Goldfish
By Dan Cardoza
Iowa is the Mecca of State Fairs. Late summer is birthed as golden as corn. Each year would grow into a drab bit of eternity, but for the big-top ten days in late August.
And this year it's Hairball with special guest Bonne Finken, a small town concert, all under the big tent. It is Barksdale Cookies, and the holiest of grails, deep-fried cinnamon rolls wrapped in Hawkeye bacon.
As I near the front of the line, a rusty toothed carnie snaps a well-rehearsed wink in my direction, creaks through his half-burned Camel, "Cha-cha doll, let’s load 'em up."
It's that sexy, Death-Grip roller coaster again. It makes you clutch the one you're with, no matter who. Moments later, my boyfriend and I are stalled and tongue-tied, cotton-candied and sticky, at the peak of the loop, fuck stuck. We blister from pheromone fever, we're both seventeen, the ride is over too soon.
I've been told, more than once, my hair is a perfect shade of yarrow. That I have supple skin and perky soft tits, wear the right color of nails. I'm everybody and nobody's girl, I've been objectified.
Jack says, "You've been hot since freshman year." I think to myself that must be why we careen all around the backseat of his daddy's hand-me-down Chevy.
Up and down, down and up. Every day we ride our roller coaster of highs and lows. It's all the undulating emotions. Jack loves him some beers and finds him some Quaaludes. It's all good until I miss the second period and get fire alarm pregnant.
There's a game you play at the fairs and carnivals, especially if you're a needy seventeen in Iowa, but anywhere really. Your hunk even pays for it.
I toss tiny, plastic tennis balls. That makes you his girl. The balls bounce all over the place, ass over teakettle, like verbs in a William Carlos Williams poem. Every which-away is exactly where they go. As scripted, we're at the end of summer action romance. So in the final throw, the storyboard calls for me to dramatically win a goldfish. Weeks later, I'm told between physics and odds it's damned hard to lose, impossible unless you have ten thumbs. But on this day I choose to feel damned lucky. I'm so excited, I nearly pee my big girl's panties.
All I care about is having something to nourish and love, so I take it home to my month to month. I scheme to keep it near: The kitchen sink, while cooking, the bathtub, just about everywhere.
Each morning, I make sure it thrives in the sunlight, and at night, it's Roku, YouTube, and popcorn on the Goodwill sofa. I watch it in the kitchen, but only from the corner of my eye. In the building block Lagos of darkness, save the moon, its scales silver in the purest of water. I imagine us swimming in microscopic stars, in this, our new glassy universe.
It's only been days, and I want to give up. I'm alone, and he's broken. He's zoonotic, which means infections can spread between animals and humans. Playing house is a dead end. He can't be fixed.
It's the beginning of cloudy September. I've been told this is the month goldfish die. I flush him down the Pure White, filthy ceramic toilet. I party and cry a lot, turn Goth to mourn myself.
The lost boys say, "Damn, you look so vampire chic when you're mascara runs. You look so beautiful and radiant." I see through it, boys are the last thing on my mind.
There's a horrible accident next year. Everything goes off the rails. It's a roller coaster crash, something to do about a distracted carnival worker and meth. No one is here to read the headlines.
Someone, somewhere, won't live long enough until next year's fair.
THE END