Beasts And Animals

The tent was cool inside, like a sawdust-floored church, and Cooper stepped in under the flap, his skin
grateful for the swirling air, his eyes pleased with the lack of harsh light, his lungs receptive to the clean
scent of wood fragments and hay and straw and leather and sun-warmed cloth. The grinding chaos of the
carnival dropped away, muffled into near silence, even though it was pushed back by mere sheets of
striped canvas and the sweet air within.

Four children waited in line, their eyes on the carnival worker who was talking to them. A slender figure
of sunburned leather, the carny gestured with his arms, describing circles and mimicking pulling on
invisible reins. His jaw was like a cow-catcher on a locomotive, and he jabbed it at the children to
emphasize certain points he was making. Cooper watched him, fascinated as he always was by people
whose interactions with children were free of wooden self-consciousness. He rubbed his eyes, still getting
used to the softer light. Old-fashioned march music sifted through the tent, tinny and distorted from a
cheap speaker nailed to a four-by-four support.

Cooper blew on his corn dog, cooling it before taking a bite. He regretted not having smeared additional
mustard on its tawny surface; Cooper liked mustard. He touched his lips to it, and it seemed cool enough.
He took a small bite and got nothing but corn, no dog. Chewing, he watched the carny and enjoyed the
rapt expressions on the children’s faces as they prepared to ride. The carny wound up his presentation and
gestured to the first child, a blonde boy about four years old. The child looked over to the side and Cooper
noticed that a small group of adults was standing on the side of the tent across from where he nibbled his
corn dog. Parents, he guessed, and found himself relieved that the children were not without guardians
inside the tent. The blonde boy locked eyes with his father, who was watching and smiling. The father
waved the boy on, and the child stepped towards the carnival worker, who pointed to a set of low wooden
steps. The boy climbed them and paused at the top to look down at the beast waiting below him.

Four Shetland ponies were harnessed to a Maltese cross-shaped set of poles radiating out from a hub in
the middle of the tent. The ponies were dressed out in red tack, and they stood quite still, waiting for the
command to move. The carny moved over and helped the blonde boy onto the pony beneath him, showing
him how to hold onto the saddle pommel, checking his situation, and then said a low word to the ponies.
The animals straightaway began walking, a slow plod that caused the blonde rider to giggle and open his
eyes wide. After the ponies had moved just a few feet around the circle, the next pony was aligned with
the steps and the carny spoke again and the ponies stopped. A little girl with a fresh butterly face-painting was
next in line, and the carnival worker ushered her up the steps and settled her onto her mount. After the
needful adjustments, the process was repeated with two more children until all ponies were mounted. The
carny reached over and punched the “play” button on a small stereo and a rollicking cowboy tune started
up. The ponies all lifted their ears, pointing them straight up, and with a quiet word from their boss, they
began walking the circle.

Cooper continued eating his corn dog, watching the children, bothered by something to which he couldn’t
give words. The cool air inside the tent became misty with dust as the hooves dragged and kicked and
stepped, and Cooper tasted a bit of grit as he chewed. He wrapped the remaining couple of inches of the
corn dog in the paper and wiped his mouth and chin, noticing that he had indeed gotten mustard
somewhere on his face. He wiped his mouth again, then looked around and saw a white elephant trash can
nearby. He opened the metal flap with his knuckles and dropped the trash inside, then noticed that the
music was slowing down. He saw that the ponies were slowing with the tempo and smiled at the
training…or the intelligence. He moved back to where he had been standing, and then the matter that had
been bothering him rose to the surface of his mind. It was the children.

Once astride the ponies, none of them seemed to be particularly enjoying the experience. Cooper
remembered what it had felt like to be a toddler and to be sitting atop a massive beast and feeling the
muscular movement beneath his little bottom, under his calves and heels. The sense of the seesawing of
power and trust had thrilled him and the other children who had ridden with him, and they had all looked
at each other with full eyes and at their waiting, watching parents, not just eager but needing to share this
experience with others of their kind. The children on the ponies today looked bored and restless. They
either stared straight ahead with impassive faces or looked down at the ponies’ bobbing heads as if
battling mild resentment of the animals themselves. They’re not grateful for what they’re experiencing, he
thought.

