by Pete Hautman
“Yeah? Well, maybe she’s just sitting over there waiting for you to ask her.”
“Well, I do not intend to do any such thing.”
“You want me to go get her?” Anything to escape.
Sophie considered. “I suppose. Even Carmen is an improvement on you, Sam.”
“Thanks a hell of a lot” Sam untied his apron, let it fall to the floor, and stalked out of the stand.
Carmen watched Sam O’Gara walking toward her. His gait was smooth and rolling, almost as though he were on a ship. Other people on the mall, she noticed, were also walking that way.
She figured that meant she was coming on to the Valiums.
Suddenly he was there, in his bib overalls and V-neck T-shirt and green cap. “Hot one, isn’t it?”
“Hi, Sam. Is it hot? I guess I didn’t notice.”
“Well, actually it ain’t the heat so much. It’s the humidity. You want to work? Your mama could use you.”
Carmen looked past him at the taco stand, nine or ten people in line, Sophie and Kirsten moving around inside at dangerous velocities.
“You sure she wants me?”
“Sure she does. She told me to come and get you. She said you’re the best burrito roller she’s ever seen.”
“Really?” Carmen agreed with that, but she didn’t think Sophie had ever noticed.
“Yeah. You help your mama out now, okay?”
Carmen nodded. Sam gave her a grin, buried his hands in his overalls, and turned away.
Carmen said, “Hey! Aren’t you gonna be there?”
Sam looked over his shoulder. “Who, me? I’m gonna go eyeball the animules, honey. I hear they got a hog runs twelve hunnert pounds this year.”
Carmen said, “Yuck.”
Sam muttered, “Besides, another minute in that stand with your mom, I’m a goddamn basket case.”
Carmen laughed. “You just got to ignore her,” she said.
Five minutes later, she was finding Sophie impossible to ignore. She’d seen her mom in foul moods before, but never like this.
“Dammit, Carmen, did you forget everything you ever knew, girl? First I lose that fumble-fingered Sam O’Gara, then I get you. What do you call this?”
“That,” Carmen said, “is a beef tostada.”
“I asked for a beef taco!”
“Sorry! Jesus!” Carmen couldn’t seem to do anything right. She tried not to let it bother her, relying on the Valium to buffer Sophie’s flak. That worked for a while, until Kirsten had to make an emergency run to the restroom. As soon as she was out of the stand, Sophie turned up the volume on her complaints.
“Kirsten would never do that,” Sophie said. “When I ask for ‘two bean,’ I mean tacos, not burritos.”
“How am I s’posed to know that? Do I look like a mind reader?” Carmen said.
“We’ve been doing it that way for five years now. What’s wrong with you, girl?”
“Jesus, Sophie, would you just jack down?”
“Jack down? I have a business to run here. I need two bean tacos, pronto. Try to get it right this time, would you please?”
Carmen got it right that time, almost. Sophie yelled at her again for being too generous with the cheese. Carmen didn’t understand why she was being so hyper. What Sophie needed, she thought, was a Valium. This idea took root in her mind and grew on its own for several minutes. The more she thought about it, the more Carmen liked the idea of a calm, benevolent Sophie Roman. She considered simply offering her a Valium—or maybe two—but rejected the idea. Sophie would never agree to take a pill from a prescription bottle without her name on it.
There was another possibility, however. Sophie kept a six-pack of Canada Dry seltzer under the front counter. She always had an open can going, from which she would sip at frequent intervals. All Carmen had to do to mellow her out was to drop a few Valiums in Sophie’s seltzer. It made all kinds of sense. Everyone would benefit, even Sophie.
Carmen couldn’t believe she’d never thought of this before. She only needed an opportunity, a few seconds when Sophie wasn’t paying attention.
Axel remembered driving his old pickup back over the hole, shutting it down, and climbing the fence again. He remembered being in his new truck. He did not remember driving back across town, but he must have done so, because here he was, clutching his burlap shoulder bag, following a line of people through the gates into the fairgrounds.
