“This is the Taffy Well,” our guide says, “I’m sure you can imagine it takes quite a bit more power to pump taffy up through those pipes than, say, water or anything like that. We have to get the pump engines special-made from partners in Germany.”
Below us, on the factory floor, a series of pipes shake and twist. One segment seems to consist entirely of thick rubber tubes, expanding and contracting cartoonishly. Steam bellows out of the machine at 30 second intervals and the engine powering it roars endlessly.
I raise my had and people groan.
“Yes, sir? Another question?”
“Yeah, sorry. Where is the taffy coming from?”
“I didn’t catch that, sir.”
“You said you’re pumping the taffy ‘up,’” I shout over the machine, “Where are you pumping it up from?”
“Oh, from underground,” he says, “The next room…”
“Underground where?” I ask, ignoring several glances, “From storage or something? It’s not actually like a well, is it?”
“I can’t hear you, sir. Let me get back to that in the next room.”
I glance down at the squirming pump again and see a factory worker frantically moving between the pipes with a stethoscope-like tool. After several stops the woman leaps back and seems to radio in several other employees, all of whom approach the spot cautiously and take turns with their own stethoscopes. They gesture wildly to each other, their words lost in the noise of the engine.
“Sir!” the guide is signaling from the door, “We’ll need to move on!”
‘‘Schulz Taffy’ is an American standard, a candy that is unbound by region. It is the universal bottom-shelf treat, boasting several vague flavors at a quarter-a-piece or five-for-a-dollar. Few people would claim ‘Schulz’ as a favorite. Fewer still would recall ever buying it. ‘Schulz Taffy’ is a candy made for sitting in bowls at reception desks. It sinks to the bottom of trick-or-treat bags, consumed as an afterthought in late November.
In September of 2008, ‘Schulz’ drew media attention for adding a sixth, ‘mystery flavor’ to their traditional five. Contrary to similar marketing tactics, the company apparently did not plan to reveal the basis of the new flavor at any point and grew defensive when customers reached out with guesses via social media. ‘Schulz’s’ CEO would later remind the digital masses that the company, at no point in the past, had ever named the first five flavors and that, for reasons unknown, seemed to comfort the dubious customers. Many questions remain regarding ‘Schulz’ as a company and a product but, considering the nature of this book, the most relevant is, perhaps, why would a company like ‘Schulz Taffy,’ with such a keen interest in secrecy, offer free, factory tours?’
The next room is much quieter and the catwalk is encased in glass. The floor below is nearly empty, an absurd amount of space for what appears to be a single machine. A pipe leads from the south wall and enters a cube, maybe 6’ tall and shining, obsidian black. Another pipe leaves the machine and enters the north wall. Neither could be more than a few inches wide.
“This is where we filter out the impurities,” the guide says and he checks his watch. “The next room is real treat…”
“What?” I ask.
“Sir?”
“What impurities? And all the taffy runs through there? What is that thing?”
I point to the cube and see the pipes now run from east to west. The north and south walls show no signs of ever once having a fixture.
“Did anybody see that move?” I ask. I try a chuckle to ease the atmosphere. “I could have sworn those pipes moved east to west a second ago.”
“The filter was designed to use gravity to its advantage,” the guide says, “It means ‘Schulz’ consumes less power, and provides for a greener world.”
The cube is now suspended in the air by pipes running from the ceiling and draining into the floor. I watch it carefully for several seconds.
“Sir,” the guide says, “I’d ask that you not touch the glass.”
“I’m not-”
“Shall we continue?”
Our guide leads us down a hallway and through several swinging doors. We pile into an elevator and, as we ascend, he hands out ‘Schulz’ branded ear plugs.
“Things are going to get noisy again here in a moment,” he says, “Don’t be alarmed!”
Finally, as the elevator door opens, I see my own concerns reflected in the faces of those around me.
“The process of pulling the taffy,” our guide yells, “releases a variety of gases from hidden air pockets. It’s funny, what people say they hear in the noises- bird calls, whistling-”
“Screaming,” I say, “It’s screaming.”
A great wad of taffy is suspended in the room, pulled and folded by thick, rotating arms. The air is warm and thick with sugar and screaming.
