Unraveled (7 page)

Chapter Fourteen

We were eating supper when Grandpa pushed back from his plate. Pepper was with us, because Uncle James and Aunt Ida Belle were in town, signing some paperwork on the Ordway place. “Did I hear y'all are going fishing this weekend?”

Pepper stopped, holding her fork in the air and twisting her hair around one finger on her other hand. “Uncle Cody says he's gonna try.”

She was acting like her old self now that she'd gotten that California hippie phase out of her system and Mark was back. One day a few months earlier she went stringing off toward San Francisco to find out that the hippies weren't as colorful and cool as they looked on television.

During that week she run off, Pepper learned that even though they wore bright tie-dyed and beads with their bell bottoms, fringed vests, and peace signs, the Counter Culture Revolution was just a bunch of inexperienced kids with big ideas and empty pockets.

She hadn't said much about California since she got back, and I figured that little jaunt took some of the starch out of her. She whispered one night that the thing that soured her the most was their ideas of what the kids called “free love.” The love we felt from our family was one thing, but some of the boys she ran into wanted a lot more. She teared up when she told me about it, and promised that someday I'd hear the rest.

The whole thought gave me a sick feeling in my stomach, because I had a good idea what'd happened.

Grandpa drained the last of his sweet tea. “I thought you'd growed out of fishing.”

“I thought I had too, but when Uncle Cody said the white bass were running, I remembered how much fun it is to catch them.”

“You gotta clean 'em, too.” Mark grinned down at his plate. “And I bet you won't like that part.”

“Top can do it. He's faster than I am.”

“Hey! I'm not cleaning all those fish. The last time you only gutted two and then said you were sick or something and I had to help Uncle Martin 'til it was nearly midnight. I'm not doing that again.”

“It was kinda like being sick. I got my period.”

“Pepper!” Grandpa and Miss Becky both hollered at the same time, but they weren't mad, they just wanted her to hush.

Mark lowered his head even farther, hiding his grin behind a curtain of black hair. Miss Becky rolled her eyes toward Heaven. “My stars, girl.”

Grandpa studied his own plate for a minute. “You kids want to go to the carnival tonight?”

Our heads snapped toward the head of the table. “What carnival?”

“There's one set up down from the army camp. I need to go out there and look around, and figured y'all might want some cotton candy or ride a ride or something. Mama, you want to come with us?”

“Lands no. They have those gambling games and I don't want to be anywhere around that kind of sin. I'll stay right here. This is a school night, remember.”

“I know, but John's taking Rachel and the kids, so I figgered these urchins can go too.”

“Well, they don't need to be out late.”

“It's just a carnival and not the fair. They can see everything in an hour or two and we'll be back around their usual bedtime.”

Grandpa sounded like one of us trying to talk
him
into letting us have some fun. It gave me a little peek of what Grandpa was like when he was our age. “I bet James'll go with us. They oughta be back in a little bit.”

Pepper's face fell at the thought of her daddy going along, though she tolerated him a lot more than she used to. Grandpa noticed. “It'll be fine. I 'magine your mama'll come over here instead of going with us.”

I felt better when I heard that. I love Aunt Ida Belle, but she was always a drag when we wanted to have fun.

***

We came over the hill an hour later. The glow of bright colored lights not far from Camp Maxey was a base for two spotlights at the carnival gate. Grandpa was surprised. “Well this is a bigger outfit than it looked when I was here a while ago.”

We joined a line of cars waiting their turn to get into the pasture. Grandpa parked at the end of a long, wavy line of dusty cars and mud-caked pickups. Far from the carnival lights, it was dark and shadowy.

I thought Grandpa was going to take us straight back home when Pepper stepped out and said, “Well, shit.”

Uncle James' blue eyes flashed. “What did you just say?”

“Shit. Cowshit. I just stepped in cowshit.”

Grandpa chuckled as he slammed the door. “Well, this
was
a cow pasture last week, and it will be again the next. Watch where you're walking.”

