Southampton Spectacular

by M. C. Soutter

  According to some, however, the rides made it all worthwhile.

  Though by no means according to all.

  Consider: the rides at the traveling carnival were not in any better shape than the rest of the equipment. They were just as banged up, just as dirty, and just as overpriced (though at least you knew more or less what you were paying for when you stepped up to the gate). The paint on the spaceship whirlers was faded, the edges of the giant teacups were chipped and rusted, and the seats on the parasol swing were dented and misshapen. The service on the rides was even more careless than at the game stands, since the rides sold themselves; here there were no barkers, no falsely smiling men in striped shirts assuring you that anyone could win. The man standing at the entrance to the giant Round-Up centrifuge had a sour expression on his face, and he seemed actively displeased at each patron coming through the gate. He took tickets without looking at those who held them out; he shut the door behind the last teenager with a slam, released the safety latch and engaged the machine’s massive, single-gear motor with a violent tug on a lever caked with layers of lead paint and sweat and oil.

  And yet when the ride itself began, there was something.

  That single-gear motor was a powerful one, and you could feel this under your seat, or under your feet, whether you were in the Spaceships or the Helicopter Rotors or the Round-Up or the Gravitron or, saints preserve us, the Zipper. The steel structure of the ride made little groans and rattling noises as the motor accelerated, and you were suddenly very aware that this was a ride that had been assembled. It had been assembled recently, from a jumble of rusty parts that had been lying in the back of a truck’s trailer only days ago, or even hours ago. Not only that, but it had likely been assembled by the same bored, marijuana-addled kid who had taken your ticket a minute ago, a kid whom you wouldn’t have trusted to park your car, or even your bike. You looked below you, at the rapidly receding ground and the dingy yellow tents of the carnival below, and you could pick out the oversized hairpin clasps that had been used to secure this ride’s structure at every key joint. You thought to yourself, as the spaceship or the teacup began to fly, to really fly around in a way you hadn’t believed it could, that the only thing between you and a messy, twisted-metal death was a bunch of giant hairpins. Hairpins, you thought, as the tops of the trees flashed by in the dark, and the motor started to make a high, humming noise of startling strength. Hairpins, and the engineering skill of marijuana-boy down there.

  And it was thrilling.

  They came to the carnival as if returning to a favorite playground. Nina said they should try the two-coke-bottles-with-a-softball game first, but Barnes was adamant about the ring-toss. James and Florin went straight for the darts and balloons. Devon and Austin hung back and watched them go.

  “Come here often?” Austin said.

  Devon grinned. “Not for a few years now. Fun to come back, though. Memories.”

  “Win anything good?”

  “Not once. Fun to remember when we were all twelve, is what I mean.”

  Austin nodded, perhaps pleased to learn that the bar had been set so low. Surely he could win something for her. Not that he could see anything worth winning. “Which game do you want to start with?” he asked.

  Devon shook her head. “I don’t care much about the games. I like the rides.”

  “Ah.” He relaxed a notch. No pressure to win anything. “Great. Scary ones?” He looked around doubtfully. “Do they have scary ones?”

  Devon laughed. She put her hands out like a display model showing off a new car. “They’re all scary,” she said.

  “Um,” he said. “Okay. But maybe you’re remembering from when you were twelve.”

  Devon didn’t say anything. She took his hand and led him toward their first ride. “We’ll start easy,” she said. “Spaceships.”

  He looked at the ride, at the little open capsules with the faded lighting bolts painted on the side, and then at the half-asleep man slouching by the ticket booth. “Is there something about this thing I don’t see?” Austin asked.

  “Come take a spin with me,” Devon said, still leading him along.

  He didn’t resist. “I get to sit next to you in one of those things, right?”

  “You do, yes.”

  “Okay, then.”

  And so they took a spin.

  They came stumbling out three minutes later, both slightly breathless, their eyes wide and unblinking. Devon was laughing, but Austin was not.

  Florin and Nina and James and Barnes were done with their games for the moment, and they came over to regroup. “How’d that go?” Barnes asked Austin. “Still as terrifying as I remember it?”

  Austin gave him a startled look. “Yes,” he said, with wonder in his voice. “But it’s not the ride itself. It’s because you think the whole thing could fall apart at any second.”

  Barnes nodded eagerly. “Right, exactly. That’s the whole point. Scary as shit, I know. All the rides are like that. Wait until you try the Zipper.”

  Austin glanced at Devon, who was still giggling quietly, as though having trouble getting over a good joke. He said, “We’re not done?”

  She pulled herself under control. “Not even close.”

  “But I’ll still get to sit next to you.”

  “That’s true.”

  Austin took a breath and steadied himself. “Then it’s still okay.” He sounded almost convinced.

  Florin gave the two of them a concerned look. “Maybe a quick break first?” she suggested. “The darts are flying well this evening. Want to come pop some balloons?”

  “No way,” Devon said, and she led Austin off to their next ride. He turned to look back as he was led away, and he gave Florin a grateful nod. For trying.

  She waved at him.