“Screaming, huh?” the guide says, uncomfortably, “That’s a new one…”
“Surely not,” I insist, “That doesn’t sound like birds- it sounds like screaming. Like people screaming. Doesn’t it sound like screaming?”
One of the children on the tour cautiously nods and I point to it as a sort of confirmation.
“I could see how a person unused to screaming might think that,” the guide calls, “But I wouldn’t personally draw comparisons between the two sounds.”
The screaming is interrupted for a few seconds by a series of hoarse coughs but quickly picks up again.
“See?” the guide says.
“See what?” I yell, losing my temper, “It coughed and started screaming again.”
“It’s taffy, sir,” the man explains, “It can’t cough or scream.”
“Normally I would agree with you,” I say, “Taken out of context I can see how I would be the crazy one, here but given we’re standing in a room full of screaming taffy-”
The screaming stops, suddenly, as the machine finishes its cycles and plops the monstrous taffy into a vat. A lid lowers to seal the candy inside and the machine begins to piece it out onto a conveyer belt that leads through a window into another room.
“Sir!” our guide exclaims as I dig my ear plugs out, “Sir you must keep those in for safety!”
Without the plugs I can hear the taffy’s muffled screaming from inside the vat. I shake my head and gesture to the others to follow suit and they look nervously between us.
“It’s still screaming in there!” I shout.
“Please, everyone, this man is clearly upset. Do not remove your ear plugs until we are safely-”
“I feel fine!” I yell, “There’s no noise but the screaming in the machine!”
Several employees are now looking up at the catwalk, alerted to my outrage. Several more man the conveyer belt and inspect the taffy pieces with stethoscopes.
“Are those pieces screaming too?” I yell, “Is that what you’re listening for?”
A short time later I am escorted off the ‘Schulz Taffy’ grounds and asked not to return. The radio crackles as I mount the bike. It has been silent for a long time.
“Something bothering you, traveler?”
“I feel like shit.”
“Sick, again? Your pockets are empty…”
“How would you know?” I ask, pulling away under the eyes of ‘Schulz’ security.
“Heh, heh,” the radio laughs, “Heh, heh, heh…”
-traveler
‘The ‘West-Kentucky Man Zoo’ is either a joke or a century-spanning crime. It is, as the name suggests, a place to peruse men and women in captive habitats, painstakingly constructed to resemble living rooms or office cubicles or fast-food restaurants. The ‘Zoo’ layout maintains a modicum of tact in typing exhibits by personality trait rather than physical characteristics, though it does rely heavily enough on the negative aspects of the human experience to be ‘just a little preachy.’
A photo history of the ‘West-Kentucky Man Zoo’ is available near the gift shop, revealing the establishment has been owned by the same family since its inception. Following in the founder’s bitter footsteps, each generation re-shapes the ‘Zoo’ into an overly-critical commentary of the generation that follows making this a site worth visiting once every fifty years or so.’
“Look,” I tell the guy, calling down to him 20 or so feet below, “Look, I’ve got my cell phone right here. I’m going to call the police right now if you don’t give me some sign this is an act.”
“It’s not an act, man. We’re prisoners here! You ever see any of us walking around town?”
“I’m just passing through,” I shrug nervously, “Seriously, I’m not big on the idea of calling the cops but I’ll do it if you’re actually trapped.”
“I’m actually fucking trapped! Call the damn police!”
“It says on your plaque-”
“Fuck the plaque, call the police!”
“Yeah, but it says you’re… uh… a prime specimen of millennial hysteria- a mental breakdown in an office environment. So, I mean, if this is an act…”
“It’s not an act!” he yells, prompting me to key in the numbers, “Call the police!”
“Okay,” I say, my thumb hovering over the ‘call’ icon, “If it’s not an act then how come nobody has called the police before? You’re saying I’m the only one to come through here that’s considered it? This place has been in business for decades!”
“Jesus Christ, they all do what you’re doing now! I’ve been having the same conversation with you assholes for months now. I’ve-”
“You look like you’re falling for this.” A young woman and her daughter join me at the guard rail and she smiles at the scene below, “They brought him on this year. A real pro.”
