by Dylan Heart
“Well, my concentration is effectively shattered, thanks to you.” I’ll just pretend this whole failure is his fault. “Let’s go.”
As I stand up, I see a speeding car in the distance. As it draws closer, I can faintly hear the gears shifting.
“What’s that?” Blue asks.
“That’s the sound of nobody driving down the road.”
He stands up beside me and smirks. “Good thing you didn’t drop your pants then, huh?”
I pay no attention to him as the car speeds past us. It’s Dillon’s car. Of course it is. I’d recognize that Lancer anywhere. He’s been working on it for a while and says he’s going to start drag racing. I’ve always believed he’s full of the usual shit, but that thing is flying, leaving bombs of dust behind him. He’s heading south, so he must be racing home.
“Earth to Charlie.” Blue waves his hand in my face.
I snap out of a daze that I didn’t even know I was in. Dillon and his car are long gone, out of sight and out of hearing range. “Sorry. I must have dazed out.” I turn to him. “No thinking, no dreaming. Just nothing.” I finish with a smile.
“Well, it’s a good thing we stopped for a few minutes. Wouldn’t wanna be on the road with that douchebag.”
“Why is he a douchebag?” I ask with a light chuckle.
“Because who drives like that on a dirt road?” He shrugs. “Also, douchiest car ever.”
If he only knew.
If it were one week later, I’d think we were heading to the Founders Carnival. An annual event much like a county fair, but with a purpose and more booze. Our fairs and festivals are dry, as in no alcohol permitted. Ten miles over, across county lines, and their carnivals, festivals, and fairs are medieval exercises in alcohol consumption.
So, yeah, welcome to Ale County. I grow more excited but mostly more anxious. Where is he taking me? What if everything leading up to this point in time has been an act, and he’s actually a madman driving me to my final resting place? For it being such a small town, people have a way of turning up dead.
Blue flashes his blinkers and then turns right. My anxiety grows to confusion. There aren’t too many roads in this five-stoplight town, and Poplar Street dead-ends at the fairgrounds.
Inside the gates, trucks are scattered about. Concession stands line both sides of a paved path that runs horizontally across the entirety of the grounds. Long trailers attached to transport trucks, with unassembled rides on the back of each, are spread out across the grounds. If this is Blue’s idea of a date, then you can go ahead and find me on christianmingle dot com.
“You know the carnival doesn’t start for another week, right?” I turn to him.
He nods. “I know.”
Of course he knows. This was probably one of the last stops on the circuit. I’ve been to this place many times. The same for the fairgrounds back home, but can’t recall seeing Blue before. I’m sure he’s been in the background all these years and I just never noticed.
“I just need to stop here for a few minutes and pick something up.”
“What’s that?”
We come to a stop and he pulls the brake. “Don’t worry about it.” He turns to me. “It’s a surprise.”
“Two surprises in a day? I think I’m going to explode.”
He shakes his head, grinning. “You’re so weird.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s a good thing.” He brushes his hand across my cheek. “Do you wanna wait in the car?”
I peer out the window. Beside us is a parked camper that’s rocking violently. Could be a washing machine for all I know. Most likely, though, it’s the conceiving of a next generation Blue. “No. I’ll go with you.”
“All right,” he says and pulls the key from the ignition.
We walk past four men assembling the teacups, and I have an instant flashback to the county fair. The night I met Blue. Two stocky, sweaty men are in the process of bolting down our blue cup. I watch in equal parts wonder and horror, questioning if I’ll ever ride a carnival ride again. I guess it never occurred to me how quickly they put them together. How have I survived all these years?
A middle-aged man yells for Blue, asking for his help in assembling the ride, and I think he’s only half joking. It seems Blue is the most popular kid in the carnival world. If they had a prom, he’d be a shoe-in for king. If I had it my way, I’d be his queen. From another school, of course.
Blue informs the man that he’s under strict doctor’s orders to not lift anything over twenty pounds. Arthritis or something. The man chuckles and begins to scoot a cup onto the platform, fully aware that Blue’s full of shit.
As we approach an old rickety camper that sits on the edge of the grounds against a chain-link fence that wraps around the entire perimeter, Blue turns to me. “Can you wait outside?”
I give him a simple nod.
“All right.” He glances behind him at the camper, then back to me contemplatively. “If I’m not out of there in five minutes, call the police.”
I jerk. “Call the police? What the hell for?”
He flashes a grin. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry—”
He cuts me off with his finger against my mouth. “Don’t freak out. I was mostly kidding.”
“Whatever.” My arms fold against my chest. “Don’t be long.”
“I won’t, but if you get too bored, you can talk to Marvin.”
“Who’s Marvin?”
Blue points to a man sitting on a milk crate outside the camper beside us. He has a familiar, unshaven face. He could definitely use a shower. I lean into Blue and whisper in his ear, “Is he a meth head?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers back. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“Absolutely not.”
He whistles and Marvin looks to us. “Take care of my girl, all right?”
Marvin nods and stands up with a lit cigarette hanging on the edge of his mouth. I grab Blue’s arm as he approaches the camper. “It’s fine,” he says with a smile. “I’ll be right back.”
