She would be out of town before they got home.
thirty-nine
A sad melancholy fell over Carny, adding to the rage she was already nursing, when the rental car crested the hill and the carnival came into view, the Ferris wheels and roller coasters looming into the afternoon sky. Scratch, the sword-swallower, whom her parents had sent to pick her up at the airfield, spoke to the gatekeeper, who let them onto the fairgrounds.
“Look, Mom! The double Ferris wheel! Nathan went on one at the state fair and said it got stuck, and he had to sit up there for an hour until his dad climbed the wheel and got him down.”
Carny breathed a laugh. “I’ve told you not to believe everything Nathan tells you.”
“I’m not scared, though. Can I ride it?”
“We’ll see.” Already, the scents of cotton candy, chicken on a stick, fresh taffy, and cinnamon rolls wafted over the area, conjuring up memories of a childhood where almost every meal was eaten with her fingers while walking down the midway, unless it had been a sandwich thrown together in a moving trailer. Still, it smelled of home.
When the guard opened the gate for them, Scratch drove straight back, through the infield thick with trailers, to where her parents’ trailer was parked. The jalousies were broken on it, and it needed a good bath, and the awning that came out from the side to create a makeshift porch was torn. On the side were the words Douglas Carnivals Limited.
“Your folks had a meeting with the sheriff,” Scratch told them, getting out. “But they said to wait here. Either that, or you can walk around the park.”
“A meeting with the sheriff? Problems?”
Scratch grinned and hiked one eyebrow. “Nothing a little cash won’t fix.” Lighting a cigar, he gave a phlegmy laugh.
“What about Ruth?”
“She’s tutoring some young’uns right now. But Sas and Peg are over in the Tojo Trailer. Everybody else is working.”
“Okay. Is there a bathroom somewhere?”
“Closest donnicker’s by the House of Apes,” Scratch said.
“What’s a donnicker?” Jason asked.
“It’s the bathroom, Jase,” Carny said. “Only we can go in Grandma and Grandpa’s trailer. The donnickers aren’t usually very clean.”
“After that can we walk around the park? Please, Mom? I’m hungry, and everything smells so good!”
“Sure,” Carny said, taking the key that Scratch offered and unlocking her parents’ door. “We’ll just freshen up, and then I’ll see how many carbohydrates and buckets of grease I can pour down you.”
“All right!”
She opened the door and Jason dashed in. Over her shoulder, she called, “Thanks, Scratch.”
“No problem, Carny,” he said. “Good to have you back.”
Jason had already found the bathroom, and as Carny stepped into the trailer where she had grown up, she was assaulted by a wave of nostalgia. This was home, such as it was. This was where she’d slept, traveled, studied. This was where she’d dreamed — of finding a way out, of settling down, of having a normal family where her children’s days weren’t filled with longing and disappointment.
“Wow, Mom. This is great! Is this where you used to live?”
“Sure is,” she said quietly.
“But where was your room?”
“I slept here, on the couch bed,” she said. “Grandma and Grandpa slept in that little area at the back.”
Jason’s enthusiasm faltered a degree. “Where were your toys? Where did you play?”
“I didn’t keep many toys,” she said, “but I read a lot. And there was always the carnival. I could ride anything I wanted. And I got to play in the animal truck.”
“The what?”
Smiling, Carny hooked a finger for Jason to follow her back outside. “This way,” she said, glad she’d finally thought of one charming thing to show Jason about the carnival.
They walked between trailers to the eighteen-wheeler parked at the fringe and stepped up on the rim of the bed. There, she raised the door, revealing the treasures inside.
“Wow!” Jason cried.
In the truck, thousands of stuffed animals lay in soft mountains. Stuffed dolls and dogs and teddy bears all lay waiting to be taken to the midway as prizes to the marks who paid twenty times what they were worth to win them.
Jason grabbed an armful and, giggling, fell back onto a downy mountain of stuffed animals. “Whose are these?”