“Thank god,” I sigh, loosening my grip on the phone, “I thought I was going crazy.”
“She works for them!” the man yells up, “Fuck you, bitch. Let me out!”
“I suppose my daughter works for the zoo too?” she calls back, and the man below knocks over his rolling desk chair in a rage. “Locals get cheap season passes,” she explains, “And Sarah loves the place. I think she’s going to grow up to be an actress.”
“I’m gonna work here!” the kid chimes in with a mouthful of candy.
“Don’t you say that you little bitch!” the man from below screams, “God damn it, man, don’t listen to them!”
“Do you have a quarter, mithter?” the girl says, “I want to feed the offith man.”
“Don’t beg, honey,” the woman says, “That makes you just like the people here.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell her, searching my pockets, “I’m just happy that this… that I was confused.”
(“You’re not confused, fucker! Get me out of here!”)
“Isn’t this a little… intense for a kid?” I ask as the girl puts the quarter in a slot near the rail and turns a crank.
“Nothing worse than what she hears on the radio these days.”
A doughnut rolls out of a machine above the recessed habitat and hits the man below. He shrieks and shakes crumbs from his wispy blonde hair.
“You’re going to be okay?” the woman asks. The girl tugs at her hand, begging to move on to the next exhibit.
“Yeah,” I say, “Yeah… I just got caught up for a second.”
“You’re not the first,” she says, “The police get calls from here all the time, so if it’s going to weigh on your conscience, you might as well give it a try.”
“I’m fine,” I insist, and I pocket my phone to drive the point home.
The ‘Man-Zoo’ is not a good place for me in my current condition. I wait until they’re gone and turn to go back out the way I came but the guy calls from below.
“You still up there, man?”
I peer over the ledge and see he’s collected the broken remains of the doughnut on his desk.
“She told you to go ahead and call them, right? She told you to call the police because they get this shit all the time but they don’t, god damn it. It’s just another part of the play they’ve got. It’s called reverse psychology.”
“I know what reverse psychology is.”
“What’s the harm in calling the police? Either she’s right, and they know to expect this sort of thing, or I’m right and you’re saving a life. You’re bringing down this shithole. What’s the harm?”
“I get what you’re saying,” I tell him, feeling the vague uneasiness return, “But I really can’t get involved with the police right now.”
“Just call them and bail. They don’t need to know it’s you.”
“They can track my phone…”
“So-fucking-what? You’re the hero of this hypothetical. Just call!”
“I’ll… I’ll call from a payphone after I leave,” I tell him, backing away, “That way it’s anonymous.”
“You think I haven’t heard that?” The man’s yelling again. “You think I haven’t heard that same spineless…”
Eventually the man’s voice is too distant to make out or, possibly, he stops yelling. He sold me on the shtick, right? No need to keep up the show after I’m gone.
An actor, I tell myself.
A good actor with a job that pays him for doing what he loves.
-traveler
Suppose the path is a circle, like the movement-activated room at the ‘Voice Depository.’
Bear with me.
Suppose there is a place with paths, two paths or a hundred paths- it doesn’t matter. Suppose there are paths and every path is a circle and every circle is the same but bigger or smaller, depending on how it is layered. Look:
Any two people walking the same direction on any one path at the same speed will never meet, though, possibly, they will walk in each other’s shadows. And any two people, constantly in each other’s shadows, are walking on a small path which, considering the nested nature, must be nearer the center. Look:
So, what are the implications of the path and the all-seeing eye? What is the implication of the center, assuming it is not simply a pit but the paths layered so thickly as to be inseparable from each other? Can it be that the stranger and I are so close to the center as to be nearly touching, or that the longer and short paths around us are so close that he has learned to move between them?
Things became strange, reader. At some point, somewhere along the way, things became strange and I wonder if that’s because I’m on a path so short in circumference that normal things have to squeeze in with their shadows just to fit. It would have to be a short path, or else the likelihood of the stranger and I running into each other…
Maybe it isn’t the shortness of the circle, but the dizziness that comes from walking it over and over again. If not dizziness, then attention to detail, an understanding of nuances for having seen the same things over a hundred times. If not nuance- a runaway imagination. An unhealthy man with an unhealthy hobby.
