Adam Scott
I remember the only time I went to the carnival. I was fourteen. It was much as I expected: dizzy children begging their parents for one more go on a roller-coaster whose cars were painted like lady bugs, teenagers standing in loose formation around rides with names promising violent motion, the Zipper, the Jack Hammer, the Washing Machine, groups of boys wearing bleached overalls with one of the straps undone, so that the buckle dangled across their crotches, freshly shaven men in boots and bolo ties holding hands with their wide-hipped wives, strolling on their way to no place in particular.
Lupe and I passed by the picnic tables on the way from the parking lot. The area was shaded by massive oak trees, where old people, having been left by their families, sat to observe the passersby, and women nursed babies, and an extremely heavy man sat taking long breaths so that he looked like he was sighing.
“You excited?” Lupe asked. She was sweating. Thick rings of black hair stuck to her forehead. I had the feeling she wanted to hold my hand to keep us from getting split up.
“Not really,” I said. I'd only decided to come because my mom had fished bills out of her purse and shoved them in my hand. “Come on kiddo, summer's supposed to be fun,” she'd said. Then she searched my face. She was always doing that. I was careful not to smile or act in any particular way. She asked Lupe if she'd mind making a little extra money, already handing her the keys to the wagon.
“Sure,” said Lupe. “Is okay, Mrs. Wheeler.”
Lupe didn't have a car. She used to say that in her village, every place worth visiting was in walking distance. I guessed this is why she didn't learn to drive until after she came to the States and she needed to learn to work as a housekeeper. When she drove my mom's wagon she looked like one of those people in a driving video, both hands high on the steering wheel, compulsively checking the mirrors. She'd wince at any sudden bump and without looking away from the road, she'd ask if she'd ran over something. By the night of the carnival, I didn't think anything of it; her habits had become as routine as the landscape of my neighborhood, the tailored lawns, the topiaries in the shape of zoo animals, the clusters of vibrant flowers in the tastefully generic yards.
On the drive over to the fairgrounds, where the Carnival set up operations for three weeks each summer, I had the window down and my palm out so I could feel the weight of the hot air press against it. Lupe reminded me about the air-conditioner, that I was wasting all the cold air.
“Air's free, isn't it?” I said. Lupe didn't answer. She was nibbling on her bottom lip. I sunk down further in my seat. “Why isn't mom wasn't using the wagon tonight?” I asked. “Didn't she have a meeting tonight?”
Lupe admitted she didn't know. She suggested we talk about something else. She didn't like all that business with the lawyers. “Bad news,” she said, shaking her head.
Lupe ran into a pregnant woman as we waited in line to buy tickets. She was younger than Lupe, but had the same glossy nose and ruddy cheeks. They talked in Spanish and Lupe kept nearly touching the woman's belly, as if by touching her, she'd shatter whatever force was protecting it. Lupe smiled and made gleeful sounds, which was her standard reaction to all children, potential or real. Lupe didn't have children. She lived with two other single women in an apartment complex behind Hank's 99-Cent Store, but she often showed me pictures of nephews in Mexico to whom she sent my old books and clothes. She called them “good boys” and said they learned English and some day they'd come to the U.S. and thank me for my kindness. I couldn't think why they'd want to thank me . I never bought anything with my own money. And whenever they did get to the States, they'd realize how out of fashion everything was that I'd sent them.
I used all Mom's money to buy tickets from a friendly-looking guy in the booth. He had a clean wide face and wild blond hair and seemed to be smiling, but when he didn't give me enough tickets and I told him so, he wasn't nice at all. “You saying I don't know how to count?”
“Dick,” I said or rather, I mumbled it.
“What's that?”
“Nothing.” I didn't feel like arguing so I took my tickets and went over to Lupe. She had become so engrossed in her conversation, I had to interrupt her and for a moment, she looked at me like I was a ghost. Then she introduced me to the woman, a relative whose name was something like Gladys or Gloria. Lupe told her in English how well I did in school and the woman smiled politely. I wondered if she understood.
