The Unfair

by DC Stanfa

There are many uncertainties in life. Even after forty years of living it, I often struggle with choices. Coffee or tea. Kickboxing or yoga. Hit the snooze alarm, or not. Then there are some pretty clear-cut rules that do make sense to live by. Do floss. Do pass on the left. Don't eat anything that falls on the floor (unless it is chocolate and no one is looking). Don't pick a fight or your nose unless you've really considered what you might be getting into.

Like most 12-year-olds in 1972, I'd attained a moderate amount of wisdom from various sources: church, school, home, the neighborhood, and the reading material Mom and Dad had hidden under their bed. But, there comes a time, usually in adolescence, when the most important things to know you learn yourself—the hard way. When you do learn them, it is your humanitarian obligation to pass along such truths to the rest of mankind. So, let this be known, please pass it on. Tell it to your children and your children's children or make it part of the genetic code and the universal mind. This is the imperative: Never, never, never work for a man named Turtle.

It was late summer 1972. My best neighborhood friend, the more exuberant one of twin sisters, swung, standing up on the backyard swing-set.

"Donny Welch says that they're setting up over at the fairground, you know, rides and games and stuff. He says they're hiring kids to work there. Wouldn't that be fun?" Lee leaned back on the swing to gain momentum and height.

"What kind of jobs are there?"

"Oh, I don't know, like selling ride tickets I guess."

She must have sensed I wasn't exactly sold on the idea.

"Donny says the jobs pay up to three dollars an hour!"

"Wow, that's more than twice what we get for babysitting, and no dirty diapers to change! The fair last five days. If we get three dollars an hour for, let's say, eight hours a day—oh my god, that's over a hundred dollars! I've never had a hundred dollars before, in my life. Think about what we could buy with a hundred dollars!"

As I shouted those words my mind was calculating the enormity of the numbers and picturing a crisp one hundred-dollar bill in my hands. I realized that the five-dollar-a-week allowance I earned with daily chores divided down to about seventy-five cents an hour; peanuts compared to the wealth that awaited me at the fairgrounds.

Lee was my age but she always seemed much older. With a confident, easygoing style, she could get herself into and out of just about any situation. She had a natural, free-flowing look, a thick brown mane of hair, smooth complexion, and would never need orthodontics or cosmetic camouflage for zits. I would require both.

We rode our banana-seat bikes out to the Lucas County Fairgrounds to investigate our possible employment. I'd gotten a ten-speed the previous year, but had recently stripped the gears so the going was slow.

There was no official "application" or hiring process at the fair. We just wandered the fairgrounds while food booths, rides, "carnie" games and exhibits were being set-up. That's when we encountered our boss-to-be, Turtle, and his family.

Lee and I watched as the five-foot-two character stood on a ladder hanging enormous, stuffed St. Bernards around the inside perimeter of a game booth where milk bottles had been stacked pyramid-style on small tables. The stuffed animals were more than half his size. Sweat stains decorated his T-shirt. His black, slick-backed pompadour glistened with Brylcreem. He turned his head in our direction and stepped down from the ladder.

"You hiring?" Lee asked Elvis's shorter, ugly brother.

He grinned a black and white checkerboard set of teeth at us.

"Can you bark?"

The words fell out of his mouth like they might take a few more teeth with them. Consistent with carnie tradition, Turtle had a high tattoo-to-teeth ratio.

Lee and I were confused by his question.

"I mean do y'all think ya can yell loud enough for folks to wanna play these 'ere games?"

A petite blonde woman who'd been blowing up balloons at the adjacent booth and a little boy who'd been tacking them to a corkboard stopped to listen to our conversation. He pointed in their direction.

"In this 'ere game ya gotta bust balloons for prizes."

"Step right up and break a balloon for a prize," Lee quickly auditioned.

"That's the idea little lady. How 'bout your friend?"

Nervously, I reached into a basket near the front of the other booth and picked up a well-seasoned softball.

"Knock over the milk bottles and win a prize," I said, lacking Lee's volume and confidence. This caught the attention of the little boy who walked over and took the softball from me.

"No. Ya cain't just knock 'em down, ya gotta knock 'em all off the table to win the BIGGEST PRIZE ON THE MIDWAY!"

This kid looked about ten years old. But his excitement was convincing.

I nodded. "Cool."

"This is my boy Ike. You can call me Turtle, and my old lady over there is Betty."

Betty's hair sure was a strange color.

It reminded me of the color of a Lay's potato chip bag, and it was so over-teased and over-bleached I was sure the texture was probably a lot like a crunchy potato chip.

"How much will you pay us?" Lee asked, after we'd completed our side of the introductions.

"Three dollars an hour, if you can start tomorrow."

"It's a deal," Lee said, shaking his grimy hand.

"Be here at 9:30. The fair opens at 10:00."

.

