AN EVENING AT THE FAIR

© Daniel J. McCarthy

D
ANIELDA RADO NEVER RECEIVED AN AWARD FOR TEACHING
excellence from the NEA, but she was the most-loved
Second Grade teacher in Elko, Nevada’s long, rich
history. She was the longest serving teacher the town
had seen and, for that, she did win NEA commendation.
On her way home from her award ceremony, she stopped at
the Post Office to certify a letter and to clean the feathers from
her windshield.
Nevada was the winter home to an intractable kind of
blackbird that regularly exhibited enough collective
pigheadedness to warrant a seat in Congress, or maybe the whole
damned House. They congregated in large flocks that persisted in
perching in the middle of the highway, in the face of hundred-
plus-mile-an-hour oncoming traffic speeding their way with
horns a-honk. This situation unerringly resulted in an inexorable
showdown, no less dramatic than Gary Cooper’s in High Noon, or
Tippi Hedren’s in The Birds, in which the avian party was never
the winner; often incurring multiple feathered fatalities. It ranked
almost as high as the Great Elko Cricket Invasion of 2003 as a
reminder that the human race is not alone among species that run
periodically amok.
Danielda had been doing a lot more driving lately, since her
loving husband of thirty three years passed away five months
earlier. The letter she was posting concerned her upcoming move
back to Tennessee. The rigors of life alone in the beautiful but
bleak high desert of northern Nevada had worn her ragged, and
she was excited to be getting back East to enjoy things she
couldn’t in Elko, for one reason or other. Northern Nevada could
be a rough place for an older woman, all alone.
She had a passion for gardening, and particularly loved
irises, azaleas, rhododendrons, and hostas, none of which were
desert dwellers. She doubted there was enough sloughy shade in
all of Nevada to grow them successfully. They would do just
fine, though, in the cool blue hills of home, and she was anxious
to get back there.
When she left the Post Office she was feeling a bit light-
headed, but she proceeded homeward. When she got there, she
did not feel well at all so she brewed herself a pot of green tea.
She knew her blood pressure was sky-high, and she began
experiencing chest pain. Her lightheadedness continued to
worsen until she realized she may be having a heart attack, and
nervously dialed 911.
Danielda had fallen asleep after she’d called the emergency
line, and she awakened three hours later to someone banging on
her front door. She went to answer the knock and the door burst
violently in on her, knocking her to the floor. The four
“technicians” were all dressed in black, hoods covering their
faces, and they were all armed with assault weapons and
screaming at her not to get excited. “Stay calm,” seemed the
only words they knew. Danielda was terrified; she didn’t know
what the hell was going on, but she knew they were not there to
help her. And, she knew she loathed feeling so helpless. She
grabbed for her phone to call for help and felt a rifle butt smash
her forehead, then everything went blank and black very quickly.
The Hashisheens were on a tear. They had come to Elko
from Las Vegas, where they had entered the U.S. at McCarron
International three days earlier, and had spent one entire night
drinking and gambling at five-dollar Blackjack tables until they
got sloppy sick and were thrown out of Binion’s for puking on the
dealer and being a general nuisance. They managed to drive their
rental car to Elko in time to intercept Danielda’s call for help and
derail the local EMT unit.
This group of four was one of twelve similar groups that
were all sent by Wazawi to wreak maximal pandemonium in their
assigned locations. It was a coordinated attack designed to raise
terror in the hearts of ‘average’ Americans by hitting them on
their own turf where they would least expect it. The purpose of
these little forays was simply to terrorize as many Americans as
possible with the least bit of work, not necessarily with one-to-
one, face-to-face contact, but getting word out in the media while
losing the fewest possible personnel in the process. They were
warned against harming children and pregnant women; they did
not need that kind of bad press, but other than that there were no
rules.
Their weapons had been previously readied, and awaited
their arrival at sites near their target locations, which were, aside
from Elko: Walla Walla, Washington; Pulaski, New York; Mount
Airy, North Carolina; Shiner, Texas; Lawrence, Kansas; Hibbing,
Minnesota; Beverly, West Virginia; Boiling Springs,
Pennsylvania; Branford, Florida; and Poland, Ohio.
