And in the alleys between the tents and the concession stands and the caravans and the trucks and the wagons, the soft quiet sound of a young woman laughing.
Casey crossed Mainland Road and angled to his left, toward one of four broad wood ramps that had been placed across the drainage ditch on the other side. A thorn hedge had been cut down here, and he climbed the slope on another ramp and stood to one side, hands on his hips, doubt his expression.
It was all ebony and silhouette because of the lowering sun. Cutouts they were, unreal, that swallowed the people who walked under the high filigree wood arch, reaching up to a man on a high stool on either side who exchanged money for tickets, jokes for jokes, questions for directions.
It was huge.
There were lights strung on wire through the air, hanging from wire along the fence that marked the fair’s boundary; from somewhere in the back was a spotlight that still hadn’t the strength to quite match the light still lingering in the sky.
It amazed him.
What he had expected was something on the far side of tacky, something dusty and run-down and showing its age, something he could move through in an hour and still have time for another drink with Molly; what he saw as he moved forward and could see through the arch gate was enough to keep him busy for this night and ten others.
I’ll be damned, he thought; I’ll be damned.
The entrance fee was ten dollars, and the ticket man assured him that he wouldn’t have to pay for anything else, unless he got hungry.
He nodded, clumsily pinned the ticket to his breast pocket as he’d been instructed, and stepped inside, onto a wide, bare earth midway lined with game booths and food stands so brightly painted, so individually done, that if someone had said I’ll meet you in an hour by the purple dragon, he would have known exactly where to be.
Incredible.
He strolled on.
Unbelievable.
A short distance in was an intersection, the games and food continuing left and right; straight ahead, amusement tents and caravans — dancers, singers, a variety show, a sword swallower, a magician, much more.
He stood in the center and couldn’t make up his mind, was angry that he couldn’t because this wasn’t supposed to be. He had been ready to starve, not be given a feast.
“Hey, Mr. Bethune!”
He spun around, then sidestepped deftly when a gang of kids charged past him. One, a young girl he recognized as being new to the Station, skidded to a halt and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her arm.
“Easy does it, Fran,” he cautioned, grinning as she panted, and thumped at her chest. “You’re going to kill yourself before the fireworks.”
“Fireworks?” Eyes under dark hair widened in delight “Really? Fireworks?” She looked around anxiously. “Where? Where will they be?”
He laughed. “Tell you the truth, I don’t know if there’ll even be any. I just got here myself.” Her clear disappointment made him feel like a rat, and he tapped her shoulder lightly. “But look, this is a fair, right? So you have to have fireworks. I mean, what would a fair be without them?”
Peering after her friends, Fran shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head, crossed her heart. “They don’t have fairs in Cambridge, Mr. Bethune. Not like this; I mean.”
He almost laughed again because he knew the girl wasn’t happy with the move from her old home. Every morning, bringing the mail, he had the distinct feeling she was waiting for news that her father had somehow, miraculously, been fired and they’d have to return to the city. Where they didn’t have fairs.
He knew how she felt
As beautiful as it was with its old homes and older hills, the valley farms and shallow creeks, the Station did that to some people. As if it were alive and, walking home at night, it watched, it waited, like a dark patient beast in the mouth of a monstrous cave. Nothing threatening, nothing dangerous. Just watching. Waiting. For something to go wrong.
A shrill call above the music that had suddenly sprung up from a dozen, a hundred directions at once. Fran turned and waved wildly, looked up at him and said, “Elly says there’s a real neat merry-go-round over there someplace. All kinds of animals and things. You wanna come?”
He was too surprised to answer immediately, and when the summons came a second time, she blurted something about meeting him there maybe and raced away, expertly dodging between the legs of grown-ups too tall to notice her, vanishing just as he regained his voice and said, “Sure.”
Sure?
What the hell are you doing, Casey, making a date with a kid?
He didn’t know; he didn’t care; he found a stand that sold ice cream and had them make him a cone that nearly toppled from its height. He licked it, wiped ice cream from his nose, and followed without meaning to a group of teenagers too busy pushing and shoving one another to pay attention to the glares their boisterous behavior provoked. He glared at them himself, nearly threw his cone at them when they collided with an elderly couple barely able to move along. The old man said something, but the teens didn’t stop, only laughed, pushed and shoved, and broke into a run.
As he passed the couple, Casey wanted to say something, but he couldn’t think what and so left it alone.
Stopping at a tent whose face was painted with fire, taunting demons in the flames, avenging angels above, a man in clerical garb on a platform before it all, upraised Bible in one hand, growling torch in the other, promising miracles of the prophets for those who entered and believed;
stopping at a low square building with a painted skull surrounding the entrance, ghosts in flight, a banshee, an undersea creature, a man dressed like Frankenstein’s monster telling all the men that this was the place to get the girls hopping into their laps, thrills and excitement, a money-back guarantee if you didn’t first die of fright;
stopping at a tent painted in warm browns and tans and comforting gold, palm trees and a cactus and a beautiful woman in a long-fringed bikini dancing to a flute played by a young boy sitting cross-legged below her, the barker winking at the men, suggesting the women move on and give their guys a break from the old ball-and-chain, the women giggling, the men either blushing or posing, the flute never pausing, as if the dancer were a cobra that either swayed or struck;
stopping at a second intersection, under the corner rope of another tent, finishing his cone and wiping his hands on his jeans, the lights brighter, almost a glare that made him look up to see that the sky had gone dark, the sun gone, though the heat hadn’t left.
