“C’mon,” Justin said. “Let’s get outa here.”
They got their bikes moving, their legs churning again. Taking back alleys and side streets. Anything to keep from going past the men they’d seen lining the street. Mostly so Reardon could avoid the embarrassment of having to come face to face with his lush of a mother. They had just turned down another side street, when Reardon looked over at Justin, and said, “Why does she have to do that?”
Justin, who really didn’t know what to say, said nothing.
“I mean, it’s not enough she spends damn near every night down there, she’s gotta drink away her Saturdays too? Sundays too, for all I know—she damn sure ain’t spending them at home.”
“Maybe she’s lonely. You know, since your dad left y’all.”
“Lonely?” Mickey said. “For what, that old bastard? And my dad didn’t leave, she ran his ass off with her constant bitching and moaning and whining and crying. What else was he going to do, with her nagging at him every time she was around him?”
Whenever she was around him—that was the key. Justin knew Rick Reardon wasn’t around much; most everybody in town knew it. It wasn’t any secret that many of his nights were spent carousing down at the Wagon Wheel, sometimes in the juke joints over in Columbia. He liked the ladies and he liked his freedom, and he breezed in and out with the flimsiest of excuses. Sometimes not bothering to explain his whereabouts at all. But Mickey didn’t see it that way. To him, Rick Reardon was a great guy, a wonderful father, a man sorely misunderstood by everyone except his loving son.
“And he didn’t leave me.”
“What?”
“You said he left me. He didn’t. He left her.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“You said it.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“If you don’t mean anything,” Reardon said. “Then don’t fucking say anything.”
They rounded a corner and headed up Maple Street, down the lane and through another intersection, neither saying much, until: “Justin, look. Over there.”
There, right by the curb in a grey housecoat, stood Fred Hagen’s ninety-three year old grandfather, the fuzzy fabric of the pink slippers he wore not much different than the few wisps of hair he had left on his head. He was standing at the curb staring up at the sky, just like his neighbor two doors down, and a guy two doors down from him.
“Man,” Justin said. “What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you circle back and ask them?”
“Not me.”
“Heh,” Mickey said. “Me neither.”
Justin looked over his shoulder, at the sun that soon would fade from the sky. Mostly to see if that cloud was still there. It was, of course, as he had known it would be.
They turned onto the old dirt road that would lead them back to Justin’s front porch, their journey almost complete now. A little ways up, Reardon nodded to his left, at old man Terwillegher, who was leaning on his chain link fence, staring straight up at that top hat-shaped cloud. Justin followed as his friend coasted over, and then stopped in front of the man, braking his own bike to a stop as well. They sat for a moment or two, neither of them saying anything. Any other time, the cranky old coot would have tossed a few choice words their way—none of them nice. The very least they would have gotten was a scowling sneer. Like this morning, on their way out.
But this afternoon he said nothing, just stood by his fence, ignoring them as if they weren’t even there.
Justin looked over at Reardon, stifling a giggle.
Reardon’s eyes were wide, his thumbs in his ears, the other eight fingers wiggling. He was staring up at the man, mugging for him like the class clown that he was, Justin’s smile growing ever wider as old man Terwillegher suddenly cried out, “Hot damn, there’s a carnival tonight!”, and then turned and ran across the lawn, up the front porch steps and back to his house, carrying his enormous beer gut with him as he went.
“You believe me now, don’t you?” Reardon said.
“About what?”
“You know.”
“I don’t want to believe you.”
“But you do.”
“Yeah.”
And why wouldn’t Justin have believed him? On a day when tarps drop to the ground with no one’s help, and tents rise all on their own, when a circle of smoke defies gravity and a fluffy white cloud turns into a pitch black magician’s hat, who was Justin to say that a Ferris wheel couldn’t rise up from the ground like a runaway beanstalk?