With Danielda out cold, the Hashisheens dragged her to their
car and dumped her like a sack of seed into the trunk, then sped
away to a local church. The Evangelical Brotherhood of Christ
the Redactor was the third-largest church in Elko, and had been
chosen at random from the phone book. Its home was a one-story
brick building with a curbside electric sign on the street in front of
the property; the ubiquitous variety with black plastic letters and
numbers that stuck to the white, illuminated- from-within,
signboard. This particular one usually displayed a prominent
message from God, but was blank today.
Just beneath it, the Hashisheens – or ‘sheens, for short –
placed Danielda, who had mercifully expired of a heart attack
while in the trunk of the car, on the side of the road, as if she was
sitting in sadness in wait of a ride. To be sure that she was dead,
one of them fired two shots from his rifle at point blank range
into her forehead, then slit her tongue to keep her from talking.
Their plan was to leave a body outside a church, and then
leave. Very simple. But the simplest plans have a way of finding
a complex life of their own. They invariably do that when it is
least expected. That was how the Hashisheens wound up driving
away from the church with an unexpected body in their trunk.
They had planned on a more elaborate presentation but, due
to time constraints – they were afraid the cops would show up
any minute – they kept it simple: they left two live, Western
diamondback rattlers under Danielda’s sweater; a gift for the first
responders to her dilemma.
But, her body had to be discovered, first. It was by now late
in the afternoon and there was scant human activity on the edge
of town. Still, providence found the church’s usher suddenly
appearing, to ask what they were up to. A knife through her heart
quickly answered that question, and they hastily trundled her into
the trunk.
It was a chilly, overcast day, with the sun seeming too weak
even to burn through its golden glow in the gray gloom of
afternoon. The ‘sheens, their work here successfully completed,
piled into the car and pulled away from the curb, anxious to leave
Elko in their dust and head home. As soon as they hid their
excess baggage.
The driver of their car, Mamoun, had grown to enjoy tearing
up Nevada’s no-speed-limit highways with the rented late-model
New Yorker over the past couple of days. It was a treat he would
never have had a chance to sample back home in Yemen, where
he had spent most of his life. But, the laws of physics are
universal ones; the faster a body travels, the longer it takes to
stop, as he found out to his great unease, about three miles
outside of Elko, when an unsuspecting mule deer buck sauntered
gamely out of the sage grass scrub and strutted across the road in
front of him.
Not even the near-dark of a dismal dusk could hide the
horror in the buck’s eyes, as half a ton of chrome and Chrysler
came barreling down on him at a hundred and ten with its horn
screaming and brakes screeching, and four crazed fools inside,
waving their arms like they thought they could fly.
The buck did not survive the consequent collision. The
‘sheens did, however, but their vehicle looked no more like a
vehicle now than the mule deer looked like a mule. Or, a deer.
They had been instructed to learn one new word of English
each day to prepare for this excursion; today’s word was “pickle.”
They were in a fine one, now. They needed to get another car,
somehow; the Chrysler was a goner, but they knew they were
wanted by the authorities. The car, as it was – sitting in the
middle of the highway – would not even turn over. If they waited
for help, they knew they were as good as dead. One thing they
were certain about: they had to get away from that car! Now! It
was full of stuff that would not look good for them in a court of
law. Not good at all! There were enough assault weapons in the
trunk to supply an infantry squad; there was premium quality
hashish – they would not be Hashisheens without it – and, oh yes,
…a dead body.
Their decision: abandon the car. Where it lay. In the
middle of SR-227.
They began the long, slow walk back to Elko. They realized
that they were now in one hell of a pickle. The only clothes they
all had were the ones they were wearing, which were
intentionally chosen to look malevolent and intimidating, the last
qualities they now wanted to convey. Their clothes were all
black: baggy black pants, black shirts, black robes, and black
turbans. They left their black masks in the car in a bow to current
fashion trends. Still, blending in was going to be a challenge.
Another pickle: only one of them spoke any English, and not very
good, at that.
So, here is the picture anyone riding by, and not busy
texting, sexting, or driving, would have seen that evening on the
side of the road outside Elko, Nevada: Four black-clad, bearded
and turbaned young Arab men, only one of whom spoke marginal
English, had struck and killed a deer in the middle of the road,
demolishing their rented car in the process, and then had left the
scene of the accident to walk back into the town, where they had
just committed two grisly murders and raised all kinds of other
hell.