“The carnival’s,” she said. “These are all the prizes. I used to play here all the time.”
“Really, Mom? They let you?”
“Sure did. These things only cost a few cents apiece, but the marks will pay a dollar a shot to win them. By the time they walk away with one, the agents have usually scored forty to fifty dollars.”
“What are marks?”
She caught her breath. “I meant … customers.”
“Why’d you call them marks?”
“Because,” she said, deciding not to deceive him or hide the truth. “You see, Jason, not everybody in the carnival is honest. A lot of the people who work here are just trying to find ways to take people’s money. And they don’t think of them as people … or even as customers. They think of them as targets … or marks.”
“Did you think of them as marks?”
She sighed. “Yeah, I’m afraid I did, back before I knew that God saw everything I did. Before I cared what he thought. I grew up calling them that.”
“Was it a bad thing?”
“Yes, it’s bad when you just want to trick them and take something from them … something that you haven’t earned. It’s stealing.” She sat down on a pile of teddy bears and leaned back against the wall.
Jason’s eyes rounded, and he looked back out the open door of the truck toward the carnival that had seemed so magical to him before. He seemed to be looking at it with new eyes, as if her words had cast a pall over it that made everything look different. Why hadn’t she just let him enjoy it?
Tears sprang to her eyes, tears she hadn’t expected. Her gaze drifted out of the truck to the midway just beyond the trailers. Coming here was like moving backward, she thought, and yet she’d had to. These were her roots. They were what made her who she was. Everybody needed to backtrack sometimes, if only to remember how far they had come.
Where did Logan go when he’d finished a con? Did he backtrack? Or was he in Tahiti, counting his money and laughing at how he’d finally gotten her trust? Did he award himself extra points because she’d been such a challenge?
Carny glanced back at her son, who seemed lost in thought. She reached for his hand and pulled him closer. “The carnival can be a fun place. Really fun, if you just know what to avoid. I hope I can teach you not to be a mark, Jason. I hope you’ll grow up knowing better than to fall for a gaff.”
“What’s a gaff?”
She’d done it again. “Don’t worry about it. There’s just something about being home that makes you slip back into your old vocabulary, no matter how hard you worked to lose it.” She supposed no matter how far she ran, she couldn’t ever completely escape who she was. It was a startling realization. She was more like Logan than she wanted to admit.
She thought of the apostle Paul, cautioning Christians to press forward and not look back. She remembered his words in 1 Corinthians 6:9, and the list of people who would not inherit the kingdom of God. The first time she saw that verse, the words thieves and swindlers condemned her. But the next verse made a life-changing difference. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
She’d been cleansed of her sins. And the fact that Logan had chosen to fake his own cleansing had no bearing on her own relationship with God.
Logan had stolen her heart, but he couldn’t steal that.
“Hey, do you think Grandpa would let me have one of these?” Jason asked, holding up a stuffed alligator.
“But I’d rather win one. That’s more fun.”
She tried to think of a nice way to tell him that the games were rigged, but decided to let it rest. It was like telling your child there was no Santa Claus. Part of you knew he couldn’t go on believing forever, but another part hated to destroy his wonderment. Maybe she still knew some of the agents at the game. Maybe she could get them to let him win something.
“Carny, my baby!” Carny turned at her mother’s shriek and saw the little lady with platinum-bleached hair bounding across the infield toward her.
“Mama!” Jumping down from the truck, she intersected with her mother and allowed her to crush her in a hug.
“You look like one of those cultured ladies,” her mother said, stepping back and looking her over. “Like you’ve been spending all your time in a beauty shop getting your nails done. Are you a lady of leisure now, Carny?”
“Of course not, Mama,” she said. “You know I’m a pilot. And I haven’t painted my nails in years.”
“Then you must be eating healthy. Where’s my grandbaby?”
“In the truck. Under a pile of animals. You’ll recognize him right away, since he’s the only one who’s not purple.”