Lupe smiled and reached out to rub my hair, but I pulled away before she could. Earlier, I had used the mousse my dad bought me— Pour Homme it was called and you could only buy it in upscale salons —to sculpt a little wave in my hair, the same kind the popular guys in high school were sporting. When I suggested it would bet better if we split up and did our own things, Lupe scrunched her face in distaste. I lied about some friends of mine that I was meeting near Thor's Viking Ship.
“Is okay,” Lupe said. “I come with you.”
“Here's the thing,” I said, scratching my chin. “They're pretty cool kids. You'll
probably be embarrassed around them. ”
Lupe offered a weak smile. “Okay, you go. We meet here at 9, okay? No later.”
I went off by myself, using the tickets to buy two corndogs and a coke. I couldn't find anywhere to sit so I went to a quiet area behind a tent, where there was wet hay on the ground that smelled faintly of urine. The insides of the corndogs were still frozen so I ate the corn breading and threw the meat into the hay.
I walked through the main walkways, near the big rides. Sometimes I saw one of my teachers or a schoolmate I recognized, but I pretended to be concentrating on the tiny feet swinging high above on the Ferris Wheel or recounting my tickets. If anyone recognized me, they didn't stop to tell me so.
I ended up on a ride called the Brain Scramble, where a balding guy with rusty orange sideburns and aviator sunglasses sat in a booth and played AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long deafeningly loud as the ride went forward and Hell's Bells when it went in reverse. It was okay and I was going to ride a second time, but the attendant wanted me to share the car with an old guy who looked like he was covered in a fine layer of dust. He moved over and gave me a toothy smile, but I said I was feeling sick. The attendant said there were no refunds on tickets. I told him I didn't care.
I didn't know what to do then so I got a cotton candy and another coke. The picnic tables were full of people enjoying the cool relief that dusk brought. There was only one empty table, where I sat for a few moments before discovering the rotten cantaloupe stewing below it. The smell struck me as rich and putrid at the same time. I saw Lupe not far away, sitting with a group of people. They were laughing at something a thin man in a cowboy hat was saying. He had a gold front tooth that glinted when he spoke. I worried Lupe might invite me over, so I moved to the midway to finish eating my cotton candy.
There I found a group of elementary school kids trying to win a stuffed kangaroo wearing a Raider's jacket. They were shooting water pistols at a little round target that moved a wooden horse around a racetrack. The attendant watched a nearby clock.
I had a mouthful of cotton candy when the loud voice came from behind me. “Hey! I know you.” It was a girl's voice and I didn't turn to see who it was. Instead, I rubbed my hand over my lips to make sure there was nothing clinging there. Then she was next to me, her hand tapping my shoulder, squeezing into the space between me and a foam-covered pylon. She examined my face. “You're in Schneider's class, aren't ya?”
“Yeah,” I said. Then I squinted like I didn't recognize her, but I knew exactly who she was. Her name was Dallas Pembrook and we had Mr. Schneider's Civics class together. We had both been assigned to a group presentation on the California Gold Rush. She had heavy cheeks, a prominent pout, and a tendency toward a lazy eye. I found her fascinating. She couldn't have been older than 14, but she came to school in high-heel boots and denim skirts and wore strawberry-scented lipstick and fake eyelashes. In class, I would ask her questions just to have her stare at me and ask how the hell she was supposed to know. She said ‘shit' and ‘fuck' a lot and didn't contribute to group discussion, except to say how bored she was and didn't we think learning history was so pointless? When praised by Mr. Schneider for our presentation on Sutter's Fort, she rolled her eyes like she couldn't think of a worse thing to happen to a person than to be singled out by a teacher for having done something good.
“Schneider's a drag, right?” she said. She was biting her fingernails. They were tiny white shards and the skin around them was puffy and raw.
“Totally,” I said. It was a lie. I liked Mr. Schneider. He was funny and knew about everything and had once lived in Japan. Dallas went on about how lame Mr. Schneider's sweaters were and how she couldn't believe he was married, because didn't he look gay? She didn't make eye contact. Mostly, she watched the younger boys who had won the kangaroo and were now taking turns punching it in the head.
“This place is so boring,” she said. I looked around. I said I thought there were worse places, but yeah, this was pretty boring as places went.