I let out a frustrated sigh as the older man approaches me. “Want one?” He grabs at the pack of cigarettes in his flannel pocket.
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” He leans against the camper and shakes his cigarette at me. “Do I know you?”
It takes a moment but it hits me quick. He’s the guy who loaded me into the Zipper. “We met once in Lakeside,” I say, nodding my head.
“That’s right. Can’t forget a pretty face like that, I guess.”
“Thanks.”
He draws his hand to his mouth and takes a hit. “How is he?”
“Good,” I say proudly.
He exhales and the breeze pushes a cloud of smoke toward me. I gently wave the smoke away from my face.
“Sorry about that.” He throws his cigarette on the ground. “You know something? I didn’t even know the boy was leaving.” He grinds the butt into the ground with his unlaced boot. “That night he met you,” he says, and I perk up, “he came into the camper and said he was leaving the circuit. Said he was gonna be sticking around.” He looks me directly in the eye. “He didn’t even tell his dad he was leaving. Although it shouldn’t have been that surprising, seeing how they barely talk these days.”
“His dad is here?”
Marvin points with his thumb at the camper behind us. The one Blue walked into.
“He’s here, in the camper?”
“Might have to call the police,” he says.
“Blue mentioned that, but I didn’t think he was serious.”
He lets out an amused sigh. “We don’t know things till they happen.”
I take a pained look at the camper and want to ask so many questions, but it would feel like a betrayal to dig into Blue’s past without his permission. The issue has already been raised, though, and I’m a naturally curious person. “Why don’t they talk? Blue and his dad.”
“They’ve got a hell
of a relationship. He was twelve, maybe thirteen, when his mother ran away. I guess it was never the same after that. I think they reminded each other of the woman they had lost. One lost a wife and the other lost a mother.”
“That’s sad.” I don’t know what else to say. It’s not my place to keep this conversation going and I would be content if it would end.
“I think you’re good for him.” He grabs the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and pulls one into his mouth. As he’s about to light it, he glances at me. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Sure, they bother me, but I’m on his turf.
The end of the stick burns bright. “I think he deserves someone like you.” He slips the Zippo lighter into his pocket. “God knows the kid’s got his fair share of problems, but maybe you can be the one to help him,” he says, pointing a finger squarely at me.
“Problems?” As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I regret it.
He rubs a thumb across his bottom lip and peeks behind him, as if he’s making sure nobody’s there. He turns back and scoots closer to me. “He’s a good kid. He really is, but a few years ago, I noticed a change in him. We were over in Indiana and he disappeared one night. When he came back the next morning, he was still rolling.”
“Drugs?” I ask, unconvinced.
He nods. “He got into some trouble about a year ago. Apparently, he owed some guy in Junction City thousands. That guy came to the carnival looking for trouble. Blue had been saving up money since he was fifteen, so he could settle down. You know, find a home somewhere. He had to give it all up. Come to find out—”
The camper door swings open and slams against metal panels. “Let’s go!” Blue huffs and rushes past me, toward the Jeep. He’s burning red and filled with anger.
I look to Marvin one last time and he nods. “He’s a good kid,” he says as softly as a lie, but I know that he means it.
I jog to catch up to Blue. The first thing I notice is his hand balled into a fist. I grab his shoulder and he stops. “Are you okay?”
He places both hands on my cheeks. “I’m fine,” he says with a forced smile. I want nothing more than to believe him, but I know better. I want to know what happened between him and his father in the camper but asking him is out of the question.
“You wanna get out of here?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “Let’s go.”
Blue’s in the Jeep and has it started before I’ve even opened the car door. I climb into my seat and his head spins around to look behind us as we back out. There’s a loud thud against the driver’s side window and we come to a full, jerking stop. Standing outside is a young man in a worn gray hoodie. I don’t know him, but it’s obvious Blue does.
A huge grin flashes across Blue’s face, an instant change from anger. He throws the parking brake into place and bursts out the door. “Cookie!” he yells and embraces the man in a bear hug. “How have you been?”
“Almost got fired the day after you left, so things are ace.” He laughs. “How the hell are you?”
Blue pushes his hands into his pockets. “I’m a civilian now, haven’t you heard?”
“Living the dream, huh?”
“Something like that.”
Cookie grabs Blue’s arm, pulling him further away from the Jeep. They begin talking again, but I can no longer hear what they’re saying.
He has a family here. Biological family, like his dad, but also the family he has chosen for himself—Cookie and Marvin. I’m sure he has more than that, too, but I don’t know any of them. I can’t shake my ill-conceived notions of who these people are. There’s a tinge of guilt rising in my stomach. Even if it was only a passing thought in my head, I had written Marvin off as a drug-addicted loser. It wasn’t until we had an actual conversation, and he really spoke to me, from the heart, that I realized how deeply I was wrong.
Blue reaches into his pocket and grabs his wallet. My view is obfuscated by his back as he hands Cookie something. I have no idea what is being said or what’s going on, but I begin thinking the worst. Something Blue said that night in the grass comes rushing back to me. He said he had saved up enough money to live off of for a while, which is how he was able to quit his job in the first place. But Marvin told me that he gave it all up to the man in Junction City.