“The same place I always found you,” her mother said. “Jason? Jason, come here and give your grandma a big hug!”
Jason sprang up and threw out his arms. “Grandma!”
“You’re a little man!” her mother cried. “When did you get so big?”
Jason tried to step over the stuffed animals. “Um … I don’t know.”
“How old are you now?” she asked, reaching up to grab him. “Five, six?”
“I’m eight,” he said, lifting his chin with indignation. “My birthday was yesterday.”
“Eight? My heavens, Carny, has it been that long?”
“Yeah, Mama. It has.”
“Well, we have to make up for lost time, then, don’t we? Not to mention birthday presents. Come with me, Jason. I’ll show you around the park. Maybe even put you to work, if you’re interested.”
“That’d be great! Can I, Mom?”
Carny touched Lila’s arm, stopping her. “Mama, no. I’ll just keep him with me.”
“For heaven’s sake, Carny, I’m his grandma. What are you afraid of?”
Carny’s face warmed, and she wished she didn’t have to fight this battle so soon. “You sometimes … get distracted. You might forget him.”
“I won’t forget you, will I, Jason?”
“And I don’t want him being put to work.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, what did you think I meant? I only thought that maybe he could stand on the bally of the House of Wonders and make like an announcer. How would you like that, Jason? We’ll give you a microphone and you can pantomime the recording.”
Carny thought of the freak shows inside the House of Wonders. That was where Ruth used to sit for most of her day while people paid to ogle her, and Scratch did his sword-swallowing trick, and Bounce, the contortionist, bent his body into virtual knots. That was where Allesandro, the half-man, half-woman did his act, and where Georgie Jingles practiced his illusion of being half-man, half-horse. It was where Snake disrobed to show the scales he’d had tattooed all over his body, and where Burt set himself on fire.
The exploitation and exhibitionism of the House of Wonders was one of the worst parts of the carnival, yet it was the stuff that fascinated little boys.
“Please, Mom,” Jason said, bouncing. “Let me go!”
“Mama, I promised him I’d take him on the double Ferris wheel. Don’t you want to do that, Jase?”
“Sure!” Jason shouted. “Then can I go with Grandma?”
“We’ll see,” she said, taking his hand.
Her mother set her hands on her hips and looked disgusted. “Your mother’s afraid you’ll like it too much and want to be a carny when you grow up,” Lila said. “And there wouldn’t be a thing in the world wrong with that.”
“Jason’s going to be president, aren’t you, Jase?”
“No,” he argued. “I’m going to be an astronaut. Either that or a baseball player.”
Carny smiled. “He’s given this a lot of thought.”
“Or maybe a sultan like Logan!” Jason blurted as an afterthought.
“A what?” Lila asked. “He knows a sultan?”
“No.” Carny frowned down at her son. “Do you mean a consultant, Jason?”
“Yeah, that’s what I want to be. Somebody who plans big fun stuff like Logan, and gets everybody to invest.”
Carny’s smile fell, and her dismal gaze met her mother’s. “Well, I guess that’s not so far from being a carny, after all.”
“Who’s this Logan fellow? The amusement park guy? Did you talk to him about us, Carny?”
Before Carny had the chance to answer she heard a familiar voice behind her. Swinging around, she saw her oldest friend, her dearest confidante, her teacher and mentor, and her personal philosopher, riding toward her on a golf cart. “Ruth!”
Letting go of Jason, Carny ran and threw herself into the massive woman’s arms. When she’d last seen her, Ruth weighed five hundred pounds, but Carny suspected she was even bigger now. She had long black hair streaked with gray, and the muumuu Ruth wore was the size of a small tent. Her hug was tight and warm, and her body shook as she laughed out loud. “You look beautiful, baby! Look at you.”
Carny pulled back and saw that Ruth’s eyes were moist. “And the baby … is that little Jason?”
Jason stretched to his full height, and extending a hand, he said, “I’m Jason Sullivan.”
