The Manchester Early Summer Carnival
A “How I Spent My Summer Vacation: I Became a Girl” Gaiden
by
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-5-
Dunking Booth, Hibachi and a Boyfriend

The Dunking booth was located at the far north side of the carnival. It took me a good fifteen minutes to reach it. I was starting to understand the physical layout of the carnival. In the center you had the 'Bazaar'. Here in the 'Bazaar' you would find all the merchants selling their goods. This was a flea market like area. From here if you traveled east one would find the food trucks and all the food stalls. From here one would need to travel north to find the rides. And from there one would travel west to see all the attractions. Down south was the ticket booth and parking lot.

The dunking booth was located on the west hand side. Here one would find all the side-shows and games of skill and chance. One game was a classic, one would pay five dollars and be given five balls, and one would use those five balls to knock down a pyramid of empty milk bottles. Another one was where one would use a basketball and try to shoot a hoop into a moving target. Another one you tossed plastic rings into dozens of milkcrates that were filled with empty, glass bottles.

All these were classic games of skill and chance, all of them offered a stuffed animal as a prize. How big of a stuffed animal depended on how well you did. And standing out among all these attractions, towering among the rest was the dunking booth. A giant tank that was filled with close to three hundred gallons of ice cold water. And perched above this tank, surrounded by a mesh of chicken wire was a brave boy.

The boy was shirtless, his body was dripping with beads of water. His face was flushed red and he seemed to be shivering. His hair was dripping wet and he seemed well embarrassed.

“Having fun?” I said as I neared the dunking booth.

“Tons.” The boy said, taking a deep breath.

“How is the water?” I asked as I eased my box down.

“Cold.” He said, giving me a loop sided smile. “Freezing cold, just before my shift, that clown dude. The one that was running around here looking like the son of Pennywise and Annabelle.. he poured like four, twenty pound bags of ice into water.”

I blinked.

“Sounds like fun.” I said, smirking.

“If you consider getting dunked over and over again into the worlds largest glass of ice water 'Fun' then sure.” He sid smiling a little. “I consider it torture.”

“Hey, considering it's a hundred and fifteen today, getting dunked over and over again into the world's largest glass of ice water does sound like a cool and refreshing day to spend at least an hour or so of your time.”

“Wait till it's your turn!” He said blushing a little.

A crooked little smile formed upon my lips, the guy running the dunking booth was off somewhere. I guess he was off draining the snake or something, so I slipped over the yellow throw line that had been spray-painted on the ground and inched my way to the trigger. Andy's eyes got wide as saucer plates as he saw me slowly moving my hand toward the trigger plate.

“What?! What are you doing Emily?!” He said blushing a little.

“Any last words?” I said, smirking a little as I held my hand inches away from the plate.

“I...” Andy was blushing so hard it was cute.

At that moment I decided to go ahead and push the trigger plate. A second later the seat holding Andy up gave way and Andy dropped like a stone in the freezing water below. Since I was standing so close to the tank I had a pretty birds eye view of the water and indeed, there were small tiny ice cubes floating around in the water. It seemed like it was hundreds if not thousands of tiny little cubes of ice just bobbing on the surface of the water. Hopefully when my turn came around those little cubes would have melted away.

And as I thought about that Andy traveled to the bottom of the tank, his bottom touched the floor of the tank and quickly he started to swim toward the surface. A second later he broke the surface of the water and took a deep breath.

“That...” Andy said blushing as he peered toward me, “Was totally uncalled for,” He said as he pushed the seat back. Instead of climbing back into the seat he climbed out of the tank.

“Sorry, but you just looked too adorable not too.” I said walking up to him. I gave him a smile and then I leaned over and kissed his wet cheeks. “Let me buy you lunch to make up for my mean trick.”

Andy blushed at the kiss and his face visibly brightened at the mention of food.

“Sure, what are we having?” He asked as he pulled a plain shirt over his shivering body.

“How does Hibachi sound?”

“Sounds good.”

Like I said before, the carnival was food truck heaven. The east side was filled with them. Anything under the sun could be found here, tacos, slices of pizza, buckets of fried chicken, chili dogs, hot dogs, hamburgers, smoked turkey legs, smoked baby back ribs, pulled pork, fried pork chops, deep fried chocolate bars, deep fried butter, deep fried coke, and anything else your twisted little heart desired.

The Hibachi food truck was painted a bright firetruck red. On the side was the face of a samurai, the samurai looked mad, like he was making the face you make when you gotta go number two but instead of getting to go and release the demons you gotta hold it. The truck belonged to 'Hiro-Sama Hibachi'. Now I've only eaten at 'Hiro-Sama' once before and it was pretty good. It was kind of pricey, but then again all the food was.