The music built to a crescendo and then stopped, and the carnival worker spoke a word and the ponies
moved just a few steps until one of them was aligned with the steps beside the tattooed man. Then they
stopped, and the worker moved to help the first child off. Again and again in turn, the ponies started up
when commanded, walked until the next child was in position, and waited while a child was removed
from a broad back. Cooper noticed that the ponies flinched if the carnival worker made sudden
movements when near them, but most of the man’s actions were smooth, ingrained, mindless. Like a robot
around these living creatures, thought Cooper.

Cooper was not eager to return to the hot stillness outside the tent, but since the ride was over, he figured
his presence in the tent was likely to be an annoyance if a new group of children and their parents entered.
Still, he stood for a few more moments, watching the children dismount the ponies. He looked again at
the animals and he noticed the one closest to him seemed to be looking directly into his eyes. He moved
towards the pony, smiling at it. He is looking at me, thought Cooper. The closer he moved to the animal,
the higher it raised its head. The pony was chestnut with a mane of corn silk. A pale forelock fell over his
liquid eyes, giving him the look of a boy the age of the one who had just dismounted him. Cooper came
up to the rail of the low fence separating the ponies from the spectators. He stood and looked into the
pony’s eyes.

He noticed for the first time the shabby red tack the pony wore, and how his hooves needed trimming, and
how his front legs trembled while at rest. Bet he’d like a good currying and a rubdown. He reached his
hand out, but couldn’t quite reach the pony’s head. The animal shook his head and poked his nose at
Cooper, trying to bridge the distance between them. Cooper spoke soft words to him, and the pony looked
even deeper into his face. Cooper could feel people brushing past him and bumping into him as they
exited the tent, but he never broke eye contact with the pony, and the pony never blinked, never looked
away, never stopped reaching towards Cooper’s extended fingers.

The carny noticed and stepped over towards Cooper. “Hey, you’re not allowed to –”

The explosions were enormous inside the tent, rapid-fire and so numerous their reports ran together in a
ripping stream. Gunshots, thought Cooper, jumping and flinching, and noticed the carny squat where he
was and slap the small of his back, reaching for a pistol that wasn’t there.

Then Cooper realized that the explosions weren’t gunshots, but firecrackers. He saw a large string of them
under one of the ponies, flashing and jumping as they exploded one after another. He and the carny
looked towards the tent entrance at the same time and saw two black boys standing there, hooting and
slapping each other’s hands, jumping up and down, pointing, immersed in raw glee at their prank. The
carny started for the door, but the boys jerked backwards and melted away into the crowd behind them, so
he ran to where the stereo sat and grabbed the hand radio. He thumbed the button on the side and spoke
into it. As the carny set the radio back down, another noise filled the tent. A shrieking bray, almost human
in its perfect terror-timbre, was coming from the ponies, and Cooper saw that it was the pony he had been
looking at.

The pony was bucking and writhing, leaping and pistoning its head between earth and sky, earth and sky,
its ears laid back, its eyes rolled back in its head, its teeth bared. The firecrackers had shoved the animal
beyond the boundary of control, and now it was ruled by one instinct: the need to be free of the harness
and away from this tent where it was filled with all the terrors that had ever raked at its flanks.
Cooper stood up and moved towards the animals, thinking to comfort the panicked Shetland pony. He saw
the carnival worker move behind a hanging banner, and he saw something in the man’s hand when he
reappeared. Cooper hadn’t seen such a thing since he’d been in junior high. It was a paddle, jigsawed from
Plexiglass, with a duct tape-wrapped handle and quarter-inch holes drilled in the wide blade. Cooper
remembered how such a paddle had felt when swung by a strong arm. The carny’s arm was lean but
looked powerful, and he was raising the paddle as he approached the lunging pony.

