by Pete Hautman
“What’s that?”
“Talking to myself. I feel a little sick.” Carmen groped for the light switch, squeezed her eyes closed, and flipped it up. She let her eyes open slowly, taking in the light a photon at a time. Axel was still yammering on about his contact lens.
“Okay. Okay. Give me a minute, okay?” One night, and already he needed a nurse. She looked down at her uniform and grimaced. The crisp whiteness had given way to the look of a well-used flour-sack dish towel. Carmen unzipped and unbuttoned, let the dress fall to the floor, then kicked it aside. Her mouth tasted awful. She could smell herself. She needed a hot shower, bad.
“It’s open!” Axel shouted.
Carmen opened the door, stepped into room 3 and was instantly transported back in time. The smell of Mennen Skin Bracer. The bed made military style. The first time Carmen had visited Axel’s room, he had tried to bounce a quarter off the taut bedspread to show her how tight it was. The quarter hadn’t bounced very high. Actually, it hadn’t bounced at all.
“How come you make your own bed?” she’d asked.
“I don’t like the maids in here messing with my stuff,” Axel had replied.
Axel’s big thirty-one-inch TV dominated the wall opposite the bed. It was turned on to a fishing show, the sound off. The rest of his possessions—his “stuff”—were still neatly arranged in red plastic Coca-Cola crates stacked nine across and six high against the wall. Back in the sixties, he claimed, he had been able to make do with three crates: one for shirts and underwear, one for pants and shoes, and one for miscellaneous.
Miscellaneous, Carmen knew, included ten- and twenty-dollar bills, neatly rolled, held tight with wide rubber bands, nestled together in red Folgers coffee cans.
She made it a point to avert her eyes from the crates. It felt like bad luck. She remembered the last time she had been there. One year ago, on the third day of the fair, Axel’s contacts had turned on him; he needed his eyeglasses and eyedrops, and he’d sent Carmen back to the motel with the key to room 3. It was during that visit that she had discovered the rolls of bills packed in a two-pound coffee can in one of the bottom crates. Shaking with excitement, she had pulled one bill from each of the eighteen fat, solid rolls that filled the can. It had been the single most exciting moment of her life. She wished she’d had the guts to take more. There had been at least seven other Folgers cans, which she had been too excited, too scared to open.
Just thinking about it now sent her pulse climbing. Her eyes shifted toward the Coca-Cola crates; she jerked them back.
Axel sat perched on a chair in front of the dressing mirror. His right eye was red and tearing. The end table at his elbow was covered with plastic squeeze bottles of lens cleaners, lubricants, and rinses. Several different brands were represented. Axel was looking at her in the mirror.
“You took your time.”
“I took a shower. Give me a break. What’s your problem?”
“I got one in, but this son-of-a-bitch won’t sit right.” He pointed at the contact lens, tinted blue, resting on a folded piece of toilet paper.
Carmen sat on the taut bedspread, forcing him to turn and look at her directly. She was wearing jeans and an oversize white V-neck T-shirt. No bra. She leaned forward. Axel stared into her shirt, letting his teary eyes rest on the cleavage, freckled and tanned. It was impossible to focus with only one eye working. Carmen shifted her shoulders, causing her breasts to swing to the left. Axel followed the path of her large nipples across the white cotton fabric. “I can’t see for shit.”
She leaned back and brought her legs up. Over a year he had been putting his contacts in all by himself; now suddenly he needs help. She wrapped her arms around her shins and rocked back and forth. If he wanted her to install his contact lenses, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She did not want this to become a daily chore.
“How come you can’t get it in yourself?”
“I don’t know.”
“How come you don’t just wear your glasses?”
“I paid good money for these lenses. Besides, once I get them in I see better. Are you going to help me or not?”
Carmen sighed. She picked up the lens and squirted it with saline solution, then knelt on the carpet before him. “Lean forward.”
She separated the upper and lower eyelids, letting her breasts brush against his forearm, and planted the lens over his bright-green iris.
“There. Now you got your eyes on.” She sat back and crossed her arms. “There something you wanted to look at?”
