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In the very center of the park where all the quarters converge there’s this carousel.

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In the center of this carousel, there is a spinning orange tycoon named Lord Mudpant. In the old Merrymouse cartoons he was always trying to trick the others into investing in a railroad that led to nowhere, trying to collect their signatures on a comically long contract. He rode around in a diamond-studded hot-air balloon like the Wizard of Oz. (They were fake diamonds, of course; sometimes you’d see him slapping them on like stickers or peeling them off.) He powered the balloon himself, no fire to speak of; he simply exhaled hot air with such force that he could blow himself any which direction for miles, to his and others’ perilous and merry whim.

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Adults always liked Lord Mudpant but children never did. We could always see through him, see his end game. He wasn’t whimsical or funny, just sad and tragic. But he was scary too. Maybe that’s why they finally decided to get rid of him. He was never meant to be a villain, just a bumbling clown.

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Nevermind that cartoons couldn’t die. If they could have, his unfinished railroad would have been the end of them all—the whole Merrymouse extended family.

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In my opinion, clowns are the most dangerous of all because no one ever takes them seriously. Everyone’s so busy laughing at them they don’t realize the clown’s not laughing.        He actually means to murder someone with that banana peel.

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The point is, this carousel never made sense to me. The once vibrant, brightly-colored Merrymouse classic characters that you could ride around on the revolving platform, high-built and saddled and impaled through with twirling poles, all look tired and desperate to stop. Chipped and peeling now, it’s like they’re still turning in time, but I know that’s only a nostalgic longing for yesteryear’s lies. 

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And Lord Mudpant still presides in the middle, standing tall, coat of orange paint fresh as ever. His long contract flows down to the floor, crowded with cursive signatures, penned in ink red and ripe as blood. He is grinning, always, grinning like Mephistopheles and the carnival music need not even be playing to hear it in your head.

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Everything is eternally revolving around him, and he has already won.