Are you all right? Hey! Greenie! Wake up, now – are you all right? Sit up a bit… just take it easy.
You gave us a scare, son – I’ll tell you that for nothing. Do you remember what happened? Well, what do you remember? OK, OK. I got it – right? Here, let’s get you up and off the midway. I’ll get you a cup of coffee and then fill you in on what you missed. After all, it’s important we get our stories straight in case the law comes around, asking questions.
How are you feeling now? Good. That’s real good. You took a pretty good couple of knocks there, but it wasn’t your fault. I appreciate that you were there. I really do. It’ll be a while before Murphy and Charlie come back. Just have another cup and I’ll tell you what happened after I sent you off to get Big Mike.
Well, after you ran off, I searched a couple more places and didn’t make it a secret to anyone who I was looking for. Of course, I didn’t say why. I was waiting for that one. I figured if I made enough noise, he’d come looking for me. And he did.
I was right in the middle of the midway’s back end, walking pretty quick, right? Checking each joint as fast as I could, trying to track him down, when I heard him speak up behind me. He was saying something he must’ve thought was tough, like ‘What do you think you’re doing, kid?’ or something just as dumb.
Tell you what, right then and there I made my choice. There was no way I was going to let him talk down to me, let him think for even a moment that he had some upper hand or something over me.
So I stop dead in the dust. Then I turn around nice and slow. And I’m looking at the ground when I turn, see, so I can let my eyes travel up to meet his, nice and slow – like in one of those western movies – because I’m figuring I’ll show him how tough I really am with this.
But as soon as I looked at him I felt… well, I felt weak, I guess. Sick. I don’t have any other word for it. Here I was, looking into the eyes of a guy who’d tried to kill me. And he did, you know. He did when he switched-out my fuels during that show, the one where I caught fire, remember? And it wasn’t just that; there was also what he’d done to Charlie and my mom… and what he’d done to me. And he’d never paid for any of it.
His eyes were cold. Blue. Cold and dead, dead as the sky gets sometimes when it’s lit up by the sun you can’t ever see. And for a moment – just a moment – I’m thinking that I can’t stand up to him.
But then I get my head on straight. I mean, this guy has been ripping us off. This guy was some kind of pervert who likes little boys. This scumbag has tried to tear my whole life apart. And the only thing coming into my head is that I need to take care of Charlie. That my pops couldn’t protect me… but now I gotta protect him, right?
I could see from his eyes that this guy could kill me. Probably wouldn’t care two shakes if he did. But I had already decided I wasn’t going to let him, you know? I mean, I eat fire, right? There’s no trap I can’t escape from. No pain I’m afraid of, right? Nothing that worries me! And I realise that my whole life, everything I am, means that I’d rather go down fighting than just lie down and die.
All this – I mean this whole thing I’m telling you about – just happens in seconds, right? Like it’s all right there in my head while we are standing there in the lights, staring each other down. I can’t hear anything. I can’t see anything. It’s like there’s nothing else there, right? I even forgot I’d sent you off to get help. I forgot Charlie and Murphy, and the other carnies, too. There was nothing in the world but him and me, facing each other. And we were going to be playing for keeps. It felt like the fate of the world was in my hands.
So then, he’s like, ‘What do you want, kid?’
And I don’t miss a beat, right? I answer him right back, loud and clear. ‘You don’t call me kid, Frank,’ I told him.
I guess he didn’t think I’d talk back to him like that. Maybe he thought I’d back down. And he doesn’t seem to like it one bit that I’m standing up to him because it’s a moment before he answers me. ‘I hear you’ve been looking for me,’ he said.
‘I want the truth, Frank,’ I told him, with no playing around. ‘The whole thing. All of it! Everything you know.’
‘Well, now,’ he said, running his hand along his unshaved jaw, ‘that’s a lot to talk about.’ He’s kind of smiling now, because he thinks he has me. ‘If you want to talk to me about running your show, then there’s quite a bit you could learn from me, kid.’
‘I’m no kid, you son of a bitch,’ I spit out at him. His smile stops right there, it does. ‘I want to hear what you’ve been saying to Charlie.’
He’s not smiling now, let me tell you. ‘You do, do you?’ he asked me. ‘Maybe you’d rather know what everyone else has been saying about your Charlie. About you and your stupid show.’
‘I already know what they’re saying,’ I told him straight out. ‘I also know that it’s just what you’ve been telling them. And that you’re a liar.’ I take a breath, then, to cool down before dropping the bomb on him. ‘I know you were with the show before. Charlie told me everything.’
Frank gets a little pale at this. He’s probably figuring Charlie spilled to me, and he’s trying to guess exactly how much I know, right? I can see him licking his lips, getting scared. He takes a step towards me, but I stand my ground.
‘Charlie tells me you’ve been taking money from him,’ I told him. ‘And that means you’re robbing everyone else on the show.’
