Nothing to Lose (13 page)

“I got fourteen kids. Gets so’s you can’t remember who’s who. You just say, ‘Hey, kid,’ and see who shows up.”

He looked at me, seeming to expect a response and not finishing the burger. So finally I said, “My name’s Michael.”

“I might have a Michael.” He gestured at the onions—did I want any? I shook my head.

“Fourteen kids.” Thinking about what Walker would say about that, about this man’s contribution to the gene pool. “Do you see them all?”

“Every chance I get. They live in Mobile with their ma.” He looked around. “But this ain’t Mobile, is it?”

“No.” Then, dimly remembering that Mobile was in Alabama, I added, “But it’s the next state over. Maybe next week?”

“Nope.” He added ketchup without asking. “Not going to Mobile next. Don’t rightly know where I’m going, but it ain’t Mobile.”

He looked suddenly sad. I felt Mom’s beeper in my pocket. It hadn’t gone off yet. Maybe it was like when you took an umbrella, how it never rained then. I hoped so. I realized she hadn’t given me her cell phone because Walker would have noticed. God, I hated Walker.

I said, “Why not get a job where you’d see them more, not travel?”

He shrugged. “Sawdust in the blood. I been doing this since I was sixteen. Money’s good. Just wouldn’t seem right, staying in one place, laying brick or selling sneakers. No, this is the only life for me.” He squinted at me. “You’re sure you’re not my kid?”

And for a moment I wanted to say,
Yeah, Dad. Yeah, it’s me. Michael.
And join him in the family business. I wanted to be someone else.

But I said, “No.”

Another gap-toothed smile. “Didn’t think so.”

I headed back toward the games, past the sign for racing pigs, past the fountain where a group of African acrobats performed contortions. I didn’t remember much about my dad, but I think he had all his teeth. After that, it got pretty foggy. Mom said it was better not remembering. “I’d block him out too, if I could. But I’m too old.”

I always laughed at that. Mom wasn’t old. She was beautiful. And there were plenty of men around to notice. Men who took us to the beach, the movies, or the fair. One guy had even won me the big prize. But then there was the guy who’d locked me in the closet so I wouldn’t bother him and Mom while they … and, come to think about it, it might have been the same guy.

I walked back and offered Kirstie the burger.

“I’ve hunted and gathered,” I said, grinning. “Didn’t know if you wanted onions.”

“Oh, it’s not for me.” She leaned to take a dollar from an older guy—who got a long look down her tank top in exchange. “I can’t eat from those grab joints all the time. It’s for you.”

“But…” The guy was still looking.

“You looked hungry.”

I realized I was. I’d meant to eat before leaving home, but after talking to Mom, I just left. I glanced at my watch. After seven. Walker was home now. I touched the beeper in my pocket.

“Yeah,” I said to Kirstie. “Thanks.” It was weird, her wanting to take care of me like that. I realized I wanted to take care of
her.
I wanted to stop old pervs from drooling over her body, for one thing. Maybe I just wanted to take care of
something.

Then, “Oops.” She ran over to help a man on the other side.

When she came back several minutes later, she said, “Why don’t you walk around a little, see the livestock or something? I’m busy tonight.”

I glared at her, walking away, but only when I was sure she didn’t see me. It was bullshit, her asking me to come back only to blow me off. I shouldn’t stay. She was just a piece of ass among hundreds of other pieces of ass. I should go home.

But the wild midway music called me to stay. Stay.

I didn’t go to the livestock tent, though. I went the other way, past the circus tent where Karpe and I had gone the night before. I considered going in, but decided against it. I’d only gone to make Karpe happy. Besides, it wouldn’t be as real the second time. I walked past booths offering ID bracelets and massage-by-the-minute. I remembered the burger and took a bite. Then another, until I finished it and realized I was still hungry.

When I looked up, I was standing in front of the double Ferris wheel. I had no idea why. I recognized the guy, Cricket, who was working it. He beckoned me over.

“Hey, kid,” he said.

“My name is Michael.”

He didn’t introduce himself. “Want to make a buck, Michael?”

“How?”

“The guy who was supposed to take tickets got here totally baked. Can you help me out there while I operate the ride?”

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to be meeting Kirstie soon.”

He snorted. “How can I say this? I’ll pay you for the next hour, then you check with her. When she tells you she ain’t ready, you come back and work some more.”

Which sort of pissed me off, but I suspected he was right. Also, I liked the idea of working. I’d never been able to have an after-school job since Mom and Walker got married.

“What do I do?” I said.

“Take tickets, five apiece, and don’t rip ’em. Just throw them in.” He gestured toward a wooden box beside him.

I looked at my watch—seven twenty—and checked the beeper in my pocket again to make sure it was still on. But Cricket had walked away, and people were waiting. So I started taking tickets. At first I had to unfurl them and count them before I threw them into the box. Cricket was working the controls, making the seats come down so people could get on. And when the last seat came down, he hollered “Last one!” so I knew not to take any more.

After a few runs, I got so I knew what five tickets looked like, even if people handed them to me in a sweaty ball. I knew when the last person got on too, before the ride was set to run. And I started to stand like I’d always seen carnies stand, facing sideways and head down, not really looking at anyone.

That’s why I didn’t notice Cricket next to me at first.

“You get a rhythm going,” he said. “So you can just stay there and think and
not
think, if you know what I mean.”

