Chapter 1
The calliope music was blaring, and the lights from the different carnival rides shone in the dark night like so many beacons. People hurried to and fro, only too eager to have a good time in the small town of Donville, Iowa. The people worked hard, gave an honest day's work for an honest dollar, and now they wanted to spend time and money enjoying themselves.
Carnivals hadn't changed much since the old days. The only real difference was in the cost of things. Anyone buying a ride, or playing a game in a carnival forty years earlier paid all of a nickel. Today it cost ten times as much-if it was one of the cheaper rides.
Unfortunately most of the carnival ethics consisted of trying to take the customer-or sucker-for as much as possible. Perhaps dishonesty had become a way of life there.
The only attraction that gave its money's worth, if one really cared for it, was the sideshow. The people in the sideshow were only too real. They were called freaks, because something about each of them made them different physically, from the norm. What most people didn't realize was, they were no different emotionally. They had feelings, and it hurt them to be held up to ridicule and looked at with scorn, but it was all they knew how to do. No one would hire them for office work or even blue collar labor.
Mona Kase was the classic poor little rich girl, who had always had everything and anything her heart desired, and as a result was such a spoiled bitch that everyone pitied her. Mona wasn't really beautiful, but then she did have nice features. Her face was a little round, and her eyes were a little puffy from having had too much to drink, but it was still obvious that she was sexy.
Mona had dark hair, not quite black, which she kept cut just above her shoulders in a flattering bouffant hair-do that cost her fifty dollars a week to maintain. But what was fifty dollars to a girl whose father had, at one time, owned the entire town. Her father owned a potato farm, but not just a potato farm. It was probably the largest potato farm in the U.S. What was more, the man had had the good sense to start his own jobbing business, not only selling his own potatoes, but those of neighboring farmers to various retailers throughout the country. Naturally, he always got the best price for his own spuds first, but he did well enough for the neighbors so that they were more than happy to use him. As a result, the man had become a multi-millionaire. So Mona became extremely wealthy when her father upped and died, and her mother had to take over the family business. Her mother was so busy, that Mona almost never saw her. In fact, Mona had her own checking account and her own credit cards, and at the age of eighteen spent more money than any four hundred other females in all of Iowa.
Mona had a straight nose, a plain mouth, a slender neck and body, with big breasts, a narrow waist, and wide hips. The spoiled brat loved making fun of those less fortunate than she, and in particular, the freaks.
When her boyfriend, Bobby Selkirk, took her to the menagerie tent, she stopped before each of the unfortunates and made some nasty comment to the individual. She called the India-rubber man spineless and like a jellyfish. The fat lady was a human barrage balloon, and no doubt when she farted, it was gas warfare all over again. The strong man was all brawn and no brain. Mona even went as far as to challenge him to show her his masculine muscle, taunting that he probably took steroids to develop the rest of his body, and as a result had almost no genitals. The gorilla-man was more gorilla than man. In fact, he looked more like a gibbous baboon, and probably had as much in the way of brains.
As a matter-of-fact, the only one of the hapless individuals working in the sideshow to take no offense at what Mona said was the ape-man. The unfortunate youth, himself only twenty years old, had the simple mind of a three-year-old, and was barely capable of understanding the simplest words.
The geek was a disgusting individual, and she told him as much out loud, in no uncertain terms, drunkenly telling him if he went down on his women the way he bit the heads off live chickens, he probably didn't have very many lady friends.
Last but not least she made fun of the carnival giant, telling him he was so tall, the thin air had probably blanked out his brains. Undoubtedly, all his length was in his legs, and she teased him that he probably had a three-inch pecker.
Mona wasn't the first person to taunt the poor freaks, nor would she be the last. But there was that certain something about her attitude that aggravated every one of the normally uncaring people. A person with her wealth and personality ought not to taunt unfortunates.