On the walk back to town, the Hashisheens decided it would
be wise to stay off the main road, so they walked parallel to it, a
block away on an access road. They were worried that they stood
out; they didn’t look like Americans. But, they had no change of
clothes. A quarter-mile farther out of town was an outlet mall
where they could have bought themselves entire new wardrobes,
and at substantial savings, but they had no idea it was there; it
might as well have been on Mars. And then, there were their
beards. But, many Americans wore them; just, …not quite as
much. They would not shave, anyway, even if they had razors; a
religion thing. Back to square one.
Now that they had settled that question, they walked again
with a renewed swagger, figuring that, if they couldn’t change
their appearance, maybe they could walk American. They had
seen enough John Wayne movies to ape his gait. They finally
managed a collective strut that they all agreed upon. Mamoun
told them they should be proud of themselves; when they
reentered the town, they were going to fit right in!
…Like a bastard at a family reunion.
T HE HASHISHEENS FOUND THEMSELVES WALKING THROUGH A
BARN ; a long , low barn, full of cattle. Beautiful cows,
heifers, steers; bulls, of every imaginable breed. And,
they were all painstakingly groomed; it was obvious that these
critters had been sedulously looked after. Then, at the end of the
barn was another, just as large but full of sheep. Mamoun had
never seen so many sheep in one place, and all so pretty! They
moved him to exclaim aloud that they were the sexiest sheep he
had ever seen. He had absolutely no idea that so many breeds of
the beardless bovid even existed!
The other people that walked with them were all amazed at
these animals, too; it seemed they were part of the same tour
group, possibly; they were clearly tourists. They bore all the
tourist trappings: they carried balloons shaped like cows or pigs
or hearts. Many of the women carried huge stuffed, toy animals,
all brightly colored. Some were breeds and species Mamoun did
not even know had made it to the Ark! It was a multi-colored
menagerie in plastic, floating right along with the crowd! And,
everyone had food!
Mamoun could not believe how r ich was everyone in
America! He had heard about that, all his life, but to actually see
it and to be among it was an unforgettable experience. Between
Las Vegas and this place, people had money and food and wealth
of all sorts dripping out of their pockets, they were so full! He
saw one man with more than one watch on his wrist – not just
one, but twenty! Both his arms were covered with watches! No
one back home will believe him when they hear these stories,
Mamoun imagined.
At the end of the second barn, Mamoun noticed something
novel on the side of the road ahead. A Ferris wheel caught the
attention of everyone nearby, and a sizeable and growing crowd
of people had assembled around it. The Hashisheens thought this
might be a good place to hide out, for a while. It would certainly
give them the time to think about a plan of action. They had to
come up with something soon; here, they could easily melt into
the crowd. …Easy as Pi.
What they had stumbled upon was a busy Elko County Fair,
on one of its busiest nights, nearing the end of its run, when the
huge crowds were at their peak. The Hashisheens had no idea
what a Fair was, or that it was not an everyday event. It was just
a great place to get lost in, they thought; endlessly long barns
seemed to stretch forever; each, full of beautifully groomed show
animals – cattle, horses, goats, sheep, rabbits, chickens, pigs….
PIGS!? Allah could surely not be pleased at the sight of his
warriors in Islam mingling with so much pork on the hoof. They
would steer clear of the animal barns for a while.
This was an educational opportunity no one expected.
Mamoun recognized it right away. One day spent in this place
was a richer, fuller inculcation into American life than one full
year at school or university. Why had Wazawi not informed him?
They decided to ride the Ferris wheel and think things over,
so they stood in the ticket line. The woman working in the Ferris
wheel ticket booth – middle-aged and morbidly plump – appeared
to have developed quite a rapport with the crowd lined up at her
window. She had baked some pies that she had entered in the Pie
Baking Competition; Apple, Minced Meat, and a Pear and
Apricot Torte were her three favorites. Mamoun tried to explain
to her that he wanted four tickets for the Ferris wheel. Her mind
was still on the pie competition, apparently; what little English he
spoke, he did so with a crippling accent and she had trouble
understanding him.
