Jill playfully bumped him with a hip, laughing quietly, knowing.
On the walls, framed black-and-white pictures to prove how the real and the false were all the same to the camera when the colors were gone.
Jill walked a circle around the nude. “I think I’ll do it,” she decided, idly scratching a hip. “It’ll drive my father up the wall.”
“I’ll wait outside.” He backed into a muscleman and had to grab it before it fell. He pointed to the exit. She put her face in the hole and stretched her arms around the cardboard until her hands modestly covered the painted breasts.
“Better?”
She winked.
Oh my god, he thought, and once outside heard a hoarse voice whisper, “Hey, over here.”
He scowled.
His eyes widened.
The midway was empty, the photography shop locked, the concessions boarded up.
“Here.”
A gust turned him, prodded him forward, until he collided gently with an empty platform he hadn’t noticed before. Behind it, another tent, smaller than the first, its front painted to depict a Wild West show. Cowboys, Indians, the cavalry charging, while off to the side were snowcapped mountains, a young woman in settler’s dress, a squaw washing clothes in a shallow stream. Buffalo Bill. Annie Oakley.
“Here.”
No one there.
The flap was open.
He called Jill.
A whisper: “Here.”
The sound of a small cat yowling inside.
The bleachers took up all of one side, eight rows high, the wood unpainted and worn smooth, creaking softly when he stepped into the first row and sat down. He didn’t know why he did. He had no business in here, waiting for some stupid cowboy show when he should be outside, hunting for Jill, a cop, anyone at all. In fact, he shouldn’t even be on the carnival grounds. If he had any brains, he would get the hell away, run like hell to the police station, and bring someone back. Sitting here was dumb. But he didn’t move because that voice had been speaking to more parts of him than he had realized existed, parts of him that had already begun to hint that he didn’t need anyone’s goddamn help, that he knew damn well what was going on and all he had to do was think about it for a while and it would come to him, like an epiphany that would rip the dark from his vision and let him see, for the first time, what he had only suspected was there.
And the minute he thought it, his spine became rigid, his mouth opened just a little as he struggled to understand.
That scared him.
When he didn’t even make sense to himself, there was something far more wrong here than watching his aunt disintegrate in a nightmare. And he wouldn’t figure it out this way, panting slightly, pushing his tongue into his cheek, letting his hands knead his thighs.
He had to be calm.
He had to find distance.
He had to be objective is what it was, practice what he’d learned in class, in his occasional work for the Station Herald, in the lectures he had heard from visiting reporters from cities that had blocks with more people than the Station. He had to be composed. He had to ignore the slow growing light that illuminated what seemed to be a circus ring filled with desert sand, a cactus here and there, and far at the back a vulture sitting on the only branch left on a long-dead tree. He had to close his mind to what was obviously some sort of hallucination, maybe brought on by the dizzying carousel ride, and retrace his way through the fear and find only the facts. He couldn’t watch the two cowboys strolling toward each other from either side of the ring. He couldn’t permit himself to recognize the paunchy, slope-shouldered, gait of his uncle, or the insolent stride of cousin Chuck, flab noticeable even with the loose clothing he wore, though he had to admit that the characteristic stubble of beard on the kid’s acne-scarred face fit this scene better than it did when he wore his usual white sweater and white slacks.
Facts.
He had to understand the facts, shred the fancy, dispel the childhood notion that these two men, in near perfect silence, were about to have an old-fashioned, Hollywood shoot-out. Right here. Right in front of him. The vulture’s wings flapping in anticipation. Dust rising from their dusty boots. His uncle spitting to one side. His cousin spitting toward his father. The hollow stamp of their boots on the sandy soil, the leather creak of their gunbelts. Stopping. Glowering at each other. Chuck adjusting his hat as if shading his eyes from a sun Drake couldn’t see. Wendall leaning over without taking his gaze from the kid to adjust the rawhide strap holding his holster against his thigh.
Drake jumped to his feet and said, “Hey —”
They drew and fired.
No echo, no sensation of sound in a large cave.
The pistols fired.
Nothing more.
Wendall’s head snapped back as his left eye was shot out.
Chuck doubled over, his free hand grabbing at the hole in his belly.
Drake screamed as they fell, as the light shifted to amber, and he tripped over an iron brace, sprawled and yelled when his elbow caught the edge of the seat. He cupped it with his other hand, pushed up to his knees and didn’t look at the circus ring.
The vulture cried softly. Its wings flapped like canvas.
Drake crawled on knees and one hand to the exit and fell outside where the wind slapped him with dust, and a voice whispered, “Here.”
The oval was quiet, all the rides empty and in their places, waiting for new riders; a fruit-punch machine at a food stand bubbling untended, the smell of frying hamburgers, popcorn bouncing softly against the plastic sides of its cooker.
Okay, he thought, shivering against the wind, his face gleaming with perspiration; all right, no problem, she’s already gone, I’ll just go home too.