Must have gone on autopilot, Axel thought. His mind on his missing money, trying to imagine what Sam would do if he came home to find his backyard full of cash. Would he guess where it had come from? Would he want to know? Or would he just squirrel it away. Just stash it and wait to see if anybody came looking.
Axel’s biggest question was, why hadn’t Sam mentioned it to him? They’d been friends going on forty years now. If a guy finds a quarter-million dollars cash in his backyard, wouldn’t you think he’d want to tell his friends about it? A normal guy might, but what about Sam O’Gara?
Either someone else had found the money—could be anybody who’d had the good fortune to peek over the fence at the right moment—or Sam didn’t want Axel to know he’d found it. But if Sam had wanted to conceal the fact that he’d found the money, you’d think he would have filled in the hole, made it look like nothing had happened.
Axel didn’t know what Sam would do. He had always been like that, especially at the card table. Sam was harder to predict than Minnesota weather. He was a human randomizer, which was what had made him a great card- player. As far as Axel knew, Sam could have spent the money, binned it, given it to charity, or tossed it in a closet. Any, all, or none of the above seemed equally possible.
But the money was Axel’s. Sam had to know that. It was under Axel’s truck.
Thinking back over his friendship with Sam O’Gara, examining it in a way he never had before, Axel searched for chinks, flaws, misunderstandings, hidden resentments. They argued all the time, sure, but wasn’t there an underlying trust between them? When it came right down to the nuts, couldn’t he count on Sam? Of course he could.
On the other hand—how many hands was he up to now?—Sam had been pretty pissed at him the other day. What had that been about? Money. Sam had been telling him what to do with his money, and Axel had told Sam where to put his advice. He remembered telling Sam that he didn’t need his interference, that he could take care of himself.
Well, shit, that had just been talk. They’d been arguing like that for forty years. They were still friends.
Axel caressed the rough exterior of his shoulder bag, felt the rolls of money pressing against the burlap. At least he still had this year’s money. He reached into the bag and let his hand rest on the .45. He was passing a Pronto Pup joint. The concessionaire caught his eye, recognized him, gave a nod. Axel’s grip tightened on the gun as he nodded back.
He tried to think of what to say when he saw Sam. He tried to simplify it, to reduce the problem to manageable proportions. He might say, “Suppose you lost, say, twenty bucks. Suppose you lost it in your friend’s house and your friend finds it. Later you tell him you lost a twenty. He would say, ‘I found your twenty. Here it is!’”
Even though you couldn’t prove the twenty was yours, he would give it back to you because, for one thing, twenty bucks isn’t worth losing a friend over. And he wouldn’t have to ask, because you would just give it to him.
Now, make that twenty dollars a larger amount—say a quarter million. Axel put himself in Sam’s place. What would he do if he found that much cash buried on his property and, the next day, Sam O’Gara showed up and claimed it was his? How good a friend would he have to be to believe him?
“You wanna know what really pisses me off?”
“No.”
“What pisses me off is they made us pay to get back in. Don’t that piss you off?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Dean said.
“I mean, we already paid to get in once. You’d think that’d be enough.”
; Dean lifted his cowboy hat and scratched the top of his head. His scalp felt odd, as if it were shrinking. Shrinking and itching. Before following Axel back into the fairgrounds, he and Tigger had done another line of Pork’s crystal. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he was wondering whether they’d done one line too many. Every time he blinked, the world shifted about a quarter inch up and to the left.
Tigger said, “We shoulda just sneaked in. Just climbed over the fence is what we shoulda done.”
“You know what you should do?” Dean said. “You should shut the fuck up.”
“I’m just sayin’,” Tigger said.
“Well, don’t. Just keep an eye on the guy, okay? That four bucks you paid won’t add up to nothing. Think of it like an investment. That’s what you gotta do.”
“It just pisses me off is all.”
“Okay, it pisses you off. Hey. Where’d he go?”
“He’s still there. He’s talking to Carmen.”
When Axel stepped into the Taco Shop, Sophie grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back outside.
“She’s acting awfully weird, Axel. I think you should take her back to the motel.”
“What? Who?” He didn’t need this right now. He had more important stuff on his mind. “Where’s Sam?” he asked.
