Wall of death - AtD - connotations - the humor in her situo

[Raphael Saltwood]

P481.5  (page 602 on the Nook) “You do your best,” she cried out at her mother, “to wreck us,
> >>> and
> >>> then you run away, out of reach, behind the wall of death.”


This exact phrase “wall of death” is also used in AtD & elsewhere to describe a basically vertical motorcycle track for daredevils at carnivals to ride around inside

https://www.antiquearchaeology.com/blog/motordrome-suicide-bob-perry/


First on pg 235 (Nook pagination, though - hugely different from paper version, where I found it on 184) where Lew - in Kankakee - nowhere near Denver, but reachable back in his Chicago days via the Interurban
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3719.html

first encounters a dynamite blast at a county fair (it would have been Kankakee County) featuring also a Wall of Death & a Galvanic Grandpa, so in this passage his reminiscence foreshadows his later fascination with Cyclomite - & exposure to the other perilous attractions at the fair that sensationalized at the same time they familiarized people of that era with electricity, explosions, motorized travel.

And also Nook page 596 (476 in Penguin) where the town where Deuce takes up the sheriff’s badge & Lake kaffeeklatches with Tace Boilster is actually called “Wall o’ Death.”

“…soon they were entering Wall o’ Death, Missouri, built around the remains of a carnival, one of many inspired by the old Chicago Fair”

So it’s *in* Wall o’ Death that Lake dream-mentions the wall of death.

a) so the phrase slips into her dream on pg 481

b) behind the wall of death - if “behind” would be “on the other side of” the dividing line between observer & participant - so aptly characterizing especially in this case the different viewpoints of parents & children - while they do their different things (difficult & dangerous as they often are) / vs while they watch - either role could be run away into, for that matter.

Even though that doesn’t wash exactly, because the observers were in seats above the action, I’m partial enough to that reading to squint & pretend that  “behind” could be dream-mutated beyond its literal meaning as much as “wall of death” was.

The context kind of supports it: immediately preceding Lake’s expostulation, and perhaps provoking it, was Mayva’s singing the somewhat mocking phrase, “she was only a dynamiter’s daughter, but caps went off whene’er she passed by” -

(Which is similar to the folkloric “she was only a stableman’s daughter, but all the horse manure (horsemen knew her)”)

Which might be the kind of thing a parent might laughingly sing when they aren’t taking their children too seriously - & (which is not always well-received) are trying to get them not to take themselves so seriously either…

To see the humor in their situation, which Lake isn’t particularly prone to even while asleep…but she’s the one dreaming it so maybe she is ready to…