Carnival (The Traveling Series #4)

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  “I thought I knew everything about Ollo, but there was something else. When my wife looked up the meaning of ‘Oleksandr’, do you know what she found? His name means ‘defender of humankind’. I happen to think that’s pretty damn perfect, because Ollo suffered more from humanity than any one person should. To the point where he refused to leave the carnival for any reason—he preferred the company of other carnies. Trusted them. And the man loved his freaks. It didn’t matter what sort of freak you were: hair all over your body, weird tumors, weighing 700 pounds, fire eater, human ostrich, or even crazy sons of bitches who threw themselves through the air on motorcycles—we were his people. And he cared about us. He loved the carnival his whole life, everything about it. And he taught me all the skills to make it, but most of all he taught me friendship and he taught me love. He was the kindest human being I ever met.

  “For a small guy, there was a lot about Ollo that was special. So here’s to you, buddy. May the lights never dim, may the Wheel never stop turning, may the ride never end. To Ollo.”

  As we left the crematorium, I noticed an elderly white haired lady sitting at the back. Something about her caught my eye, I couldn’t say exactly what it was, maybe because she looked so different from everyone else, with her silk suit and the string of pearls at her neck, or maybe because tears ran unchecked down her crumpled cheeks.

  A younger woman, maybe about Sara’s age, sat with her holding her hand.

  I looked at them curiously as I walked past, and the younger woman met my eyes, worry and grief etched in hers.

  I paused, letting the other mourners filter past me.

  “Are you friends of Ollo?”

  “Um, Gran used to know him,” said the girl. “A long time ago, I think. I didn’t know . . .”

  She bit her lip, wondering what to say, but in my heart, I already knew.

  I sat down next to them, leaving an empty chair between us.

  “Are you Jeanie?”

  The older woman gasped and looked up.

  “You know me?”

  I shook my head, a sad smile on my face.

  “No, but one day Ollo told me a story about a girl from Boise, Jeanie with the light brown hair.”

  “Oh my! Oh my! I didn’t think anyone would know. I didn’t think he’d ever mention my name. I was so cruel to him! I didn’t mean to be, but I wasn’t strong, not like he was. I thought he’d hate me!”

  I remembered the night Ollo had told me about his townie girl, and the look on his face when he spoke of her.

  “No, Ollo didn’t hate you. I think he always loved you. And he understood.”

  She looked up at me, speechless, and then collapsed into her granddaughter’s arms.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  She’d been too scared to give up her life to travel with Ollo, but I was glad she’d come to say goodbye. Ollo had forgiven her long ago. I wondered if she’d finally be able to forgive herself.

  We broke every H&S regulation invented to build the highest bonfire we could. Ollo deserved that.

  It was the craziest night with every kind of act you can imagine: acrobats, jugglers, knife-throwers, contortionists, a weird hippy dude who could regurgitate anything you gave him to swallow, clowns, rodeo artists, a lion tamer from Murmansk who barely spoke English, and a good many of the people who worked at Fairplex.

  Kes brought out his fire-breathing torches for a display, and one of the pros demonstrated fire-eating that gave me chills and gut-ache at the same time.

  Luke played his guitar and other musicians joined in, including one old guy who brought out a battered trumpet, playing the kind of New Orleans jazz that you hear at funerals in that part of the south.

  The security guards were on edge, but there were more of us than there were of them.

  Finally, Kes doused his torches, and the mood sombered immediately.

  It was time.

  “I’m going to the top of the Ferris wheel.”

  Zach sighed at Kes’s words, but he didn’t look surprised either.

  Kes collected four of the huge torches that we used for our act, passing one each to me, Tucker and Zach, and we carried them in a procession along the midway, hundreds of carnies following us. Two of the security guards watched in disbelief, but only one of them was stupid enough to try and stop us, refusing to give Kes the key to the Ferris wheel’s control room.

  Ever since I’d taken Ollo up there the night he’d died, security and regulations had been tightened.

