This carnival employee is mentioned in Narcissa's account of the time Johnny Sartoris flew over Yoknapatawpha in a balloon. John does that when ptomaine poisoning makes the man to ill to fly the balloon himself.
The tower, called a "tank" in the text (66), is the scene of one of Young Bayard's early acts of reckless daring. Because he swings on a rope into a swimming pool over freight cars and piles of lumber, it can be assumed the tower is near the railroad tracks. But beyond that we have to guess at its location.
Visually, the water tower or tank is the most significant feature of the town's skyline; as The Town notes, it can be seen "standing against the sky above the Jefferson roof-line" (30). According to The Mansion it is the one part of Jefferson that is visible from two miles away (169).
This icon represents the ghostly presences that, according to the narrator, still haunt the darkened and seldom-used parlor at the Sartoris plantation house: "figures in crinoline and hooped muslin and silk," and "in gray too, with crimson sashes and sabres" (56). They seem to be conjured up by Narcissa Benbow's piano playing.
