C A R N I V A L E

Episode 101. "Milfay" written by Daniel Knauf directed by Rodrigo Garcia original airdate: September 14, 2003

synopsis by Matt Asendorf version 1.1 (September 29, 2003) original version (September 19, 2003) http://www.themidway.org

A fast and frightening series of images. A man wearing a tuxedo running through a cornfield, pursued by another man, heavily tattooed -- a tattoo on his chest is of a tree. In a diner, the man dressed in the tuxedo sitting in a booth across from a man wearing a WWI uniform. A ring with a Masonic seal. Tarot cards, including Death and The Magician, reversed. Mourners escorting a wooden coffin. A snake charmer. A dead sheep. A woman screaming, her clothes being ripped. A young man with bloody stumps for legs. A clock that reads 2:25 with the pendulum ticking rapidly back and forth. A World War I soldier ducking an explosion. People standing under a tree. And more.

Ben Hawkins opens his eyes.

It's 1934 in Oklahoma, The Dust Bowl. Ben is a fugitive from a chain gang. He has come home to be with his mother, Flora, as she dies. She gasps and wheezes as Ben tries to touch her. "No...," she pleads with him. He slumps to the floor and, then, she's gone. He begins to bury her outside, but while doing so, a bulldozer emerges from the dusty winds.

BULLDOZER DRIVER: "You're trespassing." BEN: "This is my place." BULLDOZER DRIVER: "This place is the property of First Merchants Trust.

Now you've been warned. Law's on its way."

A truck pulls up nearby. Inside are Samson and his right-hand man Clayton Jones, a.k.a. Jonesy. They make a bet. Samson says the bulldozer will squash Ben Hawkins, but Jonesy disagrees. Because Jonesy interferes. He climbs out the truck and makes an offer to the Driver to get the Hayseed, meaning Ben, off his back. Since the Driver can't very well squash the boy without ruining his bulldozer, the Driver lets Jonesy try. Jonesy approaches Ben, who threatens to flatten the interloper with his shovel. Jonesy sees that Ben is merely trying to bury his mother. Also, he sees that the boy has shackles around his ankles. Despite that, he offers to help dig.

The carnival members have gathered around Flora's grave and are singing the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee." Ben looks around at the strange folk. Among the carnies are Samson, a dwarf and leader of the carnival, the conjoined twins Alexandria and Caladonia, and the bearded woman Lila. In the trailer painted "Apollonia ~ Queen of the Gypsies," the young and beautiful Sofie, averts Ben's gaze. The singing stops and, as if on cue, the Hawkins homestead is demolished. Samson's good to go, but a woman named Ruthie encourages him to take the young fugitive with them. Samson refuses, saying that they've "got nothing open" and they're "down to tater-shucks," but suddenly, Ben collapses.

Samson relents and they carry Ben off, just as police sirens can be heard in the distance.

It's a bright and sunny day in beautiful Mintern, California. Brother Justin Crowe, a Methodist preacher, is giving a sermon to his congregation. His sister, Iris, sits at his side. He preaches about the great plagues of Egypt, drawing comparisons between them, and the epidemic of sandstorms in middle America. What are they if not evidence of God's fury, he asks. Harbingers of the Apocalypse? He reminds his parishioners that they are blessed because they live in the Promised Land, but that "the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away." As he ends his sermon, everyone stands to sing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," but one woman makes a hasty retreat for the exit. Iris appears and grabs the woman, preventing her from leaving.

Elsewhere, Iris leaves the woman alone with her brother. The woman tells Justin that she came from Tulsa to pick cantaloupes, but no pickers were needed, so she currently resides at the large camp by the highway. She tells him that she has come to his church the past three Sundays to worship, and Justin tells her she's always welcome. The woman introduces herself as Eleanor McGill and as the two shake hands, Justin reaches into her sleeve and pulls out the silver coin Eleanor stole from the collection basket.

ELEANOR: "I didn't mean to take it." JUSTIN: "Eleanor, I see you in my sermons. And you pray so hard, you break my

heart. But my words, they wash over you like water over a stone." ELEANOR (weeping): "No, no."

JUSTIN: "We all, each of us, carry within us the seeds of our own salvation, and our own damnation."

Then, Eleanor covers her mouth. She begins to gag. Justin wheels back in horror as the woman vomits up a stream of silver coins. Eleanor is justifiably afraid, but Justin shouts at her to kneel with him and pray. She vomits up more coins. And then more coins. Justin takes Eleanor into his arms and looks around him. The coins have vanished. Standing in the doorway, Iris has witnessed to the entire event.

