Double-sex Person!
The whole thing almost made me swimmy-headed and my being there suddenly seemed like a bad idea. I started to leave when I saw the sign I was looking for.
Girls! Exotic Dancers! Illegal in Most States!
A barker stood on a high stage in front of the tent. Despite what was going on down the midway, there was a crowd of men in overalls and khakis watching him point at a woman in a skimpy outfit that looked like one of them bikinis I’d seen in those beach movies, only this one was so tiny it barely covered that old gal’s important parts.
The barker’s suit was worn plumb out and his white shirt was as dingy as one of Miss Becky’s dish towels. The cuffs of his pants were walked down and dried mud caked the material around his ankles. “This is what you wanted to see, ladies and gentlemen! The most exotic show in the southern United States! These aren’t your wives, girlfriends, sisters, or mothers. These women know what a man wants and this show is guaranteed to excite and amaze!”
The woman beside him shimmied and shook. I’d never seen anything like that before, and I felt my face flush. Her boobs moved by themselves and seemed to be made of jelly.
A stranger came up behind me and laid his hand on my shoulder. He wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was watching the woman. “Boy, you better get on out of here ’fore your granddaddy finds out where you are.”
I looked up at that redheaded guy, but he didn’t look familiar. He knew who Grandpa was, though, and that blew my cover. He turned me with one hand on that shoulder and I slipped out of the crowd with my whole head on fire with embarrassment.
Instead of going back to the rides, I checked to make sure he wasn’t watching me before I ducked around a sign to sneak between the tents. There weren’t any lights on and after being on the midway, it seemed dark and gloomy. Thick cables like giant snakes ran through the grass in all different directions. There was enough light to pick my way over them and I rounded the girly tent.
It was a whole new world back there. Raggedy trailers were scattered everywhere in the gloom and it looked like somebody was having a rummage sale. Tubs, tables, clotheslines, brooms, spare tent poles, spare tires, and chairs were scattered in front of the trailers. They’d been there a little over a week and all the grass was beaten down to the dirt.
People were walking every which-a-way through the darkness, coming and going. I could tell some of them probably worked for the carnival, but a couple looked like farmers. One man came out of a trailer, ran fingers through his hair, and slunk back toward the midway like a worried dog.
The trailers themselves weren’t interesting at all, so I checked around to see if anybody was looking at me. When I was sure it was clear, I dropped to my knees beside the girly tent and ducked my head under the bottom. I knew how to do that because I’d seen the Little Rascals do the same thing on television one time.
It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. All I could see were folding chairs stretching out to my left. There was no floor, just more trampled grass.
Music fired up from a portable record player and on the right I caught a glimpse of a woman in a glittery bathing suit walking out on a stage that looked like it had seen better days. Somewhere off to my left a spotlight winked to life and flooded the stage with harsh light. The woman smiled at the hooting crowd of men who rose from their chairs and started clapping.
She wriggled around for a minute and then reached both hands back to undo her top. She winked at the crowd and the next thing I saw was the ground rushing by as someone grabbed my ankles and jerked me back out from under the tent. I dug three furrows in the dirt, two with my hands. My chin made the last.
Chapter Forty-nine
The Wraith stopped outside his trailer to light a cigarette. He was fidgety as all get-out and couldn’t settle down. A slender man stepped out of Lola’s hot trailer several yards away after leaving his sweat on her sheets and twenty dollars on a small table beside the bed. The man turned his head, but The Wraith saw him anyway and recognized Ben Taylor, a cotton farmer who lived out toward Lake Crook. Ben had a wife and three kids, and The Wraith wondered how he was gonna explain the problem Lola’d most likely shared with him in about seven days.
The Wraith had to get back to his shift in the Kid’s Amusement Tent, but he wasn’t in any hurry. He wanted to finish the night so he could slip away one last time before the carnival packed up the rides to leave. He’d done all he could do to create as much chaos as possible and needed one last visit to settle that last wrong from his past life.
His stomach clenched with a pain that was more than familiar. It was both the ache of loss, and excitement that he was finally getting the payback he deserved. He was confident he’d started a war between the Clays and Mayfields that would go on for years. Maybe it would settle the bad blood he had for both families. The bonus was the coming culmination that night of four years of planning and a week’s work in Lamar County. He couldn’t wait to get started.
His girlfriend’s baby started crying and The Wraith decided to wait a few minutes before finishing his makeup. Crying babies drove him nuts and he had to get outside before he lost his mind again and did something he’d regret. The nearby midway was noisy, but it was a different kind of racket. He lit his umpteenth cigarette of the day and squinted at a movement between the strip show and the freak show tents. It was darker there, and he barely registered the slight movement on the ground. He finally made out the shape of a kid lying on his stomach with the upper half of his body under the canvas.
Damn kids, always trying for a peek to get their cheap thrills.
He crossed the distance in a few long strides, grabbed the boy’s ankles just above his U.S. Keds, and yanked him back into the open. “Hey kid, get your ass back where you belong!”
