Bewilderness

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Bewilderness Page 5

by Karen Tucker

The day started out great. While I washed all the plates and tokens in a plastic bus tub, marveling at how delightful cold greasy water could feel under the right circumstances, Luce practiced tossing tokens so she could demonstrate how simple the game was to prospective players. Her first throws went sliding all over the place, which at the time felt like the funniest thing ever, but after she took a break to eat some of the watermelon Sour Patch candy we’d brought with us—our favorite snack while partaking—she discovered it was a lot easier if your token was sticky with corn syrup. Add in an old-lady pitch (“Now sir, you’re not going to want to do it like this, but I have a messed-up shoulder and granny style is the only way I can throw these suckers”) and bingo, she could nail it almost every try. By the time noon rolled around we’d collected almost fifty tickets like it was nothing. Even better, we hadn’t forfeited a single dog.

  It must have been when our high started to get a little frayed at the edges that it occurred to me to calculate our earnings. Of the two of us, Luce pretty much had all the talent when it came to just about anything, but the one skill I had some sort of natural advantage in was math. I’d even won a couple of competitions at the county level back in high school and there’d been a time when I’d wanted to go away to college and actually do something with it. “My girl’s a mathlete,” my dad used to tell all his nurses, his face blotchy with pride.

  So even though my mental faculties weren’t quite up to snuff in that moment, it didn’t take long to realize what was happening. “What time is it,” I said, looking up from our box of tickets.

  “Time?” Luce glanced at me. She was busy chatting up a couple of army guys decked out in head-to-toe camouflage. “I don’t know. One? Seven? Four a.m.? Let me guess. You got some big appointment.”

  The three of them laughed and went back to talking. I remembered I’d stashed my phone in Luce’s bag. I got her purse from its hiding place under the counter, checked the clock, did some quick figuring. “Uh, Luce? Can I talk to you for a second?”

  She wasn’t pleased with the interruption, but she came over. “Dude, what? I’m working these fools. Turns out it’s Military Appreciation Day and a whole bunch of them are here from Fort Bragg for some sort of exhibition. If we can get them all to visit our booth, we’ll rake in tickets.”

  “I hope so. Cause at this rate we’re barely making three bucks an hour.”

  She held my gaze for a long moment. Her pupils were tiny black holes that could suck you in if you weren’t careful.

  “All right,” she said. “It’s on.”

  We decided to let the army guys win so they’d spread the word with their buddies. While I dealt with the rest of the crowd, Luce took Privates Frick and Frack aside and advised them to throw with an underhanded pitch, keeping their arm straight and the disk as flat as possible. When they still couldn’t manage it, she gave them her special Sour Patch token to use. It took an embarrassing number of tries, but at last they both stuck the landing.

  “Hooah!” said the one with the stupid high-and-tight haircut. “Nailed it.”

  “Thanks miss,” his companion said, turning to Luce. He had the kind of politeness that could only have come from a small-town upbringing. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Hey, I got you covered. Most of my folks are military.” Luce held up the devil horn sign. “Army Strong.”

  The men headed back to their recruitment booth, the dogs tucked under their arms like war spoils. Sure enough, business started to pop. A few other army guys came by, eager to prove their own talents, but mostly it was regular civilians who’d seen the giant beagles being squired down the midway. The growing crowd around our stall attracted even more customers and soon tickets were flying at us so fast we could barely keep up with demand. It was like those rarest of days at the restaurant when your gears were humming and your blood was singing and people not only slipped giant cash tips into your apron pocket, they waved the manager over to tell him you were the best server they’d ever had. That kind of magic only happened when Luce and I had adjacent sections, which wasn’t often since she almost always got the coveted row of booths along the front window and I generally ended up with the wobbly two-tops back by the restrooms. According to our manager I needed an attitude adjustment, but really all I needed was to work next to Luce.

  “Yo Rainman!” she said. A sour gummy hit me in the shoulder. “How we looking?”

  I did some quick calculations. “Nine forty an hour and climbing.”

  “Yes!” Luce broke out a few celebratory air guitar licks and sang along. She didn’t exactly nail the pitch, but you could tell by the lyrics it was “Master of Puppets.”