Chapter Nine
Although no one lining the street that afternoon could see the Ferris wheel turning out at Godby’s field, each person became instantly aware that a carnival had come to town. Time passed, and one by one they pulled their eyes away from that dark cloud, each having experienced a profound sense of wonderment. The carnival was here, bringing with it magic and mystery, and a promise of miraculous revelations that lay just beyond their imaginations.
They knew this, just as they knew the sun was in the sky and the road beneath their feet. In the time it took to snap a finger—instantly—they had been whisked away to a mysterious world of fog and smoke and mirrors, and then suddenly returned, full of a knowledge and understanding they had no earthly right to possess. They stood stiff as signposts in the middle of the street, human weathervanes pointing toward the northern end of Pottsboro, each having experienced their very own personalized siren’s call.
There was Jack Everett, who stared out at Kreigle’s general store with a single thought in his mind: Fun and games tonight, folks! Fun and games! Something else was in there, too. A soft, alluring voice that whispered his name. ‘Come, Jackie,’ it said. ‘See what we can do. Come play with us!’ He stood in the street with a smile on his face, a song in his heart and that seductive voice in his ear, oblivious to his surroundings.
Jerry McCrea heard something, too. A rough and boisterous voice, roaring through his mind like a runaway freight train. ‘Five’ll get ya ten,’ it said. ‘Ten’ll get ya twenty!’ He was standing two feet away from Jack Everett, a man he truly despised, when he suddenly clapped a friendly hand on Everett’s shoulder.
“Jackie-boy!” he called out. “The carnival, Jackie! The carnival!”
He pulled out his car keys and turned back to the sidewalk, where his wife stood looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Carnival? What carnival?” she said, as Jerry walked past her, up the sidewalk to his car, where he opened the door and slid behind the steering wheel. Once inside, he slammed the door shut and fired up the engine, and then pulled away from the curb, leaving his wife standing alone in the middle of the sidewalk.
One by one they peeled themselves from the street. Some went back to the bar, others to cars and pickups. A couple of guys turned and walked up the sidewalk, past Tricia Reardon, who stood wide-eyed beside Ziggy Bowers as Jim Kreigle stalked slowly back to his general store, and whoever it was who had stood by the car in the middle of the street got back inside and drove slowly away. Both Tricia and Ziggy, having watched these curious events unfold, just shook their heads and turned back to the Wagon Wheel, away from a scant few disoriented stragglers still milling about the street.
The exodus nearly completed, the street near empty, Chester Roebuck piled into his pickup and took off for home. Dusk was coming to Pottsboro, South Carolina. Before you knew it, it would be dark. Chester wanted to be washed up, shined up and spiffed up and ready to roll before that happened. He’d heard it, too, standing in the street staring up at that curious-looking dark cloud. The laughing and the cheering, the screaming and shouting; calliope music floating through the crisp autumn air as one man called a sweltering throng of people to the Sideshow tent, and another called out, ‘Girls, girls, girls!’.
He’d been stuffing a receipt into his pocket at the checkout counter of the Ace hardware store when it happened. A fence needed mending, and he’d put it off as long as he could. The boards were in the bed of his tru
ck, the nails on the counter before him. He was paying Jenny Barnes when his eyes clouded over and his face went slack. He didn’t hear her thank him for his purchase, did not hear when she called out that he’d left his box of nails on the counter. He was a fish on a line, a compass pointing magnetic-north, and that magnetic current pulled him like metal shavings across the cement floor, out into the late afternoon, where he looked up at something that could only be described as a magical, mystical artifact. Shaped like a top hat, it called to him. It spoke to him. ‘Come to me,’ it said. ‘I’m yours to do with as you please. To have, to hold, to nestle in your breast. Magic, you will see; mysteries revealed. The wonders of the world will be yours, its many secrets, too. Come to me. We’re waiting. We’ve always been waiting’.
