See You on the Backlot (8 page)

You there, greenie? Open up!! Come on, now! I need you!!

Thank goodness. Get some clothes on and come with me. Now. Come on, there’s not a moment to lose. I’ll fill you in on the way to the other bunkhouse.

Look, here’s what happened. About an hour ago, Murphy rounds me up along with Charlie and takes us out to one of the far parking lots – well away from the midway or the carnival – in one of the trucks, and dumps us out onto the lawn. From there we couldn’t even see the lights from the living lot. There’s no one around at all, it doesn’t
feel like the world exists any more except for the three of us out there on the crushed grass and weeds the townies park on.

I don’t know what Murphy had said to Charlie before he got me there, but it must have been plenty. Charlie’s eyes were red and his face pale. Whatever he was going through wasn’t very pleasant.

Murphy spared nothing, ‘It’s time young Tony hears the truth, Charlie,’ he started out. ‘He needs to understand and know the real reasons why the two of you are here.’

‘I know the reason why,’ I interrupted, feeling angry. ‘It’s because Charlie drinks too much and can’t run things on his own.’

If Murphy seemed shocked by what I’d just said, Charlie didn’t. He seemed to know it was coming. ‘No,’ he started in on me, ‘the problem is that you think you can run everything by yourself – but you can’t! You’re just a kid and you have no idea what I have to go through!’

‘I know that you drink way too much and you don’t have any reason to,’ I yelled at him. ‘You just do it so you don’t have to look at me.’

‘That’s a lie,’ Charlie hissed back at me. Then his face changed, like he’d remembered something. ‘I started drinking because of what happened to your mother,’ Charlie said to me. ‘You just got the fallout from it.’ He went to get a drink from a bottle he’d hidden in his jacket, but Murphy slapped it out of his hands.

‘Tell him the whole thing, Charlie,’ Murphy said with a harshness in his voice I hadn’t heard before.

‘He’s too young,’ my father started to say, but Murphy interrupted.

‘He’s old enough to start drinking, brother.’ My pops looks stunned for a moment, so Murphy continues. ‘Yeah, that’s right. He’s on the same path you took yourself. The one I’ve been trying to get you off. And what do you think he’s gonna
find once he gets on it? He’s a man, now, whether you want to admit it or not. It’s time he knows the truth.’

I look at each of them in turn. ‘The truth about what?’ I asked.

Murphy waited for Charlie to say something, and when Charlie didn’t, he started in, ‘There was an accident, see…’

‘Let me tell it,’ Charlie interrupted. ‘Tony, I’ve never told you this, but it is important for you to understand. Your mother’s death…’ he stopped for a moment, as if to catch his breath. ‘Your mother’s death,’ he began again, ‘was an accident, just like I always told you. But… but, it was an accident that I caused.’

He took another shaky breath, but seeing that Murphy and I were not going to interrupt him, he continued. ‘Your mother and I were having a fight. A horrible, terrible fight. And it was during this fight that your mother died. But it was an accident, Tony! I swear to you…’

But now I interrupted him. ‘What was this fight about?’ I asked, unbelieving. ‘What could possibly have pushed you that far?’

‘Because we found out that Frank had been…’ Charlie started, then stopped. He grabbed his head in his hands for a moment like it would explode, then he burst out, ‘We found out that Frank had been… sexual with you, Tony.’

I could’ve died right then. Just laid down and died.

‘We know Frank from before, Tony,’ Murphy started in. ‘He used to be with the outfit… a bunch of years ago, when your da was just starting out.’

Charlie held up his hand to stop Murphy from talking more. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he reached out with both hands to me and started talking quickly.

‘We had just figured out what had happened, and were trying to decide what to do. How to handle it. We were in the middle
of nowhere, just yelling and screaming at each other,’ he said. ‘Not because we were angry at each other, but because we were beside ourselves about you! We were standing at the top of this embankment overlooking these railroad tracks.’ Charlie’s eyes watered as he remembered. ‘I had a hold of your mother by her arms and was yelling at her, shaking her… It was so wrong, but I was just so violent in those days when I was upset. Murphy was running over to where we were. I didn’t see that he was coming, but I saw your mother look at someone behind me and so I swung around ready to fight. I don’t know what happened – but somehow I ended up throwing your mother to get her out of the way. Throwing her so hard that she fell down the embankment. She hit her head on the steel tracks. She was dead by the time I got down to her.’