  “Best song ever,” a guy said from the sidelines. He opened up his jacket to reveal a faded Metallica T-shirt from the Damage Inc. tour. “Saw them back in the day at the Knoxville Civic.”

  “No way,” Luce said. She went over and inspected the shirt more closely. “Man, whoever drew that skull is a serious genius. Like it’s completely gorgeous and also completely scary.”

  “Check out the back.” The man took off his jacket and turned around to show her. Instead of just one yellow-fanged skull staring at you, it was a whole pile of them. “It’s the real deal too, not one of those reproductions.”

  “So tight,” Luce said. “Knoxville. Wasn’t that one of the shows when Marshall filled in for Hetfield?”

  “True true, but it was still awesome. Screamed so much I couldn’t talk for a week. Course that was years ago, when my hair was down to here and my knees had cartilage. Now then.” He put his jacket back on and gave her a strip of tickets. “Wish me luck. My kid’ll go bonkers if I bring her one of these big old dogs next weekend.”

  “Sure, but hold on a sec.” She leaned toward him.

  Next thing I knew he was tossing his token like a goddamn nursing home patient. I cleared my throat in a stagy manner.

  “What?” Luce gave me a look of annoyance. “He’s one of us.”

  After that we were down three dogs, which meant we only had a couple left before our earnings per ticket sank from a quarter to a dime. I set about rewashing all the plates and tokens in bath oil to make them slippery as possible. It wasn’t so fun now that the high was fading. Meanwhile Luce remembered she had a tube of suntan lotion leftover from summer in her purse. After smearing some on her arms she started greeting every customer with a handshake—making sure their fingers got a hefty dose of Coppertone slime.

  For the next hour or so, the pace chugged along nicely. Lots of players and no winners. So far, so good. Yes, there was a dip in business once the military parade started, but to our delight the army guys Luce had befriended not only secured their beagles to the roof of their Humvee, they even tied those little U.S. flags-on-a-stick to their paws so it looked like they were waving along in patriotic solidarity. Moments after the show ended, a whole new crush of customers showed up with tickets. Luce slung an arm around me. She smelled like coconuts and orange blossom flowers, but the chemical sunscreen version. “God bless America,” she said.

  Everything would have been perfect if all the rest of Fort Bragg hadn’t decided to pay us a visit. Even that might have been okay—the insanity of lunch rushes had taught Luce and me how to haul butt when necessary—but Private Frick, the high-and-tight one of course, had gone and shared our trade secrets with his buddies in an effort to outdo the Marines and Air Force. Soon all the army guys were winning. We couldn’t get the dogs down from their hooks fast enough. It was like one of those waiter nightmares, the kind where you’re running around trying to refill coffee with an empty pot that’s burned on the bottom and everyone’s screaming at you for a to-go box or asking you to make change for a dollar. By the time it was all over, we’d completely run out of beagles.

  Luce and I stared in disbelief at our plundered booth.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “Old Pandora’s going to have to hit the slopes hard to recover.”

  “What are we going to tell Paulo? He’s
supposed to be here before too much longer.”

  We both stifled a yawn—the sign that the pills were almost out of our system—and exchanged uneasy glances.

  “What’s wrong, miss?” a voice behind us said.

  We turned to see one of the original army guys eyeing us with concern. Not Private Frick, but the tall one with the small-town manners.

  “Well look who it is,” said Luce. “Hope you’re proud of yourself. Thanks to you fuckers, our boss is going to go apeshit.”

  His face went still as though he’d been mortally offended—and just like that he turned around and left. No apology or excuse or anything close to it.

  “Yeah, suck my dick,” Luce called after him.

  We’d planned to wait until the ride home to enjoy our last couple 30s, but the way things had gone down we decided we owed it to ourselves to eat early. Maybe Paulo wouldn’t be so intimidating if we were faded. Luce announced she was going to swipe a couple paper napkins from the funnel cake stand a few booths over for parachuting purposes. We could use tokens to crush the pills instead of spoons. “You get our stuff together so we can make a run for it if we need to,” she said over her shoulder. She turned back and almost collided with a giant stuffed dog. “What the—?”