“And watch your language, young lady.” Uncle James wrinkled his nose like he didn't like the smell of cow flop, which we were around all the time. “There's nicer ways of saying what comes out of the south end of a cow.”

I couldn't help but laugh at her as we joined a stream of people walking toward the entrance gate. Pepper kept dragging her foot like the Mummy in that Boris Karloff movie.

Mark held back to walk with her. He made a sound like the Mummy. “Mmmmmmmgh.”

“Shut up!” She drug her foot again, trying to scrape the last of it off, but she wasn't mad like she would have been with me. She gave him a funny little grin and ducked her head. “Or I'll knock your damn head off.”

Mark stuck his arms out and walked like Frankenstein, but she still didn't get as aggravated at him. I didn't understand a thing about he'ing and she'ing, and wondered if she'd
ever
get mad at him.

Grandpa was at the ticket booth when we caught up. The woman behind the glass looked like she didn't know what to do. “I have a note here that says to let you in, but it don't say nothing about anyone else.”

I wasn't paying much attention, looking instead at all the bright lights that turned the night into day. I bet the ticket booth had five hundred lights bulbs all by itself.

“I ain't asking for them to get in free.” Grandpa pulled a few limp bills from his wallet and passed them through the slot.

We breathed in the thick odor of fried foods, cotton candy, gas fumes, and hot grease. At the same time we were blasted with a wall of noise, flashing lights, loud music, shouts from the carnies manning the game booths, and screams from kids on the most exciting rides.

The Octopus was the first attraction inside the gate and we felt the air whooshing past from the spinning arms. The long midway was lined with game booths like the Shooting Gallery, Darts, Ring Toss, and Basketball Throw. Short trailers sold corny dogs and hot dogs beside a gypsy fortune teller. In the distance I saw a line of tents with painted canvas signs advertising freak shows. If I squinted hard enough there were other tents and signs beyond that. One said, Girls! Girls! Girls! Featuring the Latest Go-Go Dances.

I was immediately overwhelmed with the whole thing and just stopped.

Pepper's eyes were bright. “Let's ride it!”

That Octopus thing scared me to death. Grandpa and Uncle James were talking to someone they knew and weren't paying any attention to us. “Let's look around first.” I wanted to get an idea of what we could do before committing our money to a ride I really didn't want to get on.

“Grandpa, we're gonna walk around.”

He reached into his pocket handed us each three dollars in quarters. “Y'all stay together. I want you back right here in an hour and not a minute more.” He returned to their conversation before we even walked away.

It seemed like everybody in northeast Texas was there, and we were careful not to get separated, even though I felt like I knew half of them and was probably related to the rest in some way. That's what they always say about small towns, don't talk about anyone, 'cause they're probably kinfolk.

The rest of the crowd was a mix of farmers and town people, and the families passing through were almost as interesting as the carnival itself. Some of them looked as if they hadn't seen civilization in years, and many of them reminded me of the West Virginia coal miners I saw in our history book.

When he thought I wasn't within hearing distance, Grandpa called them river rats.

He didn't have anything against poor folks. He always said they come in all colors and a lot of them can't help it. Him and Miss Becky grew up dirt poor, but that didn't stop them from working hard to get what they had.

Miss Becky always made sure of a few basics when Mama and Uncle James came along during the Depression. They were fed, had clean clothes, even though they might be homemade or patched over and over again, had their hair washed and cut, and the men always shaved.

His complaint about river rats wasn't usually due to how they looked, even though that carried a lot of weight, but it was about how they acted. That went for everyone, including the Negros.

I was a little surprised at the number of colored folks there, too. I was used to seeing mostly white people. They liked fun just as much as us and a carnival was cheap entertainment, if they were careful and stayed away from the games.

There were even a few Indians that I figured were from over in Oklahoma and more than one person slowed down to look at Pepper and Mark in their headbands she'd made of old material. Her eagle feather hung on one side and glowed in the lights.