Idly he watched the crowds move like schools of tropical fish. Dozens of them, then nothing, then dozens more and nothing again. Playing in the coral, no sharks to fear and sharks hiding all over. A pair of lovers kissing fervently while still walking, his hand burrowed in her hip pocket, her hand tucked in his waistband. A silently weeping child in a stroller, redfaced and barely able to stay awake. A clown blowing a balloon for a little boy in a sailor suit. A cowgirl showing a comically intent man how to twirl a lasso.
The music.
The aromas.
The voices.
The noise.
Adults and kids with someplace to go.
Suddenly Casey closed his eyes and felt like crying, didn’t understand why . . . unless it was because they had someplace to go.
“Nonsense,” he snapped at himself, cleared his throat, cleared it again, and not caring where he went followed the sound of an old song he thought he knew, focusing on it, humming it, turning a corner and seeing the fair open up into an oval of several acres that held at least a dozen rides, from tiny clanging fire engines on circular tracks to the Octopus, whose jointed steel arms lifted spinning cabs into the dark beyond the reach of the lights. Shrieks and wails and children pointing and parents grinning and at the back, barely seen, the pointed circus top of a carousel.
He stared at it, frowning, moving sideways around the oval’s rim as
if losing sight of it would vanish it before he could reach the place where a line had formed.
It was black. Gleaming, faceted, strung with hundreds of red and orange bulbs, the glow beneath its canopy falling a mistlike green upon the animals and their riders, the mirrors in the center housing rimmed with glittering gold, tall rectangles that reflected a thousand worlds that lived in their faces for less than an instant. Halfway there, he spotted Fran on an ostrich, kicking her legs and leaning over, trying to grab the tail of a fleeing giant rabbit. A half turn of the base and he stopped, mouth agape, when Mayard Chase whirled past with a child in his lap, atop a kangaroo and pointing a stern finger at another child beside him, on a snarling hyena.
He hoped Yard hadn’t had too much more to drink, or there’d be one hell of an embarrassed hardware man once the carousel stopped spinning.
A little closer, and he noticed a cleared area on the far side of the ride, off to his left. Well, I’ll be damned, he thought. It was a dance floor twenty or thirty feet on a side, with at least a dozen couples happily waltzing to the music the carousel played. He recognized a few faces, puzzled over a handful more, then waved blindly and quickly when Fran called his name.
Gone again.
Back again.
Gone, and his head began to feel tight from the din, his stomach empty in spite of the ice cream. It was time to go, there was nothing here for him, and once again the urge to weep made him close his eyes as he turned to leave.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!”
He stepped back hastily, collided with someone who pushed him away, collided with someone else who wanted to know if he was drunk, and nearly fell over the waist-high iron rail that separated the oval’s dirt track from the rides. A hand grabbed his arm and tugged until he followed, through the crowd until he was clear, in front of a stand that sold beer and soda from huge yellow barrels.
“Sorry,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his hip pocket and mopping his face.
“It’s okay, I just didn’t want to get trampled.”
He looked, and felt soft heat begin to climb toward his cheeks.
A woman stood next to him, strawberry blonde and nearly as tall as he; her white shirt was open three buttons down, the tails tied over her bare midriff, and her white shorts were high enough to show him muscular tanned legs too smooth to be real. She smiled, hooked one sandaled foot behind, the other and folded her arms across her chest
“You’re not drunk, are you?”
He shook his head.
She nodded as the carousel wound down, the music slowing, stopping, pausing only a few seconds before starting up again to warn potential riders there wasn’t much time.
Casey looked away, afraid she would think he was staring. Which he had been. And cursing himself for not having the glib gift of gab. Standing here like an idiot would chase her away soon enough; the right word, however, just might keep her around a little longer.
The carousel.
Someone screaming delightedly, carried high on a ride.
“Would you like to dance?”
He looked back, but she wasn’t laughing. Her right hand pointed at the dance floor.
“Do you speak English?”
“I’m a postman,” he answered, and grimaced. “That is, yes. I mean, I speak English, yes.”
Her nod forced the blush higher.
“And I guess so,” he added. “Dance, I mean. I mean, I’m not very good at it, I haven’t danced in years, but —”
“Good enough.”
She seized his hand and pulled him, forcing him to follow lest he be yanked off his feet. As it was, he nearly fell twice, tripped over a baby-carriage wheel once, and hopped for a dozen clumsy yards before he regained his balance. By the time they reached the dance floor she was laughing so hard there were tears in the corners of her eyes, and he was ready to be furious, humiliated, and exhilarated.
He had no time to choose.
As soon as their feet touched the wood, she was in his arms and they were dancing. Awkwardly at first, until their bodies adjusted; not perfectly, but smoothly, once they locked on the music’s rhythm.