This trip has not been good to me. It has not been healthy. Ambiguous ends do not well justify such taxing means but, now that I have started, I’m not sure how to end with any sort of grace.
It’s hard to believe there isn’t something out there- an answer, a wall, a god. The enormity of the universe, the emptiness of space, the circular nature of time, the relative silence of late evening- they all seem to suggest otherwise. ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ they say, ‘This is it.’
But it’s hard to believe them.
-traveler
What a relief it was, as a child, to be through with our parents’ insistence on medicine, to mistake relative wellness for health. It is a truth of adulthood, that sickness is a river and health is the rope-bridge that we navigate above it, a bridge that weakens invariably over the years, a bridge that we inexpertly patch each time a plank gives way and we fall through. We wish for medicine, then, we would take it eagerly, no matter how sickly sweet, no matter how it catches in our throats. until there is no medicine left on earth that can strengthen us. We wish for medicine when we realize that the river will certainly outlive the bridge, when we realize that, even if the river dries, well, it’s still a long way down.
I cling to my medicine, a long-familiar dosing that keeps me going even in the good times. I dip a little more, for the pain, and find it difficult to return to the old measure. A dip becomes a pit and I am lost for a while, there, in the darkness.
‘It’s an effective gimmick, that you find the door of the ‘Voice Depository’ locked, that the only indication of how to proceed is a plastic ring, dangling from a short piece of string where a bell would normally be. A hesitant pull opens the door and elicits the entry message, delivered in a voice one might attribute to a world-weary six-year old.
‘I’m sleeeeepeee…’
The ‘Voice Depository’ is a collection of sound-boxes, torn from dolls and plush animals and arranged as an interactive exhibit. The self-guided tour reads like a gentle conversation with an elderly neighbor- a series of confused memories with occasional points of intense clarity. Niche sects of modern day pagans claim the voices can be read like a scattering of bones or cold dregs of tea. They have published their own ‘suggested’ walkthroughs, tailored to questions you might have for the mournful boxes and their seemingly disparate messages.’
There is nobody to greet me at the information desk just inside the door. A sign, there, informs me that the ‘Voice Depository’ is run by volunteers and that, this week, I am being hosted by ‘Gray Fellowship, #103.’ I stand, for a moment, to see if anybody will object to my entering and, when nobody does, I take a pamphlet and push through an aged turnstile.
The ‘Voice Depository’ categorizes its collection by ‘activation method’ and, within each section, attempts to arrange the pieces chronologically by suspected manufacture date. The collection in the ‘strings’ room hangs from a high ceiling, each box hovering a yard or so above its corresponding sign. I pull one at random:
“My name is Billllll.”
The height difference isn’t much but it’s enough that the voice, already slowed with age, seems to retract ominously as it speaks, floating, as it were, toward the ceiling. I retrieve a crumpled piece of yellow paper from my pocket, notes I made regarding the bitter online disputes of the pagans, and see if Bill’s voice features in any of their claims. It does not.
Much is said about a particular area of this room, where five boxes hang confusedly over four signs and one hangs an inch or so above the rest. The outlier is clearly old, its string cut and knotted together in several places and its song-voice worn down like a rock in a stream. I pull it and hear a deep, slow verse:
‘III fellll for youuu…
Like rain upon the roooad.
I wait in puddles…
Until you can be told.’
I pull it again:
‘III fell throoough…
The lane where it erooodes
I stay in trouble…
Under the dusty roooad.’
This is the heart of everything written about the ‘Voice Depository,’ the varied interpretations of what the particularly old boxes say and whether they say the same thing each time. Neither of my recordings are particularly unique, in fact, this box is referred to as the ‘Lost Lover’ by those committed enough to name them. I pull a few more (Good morning, mommy!) for the sake of saying I had (We’re BEST friends!) but find nothing particularly inspiring among them (Looks like trouble over the ridge…).
I look up, far up, into the confused mess of string at the center of the ceiling. There is supposed to be a hidden box there, a box called…
“That’s a myth!” someone says behind me, an older man in a jean shirt and a leather vest. “The ‘Devil’s Voicebox,’ right? Never been there.”
“You’re the volunteer on duty?”