There has to be more to that story.
Blue climbs back into the Jeep, happier and more alive than he was just a few short minutes ago. We begin backing up, and I watch Cookie walk across the green and toward the horse barn.
As the fairgrounds fade into the distance, a stray thought crosses my mind, and it’s a question I must have an answer to. “Do you miss it?”
“The carnival?” He pauses, processing the question with a blank face followed by a shrug. “It’s the only home I’ve ever had.”
We drive away from his home, and to me—it’s no longer a place. It’s an idea or a group of people or something else entirely. It’s the first time for me that ‘home’ becomes a concept instead of a place. Like it can exist anywhere, with the right person.
Home.
Chapter Eleven
The sun streams through the trees, casting ray-filled spotlights onto the gravel-littered path. We ditched the car about ten minutes ago, after we drove up to a rusted gate. The path we now walk on has all the remnants of a forgotten gravel road. Patches of grass have sprouted up through the rocks, and it’s clear that nobody’s driven on this road in years.
Blue’s hand is laced with mine. His firm grasp, as so many other things, belies his easy-going demeanor. I’m still unsure of where exactly we’re going or what we’re doing, but no matter how ridiculous a thought it is, a fraction of my being still believes he’s taking me out into the middle of nowhere to murder me.
“Are you going to let me in on the secret?”
“Well.” He scratches his head. “There’s a nice little watering hole just up ahead. About eighty feet deep, I’m told it’s a great place to ditch a body.”
My feet glue themselves to the rocks beneath me. He’s a mind reader, cracking a joke about my hysterically insane inner-monologue. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“It is pretty creepy out here.” He looks to his left and takes in the sights. A dense forest lines the road on one side and on the other, there’s a sparse sprinkling of trees. “I was definitely kidding, but I’m kind of getting a Deliverance-y vibe. I hope the quarry isn’t as terrifying.”
“That’s the big secret? A quarry?”
His hand breaks free from mine and he thumps himself on the head. “Dammit!”
The truth is out. We’re going to have our first non-whorey date swimming in a terrifying quarry that’s eighty feet deep and the perfect spot for an afternoon murder. Truly touching. I grab his hand again.
“Just a thought that’s running through my head,” I say, “but what would you have done if I told you I couldn’t swim?”
“Dump you, probably.”
“We’re not even dating.”
He nods his head, a smile on his face. “Sure we are.”
My eyebrow arches. “You think?”
“Well, you’re holding my hand right now, and our first date was the carnival.” He clicks his tongue against his cheek. “That was my favorite,” he says with a wink.
“Oh, my God!” I break free from his grip and playfully push his chest.
“Our second date was in the grass, earlier today.” He puts up his quotation fingers. “With your science experiment—that was pretty much a bust, but a date nonetheless.”
I shake my head at him but am unable to refrain from smiling.
“And now we’re on our third date,” he continues. “At the quarry.”
“Which, if I weren’t able to swim, would’ve been our second bust of the day.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to have a bad date with you.”
“Charming.”
“Besides, Joey told me you’ve always loved swimming.”
My feet dig into the
gravel again, and I whip around to face him. “Joey knows?”
“Yeah, he’s the one who told me about this place.”
My hands rub against my face. “That’s the reason I got him drunk, to make him forget.”
“You’re still ashamed of me,” he accuses but not too seriously.
I don’t respond. Not saying it’s true but also not saying it’s not. A part of me believes it is. The other parts know better. It has nothing to do with me… and everything to do with Dillon. Now that I’m not going to college, he’s expecting that we’re going to get back together. He doesn’t have to say it for me to know it’s true. Dillon’s a very strong guy, but he would be hurt if he found out the reason we broke up wasn’t the reason keeping us apart. It’d be worse still if I weren’t able to come up with a reason other than maybe it’s Blue.
“I’m not ashamed of you. It’s just complicated.”
“What is?”
“Whatever we are, I’m not ashamed of it,” I say and grab his arm for reassurance. “I just don’t want Dillon knowing. Not right now. There are some loose ends that I need to figure out.”
“Relax, Charlie. He said he’s not gonna tell anyone.”
“Joey’s got a big mouth.”
Blue laughs. “One of my only memories of him growing up was this one time that his big mouth got us grounded from the jungle gym during a family reunion.”
“I take it you haven’t spent too much time with him since then?”
“I see him about once a year at the county fair.” His face begins to glow, and I’m not exactly sure why.
“You look mysteriously happy all of a sudden.”
“Behind you.” He grabs me by the shoulder and turns me around. I don’t know where the fuck it came from, but we’ve entered Wonderland, Oz, or Narnia. The sun reflects off beautiful blue water, completely out of place along this long-forgotten road.
“Wow. It’s beautiful,” I say, somewhat stunned.
“Just like he said it was.”
That causes me to chuckle. “Joey said something was beautiful?”
“Shocking, right?”
We step down onto a narrow path between the trees. Standing before the quarry, where the water hugs the land, it has become even more beautiful than from just twenty feet back. It’s astounding that something like this exists so close to the place where I grew up, and I’ve never heard about it. It’s out of place. It belongs in paradise.