Murphy spoke, then, while Charlie cried wordlessly. ‘I saw her fall, too; there was nothing we could do. I knew it wasn’t your da’s fault, that it was an accident. And I made up my mind right there and then that I would stick by him and his story, even
though we were afraid the law would think otherwise. When the police arrived, we told them she had just gone out walking, and when she hadn’t come back we had gone out looking and found her like that. They didn’t really care enough to make much of an investigation. But it was enough to worry us for a bit.’

Charlie was crying into his hands now, not looking at me. Murphy stood a bit away and, after a moment of thought, began telling me more. ‘Your father’s heart broke that day,’ he continued. ‘He’s never been the same since. And not just for the death of the woman that he loved so much, the light of his life who believed in him and his love of the show and the road… but almost more so for what had happened to his son. Running the show had consumed him, had blinded him to what he should have seen happening to you. That’s really when his drinking started.’

‘I’m so sorry, Tony, that it happened to you,’ Charlie sobbed. ‘So, so sorry!’

‘How could you let it?’ I yelled at Charlie now, not letting him touch me. I was reeling from finding out all of this. My father was involved in my mother’s death, and Frank had molested me. It was too much all in one go. Charlie fell to his knees again, his face in his hands. ‘Why didn’t you do anything?’ I asked him.

Murphy stepped in, his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. ‘Do you really think he didn’t?’ he demanded, spitting angrily. ‘For God’s sake, your father was set to murder the man right then and there. Your mother, Lord knows she wanted him dead, too. But she was the clearer thinking one of the two. She wanted us to call the sheriff and get the local law on him. That’s what the two of them were fighting about. It’s how this horrible thing happened.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked. ‘Go to the cops, I mean, when you found out?’

‘Because we’re carnies, you damned fool,’ Murphy barked back. ‘We don’t get to go to the police like citizens do. You think they care
about us? They don’t – and especially not back in those days.’ His tone softened a bit, but still held a hint of steel. ‘And for something like… that. We have something of our own code here, you know,’ he continued. ‘We have a way of handling our own. And, trust me, that was the plan – but then this horrible accident happened with your mother, and then there was an inquest from the law… and by the time we were free and clear to put our hands on him, Frank was gone.’

I sat down, then, all the strength gone from my legs. I wanted to crawl into the ground rather than towards Charlie. ‘Why didn’t you say anything when he showed up on the lot after Sam’s accident?’ I asked. ‘Why did you hire him?’

‘Dammit, Tony,’ Charlie burst out, ‘I didn’t hire him – you did!’ He wiped his face off, continuing, ‘Frank had already come up to me when we landed on the lot – he told me he had seen everything that happened between your mother and I, and that he knew I was responsible. And that he was going to go to the cops. He’d been in
that town for a while, and he was probably a troublemaker there, too. But he’d been around them, those people, so his word would probably carry more weight than my word or Murphy’s with the law. Especially considering what had actually happened. And there were just too many unanswered questions in the first place.’

‘He showed up on the lot demanding I pay him to keep quiet,’ Charlie continued, ‘and I told him to bugger off. Then he was threatening to cause trouble at the show. It was blackmail, of course, but I figured he was bluffing and I was ready to call him on it. Then Sam gets that jolt…’

‘Probably something Frank set up to happen,’ interrupted Murphy. ‘He always was a wily one. It could just as easily have been me, or you, Charlie, or even you, Tony, who got zapped that day.’

Charlie nodded and continued, ‘And that’s when Frank made his play. Like I said, I was going to call him on it, not caring what he said to anyone at that point, but then you step up
and make the move to hire him.’ Charlie took a breath, like he was embarrassed by the thought of what had happened. ‘I thought of saying something, but having you there… seeing you talk to him… it was all too much. I just plain lost my nerve.’

