About three weeks after the carnival left the county, Dwight turned on the little television in my bedroom to catch the late-night news.

At the commercial, I went in to brush my teeth and was rinsing when I heard Dwight call, “Deb’rah! Quick! Come here, you gotta see this!”

I dashed back just in time to hear the news anchor say, “—Bascom Wrenn, who died in Colleton County this past spring. Outsider, or Visionary, Art has won growing recognition among serious collectors worldwide, and Joseph Buckner of the Buntrock Gallery just off Fifth Avenue in New York is here to tell us about this significant new find. Mr. Buckner?”

Mouths agape, Dwight and I watched while the camera panned over crudely painted boards and Mr. Buckner explained the significance of the stick skeletons and roaring flames, and rhapsodized over the Eye of God, the Tree of Knowledge, and the Biblical exhortations in ungrammatical white printing that covered every square inch of the scraps of plywood now hanging on the gallery walls.

He was aided by a large young black man chicly dressed in a dark suit and one of those black silk shirts with the banded collar and no tie that I’ve only seen on movie stars when they broadcast the Oscar ceremonies. It was Lamarr Wrenn, that erstwhile economics major, looking like a seasoned New Yorker as he fingered his small chin beard and spoke of his grandfather’s naive but utterly sincere attempt to paint the Rapture.

The camera caressed the ecstatic, semi-hysterical paintings, paintings Arnold Ames had planned to nail onto the outside of his haunted house. Validated by the cool ivory walls of a Fifth Avenue gallery, they had suddenly acquired an oddly compelling aura.

Back on the screen, the gallery curator was answering our local anchor’s question.

“It’s always difficult to put a dollar price on pictures that haven’t had their value tested in the marketplace,” he said. “But conservatively speaking, we’ll be surprised if this important body of work doesn’t bring at least two hundred thousand.”

“Conservatively?” I croaked.

Laughing, Dwight clicked off the television and pulled me down on the bed beside him. “Wonder how Arnold Ames feels about his quick dime now?”

GLOSSARY

The following were used in the text of this book and were gleaned from personal conversations or from postings on Internet chat boards. They are but a fraction of the colorful terms used by the carnies themselves.

Agent—The concessionaire who works a store (as opposed to a clerk, who just takes the money).

Bozo—The clown who works the dunk tank and entices players with insults and a clever pitch. The clown makeup is for his own protection so he won’t be recognized when he’s off duty since some of his customers take his insults personally.

Cake eaters/Rubes/Clems—The paying customers, particularly those at rural or small-town venues.

Carnival—The loose affiliation of independent ride owners and concessionaires that provides traveling outdoor amusements for the public to enjoy.