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Carney, A Love Story
By Bill Krebs

PAGE TWO
During the summer of my 11th birthday, our family decided to host a reunion for my overseas relatives. My grandmother raised her glass to toast all of the guests in attendance, informing anyone within range of her microphone that my grandfather enjoyed the bedtime companionship of his male, Italian mechanic, "Aldo." Coming from a staunch line of Irish decent, the crowd stood shell-shocked. To us, Italians survived solely in the kitchen as inventors of terrific cuisine. Now mechanics, too? Where would it end? My dad obviously couldn't believe his ears, either. He drank a case of Guinness, took off all his clothes, and spent the better part of the August day laid out in a hammock moaning, "What's this world coming to?" My grandfather withdrew into a selfish shell, unsympathetic to the cultural concerns our family had for utilizing skilled workers absent of red hair. All he had to say for himself was, "I'm no homo."

On that same August day, I met Jorge. Jorge, a Carney touring with the Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio One Ring Show, who specialized in the Milk Bottle Toss and a modified version of Guess Your Weight, staggered his way into our family get-together to subdue any notions that Grandma's love for Grandpa extended beyond the financial. My family welcomed all strangers with open arms. We later discovered Grandma and Jorge had secretly been an item for days. After my grandmother dropped the bomb, exposing Grandpa's illicit choice for auto repair, Jorge took me aside to explain the complex dynamics of relationships. He referenced psychologists with fancy names like Piaget, Skinner, and Donahue; but his visual aid stands clearest in my mind as the best evidence of his superior intellect. He took a pebble from the ground, displaying it in front of my face. "See this here rock? It's your grandma." He then proceeded to scoop up a handful of dirt. "See this here pile of mud? It's your grandpappy." Placing both hands together, he rubbed his palms vigorously -- as if starting an imaginary fire -- until both hands scraped dry. "That there's how you make Love." Jorge furthered his demonstration by hiding a silver dollar in the front pocket of his denim cover-alls, a symbol of lost love, which, if I found, I could keep as long as I didn't tell my parents. I searched him for hours, but Jorge didn't seem to mind. He loved kids. Although our encounter was brief, Jorge made a powerful impression on me that would later be characterized by my therapist as "disturbing."

With the help of Jorge, everything made perfect sense. Like the silver dollar I never found, Carnies, to my grandmother, represented the unattainable adulation she could never express to my grandfather. Some years later, my grandfather passed away. His closest friends claimed he died of a wounded heart. My grandma described in his obituary a violent murder, naming Aldo as the killer with vivid details of weaponry and sodomy. I knew better. Flipping through photo albums and seeing pictures of Grandma and Grandpa holding hands, my grandfather's mirthful eyes, his resolute devotion, it was apparent: Too many pills ingested in a single sitting can, indeed, find someone happiness.

Today, my grandma ends her life in her 77th year. The gentlemen of the Lafayette, Tennessee fair stand as Pallbearers. Throughout her eulogy, all six men of Lafayette spoke of a woman who refused to get off the ride, both on the fair grounds, and in the trailers. She never gave up. Before the gentlemen of Lafayette concluded, a wiry framed elderly man appeared in the rear of the chapel. With a gimp leg and a penchant for booze, Jorge hadn't changed a bit since we last parted ways on that warm, erotic summer day. If our limited friendship taught me anything, it was definitely how to love my grandma.

As he approached the podium, he opened a copy of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and began reciting from it. The prose went far beyond the limits of my capacity; but somewhere between his comparison of the infinite depths of black holes and Grandma, my smile emerged. Scanning her silent body propped upon pillows and cushions, I felt at ease. There'll be other fairs, Grandma. There'll be other fairs…




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