The Rambling

by Jimmy Cajoleas

  Truth be told, Boss Authority was whooping my tail right now. I didn’t stand one ghost of a chance of winning this one, unless I got lucky, and fast. Good thing I had half Pop’s blood running through me, the luckiest blood in the whole Swamplands.

  Now came the time for us to lay down Journey cards against each other. I drew the first card and held it tight in my hands. It was a good card, but one that wasn’t quite so powerful for me this time around, how I was feeling right now. I drew the Rambling Duke.

  I laid the Rambling Duke faceup, the tall gangly traveler with a knapsack full of cards, a swagger to his steps, a gold tooth glimmering in his mouth. I played the card of my pop, charged with all the love and power I could muster, and I thrust it at Boss Authority, trying to figure how on earth he could overpower a card so full of love as that one.

  But Boss Authority just grinned at me, this weird trickster’s grin, like he’d set this trap for me ages and ages ago and I’d just blundered myself right into it. Scared me, it did, shivered me right through my bones. I didn’t know what all was about to happen to me.

  “Let me tell you the story of how the Fish Boy met his hero,” said Boss Authority. “When the Fish Boy was a little older, say seventeen or so, he ran away from home, he did, left his wretched lying mom and his evil-tempered daddy and took off to the swamp. Why the swamp? Because nobody knew him there. Because it was a place his mom never went and his daddy was scared of. Because it was the only place left in this whole wide world where he would be safe from the both of them, where nobody had ever heard of him or his family, where he could make himself new. Besides, a swamp wasn’t so bad, was it? It was beautiful in the mornings, when the sun cut through the trees and burned all the water gold. The cattails swaying in the wind, the dew on a spiderweb, the dragonflies and hummingbirds, the turtles that rose and vanished at their whims, snakes long and glistening on the water. It was all beautiful, astonishing, and new every day. Even now he remembers rowing out on his first clear night in the swamp, a big bright moon thick and gold and juicy as a peach up there, and seeing all the stars reflected in the water beneath him, like he was drifting through them, a tiny canoe that had left the old world and cut a path through space. He knew this would be the place for him, this would be where he could become someone new, the person he secretly was, the person he’d always wanted to be.”

  Boss Authority was up to something, and I didn’t like it. So far his story was better than mine, and that was a fact. I was hoping whatever card he played against me next gave me more to work with than the Sleepy Town had.

  Boss Authority drew his Journey card and plopped the Dolly Witch down on the table.

  The Dolly Witch? What was I supposed to say about her?

  I took a close look at that card, searching for clues. Because his Dolly Witch was different than Pop’s. In fact, there was something awful familiar about the witch on this card. The black hair, no speck of gray, the eyes light and silver. The smile that always looked like it was hiding something, like it was two steps ahead of you. And then it hit me. That was my mom there, that Dolly Witch, just younger, a lot younger, like how she was when she and Pop first met. Boss Authority’s Dolly Witch was my mom.

  Okay. I could say a little something about the Dolly Witch. I could say something about my mom. I shut my eyes and gave it my best.

  “Every morning the Fish Boy wakes up right at dawn,” I said, “because he’s got himself some chores to do. His mom, she runs that bakery you see right there on the Sleepy Town card, the one chimney puffing smoke. You know why it’s puffing smoke so early in the morning? Because the Fish Boy was up to get the fires going, he was, that was his number one job. A baker in a small town has to hustle same as everybody else, maybe even harder. Folks can make their own bread, can they not? But there’s something special about his mom’s cooking, and he knows it. There’s something extra in it. It ain’t quite occurred to him yet that it’s magic in that bread, it’s magic in those pastries and pies, that it’s big heart magic that makes all that food worth eating, that makes even poor families shell out an extra coin or two just for a taste. His mom bakes it all, all by herself. Sure, the Fish Boy helps where he can, but nothing ever quite goes right if he helps too much. The bread gets burned, or the dough doesn’t rise, or maybe a soufflé just flattens itself right then and there. No, he does what he can, cleaning and chopping wood and feeding the fire, but it’s his mom that does all the work. Morning till sunset, his mom, working harder than anyone ever worked in their whole life, trying to make a living, trying to make a good world for her boy. For her Fish Boy.”

