Madame Rosa
-from “Hey Rube!”-
One of my first carnival jobs was running the “String Game”. We
had the biggest bears on the midway, and I decided who won or lost.
For twenty five cents you could win a hot pink bear and prove your
love for your girlfriend, then carry it around like a crippled child for
the rest of the night.
You bad a one in a hundred chance of picking the right string, unless
you knew the proprietor. I showed my friends which string to pull.
It was real good for business. Around the bear’s neck was a sign
saying where it was won. I’d have a half dozen of my friends
parading the midway with the giant stuffed bears, and people lined
up with hopes of pulling the lucky string that had a bear at the other
end. Fifty bears seeming to be hung from strings served as a back-
drop for my first hustle, but only six of them were actually tied to a
string. I learned that all of the games employed such deception to
lure in the loose change.
Next to Lou’s String Game was Madame Rosa’a Crystal Ball. All
week long I listened to her prepared tape: “Wontt you Come in.
Won’t you come in. Both of you come in together.”
I’d find myself chanting along in the lull of a weekday afternoon.
One morning I helped her put up her canopy and raked the cigarette
butts from the dust in front of her display. Later she aked me to
polish her crystal ball. The signs I dusted for her said Madame Rosa
could predict the fate of your love. ENTER AT YOUR OWN
RISK.
‘Won’t you come in. Won’t you come in. Both of you come in
together, together.” the record cackled, as Madame Rosa sat mo-
tionless behind a table where her crystal ball glowed from a single
light below, casting her shadow off the walls of the tent.
I listened to her carnival magic all week as nervous couples lined up
to hear the fate of their love. Madame Rosa decided which ones
could make it, and sometimes which ones ended that night. I was
twelve. years old. I had never tasted love. I had no interest in love. I
wondered whether I was gonna shoot my first deer this year.
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At the end of the week she gave me twenty dollars and agreed to see
me in her crystal ball for free. My first question was, “Will I grow
up to be a Pro Football player?” It’s all I could think of on the spot.
Madame Rosa ran red nailed fingers over the glowing orb, I’d so
preciously polished earlier that day. Her eyes focused on a vision. I
strained to see what she saw, but all I could see was my own reflec-
tion.
Madame Rosa seemed bored, “Your efforts will be rewarded.,” she
dribbled out.
I smiled because football practise started on Monday.
“What else would you like to know my son?” I drew a blank,
forgetting that I wanted to know if I was going to shoot my first
deer. “Don’t you want to know the fate of your love? It’s my
specialty.”
I had heard enough about the fate of love and had seen the angry
couples fighting on the midway.
Country boys like to propose on the Ferris Wheel as it carries their
love in circles, rising to its zenith, sinking to its nadir. From the top
they propose, with all of Spamland glowing like a crystal ball on the
prairie. This life couldn’t get any better as the cataract moon ob-
serves her tearful acceptance. They embrace as the Ferris Wheel
takes them back down.
They walk off hugging their giant bears, giddy with the new found
earth, only to slice out its stuffed heart in front of Madame Rosa’s,
later that night.
What kind of fateful love would I find? I really didn’t need to know
at that point in my life, but she delivered a future like nothing I’d
heard her tell the others. For a full hour she gave me the next twenty
years. Telling me every fateful love story I would encounter. I Was
given the tragedy before the storm.
I didn’t heed her warning. The future was a long ways off, and I had
football practise on Monday, and I was aching to use my new found
carnival muscle.
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