Sophie, not about to be derailed, squeezed his arm and shook it, as if trying to wake him up. “Not Sam! Carmen! She told me I was a cartoon.”
“Really?” Axel looked through the door at Carmen. She was making burritos. “She looks okay to me.” He pulled his arm away from Sophie. “Wasn’t Sam helping you out here?”
“If you can call it help. Listen to me, I’m trying to tell you something. There’s something wrong with her. I think she’s on drugs or something. Just watch her for a few minutes, okay? You’ll see what I mean.”
“I have to find Sam,” Axel said.
“Just wait a goddamn minute. And watch her.” Sophie stepped back into the stand and took an order from a customer.
Axel washed his hands and put on an apron. “Was Sam here helping out?” he asked Kirsten.
Kirsten nodded. “He left about twenty minutes ago.”
“He said he was gonna take a walk,” Carmen said.
“He’s gone, thank God,” Sophie said. “I need four tacos and one Bueno.”
“I need shells,” Kirsten said.
Axel loaded the deep fryer and rotated a batch of tortillas into the hot oil. He watched Carmen moving around the stand, building tacos and burritos. She was moving slow, but maybe she was just tired. Maybe Carmen was right, maybe Sophie was too hyper. Axel relaxed, forcing his mind off his missing money, and let himself swing into the rhythm of Axel’s Taco Shop, keeping the tortillas cooking, the meat frying, and the burritos rolling. There were four of them in the stand—Axel, Sophie, Carmen, and Kirsten—all working as one. The customers were stacked up out front, food was flying out the window, and money was flowing into the cash box. Axel thought it a bit strange when Carmen called him “Fred,” but he didn’t worry about it. The restaurant was humming, and for the moment all was right with the world.
He had known it wouldn’t last, but he was stunned by how quickly things fell apart. He was lifting the batch of tortillas out of the oil when there was a thump, a squeal, and Sophie shrieking. Axel dropped the rack back into the oil and whirled in time to see Sophie shaking Carmen, holding her by the neck, slamming her back against the cooler. Kirsten was pressed against the counter, her eyes open wide.
“Is it poison? What are you trying to do to me?” Sophie shouted.
Carmen’s face was turning red. She was trying to say something. Axel stepped between them, grabbing Sophie’s arms and pulling her hands away from Carmen’s neck. A small, appreciative crowd had gathered in front of the stand. Axel pushed the two women out the back door.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
Carmen was rubbing her neck. “She choked me,” she said.
“She tried to poison me. I caught her putting something in my water.”
“Your water? What water?” Axel asked.
“My Canada Dry. She was putting pills in my Canada Dry.”
“Is that true?”
Carmen shrugged. “Did you know you look like Fred Flintstone?”
“She’s insane. She tried to poison me,” Sophie said. “She thinks we’re the Flintstones.”
“Wait a minute. Back up,” Axel said, as much to himself as to them. “Carmen, did you put something in Sophie’s water?”
Carmen pushed out her lower Up. “I was just giving her a couple Valiums.”
“Dope?” Sophie shrieked. “You were trying to give me dope?”
“Just to calm you down a little,” said Carmen reasonably.
“You were slipping your mother a mickey?” Axel asked, struggling with the concept.
“Just a couple Valiums.” Carmen held up the prescription bottle.
Sophie pointed. “Look. She has them in her hand.”
“Let’s see,” Axel said, reaching for the bottle.
Carmen backed away. “I don’t have to. You’re a cartoon.”
“My God, she’s on dope. My daughter’s a drug addict.”
“Give them to me, Carmen.”
Carmen was walking backward. She pushed the bottle into her pocket, turned, and ran away through the crowded mall. Axel and Sophie watched her until she rounded the corner of the Food Building.
“I told you,” Sophie said. “We should’ve just left her fired.”
Axel shrugged. “She’ll be okay,” he said doubtfully.
“Are you kidding? She’s on dope. An addict. I’m lucky she hasn’t murdered me in my bed and stolen my VCR.”