“Yep. Carl’s my name, member of the One-Oh-Three Grays.”
“Bike club?” I guess.
“Sort of,” he says, “Gray Road Theorists believe that certain roads in the U.S.-”
I should have known better- it’s a safe bet to assume any gray-themed fraternity is one of their bunch. Luckily, Carl’s not an evangelist.
“Your voicebox, though, that’s a myth. I suppose you’ve already tried out this little guy-”
‘I’ll tell youuuu…
The pain I have bestowed.’
“I got that one,” I tell him, “Just looking around.”
“Well I’m off my smoke break now in case you need anything.”
Carl trudges off as the Lost Lover ends his third rendition, rising just a little over its brethren.
The button room, which displays the innards of squeezy-type toys, hold little of interest. A lot of laughing, a couple burps, all noises you might expect of things made to be coddled. One stands out from my notes, a box that is supposed to scream, but sounds, to me, like staticky laughter run through fading wires. We hear what we want to hear, I suppose.
I brace myself before entering the room of movement activation. Inside are the boxes of toys that look out for you, that activate when you walk by. This is the room of tea leaves, as it were, because walking directly to the center, rather that following the roped path, puts you in range of all of the exhibits at once and, well, I think witchylady33 will say it better than me:
‘There, in the cacophony of child-speak, your future unfurls.’
I don’t believe in much. Things I expect to happen often don’t and, just as often, it seems, things I hope wouldn’t happen, do. I don’t know that my experience in the wayside has prepared me or made me a better person or worn me down or made me humble. I look back on my own writing, a year’s worth, now, and wonder if I have changed at all or if I carry on much as I did- the same person in different places.
I hold my breath and step into the room, directly into the center, and I wait and hear nothing at all and I continue to hold my breath and wait until it becomes clear that nothing is the only thing that is going to happen. I am in the middle of a round room and a hundred little boxes eye me with their sensors and say nothing.
And, in the silence, something occurs to me.
-traveler
‘The niche success earned by a handful of ‘dining in the dark’ eateries has had the unfortunate effect of inspiring several businesses with less suitable models to turn off the lights and hope for the best. For most, this spelled the embarrassing end of an already-failing enterprise but ‘Ma’s Midnight Petting Zoo,’ with a name better suited for a swinger’s club, has proved the plucky underdog of the bunch.
‘Ma’s’ survives, in part, by cultivating an air of mystery, mixing a little ‘peeled grapes are eyeballs’ in with their ‘interacting with nature is important’ mission statement. This also serves to downplay the real mysteries. Who is Ma and how does she maintain an omni-presence on all tours? How are so many animals represented in a building that, judging from the outside, couldn’t allow for more than a thousand square feet? And what exactly is the nature of these animals, given that nobody has ever seen one enter or exit the zoo?’
‘Ma’s Midnight Petting Zoo’ opens with an airlock-type room, a room that you enter and are stuck in until the door behind you shuts and casts you into darkness before the door in front of you, leading to the lobby, unlocks with a subtle click.
‘This is fun,’ I tell myself, fumbling forward to the second door, ‘This is part of the experience.’
With the second door closed behind me I stand, in further darkness, and breathe quietly until I notice the breathing of someone else in the room.
“Hello?” I ask, and young woman’s voice responds.
“Oh!” she says, “Sorry, I didn’t see you come in!”
There’s a second’s pause before she speaks again.
“We’re trying that joke out. How was it?”
“Apt,” I tell her, toeing my way forward, “But it might be better to let people know where you are.”
“That’s what I said,” she continues, “Let me sing you to the counter.”
The woman sings a nursery rhyme I don’t know and I follow the voice with my arms outstretched, grasping at her like some malicious, creeping spirit. I stumble several times on obstacles that are not there but always manage to catch myself in the spinning darkness. Eventually I bump into something solid and the woman ends her song.
“Did you bring a friend?” she asks.
I reach back behind me, suddenly, sure that the stranger is there.
Nothing.
“It’s just me,” I tell her, “Why?”
“Pleasantries,” she says, “That’s fifteen dollars, then.”
I have my credit card halfway out of my wallet when the woman stops me.
