The Fighter

by Michael Farris Smith

  He slouched through the thunderstorm with his back bent and a coat draped over his head. A dark humpbacked shadow. The carnival workers hidden away in their vehicles playing cards or smoking weed or rocked to sleep by the rain. But Ricky Joe was milling through the night. Moving from one residence to the next in the mobile home park. Pulling on car door handles and finding some open and taking what he liked. His pockets filling with their spare change and random dollar bills and cigarette lighters. Headphones and checkbooks. A watch and CDs and a pair of running shoes.

  When the cars and trucks would give no more he stepped onto their porches, his footfalls silenced beneath the rhythm of the rain. He reached into mailboxes that hung next to front doors and he studied bicycles to see if they had pawnshop value. Sometimes he stood close to a window when he could see the light from within and he tried to listen to what was on television or eavesdrop on the conversation of the two faceless voices but the thrum of the storm would give no clarity.

  At the mobile homes where there were no cars and no lights he turned door handles but had no luck. And then he began to creep around the backsides, up onto porches or into aluminum storage sheds. In the sheds he came across nail guns and lawnmowers and cordless drills. He took a couple of drills and handheld saws and marked his memory for where to return to collect the rest in the coming days as the carnival entertained and the caravan stayed put, taking a little at a time, a steady stream of theft that would keep extra cash in his pocket from his pawnshop deliveries. Satisfied with his first haul he headed back toward the caravan, sloughing across a sodden field on the edge of the park. His pockets full and an armload of tools and he felt a satisfaction in the cover of the storm when he heard the pop.

  He paused. Moved again. And then another pop. This time when he looked he saw the flash of light from the end of the rifle. A tiny bright burst. The thunder roared as he heard another pop and saw another flash and he dropped his loot and ran and in the morning the residents would find their belongings in a scattered trail across the wet field.

  But the humpbacked shadow was not finished. He saw the light on inside her eggshaped camping trailer and he sloshed across the parking lot and stood next to the window. His clothes heavy with the rain and his hair matted against his head and the tip of his nose rubbing against the glass. One eye into the slit between the curtains. Watching as she brushed the tangles out of her wet hair. Watching as she peeled off her wet clothes. Watching as she sat in a chair with only a towel draped across her lap, her lips moving as if she was talking to herself. His one eye leaving her mouth and then sliding from one tattoo to the next, hypnotized by her damp, naked body. Never noticing the envelope on the table, the object of her conversation.

  15

  A​NNETTE STOOD WITH HER HANDS ON HER HIPS AS THE carnival rose across the widereaching stretch of concrete. Whatever was there had been leveled and forgotten piles of cinderblocks and rebar and air-conditioning ducts were spread across the lot in small monuments of deconstruction. An odd coolness in the air from the big storm that had blown across the Delta in the night and puddles in the sunken spaces of broken concrete. Birds standing and stabbing in the puddles with tiny beaks. Baron had scribbled down the layout for the rides and games and concessions on a paper towel and he walked the lot and directed the workers and the carnival was erected around the piles of debris. The concession stand right in the middle. The tents for the rigged games in a staggered line over to the right. The rides going up where they could find enough consistent space. The Tilt-A-Whirl and Tornado and Slingshot. A maze of cracked mirrors and a carousel with missing horses. Bumper cars and a tiny racetrack where toddlers sat on stumpy elephants and zebras and held on as they motored in a clunky circle. At the back end was the Ferris wheel which was not much higher than a young oak but its pink lights shined in the night and gave a view across the carnival and made children believe they were somewhere near the clouds. Out behind the ticket booth were inflatable castles for jumping and a tall slide where children sat on potato sacks to zoom to the bottom.

  The workers moved about with their shirts off and with cigarettes and Annette watched as her stage was being put together behind the concession stand. Baron kept her in the middle of the festivities so the carnival goers could catch her from all sides. Coming and going from the games or the kiddie rides or as they staggered and rubbed knots on their heads after the maze of mirrors. Peeking over their shoulders as they bought popcorn or footlong corndogs. Her circular stage with surrounding spotlights and its own speakers so she could play her own music. A curtain wrapped the stage and behind the curtain she stretched and rubbed her body with baby oil so that she would shine in the spotlights. A string of different-colored bikinis hung on a strip of PVC pipe. A braided velvet cord roped off the stage and held spectators back for twenty feet in every direction and if you wanted to get on the other side of the rope and gaze more closely at the tattooed woman it cost five dollars.

  But that was only the teaser. Once inside the rope a poster board sat on an easel at the side of the stage and showed six images. For ten dollars you could choose the image that you wanted to find on her body. And then the attendant allowed you up the steps and onto the stage where you sat down in a chair. The curtain closed and the clock began ticking on your own personal two minutes with the slick and sensual woman who would turn and bend however you asked her to while you searched for the image selected. If you found the image the prize was a crisp one hundred dollar bill. A crisp one hundred dollar bill that didn’t exist and wasn’t necessary as none of the images was on Annette’s body in one form. Once the two minutes ran out she would then contort her body in such a way as to join tattoos and form the image. Her calf and her forearm pressed together formed a fleur-de-lis. The front of her forearm and the side of her thigh made a hammer and sickle. A calf and a wrist gave a blackbird on a grapevine. When she was done she gave a devilish grin and opened the curtain to the wide-eyed faces who had succumbed to the erotic wonder of what might have transpired behind the deep red cover. A dirty trick like all the dirty little tricks of the carnival but not one that had ever been complained about as it was considered ten dollars well spent. Some even came back for seconds and thirds, not for the chance at a crisp one hundred dollar bill but instead for the pure delight of directing her into the longlegged pose of choice.

