un-faire part 4

 Larry didn’t feel much like dinner that evening even though they were having baked salmon with lentils and a mixed herb salad – his favorite meal. It wasn’t all mutton and shepherd’s pie at the Murphy residence. Bonnie could tell something was up by how distracted Larry was as she was telling him about her day. 
"Cheryl left on maternity leave so there’s no one to go to the distributer’s conference in May. They’ll probably ask me because our new district supervisor doesn’t know about my commitment to the faire. I may have to miss the second or third weekend. I’m sorry." Larry said nothing. He just nodded because for him, this was par for the course. His world was falling apart.
"It may not matter at all." He said then continued, "I got a call from Bob Gunderman. They’re renting the fairgrounds to some other entertainment organization. I don’t know." His wife and daughter stopped eating to absorb this information.
"They can’t just do that, can they?" Bonnie asked.
"Oh my god. No. No way. Dad it’s our whole life." Carla, who in recent months had become prone to dramatic outbursts, pushed back from the table and began pacing, pausing to stare at her palms then whipping her long tresses as she turned in the other direction. She had seen Cate Blanchette do this move in the movie Elizabeth and loved it.
"Do you think… Is the faire starting to attract a weird element?" He asked.
Bonnie paused a beat too long as she considered some of the characters she had seen descending on the faire in recent years. There were the goth kids of course who had recently taken to wearing vampire fangs. Then there was the guy who would show up in red head-to-toe spandex with devil horns and a pitch fork. Not to mention the women in leather bustiers with tattoos all about their neck and face. None of these people seemed to understand much about the Renaissance and seemed to greet the faire as an opportunity to let their fantasy lives run loose in public.
"No, no… Things are different. Society’s different than it was twenty years ago or six hundred years ago, but you know.  We probably get as many oddballs as Fright Fest or the Civil War re-enactment," she added unconvincingly. "Who are they renting it to? Did he say?"
"Some lady magician named Criss Angel."
"Criss Angel’s a guy, dad." Carla corrected. 
"Are you sure? I saw a picture of him on Parish’s phone. He looked like a girl. Maybe it’s because the screen was so small."
"How can they do this to me!? I live for that faire!" Carla’s tragedy was compounded by the fact that this year she was old enough to be a princess in the long sword show. She was going to be a part of the battle and had been working on her sword play for months. She was as good as any of the men in the show, better than some.
"It’s not personal, honey. It’s just business. It’s how things are," Connie said, trying to stave off further dramatic outbursts. "There are always options. Did he give you options? Another time of year?"
"No, you know they’re booked year round, we’re sandwiched in by the Miracle of the Resurrection in April and Monster Truck Summer in July. This is the only slot and we’re not drawing in competitive numbers on parking, which is completely not fair because a large number of our patrons arrive on foot or horseback as they would be expected to do."
Bonnie considered the situation.
"Well, let’s not panic. There are other locations, perhaps even better locations where we could hold the faire. I’ve always felt it would be better in a more natural landscape, like a state park or something and with municipal governments strapped for cash they might be more open to something like this than a few years ago. Just get up tomorrow and start making some calls."
Larry looked at his wife as she pushed her giant mom-glasses up the bridge of her nose before settling back into her baked salmon.
"I mean, you are the king. Fight. Lead your knights into battle." This, and a million reasons more, was why he loved her.

The next day Larry was determined to make the most this opportunity. He announced the faire move at the early morning strategy session. The court, Darlene the receptionist and Shep (his part-time accountant) took the news in stride. Neither of them were that into the Renaissance, this was just kind of a job that didn’t make them get all dressed up for work or go outside to smoke. They weren’t brilliant employees, just reliable. Larry explained how the Faire might be leaner, and more authentic. They could really get it closer to the spirit of the times. Larry had resisted the changes that in his mind ruined so many other ren-faires around the country. He had been to one in Omaha that featured a town crier hawking iPhone covers and a food market that sold Churros. CHURROS, for the love of God. None of this much mattered to Shep and Darlene. Neither of them went to the faire more than once and they had been working with Larry for over three years.
"I just want to get the faire back to its roots. You guys don’t know how it was, when it first started, the faire was authentic. Maybe it was easier to escape from modernity in the seventies, I don’t know, but back then people really got into the spirit of it. I mean, you could feel it. It wasn’t just a carnival with costumes, it was the actual Renaissance. We actually went back in time."
Darlene was too busy texting to take in what he was saying but she had heard it before and no longer felt alarmed by Larry’s hyper nostalgic announcements.
"Okay, there may be some tax incentives for bringing the faire to a public park, I’ll look into it." Shep said as he lit up another Kool Menthol and chugged back to his cubicle.

After putting in some calls, Larry got a nibble from a representative of the county parks office, the curiously named "Sally Kellerman." She said that she couldn’t meet with him today but the Chumesh State Park was one venue zoned for public performances and food vending if he was interested. She gave him directions to the park and told him he was free to look around.

That afternoon Larry drove out to the address she had given him, about forty minutes from his office. He pulled into the tiny dirt parking lot and took one look at the deteriorating green space that had the audacity to call itself a park. Almost all of the ground was at a steep forty-five degree angle. There was evidence of a recent fire as most of the trees were black and ashy. There was however a nice plot of land that seemed level enough – they might be able to set up there. It was smaller than they were used to and covered with trash. At one end of the park was the burnt out skeleton of what had once been a school bus. There were a few refrigerator carcases that had been dumped unceremoniously. The grounds were so ill-kept he thought for a moment he had wandered from the park into some sort of municipal dump. Larry noticed a preponderance of middle aged men sitting alone in their cars who were watching him with an intensity that gave him the creeps. The fact that they all seemed to be wearing heavy sunglasses that gave them a passing resemblance to cult leader Jim Jones only enhanced the creepiness. Larry went to check out the restrooms. When he got inside a burly man in Dockers and a button down Oxford wagged his penis at him rather unappealingly. 

When he got back to the office he called up Ms. Kellerman to let her know how it went.
"The park is… It is a park, right?" He asked.
"Yeah… Why?"
"I just. There seemed to be a lot of gay men there, doing what I’m told is called cruising." He listened to her breathing and after a while she answered…
"I know. I just thought it would be, you know, appropriate for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. It’s a gay event, right?"
"The Renaissance Pleasure Faire is welcoming of all, but we’re not a gay event. We’re actually a historical recreation society that teaches through entertainment. We bring history to life."
"How is that not gay?" She asked.