‘And once a part of the show, thanks to you,’ Murphy said, ‘Frank made good on his threats. He started demanding money from your da. Threatening to injure more people with the show if Charlie didn’t pay up.’

‘Still holding the threat of going to the police over my head, too,’ Charlie said. ‘It was just a rock, a hard place, and a fate worse than death.’

‘Why didn’t you fight him, Pops?’ I asked Charlie.

Charlie hung his head a little
shamefacedly
, then, saying, ‘I just couldn’t. All the memories of your mother – and you – it was just easier to pay up. And when I finally started bucking him a bit – getting ready to give him the boot, and police be damned
– that’s when your accident happened. I couldn’t take another risk after that.’

Now it was my turn to be quiet. I guess I realised that my fire-breathing accident hadn’t been because of Charlie’s mistake, or mine, but because Frank was trying to get at Charlie through me. It was right then that I finally started realising what Charlie had been going through.

‘I never wanted anything to happen to you, son,’ Charlie was crying again. He reached for me blindly through his tears. ‘I should have told you. I should have told you,’ he repeated. ‘But I just wanted to protect you.’

‘But you didn’t protect me from him in the first place,’ is what I said to him then, the bitterness heavy in my voice. Suddenly, Murphy stepped up and slapped me across the mouth. He had never struck me in all the years he’d been with us – never.

‘You watch yourself,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘If any of us had had any
idea about what he had been doing…’ He left the threat unfinished. ‘And ever since this bastard came on board, again, your father and I have been trying to figure out what to do. A way to get rid of him.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me what had happened,’ I demanded from Charlie, beginning to cry a bit myself. ‘Not just about Mum, but about Frank… and me… How could you not tell me?’

Charlie reached for me again… I guess to try and comfort me. But I wouldn’t let it happen.

‘I just thought you were so young,’ he explained, ‘I figured you wouldn’t
remember
. I hoped and I prayed you wouldn’t remember.’ He began to sob, again. ‘But I saw it in you. I saw that it had left its marks in you, Tony. Everything about the way you act just says it all to anyone who can read the signs. I tried to deny it, but I’m the one who studied psychology. I’m the one who’s supposed to know and understand this stuff. And I knew, and I understood it…
and I still tried to deny it.’ Charlie’s tears were coming even harder now. ‘I’m sorry.’

I looked at the two of them for a moment. Then I turned around and started to run for the lot.

‘Where are you going?’ I heard Murphy yelling after me.

I turned, only for a moment, to see Murphy trying to pull Charlie up to his feet. My pops looked more broken and defeated than I had ever seen before – but I wouldn’t let myself stop. Not even for a moment.

‘I’m going to find out the truth,’ I yelled back at them. ‘And I’m not going to stop until I get it straight from him… No matter what it takes!’

And then I ran all the way here to get you, greenie. Now I want you to come over here with me… I’m going to call out Frank. I’m going to get the truth. And I’m going to do something about it all. Stick close to me, son – it’s time I set some things right.

Are you all right? Hey! Greenie! Wake up, now – are you all right? Sit up a bit… just take it easy.

You gave us a scare, son – I’ll tell you that for nothing. Do you remember what happened? Well, what do you remember? OK, OK. I got it – right? Here, let’s get you up and off the midway. I’ll get you a cup of coffee and then fill you in on what you missed. After all, it’s important we get our stories straight in case the law comes around, asking questions.

How are you feeling now? Good. That’s real good. You took a pretty good couple
of knocks there, but it wasn’t your fault. I appreciate that you were there. I really do. It’ll be a while before Murphy and Charlie come back. Just have another cup and I’ll tell you what happened after I sent you off to get Big Mike.

Well, after you ran off, I searched a couple more places and didn’t make it a secret to anyone who I was looking for. Of course, I didn’t say why. I was waiting for that one. I figured if I made enough noise, he’d come looking for me. And he did.