  “Sorry bout that,” said a pink-cheeked man in fatigues. He thrust the animal in Luce’s direction. “Here.”

  Within seconds we found ourselves surrounded by various army personnel, all of them carrying the stuffed beagles they’d won earlier. “We’re not allowed to take them on the bus,” one of them said. They took the liberty of going into our booth and hanging them back in their places and soon all the dogs were strung up on hooks except the one we gave to the Metallica fan.

  It was Luce who spotted the tall polite soldier watching the scene from a distance. “Dude! Is this cause of you?” When he gave a sheepish nod of assent, she motioned him over. She squinted up at the name on his uniform. “Rowland. Hey thanks, man. I mean sorry, is that Private Rowland or Corporal or what? Like for real, you totally saved us.”

  “Actually I just made Staff Sergeant a few weeks ago. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather you called me Wilky.” He gave her a smile so raw, so tender, that my blood started galloping in panic as if some part of me already knew what was coming. Even Luce, who was as hard-hearted when it came to men as anyone I’d ever encountered, took a wobbly step back.

  They started talking. Shyly at first, but it didn’t take long for them to start jabbering like a couple of little kids, excited and eager. Wilky started telling some story, moving his hands all around and not taking his eyes off Luce for a second. Meanwhile Luce was laughing so hard I thought for sure I’d have to get her inhaler. She didn’t wheeze once.

  I tried to focus on counting tickets, but I kept losing my place and having to start over. It was like my brain couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds without an ugly thought muscling in. I recalled my father, boasting about my accomplishments to anyone who would listen while hospital machines whirred and beeped all around him. And here I was, working a rigged Buck-a-Dog booth and struggling to tally a bunch of greasy tickets. For one awful moment I had a flash of gratitude that my dad couldn’t see how far I’d fallen, but that only made me feel worse.

  “Ireeeene,” said Luce, using the voice she reserved for restaurant guests who looked like they might be 20 percenters. “Would you mind holding down the fort for a minute? Me and Wilky are going to get some cotton candy before he has to head back. Oh and could you finish doing the numbers while you’re at it? Thanks to him, I bet we set some kind of record.” Together they headed off toward another part of the fairground.

  I went straight to her purse and chewed up our last two pills.

  I’m not quite sure how much time passed, thanks to the 30s that were sliding their way through my system, but at some point Luce came back arm in arm with Wilky, lit up like someone had just changed her batteries. They kissed right in front of me—a gentle exchange that hurt to look at—until at last he pulled away and murmured something into her hair. This elicited a throaty giggle from Luce, a sound I’d never heard her make in all the time I had known her.

  “I’d love that,” she said, peering up at him. Another kiss, and they exchanged reluctant goodbyes. As he vanished into the crowd, I was struck with the peculiar feeling that something in my own life was slipping away too.

  “Oh. My. God.” Luce swung around to face me. She wrapped her arms around herself and swayed back and forth. “Is he a dream or what?”

  I lowered my eyes, hoping she wouldn’t notice the telltale size of my pupils. “Yeah, he seems pretty great.”

  “Saturday night he’s picking me up and taking me out to dinner. For once it’ll be me sitting down at a table instead of having to stand up and take orders from some stupid slut and her boyfriend.”

  I tilted my head at her. “You know we’re both working doubles on Saturday.”

  “So I’ll go home after lunch,” she said. “After today I can afford to take a night off if I want to.”

  I reminded her she still had to get her shift covered. “It won’t be easy on such short notice.”

  “Guess I’m calling out sick then,” Luce said, grabbing her crotch.

  In an effort to change the subject, I told her I’d gotten our finances squared away in her absence. One good thing about 30s was they could always restore me, at least temporarily, to my former self. I started rattling off how many tickets we’d sold, our gross, our net, how much we’d earned per hour—

  “Good god, cut to the chase already, will you?”

  “We’re each going to walk with a hundred and sixty-two dollars.”

  Luce threw back her head and let out a whoop of triumph. “Fuck yeah. You ready to celebrate?” Without waiting for my response, she headed straight for her purse, her fingers twitching in anticipation.