Top Parker rolled over, his eyes wide. The Wraith straightened in surprise and turned his head so the boy wouldn’t recognize him, forgetting that the partially finished makeup job hid most of his features.
“I’m sorry, mister.”
“Get the hell outta here.”
“Yessir!”
The kid jumped to his feet and hurried back toward the lights. The Wraith watched him go and wondered if he should have done more.
His question was answered when Top stopped at the edge of the tent and stared back, mouth agape. He pointed. “Hey, I know you.”
The Wraith jerked as if he’d been hit with a jolt of electricity. “Come here.” His voice was hoarse and came from deep inside his chest.
Top dropped his arm and took a step backward. “Why?”
“Because I said so.” He advanced.
The boy stiffened. “You.”
“I said come here!”
“It’s been you all the time.” The boy hesitated and The Wraith saw him working on something in his mind. “That makeup don’t hide your meanness or all your features. It’s glowing nasty all around you. I know what you did, what you’ve done!”
The Wraith knew about Top Parker’s gift for getting into places he didn’t belong, and especially about his visions. His whole plan was in danger of dissolving if the kid went to his granddad and told him The Wraith under a different name was back in Lamar County. A scream of frustration rose in his throat. Instead of succumbing to the familiar rage, he spread his hands wide and forced a smile.
“You’re right kid. It’s me.” He moved forward a step. “I bet you didn’t think you’d ever see me again.”
Another step, and his voice lowered. “You know, I always liked you.”
Step.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Step.
The Wraith tilted his head toward the tent, completely misreading Top’s curiosity about the girly tent. “How about I sneak you in the back of this titty show and let you get a good long look, huh?”
Top looked like a rabbit ready to bolt.
Top went white as a sheet and The Wraith realized his mistake. “Shit!” He lunged, but Top was just as scared as that rabbit and twice as fast. He turned and shot into the crowd of men pouring from the strip show.
The Wraith followed, jogging into the open to see where the boy was headed. Several patrons laughed and pointed at his half-painted face.
“Wow, I think that’s creepier than it should be.”
“Hey Bozo! You’re missing something!”
Barely registering their comments,The Wraith kept an eye on the kid who was alternately jogging and limping as he worked his way through the crowd. The Wraith didn’t remember Top having a limp, and wondered if he’d turned an ankle. No matter, it would work to his advantage.
A couple of people gave him an inquisitive look, but The Wraith grinned as they passed. “Late for my shift.” He saw Top duck under the restraining rope and skip into the Funhouse.
It was perfect. He had the little shit for sure.
He hurried back toward his trailer.
Chapter Fifty
I flipped over as soon as the guy let go of my feet. “I’m sorry, mister.”
The face floating above me against the night sky wasn’t a clown, really, but someone in regular work clothes with a most of a clown face and big red lips.
“Get the hell out of here.”
“Yessir!”
His clown eyes were big and white and outlined with arching black eyebrows. His mouth was drawn in bright red and he was even scarier that he would have been. I was lucky, because if he’d been all painted up with a red ball nose and one of them orange wigs on, I wouldn’t have recognized him as Calvin Williams. The last time I saw him was four years earlier on the day Uncle Cody whipped Calvin to a frazzle in front of Neal Box’s store and sent his friends to the hospital.
Calvin was married to Norma Faye back then, though she’d already left him and was seeing Uncle Cody after he came back from his year in Vietnam. Calvin wasn’t a clown then, just a no-account from Center Springs, hauling hay to make a few bucks that he mostly spent across the river.
That was the first time I’d ever seen a real fight that wasn’t on television, or one in our school yard. It was bloody and mean and didn’t seem to ever end. Uncle Cody even tried to drag Calvin out from under a hay truck where he crawled after he was whupped, to beat on him some more.
It turned my stomach and Uncle Cody had to talk to me for a long while to get it through my head that fights had to be won. When you fought, there was nothing fair about any of it.
Calvin Williams disappeared soon after that and no one ever saw him again. But here the man was and I knew what would happen if he got his hands on me. The truth behind the Poisoned Gift came alive in the brightly colored carnival lights, the laughing clown faces, the huge red mouths full of teeth.
It all made sense. The word “Indian” popped up over his head like in a cartoon and a shotgun blasted it away. The scream of Maggie’s tires squalled in my head over the shrieks and music coming from a dozen rides. I saw the hanging tree and the image melted into Calvin smearing greasepaint on his face and then drawing on bright red lips.
Suddenly my feet wouldn’t work and my breath disappeared. I backed all the way to the edge of the tent and stared with my mouth open wide enough for flies to get in. “Hey, I know you.”
“Come here.”
“Why?” I stepped back with my right foot and came down on a stake sticking about an inch out of the ground. It twisted and the nail-hole hurt so bad I felt my face prickle. I stiffened with the pain and remembered several nights earlier when I saw him from the Ferris wheel. It was Calvin with the axe handle that disappeared from the midway only to beat a man to death a few minutes later. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“You!”