“Don’t be silly,” Axel said. “Carmen wouldn’t hurt a bug.”
“Hey, you guys,” Kirsten called from the stand. “Are you just going to leave me in here alone?”
Chapter 35
It was too bad she hadn’t got her mom to take the Valium, and really too bad that Sophie and Axel had busted her. At least they hadn’t gotten the pills. Carmen shook the plastic bottle, held it up to the light. Only a few left. Maybe that was okay, seeing as she would probably get fired for real this time. She wouldn’t have to work with Sophie anymore, so maybe she wouldn’t need the Valium. At the moment, it wasn’t something she wanted to worry about. She’d figure something out. Why not relax and enjoy the cartoons? They were the best ever. It was almost like being on acid, only smoother and not so scary. Everything had an outline. Some people became familiar characters. Axel and Sophie as Fred and Wilma Flintstone had been hilarious. Carmen wondered whether she would run into Barney and Betty Rubble. She knew people weren’t cartoons, not really, but at the same time, they really were. The illusion was at least as convincing as the images on a TV set, and as a bonus, she could make her arms and legs stretch like Plastic Man. She could even float, though not more than a few inches off the ground. It was like wearing antigravity skates. Carmen moved down Carnes Avenue, letting herself drift toward the midway on the crowded, littered street. She was thinking about how it might be fun to go on a few rides, when a figure appeared before her wearing a straw cowboy hat, mirrored sunglasses, and a red paisley bandanna. He put out a hand, palm forward, and she ran into it with her left tit.
The glasses slid down and caught on the tip of his nose, revealing a pair of big brown cartoon eyes.
“Hey there, Carmy,” said a familiar voice.
She tried to make him into Elmer Fudd. It didn’t work. It was James Dean.
Carmen said, “Guess what?”
“What?”
Nothing occurred to her. “Just a minute.” She squeezed her eyes down to slits, blurring his image. She heard another voice.
“What’s she doing?”
“She’s fucked up on something. Hey, Carmen, snap out of it. I gotta talk to you.”
Carmen said, “What do you want?” She had an idea. “You want to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl?” They wer
e on both sides of her now, James Dean and his friend with the big white hat—what was his name? Trigger, like Roy Rogers’s horse. Carmen asked him, “Is that a ten-gallon hat?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I gotta go to the bathroom.” She started walking again. They fell in on either side of her. “Then I wanna go on the Tilt-A-Whirl.”
Dean said, “I do not want to go on the fucking Tilt-A- Whirl.”
She ducked her head below the brim of Trigger’s white hat and said, “How about you? You want to go on the Tilt- A-Whirl?”
“Those things make me puke. Hey, Dean, what about the guy?”
Dean grabbed Carmen’s wrist, jerking her to a halt.
“Hey! I gotta pee, y’know.”
“You want I should go back and watch him?”
“Yeah, you do that, and I’ll take her to the can.”
“Then we go on the Tilt-A-Whirl, okay?”
He squeezed her wrist, really hard. “Fuck the Tilt-A- Whirl, Carmy. Let’s go. Talk to me about the man. What happened back there?”
“Sophie got mad.” She pulled away, but her wrist was stuck in his hand. They were walking again.
“That bag he’s got. You know what’s in it?”
“Who?”
“Your taco guy.”
“Axel?”
“Yeah. What’s he got in the bag?”
“You want me to look?”
He seemed surprised. “You think you could?”
“Sure I could. Only I really gotta go to the bathroom, okay?”
The restrooms by the Giant Slide were in a long wooden structure, with entrances at both ends of the building. A line of women waited at the south entrance.
“I’ll be just a minute.”
He released her, and she squeezed past the women in line and pushed her way into the building, oblivious to the stares and comments from women who had been waiting for twenty minutes. She walked past the row of toilets, past the sinks, and out the opposite end of the building, where she turned toward the midway. She wanted to immerse herself in the flashing and the shouting and the overamped rock and roll. She needed to get back to cartoon land as soon as possible. Those skinhead cowboys, they were no fun. If she wanted to answer a bunch of questions, she’d have stayed at the Taco Shop.