He listened for sounds of voices, footsteps, hoping for a moment that there was a special show in the arena, so special that even the carnival’s workers were there. He listened as he backed out of the oval, and knew he was kidding himself He was alone. Whatever had happened wasn’t any stupid goddamn special show, and it wasn’t a nuclear holocaust, and it wasn’t a dream, because his throat was raw from the screaming he had done and the screaming he held back, his elbow still ached, his stomach was filled with acid that made him spit several times, and if it wasn’t a dream, then what the hell was it?
A monochrome picture of a nude woman suddenly danced in front of him. Unwillingly he took it, held it at arm’s length, brought it close to his eyes, turned to Jill and said, “You’re putting on weight.”
She slapped his shoulder.
He laughed and stuffed the picture into his hip pocket.
“Going to put it under your pillow?”
“I’m going to show it to my uncle and tell him you’re my girlfriend and you do this for a living.”
She didn’t say anything.
Damn, he thought the moment he saw her eyes; your foot, you jackass, is now firmly between your teeth.
And an instant later: holy shit, she’s not kidding. Oh Jesus, Saxton, what have you gotten yourself into now?
They turned into a narrow lane, not as crowded though no less noisy.
“I’ve been thinking about your company,” she said, neatly sliding away from a child racing a balloon.
“So have I,” he answered morosely. “I’m going to have to go soon, or I’m dead meat.”
“No offense, Drake, but maybe that’s what they need.”
“What?” He stopped and was nearly run over by a baby carriage. A muttered apology to the mother, a quick trot to catch up to Jill. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re too nice to them.”
“Like hell.”
Her head tilted toward him. “So who bought the steaks, the veggies, the salad stuff huh? God, if they come that late, a sandwich will do, for god’s sake. They’ll be exhausted anyway, they won’t feel like eating.”
“My mother —”
“Didn’t tell you to buy a ten-course meal.”
“
Well . . .”
She sidestepped in front of him, put her hands on his shoulders and wouldn’t let him pass. “Drake, come back to the world for a minute, okay? You’re a great guy, no shit, but sometimes you can be so goddamn dense.” A knuckle rapped his forehead. “I’ll bet your teen-year rebellion was refusing to pick up your socks.”
Annoyed at her intrusion, oddly pleased that she seemed to care enough to make it, he snatched her wrist. Hesitated. Then tugged gently, and her face came down and he kissed her lips, far longer than he had intended.
When he pulled away, she blinked as if swimming out of a minor daze.
“Jesus, Drake,” she whispered.
The carnival sighed around them.
“Yeah,” he whispered back.
In the background, the carousel.
“All right, come on,” she said at last, grabbing his hand and elbow, “I want you to see this incredible game place I found last week. It’s sort of like bobbing for apples, except they’re greased tennis balls or something. You can win ten bucks if you get three in five minutes without drowning.”
He shook his head; it was getting late.
She yanked; he followed, and couldn’t help watching the way her buttocks stretched her shorts in such a tantalizing way that he began to wonder if he’d secretly been raised as a monk. Was this the first time he’d really seen what she looked like?
When a crowd of teenagers swarmed around them, the grip was broken and Jill was carried away, one arm up, commanding him to follow.
And for just that second, the hand, the arm, the manner, reminded him of his mother.
Come along, Drake, dear, we don’t have much time.
The hell with you, he thought; damnit, the hell with you. His own about-face startled him so much that he was afraid to look over his shoulder. Instead, he returned to the midway, seething over the playful scolding, confused over the kiss, wishing he’d never come in the first place, it would have been a lot easier just to stay at the house and stay bored until someone, anyone, came home.
But she was right in one respect — being nice sometimes made him look like a jerk, transformed him into a doormat. Until now that had been a small price to pay. Until now he hadn’t seriously considered taking control.
Idiot; you’re an idiot and they’re all laughing.
He skipped once as if ready to run, skipped again and did run through the crowd until the crowd slipped away and left him alone with the wind and the sound of his ragged breathing.
Down the center of the midway, then, dodging a paper cup blown across his path, hurdling a toppled stroller, its tiny wheels spinning. He looked neither left nor right. He ignored the gunshot snaps of Hags and loose canvas. He refused to look at the sky, at the colored lights. A scrap of paper crawled after him, clung to his ankle and slipped away. He didn’t look at it. He kept his head up, his attention on the gate at the midway’s far end, at the suggestion of trees beyond it, because the trees meant that behind them were the houses, the streets, the people who had somehow disappeared from the field.
A voice called his name.
He didn’t look.
A woman called his name.
He didn’t look.
Nor did he allow himself to think about anything but running without falling. Not headlong, just steady. Shaking his head once to flip the sweat from his eyes. Not sprinting, just escaping. Holding his right arm tight against his side for several yards to stifle a painful stitch that threatened to slow him down.
A woman called his name.
Go away, he yelled at her, and not making a sound; get away, I don’t know you!
But he saw her.
Twenty yards ahead, on his left, on a long narrow stage in front of a flat-topped tent badly painted to resemble an oasis, its pool of water peeling, camels more like horses, childlike suggestions of robed Arabs reclining under palm trees much too stiff and dark. In front of her was a straw basket fat and low, its top tilted to one side, something dark moving just below the lip.