The carnival is approaching the outskirts of Milfay. Jonesy rides with Samson, and asks his friend if he has spoken to Management about Ben. Samson says he has and that Management said the boy was "expected." Jonesy asks what that means, and Samson smiles, saying that he's given up asking the very same question. Later, in Lila's trailer, Lila and Professor Lodz, the blind mentalist, are playing a game of Gin. Across from them, Ben is asleep but sweating and tossing in his feverish delirium. Lila asks Lodz to read the boy's dreams, and after some coaxing, Lodz complies. Lodz places his hand on Ben's forehead, and what he sees causes the mentalist to thrash violently. A man running through a cornfield, pursued by another man, heavily tattooed. A World War I soldier walking through a battlefield. Many soldiers dead in a bunker. A soldier cocks a rifle. A soldier, minus several limbs, writhing. More dead soldiers. And more.

Lodz collapses in Lila's arms.

Ben wakes to unfamiliar surroundings. He looks down at his ankles. The shackles have been removed. In a nearby trailer, Sofie is combing her mother's hair. Apollonia stares vacantly upward, her eyes and mouth wide open. She's catatonic, but Sofie is carrying on a conversation with her. They're "talking" about the newcomer.

SOFIE: "Mother, please. Every time we pick up a new-- Well, he's just a boy." On the table behind them, several tarot cards flutter into the air.

SOFIE: "I don't suppose you're going to pick that up."

As Sofie gathers up the cards, she looks out the window and sees Ben leave Lila's trailer. Then, she looks at the card she's holding in her hand: The Magician, reversed. Outside, as Ben gets his pants off a clothesline, he stares rather rudely at the Gecko, a speckled-skin man with dreadlocks. When the Gecko calls *Ben* a freak, Ben's caught off guard and steps backward into a tall and deformed Giant. The Giant slaps him out of the way, but into Apollonia and Calladonia, who scream at him, annoyed. Ben trips and falls into mud. He looks up at everyone, laughing at him. Meanwhile, Samson joins Lodz in Lodz's trailer. Lodz tells Samson that during the previous night he read Ben's dreams, but that the dreams nearly killed him. Samson spots a bottle of absinthe and dismisses what Lodz has said as "Hogwash." If the boy was dangerous, Samson reasons, Management would know. "Would he?" Lodz asks.

Ben is walking down a country road. Sofie pulls up in a truck next to him and offers him a ride. Ben flatly refuses, calling the carnies "a pack of freaks." Sofie drives off in a huff. Ben approaches a railside encampment where victims of the Depression have made their homes under tents and tarps. As Ben gets a drink from a watery runoff, he spots a dirty and quite frail woman rocking a baby in her arms. The baby's father, who is sitting nearby, tells Ben that the baby is dead but his wife won't give it a proper burial. Ben cautiously approaches the mother of the dead baby.

BEN: "Ain't that a pretty baby you got?" MOTHER: "Ssh. He's sleeping." BEN: "What's his name?" MOTHER: "Michael." BEN: "Like the archangel." MOTHER: "... He's dead. Isn't he?"

Ben takes the baby from her and hands it to the father. The woman seems enormously relieved. Now she can let go. Ben continues walking into the town of Milfay. He sees Sofie's truck left unattended at the gas station, and upon hearing yelling and a clamor from within, he walks inside the station. Two gas station attendants are forcing Sofie up against a truck, ripping her clothes. Ben knocks one out with a piece of wood. Sofie takes care of the other one. Ben drives Sofie back to the carnival. Seeing that her blouse is torn open, he offers his jacket to her so she may cover herself. She thanks him.

They pull into the carnival grounds and Jonesy sees them get out of the truck. He follows Sofie into her trailer and they argue. Jonesy insists they she cannot go into towns they visit without asking for trouble. Sofie slaps him and says that she wasn't asking for anything but a tank of gas, a soda and ten minutes to herself. She tells him to leave. At the same time, Samson follows Ben to the crops at the edge of the carnival grounds, trying to convince the boy to stay. He offers Ben a position within the carnival and even though there are no wages, Ben accepts after Samson makes a valid point: that breaking rocks as a prisoner of the State also pays nothing. They sit at a table and as Ben hungrily devours a steak, Samson tries to get a little information out of the boy.

SAMSON: "What's your story?" BEN: "I was born on a farm. You saw it. I was raised there. Started working

it. Then the bank come, they run me off. That's the end of story. You satisfied now?"

SAMSON: "Do I look simple to you, Hawkins?" BEN: "No." SAMONS: "Well, that's good because I'm not. I've been to New York City. I've

been to Chi-Town and The Big Easy. I met Caruso and Dempsey. I made eyes with Theda Bera. On a bad day, I've cracked tougher nuts than you."

Ben gets up from the table, annoyed.