Axel sat propped against the headboard, looking at his wall of Coca-Cola crates. Carmen had gone back to her room, insisting that she needed another hour of sleep. Axel couldn’t remember the last time he had been able to sleep like that. He was lucky if he got four hours at a time. One of the things that happened when you got old. Tired all the time, but can’t get a good night’s sleep.
He wondered why he’d had so much trouble with his contacts. Had he been acting like a kid, looking for attention? Probably.
And that Carmen, thinking she was such hot stuff. Not that she wasn’t a pretty girl, but that didn’t make him so mush-brained that he hadn’t noticed her looking at his coffee cans. Last year, she had grabbed just a few hundred dollars, thinking he wouldn’t notice. He hadn’t minded that so much, and had never called her on it. But this year she might want more. Carmen liked money more than anything.
The last time he counted, the coffee cans contained two hundred sixty thousand dollars, cash money, most of it undeclared income. He’d thought about putting the whole pile in the bank, but he was scared the IRS would notice, and besides, Axel had never trusted bankers, doctors, politicians, or preachers. Still, he had to do something—it was far too easy to imagine Carmen stuffing her purse with roll after roll of his hard-earned green.
Axel wished, not for the first time, that he had a backyard. If he had a backyard he could bury it. Put it about four feet down, then plant a tree over it. That would make him feel good. Axel sighed. He had been through it in his head a hundred times before, but the money was still sitting in his room, where anybody with a spare key or a crowbar could bust in and walk off with it.
He would have to do something soon, make some decisions.
But not today.
Chapter 8
This time, Carmen was awake enough to notice his new truck.
“Cool!” she said, pressing the buttons on the radio. Her extra hour of sleep, plus a jumbo coffee from Denny’s, had perked her up considerably. “Hey, you got them all set for WCCO.”
“I like ‘CCO,” said Axel as he steered onto the freeway entrance ramp. He did not want to tell her that he had accidentally—no idea how he’d done it—set all the buttons on the same station. Besides, it was true. He did like WCCO, the Good Neighbor station. It was the only station where you could get the weather report anytime you wanted, and they didn’t play any of that rock and roll.
Carmen did something to the radio and found a rock station. “Listen to this, Axel. Guns n’ Roses. You got the same name as their lead singer. Except he spells it different. They’re really cool. Listen.” She twisted the volume knob.
The shrieking that poured out from his new speakers caused Axel to cross two lanes of freeway traffic before he found the volume knob, turned it down, and regained control of the vehicle. Angry motorists passed him on either side, glaring and honking. Carmen was doubled over, laughing.
“Goddamn it, Carmen, you want to get us both killed? The fair starts tomorrow!”
“Sorry,” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “It was just too funny, you and Axl Rose singing….”
“Well, don’t do that anymore. You’ll wreck the speakers.” He guided the truck onto the Snelling Avenue exit ramp and turned toward the fairgrounds.
“How come we got to go out here, anyway?”
“I have to meet the Coke guy. Also, I want to check out the restaurant and make sure we’re ready. Why? You have something else you wanted t
o do?”
“I thought Sophie was supposed to get everything ready.”
“She did. I just want to take another look.”
He pulled into the fairgrounds through the six-lane blue- and-green entrance gate. The quiet, peaceful fairgrounds he had visited the night before had transformed into a human anthill of activity, cars and trucks everywhere, the grounds crawling with exhibitors, concessionaires, deliverymen, and state fair employees. It was setup day, the last day before the first day of the fair. Axel nursed his truck along Dan Patch Avenue. Groundskeepers were mowing and trimming the grassy boulevards and lawns and sweeping the wide streets. As always, he was struck by the beauty of the freshly groomed fairgrounds. The grassy aprons were a deep rich green, perfectly manicured, looking almost artificial in the bright morning sunlight. Sculpted rock and flower gardens decorated the grassy medians, brilliantly colored, every plant at its florid peak. Even the streets and curbs were spotless. The benches sported fresh coats of green and blue paint, as did the trash receptacles and recycling bins and information kiosks and lampposts. Many of the concession stands were new or had been refurbished, each one striving to be unique and more visible than its neighbor.