  Now she was bored. After a year on the stage, after a year of the gawks and mumbled insinuations as she turned and bent, after a year of men and sometimes women waiting for her after the show was over and making lonely and lustful pitches for her time and more. She watched the workers assemble the stage and she wondered if she would be on it when the carnival opened that night. Or if she would be rolling down the highway with the money Baron had given her for safekeeping. Not waiting until they could deliberate over it further. Just going. He has been good to me but I’ve been good for his wallet, she thought. Good only takes you so far. She had spent most of the night talking to the money and listening for the money to talk back. To make its purpose or her purpose more clear. But she was still listening without an answer.

  She wandered toward the concession stand where her stage would be. She held a cup of coffee that had long since cooled and she poured it out. And then Ricky Joe eased next to her. He had finished adjusting the chains and topping off the oil levels of the engines that propelled the rides and he wiped his hands on a rag. A bead of sweat dripped from the tip of his pointed nose and she frowned when she smelled him.

  “What?” she said.

  “How come your hands don’t never get dirty?” he asked. When he grinned he showed the gap from a missing bottom tooth and his long lank hair was damp with sweat.

  “My hands get dirty. Just not the same way as yours.”

  “That ain’t true.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just talking.”

  “I don’t have time, Ricky Joe.”

  “I was just wondering. About the other night
.”

  “What about it?”

  “That wreck out there.”

  “What about it?”

  “I saw you and the bossman walking around out there.”

  “So?”

  “Just seemed like you two was out there pretty long.”

  “Talk to Baron if you got some bright idea,” she said.

  “Maybe I will.”

  She walked across the lot and found Baron and told him she would be back later. He asked her where she was going but she only shrugged her shoulders.

  “You figured out what to do with it yet?” he asked.

  “No. But Ricky Joe acts like he knows something.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The way he was just talking to me. And looking at me.”

  Baron folded the paper towel with the layout scribble and stuck it in the pocket of his shirt. Then he searched the grounds for Ricky Joe and found him, Ricky Joe turning away as Baron’s eyes caught his.

  “He knows how to work on about any kind of engine but other than that he’s dumb as shit,” Baron said.

  “That’s the part that worries me about him. Dumb don’t think it through. Dumb just does it.”

  “Me and you will sit down tonight and decide if it stays or if it goes. You look a little spooked.”

  “It was probably just the storm kept me up thinking.”

  “When you don’t sleep it can make you paranoid,” he said.

  “When you don’t sleep and there’s thunder and lightning and an envelope of cash under your pillow found at the scene of a wreck with a dead man, that’ll also make you paranoid.”

  Baron took out a pack of cigarettes and tapped them in the palm of his hand. “Relax,” he said. “Forget about it for now.”

  “Is it going to bother you if you look in whatever newspaper they got here tomorrow and see a fat envelope full of money has been dropped at the door of the Baptist church?”

  “It will if you don’t wait until we decide on it together.”

  “You want it back. Don’t you?”

  “I told you, we’ll figure it out this evening after the carnival shuts down. Have a few beers and a few cigarettes and we’ll see if it’s still driving us crazy after that. But it’ll be gone tomorrow. If you get the feeling Ricky Joe is sniffing around then it won’t be long before a few others are too.”

  The first night of the carnival was always slow. And something of a test run as the popcorn machine or the sound system or any number of other things that needed electricity let it be known that they had suffered too many bumps in the road and required attention. But the carnival tents and lights signaled to those passing in their cars or riding on school buses that at least for a little while something new had been inserted into the familiar landscape.

  Annette did her job. Strutted across her stage. Turned and twisted under the spotlights. Smiled the way she was supposed to smile to get them to pay. But her mind was not on those who paid the fee to sit close to her. Studying the curves in her hips and the bend in her back. Asking her questions she would not answer. She could not keep her eyes from wandering across the grounds. Watching the other workers as they sold hot dogs or provided warped basketballs to shoot at warped rims or as they walked past her and stared. She kept her eyes on them from her perch and Ricky Joe kept coming and going. And he glared at her as he passed along the tent row of games or as he moved between the concession stand and the ticket booth. Their eyes meeting in a queer exchange of the unspoken. The distrustful. When the carnival closed for the night she did not sit in the lawn chair with Baron and drink a beer and she left a note on the dashboard of his Suburban that said because she hadn’t slept the night before she was going to bed. She did not speak to anyone else. She went directly to her trailer and locked the door behind her. Pulled the money from beneath a short stack of shoeboxes in the small cabinet below her bed. And she sat up until deep into the night with an ashtray on the mattress and she smoked and listened for footsteps in the dark.

