My Scary Day at the Festival...

Hello, All!

I am writing today to share an experience that I simply can't stop thinking about. I am confused, scared, concerned, and naked.

As at least half of you know, I love September. It's just a great month. Cool fall temperatures finally relieve our bodies of the awful stench of summer, a lot of babies get born, and people all over are feeling sexy (those facts are all factual). What really ices my proverbial (shout-out, Hellkat) autumnal four-layer red-velvet buttercream cake is that September also means it's time for my favorite New York City event of the year. The Festival of San Gennaro in Little Italy!!

*The beloved Feast of San Gennaro is an annual celebration of the Patron Saint of Naples. The first Feast in New York City took place on September 19, 1926 when newly arrived immigrants from Naples settled along Mulberry Street in the Little Italy section of New York City and decided to continue the tradition they had followed in Italy to celebrate the day in 305 A.D. when Saint Gennaro was martyred for the faith.

Doc, Hellkat, and I went straight to the feast on the Sunday before last. We had a blast, won a goldfish who is now dead (sorry D&HK...hate to break it to you this way), and listened to a racist clown offend at least nine people of different nationality in less than one minute (but where, I ask, does a Clown matriculate from?). I had such a wonderful time, I told everyone I knew. Except some of you. When my friend Ellie (aka Sauce Girl) heard me rave about San Gennaro, she insisted I escort her through the crowded streets the very next Sunday.

I didn't object--and the second trip was going just as swimmingly as the first. I even did some things I didn't get to do with D&HK. I got to ride the ferris wheel AND sit in the big chair. And there was something else Ellie and I did. Something that has changed my life.

As we neared one end of Mulberry Street, we noticed a couple of tents about ten yards off the beaten path. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the tents were advertising "The Woman with a Snake's Body", "The Man with Two Heads", and "The Elephant Lady". Seeing as I was really nostalgic for the days of yore when circus freaks were displayed in cages and not on my TV, AND given the fact that I am reading a book about circus freaks, I couldn't resist. My first mistake? Choosing Ellie as my companion.

Ellie is scared of clowns, small people, and most deformities (though oddly she is fascinated by others...I never know what to expect).

First, we forked over a dollar to see the Snake Woman. We walked up the ramp and peered into a large cage that contained a table. On the table was a cloth replica of a python coiled up with a hole cut in the middle for a woman's head to go. This was the same woman I saw walk into the tent three minutes before. I thought she was the Snake-Woman's feeder. Boy, was I wrong.

My second mistake was paying another dollar to see another scammy freakshow. But the man (dressed in authentic, turn of the century Italian garb) insisted she was the real thing.

He didn't lie.

Ellie and I walk into the tent containing the Elephant Woman, and there is really a woman standing there with a terrible condition that turned her epidermis into what looks like an elephant's cracking, dry, discolored skin. More shocking than her appearance was the fact that we were alone in the tent with her and there was no kind of separation mechanism. It was just me, standing with a woman who had a deformity. I say it was only me because Ellie literally ran out of the tent screaming. I am not kidding or exaggerating.

Since I was standing alone with the woman and already felt bad about Ellie's rude reaction, I decided to stay an talk to her. But that didn't last long because after I asked her where she was from (I didn't think of the implications of this question until after the words were out my mouth) and she replied "Brooklyn" in a rather snarly tone, I couldn't think of what else to say. I left.

Needless to say, I was very upset about the experience. What to feel! What to think! We aren't supposed to stare at people with deformities, right? Why did I pay somebody a dollar to do

so?! And when it came down to it, I didn't want to. Which I am thinking is a really good thing. It was just very unsettling. And why would it have made it better if a partition had been in place?

Thoughts? Comments? I am at a loss. And I italicized many words in this post.

SOS

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