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“hayseeds” sitting in front-porch rocking chairs; as well as a badly white-washed general store & a feed & fertilizer supplier, all tucked oddly off the road & half-into overhanging woods as if shunning something. When we rounded the next bend, however, the forest abruptly gave way to an expanse of great open space that I’d estimate being a mile square. “This here’s Tuckton’s Fields,” Nate explained. “Ain’t nothin’ but dirt-scratch land on account’a the soil got wored out after the War’a Northern Aggression.”
    I thought it gentlemanly not to point out that said conflict was actuated by Southern aggression, my being a “Yankee” as far as his concern went. “Presumably via the failure of sufficient crop-rotation cycles,” I offered. “Had they rotated between cotton and soya, the soil would still possess vitality.”
    Nate made a confused smirk. “They throw the county fair here, too, and some other hootenannies’n things,” the noun in terminus being articulated as “thangs.”
    I’m fairly certain that the bus driver, as he inclined forward to squint at the vast tract of land, rubbed his crotch. “I en’t seein’ me no curnervul heer, feller ” but just then, the remaining edge of woodline broke to show us a dusk-tinged panorama whose epicenter existed as a virtual efflorescence of multicoloured light. It seemed that a colossal living fireball throbbed amid the barren field.
    “There it ‘tis, buddy!” Nate wailed. “The whores are a-waitin’!”
    “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-YUH!” added the driver. “Ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh, ee-yuh!”
    Seven–that’s right– seven “ee-yuhs!” I could not have sighed with more decisive despondency.
    A single rutted road bisected the expansive field, a linearly perfect lane leading directly to this blossom of illumination. Closer, the blossom queerly increased in size, & gave up details previously diffused by distance: spiring towers with blinking pinnacles, garlands of flashing orbs, a gargantuan ferris wheel turning like a landed star; an aura glowed about the entire goliath of activity–and sound as well, gun-fire-like laughter, gleeful screams in the wake of soaring roller coasters, & colliding, gladsome melodies from a plentitude of pipe organs. The awesome sight carried with it the very acme of festiveness.
    My own awe widened my eyes as our approach slowed; truly, the carnival stretched immense, claiming dozens of acres. Nate stopped the truck in a common area awry with all-manner of motors; and after properly parking, we were off.
    I nearly shuddered from the sheer immensity of the enterprise. At the entrance–a wooden archway painted with scenes of frivolity–we stood in a lengthy line; I used this time to look up at the dizzying erections of rails, girders, tracks, & coruscating lights to realize that this travelling show tinied the few my past had shown me. Its border was formed by the show’s transport trucks & personnel trailers, every 10 yards or so by large, cross-armed ruffians in meretricious garb, functioning as sentinels to insure that none infiltrate the carnival without rendering payment. While in wait, I contemplated the incalculable toil of an effort such as this: the sheer manpower of transport, the logistics, disassembling & then erecting all of this; it occurred to me, too, how unqualified I would be in a such a troupe.
    Soon that painted archway admitted us maw-like, whereupon Nate provided our tickets, & it was a happy pandemonium into which we were then disgorged. “Why not we look fer them whores lickety-split, don’t’cha think?” Nate’s reprobate question turned more of the wonderful English language into carnage.
    The bus driver replied with enthusiastic, “Ee-YUH!” & once again rubbed his crotch.
    “‘Specially that purdy blondie with hands fer feet’n no teeth. Can you imagine the suck-job she kin lay on us?”
    “I believe I’ll embark first on a reconnoiter of my own,” I