  I didn’t know what was coming over me. I saw Mom, hands calloused and burned, little scars on her arms, shoving dough in the ovens so hot you got to squint when you’re near them. I saw Mom bone-tired and lonely every night, asleep before she even gets her boots off. Mom with no friends, Mom hurt and lonesome, Mom missing Pop, crying about it when she thought I wasn’t looking. I never understood it until I tried to tell the story. I never understood just how hard her life was, just how lonely.

  Right then a memory came to my mind, a strange one, and painful, and I knew it was mine to Orate.

  The memory was of a time when a carnival came to town. Maybe “carnival” makes it sound bigger than it was. Really a few horse-drawn wagons with a handful of clowns showed up. Still, it was a pretty big deal in Collardsville, and everybody flocked out into the streets to see them. Me and Mom were working in the bakery (she had me sweeping and dusting at the time, because at least I could sweep up okay without ruining everything) when Mom grabbed me by the hand and yanked me outside.

  “But I’m not finished yet,” I said. “You told me I have to be done before dinner, and at this rate, I won’t ever eat.”

  And she said, “Are you kidding me, Buddy? We got us a carnival in town.”

  I don’t know why, but I was feeling pretty crummy that day. I didn’t want to see any two-bit carnival, with no fire-breathers or elephants or sword-swallowers or tigers or even a big tent to its name. But Mom seemed so excited about the whole thing, so thrilled at the prospect of something new, that I let her yank me right out the door and into the streets of Collardsville.

  The carnival wagons were something else, I’ll tell you. They were big canvas things with strange symbols painted on them—a cardinal and an eyeball, a giant fishhook, a candle burning at both ends. The clowns had a darkness to them too, a strangeness to their makeup—all drawn-on right angles and jagged lines and gray colors—and they slunk around all seedy and dangerous-looking, not a bit funny.

  Needless to say, I liked them already.

  They began stumbling around in a circle, spinning slowly at first, then faster, and faster. It was like watching a whirlpool open up in the empty field in front of us, like any moment we would all spiral down into blackness.

  Suddenly they all stopped at once, and they stood so still it was like time itself stopped, like the sand had frozen in every hourglass in the village. One of the clowns—the tallest one, with sloped shoulders and long gangly legs—cupped a hand to his ear, and leaned into the wind, like he was listening real close for something. After a moment he began to sing.

  It was a high and mournful song, something that could be belted out across the Long Lonely Prairie, or would echo down from the tallest tower of the Old Crumbly Castle. It was a magic song, full of longing for things long gone, for a home abandoned. It was an exile’s song, it was, a wish for escape, for adventure, for any life but the life you were living.

  The clown finished and all was still and quiet, not even a dog barked in the street. The clown opened his hand and in his palm was a rose, a long thorny one, so bloodred it seemed to be dripping. He offered the rose to my mom. I looked in her eyes, and I saw something I hadn’t seen in ages. It was like the furnaces of the bakery were burning bright in them, like in that moment my mom was capable of anything. There was possibility in her eyes.

  But then the moment seemed to pass from her, a
nd her eyes sparkled instead of burned, and she took the rose and laughed. The clown did a backflip, and the wagon unveiled a troupe of musicians who began bashing and strumming away. And we all danced together, Mom even got me to dance, and we laughed and spun and hollered. I gripped Mom’s rose in my teeth and she twirled me. I couldn’t remember a time since Pop left that was so much fun.

  When we left the carnival, it was nearing dusklight. I was about as happy as I’d ever felt in my whole life. I mean, I was practically skipping, dancing around Mom, and neither of us could go five seconds without laughing.

  Then I had to go and screw it all up. I had to open my durn stupid mouth.

  I looked up at my mom, her face so beaming and glad and full of joy it might have been the moon itself.