“Cash only. We have a sign here but, well…”
I put the card back and try, in vain, to suss out differences between the bills by touch alone.
“You can just hand some to me,” the young woman offers after a polite silence, “My name is Elle, by the way.”
“You’re wearing night-vision goggles or something?” I ask, blindly holding the money ahead of me.
“No,” she says, “See?”
Elle’s hand appears on mine and she brushes her face across the underside of my wrist. The unwelcome intimacy is relieved, in part, by a quick return to business as she plucks the bills from my hand and types loudly on a cash register.
“Your eyes adjust,” she says, leading my fingers to the change, “It takes a while, but your eyes adjust.”
Elle sings me to the entrance of the zoo, a less intuitive process that involves my keeping her voice exactly behind my back as I move toward another door. When I find it, Elle’s singing drops off and she yawns.
“There’s a guide rail just inside and to the left,” she says, “Keep your hand on that and move forward. Ma will catch up to you in there and give you a little information about the animals.”
“Are there normally more people here?” I ask, but she does not respond.
“Elle? Hello?”
No answer.
I take a breath and exhale.
The heavy smell of a barnyard greets me on the other side of the door. I find the guide rail and wait, uncomfortably listening to the small noises of a hundred living things. When I tap my finger, something huffs in the dark nearby and I feel the inquisitive sniffs of some creature on my hand. I recoil, and am lost.
“That’s Henry,” a voice says, “He’s our resident goat. Must like what you had for lunch.”
“I haven’t eaten lunch,” I say.
“Must like you, then. Why don’t you find the rail and we’ll continue.”
It takes me a moment, the guide rail seeming further away than I moved. Back in position, the invisible goat takes to sniffing my hand again and Ma lets me stand there, experiencing it.
“Why don’t you give old Henry a pat?” she says after a while, and I oblige. The goat takes to dodging my hand, relatively uninterested in it as an active entity. “That’s good,” Ma says, “Walk a little further.”
It’s impossible to tell where exactly in the room Ma is speaking from. It doesn’t sound like a PA system; her voice comes softly, always a step ahead or a step behind -far enough that I raise my voice when I speak to her, close enough that I worry I’ll step on her feet.
“This is our bunny box,” Ma says, stopping me again, “The softest thing you’ll ever feel.”
I reach forward and feel around to no avail. I’m about to speak up when a familiar snuffling appears on my hand.
“Henry?” Ma asks, “What are you doing there you silly goat? Are you looking for another pat on the head?”
Ma is quiet for a long time before I realize she’s waiting on me. I pat Henry’s head and continue.
“We like to have a little laugh early on,” Ma says, “A couple’a friendly jokes before we get to these scaley fellas. It’s mostly families through here, not big guys like yourself who probably don’t worry so much about putting their hand in a box of snakes in the dark. Just little garters, that’s all.”
I reach forward and immediately feel the head of a curious goat.
“Well! Our friend Henry likes your pats like he likes his carrots- plentiful! Speaking of which, we’ve got some carrots waiting there if you want to give him a little treat. Just a little to your right and about waist height on a tall guy like yourself.”
I grope around, frustrated, until I find the box and reach inside. Something there moves across my fingers and I jump back.
“There’s those snakes!” Ma says, “Guess poor Henry will have to go without for today.”
“I think I’m ready to go,” I say, addressing the room at large, “I’ve… got to be somewhere.”
“You don’t want to meet the others?”
“How many goats do you have in here to meet?”
“Well!” Ma scolds, “If you’re going to be a sourpuss go ahead and follow the guide rail a little further, turn left when it splits and then right again following that. It’s the shortcut we use when the little ones need the restroom.”
I navigate the dark maze of guide rails, a process that seems to take a long time, that winds me through a place that seems too large. After a while, Ma cuts in to guide me again.
“Slow down, now,” she warns, “You’re just about there and we wouldn’t want you to run smack into that door! The release lever is in the center, a fire-door if you know the type. Just a press on that and you’re home free!”
I try, for several seconds, to find the door but my outstretched fingers reach nothing so I take a few careful steps forward. After another second, I feel a sniffling on my fingertips.
“Henry!” Ma exclaims, “You little trickster!”
I am trapped, here.
-traveler