“Not the carnival,” she corrected me. “The carnival is rad. It's this town that sucks.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding dumbly. I felt the warm air trapped under my shirt. It was a polo shirt mom bought me the week before. I checked to make sure it hadn't come untucked. Dallas announced she was walking over to the Zipper. She didn't have any tickets, but had seen a lady throw up there earlier and maybe she would be lucky enough to catch a repeat showing. I didn't know if she was inviting me or not, so I watched her walk off. She turned, one eye focused on me, the other slightly off. “You coming or what?”
I went, conscious of the heat pulsing in my cheeks. On the way, Dallas stopped often to search the faces of the people in line. Sometimes she'd grab my arm and tell me to look at who some bitch was with or point out the hairstyle on this or that poser . While she wasn't gentle and I had the feeling that in her excitement she would just as readily grasped a nearby fencepost, the exact place where of each of her fingers had touched my skin tingled long after she'd removed her hand.
When I asked if she was looking for someone in particular, a friend maybe, she answered that she didn't have any friends. Not anymore. She had been best friends with a girl named Reed, but Reed turned out to be a backstabber.
“I hope she dies,” Dallas said off-handedly. “I seriously hate her. I wouldn't go to her funeral, even if they gave me the day off from school. I'd get high instead.” Dallas laughed and I didn't know if I should laugh too, so I nodded and said I knew exactly how she felt.
When we got to the Zipper, we watched the people stagger off and not a single person threw up. Before long, Dallas looked bored. I asked if she wanted to ride because I had some extra tickets and I didn't think I would use them anyway. She said she thought the Zipper sucked, but whatever, there wasn't anything else to do.
As we waited in line, the Zipper's yellow bulbs flashed into the night sky. Dallas stopped an older boy whose face was splattered with freckles and asked in a flirty voice if he had any gum. He watched her, as if guessing her motive, before digging in his pocket to give her a piece. Then he smiled like he'd just won something. Dallas asked his name.
“Derrick,” he said.
“Hey Derrick, can I have another piece, you know, for later?” Derrick turned and looked at me, and I took an interest in a pale yellow butterfly that was caught in a nearby patch of grass. Dallas chomped her gum and watched the Zipper's spinning cages. After a minute, Derrick gave her a second piece and left, saying, “well, see you around maybe.”
“Sure,” Dallas said. She offered the second piece to me, but I declined, saying I wasn't much for gum chewing. She said she had never met a kid who didn't like gum.
“It's weird,” she said. I agreed it was weird, but then qualified my statement, saying I did chew gum, often in fact, but I had already chewed a few pieces earlier in the day. I told her my jaw was sore and rubbed it to show her what I meant.
“I guess that's cool,” she said, sticking the second piece in her mouth.
When we were next in line and I had given the attendant tickets for both of us, I had this terrible feeling like my bladder would suddenly fail. I worried about how it might react to going upside-down, and from the look of it, upside down was the prominent position on the Zipper. When we were placed in the cage, standing, with a padded bar pressed to our chests, Dallas reached over and gave my hand a quick squeeze.
“Rock and roll,” she said. I mumbled something about how this was the definition of rock and roll, but really I was wondering if I could still get off to visit one of the blue portable toilets on the edge of the fairgrounds. As we were lifted slowly in the air, a tingling sensation ran from my armpits to the tips of my pinkies and the balls of my feet felt taut and clammy. When I did think to look over at Dallas, moments before the ride really started, she had a funny smile. “You look like you seen a ghost—”
Then we were tumbling and I thought I was going to die. I told myself, eyes clamped shut, to imagine the sky, cage, noises and people in some systematic way, but I couldn't discern Dallas's screaming from the whirls of laughter and the music and the ride's mechanical grunting. Then I tried to remember from all the times we'd watched, how exactly long the carts spun before stopping. I counted seconds and then, when I couldn't concentrate on that, I tried to remember the words to a prayer I knew from the three times my family had gone to midnight mass. I wondered if God would really intervene to save my life even though I didn't really believe in him. When I realized I could open my eyes without my brain imploding, the ride was already slowing down. There had been very little space between the handgrips and the steel door and my knuckles had gotten scraped. Bits of skin were curled back, exposing speckles of blood, dark and thick like a secret. I hid them so that Dallas wouldn't see.