His face swelled to the size of a #5 washtub. Words came out of my mouth that I didn’t think on. “I said come here!” His voice was hoarse, like he’d been screaming for hours.
“It’s been you all the time. That makeup don’t hide your meanness or all your features. It’s glowing nasty all around you. I know what you’ve done.”
He spread his hands wide and smiled. “You’re right kid. It’s me.”
He moved forward a step and I held out a hand to make him stop. I wanted to run, but my feet stuck to the ground.
“I bet you didn’t think you’d ever see me again.” His voice lowered. “You know, I always liked you.”
My knees trembled and everything around us disappeared and shrank down until it was just the two of us separated by only a few feet. The humidity was gone, the people vanished, and we were alone in a swirl of lights.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Calvin Williams tilted his head and smiled mean like the Grinch in that cartoon Christmas show. The paint around his mouth spread out wider and wider until it like to near split his face in two. “How about I sneak you in the back of this titty show and let you get a good long look, huh?”
My whole body was trembling, vibrating like a guitar string.
He stopped. “Hey, if you’re interested in what’s going on in there, let me tell you a secret. Your Aunt Norma Faye has a little birthmark I bet you’d like to know about.”
I didn’t want to hear nothin’ about Aunt Norma Faye! I’d only come to sneak a peek under a tent to find out what the men up at the store’d been talking about, to prove to myself that I was growing up, not a little baby like Pepper said. And besides, Aunt Norma Faye was family. What he was talking about sounded nasty.
Calvin Williams was only five feet away when the world snapped back crystal clear.
He must have seen something in my face. “Shit!”
He lunged at me, but I was faster. I twisted away and planted my foot to duck around a stream of men flowing from the girly tent.
Another hot jolt of pain shot up my leg and the wound woke with a vengeance. The next step on my damaged foot made tears well. I felt Williams behind me, but I figured I had enough of a lead to disappear into the crowd.
Twenty steps later, I knew it was impossible to run away. It felt like I was stepping on that nail again every time my foot hit the ground. A blind panic muddied my thinking and it never occurred to me to just stand there and holler for help. A terrifying clown was after me and he’d already scared me spitless, so bad my mind wasn’t working right.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t gaining and saw him bearing down on me and the word wraith popped into my mind, pouring gasoline on my terror.
Blood squished in my shoe as I skipped and hopped past game booths and exhibits until I saw the entrance of the Funhouse on my right. I’d been in them before, weaving and winding through the maze and dark corridors that seemed to stretch forever.
It was the perfect place to hide, because even if Calvin
Williams did see me duck inside, he’d never be able to find me in the giant trailer. If he didn’t see me go in, he’d pass and then despite my bleeding foot, I could slip out the other side and find Grandpa.
Chapter Fifty-one
Norma Faye delicately plucked off tiny bits of cotton candy and let them melt in her mouth as Cody finished up with the fire department. The girls who’d been trapped in the dislodged cage were on the ground, telling their story over and over again to anyone who would listen. Belinda’s arm wasn’t broken, only bruised and strapped down in a makeshift sling.
Cody slapped one of the volunteer firemen on the shoulder. “Good job. I’m glad you boys got here when you did.”
The man grinned and held out a roll of coiled leather. “I reckon you’ll want your belt back.”
“It’d look bad if I lost my britches.” Cody hitched up his now-dirty khakis and threaded it through the loops. Norma Faye took his tooled leather gun belt from a friend who’d held it for them when she climbed the wheel. He strapped the 1911 on and waved at Ned and Delmar Hopkins in a heated conversation beside the ticket booth.
They joined Cody with Delmar still talking. “Honest, Mr. Ned. We’ve never had trouble like that before.”
“Does that kid running it know what he’s doing?”
“He’s been here a couple of weeks. Cal’s been showing him the ropes and he lets the boy run it when he clowns up.”
“And what does that mean, clowns up? Your men ought not be kidding around with things as serious as these big machines.”
“No, clowning up is when they put on makeup and become clowns. See?” He pointed to one walking away with a cluster of balloons. “A lot of the guys work two or three other jobs to make ends meet.”
Ned removed his hat to rub his bald head. “All right. Where’s this Cal feller now?”
Delmar shrugged. “Damned if I know. He’s in and out so much lately I don’t know for sure when he’s working and when he ain’t. Cal’s a good mechanic, but he’s not a very good clown. He scares more kids than he can make laugh and I can’t keep him on the job, especially in this town. I’m gonna let him go when we break down because I spend half my time looking for his ass.”
“You done broke down.”
“I mean when we break down for the next town.”
“Is he your only mechanic?”
“Nope, but he’s the best. He’s good with his hands, but most of these rides are owned by individuals who maintain ’em. Cal’s part owner in the Skydiver, so the maintenance is exclusive on this one.”
“Why don’t you find this feller and tell him to meet me right ’chere in about half an hour? I believe I need to talk to him. Either me or the sheriff might have to report this, if we can find out who to report it to. This kind of stuff’s dangerous.”
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