  “I’m going to call the police!” yelled the guard, casting worried glances at the crowd of hard-faced carnies surrounding him.

  “Don’t be a dumbass, dude,” Tucker said casually, as he and I took an arm each, holding him easily.

  Kes could have taken the key and started up the buckets, but that wasn’t how he wanted to do this. He’d known Ollo from the day he was born, and climbing the Ferris wheel was his final tribute.

  In silence, Kes grabbed the small box containing Ollo’s ashes and started climbing up the metal skeleton of the central pin.

  Aimee clasped her hands around Bo who was hiding his face in her hair, scared of the flickering torches. Sara put her arms around her, holding them both, while Socrates perched mournfully on her shoulder.

  “Oh God! I can’t watch!” Aimee whispered, turning her head away and scrunching up her eyes. “Tell me when he gets to the top.”

  I held the security guard firmly as he bitched and complained, and watched Kes climb higher and higher, his dark clothes blending into the night.

  At the highest point, Kes stood on one of the cross beams, then released the ashes, and we watched them disappear into the night.

  Kes yelled as loud as he could.

  “Always free!”

  And our shouts echoed through the night as we honored Ollo with a final farewell.

  “ALWAYS FREE!”

  Life goes on. That’s what they say, isn’t it? What about, Time heals all wounds? Or maybe, One step at a time.

  At some point over the next few weeks I heard all of them. And I hated every time someone said it.

  The big wigs on the Fairplex board wanted to fine Kes for climbing the Ferris Wheel to scatter Ollo’s ashes. Zach wasn’t worried about that one—he said they’d step away eventually because of the potential for negative publicity. You know, giant corporation deny dying man’s last wishes, that kind of headline. We’re carnies, we know how to put a spin on things. Ollo would have laughed.

  We all missed him. He’d been important to each of us in many different ways. I was surprised and touched to find that he’d left his RV to me. I wasn’t sure I should accept it because we’d all pitched in to buy it for him in the first place, but Kes pointed that out that with my family growing, I’d need a place of my own.

  My family.

  So I took the keys to Ollo’s RV and in between rehearsals and shows, set about undoing all the adaptations that had made it suitable for Ollo.

  Sara and I moved in as soon as the last full height cabinet was installed in the kitchen. It felt good to have our own place.

  The first thing we did was christen the bed. Although we christened pretty much everywhere else, too. Hormones were making her as horny as hell, and I was reaping the benefits.

  I soon found that we’d inherited something else, as well. Socrates seemed to prefer our RV above any of the others, and so it was in our living room that we found him most mornings, perched on a chair back calling for his breakfast.

  He also spent most of the days following Sara around while she was filming, sitting on her shoulder or fluttering above her head.

  He was a real talking point with the kids and adults in the fairground, and soon all the carnies knew who Sara was and that she was making a movie about the Daredevils and carnival life. Everyone wanted to be interviewed, but she pointed out that she was filming live action, not staged pieces or talking heads. After a while, they’d gotten used to her, and she caught all the
quiet moments when people didn’t know they were being watched.

  I looked up more than once to find that she’d been filming me for several minutes and I hadn’t seen her.

  As long as she didn’t take the camera into the bedroom, I was fine with that.

  One of Michaels’ tech guys came over and helped her set up a bigger camera to catch some of the stunt jumps. We all wore helmet-cams when we were working so that the audience could see it from our point of view, too, but she wanted to capture some different angles, as well.

  As we raced down the last weeks toward Thanksgiving, the nights grew cooler, and we made love with the quilt wrapped around us. Because it was love and I didn’t even want to deny it. There were so many reasons why we weren’t right for each other on paper: too old, too young, too knocked up, too damaged, too much baggage. But none of that added up to us. I wouldn’t have been human if I didn’t have doubts, and Sara felt the same way. We were working on that. I guess we’d both been let down too many times to take anything for granted.

