Stop-Time

by Frank Conroy

  Down Dania Boulevard, the DeSoto creaking like a hay wagon. I could see the rusted-out front fender waving in the wind. Every now and then a big Buick or Caddy would rush up behind us, lights flashing, and whip by as if we were standing still. Big, thick-necked men, holding their broads, speeding down to Miami and the dog track and the Fronton. An Olds fishtailed past at ninety-five and we saw a blonde head dip down. Sean opened a bottle of wine. “You just know she’s blowing him,” he said softly to Pat.

  Tobey and I watched the tail lights disappear in the distance.

  “Let me have some,” Tobey whispered, making a grab for the bottle.

  Sean held it back. “Well, looky here!” he said in mock surprise.

  “Just one. I won’t take much.”

  “What’ll you give me?”

  “Aw, Sean, come on.”

  Tobey took the bottle and raised it to his lips. I watched his Adam’s apple moving like a piston, once, twice, three times. Sean reached for the bottle but at just that moment Mrs. Rawlings turned around and froze everybody. All breaths were held. Quick as a flash she reached back and snatched the bottle, glaring at Sean. “You giving wine to those children?”

  There was no escape for Sean. Caught between Pat on one side and Tobey and me on the other, he just looked down at his shoes. Mrs. Rawlings raised her tree-trunk arm to the roof of the car. Her five fingers were spread like a star. A faint grunt escaped her lips as she drove the whole weighty load straight down on top of Sean’s unsuspecting head. A tremendous blow, traveling down his backbone and compressing the entire back seat with stunning force.

  It took a moment for Sean to reorient himself. “Aw, Maw,” he said.

  Mrs. Rawlings rolled down her window and threw out the wine bottle.

  “Aw, Maw!” he said again, slightly bewildered at the speed with which events had transpired. “It was almost full.”

  Mrs. Rawlings didn’t answer. She raised her head to watch the road and never looked back. Pat laughed quietly, without a trace of malice.

  A perpendicular column of blue light descended from the sky to the parking field, striking the earth behind a screen of silhouetted automobiles, spreading a pool of white radiance, a vague open-topped dome of light in the air above us. Insects drifted through like snowflakes, disappearing at the perimeter.

  “Now make sure you know where the car is,” Mrs. Rawlings said. “We’ll meet here at midnight.” She saw Sean rushing off. “Sean! Did you mind me?” He was gone before she could stop him. “That boy,” she said sadly.

  The old man took out his change purse. “How much money have you got?”

  “Sixty cents,” Tobey answered.

  “Frankie?”

  “Seventy-three cents, sir.”

  He counted some change and held it out to us. “That makes a dollar and a half each. And don’t spend it all in one place.”

  “Thank you!” we yelled together.

  Pat gave us each a quarter, and just before we took off, Tobey’s mother held out two silver coins. “That’s eating money,” she said. “And you ain’t getting any more so don’t spend it on those bumper cars like last time.”

  “We won’t, Momma. Thanks.”

  “Thank you, ma’m.”

  “All right, boys. Have a good time and stay out of trouble. We’ll see you later.” She moved off on her husband’s arm, smiling, one hand unnecessarily holding down her hat (as if he were sweeping her away in a waltz or a polka, as if only now, at the last moment, could she control her appearance before giving up to the madcap whirl of the evening), her buttocks rolling like ships at sea.

  On the fairway Tobey and I darted through the crowd like needles through a tapestry, turning, pausing, deftly insinuating ourselves across the slow movement of the parade.

  The bumper cars! Waiting on line we draped ourselves over the wooden railing and surveyed the scene. On the steel floor small cars raced into the distance, took a curve, and raced back, each with a long pole to the shiny roof trailing sparks of power. Most of the drivers were children, but here and there an adult could be seen, or a young couple crammed in together, giggling, trying to avoid collisions. WHOMP! We laughed as a kid in overalls caught a teen-aged girl broadside and spun away before she could retaliate. WHOMP! Someone else hit her. This time she straightened out and gave it some speed, accelerating nicely.