  I said, “Man, Pop would have really loved that, wouldn’t he?”

  The light went quick out of her face, same as a candle being snuffed out.

  Mom stopped in her tracks and hung her head a minute. I saw her neck flinch, and her right hand make a fist, like she was holding something in, like she was doing everything she could not to rear back and scream.

  When she finally spoke, it was in a whisper.

  “There are only so many stories that get told,” she said.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Are you talking about that song the clown sang?”

  “It’s like in Parsnit,” said Mom. “You know how the best stories are all about the Rambling Duke, or the Mountebank, or any old adventurer who takes off down the Wayward River?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So?”

  “There are other stories, Buddy,” she said. “Of folks who maybe aren’t quite so free, who can’t just pack up and run after any adventure that comes their way. Their stories might not seem as exciting, and they might take place somewhere regular and boring. But that doesn’t mean these folks haven’t sacrificed and loved and lost and fought battles just as hard as someone out on the road. It doesn’t make their stories any less powerful, important, or real. It doesn’t make their stories mean any less.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How can the story about someone who doesn’t go on an adventure be as interesting as a story about someone who does?”

  Mom smiled at me, but it was a sad smile, and all the sparkle was gone out from her eyes.

  “Come on home now,” she said. “We got an early morning tomorrow.”

  And we walked the rest of the way in silence.

  It was only now, thinking back to the way my mom’s eyes flashed and burned for a moment, that I realized all she had given up for me. That maybe she didn’t want a quiet home life, that maybe her heart longed for wildness, for adventure. I mean, why else would she have taken up with a guy like Pop in the first place? And yet all she got out of the deal was to be stuck at home, with me.

  With me, who could only ever think of Pop.

  That was more or less the way I told it, but like it was happening to the Fish Boy instead of to me. The room was silent when I finished. Then I heard a little crying sound coming from behind me. I turned and looked. It was Pop crying. It was Pop crying at my Orating, knowing good and well I was telling the story of his strong powerful lonely wife he abandoned. Spooked me, it did. I never saw my daddy cry before.

  Drusilla Fey sat smirking at me, but nobody else thought it was funny. Even Boss Authority wasn’t laughing. He seemed hurt, like maybe he knew some of what I was talking about, what hard work and loneliness were. Like maybe Boss Authority understood a little bit.

  “Durn fine Orating!” said Lawrence, clacking the ground with his cane.

  “Hear hear!” said Johnson.

  But Boss Authority just sat there, grinning that mysterious awful grin of his. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.

  “Buddy,” he said, calm as could be, “how about you go ahead and throw down that Dolly Witch card you’re about to draw next?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You heard me,” he said. “Your next card is the Dolly Witch, so go ahead and draw it. It’s time for her in this story anyhow.”

  I reached my hand out and flipped the top card of my deck. There she was, the Dolly Witch, gray-headed and tired, but with a power in her eyes. I saw it now, how much she looked like my mom. I didn’t know how Boss Authority knew I had the Dolly Witch coming, and it spooked me. I didn’t know what else he knew about my cards that I didn’t.

  “Soon enough the Fish Boy made friends,” said Boss Authority. “Specifically, one friend. She was a witch, she was, the prettiest witch in the whole swamp. Better than that, she was nice to him. A good person through and through, and kind. The Fish Boy knew she was only nice to him because he was strange and friendless, that maybe she only took pity on him. But that was fine. Nobody had ever taken pity on the Fish Boy before, and pity was preferable to anything else he’d yet experienced.”

  Boss Authority took a deep breath and let it out slow, his eyes crinkled shut, like the next part of the story was hard to tell, like it hurt him too bad to say it.