“That’s new,” said Axel, pointing at a fresh-fried-potato- chip stand. “So’s that.” He nodded toward a small, brightly colored stand that advertised Tropical Shaved Ice. “That’ll give the sno-cone guys fits.”
They turned on Underwood Avenue. Painters from Midway Sign Company were adding a fresh coat of paint to the Beer Garden signs. “I’d love a piece of that action,” said Axel. The Beer Garden was the ultimate fairgrounds concession. For twelve days, twelve hours a day, dozens of strong young bartenders poured 3.2 beer as fast as it would come out of the kegs. Ten thousand gallons a day, he’d heard. “I bet they clear a million bucks.”
“You should sell beer,” Carmen said.
Axel shook his head. “Wish I could, but the beer concessions are all tied up.” He pulled the truck to the curb opposite a wide, sloping, tree-lined grassy mall. The mall ran the length of the block and was a good two hundred feet wide. The central area was dotted with small picnic tables, benches, and trash containers. To the left side, the squat, ugly shape of the Food Building ran the entire length of the mall, an assortment of concessions—Orange Treet, Pineapple-on-a-Stick, Black Walnut Taffy—lined up against its white cinder-block wall. On the other side of the grassy expanse, blazing red and white and green in the morning sunshine, sat Axel’s Taco Shop. “Here we are.”
Carmen said, “Hey … cool. You got new signs.”
Axel climbed out of the truck and strode proudly toward his concession. It was beautiful, AXEL’S TACO SHOP, the overhead sign proclaimed in big red and green outlined letters. A red-and-black zigzag border made the letters pop out. That had been the sign painter’s idea. To the left of the lettering a smiling Mexican wearing a sombrero was saying, Muy bueno! It’s good! The Mexican’s plywood sombrero extended out past the edge of the sign, giving him a larger- than-life look. That had been Axel’s idea. The opposite end featured a picture of a taco overflowing with meat, cheese, and lettuce. The taco, too, extended out past the border, balancing nicely with the sombrero. It looked delicious.
The rest of the twenty-five-foot-long concession sported a fresh coat of bright white paint, with the corner posts painted red to match the new countertop. Axel unlocked the plywood front and swung it open. A small sign hanging from hooks above the serving window read: Axel Speeter, Prop. He turned to Carmen, but she had wandered off and was now standing forty feet away, smoking a cigarette, talking to a man wearing a white Stetson. The crown of the man’s hat was level with the top of Carmen’s head.
Tommy Fabian, the diminutive owner of Tiny Tot Donuts, looked up and waved. Axel waved back, then walked over to join them.
“Lookin’ good, Ax,” said Tommy. His small hand was swallowed in Axel’s grip. Tommy was decked out in an embroidered western-style shirt with mother-of-pearl snap buttons, Wrangler jeans, and a pair of black lizard Tony Lamas with excessively high raked heels. His fingers glittered with an assortment of gold, including an oversize, diamond-encrusted horseshoe ring. He pointed at the taco shop. “Nice paint job.”
“I thought I’d brighten it up a little this year.”
“Got lots a flash. Makes me hungry just to look at it. That there taco is a beaut. And the guy in the sombrero—that you, Ax?”
“Sure it is,” Axel said. “That was me in my heyday.”
“Heyday? I guess I don’t remember no heyday. I only known you—what—fifty years?”
“Ever since Sydney.”
Tommy looked up at the Space Tower and squinted, searching in his mind for confirmation. “Forty-four,” he said.
Carmen looked bored.
“Nineteen hundred and forty-four,” said Tommy, with renewed certainty. “Met playin’ cards on the Henrietta. I remember now. I won.”
“We both won,” said Axel.
“Yeah, but I won more.”
“You always won more.”
Tommy laughed and cuffed Axel on the shoulder.
Axel said, “Carmen? You want to get those boxes of napkins and cups out of the truck?”
“I s’pose,” she said, walking toward the truck. She flipped her cigarette toward the sidewalk. It landed in the grass. Axel walked over to the cigarette, stepped on it, picked it up, and delivered it to a nearby trash can.
