Kickback and Other Stories

by Peter Sellers

  “Yeah, it is.” He turned to the people waiting in line. “We’re closed for awhile due to technical difficulties. Come back later. Half an hour and we should be good.” As the crowd started to drift away he turned to me and said, “No one goes in until I get back.”

  It took him more than an hour, during which time I sat on the steps of the wagon and refused entry to everyone except those with cardboard tickets. After all, I still needed Grant to have some money coming in.

  “Those idiots,” he said as he handed me the new scanner. “Stupid, stupid idiots.” He muttered off along the midway.

  At least once a day, the scanner would quit working, and Grant would have to go and get a replacement, which would pack it in the following day. I asked around at a couple of the other attractions and no one else seemed to have that problem.

  Still, people continued to line up for both attractions. On tickets alone, Grant must have been making a packet. That was why I was surprised when, halfway through the run, he gave me the word.

  He was still working on the vampire killing kit behind the trailer. He was making another stake.

  “This kit come with two stakes?” I asked.

  “Naw. I tossed the other one. It didn’t look right. Not old enough. Not creepy enough.” He held up the new one, looked at it from several angles, then went on carving. “I have some bad news for you,” he said, not taking his eyes off the knife.

  “How so?”

  “They changed my deal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I went into the office this afternoon to get that fucking scanner replaced they told me that our old deal is off and they’re cutting my take in half.”

  I was startled by this unexpected news. “They can’t do that. You have a contract.”

  “I have a contract but they have lots of money. They figure I’ll take it or leave the fair. Leaving is going to be worse. I’ll be stuck out here with no money, and no chance of making any, and a shit load of expenses to get all my stuff home.” He wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was fixed on the wood shavings curling away from the increasingly sharp stake. “I can’t afford a lawyer, so I’m stuck. They don’t care, the bastards. They want all the independents like me out anyway. They want the whole lot to be nothing but games and attractions that they own themselves.” He held up the stake and studied the point carefully. “With no independents, all the money stays in their pockets. The cheap bastards.”

  I knew what the answer was going to be, but I had to ask anyway. “What about my money?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not going to have it as fast as we thought. It may not be until next year when I get hooked up with a show that pays me what I’m worth. Sorry about that.” In his eyes I could read no remorse. “I’m getting sick and tired of people going out of their way to screw me.” Then he turned his attention from me to the stake.

  I went to find somewhere quiet so I could think things through. My head was spinning. I went behind the row of games, watching the crowds thronging the midway in the gaps between the tents. I ran into Karl. He was sitting behind his booth, blowing up balloons with a hand pump. He put them into a large mesh bag, ready to be passed to Vince, the operator, who stood out front talking the marks in. Karl spent twelve hours a day blowing up balloons. They were attached to the board at the back of the booth, and a steady stream of suckers put down five bucks to get three darts and the chance to win a cheap and useless prize.

  Every morning, Karl and Vince covered the board with balloons, a very few of them hiding small bits of paper on which coloured stars were printed. When a customer got lucky and popped a balloon that revealed a star, they won a prize.

  I sat with Karl and listened to the thud of darts striking the backboard, the laughter and groans of the dart throwers and their friends, and the occasional bang and shrieks of joy and amazement when a balloon was hit.

  That was Karl’s day: blowing up balloons and having them popped by strangers. He was sanguine about it. “It’s kind of an apt metaphor for life, wouldn’t you say? It’s pretty meaningless, as jobs go. But at least it’s obviously meaningless, not pretending like it matters.”

  “I guess so,” I said. “At least you’re giving people hope that maybe the next throw will hit a star.”

  “Maybe. But anybody who puts money into one of these sucker-traps is a fool.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said.

  Angela found me the next morning sitting with a cup of coffee. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

  “Just thinking about money stuff.”

  She stared at me, waiting for more.

  “Grant told me about the new deal with the carnival.”

  “What new deal?”

  “That they cut your percentage way back and that if he wants to leave the show he’s welcome to. But, if he stays on, it’s for a lower percentage.”

  Angela laughed. “That’s news to me, and I bet it’s crap.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “He owes you money, right? He’s probably trying to get out of paying you back. Betcha anything.”

  I had seen Grant bend the truth many times when it came to expanding the scope of his success and the variety of his accomplishments. On a few occasions, I’d also suspected that what he said about other people and how they had mistreated him or stolen his ideas may not have accurately reflected reality. But I’d never imagined that he’d lie to me about money.

  “No,” I said, “I can’t believe he’d do that.”

