, with an almost Christmasy feeling throbbing inside you the days before.

I decide I will beg Mama once more to let me go alone to the County Fair, without my older sisters.

“I know the way. I have my bean-picking money saved up, and—”

“You’re too young to go there by yourself,” Mama says, while I’m thinking of all the reasons why she should let me go.

“Geraldine’s ma lets her go by herself. And Betty Jane and Catherine always walk ahead with their friends. They don’t want me tagging along.”

“Well—” I wait anxiously for the next words, which come after a long pause, “I don’t know if you’re big enough yet.”

“I’m big enough,” I say, trying to stretch up as tall as I can. “I go to the library by myself—to school, to church, way to the other side of town to visit cousins Vivian and Veronica—”

She stops me before I give my whole “I’m old enough” litany.

“Well—well, you can go there with Catherine and Betty Jane tomorrow, then—” another pause, “then you can go off by yourself. But you make sure to check in with them, and tell them when you leave. And I want you home before dark, do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” I answer, head bobbing up and down in happy agreement.

“But, you’ll have to take Sonny with you, because the girls don’t want to look after him all day, and I’ll be busy canning peaches and don’t want him underfoot.”

“I can take Sonny,” I say. “I’ll take good care of him.” I never mind watching Sonny, because he likes to see new things as much as I do. Besides, he’s my favorite brother.

The next day, I get up extra early. I quickly eat breakfast, dress in my flower print dress and make sure Sonny has nice clothes on too. My saved-up money is tied in my hanky, already in my green leatherette purse.

Mama tells Catherine she can stay after dark this year, “But you make sure Sonny and Lulu leave before the streetlights come on.”

“Take a sweater along,” Mama tells me. But the sun is shining, so I don’t think I need a sweater, something extra to carry around, and kind of forget it. Mama tells Sonny, “You be sure to mind your sister, and if you get lost, you go straight to a policeman.” She’s already starting with the peaches as we leave.

We walk on the sidewalk behind the older girls, who seem to be going awfully slow, giggling lots. Once I hear the music and all the other sounds in the distance, excitement mounts, and my steps get quicker. Pretty soon we’re there, standing right outside that silvery fence, a day of adventure awaiting us.

We get our hands stamped with purple ink at the gate, but because we’re younger, we don’t have to pay like my sisters do, which they complain about. Sometimes being younger isn’t so bad.

“Make sure you tell us when you leave,” Catherine warns as she walks away, looking for her other friends.

I grab Sonny’s hand and start taking giant steps in the opposite direction, feeling so very important and suddenly grown up.

I decide we’ll look at the animals in the barns first. That doesn’t cost money and Sonny likes animals. The smells in there are pretty bad, so I try to go through the barns quick as I can. The big bulls with chains in their noses bring up bad memories. I almost run past them. They bellow, following me with mean eyes. I stay away from the giant horses too. They’re always stomping their big hooves, shaking their heads, and snorting loudly from their noses. The pigs smell the worst, grunting while they slurp and slobber their food. The nicest are the soft lambs. I stop to pet them.

Rabbits, chickens, and all kinds of colorful birds are moving around in their cages, filling the barn with a mix of strange sounds.

Sonny wants to stay and look at them more, but I tell him, “Maybe later,” which is what Mama says a lot when we ask her questions, and we know “maybe later” means “mostly never.” But it’s already getting hot outside, making the barns even hotter.

Next, we walk through the outside game areas where there’s lots of loud music. Men with mustaches and half aprons try to get us to play their pitching games.

“Come on, little girlie. You can win some nice prizes today. Your little brother would like one of those stuffed animals, wouldn’t he?”

I try not to even look at them. Mama says the people who run carnival games are crooked and don’t want you to win, so I’m not even going waste my good money trying. I look at people carrying their prizes, large stuffed animals, statues of sailor girls, wondering how many nickels they had to spend to win them. I like the big fat nickels the best, and hate spending any of them.

