The rides at the Pacific National Exhibition’s Playland were the main thing that attracted most kids, but for me it was the sideshows.
There were always the assorted oddities, magicians, sword swallowers, fire breathers, all in shows that drew you in and sometimes made you squirm. Especially the freak shows. These were people who were physically odd in some way; midgets, giants, Siamese twins, bearded ladies, tattooed ladies, blockheads, and reptile men with chronic skin conditions. Even as a kid I knew that most of these people were born with handicaps and were trying to make the best of their lives, so the freak shows often made me feel sad.
On the other hand I’d see them backstage amidst their cluster of trailers as they interacted with each other like everyone else; relaxing between shows, talking, laughing, reading the paper, just living regular lives. They looked like they were a family – not one like mine, but a regular one like Timothy’s, so I wondered who was really lacking; the freaks or people like me.
The penultimate of all the freaks was the Geek. The Geek was a living horror show and designed to scare the living shit out of you.
See, the way it worked was; You paid your dime to the barker out front and lined up behind a red rope at the foot of a metal staircase that was shrouded by canvas walls painted with creepy depictions of a wild-eyed half-human creature biting the heads off chickens and such. Then when the barker decided that he’d drawn as many people as he could muster up, he’d lift that red rope and usher you up the stairs with warnings not to get too close to the cage inside and that by paying your dime you released them of all responsibility for your safety and your life itself.
But here’s the thing; there was no way not to get too close to the cage – it was designed that way. The whole set-up was built inside a trailer with a set of bars running down the length of it. The bars formed one wall of a narrow corridor that the audience would line up in. On the other side of the bars on a raised floor was the Geek.
These Geek shows were always dimly lit with creepy coloured bulbs so there was more shadows than light, and the corridor for the audience was so narrow that if the Geek tried to grab you through the bars, you had press your back up against the wall to avoid him.
It was getting late and the rest of the gang had hopped the bus to go home, so Frankie and I headed down the midway and I told him about the Geek and he was up for it. We paid our dimes and lined up with the rest of the audience and it was pretty popular because the audience grew pretty big pretty fast. When the barker was satisfied, he came down off his podium and limped over to the red rope and unhooked it.
“Straight up the stairs and turn to the right, folks! Be sure to stay as far from the bars of the Geek’s cage as you can!” he said ominously, “And remember, you enter at your own risk … the Geek is the most unpredictable wild man ever captured in the jungles of Pau-pau New Guinea!”
So we filed up the stairs with the rest of the audience and entered the Geek’s dark lair.
It was dim inside that trailer and it stunk of sweat and stale body odour and dirty feet. The Geek’s cage was littered with straw and all manner of ripped up crap, including some half chewed bones and some human skulls that kind of looked real on account of the creepy green lighting.
We all slid down the wall, with our backs against it until we were packed in pretty tight. Everyone was silent as we waited for the Geek, but as we stood there and our eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized he was already there. It was easy to mistake him for a pile of rags because that’s what he was wearing. But I could see his eyes peering out at us under heavy dark brows.
He sat crouched and huddled in the corner, his arms tucked in against his body and his feet drawn up so his knees almost touched his face. With his head down, he stared at us under his bushy eyebrows and sat in silence and the tension was crazy – I could feel the hair prickling on the back of my head.
“Where is he?” Frankie whispered to me. It was then I heard a couple of adults;
“There he is.”
“Where?”
“Right over there. In the corner.”
“Jesus Christ.” and a gasp.
That’s when the Geek charged us.
He let out an animal shriek and came straight at us, bounding across the cage like a gorilla on all fours. His eyes were wild, his lips pulled tight across his rotten teeth, the cords on his neck standing out like taut cables.
He threw himself at the bars and I felt the trailer shake from the impact and he reached through the bars as far as he could and almost got ahold of a woman’s arm.
The inside of that trailer became chaos. People were screaming, yelling, cursing, and running for the exit. I got jostled pretty bad by adults as they panicked and ran for the doorway, but I stood my ground, pressing my back firm against the wall behind me, my eyes fixed on the Geek.
In the midst of this sudden exodus, I heard Frankie yell; “Fuck this!” and he ran along with the rest of them. But unlike the rest of the kids and all of the adults who kept running, I saw out of the corner of my eye that he stopped at the doorway and stood aside, looking back at me.
I don’t know why I stayed. I was as startled as the rest of them by the Geek’s sudden fury and wild attack. I wasn’t frozen like I had been under the lilacs the day Kevin and his cronies wrecked the Goddess of Speed. I stayed deliberately and let my fear wash through me. The Geek rushed me and slammed himself against the bars once more, his arms reaching for me, his hands clawing at me, trying to grab hold of me. I could feel his fingertips brushing the front of my t-shirt, but I didn’t move and I didn’t look away.
A weird sort of calmness came over me. It would later happen throughout my life when I faced down truly dangerous people and situations, but this was the first time I felt that way. I liked the feeling, or actually the lack of feeling. Fear was gone – completely gone. So was every other emotion. I would later learn the word ‘dissociative’ and that’s as close as I can come to describing how I felt – or didn’t feel. But my mind was sharp and clear as I stood there, which was a contrast to the mental confusion I felt during my episodes.
I stared the Geek down as he shrieked and slavered and strained to push his arm through the bars to be able to reach me. I stood my ground and after a few more seconds the Geek gave up – I could see the realization in his eyes that he wasn’t going to make me run like the others did.
He calmed down and half crawled, half shuffled back to his corner and hunkered down with his face turned away from me. It was only then that I stepped away from the wall and walked the length of the trailer to the exit, my right shoulder only inches from the bars. Frankie was staring at me with wide eyes as I passed him.
“Jesus Christ, Denny”
I just kept walking and as I did I realized one of the reasons I wasn’t scared of the Geek was that he was just a drunk. I could smell Queen Anne Scotch on his breath as he was screaming at me.
The same shit my dad drank.
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