He stood in front of the hardware store, eyes raised to that soft and inviting entity. There was laughter in the air, and music. Other sounds, too: rides clanking and clamoring in the background; bells and whistles and the rushing of the wind, all accompanied by the dulcet tones of a pipe organ. The smell of sawdust and hay found him as the Barkers called the carnival-goers to the different attractions; popcorn and cotton candy wafted in the air around him. The tantalizing scent of charred meat followed close behind.
He was standing on the sidewalk staring up at the sky, when a soft and sultry voice tickled his ear.
‘Come to me!’ it said to him, and he knew that he would.
Chapter Ten
Jerry McCrea was gone; Jack Everett, too. The latter having roared away in his bright, shiny Cadillac moments after Jerry’s wife ran screaming after her husband’s fleeing car. In fact, most everyone had left the street.
Tricia Reardon and Ziggy Bowers turned back to the sidewalk to see Liz Fennel standing in front of the Wagon Wheel. Behind her stood Becka Turner, a bottle of beer in one hand, a lit cigarette in another. She was standing in the doorway, staring over Liz’s shoulder.
“The fuck was that about?” Liz said, as Tricia and Ziggy started her way.
“Fuck if I know,” Ziggy said.
He knelt down and picked up the errant bottle Tricia had tripped over on her way outside, stood back up and glanced over his shoulder, at the street, which now stood empty. “Fuck if I know,” he said, and then he and Tricia followed Liz through the open doorway, past Becka Turner, who had stepped aside to allow them passage.
They walked over to the bar, where the three women took up stools while Ziggy returned to his place behind the counter. Tricia sat in the middle, Liz and Becka on either side of her. Becka, her bottle nearly empty, took a drag on her cigarette, and then thumped some spent ash into a black plastic ashtray. Smoke streamed from her mouth as she exhaled, thin ribbons of it spiraling up from the cigarette as she snugged it into a groove on the rim of the ashtray.
“Really, what was that?” she said, as Ziggy reached into the cooler and pulled out a couple of beers. He opened them and sat one in front of Liz and Becka, and then leaned back into the cooler.
“On the house,” he said, as he fished out and opened one for him and one for Tricia.
“Why’d they rush outa here like that?” Liz said.
Ziggy said nothing, just took a long pull on his beer.
“And that cloud,” Tricia said.
“Never seen nothing like that,” said Becka. “Looked like somebody’d nailed it in place in the sky. Sure wasn’t moving, was it? Didn’t look much like a cloud at all to me.”
“I don’t know what it looked like,” Tricia said. She took a drink of beer and returned the bottle to the bar. “But yeah, didn’t look much like a cloud, did it?"
“A carnival?” Liz said. “What the fuck?”
“I swear, Liz,” Becka said. “You cuss more than ten sailors.”
“Six brothers,” she said. “What do you expect?”
Becka, shrugging her shoulders, nodded her apparent agreement, and then all three started laughing—Ziggy, too, who shook his head and took another drink of beer. He was standing there, watching the three women chuckle, when the door slammed open and in walked Sheila McCrea. She was sweating, her hair, which forty-five minutes ago had been teased up into a perfect bouffant, was now disheveled—a wide swatch of it lay plastered against the side of her face. Obviously angry, she slammed the door shut and stormed across the room, not stopping until she stood in front of the other three women, who had swiveled around on their stools to face her.
“Can you believe that shit!” she said. “Run off and leave me standing on the sidewalk like that. Me chasing after his dumb ass, and he still won’t stop? God, I could just wring his neck!” She paused for a moment, then, “What got into him?”
“We’ve been trying to figure that out ourselves,” Becka said. “Think it’s got anything to do with that cloud?”
“What do you mean?” Sheila said.
“The fuck do you think she means?” Liz said. “Every swinging dick in the place hauls ass outside to stare up at that weird-looking thing, all googley-eyed and shit, and you want to know what she means? Christ Almighty, girl!”
“Is it still there?” Tricia said. She took a drink, and held the bottle against the side of her leg. “The cloud, I mean.”
“Far as I know,” Sheila said, then, “Why did they all run outside like that? And why didn’t you, Ziggy?”