  “But of course, this kindly witch had herself a man. The Rambling Duke, he was, and there wasn’t a handsomer fella in the whole swamp. Immediately he became the Fish Boy’s hero. I mean, his absolute idol. It never occurred to the Fish Boy to be jealous of the Rambling Duke, no sir. There wasn’t any question in his mind that he could compete with someone like the Duke, someone so wild and charming, someone with such natural luck, who could stumble through any situation and come out rich. Naw, the Fish Boy wasn’t jealous of the Rambling Duke. He loved the witch and he loved her man, and it was enough for him to be around them, for them to pay attention to him. They brought him along with them, let the Fish Boy join their little group, even gave him some responsibility, put him in charge of a job here and there. It was the proudest the Fish Boy had ever been in himself, the happiest too. He’d finally found a place for himself, and something like a family.”

  I could feel it, yes sir, the warmth of love, of belonging somewhere, of having friends like I’d always dreamed of. Because that had been my wish this whole time. To find a place for myself, to quit being a failure and a mess-up, to take up where my daddy left off. To be a part of a family again. That’s what I’d wanted all along, same as Boss Authority’s Fish Boy.

  Boss Authority opened his eyes wide then, the white one gone strange, sort of a churning whirlpool in it, milky and swirling. He turned his head and stared my daddy down, that ponytail of his lifting high like a snake about to strike. A meanness crept back in his voice right then, all grit and thorns.

  “And then came the worst night of the Fish Boy’s life,” said Boss Authority. “The night when he learned the true nature of his new friends.”

  “Please,” said Pop, his voice a whisper. “Please don’t tell this part. Not in front of my boy.”

  “Oh, I fully intend to,” said Boss Authority. “I intend to tell your boy every single word of it.”

  “I’m begging you,” said Pop.

  That’s when Marina cut in. “You don’t have the right, David. You don’t have the right to tell Bobby Felix what he can and can’t say.” She cast her eyes down to the table. “No matter how bad it hurts.”

  Drusilla Fey licked her lips and giggled a little bit, like she was enjoying all this pain and strangeness. I myself had not one clue what was about to happen, what kind of story it was Boss Authority was going to tell. I was pretty sure this had nothing to do with Parsnit though, that it had everything to do with real life, something my daddy had done to Boss long ago.

  “See, now this Fish Boy was learning a little something about himself,” said Boss. “He wasn’t any witch, mind you, but he had a spark to his blood, a shiver of magic in his bones. Nothing much, but a little. And that little was the most of anything all his own that he’d ever had. So he cultivated it, he made it grow. He read and he studied, and he learned. It was slow going, sure, book by book, scroll by scroll, herb by herb. In time he realized he had a gift with plants, with m
aking green things sprout and bloom. He could conjure near anything healthy and whole out of the muck of the swamp, make it blossom into a thousand swirling colors, a whole sunset of flowers let loose in his palms. That’s right, his early gift was beauty, this ugly guppy of a Fish Boy, weaker and smaller and tinier than all the rest. He could make pretty things bloom.

  “He just wanted to thank her, is all,” said Boss Authority, his voice cracking a little. “He just wanted to make something lovely for her, to thank her for giving him a home, a place, even friends, or what he thought were friends. He could do that much. So he grew her a painting. He planted his seeds and spun his magic, the vines sprouting and looping around a wooden picture frame he’d made, a little trellis on the inside to hold it all together. It took him months, maybe even a year, to get the colors right, to make the plants blossom and bloom just so. But he did it, he grew her a picture, a portrait, and it was beautiful. It looked just like her, the way the light would catch her in the early morning, when the sunrise made the whole swamp new, in the best moments of the day, before anything had happened, when all was still possible. That’s how this Fish Boy grew a present for the Dolly Witch.

  “He didn’t think he had a chance with her, no sir. He wasn’t even in love, not like that. It was just a thank-you, something beautiful to give, because words weren’t always his strong suit. Still, he was a little scared, about what the Rambling Duke might think. So he picked a time when the Duke and his cronies would be off somewhere, pulling a job they didn’t bother to invite him along to, they didn’t even think he knew about. And the Fish Boy went over to the witch’s house, to bring her a present. It was just around moonrise, as I recall, and the fireflies were aglow all over the swamp. I felt like I was floating past the stars and planets, I did, walking to her place. I felt like I had left this world and found myself somewhere better.”