In the book Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, (number 11 on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th century), "The Consul" has an encounter with the Bullet ride as he wanders intoxicated through the Fiesta in the plaza of his town, Quauhnahuac. His ex-wife Yvonne, who has just returned to him early that same morning, is with his brother Hugh somewhere in the plaza, and within the hour he is to rendezvous with them and catch the 2:30 bus to Tomalin.
The British Consul is being trailed by a crowd of local children begging for money when he spots the "Wild attraction. The huge looping-the-loop machine, empty, but going full blast over his head ...suggesting some huge evil spirit, screaming in its lonely hell, its limbs writhing, smiting the air like flails of paddlewheels." To escape the children he boards the "monster."
For the next page and a half, Lowry gives a most accurate and entertaining description of the the drunken Consul's experience of riding
"ah my God! Everything was falling out of his pockets, was being wrested from him, torn away, a fresh article at each whirling, sickening, plunging, retreating, unspeakable circuit..".
Upon reading this passage I suddenly remembered that I had had such an experience once with the "Bullet". Only I wasn't drunk; I was maybe fourteen. Our neighbor, Bert Perkins, who was my grandfather's age, drove me one evening to what then was likely the annual Waveland street fair. It was probably 1949 or '50 and back then a lot of small towns had these carnivals put on by the Lions Club or some other group as a fund raiser and to help the local merchants.
Just Bert and I went in his Ford. I must have been nearing driving age, because on the way over Bert was giving me driving tips. I remember distinctly his warning not to drive faster at night than a speed that would allow me to stop within the distance I could see by my headlights. Bert and his wife Ethel were my parent's favorite neighbors.
When we got to the fair, Bert let me go my way and we agreed to meet later at a certain place and time. I didn't go to school in Waveland, but my family went to the Freedom Church where a lot of Waveland kids my age did. So I wandered down the main street which was blocked off and filled with several vendor booths and rides. I don't remember anything I did that night except that when I got to the Bullet, a girl I knew and was fond of was standing there with some friends. I was scared to death of that ride, but to impress her I suggested we ride together.
You can't do anything romantic in the Bullet, like hold hands or even say anything special to the girl. All you can do is hold on to the bar with both hands, try to catch your breath and keep from throwing up, and listen to the change and comb you had in your pockets fall out and rattle around the cage. That was my only time to ride the Bullet, and when it was over the girl went her way, and I went back to find Bert.
