WILD WOMAN FROM BORNEO
"Step right up, folks. See the wild woman from Borneo. She's just arrived in America, straight from Borneo. She's a wild demon, she is." The carnival Barker kept his spiel running. Sounds of screaming and gnashing of teeth filled the air.
We were walking along the line of sideshows, Eddie running ahead and Little Lee walking between Grandma and Grandpa. They both were holding his hands to keep him from getting lost in the crowd. I hung behind and tried not to look like I was with them. At my age it was not cool to be at the fair with your Grandparents and brothers. I tried to maintain a disinterested appearance.
"Can we go in, Grandpa?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah," said Lee, "Can we go in?"
"I don’t know," said Grandma. This doesn't look safe to me."
"It's just a bunch a malarkey," said Grandpa.
"Please, Granddaddy," said Eddie.
I didn't say anything. I just hung behind.
After a minute, Grandpa said, "I guess we can go in and check it out."
We gathered in front of the stage and listened to the Barker. "Get your tickets while they last, folks. This is a sight to behold and not many people have seen her and lived to tell about it."
Lee's ears perked up and a look of fear washed across his face. Eddie plowed onward through the crowd. We followed and Grandpa bought our tickets. We entered the tent hesitantly. The tent was small inside and there was a pen in the middle. There were no seats, just standing room. The pen was about 20 x 20 with wooden boards spaced like a fence about waist high. Above that was a heavy duty wire, kind of like chicken wire. A door in the wall on one end of the pen led to the outside and there was another door to a cage on the other end. The floor was just red dirt.
"What's that on the ground over there, Grandpa?" asked Eddie. He swallowed hard and asked, "Is that blood over there?"
"That's what it looks like to me," Grandpa said.
I stood off to myself a few feet away to maintain my aloofness. I watched warily, waiting. Outside the carnival barker said, "Entry is over for this show, Ladies and Gents. We are about to get underway." The screaming and growling sound from outside speakers stopped and it was suddenly quiet inside the tent. About thirty people lined the walls of the pen. It wouldn't be long now.
The barker stepped inside the pen through the door on the end. "This will be a show you will tell your children and grandchildren about. A show that will stop the heart. A show that you will never forget. The wild woman from Borneo is a crazed lunatic. She loves to feast on human flesh. She's got an appetite for human blood, especially young boys." He looked at the three of us and frowned.
Everyone shivered just a bit. The barker stepped out through the door and opened a cage. He grabbed a chicken and pitched it into the pen, quickly closing the door."
"Hey, that's just a damned chicken. That ain't no wild woman," Ernie Simpson yelled. "We want our money back."
An animal like scream pierced the tent and the cage at the other end of the pen rattled and shook. The door flew open and a small wiry woman emerged running on all fours like an ape. She ran across the pen hell bent for leather and leapt into the air hitting the wall of the pen in front of a crowd of girls. They screamed and ran for the back of the tent.
Eddie stood with his nose against the chicken wire, laughing. Lee wiggled and pulled himself up against Grandpa's leg. The wild woman prowled around the cage, growling and grunting. She had long black stringy hair caked in red dust and mud. Her body was dark brown and was filthy. A scent followed her as she walked back and forth in front of the crowd.
Her attention then turned to the chicken and she began to stalk it. Back and forth. The chicken would walk a few steps and then break into a short run. "Buk, buk, buk, bwarrrrrk," the chicken cried. The wild woman kept her distance but slowly closed in. With a shriek that would scare the hell out of the devil, she pounced and grabbed the chicken by the neck. "Bwark, Bwark, Bwark." She stood up to her full height and swung the chicken around and around over her head, screaming all the while. With a gush of blood, the chicken's head came off and it's body fell to the ground in a full run. The headless chicken ran round and round the pen, bumping into the sides. Blood covered the walls as it spurted from the headless neck.
The wild woman from Borneo ran down the body, stood up, and held the chicken high over her head. She opened her mouth and blood poured from the chicken's neck into her mouth. Her face, mouth, teeth, and upper body were covered in blood. She threw the body across the pen where it twitched until it finally became still.
Then her attention turned to us. Eddie was still standing by the pen grinning. With absolutely no warning, she bounded across the pen and pounced. Her fingers and toes dug into the chicken wire and she shook it for all she was worth. Eddie jumped back and turned to run. He tripped and fell face first into the red dirt. The wild woman dropped down from the pen and grabbed one of the boards from the bottom of the fence. She began to rip and tear, pulling the boards from the wall. We all jumped back and Grandpa picked Little Lee up and held him.
The barker entered the pen with a bull whip. "Get back, you wild woman. Get back," he yelled. The whip cracked and snapped. The wild woman backed across the pen and disappeared into the cage. The door dropped behind her.
A couple of carnival employees herded us out of the tent - shaken to the core. We emerged into the frolicking atmosphere of the carnival. The smells of the fair hit us and suddenly we were hungry.
"How about some cotton candy?" asked Grandpa.
We were all for that. It took our minds off the carnage we had just witnessed. But it didn't stay out of our minds for long. We kept looking back at the tent. We could hear the screams and growls from the speakers in front of the tent.
We walked around the carnival, back and forth. It was very small and did not take long to cover. We went back by the wild woman from Borneo's tent. The barker was still holding forth. Another crowd was forming.
Suddenly, behind the fence and near a small silver trailer, I saw her. The wild woman from Borneo was loose. She was out of the cage. I tried to yell out but my voice was gone. I looked and everyone else had walked on ahead of me. My hair stood up on end. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She squatted down beside the trailer and I thought, Oh No! My feet tried to run, but they just shuffled back and forth. I couldn't move.
A flare of light washed over her face and I could see the fury there. Then she stood up and took a drag off her cigarette. She looked me in the eye and held up a Schlitz beer to me. Then smiling, she sat down in a lawn chair.
I looked at her and thought, wild woman from Borneo, my ass.
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