And there I was in my Boy's Regular haircut, sneakers, jeans, and a button-up shirt.

I found myself looking for Mr. John Washington and Miss Rachel. It'd be easy to find them what with his size and the number of their family and all. Mr. John didn't have any kids when they got together, but Miss Rachel had two of her own, Bubba and Belle, and they were raising her dead sister's kids, too, so there were fifteen of them total.

I knew Jere and Daisy the best, because they were closest to my own age. Their stair-step brothers and sisters, Betsy, Frederick, Christian, Josephine, Bessie, Myrlie, Florynce, and baby Bass Reeves, all hung together pretty close. I figured it was because their mama was killed after their daddy run off, and that drew them tight to one another.

The game operators were yelling and waving for us to come over, but we passed without stopping. I wanted to find the Funhouse, if they had one, or the Spook House. I real quick saw what I wanted to ride for sure and stepped onto the metal landing for the Ferris wheel.

Pepper grabbed my arm. “I don't want to ride that!”

“Don't then.” I jerked loose and paid for a ticket. It felt good to be in charge and not follow her. “The state fair's is bigger, but I like the feeling when you go over the top and down the front side. Y'all can wait here.”

“I'm going with you,” Mark said.

The ragged-looking guy running the wheel held up, waiting to see what Pepper would do. She grumbled, bought a ticket and sat down hard in the seat between us to let me know that she wasn't happy about riding it. I just grinned while we swung back and forth. I'd won a small battle with her and it made me feel good.

It took forever to get the Ferris wheel going. We finally got high enough to see the parking lot and off in the distance, the glow from the lights of Chisum. Stars glittered overhead and the lights below were bright and colorful. Off in the distance, cars passed on the highway going to and from Oklahoma.

Remembering I wanted to see the Funhouse, I scanned the booths and rides below until I found it. I was grinning like an idiot when I saw a face down in the crowd looking up at us. It was like I had a pair of binoculars, suddenly drawing the face close and clear, but I couldn't place him from that distance. Someone passed between us and he disappeared.

It was one of those things that I knew would drive me crazy if I couldn't figure out who he was. I pointed “Did you see that guy down there? Who was that?”

Pepper watched the crowd milling below. “There's a few hundred folks I can see.”

Mark leaned over the side to look and the car rocked. I thought Pepper was gonna suck all the air out of the world. “Shit!” She grabbed him around the neck and pulled him back. “Sit back before you kill us all.”

He laughed at the stars. “Don't worry. I'm not afraid of heights.”

“Well I am!” She shifted her grip and held his arm. “Stay still.”

The moving mass of people down below reminded me of busy ants. “There he goes, see? He just went out past them trailers toward the parking lot. Where do I know him from?”

“What difference does it make?” Pepper started to say something else when she jumped and screamed like the ol' Devil hisself had aholt of her. She started slapping at her head and shaking her hair. I thought she was having a fit until something slapped against the back of
my
head and then grabbed everything grabbable on the way down my shirt.

Mark jumped. “Oh!”

Another
thing
with pinchers landed on my neck and Pepper she screamed again. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

I believe I'da flown out of that seat if we hadn't had that bar across our laps. But it caught me at the hips and jerked me back and that's when I realized big old hard-shelled June bugs were attracted to the lights. The one in my shirt crunched when I leaned back.

I knocked another June bug out of Pepper's hair and then Mark started laughing like a loon. “This is probably good medicine!”

“Get me off this damned thing.” Pepper was furious. “It's bugs, not Indian medicine.”

The wheel started turning and before you know it, we were going straight down, past the landing, and then back up again. The bugs didn't land on us while we were moving, and that was a relief. Pepper settled down and snuggled up against Mark on the second revolution and quit griping.

I knew they were getting lovey dovey, so I ignored 'em and looked for that feller again every time we got to the top. I thought I mighta seen him once, going between some cars in the makeshift lot when a pair of headlights caught him, but after that he was gone.