  “That one looks good,” I said. “Number Ten. I hope she gets out.” There were small but critical differences in the power of the cars. It was important to get the faster ones.

  “Thirty-eight,” Tobey said. “And that blue one, Ninety-nine.”

  When the boy came around we each bought a ribbon of tickets. The air was full of ozone, a thin, sharp, white smell in the back of one’s nose. A whistle blew and the power was cut. All over the floor cars rolled to a stop.

  “She’s getting out,” I yelled as the crowd pushed up behind us. “Number Ten! I’ve got Number Ten.”

  “Ninety-nine! In the back.”

  As the floor cleared the boy swung open the barrier and stepped to the side. With a tremendous roar fifty kids rushed out onto the steel track, fanning out from the narrow gate in all directions like water from a split hose. Someone was at my side, racing me to Number Ten, but at the last moment (when he was slowing down) I leaped into the air and landed with both feet in the cockpit, my hands grabbing the pole for support. Laughing, I slithered down into position and watched him run off for another car.

  The controls were simple. An accelerator and a steering wheel. I spun the wheel, testing the amount of play. It was fairly tight. Waiting, I tried to find Tobey, but the view was obscured.

  At last every kid had a car. The barrier was closed and a whistle sounded. I pressed the accelerator to the floor as somewhere out of sight the power was turned on. My car began to move. The sound in that vast room filled with cars was not unlike the powerful noise of a subway train as it pulls away from the platform. Dozens of cars moved at top speed around the track, dodging in and out as the drivers attempted to get the feel of their vehicles. I bent back my head, sighting up the pole to watch the metal tongue sliding across the roof, sucking power.

  Confident, after a few experiments, that my car was one of the best on the floor, I took off to look for Tobey, sideswiping a few kids along the way just for the hell of it. “One Way Only!” said a sign on the wall, “No Head On Collisions.” Tobey was waiting for me at the edge of the curve. He’d got the car he wanted, the blue one. I pulled up beside him.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay!”

  “Who do we get?”

  “Watch it!” Tobey was struck by a giggling girl who made no attempt to control her vehicle. She’d been pushed into Tobey by a fat boy in a Tom Mix T-shirt. “Him!” Tobey yelled. “Tom Mix!”

  Our strategy had been worked out the previous year. The only question was who went first. Toby took off, and after skirting the helpless girl, I counted to ten under my breath and followed. Elbows out, back curved over the wheel, Tobey pursued the fat boy, slowly closing the gap. We went an entire lap before Tom Mix made his move. He went to the outside, figuring to cut across and catch the giggling girl from behind. Tobey anticipated this and raced down the rail, turning at the last moment to cross paths with plenty of speed. At exactly the same time I aimed for the spot where it seemed to me Tom Mix would end up, collecting maximum speed on the long straight run.

  It worked perfectly. Tobey closed in, his head bent down. At the last instant Tom Mix saw him coming and tried to turn away, but it was too late. FA-BOOM! Tobey caught him solidly on the left fender, spinning the car a quarter turn, reversing his wheels, and bringing him to a halt. Tom Mix spun the steering wheel frantically, trying to straighten himself out and get started again. He’d been prepared for Tobey, but as I barreled in, teeth clenched, straight-armed, I could see he didn’t expect me. His body was loose. Innocent. FA-BAM! A marvelous, straight-on hit, jolting him in his seat, shaking his fat like Jello.

  We wer
e invincible! Gasping, choking with laughter too wild and sweet to come out, our brains bursting with excitement, we drove off to new conquests.

  It was getting late. The crowds had thinned out and along the fairway most of the stalls were closing down for the night. Tobey and I sat on the guard rail of a darkened carousel eating hot dogs, automatically waving away the flies.

  “How much have you got left?”

  “Thirty-five cents,” I said.

  “I’ve got a quarter.”

  “I guess it’s almost midnight.”

  Tobey jumped down from the fence and ran to ask someone what time it was. Tired, I walked after him.

  “Ten of,” he said when I reached him.

  “Well, let’s mosey on down.”

