The Carousel Keeper

If Candyland is your strain, this is your sign: the Carousel Keeper. An old carousel on a grassy point above the bay, the minute before the string lights come on, and his hand already on the brass crank.

If Candyland is your strain

You are the one who starts things. Not loudly: you just arrive early, unlock the gate, check the brass and get the first ring of lights on, and by the time anyone else turns up the evening is already moving. You know the creak of the gate and the smell of warm brass, and you like being the first to notice both. Your favorite minute is the one when the bulbs come on and the sky has not yet decided whether it is blue or violet. You have never once waited for a party to begin.

You move in circles, and you mean it kindly. A few steps along the platform, a word with whoever is standing at the rail, a hand on a pole, back to the crank. You remember names, and the horse each person picked last time, and the one they actually wanted. People who arrive alone tend to leave with somebody to argue with about which horse is fastest.

At your best you make a crowd out of strangers without anyone noticing it happened. It looks like luck; it is mostly memory. You paint, too, though you call it maintenance: every winter you redo the manes in gold and the saddles in whatever color the sky was on the best night of the year, and nobody else is allowed near the purple one.

Your flaw is the rail. You cannot leave anyone standing at it. The person who honestly only came to watch will find a horse held, a story started and a pole steadied before they can say no, and the people who love you have learned to warn the shy ones on the way up the path.

What you need is an old machine that still answers to a turn of your wrist, a warm wind off the water, a canopy of bulbs that all come on at once, and at least one person who rides twice. Give you that, and the evening goes round.

Your hour: The minute the lights come on
Your place: The inner ring, beside the crank
Your object: A heavy brass crank, worn bright
Your tempo: Three slow turns, then round and round
Your weather: A warm wind off the bay
Your flaw: Nobody gets to just watch

Your people

The Night Courier (Sour Diesel)The Night Courier cuts across the point on his last run and takes one turn on an outside horse, envelope zipped inside his jacket. You never ask where it’s going.
Cindy at Midnight (Cinderella 99)Cindy at Midnight runs past the gate at a quarter to twelve. You keep the lights on a minute longer so she can find her way down the path.
The Sprinter (Green Crack)The Sprinter gets the morning and you get the evening. She runs her laps and you turn yours, and you both like a circle that ends where it started.

Things you say

Everybody rides.
Pick the horse that looks back at you.
If the motor won’t, the crank will.
Chipped paint means somebody loved it.
Nobody learns a name from the rail.

A scene from your world

The third turn

The Carousel Keeper gets to the point an hour before anyone else, which is how he likes it. He unlocks the gate in the low fence, rolls up the canvas sides and walks the platform once, the way he does every evening, touching each brass pole as he passes: thirty-six horses, two of them older than the fairground. The silver jumper with the cream saddle. The purple stander with the gold mane, which nobody else is allowed to paint.

Across the bay the hills are going violet and the water is still holding the last of the blue. People drift up the path in twos and threes: the night-shift baker with flour on his cuffs, two old friends who have argued for eleven years about which horse is fastest, a woman in a long green coat who comes every Thursday and always takes the silver one. The Keeper knows all their names, and the name of every horse they have ever picked.

At the minute the sky can’t decide between blue and purple, he throws the switch that brings on the lights. Nothing happens. The rings of bulbs under the canopy stay dark. Somewhere in the iron gearbox the motor clicks, thinks it over and gives up. Somebody laughs. Somebody says, well, that’s that, then.

It isn’t. The Keeper fits the heavy brass crank into its socket on the gearbox, the way the carousel was built to be turned before anyone gave it a motor, sets his boots and leans. The platform shivers. Then, slowly, it goes round: the purple stander, the silver jumper, the empty saddles, the baker climbing on halfway through the first turn because it seemed rude not to. The two old friends start humming the organ’s tune, badly. The woman in the green coat joins in, and then everybody does.

On the third turn the lights catch. They come on the way they always have, from the top of the canopy down, ring by ring, honey-gold, until the whole carousel is lit and turning and the motor coughs awake underneath it as though it had meant to all along. The organ picks up the tune exactly where the humming has got to. Nobody stops humming.

The Keeper lets go of the crank and steps back onto the boards. A man in a work jacket has been standing at the rail since the start, hands in his pockets, only watching. The Keeper holds the purple stander’s pole steady and nods at the saddle. “Everybody rides,” he says. Out on the bay the first boat lights come on, and the carousel goes round.

The point

The point: A grassy point above the bay where the fair sets up on summer evenings. From the carousel you can see the whole curve of the far shore, and every light that comes on across it.
The purple stander: The oldest horse on the carousel, purple with a gold mane and older than the fair itself. The Keeper repaints it every winter and lets nobody else near it with a brush.
The silver jumper: The other old one, silver with a cream saddle. Every horse since was painted after these two, which is why they all look a little related.
The crank: A heavy brass handle that fits a socket on the iron gearbox. The carousel was built to be turned by hand, and on the nights the motor sulks, it still is.
The lights: Rings of honey-colored bulbs under the canopy. They come on from the top down, and the minute they do is the Keeper’s favorite of the day.
The rail: The low brass rail around the platform, where people stand when they think they only came to watch. Nobody stays there long.