She had her own pronunciation issues. She saw that there
were four men in his group, that they were all dressed in black,
they all spoke a foreign language, and were all very bearded,
prompting her to conclude that they were “Aymish.” She was
all but certain she had read somewhere that the Amish did not
speak ‘American’. She just now remembered – they spoke Dutch,
and she knew that the Amish dressed in black! These folks must
be ‘Aymish,’ she decided; quite proud of her deductive abilities.
“D’you guys… d’you … d’you fellas want four tickets?”
She shouted her question over the noise of the crowd and
Mamoun misunderstood.
“No Jew! Not Jew! …Four! Yes! Not Jew!” He had a look
of profound confusion upon his face as he handed her a face of
Benji.
“That’ll be twenty dollars. Out of one hundred. Are you
Aymish? …Aymish?” She’d noticed a tinge of recognition on his
face, so repeated herself, then, for emphasis.
“Mesh, yes! Mesh! No Jew! Ha-ha”
“Here’s your change! Eighty dollars. D’you want any
singles?”
“No Jew! …Mesh! Please! …Single, …no, married! …We,
married! No Jew!” Animated, he waved his hands briskly back
and forth in vigorous ambidextrous dismissal.
“Okay, please take your eighty dollars change. Thank you!
Step right over here and board the car!”
She pointed out the path they should take to board the Ferris
wheel gondola and they followed her direction. It was stop and
go, stop and go, for the first ten minutes of their ride but they
climbed closer to the crest with every lurch. Then, one more big,
bobbing, heave upward and they finally had their turn at the
crown of the circle – for three minutes.
They had a spectacular view of northern Nevada at night.
Taking in that vast visual spectacle took all of five seconds, but
there was one outstanding curiosity amid the darkness that
sprawled beneath them. One point of brightly colored frenetic
energy; a vivid concentration of flashing and swirling, spinning
and twirling lights, that clearly marked a hotbed of police and
firefighter activity, and that was not very far at all from the base
of the Ferris wheel.
Mamoun looked down at the vast display of color, light and
motion, thinking that every cherry-topped vehicle in the state of
Nevada must have converged at that one, tiny, seemingly
insignificant spot, that was suddenly so… significant.
Wondering what could possibly have made such an impact on an
otherwise bland batch of sand, it suddenly occurred to him that he
and his compatriots had recently left that very spot; that was
where they had abandoned their car and....
OMG!
These ‘OMG! moments’ struck Mamoun periodically, as they
had since his initiation to the world wide web. Time, as did he,
stood abruptly still.
The unexpected realization that all those lights were after
them, suddenly opened previously clogged blood vessels in all of
the Hashisheens, and panic set in. One of them, out of the dull
gray sky, unfastened his safety buckle and stood up, violently
rocking their fiercely unstable little craft in an ill-advised effort
to climb down to the ground.
Mamoun convinced him, with a sharp smack to the side of
the face with one open fist, and a squinting eye and the flash of a
cocked .44 in the other, to abandon that folly and let the ride
proceed to its inevitable earthly conclusion. The cops were not
on to their location yet, he added, but would be, and with much
greater haste, if one of them were to plummet to the planet from
the Ferris wheel at such a height, in a gruesome, uncontainable
untidiness.
All the commotion of standing up and down and rocking the
boat apparently spread to other cars in the Big Wheel. During the
last ten minutes of the ‘sheens’ ride, they noticed fellow Ferris
wheelers standing up and pouring liquids down onto them from
cars above. This was an American custom they were not familiar
with. They had heard about baptism but…. It was accompanied
by loud laughter, shouting, and wild gesticulation. They thought
– they hoped – the liquid was beer; it dried to a sticky tack and
smelled not too terribly bad, …but it was such a strange practice!
No potable liquid was ever dispensed that cavalierly in the
desert! All four of the Hashisheens were soaked fairly through,
though, by the time their ride ended.