I was right in the middle of the midway’s back end, walking pretty quick, right? Checking each joint as fast as I could, trying to track him down, when I heard him speak up behind me. He was saying something he must’ve thought was tough, like ‘What do you think you’re doing, kid?’ or something just as dumb.

Tell you what, right then and there I made my choice. There was no way I was going to let him talk down to me, let him think for even a moment that he had some
upper hand or something over me.

So I stop dead in the dust. Then I turn around nice and slow. And I’m looking at the ground when I turn, see, so I can let my eyes travel up to meet his, nice and slow – like in one of those western movies – because I’m figuring I’ll show him how tough I really am with this.

But as soon as I looked at him I felt… well, I felt weak, I guess. Sick. I don’t have any other word for it. Here I was, looking into the eyes of a guy who’d tried to kill me. And he did, you know. He did when he switched-out my fuels during that show, the one where I caught fire, remember? And it wasn’t just that; there was also what he’d done to Charlie and my mom… and what he’d done to me. And he’d never paid for any of it.

His eyes were cold. Blue. Cold and dead, dead as the sky gets sometimes when it’s lit up by the sun you can’t ever see. And for a moment – just a moment – I’m thinking that I can’t stand up to him.

But then I get my head on straight. I mean, this guy has been ripping us off. This guy was some kind of pervert who likes little boys. This scumbag has tried to tear my whole life apart. And the only thing coming into my head is that I need to take care of Charlie. That my pops couldn’t protect me… but now
I
gotta protect him, right?

I could see from his eyes that this guy could kill me. Probably wouldn’t care two shakes if he did. But I had already decided I wasn’t going to let him, you know? I mean, I eat fire, right? There’s no trap I can’t escape from. No pain I’m afraid of, right? Nothing that worries me! And I realise that my whole life, everything I am, means that I’d rather go down fighting than just lie down and die.

All this – I mean this whole thing I’m telling you about – just happens in seconds, right? Like it’s all right there in my head while we are standing there in the lights, staring each other down. I can’t hear anything. I can’t see anything.
It’s like there’s nothing else there, right? I even forgot I’d sent you off to get help. I forgot Charlie and Murphy, and the other carnies, too. There was nothing in the world but him and me, facing each other. And we were going to be playing for keeps. It felt like the fate of the world was in my hands.

So then, he’s like, ‘What do you want, kid?’

And I don’t miss a beat, right? I answer him right back, loud and clear. ‘You don’t call me kid, Frank,’ I told him.

I guess he didn’t think I’d talk back to him like that. Maybe he thought I’d back down. And he doesn’t seem to like it one bit that I’m standing up to him because it’s a moment before he answers me. ‘I hear you’ve been looking for me,’ he said.

‘I want the truth, Frank,’ I told him, with no playing around. ‘The whole thing. All of it! Everything you know.’

‘Well, now,’ he said, running his hand along his unshaved jaw, ‘that’s a lot to talk about.’ He’s kind of smiling now, because he thinks he has me. ‘If you want to talk to me about running your show, then there’s quite a bit you could learn from me, kid.’

‘I’m no kid, you son of a bitch,’ I spit out at him. His smile stops right there, it does. ‘I want to hear what you’ve been saying to Charlie.’

He’s not smiling now, let me tell you. ‘You do, do you?’ he asked me. ‘Maybe you’d rather know what everyone else has been saying about your Charlie. About you and your stupid show.’

‘I already know what they’re saying,’ I told him straight out. ‘I also know that it’s just what you’ve been telling them. And that you’re a liar.’ I take a breath, then, to cool down before dropping the bomb on him. ‘I know you were with the show before. Charlie told me everything.’

Frank gets a little pale at this. He’s
probably figuring Charlie spilled to me, and he’s trying to guess exactly how much I know, right? I can see him licking his lips, getting scared. He takes a step towards me, but I stand my ground.

‘Charlie tells me you’ve been taking money from him,’ I told him. ‘And that means you’re robbing everyone else on the show.’

Frank spits in the dust. ‘Tell you that, did he?’ He was grinding his teeth. ‘He also tell you I was there when he killed your momma?’

