Carrie’s Carnal Carnival

Carnal Carrie took a cigarette case out of her ratty old sequin covered purse. She withdrew a smoke out of the silver box with her bony old fingers and tapped it on the case. She paused for a moment, as if lost in a thought. She placed the cigarette between her crinkled lips and lit it with a thin gold lighter.

“You know, I once knew a Lucius years ago,” said Carrie in a puff of smoke. “Nicest guy I ever knew. Lucky Loochie.”

She took a long draw on her cigarette and stared out into the past. Debbie, the waitress, brought Carnal Carrie back into the present when she set a vodka tonic down on the table.

“Thanks, hun.” Carrie dug a crumpled five dollar bill out of her purse.

“Are you a prostitute?” asked Noel. Noel could be quite blunt with her questions.
“Escort, sweetie,” said Carrie.
“Is there a difference?”
“Used to be my dear. Used to be.”

Carnal Carrie took a long sip of her vodka tonic.

“I used to run a burlesque show, you know,” said Carrie. “It was pretty popular in its day.”

She took a puff of her cigarette.

“Carrie’s Carnal Carnival. Fan dances, balloon dances, classy stuff. We had a great band. Some of the jazz greats would sit in when they were in town. Dizzy, Satchmo, Trane, Charlie Parker… they all came by. All stopped when the nude clubs opened.”

Suddenly it hit me. Through the wrinkled old face sitting before me, I could see the young pretty face that stared out from a poster that hung in my father’s ‘office’ in the basement of our house when I was young. It was a tantalizing picture of a woman, apparently naked, hiding behind two fans made of ostrich feathers. The decorative letters on the poster read ‘Carrie’s Carnal Carnival.’ This old woman sitting before me was the woman whose picture had so fascinated my brother and I during our adolescent years.