  “About time,” I said.

  If you’ve never pretended to help your best friend find the drugs you stole from her while trying to conceal a high that makes you almost dizzy with happiness—you can count yourself among the more fortunate humans condemned to wander this planet. After digging through her bag in a frenzy, the sight of which forced me to bite my lips to keep from laughing, Luce upended the whole thing right on the counter. Crap went everywhere. When her Altoids tin still didn’t turn up, she lifted her head and gazed at me, stricken. “We’ve been robbed.”

  This also struck me as terribly funny, though I couldn’t let her know it. “That’s ridiculous. It’s got to be here.” I tried to sort through the chaos of makeup, wadded-up receipts, coins, cellophane wrappers from the mints she liked to nab from the host stand. My hands felt like they were immersed in a vat of warm Jell-O and several times I felt a loopy grin bobbing up to the surface. It took all my concentration to push it back down.

  “What the fuck?” Luce said, once it became clear that our stash wasn’t going to materialize from the rubble.

  “Maybe one of the army dudes that was back here took it,” I said. “I bet half of them are on something just because of all their injuries.”

  “No way. I was watching. I’m not stupid.”

  “You sure you didn’t leave it at home? In the kitchen maybe?”

  “You know I always triple-check that shit. Besides, I saw it when I got the sunblock.”

  “Must have fallen out then,” I said. That led to another few minutes of us scrabbling around on our hands and knees, looking for the little metal box I’d tossed in the garbage can a couple of booths over. The whole thing felt like a sketch from one of the sitcom reruns we’d sometimes watch in the afternoons before work and at one point I had to stop and press my hands to my cheeks to keep from yelping in laughter.

  “Hold on a second,” Luce said. “Look at me.”

  I didn’t see any way around it, so I lifted my head and stared right at her. Even then I had to repress a round of childish giggles.

  “Goddammit. You fucking ate them
,” she said.

  “What?” I tried to sound insulted. “You really think I’d do that to you?”

  “Don’t bullshit me. Your eyes are pinned out like crazy.” She stood up and began tossing her belongings back in her purse. “I can’t fucking believe it. Leave you alone for one second. Guess I know who not to trust in the future.”

  Now I really was insulted. I pulled myself to my feet a little too quickly and almost fell over. “Yeah? Why don’t you try looking at your own eyes for once. They’re just as bad as mine, leftover from this morning.”

  She stared at me. “You’re really going to double down on this.”

  I picked up her compact and held it out. “Look.”

  Luce reached for the mirror. A couple more seconds and she would know I’d not only stolen her drugs, I’d lied right to her. Her eyes looked perfectly normal. Nothing pinned whatsoever. Instinctively I braced myself.

  She flipped open her compact, gazed into it. Lifted her eyes and peered into my face. Slowly the muscles in her jaw grew tight, the way they always did right before she lost her temper and already I could see her screaming her head off about how I’d betrayed her.

  So when Luce’s anger dissolved into nothing, I didn’t know what to make of it. She kept watching me, her face blank as a tablet. Neither of us moved. At last she closed her compact—a sharp little click that seemed to signal something much larger.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said.

  I stared at her, uneasy and skittish. Clearly it was me who’d messed things up between us. Was Luce’s apology some kind of trick? At least if she’d yelled in my face, I would have known where we stood with each other.

  “It’s okay,” I said at last.

  After that, we were pretty quiet. We tidied the booth and finished organizing our tickets. The evening crew showed up to replace us—a couple of girls our age with matching Hollister sweatshirts and flat-ironed hair and rhinestone nose studs that were supposed to make them look edgy. The kind of people who always go to happy hour, consume huge amounts of half-price drinks, and tip a dollar. You could almost hear them mewling for another glass of pink wine. I hoped Luce would try to screw with them in some way, maybe give them bad advice about running the game so they’d lose all the beagles, or at least knock the pan of greasy water all over their stupid sheepskin boots, but she just kept wiping circles of Windex into the counter as though she hadn’t noticed the sudden stink of Victoria’s Secret body fragrance. It was a little depressing, even with the 30s, to say the least.

 

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