When their vessel at last reached shore and with peace
restored, they disembarked, glad to be back on land again. They
wandered through the fairgrounds marveling at the crowds, candy
apples, concessions, and side shows. One attempted the
inadvisable task of consuming cotton candy through a very full
beard, and failed miserably. He was embarrassed at having
smeared the Day-Glo blue goo all over his straggly growth, as if
it made any difference to his appearance. As it was, the group
could not have looked any more conspicuous had they carried a
banner with a big red arrow that said, “Arab Terrorists! AIM
Here!”
“Americans make a contest of everything,” Mamoun
observed. They could not get over the variety and sheer volume
of the goofiness they saw; things like ‘hit the bull’s-eye and dunk
the pretty girl in the water tank.’ And, the sledgehammer-slinging,
bell-banging, Iron Man strength test.
They were enthralled by the “Geek Show;” not because it
exhibited geeks but that Americans found them strange enough to
pay to see things that were, to the Hashisheens, common
everyday sights in the souks and Kasbahs of Aden, Yemen and
Muscat, Oman, and everywhere in Arab culture, that treated
“freaks” in the same civilized manner they treated anyone else.
“What a strange country, America,” mused Mamoun. “Amazing
and wonderful, and rich in so many ways, but so, so very odd.”
They turned a corner and came upon the Catch a Greased
Pig contest. Mesmerized, they stood and watched. Although
eating pork was hardly encouraged in Islam, the sight of an actual
pig was not that uncommon in many predominantly Muslim
countries, which said more about Islam’s grip on people’s day-to-
day lives than it did about the culinary qualities of another white
meat. But, to see one in a context such as this was rare, in
extremis.
The object of the contest was to bring home the slab using
one’s bare hands. That job was hard enough to perform under
ordinary circumstances, but to take a perfectly good squealer and
slather it with five gallons of thick bacon grease, was simply
asking for trouble. ‘Crazy Americans,’ Mamoun thought. But, he
loved watching the crazy Americans diving headlong into the pen
of deep mucky ooze to scrap with the frisky porkers time and
again. And, still come up losers every time.
After bloating their eyeballs on greazed pig, Mamoun and
his crew slid back into the fast-flowing multitudinous slipstream
of heavy heterogeneous human concourse that was the churning,
rushing and gushing lifeblood of the Fair. There they were: four
free-floating, pure-bred Arabian corpuscles, loose in the multi-
lane veins of mainstream, Main Street America; swept along by
an urgent, unrelenting current that was stronger than any of them
were ready for and it spat them right back out again, in a whirling
gyre of numerological regurgitation, to a white-sand-and-
swaying-palm-trees south seas atoll paradise, replete with a
beautiful bouncy buxom bounty of “native” lei-bearing island
girls, each one worthy of a Gauguin wet dream, and eager to ease
the sun-and-sea- drenched eyes and bones of any red-blooded
heterosexual male willing to risk marital bliss to enter their
hypnotic, hypnagogic realm.
Enter, they did, and thrust their crisp new multi-dollar bills
down, to see “Fanta-Sea Island Paradise.” For the extra five
bucks the Island Girls did an innocuously suggestive little Hula-
type dance with a live eighteen-foot boa constrictor, to a blatantly
over-the-top “Hawaiian Style” musical accompaniment with a
pedal steel guitar that sounded like it was lifted from a scratchy
old 78 purchased from Kresge’s.
The ‘sheens made up exactly half the audience of eight that
endured that performance, of which there were four per hour,
unless business demanded more, or less. At the climax of the
show, all of the dancers – both of them – popped their tops,
bearing breasts – both of them – and flashing a little nipple to
give the crowd their money’s worth of good clean American fun –
for about two seconds; just enough time for the dancers to dash
offstage as the curtain fell for the show’s finale.
Now, with each of them sporting a festive floral adornment
around their scrawny neck, looking all dolled-up like they were
headed for the Terrorist Prom, it was back into the maelstrom to
battle for a bite to eat. All of that titillation in Paradise had left
the ‘sheens with mighty appetites. Or, maybe all that hash they’d
been smoking had given them the munchies. Either way, their
plan now was to satisfy their appetite for food.
There is an Arabic word that closely described what next
happened to them. Serendip. The English transliteration is
serendipity. In this sensual cyclone of sights, sounds and smells
that surrounded, astounded and dazzled them, one distinctly
familiar aroma tantalized Mamoun’s nostrils and, for one fleeting
instant, transported him home.