  “He looks sick to his stomach,” Florin said, when they were out of earshot.

  “Absolutely,” Barnes said. “I like him.”

  James agreed. “He’ll barf after two more. Tops.”

  Nina and Florin glared at them. “What’s wrong with the two of you?” Nina asked. “You want him to suffer?”

  The boys looked back at her; they wore matching expressions of gentle scorn. “That’s not the point,” James said.

  “We like him because he’s willing to suffer,” Barnes explained.

  “And because he’ll pretend to have fun the whole time,” James added.

  Barnes held out his hands, and he put on a caring face. “We only want the best for our girls,” he said.

  “Oh, shut up,” Nina said. She swatted at him, but he ducked her effortlessly. “Go win me a big stuffed banana,” she demanded.

  “I got your banana right here – ”

  “Shut up.”

  The four of them headed back to the game stands. They would try a few of the rides when they were ready. After James and Barnes had eaten a few orders of fried dough and cotton candy, which was part of the fun. Holding down cheap fried food and super-sweet, imitation sugar after a few turns on the Round-up was always a good and challenging way to end the evening.

  Devon took Austin to the Helicopter Blade ride next.

  He decided he would be ready for this one, that he would not let himself be shocked by the rickety construction of the ride. Because lots of people were going on these things every night, he told himself. And nothing ever happened. He had read no newspaper reports of Southampton carnival rides spontaneously rupturing, sending teenagers plummeting to their deaths.

  Surely the local paper would cover such a thing.

  So Austin set his jaw and told himself that it was a perfectly safe ride. A sturdy ride.

  Which might have been fine, except that this was exactly the wrong type of preparation. Because the Helicopter Blade Screamer turned out to be thoroughly nauseating in its own right. The little compartment that he and Devon were sitting in didn’t simply spin around a central axis, as it would have done if they had been perched at the end of a single rotor. The rotor i
tself was also being flung around an asymmetrically located pivot point in a larger, more slowly-moving arc; the combination of these two mismatched, counter-rotating velocities created unpredictable motion inside the pod, and Austin could never be sure when he was going to be hurled into the side of the compartment, or into Devon.

  Which was the one upside to all of this. A significant upside.

  He emerged more shaken than the first time, and Devon was again laughing merrily. She had been laughing through most of the ride, especially when the two of them were mashed into one another. She took a minute to catch her breath, and Austin did the same. He began laughing along with her, though with more of a shaky, I’m-glad-we’re-on-the-ground tone. Abruptly, he stopped laughing. He put one hand on his stomach. The rest of the group came back over to check on them again; Nina had a plush stuffed banana under one arm, the result of eight failures and then one final, unprecedented success at the ring-toss game by Barnes. Net expenditure: $36. Net gain: one polyester stuffed banana worth approximately $2.35.

  They all looked at Austin, silently gauging his level of distress.

  “How’re you holding up?” James said to Austin, trying to sound encouraging.

  Austin put on a brave face and responded with a nod. He said nothing. The hand on his stomach had moved to his forehead, where he had broken out in a fine sweat.

  They watched him for another few seconds, and then Barnes broke the silence. “Okay, everybody needs a minute. We’ve had our games and our food. We’re heading over to the Round-up.”

  Austin nodded again, but he still didn’t speak. Devon put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

  He turned, gave her a tight-lipped smile, and put up a single finger.

  Wait here just a minute. Right back.

  He jogged a few yards away, to the side of one of the game stands. He stood with his back turned to them, and he put one hand on the stand for support.

  They could all tell what was coming. “All right, people,” Barnes said quickly. “Nothing to see here. Let’s get going.” He herded them along like a field-trip director, leaving only Devon behind. “We’ll come back in a minute to check on you two,” James said over his shoulder. “After the glory of the Round-Up. And then maybe James will go join Austin over there in the bushes.”

  “Dream on,” James said, as they walked away. “I can hold down fried dough like it’s water.” And then, to Devon: “Seriously. We’ll be right back.”

  Devon put up a hand in thanks, and she returned her attention to Austin, who was now leaning over. He was holding onto the game stand for support and –

  She cast her eyes downward to give him a moment to himself. But she couldn’t help hearing him as she waited, and he didn’t sound good. Devon found herself wondering whether the carnival had really been the best first-date choice, even though it had been going so well up until now. They had been laughing. And getting close. And he had seemed to be having a good time, right?

  Sure. But would he have picked a restaurant where there was a 50-50 shot of me getting food-poisoning and hurling my appetizer up onto the table cloth?

  No. Probably not.

  “You need a ride home?”

  The voice behind her was deep, and not particularly kind. It was mocking. Devon picked her head up, turned, and found herself standing very close to one of two older, carelessly-dressed men. The smell of liquor was strong and clear. Both of them had their hats pulled low.

  Always with the low hats, she thought to herself. They might as well just wear big signs around their necks: We’re Jerks.