Tommy Fabian watched him, shaking his head. “I see little Carmen’s still the same gal as before. I thought you sent her off to be a nurse or something.”
“I flew her back for the fair.”
“You’re a glutton for punishment, Ax. Is the other one gonna be here again too? Her old lady?”
“Sophie. Yeah. I made Sophie my manager this year. She’s pretty excited.”
Tommy grinned and pulled out a short, slim cigar, licked it, held it up in the sunlight to inspect it, then set it ablaze with a battered stainless-steel Zippo.
“I oughta get the name a your sign guy,” he said, sending up a cloud of blue smoke.
Axel looked down the mall at the faded Tiny Tot concession, one of three minidonut stands owned by Tommy Fabian. Tiny Tot was one of the big moneymakers at the fair. Tommy claimed he netted out at over a hundred thousand a fair. Every year, Axel watched the customers lining up for their little wax-paper bags of greasy sugared minidonuts. He figured Tommy was lowballing his net. Tommy had once boasted about the number of sacks of donut mix he’d used during the fair. Axel did some quick math and came up with numbers that made his nuts ache. One thing for sure, Tommy didn’t waste any of his cash on paint—the red Tiny Tot lettering was faded, and the wooden sides of the forty-foot-long building showed through a ten-year-old layer of peeling yellow paint.
“Could use a little touch-up,” Axel said.
Tommy puffed his cigar. “I’m thinking I’ll throw some paint on next year. The space rental guy’s been bugging me about it. Image of the fair and all that crap. What the hell—by this time tomorrow there’ll be so many people here you won’t even notice.” He pointed with his cigar at the pristine mall. “All that grass? You remember what it looks like at the end of the fair? And last year, you remember the mud? What the hell.”
Axel had to admit there was something to that. By the time one and a half million people had trampled over the three-hundred-plus-acre fairgrounds, there would be little evidence remaining of the groundskeepers’ labors. This time tomorrow, the mall would be covered with fairgoers. After a few days the grass would be pounded flat and brown, and the streets would be dark and sticky with a pungent slick of spilled beer and sno-cones. The sea of munching, gawking people would obscure any view of the concession buildings, especially the ever popular Tiny Tot Donut stands. Axel looked back at his taco stand. He didn’t care if his new paint and signage paid off; it was worth the money just to see it standing out clean and proud against the lush green grass.
“You know,” said Tommy, “just so’
s you don’t come back at me later and say I didn’t warn you, you’re outta your mind lettin’ those two broads run your operation.”
“They don’t run it,” Axel said. “They just work for me.”
Tommy raised his short, comma-shaped eyebrows and sucked hard on his cigar.
“They do,” said Axel.
The Coke guy showed up on schedule, for a change. As soon as he left, Axel discovered one of the syrup hoses leaking, a sticky mess sure to draw ants and yellow jackets. Over Carmen’s complaints, they drove into downtown Saint Paul to pick up a hose fitting.
“How come you don’t just have the Coke guy come back out and fix it?” Carmen wanted to know.
Axel said, “I just want to get it taken care of. I don’t want to have to worry whether he’s gonna show up.”
Carmen sulkily maintained that riding around in his truck all day was not her job; she had thought they were just going to look at the stand and go straight back to the motel. At first, he ignored her demands because he thought he wanted her company, but by the time the guy at the parts store had located and sold them the fitting, her whining was wearing on him. He could’ve dropped her off at the motel, but he made her ride with him all the way back to the fairgrounds out of pure stubbornness, telling her he didn’t have time to drive ten miles out of the way. That didn’t stop her complaining, though. Axel set his jaw and kept on driving.
Carmen was pissed. Bad enough she’d have to sell tacos for the next couple weeks. At least she was getting paid for that. This riding around with Axel was boring. She’d rather watch TV.
They were almost back to the fairgrounds, coming up to Snelling and University, when a blue BMW passed them on the right, then cut in front of them and stopped at the light. Axel hit the brakes hard; Carmen, who was not wearing her seat belt, slid forward with a shout and cracked both knees on the glove compartment door. Axel slammed his palm down on the horn, giving the guy a ten-second blast. An arm appeared from the Beamer’s window, a middle finger shot up.