For some reason it didn’t surprise him that the woman was Deena, the attractive one, the cousin he had the most fun with because she never seemed to take her parents seriously, the one who had never blamed him for his father’s leaving. She wore pale-blue harem pants and a matching skimpy top, a white veil over her nose and mouth and somehow pinned in her hair. Arms lined with gold bracelets. Feet bare. Swaying, hands writhing, fingers beckoning, eyes lined to increase their size and staring at him as he approached.
“Hey, Drake, c’mon over.”
He faltered, thought of Wendall’s bloody face, Chuck’s moans, Sheri’s blackened skeleton, and ran on.
“Hey, Drake, you queer or what?”
If you stop, dope, something will happen to her. She’ll die. That snake — of course there’s a snake in there, what the hell else can it be — will bite her and the poison will bloat her up and she’ll turn black and purple and blow up all over you and it’ll be all your fault because you stopped to listen.
She leaned over as he drew even with the stage. Her breasts beneath the gauze larger than he’d imagined, even though, when he had finally realized she was growing up, the eldest of the Firth children, he had also realized she had become a woman as well. The revelation had startled him, unnerved him, and the last time they had come to town, he’d done his best to avoid being alone with her. Their usual mutual teasing had suddenly developed overtones that made him uncomfortable, because he wasn’t supposed to think about such things, not with or about a cousin, the daughter of his mother’s sister. It was sinful. It was perverse. Deena knew it somehow, told him she did with a look and a touch, and immediately began taunting him so blatantly, so outrageously flagrantly, even her father had caught on and had yelled so furiously his face had turned red.
Red.
Blood red.
But the taunting hadn’t stopped; it had merely withdrawn to become part of an occasional ambush when the grown-ups weren’t looking.
“Oh . . . Drake?”
He stopped.
Even if she hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have stopped. His lungs were working too hard, his legs had lost their momentum, and he could feel pressurized heat rising through his chest and face from the demands he had made. But he didn’t look. He clamped his hands on his waist, closed his eyes, and concentrated on regulating his breathing, willing the aches to fade, willing his muscles not to yield and let him fall.
Deena giggled.
He swallowed, spat dryly, and would have cheerfully sold his soul for a gallon or nine of water.
“You want to see something gross?”
“No,” he managed, licked his lips, licked them again.
A cat howled behind him.
Spinning around made him totter, and he grabbed the edge of the stage, lowered his head between his arms.
“Swear to god, Drake, it’s really disgusting, you’ll love it. Maybe you can write a story about it for the paper.”
“Forget it.”
She stood directly in front of him. Without raising his head he could see her tanned feet, the crimson polish on her toenails, the tiny silver bells coiled around her ankles; when she stepped closer, he could hear the carousel’s song.
“C’mon, Drake, don’t be a pussy.”
Any minute now he’d have the strength to leave.
Any minute.
She crouched, bounced a few times before finding her balance, then lay a hand on his head. “You don’t think this is the neatest thing in the world, Drake, I’ll never bother you again.”
Blowing his breath out now, slowly, carefully, he let himself look up, between her legs, the folds of her stomach, her breasts, her face.
She grinned.
Her teeth were black behind the veil.
“Damn, but you’re going to shit when you see this.”
Before he could say anything, she reached into the basket and pulled out Barbi’s head, dangling it before his eyes by the short ponytail his cousin always wor
e because, she’d once explained, by exposing her ears it made her face seem more thin.
“Gross, am I right?”
“Wax,” he said. Numb; he was numb. He had to be. Otherwise, he would have screamed.
“Like shit,” she snapped, and raked a fingernail across a cheek and pointed at the blood that flowed brightly to the stage.
He snatched his hands away.
She dropped the head back into its basket, folded her arms over her thighs, hands dangling between, and said, “So now what do we do?”
He staggered away.
“Hey!” she called.
“I’m going home,” he answered.
“What am I, suddenly ugly or something?”
“I’m going home!”
“Big shot college man, you think you’re too good for me or something?”
A disgusted wave of his arm.
“Hey, reporter, you fucking forgot something, you ass!”
Something hit him hard on the lower back. Angrily he turned, and saw Barbi’s head roll to a stop on the ground, bleeding from the gouge Deena had torn in her cheek, one eye open, the other eye puffed closed, the forked tongue of a dead snake protruding between her lips.
He felt the impact again, flinched, and tore off his shirt, threw it aside.
Deena whistled and applauded from the stage.
Kill her, he thought; what the hell, you’re probably dead anyway, so go over there and kill the bitch, why the hell not.
She jeered.
He flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders, and glared as she jumped up and down on the stage, tearing off her veil, her top, grabbing her breasts and pointing them at him, sneering, calling him names, turning around and yanking down the harem pants, spreading her legs and looking at him upside down.
He started for her.
She laughed, fell into a somersault and came up facing him, hugging her knees and winking.
Kill her; sonofabitch, I’ll kill her.
Close enough to see the basket, close enough to know there was something else inside.
Deena sobered and stood up, arms crossed over her chest.
The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel Page 13