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By Maura Madden
As the summer comes to an end, one reflects back upon the season and what has come to pass. Happy memories float to the surface of thought, and we are transported back in time to the places where those memories were made: places like the ballpark, the street festival, the picnic grounds and the beach. Places like the Shoot-the-Freak booth on the boardwalk of Coney Island. You know, the kind of memories that last a lifetime.
I went out to Coney Island twice this summer. The first time was for the hot dog eating contest on the Fourth of July. The second time was just for sun. A friend and I went out on a quiet Sunday morning, just hoping to sit on the beach and go for a swim. Well, we did that. But the memory that remains is that of the freak.
"Shoot the Freak - He's a moving target; 75 shots for $25." So says the barker as the sun glints off the speakers. Whoever branded this game is a marketing genius. It's better than, say, Drown the Clown. While drowning a clown is appealing to many folks, a surprising number of people really like clowns. Circuses remain a popular form of family entertainment, and have you ever noticed the excess of miniature clown ceramics on the market? Clowns make some people feel cozy, and things that make you feel cozy are not the kinds of things you want to drown. But the idea of shooting a freak, well, that has universal appeal. So off we went to watch the freak get shot.
We must have arrived right before the freakÕs day started, because there he was, in person, putting on his freak gear. And pre-gear, there was nothing freakish about him. In fact, as we watched him swathe himself in protective clothing, his blond hair all mussed-up and his face tan, I'll admit it. I thought to myself, "The freak is kind of cute."
And fully dressed, the freak was not impressive. I was expecting him to be wearing a full-on costume, replete with rubber mask of freakish features, maybe some eyes dangling out of their sockets, maybe his mouth oozing blood, maybe a rubber baby arm growing from the side of his rubber neck. But he wore nothing of the kind. This guy was a DIY freak. Basically, he wore a lot of padding over his civilian clothes, and he had on some ski goggles. Yes, the padding was disgusting. It looked like he pillaged a junior high locker room, taking everything he could carry before the school custodian came in to clean the bathrooms. The enormous ski goggles are creepy-looking in a robotic way, but they are not freakish. The freakiest thing on his person is the shield he uses to deflect the paintball shots. It has some kind of shredded cloth nailed to it, a cloth that is coated in viscous green and blue paintball paint and gives the shield the appearance of being covered in torn green muscles. But by this description, they should call it "Shoot the Nasty Dude in Dirty Football Gear and a Nauseating Shield", not Shoot-the-Freak.
The freak descended into his death pit, which looks like an abandoned urban lot. There are some freestanding doors, a broken table and chair, some dirty, boardwalk-sized stuffed animals, an old refrigerator, yup, an old refrigerator, and then are there are a few wood pillars rising up into the sky. I'm pretty sure that there were some spare tires lying around.
Because the barker describes the freak as a moving target, I was expecting to witness some seriously sneaky freak moves. I anticipated a lot of darting behind the barriers and then coming out into the open for a fleeting moment, only to then drop and roll out of the way of the rapid gunfire. But I was wrong. The freak did not move at all. Well, not a lot. He moved his feet a little, like he was doing a warm up for the football season, shifting his weight from foot-to-foot ever so slightly in a shuffling motion. Then, every once in a while, he'd dip his head to one side and then to the other side, then back again to center, as if doing a really weak job break-dancing. It was the beginning of the day, when the freak should be at his freshest, and he didn't give any more than that weak sauce. And that's pretty bad freaking, if you ask me.
"I'm only gonna pay to shoot someone if I get real bullets," says a gentleman in passing. He's clearly joking. But then again, I think he might not be. Yeah, that's the spirit, sir. For $25, if someone's not going to die at my hands in a flurry of bullets, then guess what, I don't want to do it. I want someone to hand me a gun stuffed with live ammo, and then, in front of a large crowd of people, I want to execute this freak. It's the least they can do for $25. As it is, if you hit the freak with a paintball bullet, you don't even win a prize. Well, nothing more than the pride of the kill. But you can't take that home and give it to your little cousin as a souvenir. But if you really got to kill the freak, well, then you'd have something to brag about.
Not having $25 to spare, I decided to just move along. We turned our backs to the freak and walked towards the water, getting ready for some lying on towels and swimming in the water. But the image of the freak was seared on my brain. And there it remains. A summer memory, glistening with sweat and tiny sparkles of sand. And although I couldn't afford to shoot him, I can afford to remember the freak. 'Cause memories are free. |
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