I settled on the 'Geisha Special' which was a large serving of fried rice, grilled shrimp, small, cubed pieces of steak that had also been grilled and a lobster tail. That kind of blew a hole in my wallet. Andy had settled for the 'Master Hiro Special' which was fried rice, grilled shrimp, small, cubed up pieces of steak, strips of grilled chicken breast, and also a lobster tail. I'd also ordered extra fried rice because I just love fried rice.

“So.” I said looking across the table at Andy. “How was your day going so far?”

“It's going okay.” He said blushing as he popped a fried shrimp into his mouth. “All things considered. I just spent an hour sitting in a dunking booth, that some jack-ass clown turned into a huge glass of ice water. Did I tell you the fucker looked like Pennywise's bastard son?”

“You don't like clowns do you?” I said dunking my lobster tail in a small plastic cup of liquid butter. Lobster and butter just seem to go together like I don't know bacon and eggs maybe?

“Emily..” Andy said sighing. “I hate clowns, like ever since my older sisters tricked me into going to see the reboot of 'It' I just can't stand the fuckers. I mean don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with them. Some are cool.. not that I know any clowns.. but this mother fucker just smiled and made a big show of dumping all those big bags of ice into the tank”

“Did he offer you a balloon? A red balloon?” I asked as I shoved a few more spoonfuls of fried rice into my mouth. This was the good kind of fried rice. It had a strong soy flavor that I loved, had a lot of eggs, and bits of chopped up chicken for extra flavor. I loved this kind of fried rice.

“Oh.. no..” Andy reached over and wrapped his fingers around his soda and took a long swig. I think he drained it in one gup. Seeing this I stood up and walked over to the guy running the truck and brought him another. I even opened it for him.

“No, no Emily he looked over his shoulder at me and I swear to God, this evil little fucker said, 'We float, we all float down here Andrew, your going to float too! We all float!' and I mean my blood turned like ice cold. Like I wanted to jump down from that seat and just punchthe guys lights out.”

I blinked and blinked again as I shoveled more fried rice into my mouth. Finally after a few moments of shoveling mountains of golden brown rice mixed with tiny yellow pieces of fried egg, green snow peas, and bits and pieces of onion.

“Look on the bright side.” I said

Andy blinked.

“Look on the bright side, at least he did not make a balloon animal, like what would have happened if he fashioned a long, 'fishing rod' from the balloon and chased you around the fair ground with it.”

“Kinky..” Andy said as he shoved some rice into his mouth.

“I mean there some dude selling hand-cuffs in the bazaar, I mean the freaking clown could hand-cuff you to the wall of a tent and proped you with the 'fishing rod' for the amusement of all the members of the Royal Order Big Blue Catfish..” I said blinking.

“Yes, but those are metal hand-cuffs, and not the fuzzy ones with fake animal fur in them. If the clown cuffed you with those, you'll bruise and not in a good way. Plus, you forgot about the dude selling wooden paddles.”

I blinked.

“Oh now would be a good time to tell you that an old woman called me a 'slut' today too.” I decided to share that juicy piece of information with him too.

“Was the old woman selling used paper back books, like twelve for a dollar?” Andy asked as she shoved a fork full of grilled shrimp, followed by some tasty looking chicken into his mouth.

“YES!” I bellowed as I speared some of my own grilled shrimp with my plastic fork.

“You know, my older sister, the one who tricked me into seeing 'It' she is a volunteer at the local senior care center. She knows that woman, well one day my sister went to check on her, cause nobody had heard a peep from her all morning. And they figured she had either fallen asleep or she had kicked the bucket. Anyway, returning to the story, when my sister got to the room, she noticed there were guys lined up all the way to the bingo parlor. Confused, my sister asked what was going on, it was then some old guy came stumbling out of the room. Dude had his pants around her legs, he was breathing like a race horse and was walking bow-legged. Turns out this sweet old lady was taking them two at a time and charging them fifty dollars a go.”

“...” I gazed at Andy.

“My sister said the room reeked of cum, and that the floor was littered with used condoms. Like they were everywhere. One was even stuck to the ceiling fan.”

“I'm trying to eat!” I called out.

“Hey! I have two older sisters at the house and a younger one. I've learned to just tune stuff out.” Andy said with a sigh.

And that is how my lunch date ended. One quick look at my phone told me my own date with the ducking booth was only twenty minutes away. I breathed a silent prayer, maybe the crowd would take pity on me and not decide to send me for a swim this afternoon and maybe that clown will stay away.