‘‘The World in Wax’ holds dearly to its ‘number four’ ranking in ‘Travelz Magazine’s Top Places of Nominal Interest to Those with Eccentric Tastes,’ an award given once just before the magazine (and the industry surrounding it) folded like the cheap paper it was printed on. It is a sprawling complex, surrounded by the suburbs that seep out of Greenville and lit up massively at night.
The psychic, Alyssa Crystal, and her unspeaking husband have voiced and gestured ‘deep, spiritual concerns’ regarding ‘The World in Wax.’ In a 2013 interview, Ms. Crystal would say only ‘It is too knowing, as a place,’ and Mr. Crystal would later agree, coughing loudly into the microphone and waggling his eyebrows.
Stripped of context, ‘The World of Wax’ is simply a large, themeless wax museum that prides itself on accurate depictions of normal people doing normal things. Most visitors will enter and leave without a second thought but others, those who recognize loved ones among the varied wax statues, may reel at the accuracy at which they are portrayed and wonder at the so-called ‘normalcy’ of their fellow man.’
Alice chooses ‘The World in Wax’ when I am left, aimless, at the steps of ‘The Park Ranger Retreat Grounds,’ one of the spilled toothpicks having slid between the pages and pierced an unmarked entry. It’s a long drive, likely with many potential stops in-between, but I am superstitious as it suits me and I believe in Alice, the ghost of a woman I never met, like some believe in God.
I arrive early on a Thursday morning and wait behind a group of elderly women who glance nervously between themselves and say nothing except the few words necessary to purchase their entry tickets. The man behind the counter tries to sell me a membership and I decline, though I am surprised to learn no single exhibition is up for more than a month.
“What do they do with all the old figures?” I ask.
“Melt them down,” he shrugs, “Reuse the wax,” and, while I don’t think that is feasible or true, I nod and move on.
Past the small lobby, I enter onto the grounds with its myriad buildings and walk among the stiff, waxen grass that rattles warily in the shifting air. Alice, between my teeth, offers no particular lead so I pick my own way through the complex, admiring, for a while, the scene of a grisly crime, a frozen day at the beach, and a tired looking wax figure looking over a newspaper on the toilet.
The size of the complex is staggering and, without clearly marked paths or printed guides, I am left to determine what is and isn’t an exhibit on my own though, as time passes, it becomes clear that everything at ‘The World in Wax’ is made for viewing. Wax leaves gather in gutters and wax roaches huddle between dusty cans in a wax grocery. I peer through the just-parted shades of a window and spy a wax couple in bed, with seemingly no other viewpoint available. One of the men’s eyes are opened, as though startled by me, a noise outside their window.
Eventually I catch up to the older women, they having huddled around another bedroom scene, this one in plain view. They are locked in a soft-spoken argument, their voices like slippered footfalls, and I eavesdrop from a polite distance. I gather that they recognize the figures there and I walk over, as though innocently making my way through.
“Don’t let him look!” one of the women snaps to another but they, as a whole, seem at a loss as to what to do. I am a dirty-looking man, a stranger to them, and they don’t know I am a coward, that I would be turned away with a single stern word.
“Doesn’t matter,” another says, “Harold’s the one putting himself on display.”
I pretend not to hear any of this in a way that I’m not sure is totally convincing and they press to the wall in order to allow me my look. An elderly man sits up in his bed, nude except for a modest portion of sheet pulled over his legs. Lying near him is a woman- she reaches out to stroke his back.
A sign above the scene reads: ‘Infidelity.’
I give the women their privacy again and wander back toward the exit, stopping, on a whim, at a building labeled ‘Roadside Attractions.’ There, in the first room, an incredible reproduction of the stranger, of the first stranger, stares into a frozen campfire. The backend of his pick-up truck protrudes from the wall and his thick shadow spreads itself across the ground behind him. Ignoring the security cameras (which are suspiciously waxen themselves), I step into the edge of display to see what strange haul the man carries in his truck these days. There, in wax chunks, is a second stranger, its split head bearing the same pensive frown as the living man that now stands from where he sat.
“I have something,” he says, “That I think belongs to you.”
His shadow frays and mine emerges, as though from underneath, pinned under the stranger’s heavy, black soles.
-traveler