“You can call me Ruth,” Ruth said, pulling him into a hug and sobbing as if she’d found her own long-lost child. “Oh, you feel so good! And Carny, you look gorgeous. Like a fairy princess or something. Oh, lands, it’s so good to see you.”
Carny couldn’t keep the tears from falling. Of all the people she’d grown up with in the carnival, her parents included, Ruth was the one she had missed the most. “Jason, Ruth is the lady I told you about. The one who taught me practically everything I know.”
“The computer lady?”
“Yes,” Carny said. “She’s the one with the computers all over her trailer.”
Ruth wiped at her eyes. “Well, that’s a switch. I’m usually called the fat lady. That’s what I used to be, Jason, in the House of Wonders.”
Jason looked embarrassed, as if he didn’t know how to respond to that without hurting Ruth’s feelings. “Mom talks about you all the time.”
“And I talk about her,” Ruth said, sniffing. “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about you two.”
“Maybe she’ll listen to you, Ruth,” Lila said. “I was just trying to talk Carny into letting Jason go around with me for a little while, but she’s convinced I’m going to turn him into a delinquent.”
“We’re going on the double Ferris wheel,” Carny said, stroking Jason’s hair. “Aren’t we, Jase?”
“Now, Mom? Can we go now?”
“Sure can.” She leaned over and hugged Ruth again. “I’ll be back in a little while, and we can catch up, okay?”
“You know where I’ll be,” Ruth told her. “You hold on to his hand, now. The crowd has gotten rougher than it used to be, and it’s easy to get lost around here.”
“Good grief,” Lila said, waving them off. “It’s the same as it’s always been, and Carny grew up just fine. Just look at her now.” She leaned over and kissed Jason’s cheek. “Make her stop by the Ring Toss to see Grandpa Dooley, Jason. He’s filling in for the agent there while he takes lunch. He can’t wait to see you.”
Jason looked ready to erupt. “Now, Mom? Can we go now?”
“All right,” Carny said, laughing. Waving back at Ruth and her mother, she let Jason pull her off toward the midway.
Jason’s eyes danced with exci
tement as they got off the Ferris wheel, and he looked up at her as he cried, “Can we go again, Mom? Please?”
“Later, Jason. There are a lot of other rides.” “You were so lucky when you were little! Did you really get to ride any time you wanted?”
“Pretty much. But it didn’t seem so lucky at the time.” “Why? How could you ever want anything else?” As they passed a trailer selling corn dogs, she caught the scent of rotting garbage. The noise of battling songs at rides across from each other and the voices of people screaming were beginning to give her a headache.
She took Jason’s hand as they strolled up the midway. “I wanted the things you have, Jase. A real house with a backyard, friends I could play with, school …”
“But those things are boring.”
“Only to those who have them.” She glanced up the row of game booths and saw a little girl with stringy blonde hair and a dirty face sitting on the steps leading to the booth door. She didn’t know the agent — he was probably one of the newer ones — but she recognized the waif-like look on the child’s face and knew without a doubt that she was a carny’s kid. “See that little girl over there, Jase?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s probably traveling with the carnival.”
“How do you know?”
“The way she’s sitting on the steps, like she belongs there. The way her eyes are scanning the crowd. You know what she’s thinking, Jason?”
“What?”
“She’s thinking about the children she sees. The ones who are holding their parents’ hands, like you. The ones who are excited to be here, the ones who see it as a treat. She’s wondering what kind of houses they live in, and if they take ballet, and if they play softball. She’s wondering if their parents take them to church or how many kids they have in their classes at school. She’s wondering if they have birthday parties.”
He looked up at her with saucer eyes. “Didn’t you ever have birthday parties, Mom?”
“Sometimes some of the carnies would get together and get me a cake and sing “Happy Birthday.” But I always had dreams of having lots of little girls over, all dressed in fancy dresses …” She felt that longing that she thought she’d discarded long ago. “Only I never knew many little girls.”
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