  16

  J​ACK HAD TWO DAYS TO PREPARE FOR THE FIGHT. AND HE LOST one in the motel room. He woke up sick and he stayed sick all day. Vomiting and coughing. Taking more red pills and more blue pills and drinking more whiskey to rid him of the sickness of taking too many pills and drinking too much whiskey. He only opened the door twice to get some air and he kept his eyes closed while he did because the daylight hurt. Then he would go back inside and crawl into bed. Sleep some and then wake and vomit again and drink water from a plastic cup. Run cold water onto a washrag and hold it to his fresh cuts and bruises from Big Ern and from the truck wreck. Press the cold rag against the burn Big Momma Sweet had put on his neck as a preview. He was hungry but he knew he could not eat. He washed his clothes in the bathtub, the dried mud flaking off and clogging the drain. He hung them over the shower curtain rod to dry and then he was back into the bed and there was only tomorrow.

  17

  T​HE NEXT MORNING ANNETTE UNHITCHED THE CAMPING trailer from the pickup and she drove into town. The money with her. Ricky Joe followed in his El Camino, staying far enough behind so that she didn’t notice. Passing sale lots lined with tractors and farm equipment. A co-op where a forklift raised and lowered pallets of fertilizer and feed. Car repair and tire repair and a pawnshop with a motorcycle sitting out by the road with the front tire missing and propped on a stack of bricks, the sign across the handlebars reading AS IS.

  She was looking for somewhere to sit. Somewhere to pull out a chair and drink coffee and stare at the morning. She crossed the railroad tracks and came to the gathering of city blocks of downtown Clarksdale. At a bus station a pregnant woman sat on a bench outside with her arms folded across the top of her stomach. A table covered with books sat on the sidewalk outside a secondhand bookstore and a woman rocked in a rocking chair next to the table waving to passersby. Annette drove slowly past empty banks. Empty department stores. Shells of yesterday. But she found life at a coffee shop on the corner. Doors painted a royal blue and a rainbow across the window on one side and a Les Paul guitar diagonally in the other. Bistro tables on the sidewalk in orange and yellow and a mutt the color of charcoal sitting in the open doorway.

  She parked along the street and stuck the envelope under the seat. Locked the doors. She stared at the café and said well hell’s bells they do have some color in this godforsaken place. A woman hiding behind the newspaper at one of the bistro tables was the only other customer.

  Annette walked inside. Muddy Waters from the speakers and a glass case filled with muffins and biscuits and sandwiches wrapped tightly in clear wrap. A note stuck on the front of the case announced BEIGNETS, WE GOT EM. A little man shot up from behind the counter with a sharp hey and Annette jumped and slapped her hand across her heart.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Got a quarter rolled away from me and I can’t find the damn thing nowhere.” His cheeks were pink and soft wrinkles crossed his forehead. He wore a tie-dye shirt and a button pinned to the collar asked you to smile.

  “Only coffee,” she said.

  “Those biscuits just came out,” he said.

  “I already ate.”

  “I can wrap one up for you. Eats good all day.”

  Behind her the El Camino stopped at the corner. Paused and then crossed the street and parked in a nearly empty lot on the other side of a van.

  “Fine,” she said.

  He winked. Shifted his shoulders in rhythm with the music as he wrapped a biscuit in white paper and then poured her coffee. When he slid the bag and the cup across the counter he said you should charge admission for all there is to see on you.

  “I do,” she said and she took the bag and coffee and went out to the sidewalk. She sat down where the woman with the newspaper had been. The paper left behind on the bright yellow tabletop. She held it up and scanned the front page. Then searched each headline inside and on the back page. No mention of a fatal accident. No mention of a missing sum of money. She folded the paper and set it
on the table and lifted her eyes into the clouds.

  She was convinced that in each of her great moments of transition she had been delivered to decision by some silent whisper from a God who could not help but give a damn. The chance of getting ahold of the heart of a tattoo artist who would feed her habit. This body that was curved and firm in all the right places by no effort of her own. The strip club billboards that seemed to appear every half mile the day she packed her car and left the tattoo artist, the billboards that called to her and said this is what you are looking for. The butterfly on her wrist that flashed in the stage spotlight two years later and told her your time in the Stallion is done. A warm spring evening only a couple of weeks after she had walked out of the Stallion, before there had even been time for her image to be removed from those billboards, when driving again with her eyes open for what might be next she saw the carnival lights against the coming dusk and again her answer had been delivered. She replayed each moment in her mind and the simplicity with which each decision seemed to have been delivered. A guiding hand that reached out and motioned her to come this way. And she did not argue or second-guess but only accepted the answer and then placed her own fingers between the guiding fingers and let herself be pulled into the new world waiting for her.

  She stared blankly out toward the broken clouds and the patches of blue in between. The mutt moved from the doorway and came and lay down by her feet. She unwrapped the biscuit and broke it into two pieces and set one piece at the mouth of the dog. It lifted its head from the sidewalk and sniffed the biscuit and then licked at it. And then she crossed her legs. Folded her hands on top of her knee. And in this moment of thoughtfulness she decided this money and its deliverance was the voice of her Lord.