Pennies are easier to spend, and one of my favorite places is Penny Land, where you can play all kinds of games for just pennies. There’s flashing lights and tinkling sounds coming from that big tent. Inside a tall gl ass box, there’s a metal digger, which you can use to snatch trinkets and prizes in the digger’s claws, which isn’t too easy. Sonny, who takes lots of time, wins almost every turn. So I give him pennies to play while I look around at other things. There’s fortune telling machines, and peep shows, which are too high and cost more, but big people are always looking in them. Penny Land is a fun place to be, but it’s away from other things, so pretty soon I’m ready to go back on the midway.

We stand and watch the people screaming and hollering on the rides, some from way up high. It sounds like they’re having fun, but I don’t want to spend ten cents on something that’s over so quick.

I let Sonny ride in one of the small airplanes hanging on chains that goes around and around in a circle. I stand by and watch, like all the mothers do. He waves to me and I wave back, then help him out after. He looks a bit dizzy, but he’s still grinning.

“I was really flying that airplane, really—up soo high,” he says, and twirls around with his arms flapping up and down. He’s always been fascinated by airplanes. When he hears one up in the sky, he runs outside, pointing and shouting, “Airplane! Airplane!”

I decide we need some lunch and buy two grilled cheese sandwiches, one for each of us. This is my most longed for treat. I’ve never tasted anything so delicious anywhere else, and you can’t make them at home because you need a special machine and store bought bread. The warm gooey cheese melts in my mouth in slow delicious bites. Sonny doesn’t want to finish his, so I gladly do it for him. I buy him a five-cent bag of popcorn to eat as we go walking around the carnival.

I’m getting more anxious, because this year I promised myself that I would go to any sideshow I wanted to see. My sisters never wanted to pay money to see sideshows, claiming they’re all fake, so we’d have to stand outside the tents and listen to the man tell about the wonders that were behind the big flaps. Sometimes the carnival people would come out front, dance, eat fire, and do all kinds of strange acts on this little stage, while the man talked about them in a big loud voice.

I always wanted to go inside and see more. These were people I couldn’t meet anywhere else. They called such people “freaks,” and though it isn’t a bad word, it’s something you really don’t want to be, because if you’re born a freak, your parents would sell you to the circus to make money.

How could parents do that—sell their own children? What if I had been born different?

Sonny is tiring out, so I let him sit on the grass while I stand in front of the sideshows, watching the fire-eaters, sword swallowers, and all the other strange performers in their different costumes. This is nothing like the circuses we put on in our backyards during the summer. Not at all. These people are real, not pretenders like we tried to be.

As they perform outside, you can see the huge painted pictures on canvas flaps behind them, advertising what’s inside. The pictures are unusual, colorful, and wildly strange. Some are even scary.

One says “Siamese Twins,” and the barker tells the crowd about twins who were joined at the middle when they were born. A thousand questions race through my mind.

How could two people ever live like that?

There’s also a three-headed calf advertised. But when people come out, some are complaining that it was only heads of calves, pickled in a huge glass jar. “Rip-off,” I hear many times from people leaving the tents. It makes me hold back. Even after listening to the man shouting all about what you could see inside, if you only bought a ticket. There’s nothing I’m too excited to see—big snakes, little midgets, monkeys riding bikes—nope, not today. There has to be something more out of the ordinary that would be worth spending my money on, making my first time alone at the Fair something worth remembering.

We’re almost at the end of sideshow row when I see it—the big flap that says “CHILDREN OF SIN” in huge red letters on swaying worn canvas picturing two gnome-like children standing in a primitive jungle setting.

“Come in! Come in! See the Children of Sin!” the barker is shouting.

Thoughts begin flashing through my mind. Would this be something like the penny arcade movies? Lots of them had “sin” in their titles. Or would they just be mummified bodies, like some of the other advertised attractions that weren’t what they said they’d be.

Everything about the show intrigues me, but I still can’t decide. Well, Sonny would enjoy it if they were children. He’s been jiggling around so at the other places, laughing only at the free trained animal acts.

Trying to look as important as I can, I walk up to the lipsticked ticket lady, plunk down my two dimes, and say “Two please.” (They don’t have children’s prices at this show.)

“Here you are, sweetie,” she says. “You can go right on in. Show’s about to begin.”

Tightly fisting the red tickets and hanging onto Sonny, we follow the mostly adult crowd into the mysterious depths of the shadowy tent.