  A couple of times she headed into the city in Zach’s truck to use the editing suite that Michaels had offered her, but by now she was more than six months pregnant and the drive tired her. I worried about her all the time she was away from me, even when she was in LA with Tera. I was regretting having taught her how to drive a stick shift.

  In the end Sara agreed with me that it was too much for her—which means I nagged her until she gave in—and Michaels sent over a mini editing desk and a guy to teach her how to use it. She set it up in the largest of our RV’s spare bedrooms and spent a lot of hours muttering to herself as she learned the software.

  Mostly I was happy that she was happy; I just wished she’d relax more. She replied by pointing out that both she and Peanut were on a deadline and she wasn’t going to sit around and argue with me. But if I wanted to rub her shoulders/back/feet/legs/neck, that was just fine with her.

  She finished what she called principal photography the night of our Thanksgiving farewell performance.

  This was always a big night for us and we pulled out all the stops to wow the crowd. Sara was busy talking to herself about camera angles, pulling focus and a bunch of shit I didn’t have a clue about. Her concentration was intense as she leaned over the camera tripod, one hand instinctively resting on her belly.

  She and Aimee were both in their third trimester now and spent a lot of evenings in our living area with their feet up, discussing swollen ankles, back ache and some other really doubtful shit that I didn’t want to know.

  Kes was with me on that. He’d spent enough time in hospitals and wasn’t eager to discuss anything medical.

  Tucker, on the other hand, was fascinated, getting into deep conversations with both of them about why they were hungry all of the time but felt full after a few bites, because their uteruses were so big there was no room for their stomachs.

  At which point Kes told him not to discuss his wife’s innards anymore, and I had to agree with that.

  I thanked Ollo a thousand times for leaving us his RV because one shitter for two pregnant women didn’t work. They’d suddenly get this look on their faces and Aimee would waddle in one direction and Sara would waddle in the other, racing to get to the bathroom.

  Oh yeah, and neither of them liked the word waddling. I spent a night sleeping in the rig after making that observation.

  One good thing was that Michaels kept his word. Sara was paid some money in advance for her work—nothing like the money that Cassie Christie had mentioned, since there were a bunch of costs involved, but still, she had her own money now and was able to start buying some of the things she wanted for Peanut.

  As is turns out, there is a shit ton of stuff a baby needs. The little dude wasn’t even born and he was taking up more closet space than me.

  Aimee knew what it was like to have scary big debts, so she kept a lid on her spending and gently discouraged Sara from buying some of the more useless shit. She was also more used to living in an RV and knew that space was at a premium. Sara filled all the space she could find—there was stuff everywhere.

  But if I wanted to eat at the table and sleep in my own bed, I didn’t mention it.

  Aimee was kind of grumpy that she wasn’t getting much help in preparing Thanksgiving dinner for us, but we were all crazy busy.

  Tera came out to help her, so that calmed things down a little. Aimee was three weeks further on than Sara and just huge—like scary, enormous big. She looked about ready to burst with four weeks still to go.

  With two pregnant ladies and Kes still and always a teetotaler, me staying on the soda, and Tucker driving to Tera’s house later, only Zach, Luke and Tera were even thinking about drinking. If Ollo had been there, he’d have cracked open a bottle of Scotch. Without him, it was certainly a much more sober Thanksgiving than we’d ever had before. I guess we were all growing up.

  Tucker, Luke and I cleaned up after, then Luke was persuaded to get out his guitar for a few songs before we all opted for an early night.

  Tomorrow we were starting at dawn.

  Sara lay in my arms, warm and soft, her eyelids drooping.

  “That was a really great Thanksgiving,” she sighed softly. “No one argued and everyone pitched in. You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  But I did. I really did.

  The next day, we said goodbye to the other carnies, promising to see them next summer, then packed up and headed out on the journey north. Normally we’d make the twelve or thirteen hour journey in one jump, but with Sara and Aimee tired and uncomfortable all of the time, we’d decided to split it into two, and spend overnight near Petaluma. Con and Hilde were going to drive over and have dinner with us.