If he was trying to shock me, he was dead wrong. I could read him like I read a tip. All I had to do was push him the right way and he’d admit everything. ‘He told me that’s what you said,’ I answered. ‘But, see, I don’t think you were there.’ Frank’s jaw stopped working.

‘See, Frank,’ I continued, ‘I think if you’d been there, if you’d really seen something, you would have gone singing to the sheriff
right off. I think you were already gone from the lot by then, because you figured out my folks knew what you’d done… to me.’ Frank went even paler, if that was possible. His hands clenched into fists, knuckles white, his lips pursed into a thin line.

But I wasn’t done, yet. See, my mind was racing hard. I had been wracking my brain about everything that had happened with Frank since I first saw him… and now the pieces of this puzzle were finally fitting together.

‘Even if you didn’t have the guts to go to the law, you would have come after Charlie a long time ago,’ I said, thinking out loud, trusting in my gut that I was right. ‘No, you probably heard my mum had passed on a while ago, and just played a hunch about it when you saw our show pull onto this lot. You tried to play Charlie like a rube. Then, when he didn’t go for it, you rigged that accident for Sam to get yourself under our canvas.’

I figured I had just about covered it all,
so I finished big: ‘You figured you’d work another angle, maybe rig some accidents, then lean on Charlie, when you figure he’s weak, to start him paying you… and then you try to take the show out from under us.’

He was mad enough to kill me right then. I could see it in his face. His blue eyes blazed, his hands clenched up ready to start pounding on me.

‘Bet you think you’re a big man, don’t you, boy?’ he said with a shaking voice. ‘Talking that way to me? Maybe you think your old tosspot daddy is going to be able to protect you from me?’

‘I’m just saying,’ I said, shrugging, ‘it all makes sense. And it if makes sense to me – a kid – then I bet it makes sense to other people on the lot. Maybe even Big Mike.’

‘You think they’re going to listen to you?’ he growled.

So help me, greenie, I actually smiled at
him right then, to drive him even more crazy. ‘I think they’re tired of hearing a lot out of
your
mouth,’ I told him. ‘I’m betting most of them will give me a good listen, and…’

Frank interrupted me, shouting, ‘It won’t make no difference what you say! Charlie was paying me to keep quiet about your momma getting killed.’ He licked his lips, thinking hard. ‘He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t had something to do with it.’

‘Charlie has a conscience,’ I pointed out. ‘Something you wouldn’t understand. He still blames himself for my mother’s accident. You probably caught him on a tear, so he was feeling guilty. Anyone who knows him will understand that when I tell it.’

‘You think that’s going to make any difference to them?’ he asked, waving behind him like he meant the rest of the carnival. ‘Tell them anything you want – all that will matter to any of them is that I can make a buck. Better than you or your
lousy dad!’

I’ll bet he was going to leave it at that, figuring he’d won. But I had one last thing to tell him. Nice and quiet, I said, ‘What if I go ahead and tell them about how you like little kids.’

‘So what if you do?’ he sneered back at me. ‘You think they’re gonna believe a little punk kid like you? You think they’re gonna care what some disturbed boy says? You jumped some random guy in the cook shack! Then you make moves on his daughter! Then you pick a fight with me…’

‘These people know me,’ I told him. And I told him this next bit because I know that it’s true. ‘And they know I’d never lie about anything like that.’

‘You’re all liars,’ he spat out at me. I can see flecks of foam flying off his lips as he begins to stagger towards me, shaking with fury. ‘All you damn kids! Well, don’t forget this, boy – you came on to me. Yeah, that’s right – you wanted it from me! You
never cried. Not once. Not any of the times I had you.’

The whole time his voice is rising. I can hear the start of a scream in his voice as he lashes into me. So, now I’m starting to feel sick. I mean, what if he’s right, you know? I couldn’t remember – so what if there was something to what he was saying about me? But I force myself to keep thinking about how he was trying to take the show. And I don’t back off from him, even though he’s staggering towards me, all crazy-like.