  We ambled along the littered promenade in the general direction of the parking field, checking the sandy ground for dropped coins. Tobey bent over and picked up a small felt pennant on a stick. DANIA-FLA. on a background of orange blossoms. “For the tree house.”

  We stopped in front of a freak show to look at the posters. The alligator man. The duck woman. The armless wonder. Special attraction! The man without a face.

  “I saw it last year,” Tobey said. “It’s a fake.”

  “They say he’s got alligator skin.”

  “He’s painted up. He lies around in a pit full of sawdust with these big hunks of raw meat. But he doesn’t touch the meat or anything. It’s a fake.”

  “You mean he’s just like us only painted up?”

  “Well, no,” Tobey said, pausing. “He don’t have no arms. His hands sort of grow out of his shoulders.”

  “What?”

  “Like little baby hands. But they’re dead. He can’t move them.”

  “Didn’t it make you feel funny to look at him?”

  “I didn’t like it. He just lay there in the sawdust, real still, like he was dead, with his head turned away. And we all walked by. If he’d really been an alligator man, well then okay, but it was a fake and I didn’t want to look.” He turned away from the poster. “Let’s go.”

  At the edge of the fair a small booth is still open, its lights shining out into the empty air. A big man in a purple jacket sits on a stool behind the counter drinking a container of coffee. As we approach he pauses momentarily, looks at us over the rim of the container, and then continues drinking as if he hadn’t seen us.

  We stop twenty feet away to examine the game. It’s a ring toss. Ten cents a throw and the prizes are on the walls. Pennants, funny hats, candy boxes, two live canaries, china dolls, stuffed animals, canned hams, ukuleles, toasters, radios, silverware. Tobey nudges me. “Look there, on the back wall.” I whistle softly. Mounted on a wooden plaque, with a belt and holster hanging next to it is the grand prize, a silver revolver.

  “Wow,” Tobey whispers as we move forward.

  “It’s beautiful. Look at the carving on the handle.”

  “With a holster and everything.”

  The big man hasn’t looked at us, or moved a muscle.

  “How do you win the gun?” Tobey asks.

  “Two out of three tosses on the red peg,” he says expressionlessly.

  We look at the back wall. Recessed into a lighted chamber under the pistol is a red peg, angled backwards under a sloping roof. I give Tobey a nickel. “We can both try.”

  “Okay. Give me three, please.”

  It’s as if the man is blind. He stares fixedly out into the darkness. Bright lights shine behind his head. He leans forward slightly, collects the change with one hand, and brings up three rings from under the counter with the other, all in one smooth movement, without looking down or changing position on the stool.

  Tobey takes aim and throws a ring. It strikes the wall and falls onto a shelf below. “Too high,” he says, and throws again. The second ring is too low. “Shucks,” Tobey says. “Well, for one I get a radio.” He throws the last ring. It strikes the recessed enclosure straight on, but doesn’t fit and falls away. “Did you see that?” he asks me.

  “It won’t go that way. You have to lob it in at an angle so it’ll fit.”

  “I’m going to ask Momma for another thirty cents. I’ll be right back.” He runs off into the darkness.

  I stand for a moment, studying the red peg. My heart beats quickly because of the discovery of throwing at an angle. It’ll still be difficult, the ring must enter the enclosure at exactly the right tilt. Once inside, it must fall on the peg by its own weight. I remind myself to throw softly so it won’t bounce off the back wall.

  “I’ll take three.”

  Once again he leans forward in the smooth gesture, slapping the rings on the counter near my hands. Behind me, far away, I can hear cars starting up on the parking field.

  The edge of the counter presses against my stomach. I toss the first ring, giving a faint flick of the wrist at the last instant to keep it from turning over in the air. It sails into the enclosure as if guided by an invisible hand. I can hardly believe my eyes. It falls slowly toward the peg, strikes, and leans. I duck down my head and shield my eyes from the bright lights. Yes! It covers the top of the peg! Another good toss could knock it over.

  Three feet away the man sits absolutely without movement. I can hear his breathing. He hasn’t looked up, or back at the red peg. It’s as if I’m not there.