  It was a tiring day as we didn’t have enough drivers to share the miles. Aimee was too big to get behind the wheel safely, and Sara didn’t have the experience and wasn’t much smaller either. Tera had taken a couple of days off work to help, but it still meant that I didn’t get a break from driving the rig. I didn’t mind. For most of the journey, Sara curled up on the seat next to me with Socrates. He had his own cage, but he rarely used it. Damn bird seemed to think he was a cat.

  It was a relief to reach Petaluma.

  The campsite was a decent sized lot surrounded on two sides by sprawling Cork Oaks, and cows grazing in open fields next to us.

  We pulled into our assigned spot and I sat for a moment, my muscles locked in place after too many hours of driving.

  “You okay, babe?” Sara asked, carefully placing a sleeping Socrates on the seat next to her and leaning across for a kiss.

  “Babe?” I grimaced. “Not sure I’m the kind of guy who answers to babe.”

  “Sure you are,” she smiled. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  She was such a different woman from the kid I’d met five months ago. She’d grown into herself and blossomed, with confidence in the way she held herself and her voice. Most of the changes could be credited to the work she’d done on our movie, but I was happy to steal a little of it for myself, too.

  I groaned as I climbed out of the truck, favoring my left leg as I limped around to help her climb out.

  “Maybe I should be helping you, old man,” she laughed.

  “I might just have to put you over my knee for making a crack like that,” I grumbled.

  “If there was room for my ginormous stomach, I’d say go for it,” she winked at me. Then she leaned closer. “If you think you can rise to the occasion, I want to be on top tonight.”

  “You’re on top every night!” I called after her as she headed for our RV, which Tera had been driving.

  It was true, but only because it was the most comfortable position for her. Although I couldn’t complain about having those fantastic tits in my face as we fucked.

  Con and Hilde arrived while we were pulling out the folding table we ate at and some chairs. Their arms were piled high with bags full of Thai curry, since both Aimee and Sara were craving spicy food.
r />   “We’ve got an announcement to make,” said Con, grinning around at us.

  “He impregnated me,” Hilde said in her usual direct way.

  “I thought I was going to tell them,” Con muttered.

  “You were taking too long,” she shrugged. “I need food.”

  I grinned as Kes slapped Con on the back, then shook his hand. Tera, Sara and Aimee all converged on Hilde, hugging her and offering congratulations, bumping stomachs and laughing in the process.

  “I’m feeling kind of left out!” Tera pouted. “Maybe I should let you impregnate me, Tucker.”

  “Anytime you want, sugar, just say the word! Do you wanna practice now?”

  Tera threw him a speculative look, then shook her head.

  “Nah, I’m too hungry, but save that thought for later.”

  “So, another pilot in the family, Hilde?” asked Aimee.

  Hilde spoke through a mouthful of food.

  “Perhaps. Or maybe she’ll run away to join the circus. Maybe I will join her.”

  “Yeah?” said Con, raising his eyebrows. “And what are you planning to do in the circus?”

  Hilde threw him a look. “Lion tamer.”

  He choked on a mouthful of rice. “You think?”

  “Sure,” she shrugged. “I am already cock-tamer.”

  We laughed and talked and ate, and yeah, we were a family. A crazy, unmatched, sprawling mess of friends who’d become more. I was good with that.

  When we rolled into Arcata the following night, it wasn’t what I’d expected. For one thing, it should have been dark and empty, but instead it was strung with lights and a large banner in foot-high letters read, Welcome Home!

  Bemused, I helped Sara out of the rig and got the crap hugged out of me by Rhonda Reynolds, owner of the carnival we traveled with in the summer, and her husband Dan who came and slapped me on the shoulder.

  “It’s great to see you guys. I thought you were wintering in Arkansas?”

  Rhonda gave a sly grin.

  “Zach made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.”