Wow! There, sitting on high chairs on a wooden platform, are two strange live creatures, only about three feet tall. I go closer to see better. One is wearing a little girl’s dress, her hair drawn up tightly into a peaked topknot, making her head look like it comes to a point. The boy, in soiled grown men’s clothes, is almost bald. Both have yellowish skin, crinkled like crepe paper.

So these are the Children of Sin! How awful! I move further away, yet stand gaping with the others. Sunday sermons about sin and punishment flicker through my mind. I look again, and notice that there are padded leather dog collars around their necks, with long chains attached.

A fat scruffy man, wearing baggy pants, wide suspenders over his dirty undershirt, and shoes with no socks, walks slowly onto the platform and gazes over all of us. He looks straight at Sonny and me. I’m afraid he might make us leave, so I try to get close to grown-ups so we look like we belong to them.

He coughs gruffly, then begins telling the story, really fast—something about a brother and sister marrying, living in sin. “And this is the result!” He points a finger at the downcast children. Adults around me whisper to one another.

“They’re both forty-three years old,” the man continues, “But they still only have the mentality of six year olds. . . And so they have to be treated like children.” He laughs as he playfully tugs on their chains. They slap back at him.

“That’s why we have to keep them chained up—for their own protection. Because, like children, they like to run away.” He laughs again, tickling at them. They jump around like monkeys at the ends of their chains.

People are laughing too. Only, it doesn’t seem very funny to me. Kids don’t like being tied up, stared at, or made to do tricks on such a hot day. I sure wouldn’t.

“Their mother abandoned them,” he continues, “and if it weren’t for the carnival, they would have been left to die.”

I didn’t want to hear any more such stuff, especially about being left without parents, so I edge away from the front with Sonny and sneak over to the side, where the little girl is sitting now, perched on her high chair, looking out over the crowd.

Something inside me responds, connecting me to this strange tiny person, and I wave to her. Her eyes catch mine. A childlike smile spreads across her scrunched face.

All of a sudden I’m caught up in these children’s peculiar world, so different from mine, wanting to know more about them. But how? Certainly not from that burly man.

In the corner, behind a short canvas fence, I can see a child’s table and chairs, messy dishes, half-eaten food with flies buzzing around. Nearby, on the ground, is a boxlike bed with two dirty blankets. This must be where they live.

Where did they play? Where are their toys?

“That’s all folks,” the man calls out. “Stay as long as you wish. But don’t ever forget these Children of Sin! Remember what happens when man goes against God’s laws.”

The crowd begins slowly filing out, pausing to look at the display of pictures on the tent wall, reading the write-ups about the two. It’s all too high for me to read, but I catch some of their words.

“Lucky the carnival keeps them—nobody else would.”

“They don’t even look human.”

The man leads the children to the small table and chairs in back, and clamps their chains to an iron bar. I watch from a distance.

“Be good,” he warns with a playful slap, then disappears behind a tent flap.

The wizened little man climbs onto his chair and buries his head in his hands. He looks like he’s crying.

The girl notices me and comes over to the low canvas fence that separates us. Pangs of sympathy rustle through me. How lonely they must be. No other children to play with. Chained up all day. I decide to be nice to her, talk with her. I walk closer. I have to say something so she knows I’m friendly and doesn’t go away.

“Do you like being with the carnival?” I ask. Traveling with a carnival had always seemed the most exciting thing in the world to me, even if I’d never do it.

She doesn’t answer, just looks at me. Maybe she can’t talk. Up close, her skin is dry and crackly. But her eyes, they look so human. I’m thinking—maybe I could have a new friend from the carnival, and write to her. How exciting to share her letters at school.

Then, all of a sudden, she reaches out a claw-like hand over the low fence and grabs my hand so tightly. I’m a little frightened as her claws dig in deeper. Unexpectedly, she speaks in a squeaky raspy voice.

“Help me,” she gasps. “Help me get away from here!” She sounds rea lly serious, her hands gripping tighter.

What the man said, about them always trying to run away—was that really why they were chained up? Or were they just being kept as captives? Quickly, I try to stop my scrambling imagination, thinking about what I should do, pulling my hand away.

“Tell somebody to get us out of here,” she pleads, trying to lean over the canvas, straining at her chain.

“Who should I tell?” I hadn’t expected this kind of talk. All I wanted was to make a new friend.