The weight of her left hand on his shoulder was so light he could barely feel it, the warmth of her back through the shirt moved his hand around as if he didn’t know how to hold her. He didn’t look at her face; he didn’t dare, or he’d kick her, or trip her, or step on her toes.
But she did look at him. He could feel it as he watched the others gliding around them, some of them faster, some of them slower, most of them smiling self-consciously or laughing as if it wasn’t their idea, to dance in front of their friends, in front of strangers.
Around, like the carousel, until the music stopped.
She curtsied prettily, without mocking.
He bowed as gallantly as he knew how, and asked if she’d like sit down for a while, until he caught his second wind.
“I —”
“There.” He pointed at the saddled animals. “At least I won’t black-and-blue your poor shins.”
She closed one eye in a frozen wink, giggled, and nodded, and they jumped onto the platform just as it began to move. The animals and a few sleighs were three deep, and she hopped onto a stately giraffe, grabbed his shoulder when he tried to climb onto the beast beside her.
“No, the other one,” she said, pointing to the inside, a haughty llama with bared teeth.
Puzzled but afraid to argue, he did as he was told, then asked why without speaking.
The carousel began to turn; he grabbed the brass pole as the llama began to rise in a slight forward motion.
“It’s a contest,” she explained, not quite shouting over the music. “You have to wait for the penny tune.”
“Huh?”
Oh, brilliant, Casey, just brilliant, you jackass.
“That’s all right.” She tilted her head. “See, you can’t ride the lion unless you hear the right tune.”
“Lion?”
She nodded.
He felt like a jerk for not noticing the creature between them — a male lion. Gold, features suggested rather than carved. It took him so long, he couldn’t help thinking of the way he had teased Yard, back at the Brass Ring. But this woman wasn’t he; she simply waited until he said, “Oh, I get it. Kind of like musical chairs.”
“Right,” She laughed and applauded.
“You hear the tune, you get to the lion first?”
“Right!” she said again, and leaned across the lion’s saddle, patted his arm in congratulations. “Ride the lion, win the prize.”
“What’s the tune? What’s the prize?”
A shrug. “It’s different every night. Both of them.” She pulled away slowly. “So you keep trying, because sometimes it’s worth a lot of money.”
“Damn, I never heard of it.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Who cares, if we win.”
Faster, the carnival a blur, the lights a single stream, making him dizzy, and he looked at the mirrors instead, spotting a break in them midway along. An alcove, and in it a quartet of mechanical bears playing drums, horn, chimes, a two-tiered silver xylophone. They wore tuxedos and huge goofy grins; and he soon grinned with them, looked at the woman and wondered when it was he had died and had been carried secretly to heaven, tried to see ahead and behind in hopes that Yard was still around. Yet it didn’t matter when he couldn’t find his friend because this was somehow something he didn’t think he could share.
The carousel slowed, the music slowed with it, and before it was done, she was out of her saddle and off the platform, on the dirt. With a pat to the llama’s neck, he climbed down and stood next to her, not sure what to do with his hands, found at least one thing when Fran and her friends raced past him to get back in line, and she waved. He waved back, blew her a kiss.
“Yours?”
“Nope. Just a kid I know.” He sniffed, tugged at an earlobe. “Do you work here?”
“Now what makes you think that?”
“I don’t recognize you. I mean, it’s not that I know everyone in the Station, but —”
She grinned, scowled mockingly, grinned a second time. “Most of the time I substitute at the midway games. You know — a guy needs a break, I step in, stuff like that.” A glance and grimace at her watch. “In fact, damnit, I’d better get going or I’m gonna get killed.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
She shook her head, half-turned as if to run. “Too long. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”
He held up a hand. “Hey, wait, what’s your name? I can’t thank you for the dance and ride if you don’t tell me your name.”
“Sure you can,” she said, and skipped a few steps backward before laughing, spinning, waving with both hands over her head and slipping into the crowd.
He followed rapidly after her for several yards, eventually trying to run and failing, telling himself he was too damn old for this sort of thing, that she had to be at least fifteen years younger than he, with a boyfriend who had muscles growing out of his ears.
Nevertheless he grinned as he slowed, whistled as he left the fair, clapped his hands and punched the air when he heard the fireworks begin. Walking backward along Chancellor Avenue, he watched a rocket explode into a white blossom, a green star, a red shower of sparks. Facing forward was an effort, and he took his time getting home, thinking every so often that she was following him back there, ducking behind trees, crouching behind a hedge, kneeling beside a parked car and stifling her giggles with her hands.
Too old, he told himself, and didn’t believe a word.
Swarthy men dressed in black, picking up papers blown by the wind, stuffing them in sacks slung over their shoulders; a second group feeding animals prowling in wheeled cages, the sound of raw meat slapping the bars, hitting the floors; a third group winding through the quiet rides, picking up coins and wallets and pens and combs and stuffing them into sacks slung over their shoulders.
A lone man on the carousel, rag in hand, cleaning the wood, the mirrors, the brass, the iron stirrups; a woman in a windbreaker checking each animal’s eyes, legs, necks, hooves, stroking manes and flanks, whispering, moving on; a dark figure on the roof, changing all the lights to blue.
The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel Page 3