  Picking up the second ring I know I’m going to win. Nothing can stop it, as if it’s already happened, as if time were running backward. A peculiar, giddy feeling comes over me. A lightheadedness, strangely familiar. I throw the second ring. It misses and falls away. I shrug, blinking, as if something annoying had happened around me, some minor irritation interrupting my concentration. I feel like asking for the ring back even though I know it makes no difference. The third ring is in my hands. I lean forward, aim, and throw. It goes into the enclosure, as I had known it would, falls onto the peg, and knocks the other loose underneath itself. I’ve won. Two rings over the red peg. I look at them for a moment. An immense calmness lies over my soul. Then I look up at the revolver.

  “I’ve won.”

  The man doesn’t move.

  “I’ve won. Look.”

  He turns around and looks back at the peg. Then he gets off the stool and walks back and takes the rings off the peg and drops them with the others on the shelf. He comes back and stands in front of me, gazing out over my head. “You missed.”

  “What?”

  He says nothing.

  For a moment I don’t know what to do. I stand there looking up at him. His face is white and hard.

  “But I won,” I say.

  Slowly he lowers his head and looks at me. His eyes are dark under thick black eyebrows. He lifts his arm from behind the counter and extends it to me. As if in a dream I reach out to shake hands.

  Gently but firmly he takes my wrist, bends, and spreads his knees a fraction of an inch, and slowly rubs my palm under his balls.

  The arc light had been turned off, and without a landmark it took me some time to find the car. I wandered around the field for five or ten minutes, not really looking, trying to calm down. Eventually I came on the DeSoto. Pausing behind a pick-up truck I wiped my eyes carefully on the sleeve of my shirt and took a couple of deep breaths.

  “Hey!” Tobey was sitting on the running board, his chin in his hands.

  “Hey!” My voice sounded strange.

  “Pat says Sean went off somewhere. With some girl. Pa wants to go without him but Momma says we should wait.”

  I opened the back door and climbed into the car. Pat was asleep. I sat in the corner and pressed myself against the wall, my eyes closed.

  “I don’t give a hot damn,” the old man said. “I ain’t gonna wait no longer. He’s gone, woman.”

  “Well, five minutes more.”

  “God-damn women fussing over every little thing.”

  We waited ten minutes, and when Sean still hadn’t appeared the old man started the engine. “Come on, boy,” he said to Tobey. “He ain’t comi
ng back.”

  Tobey got in beside me. I kept my eyes closed, pretending I was asleep. Lights flashed across my eyelids as we reached the main road.

  Halfway home I opened my eyes to see where we were. Tobey saw me looking out the window. After a minute or two he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said, and settled down as if to go back to sleep.

  Chula Vista was dark, but the lights were still on at my house. Mr. Rawlings stopped at the corner and let me out.

  “See you tomorrow,” Tobey said.

  “O.K.” I waved and started for the house. The moon had set and all the stars were out, thousands of them spread over the black sky all lacework. It was a quiet, windless night.

  Their voices carried on the still air. I heard them, arguing away in the same tones as when I’d left, Jean’s slightly hoarse rising sentences, Mother’s rich contralto falling sentences, back and forth, back and forth, like animals pacing their cages.

  I pushed open the screen door and started for my bed.

  “Frank? Is that you?” my mother called from the other side of the curtain.

  “Yes.”

  “Wash the dishes before you go to bed.”

  7

  Shit

  SOON after the incident at the fair the day-today pattern of my life changed considerably. Tobey, with whom I’d usually spent every waking moment, was forced to go to work with his father, probably at his mother’s insistence, to keep the old man from drinking on the job. This, in itself, was not extraordinary—sons often worked as their fathers’ assistants. Tobey had done it for short periods a number of times during the summer, and so had I, working with Jean on the construction of a schoolhouse as well as on the duplex on our own property. But this time the job was a long one, destined to last till the beginning of school, and far enough away (twenty miles) so that Tobey left early and came back late. I couldn’t go along because Tobey was ashamed.