“On the Fatal Consequences of Going Home with the Wrong Man from the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893”
Nothing could compare with this bleached dream city, its lagoons and gritty
mists, mulberry-paper pavilions, the white temple rising on an island
we’d glimpsed from our gondola’s little black cabin. Though I’d known him
only fifteen minutes, he’d quickly kissed off all my lipstick. Like many naïve
girls, I mistook fear thudding in my stomach for flutters of love. He claimed
to be a doctor, took my wrist to feel my pulse jump. His proximity made me
ridiculously dizzy. Arm in arm with the first man to convince me I was pretty,
we passed the “Guess Your Weight” stand and an alligator farm. Aerial acts.
Beer gardens. A gold Buddha calm on his red-lacquered throne breathed
not one word of the suffering to come. I saw a wax museum. Tigers riding
bicycles. He lured me from the fair at twilight. As I chattered on, we strolled
a short distance across town to a building of huge rough-hewn stones I would
never leave alive. In his gloomy rooms above an apothecary’s office, I said
I’d seen so many wondrous sights I hardly knew what I liked best. The monkey
orchestra. The Ferris wheel. Later, praying did not save me. Don’t put your
trust in a deep, lulling voice, watery blue eyes, or the world’s dark mercy.
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