“Yeah, Ziggy,” Tricia said. “Those other men ran out of here all zombified, why didn’t you?”
Ziggy, smiling, still standing behind the bar, said, “I gotta say it again?”
“What?” Sheila said.
“He doesn’t fucking know,” Liz said
“Bingo!” Ziggy called out, drawing a quizzical look from Sheila, and chortled laughter from her friends.
Becka plucked her cigarette from the ashtray, took a drag and stubbed it out and tossed it back into the ashtray. She picked up her beer and took a drink, sat for a moment, and then said, “Seriously… what happened here?”
“Something fucked-up,” Liz said.
“No shit,” said Tricia, a slight smile playing across her lips.
“Maybe it was a practical joke,” Becka said. “Maybe they were all in on it together.”
“Sure, Becka,” Liz said. “They all got together and hung that cloud up there, then ran out of here like a bunch of morons so they could go out and stare up at the sky like a bunch of retards.”
“It’s just a cloud, Liz. A dark cloud shaped like a top hat. Just happened to be out there when they hit the street.”
“Yeah, right. Just like Jim Kreigle happened to be standing in front of his general store staring up at the son of a bitch. And I’m sure old Herbie Pender got out of his car in the middle of the street so he could be part of the gang.”
“Was that Herbie?” Sheila said.
“Damn sure was,” Liz told her, then, “I don’t know what happened here this afternoon. And I’m not sure I want to know. But I do know this: I’m going straight home when I leave here, and I ain’t coming back out ‘til daylight. And that damn cloud had better not be there when I do.”
Chapter Eleven
His name was Danny Roebuck, and he was a thirteen-year-old kid who lived two blocks over from Justin Henry in a red brick house with forest-green wood trim. His hair was red, his eyes blue; the freckles spread across his face and arms plentiful. Like Justin, and many other kids their age, he liked bicycles and baseball cards, comic books and DVDs. And just like Mickey Reardon, he had a physical characteristic, an abnormality that had followed him like a gypsy’s curse since his very first day of kindergarten. But unlike the prepubescent acne that would some day disappear from Mickey Reardon’s life, Danny Roebuck would never outgrow what he considered to be a major affliction.
Danny Roebuck had his mother’s ears. Round at the bottom and tapering up to a fine point at their zenith, they looked like elves ears, gigantic elves ears. And no matter how much Danny had grown over the years, he did not seem able to outrun those disproportionately large ears of his. But contrary to his mother, w
ho kept hers hidden under a thick head of luxurious brown hair, Danny’s ears hung off the side of his head like big, bright, flashing neon signs.
Danny, much to his dismay, possessed a set of ears that would rival the open doors of a Volkswagen Beetle. And that was exactly how his classmates—friends and foe alike—described him. Danny Roebuck had not been called by his Christian name for more years than he cared to remember. He had barely made it through the first fifteen minutes that first day of kindergarten, when during the calling of the role, his teacher said, ‘Roebuck, huh? Like the catalogue.’, and one of his little classmates called out Ears Roebuck! It was a name that had stuck with him like glue ever since, one he had begrudgingly over the years found himself answering to.
He was sitting in the living room in front of the television when his dad pulled into the driveway. The door of the old F250 groaned when it opened, and again when it slammed shut. Footsteps hurried across the yard and up the steps, and then thundered across the wooden porch. Then the front door opened and Chester Roebuck blew into the house like a Texas tornado, eyes wide and wild, his hair a disheveled mess; an excited, whirling dervish of nervous energy, running through the house talking about the carnival out at Godby’s field. He had to get ready. He had to go!
He was on his third pass through the living room when his wife, Mary, came in from the kitchen. “Carnival?” she said. “What carnival?”
“Why, out at Godby’s field, of course.”
“Godby’s field? Since when does the carnival set up at that old rundown lot?”
“Since today, I reckon.”
Sideshow Page 6