I did. I looked at my watch. I’d been there almost an hour, and I hadn’t checked my beeper since I’d first gotten there. Cricket was right. I couldn’t tell you what I’d been thinking, but it felt good. Like when I was younger and I used to put up signs on trees and mow people’s lawns for extra money. It had been a while since I felt like I’d actually worked for something.

The wheel was running regular, and Cricket pointed up at the highest car. “Look.”

At first I didn’t see what he was talking about. Then I did. A couple at the top of the wheel. The girl was riding, black tank top shoved up, her head in her boyfriend’s lap.

“People think they’re invisible up there. Or maybe they just don’t care what we see.” The car came closer until I could see exactly what they were doing. The girl was really young, maybe twelve or thirteen tops. Probably there with her parents and talked them into letting her go out on her own. The guy seemed older, my age. I looked away.

“You wouldn’t believe the shit I see,” Cricket said.

I thought he meant the night before. I said, “Kirstie and me, we didn’t…”

“Yeah, I know you didn’t,” he said. “Kirstie ain’t like that. She likes her privacy a lot for a carny. We screw with her about it all the time.”

“Do you and she… I mean, do you…”

He laughed. “Yeah, she’d like to think so, huh? But no. I’m not crushing Her Kirstieness. But I love her, you know?”

I nodded.

Cricket looked at the wheel, and I followed his eyes to the couple from before. When I looked back at Cricket, he’d moved to the ride controls. He stopped it just as the couple reached bottom. They didn’t budge.

I knew what he wanted me to do. I walked toward them. “Okay! Ride’s over.”

The girl started pulling down her shirt, quick, not making eye contact. Real young. The boy opened his eyes.

“Let us off last,” he said.

“Sorry. You have to wait in line to ride again.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Cricket nodding toward a uniformed cop. He was standing about twenty yards away, collecting his free orangeade from a tired-looking orangeade wench. But before I had time to point him out, the girl climbed over her boyfriend. “Come on, Ian.” She still didn’t look at me.

I moved away.

When the ride loaded up, Cricket came back over.

“So you’re, like, the morals police?” I said, laughing.

“Hey, you let people do that, they mess up the seats.” He laughed too. Then he got serious. “The marks, the people in the real world, they think we carnies are, like … what do you call those dudes in India no one talks to?”

“Untouchables.” I was surprised he knew that.

“Right. We’re untouchables. But that’s because they don’t see what’s happening in their own clean little world. The stuff that’s going on in front of their own eyes.”

I thought of Walker and his Man-of-the-Year dinner, and I knew what he meant.

Cricket fished out a crumpled ten. “Why don’t you check with Kirstie, then come back when she tells you to bail?”

I did that. And when Kirstie told me to come back at ten when the carnival closed, I almost didn’t mind.

“Put the mole in the hole. Prize every time.” It’s five thirty Saturday. Only about forty hours until I see Mom. My guard is up, but I do my job. I focus on two girls in sorority jerseys and real short shorts. “I’m not talking pocket-sized junk either,” I tell them. “We’ve got really
big
junk here.”

One of the girls—the one chewing gum—giggles. “You’re cute.”

Her friend nudges her. “Lisette…”

“Hey, Lisette,” I say, “ever play this game?” I know how to get money from girls.

“How old are you?” Lisette asks me. She has dark hair and looks a bit like Kirstie, if you don’t look too close.

Her friend’s still nudging her. “Lisette, are you trippin’?”

“Yeah, better watch out for me, Lisette.” I grin, knowing how she’ll react. When her friend looks away, I say, “I’m Robert. I’m nineteen. Want to try?”

Lisette hesitates. “Can I have a freebie?”

I shake my head. “Wouldn’t be fair.”

Lisette’s smile tells me she’s not mad, that, in fact, I have a shot with her. There have been a lot of shots this year, a lot of opportunities, both with other carnies and with townies who like to feel wild by making it with one of us. Kirstie once told me carnies sleep around so much because they’re lonely … even though they’re never alone.

“Does it help?” I’d asked Kirstie. “I mean, does it make you feel less lonely?”

“Nope,” she said. “But you think it will, at first, so you try. Usually it makes it worse.”

She was right. In the beginning I took a few girls up on their offers. But lately I’ve sat back. I’ve held back. Maybe I’m waiting for someone I love.

But for some reason—maybe because she looks like Kirstie—I say to Lisette, “I’ve got a break in an hour. See you then?”

And she says, “Maybe you will.”

She walks away just as Cricket steps up. “Hold a sec,” I say, and I start the game. Around me, they’re all pounding. Cricket slips a copy of the
Miami Herald
in front of me.

“This guy looks like you, doesn’t he?”

I glance down, knowing before I do that it
is
me, recognizing the photo, me and Mom at one of my games. Someone at school, maybe even Tris, must have snapped it, then sold it to the paper when the price was right. I hear the pounding in my ears.

“Since when do you read the paper?” I say. My throat hurts to talk.

“Some guy left it on the ride.” He looks at it. “Is it you … Michael? His name’s the same as yours.”

“My name is Robert.”

“But it used to be … look, you know I’m on your side. But it says… I mean, people might be looking for you. For this guy.” He jabs the paper. “If it’s you, maybe you were right. Maybe you ought to bail. You could get in trouble.”