He looked up to behold, in bright, sparkling colors that
jumped out at the world, a FALAFEL stand, practically staring
him in the face, and he could not believe his very eyes! Mamoun
was a child again, back in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, on the
Red Sea, helping his grandmother mash chick peas and garlic
cloves with a mortar and pestle, to make falafel and hummus the
same way it had been done for at least four thousand years.
Certainly a gift from above! Allah had cast an omniscient,
omnipotent eye down on his wayward but hungry warriors.
 A staple in Middle Eastern cuisine, falafel is a deep-fried
croquette of mashed chick peas, or fava beans, served with tahini,
a sesame seed sauce, and often made into a pita bread sandwich.
One of Mamoun’s namesakes in New York owned a legendary
falafel shop, Mamoun’s, on MacDougall Street in Greenwich
Village. Brant would forever remember it for an interminable
heartburn incident; the worst case he’d ever had in his life.
Mamoun ordered falafel sandwiches for his crew, across the
board. He was beginning to like this country, a lot, and wished
his first visit had been under different circumstances. But he
knew he was in for a reality check, soon. This trip to the Fair had
not been on their schedule; they should have been on their way
home, by now. It was no secret to him that every hour spent in
the U.S., after their job had been completed, was one hour closer
to dying time.
Speaking of dying, a short, heavy-set, young adult diner,
heavily bundled against the chill and standing adjacent to the
‘sheens while they ate, began to gag. The people with him stood
away in horror as the situation worsened, until it became apparent
he was choking and in serious trouble.
Wolfing down the falafel sandwich, he apparently tried to
sneak in a quick breath of air at just the wrong time, and a mini
morsel of mystery meat got sucked down with it in mid-
mastication, blocking his esophagus! That was Mamoun’s
diagnosis, anyway; he had spent two years in medical school in
Yemen, and knew a thing or two about the mysterious workings
of the human digestive tract.
The man was waving his arms wildly but could not speak,
and his round baby face had turned a frightening purple.
Mamoun watched calmly as this real-life drama unfolded before
his eyes. He felt a rush of religious fervor sweep through him
and could stand by no longer. He coolly stepped behind the man,
put his outstretched arms under the gagging guy’s arms and
around, as if hugging his back, and locked his hands together just
below the choker’s solar plexus, to the slack-jawed and cheek-
clapping horror of those around them. The man’s face by now
was gravely blue.
Mamoun made a tight fist with one hand and, with the other
grasping it, drove that fist up and into the stricken man’s chest,
just beneath his sternum, in one quick, stabbing motion. To
everyone’s stunned amazement, a dime-sized chunk of tomato
flew from the man’s mouth, like shot from a gun, freeing his
esophagus, and he breathed once again! A deep, nourishing
breath of resuscitation and life renewed!
The rescued man gave his savior a heart-felt hug and a kiss
on the cheek, and quietly thanked him for saving his life. All of
the man’s friends, and other diners and their friends nearby,
complimented him for his poise and his quick response, and
thanked him profusely. Snapshots were snapped.
Mamoun brushed off the accolades, one or two of which he
actually understood, with the same composed nonchalance he was
being praised for, as if everyone used the Heimlich Maneuver to
save a life, every day of every year. Not a problem. It was
nothing that any other normal red-blooded Omani guy would not
have done under similar circumstances, he shrugged. Nothing, at
all.
Then, with the same detached coolness, he turned to the
stout little man whose life he had just delivered from death’s IN-
box, looked deeply into the baffled brown American eyes, and
buried the freshly-honed blade of a twelve-inch scimitar deeper
than his gaze into the left ribcage, slicing between bones; dicing
the urgently throbbing valves and ventricles of a collapsing heart
beating the final frantic beats of its last cadence.
In his itch to drive the blade deeper and complete the
procedure, he discovered that his maneuvering action had an
unintended consequence: he gained inadvertent intimate
knowledge of his victim. In manipulating the knife, his hand felt
the unmistakable maternal fullness of a voluptuous left breast
swollen with sweet new milk. What Mamoun had thought a fat
belly had not been the bulge of obesity.
A burst of fireworks lit the sullen night sky.