Frank spits in the dust. ‘Tell you that, did he?’ He was grinding his teeth. ‘He also tell you I was there when he killed your momma?’
If he was trying to shock me, he was dead wrong. I could read him like I read a tip. All I had to do was push him the right way and he’d admit everything. ‘He told me that’s what you said,’ I answered. ‘But, see, I don’t think you were there.’ Frank’s jaw stopped working.
‘See, Frank,’ I continued, ‘I think if you’d been there, if you’d really seen something, you would have gone singing to the sheriff right off. I think you were already gone from the lot by then, because you figured out my folks knew what you’d done… to me.’ Frank went even paler, if that was possible. His hands clenched into fists, knuckles white, his lips pursed into a thin line.
But I wasn’t done, yet. See, my mind was racing hard. I had been wracking my brain about everything that had happened with Frank since I first saw him… and now the pieces of this puzzle were finally fitting together.
‘Even if you didn’t have the guts to go to the law, you would have come after Charlie a long time ago,’ I said, thinking out loud, trusting in my gut that I was right. ‘No, you probably heard my mum had passed on a while ago, and just played a hunch about it when you saw our show pull onto this lot. You tried to play Charlie like a rube. Then, when he didn’t go for it, you rigged that accident for Sam to get yourself under our canvas.’
I figured I had just about covered it all, so I finished big: ‘You figured you’d work another angle, maybe rig some accidents, then lean on Charlie, when you figure he’s weak, to start him paying you… and then you try to take the show out from under us.’
He was mad enough to kill me right then. I could see it in his face. His blue eyes blazed, his hands clenched up ready to start pounding on me.
‘Bet you think you’re a big man, don’t you, boy?’ he said with a shaking voice. ‘Talking that way to me? Maybe you think your old tosspot daddy is going to be able to protect you from me?’
‘I’m just saying,’ I said, shrugging, ‘it all makes sense. And it if makes sense to me – a kid – then I bet it makes sense to other people on the lot. Maybe even Big Mike.’
‘You think they’re going to listen to you?’ he growled.
So help me, greenie, I actually smiled at him right then, to drive him even more crazy. ‘I think they’re tired of hearing a lot out of your mouth,’ I told him. ‘I’m betting most of them will give me a good listen, and…’
Frank interrupted me, shouting, ‘It won’t make no difference what you say! Charlie was paying me to keep quiet about your momma getting killed.’ He licked his lips, thinking hard. ‘He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t had something to do with it.’
‘Charlie has a conscience,’ I pointed out. ‘Something you wouldn’t understand. He still blames himself for my mother’s accident. You probably caught him on a tear, so he was feeling guilty. Anyone who knows him will understand that when I tell it.’
‘You think that’s going to make any difference to them?’ he asked, waving behind him like he meant the rest of the carnival. ‘Tell them anything you want – all that will matter to any of them is that I can make a buck. Better than you or your lousy dad!’
I’ll bet he was going to leave it at that, figuring he’d won. But I had one last thing to tell him. Nice and quiet, I said, ‘What if I go ahead and tell them about how you like little kids.’
‘So what if you do?’ he sneered back at me. ‘You think they’re gonna believe a little punk kid like you? You think they’re gonna care what some disturbed boy says? You jumped some random guy in the cook shack! Then you make moves on his daughter! Then you pick a fight with me…’
‘These people know me,’ I told him. And I told him this next bit because I know that it’s true. ‘And they know I’d never lie about anything like that.’
‘You’re all liars,’ he spat out at me. I can see flecks of foam flying off his lips as he begins to stagger towards me, shaking with fury. ‘All you damn kids! Well, don’t forget this, boy – you came on to me. Yeah, that’s right – you wanted it from me! You never cried. Not once. Not any of the times I had you.’
The whole time his voice is rising. I can hear the start of a scream in his voice as he lashes into me. So, now I’m starting to feel sick. I mean, what if he’s right, you know? I couldn’t remember – so what if there was something to what he was saying about me? But I force myself to keep thinking about how he was trying to take the show. And I don’t back off from him, even though he’s staggering towards me, all crazy-like.
‘Yeah!’ he yelled at me, waving his hands around. ‘You remember! I can see it! You know that’s what you wanted.’ He stumbles closer, grabbing for my shirt, but I step back, staying out of his reach.
‘I’d never have you now,’ he grabs for me again, but misses. He’s close enough that I can smell cheap liquor on him. ‘Just like no one else here would, either.’
That was when I heard you yelling, greenie. I didn’t even know you were there until I saw you slam into Frank from behind and knock him to the ground. Where did you learn those moves from?
Anyway, you sure caught him by surprise – he didn’t expect to find himself on the ground, that’s for sure. Of course, he’s a carny, ain’t he? And any carny’s ready for a clem, any time, drunk or not, so he was back up in a flash. You did good, though. Big Mike was telling me he thought you’d go the distance, but I guess when Frank kicked you in the knee and dropped an elbow on your melon, that was it, huh?