"That was unbelievable! It was almost too easy to get hired, I mean, considering our ages," I said to Lee.

We sat on a picnic table at Dairy Queen where we'd stopped on the ride home. Pleased with our new career paths, we were celebrating our good fortune over Peanut Buster Parfaits.

Lee shrugged, and gave me a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, it is the day before the fair and he probably wanted to make sure he had some help. All we have to do is, like, stand around and talk to people."

Easy Come

By 9:30 a.m. the fairgrounds had reached a steamy 80 degrees and the pungent stench of the contents of the 4-H barns loomed heavily over the Midway. My elephant leg bell-bottoms were sticking to my butt as a result of the bike ride, and I'd caught the hem in the bike chain along the way. That act of gracefulness tore my jeans and caused the chain to come off its track—par for my course. Lee had the chain fixed in no time. Her control over all situations and eternal optimism were definitely contagious. Still, I had a gut feeling that it was going to be a long day.

Lee must have read my mind. As we ambled past the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Freak Show (Featuring: Gorilla Woman, Snake Man, and Lobster Boy), she speculated out loud, "Wonder how late we'll have to work? Probably until five or six."

"Yeah, I'm sure there are other people working nights."

As we arrived, Turtle's boy Ike was gingerly working on stacking the milk bottles. Turtle approached us with money aprons and instructions.

"One throw fifty cents, three for a dollar, both booths. Ya break a balloon, ya git the small prize, break another, and ya can trade up. Six trade-ups will git ya to the big prize. Betty and I will replace the balloons and git the prizes after the dart throws. And Ike, only Ike will set up the milk bottles. Get it?"

"Sure," Lee said. I nodded.

"Got it?" Turtle asked, directing the question to me.

"Yeah."

Like, don't have a cow, man.

"Good!"

Ironically, the only other person to use the 'Get it? Got it? Good!' training method had been a visiting priest who spoke to our seventh-grade religion class at St. Peter's earlier that year, who emphatically taught us sex-ed with the basics that he himself lived by. "Boys, girls, hands off, get it? Got it? Good!"

As prospective patrons passed, Lee belted out a convincing invitation to play. My own bark was more like that of a small dog. A Chihuahua, perhaps. It didn't take a whole lot of vocals to convince people to play the milk bottle game. The prizes and the simplicity of the game were the draw. Knock five bottles off the table and win a stuffed dog bigger than your car trunk. It wasn't like taking candy from a baby; it was more like taking money from a person shoving the money in your face.

After about four hours in the blazing sun and an apron full of cash, I hadn't had one customer win this simple game. Oh, there were a few that knocked them down. One or two that actually succeeded in knocking a few off the table, but never all five. Then Ike would "set 'em up again." I was beginning to wonder if anyone would ever win that game.

While Lee and I grabbed a quick corn dog for lunch, she said, "This is pretty fun, huh?"

"At least you're giving away some prizes."

I was a little mopey but kept my suspicions to myself. Lee, however, must have been having her own doubts.

"I guess that milk bottle thing is harder than it looks."

As the day wore down, so did we. I was beginning to wonder where our replacements were, so I asked the boss.

"Are you for serious? This is an all-day gig."

"Well, I think our parents are expecting us back," Lee interjected, having overheard our discussion. "We can't ride our bikes home in the dark."

She sounded so reasonable.

"All right. Stay until 7:30, I suppose we can handle it after that."

On the bike ride home, I was almost too exhausted to peddle. But we'd been paid in cash. Three dollars times ten hours added up to thirty dollars each.

"Four more days of this kind of money and we'll be rich," Lee assured me.

I nodded and simultaneously spit some gnats out of my mouth. We rode in silence, conjuring up what wondrous and groovy items we might buy. I mentally spent $3.99 on a sealing wax set with a peace symbol stamper I'd seen at Wicks-N-Sticks. I also envisioned a cerebral purchase of some round, wire-rimmed glasses with interchangeable, colored lenses at J.C. Penney. All that, and I still wouldn't have to break the hundred dollar bill I was going to get.

Maybe I'll even open a bank account. The money in the account earns more money by just sitting in the account.

I pictured big things, like a plane trip to see the ocean someday in my future. Things I knew my parents couldn't afford.

The next morning as I was getting ready to meet Lee, my Mom called from work. "How's everything going with this Fair job? You mentioned that this guy, Turtle, was a little weird."

"It's okay, Mom. Sorry I was too tired to talk when I got home. I didn't realize that standing on my feet all day in the heat would be so, uh, hard."

"Well, I don't like you working so many hours. I think there are laws about how many hours kids can work."

"Mom, I gotta go. I'll be careful and we'll try to get off a little earlier tonight."

I was getting antsy and didn't want to be late. As I hopped on my bike, it crossed my mind that Turtle might not care much about child labor laws, or many other laws, for that matter.

Conclusion—»