That night, the carnival is lit up, packed with patrons and bustling with activity. Ben walks around, taking in all the attractions offered, among them a firebreather, a swordswallower and the Gay Paree -- a Hootchie-Kootchie Show, or 1930's version of a strip act. The Gay Paree is run by Felix "Stumpy" Dreifuss. His wife and two teenage daughters are the act. Ben isn't quite sure how to react to the topless and near-topless women flirting with him from on stage, so he leaves. Outside the tent, he overhears a conversation between a talker and another man. They're haggling on a price for a night with Stumpy's wife Rita Sue. Ben, more confused, finds solitude away from the noise of the carnival. Sofie appears to return to his jacket. When Sofie asks if Ben's coming on permanent, Ben acts derisively and says he's no carny. Sofie says that the people in the towns they visit are asleep, but the carnival wakes them up. Ben thinks on this for a second, then Sofie offers to read his cards, free of charge. "Maybe later." he replies.

More dreams. A man running through a cornfield, pursued by another man, heavily tattooed -- a tattoo across his chest is of a tree. A World War I soldier ducking an explosion. A ring with a Masonic seal. A fetus in a jar. A woman surrounded by darkness, her mouth agape. A smoking skull. Two bloody or burned legs, concealed from the knee-up. A clock that reads 2:25 with the pendulum ticking rapidly back and forth. A close-up of the Tattooed Man, his face resembling Brother Justin. Many soldiers dead in a bunker. The neon sign for Mr. Chin's explodes in a shower of sparks. And more.

Justin opens his eyes.

He had fallen asleep reading. Across from him, Iris is sewing and listening to the radio program The Shadow. Justin leaves the room and wanders the streets of Mintern. He walks past a campsite. Migrant workers and peasants socialize, sing songs and try to keep warm over fires. Eventually, Justin finds himself outside of Mr. Chin's, a brothel. A Chinese prostitute approaches him and suggestively runs her hands over his clothes. He grabs her arm and she shouts angrily at him in Mandarin.

Then, it begins to snow. The streets are suddenly empty. There are no cars or people in sight. Justin looks up at the sign for Mr. Chin's. It flashes complacently in the snowy night. Then, he feels blood drip on his face. And his palm. As it rains blood, Justin opens his arms in supplication. The neon sign for Mr. Chin's explodes in a shower of sparks. Justin falls to his knees, hands clasped together, praying. He opens his eyes to see that he's surrounded by pedestrians. There is no snow. There is no blood. The sign for Mr. Chin's is still intact.

It's the day after and Ben is assisting with dismantling the carnival tents and loading up the trucks. Sofie spots him and offers him a second chance on that card reading. Ben accepts. They sit inside her trailer and she shuffles her tarot cards. She reads his past by dealing three cards facedown. They will be revealed to be The Moon, "indicating confusion and exposure," Death, "not a harbinger of bad fortune but of transformation," and The Magician, reversed, "a great talent or ability wasted, unfilled; a gift hidden from others." As Sofie turns the cards upright, her insights cause Ben to remember when his "talents" first manifested:

Ben, roughly age six to eight, is stroking a cat. Flora is disgusted. The cat has been dead for three days. She takes it from him, despite his resistance. It meows. She screams and drops it and it walks away. She tells him that the Lord takes what's his and man has no right to take it back. Young Ben watches as his mother places the cat in a sack and holds the sack underwater. She sobs and tells him that he's marked by The Beast. Then, Present Day. Flora is dying. She picks up a cross from the table beside her bed and holds it to her chest. She waves her son away from her. "Keep your hands off of me. You filth! You filth!"

Sofie asks Ben what he's hiding. She places her hand on his. Suddenly, Ben sees the face of Brother Justin coming out of the darkness. "Tell me!" he screams. Ben bolts from his seat and runs out of the trailer. He runs through the carnival grounds and into the crops, where he sits and starts to weep. Maddy Crane, a crippled girl that Ben had spotted earlier during the carnival, is sitting in her wagon close by. She asks him why he's crying and he goes to her.

MADDY: "Gremmie says y'all are marked." BEN: "They ain't marked. They're just people, that's all... How long you been

like that?" MADDY: "Forever." BEN: "Does it hurt?"

The girl nods. Ben turns. He hears Samson calling for him. The carnival is leaving. When Ben doesn't answer, Samson says to hell with it, and the trucks begin to depart. Ben turns back to Maddy and places his hands on her legs. She watches as he struggles to drain her of the pain. The crops around them turn black. He sprints away from the crops, to the road, and jumps on the back of a truck. He climbs up top and collapses. The truck speeds him away from Milfay. Back in the field, Maddy is standing upright on her own legs. She runs back to her farmhouse, limping a little as she goes. The remaining crops whither and die....