But you slowed him down… slowed him down good. I looked around and saw a lot of people on the midway now, standing close to us. More people than I thought worked at the whole carnival. But, I tell you, there wasn’t a townie there. Or a lawman. Big Mike was the first one to speak.
‘Hold on there, Frank,’ I heard him yell. Lots of fat guys, they have soft voices, you know? Not Big Mike. Got a voice bigger than he is, he does.
So Big Mike’s voice, booming through the midway, brings Frank up short. Instead of taking a kick at you while you were lying there all cold, or swinging on me, he looks around and sees everyone just standing there looking at him. He gets quiet too, you know? Just stands there looking at everyone, because he knows he’s trapped. And the midway is quiet, too. Quiet as I’ve ever heard it. I didn’t think it was possible for anything to be that quiet with all those people standing there.
That’s when Murphy and Charlie show up. I don’t know how long they’d been there. Long enough to hear what had been said, that’s for sure. The circle of people standing around me and Frank parted just enough to let the two of them through – then close back up. No one was leaving here until this was all settled.
That’s the carny way of life, you know. There’s a beef? We keep it under our awning, if we can. We settle our own scores – and we look out for each other. Big Mike, it’s his carnival, so he steps up to look over things like he’s a judge in a courtroom. I just didn’t know what he’d say once everything came out in the open.
‘Charlie,’ Big Mike asked nice and loud, ‘is everything your boy says true? Has Frank here been after your stake?’
Charlie didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. He just looked around at the circle of people until he was looking at Frank, then he looked at me before nodding his head slowly.
‘I figured,’ Big Mike said. ‘Now, Frank, what have you got to say about it?’ Frank opened his mouth real quick, like he was going to spout off, but Big Mike interrupts him. ‘Now, I want you to think hard about what you’re about to say, Frank,’ he told him. ‘We’ve had an earful already.’ People around the circle nodded that they had. Some of them just stood with their arms crossed and mean looks on their faces.
Frank swallowed hard, considering his next words. Finally, he opened his mouth. ‘I may have taken the chump’s money,’ he told the crowd, pointing at Charlie, ‘but it ain’t nothing compared to what he’s done. It’s true, I never seen his wife take that tumble, but I bet he had his hands on her when it happened – and some of you know it, too! He’s lucky that that’s all I did – take money from him.’
‘It was an accident!’ Charlie burst out.
Frank saw an opening and jumped right for it. ‘Seems to me,’ he yelled, ‘that you’re awful quick to speak up about it! You must be feeling awful guilty. Guilty for a reason!’ An angry mutter went through the crowd, but I couldn’t tell whose side they were on.
‘Hold on, there,’ Murphy interrupted, calm as can be. He stepped forward so everyone could see him, and put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. ‘Now you all know me. You know who I am and where I’ve been. I’m telling you that I was there, and Frank was not. Charlie was there, but it was an accident – just like he says.’ Murphy looked around the circle of people, like he was looking into each person’s eyes directly. ‘Most of you also know Charlie. You know his son. You know what kind of man he is.’ He pointed at Frank, saying, ‘And a lot of you know Frank from when he was with the show before. You know what kind of person he is, too.’ He looked at Frank for a moment, before saying, ‘And you know there’s no room for a Chester here.’
You know what a ‘Chester’ is, don’t you, greenie? It’s short for ‘child molester’. Charlie told me once that townies think every jock, agent and showman on the lot is a drunk, child-molesting ex-con – and while you can’t argue there are certainly drunks here, you won’t find much of the rest. At least, not for long. And especially with Big Mike’s show – he runs a clean show through and through.
So as soon as Murphy tells everyone what he thinks of Frank, another angry mutter goes through the crowd. This one a lot darker… Everyone knows Murphy, and his word is law here and now, even more so than Big Mike’s. There are always families travelling the circuit, since the joints tend to be family businesses, you know? And even if a Chester knows better than to touch a kid from the lot, no one wants a beef with the law if something happens to a local kid. It only takes once, and the whole show never works again.
Then Murphy walked over to me and told me to get you off the midway. Frank, he must’ve got a real lucky shot in, because you were still lying there in the dust. Murphy and I got you up and dusted you off, then I shouldered you to get you out. I saw Charlie talking quietly to Big Mike – the two of them gesturing at me. Frank just stood in the centre, giving me the evil eye.
The crowd opened up just enough for me to get you through. As I went through, I looked up to meet each person in the eye, hoping they could see the truth of what I had said. Some of them wouldn’t look at me, and kept staring towards Frank. Others gave me a quick nod, and a couple of people even put their hands on my shoulder, like they were trying to tell me they understood. As we pushed our way through, they closed in tight behind us like a coffin lid.