“Help me get away,” she pleads, reaching out her hand again. “They beat us every day. Help us get away!” Her tiny eyes are watering. I’m sad all through; my soft heart truly believes her.

“Open my chains!” She shakes at them feebly, making rattling sounds. Her neck is red and raw where the leather collar is attached to the chains.

So, it is true! That evil man is keeping them chained up against their will and it’s up to me to help free them. She probably never told anyone else this, but she trusts me, I can tell. What to do? First, I’ll unfasten the chain.

Bravely, I begin to climb over the low canvas fence. Suddenly, their keeper appears from behind the tent flap.

“Hey, you kids!” he shouts fiercely. “Get away from there. Stop bothering them!” Like lightning, the little girl runs to her chair, jumps up and sits quietly, eyes downcast, never looking at me again.

Quickly, I grab Sonny. “We better go now,” I say, rushing out of there before that man catches us and chains us up too. My heart is thumping wildly. I’m afraid to even look back.

My eyes can hardly see when we get back to the sunny midway, after being in that shadowy place so long. My stomach is queasy—was it that grilled cheese sandwich?

Carnival music is playing, but all I can hear is her crying voice saying “Help me!” It follows me.

Should I go back? What can I do? Somehow, I have to help her.

“Where are we going now?” Sonny tugs at my sleeve. “More shows?”

“No more shows,” I say, walking rapidly. All of a sudden, I’m the heroine in an adventure story, entrusted to deliver a secret message, and it must be delivered to the right people, quickly.

Dragging Sonny behind me, I begin searching for a policeman. Already I can see the headlines—“Young Girl Saves Two Held Captive by Carnival.”

I can’t find a policeman. And I can’t tell the Fair people. They’re probably in on this too. They’d never let those children go.

I’ll go home, tell Mama. She always knows what to do. She can call the police from the phone next door. I quickly find my sisters and tell them I’m leaving.

“Are you feeling all right?” Catherine asks. “You don’t look so well.”

“I’m okay, I just want to leave now,” is all I say, not wanting to tell them about what happened, and start walking to the gate, wanting to get home quick as I can. There’s an urgency within that I’ve never felt before. I rehearse my speech to Mama in my head as my feet fly along the sidewalks.

As soon as I get home, I tell Sonny to go play outside, then tell Mama about the chained up children, rushing my words out. She’s busy canning peaches, pulling steaming jars out of boiling water with metal tongs.

She drops the hot jar back into the kettle. “What do you mean; you went to see the Children of Sin?” She’s yelling, her face is red and steamy. “Taking your little brother in there with you too!”

“But, this bad man, he had them in chains,” I try explaining with even greater urgency.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you go alone.” She wipes her forehead with her peach-stained apron, saying all kinds of sharp things to me before going back to her work.

It wouldn’t do any good telling her the rest. If she didn’t believe me, that means the police wouldn’t either. I’m probably the only person this chained girl has ever told her story to, because she liked me. I could tell. And now I can’t help her.

Mama makes me stay in the house the rest of the day, with strict orders not to step out that door at all. The bad feeling stays with me. I keep hearing the words “Help me” repeating over and over.

I hardly sleep that night. The carnival overflows my dreams. The little girl is trying to claw at me. Their keeper is running to catch me. . . .

Early the next morning, before anyone else is awake, I get up and dress quickly.

I need to go to the fairgrounds. Maybe I can sneak in and still try to free my little friend. I have to at least try.

I run as fast as I can. Only, when I get there, everything’s gone. The carnival is all taken down. Paper’s blowing about. Empty popcorn boxes and broken prizes are scattered across the flattened grass.

Huge red trucks are rumbling out the double gates. Some trucks have open slats, like they hold animals. Others have windows and doors, as if people lived in them.

And in one of those trucks are the Children of Sin. Still chained up, because I failed them in their only chance for freedom.

What more could I have done?

I sit down in the tall grass outside the chain link fence and begin to cry. Somewhere in my head I hear that pitiful voice calling out “Help me!” I see that gnarled face with those pleading watery eyes. There’s new pain in my heart as I watch the trucks roll down the road, going further and further away.

I’ll never see them again. And I’ll never know the ending of their sad story.