  The men were in their thirties, with two-day-old beard growth and plaid work shirts flapping over their t-shirts and jeans. Devon wondered if they worked at the carnival, or had come simply to troll for briefly-unattended sixteen-year-olds. They didn’t look like typical carnival patrons, mainly because of their age. There were men here in their thirties, yes. And even forties and fifties. But such men invariably had children with them. Or at least a date on their arm.

  “I do not need a ride,” Devon said calmly, resisting the temptation to take a step back. They were in an open, well-lit, and public place, after all. Any urge to go running into the shadows was to be resisted. She looked straight at the man in front of her, and she managed to find his eyes under the brim of his cap.

  The man pulled back a step, as if Devon had tried to poke him with a concealed stick. But then he stepped forward again just as quickly, angry at himself. “You likely do, though,” he said. “You need a ride badly, what I can see. And if Duane and I can help with that, we’d sure – ”

  “Hi, there. What did I miss?”

  Devon didn’t turn around. She kept her eyes on the man in front of her. “That’s my ride right there,” she said.

  But the man didn’t budge. He glanced once at Austin without turning his head. He saw the green look on Austin’s face, the dark circles under his eyes, and decided he smelled weakness.

  Which was a mistake.

  “Who, prep-school there?” the man said, and smiled. “Duane’ll probably like to have a talk with him.”

  Duane stepped forward, out of Devon’s peripheral vision. She resisted the urge to track him; the man before her seemed to be edging closer, as though waiting for the right moment to simply scoop her up and toss her into the cargo bed of a pickup truck somewhere. “You better back the fuck up,” she heard Duane say, and one instant later she heard a cracking noise, followed by a yelp of pain, and then a thump. She spun around in terror to find Austin crumpled on the dirt. Which made this officially the worst first date imaginable. Puking followed by assault. Perfect. And now the other guy was going to get his chance, he was going to just throw her over his shoulder and then –

  Except that Austin wasn’t on the ground.

  He was still standing right there. Looking down at Duane with a bright and barely-steady expression in his eyes. As though he were hoping Duane realized that while it was technically his right to get up, such a brash display of further resistance was not necessarily recommended.

  But Duane was not getting up. The man who had been facing Devon jumped quickly to the side, and he ran to kneel down by his friend. “D?” He looked up at Austin with deep suspicion, as though Austin had been concealing a Taser or a set of brass knuckles somewhere under those prep-school clothes. Austin looked back down at him innocently. He took a breath, and that unsteady look went out of his eyes. In its place was the easy peace Devon had grown used to seeing. “I think his jaw may be broken,” Austin said.

  The man stared at him with horror. “His jaw? What the hell did you – ”

  “I’m going to call the police now,” Austin said amiably, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “Because this kind of thing is not okay.” He shrugged sadly as he keyed in the number, then held the phone to his ear. “Although I guess it’s up to you whether or not you and Duane are still around when they arrive.”

  The man took a moment to think, weighing the possibility of waiting for the Southampton police force. It was his friend on the ground, after all, and –

  But then he shook his head, dismissing the idea. Drunk day laborers vs. teenaged girl and her boyfriend. Even if Duane were dead, there’d still be no question as to who got the blame. He hefted Duane’s unconscious bulk up onto his shoulders with a grunt and staggered off toward their pickup. “Eat shit,” he called over his shoulder.

  Austin put up a hand and waved. His face was still green, but his brown eyes were very clear now. He closed the cell phone quietly and put it back in his pocket. He took a long, deep breath, and he turned to Devon. “Everything okay?”

  She stared at him for a minute. “I guess so,” she said. “How did you…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to sound insulting, but she didn’t think being good at swimming or tennis was supposed to mean much when it came to fighting. And yes, Austin was a good size, probably 6’2’’, but he was also lean. He was lean, and he was young. Eighteen. And he had just finishe
d throwing up his dinner behind a game stand.

  And by the way, Duane was not lean. Not lean at all.

  “How did you do that?” she asked finally.

  Austin shrugged. “Have you ever seen two men right before a fight? Not a boxing match, but a fight on the street?”

  Devon thought for a moment. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Austin went on: “The thing is, most of the time neither one of them actually wants to do any fighting. So they try to intimidate each other by standing very, very close. Face-to-face, chest-to-chest. Which is fine for acting tough, except that bellying up to someone is a bad idea if there’s going to be any actual contact.” He shook his head, then rubbed his stomach again, as though regretting something he had eaten for lunch that day. “It’s an especially bad idea if you’re the one who gets hit first. Close range, almost impossible to defend. One quick motion like this – ” Austin raised his right hand suddenly, palm back and open, like a waiter carrying an invisible tray. “ – and you’ve knocked the guy out with a sucker punch. Maybe broken his jaw, too. It depends.”

  “Have you done this before?”

  “Nope. But this seemed like a good time to try it out, because that guy assumed he could just scare me away. Which he almost could, by the way. They didn’t seem nice. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Devon looked at him in wonder. “Am I sure? Weren’t you afraid you were going to get hurt?”

  “Are you kidding? Petrified. Didn’t you see those guys? They looked like they were ready to eat us both for breakfast.”