  “Of course he would. How long have you known him? Have you not been paying attention?” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “There’s another reason he doesn’t want to pay you back, beyond just overall cheapness.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He wants to buy a guillotine.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an old illusion some guy in Red Deer is selling.”

  “Red Deer?”

  “Some place like that. It’s a great big thing.” She mimed the large dimensions. “Looks real. The blade comes down like a son of a bitch. Apparently, it’s real impressive.”

  “And he’s buying this?”

  “Yeah. For next season.” She ran a finger across her throat. “He wants to cut my head off ten times a day. Mine and Zoe’s. That’s where your money’s going.”

  I thought about this for several seconds, trying to take it in. “Where is he now? Do you know?”

  “In the wagon, I think.” She checked the time on her phone. “I have to get back to work.”

  Grant was not at the wagon, nor at the Living Mermaid. Neither of the kids that Grant had finally hired to take tickets had seen him in hours. I started walking the lot looking, but it was very crowded and there was no sign of him.

  When I came to George’s Class-E-Photo booth, I decided that it was good that Grant was nowhere around. I needed time to calm down and think everything through. I also realized that I needed a second opinion.

  George took sepia-tinged images of people wearing cheap western garb. There seemed a limitless desire among fairgoers to look like gunfighters, dudes, or dancehall girls.

  George had been travelling with carnivals for decades. He crossed Canada every summer and then headed down to the States for a few months. Somehow he had saved enough money to buy a house in Toronto and a winter home in Florida. He never seemed to mind the long hours and the extended periods away from home.

  “The customers make it, man,” he told me. “I get people who’ve come here as kids every year and then they come back with their kids. I’m part of their family histories. I love that.”

  His photos weren’t cheap, and they were somewhat tacky, and he would take two shots maximum and let people pick the one they wanted, but everyone seemed thrilled with the results, and no one complained about the price. At the end of every day, George had a large wad of cash, the only form of payment he took.

  “I got it good,” he said. “I get pai
d for the photos, and then I hand the company its cut. I’m way better off than guys like Grant, who have to wait to get their share.” All the Crown and Anchor concessions and the other gambling games worked the same way. The operators scooped up coins all day long, paying out in winnings a fraction of what was gathered up with each spin of the wheel. They had people who spent all day in the back rolling coins so they could be taken to the bank. It was hard to imagine the cumulative weight of that money from all those operators, over the course of a ten-day fair.

  “Speaking of money,” I asked him, “I heard a rumour that the company has changed the deal with the independents. Is that true?”

  “News to me,” George said. “Mine hasn’t changed.” He didn’t ask me who’d shared the news with me, but he probably made an assumption.

  “The word I got was that the company was passing on a smaller cut of wristbands.”

  George shrugged. “Whoever told you that was lying. This is a carnival, man. It’s all about lies.”

  When I got back to the Wonder Wagon, the ticket taker pointed towards the back. “He’s in there,” she said.

  There was a narrow space running the length of the wagon, behind the displays. That’s where Grant loaded all the gear for his attractions while he was travelling and, once he was set up on the lot and the space was empty, he and Zoe slept in there. It was hot and airless and smelled bad, but it was free.

  I banged on the door, and Grant opened it, looking annoyed.

  Before he could speak, I asked, “So what’s this about a guillotine?”

  Grant looked startled. He climbed out of the wagon and glanced from side to side as if searching for the person who had told me. Then he turned his gaze back to me and smiled. “Yeah, I was going to tell you about that. It’s a great opportunity. It’ll be a great attraction next year. Even bigger than Nerissa, ’cause it’ll have violence. Heads lopped off all day long. People love that kind of shit.”

  “Yeah, but what about my money? I need that back. You said it was for the summer only.”

  “Don’t worry. Don’t worry about your money. It’s all going to work out.” He was backing away as he said it. “Anyway, I got to go to the office. I gotta tell ’em about the guillotine. They’re going to get so excited about that and how much money it’s going to bring in, they’ll reinstate my deal for sure.” He was far enough away by then that he was almost yelling and people were turning to stare. Then, with a wave of his hand, he turned his back on me.

  Karl was blowing up balloons and drinking beer.

  “You heard anything about the bosses changing Vince’s deal?”

  He was mid-inflation and shook his head. “I don’t understand the question,” he said as he tied off the balloon.

  I explained what I had been told by Grant. “I’ve heard nothing, but then nobody tells me much anyway. You want a beer?” He took one for me, dripping water, from a cooler full of melting ice.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  Karl was inflating another balloon and signaled for me to hold on for a second. When he could, he said, “You need leverage.”

  “I got nothing.”

  “No, but you can make yourself some. Take something. Figure out what he needs, and what he’ll pay for, take it, trade it, and go the fuck home.”