‘Yeah!’ he yelled at me, waving his hands around. ‘You remember! I can see it! You know that’s what you wanted.’ He stumbles closer, grabbing for my shirt, but I step back, staying out of his reach.

‘I’d never have you now,’ he grabs for me again, but misses. He’s close enough that I can smell cheap liquor on him. ‘Just like no one else here would, either.’

That was when I heard you yelling, greenie. I didn’t even know you were there
until I saw you slam into Frank from behind and knock him to the ground. Where did you learn those moves from?

Anyway, you sure caught him by surprise – he didn’t expect to find himself on the ground, that’s for sure. Of course, he’s a carny, ain’t he? And any carny’s ready for a clem, any time, drunk or not, so he was back up in a flash. You did good, though. Big Mike was telling me he thought you’d go the distance, but I guess when Frank kicked you in the knee and dropped an elbow on your melon, that was it, huh?

But you slowed him down… slowed him down good. I looked around and saw a lot of people on the midway now, standing close to us. More people than I thought worked at the whole carnival. But, I tell you, there wasn’t a townie there. Or a lawman. Big Mike was the first one to speak.

‘Hold on there, Frank,’ I heard him yell. Lots of fat guys, they have soft voices, you know? Not Big Mike. Got a voice bigger than he is, he does.

So Big Mike’s voice, booming through the midway, brings Frank up short. Instead of taking a kick at you while you were lying there all cold, or swinging on me, he looks around and sees everyone just standing there looking at him. He gets quiet too, you know? Just stands there looking at everyone, because he knows he’s trapped. And the midway is quiet, too. Quiet as I’ve ever heard it. I didn’t think it was possible for anything to be that quiet with all those people standing there.

That’s when Murphy and Charlie show up. I don’t know how long they’d been there. Long enough to hear what had been said, that’s for sure. The circle of people standing around me and Frank parted just enough to let the two of them through – then close back up. No one was leaving here until this was all settled.

That’s the carny way of life, you know. There’s a beef? We keep it under our awning, if we can. We settle our own scores – and we look out for each other. Big Mike, it’s his carnival, so he steps up to look over
things like he’s a judge in a courtroom. I just didn’t know what he’d say once everything came out in the open.

‘Charlie,’ Big Mike asked nice and loud, ‘is everything your boy says true? Has Frank here been after your stake?’

Charlie didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. He just looked around at the circle of people until he was looking at Frank, then he looked at me before nodding his head slowly.

‘I figured,’ Big Mike said. ‘Now, Frank, what have you got to say about it?’ Frank opened his mouth real quick, like he was going to spout off, but Big Mike interrupts him. ‘Now, I want you to think hard about what you’re about to say, Frank,’ he told him. ‘We’ve had an earful already.’ People around the circle nodded that they had. Some of them just stood with their arms crossed and mean looks on their faces.

Frank swallowed hard, considering his next words. Finally, he opened his mouth.
‘I may have taken the chump’s money,’ he told the crowd, pointing at Charlie, ‘but it ain’t nothing compared to what he’s done. It’s true, I never seen his wife take that tumble, but I bet he had his hands on her when it happened – and some of you know it, too! He’s lucky that that’s all I did – take money from him.’

‘It was an accident!’ Charlie burst out.

Frank saw an opening and jumped right for it. ‘Seems to me,’ he yelled, ‘that you’re awful quick to speak up about it! You must be feeling awful guilty. Guilty for a reason!’ An angry mutter went through the crowd, but I couldn’t tell whose side they were on.

‘Hold on, there,’ Murphy interrupted, calm as can be. He stepped forward so everyone could see him, and put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. ‘Now you all know me. You know who I am and where I’ve been. I’m telling you that I was there, and Frank was not. Charlie
was
there, but it was an accident – just like he says.’ Murphy
looked around the circle of people, like he was looking into each person’s eyes directly. ‘Most of you also know Charlie. You know his son. You know what kind of man he is.’ He pointed at Frank, saying, ‘And a lot of you know Frank from when he was with the show before. You know what kind of person
he
is, too.’ He looked at Frank for a moment, before saying, ‘And you know there’s no room for a Chester here.’