“Don’t you hit that horse!” Cooper’s voice was thin and dry in the dusty air. The carnival worker ignored
him, reaching the pony from the far side and grabbing it by the bridle and yanking the pony’s head down.
He swung the paddle and it struck the animal along its ribs, the blow partially blocked by the saddle
blanket. The pony screamed and leaped with even more force, and the carny’s glower radiated heat into
the air around his face. Cooper cried out again but the carny was as lost in rage as the pony was in panic,
and he slashed the paddle again, this time connecting a flat, savage blow against the pony’s neck.

The other ponies were now lunging and whinnying, terrified by both the firecrackers and the violence
being committed upon one of their own kind by the man who harnessed and fed and tended to them every
long and bleak day. They raised their pony voices and rippled the canvas roof with their cries, and the
carny beat the pony harder, punishing him for his fear and for the collective fear of his friends. His arm
rose and fell, pounding the paddle across the pony’s hide, the smacks accenting the passing seconds like
snare drums.

Cooper ran to the carny and grabbed the wrist holding the paddle, and his body’s momentum shoved the
man backwards. The carny fell back into the sawdust, his head directly under one of the other ponies.
Cooper stepped forward and drove his foot into the carny’s ribs, and he felt more than heard something
snap. The beaten pony kept bucking but stopped crying out, and the other ponies fell silent, though they
continued jerking against the leather straps and chains holding them to the brace. The carny tried to roll to
his knees but his entire body knotted into a pain-spasm, and he sat still beneath the other pony, looking
just past Cooper’s shoulder.

A hard hand fell onto Cooper’s bicep, gripping and squeezing down. Cooper looked back and saw two
carnival workers, large men with sweaty faces, standing next to him. A police officer was coming into the
tent, and the last of the customers and children were waved out into the sun and heat of the afternoon.
Cooper twisted away from the carny’s grip, almost tripping over the downed carny’s legs. He fell against
the Shetland pony, and the animal stopped pitching and stood like a sculpture. The cop was moving
towards them, and Cooper felt dizzy and nauseous. He put his hands against the pony’s flank to steady
himself, and he felt the heat in his palms, the heat from where the paddle had struck the chestnut hide. The
pony was trembling all over, but he stood still while Cooper braced against him.

The police officer was in front of him now, and Cooper watched his mouth as he asked questions and
changed expressions and spoke into a microphone clipped to the epaulet of his uniform shirt. Cooper
realized that he couldn’t hear the officer’s voice; it seemed that a keening wail was sounding in his head,
and he could not make it stop. He felt someone take hold of him from behind, and he turned to see the two
large carnies holding him. He looked to the cop for help, but the cop was holding a pair of handcuffs,
pointing the other hand at him, and talking directly to him with a stern look beneath the visor of his cap.
The men pulled his arms behind him, and the cop stepped around behind him. He felt the cuffs brrrp
closed around his wrists, and the men released his arms as the cop took hold of one of his arms.

Cooper walked on numb legs with the police officer towards the entrance of the tent. He turned and
looked back at the carny, who was holding his ribs and spitting words at him, words he couldn’t hear. The
carny gestured towards the pony, and Cooper looked at the animal. The pony was looking into his eyes, its
forelock across one eye, and it was trembling all over. He thought that if he could just stop for a moment,
the pony might signal to him in some way, but the cop yanked his arm and shoved him out of the tent. He
walked in silence, dumb as any beast, and the cop guided him through the midway. He looked around to
see if anyone he knew was watching. The two black boys who had thrown the firecrackers were standing
beside a cotton candy stand. They were laughing at him, slapping at each other and pointing to him as the
cop hauled him past. The smell of the cotton candy surrounded him and he wanted a Dr. Pepper so much
at that moment. The cop pushed him towards a tent from which power lines snaked out across the ground.
All kinds of animals out today, Cooper thought, and kept walking.

~ copyright July 2017 by S.K. Orr