  This had not occurred to me. “Take what, for instance?”

  “Hey, don’t ask me to do all the work for you.”

  “What if he gets rough?” I’d never been much of a fighter.

  “Grant? Don’t worry. He’s got no balls. Besides, if he lays any tough-guy shit on you, you’ll have no trouble finding a dozen dudes on the lot who really are tough, who’d take him apart for you. They’d love to. They just need an excuse. Grant’s such an asshole. Everybody sees that except you.”

  I had to wait until the fair shut down for the night. Grant had gone off with Zoe and Angela to walk around the lot and to check under the roller coasters for ground scores, stuff that had fallen out of people’s pockets when they were turned upside down. I watched them go and, when I thought they were far enough away, I went into the wagon.

  In the dim light, it took some time to unfasten Otto from the chair. All the while, he was staring at me with his creepy, painted eyes. I picked him up and studied his face closely. Now that I was holding him, he looked garish but not as scary as before. I was turning to leave when Grant came in, the vampire stake in his hand. He was obviously startled to see me. I held Otto by his ankles behind me.

  “What are you doing here?” Grant asked.

  “Just looking around,” I stammered. “Why are you here?”

  “Working on this.” He held up the stake. Then he noticed Otto and pointed the stake at him. “What do you think you’re doing with him?”

  “I’m taking him with me. You can have him back when I get my money.”

  Grant laughed. “Put him down.”

  “Just pay me what you owe me, and I’ll give him back.”

  “There is no money. I told you they changed my deal. There’s going to be barely enough cash for gas to get to Edmonton.”

  “That’s not what I heard.” Grant pointed the stake at me and took a step forward. I swung Otto as hard as I could. There wasn’t enough room to do it sideways so I had to come down from the top, and Otto’s head smashed against Grant’s nose. Otto wasn’t heavy enough to do much damage, but the blow stunned Grant. He stopped, shook his head, and looked at me in surprise. Then he took another step towards me. I swung a second time, and Otto hit him again. Grant took a couple of involuntary steps backward. He was in a rage.

  “Put him down!” he roared. “He’s mine! Put him down and get the hell out. This is my wagon. My show.”

  “What about my money? You owe me that money!”

  Grant glared at me, gesticulating with the stake. “Fuck you and your fucking money! You’re not going to get any money. That was an investment. There were no guarantees. I don’t owe you a fucking penny! And what the fuck right do you have to go around telling everbody on the lot about my business?”

  That pulled me up short. I realized that I was screwed. I had a handshake deal with someone whose word meant nothing. No paperwork. No witnesses to the agreement. And if I walked out holding this goddamn dummy I wouldn’t get a hundred yards. He’d have the cops on me. I’d have to give Otto back. I’d have a lot of explaining to do. Things would just get even worse, and I didn’t need that. I looked Otto in his grinning, wooden face, but there was no help there.

  I turned my back on Grant and headed for the exit. “Where are you going?” he yelled. “Put that dummy down! Give me Otto back!”

  It took Grant a while to move, but when he did, he did so quickly. I could hear his steps behind me, breaking into a run.

  I was almost to the door when I tossed Otto backwards as hard as I could, grunting, “Goddamn,” through teeth gritted so tightly my jaw hurt.

  The clatter and thump of Otto hitting the floor was overlaid by the thudding of Grant’s heavy footsteps, a sudden cry of surprise, and another, louder sound, as if he had stumbled and fallen. But by then I was outside. I didn’t turn around. The evening was clear and cool. The air smelled fine.

  I stood at the bottom of the Wonder Wagon’s steps and looked at the stars. I took slow, deep breaths until I felt myself relax. Then I began to wonder why Grant had not followed me. It wasn’t like him to be so quiet. It wouldn’t take that long to put Otto back on his chair.

  I decided that there was no option but to talk with Grant again, make a rational argument. Hoping that he had calmed down as much as I had, I went back into the wagon.

  Grant was lying in front of Otto’s empty display. The stake was jammed into his throat. Otto was on the floor between Grant’s feet. There was a lot of blood but no movement.

  “Grant?” I said, though it was clear he could not answer. My stomach turned over, and my knees buckled. I turned and ran from the wagon, shocked and nauseous.

  I was sitting on
the steps with my head in my hands when Zoe and Angela returned.

  “Have you seen Grant?” Zoe asked.

  I pointed into the wagon with my thumb. She started to move past me.

  “Don’t go in there,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s bad.” I was trembling now. “Otto did it again.” At first I thought the sound I was making was laughter, but then I realized it was something else.