As we waited to be lowered and then released, I could smell Dallas' perfume, tangy like a berry tart, so sweet it made me nauseous. She sang the chorus of Sweet Child of Mine by Guns N' Roses.
“You going to their concert at Cal Expo?” I asked.
“Don't I wish,” she said, shrugging. “But who has that kind of money?”
I lied and said I couldn't afford it either. The truth was that if I asked, either of my parents would have bought tickets for me and as many friends as I could create. Lupe would get paid extra to drive us to Sacramento and wait in the parking lot until the concert let out. I didn't tell Dallas that I preferred books to music and had only overheard about the concert from the kid who stole my socks in gym class.
As we were being let out of the cage, I saw Brian Phelps, a kid who I'd gone to elementary school with and I gave him the what's up nod. He kept looking at me and then at Dallas and then back at me.
Dallas and I walked on the outskirts of the carnival grounds, where it was quiet and had the advantage of avoiding the picnic tables, where Lupe might have stopped us and demanded an introduction. Dallas told me how she lived with her grandmother, who never cooked anything except microwave food and smoked in the house even though Dallas had asthma and the doctor said she shouldn't be around smoke. Her mother was away in a kind of program that Dallas didn't know much about, but claimed not to care, since she was pretty much a bitch and a bad mother anyway. Her father though, was a great guy who drove truck and played in a Led Zeppelin cover band and each summer took Dallas fishing and camping and promised to let her move to Oregon with him when she turned 18. He was always calling her from places like Kansas City and Minneapolis and Texarkana, but after Reed, there really wasn't anyone who understood her better. The whole time Dallas talked, her tiny hands moved excitedly through the warm air. I didn't say much and when I told her about my parents getting divorced, how I pretty much hated them both, she saw something that made her stop. It was selection of black glass squares whose surfaces were frosted with beer logos, yellow smiley faces, and the names of rock bands.
“Oh man,” she said grabbing my forearm. “Look at that one.” She pointed at a piece of glass painted with Axl Rose and Slash standing with their backs together. Their features were crude, but the leather outfits, the billowing hair, and the posturing left no doubt as to who was supposed to be represented. I nodded in appreciation, saying that I thought it was pretty awesome.
“How much?” Dallas asked.
The guy behind the booth had on dark sunglasses that concealed his eyes and despite an attempted mustache, did not look older than 18. He didn't wear a blue vest like the other carnival workers. Instead he had on camouflage shorts and a sleeveless shirt that said Say Yes to Drugs . “Ain't for sale,” he said.
Dallas had her hands tucked into the back pockets of her shorts so her hips jutted forward. She was smiling in a way I hadn't seen before, like she was suddenly shy. “Why you got them set out then?” she asked.
“Those are prizes,” he said, giving her a wink. Then, after exaggerating a yawn, he said, “Maybe your boyfriend here wants to win one for you.”
Dallas reddened. She stammered. I wasn't her boyfriend. I wasn't anybody, just some kid from school.
He shrugged. “That's cool.” He pointed to three balls arranged in a triangle. Then he motioned with his head to a basket propped at a nearly vertical angle. “What do you say, kid. You a winner?”
I gave him two tickets and each ball I threw bounced out immediately. It was harder than I thought. The attendant took a long time retrieving the balls and when he did, he made half an attempt at juggling them. The balls stayed in the air for a few seconds before falling into the hay at his feet. Yet, he didn't appear to care about anything, about whether or not the balls stayed airborne, whether I won or lost, whether or not Dallas would ever like a guy like me.
On my sixth try, I was able to get all three balls in the basket. I did a little dance with my shoulders and Dallas, she smiled and clapped her hands. When I asked if there was anything to protect the glass, like bubble-wrap, the attendant handed me a plastic Pee-Wee Herman key-chain. “Here's how it works,” he said. “You have to win eight of these first.”
I tried to act like it didn't bother me, but Dallas was already pouting.
“Them's the rules,” he said.
I used the rest of my tickets, and won two more key-chains. I gave one to Dallas, who said she thought Pee-Wee Herman was a retard, but said she'd give it to Reed, in case they ever made up.
“Reed”, she said, “has a weird thing for Pee-Wee.”
By now, it was already five minutes after nine and I kept looking at my watch.
“What's wrong?” she said. “You gotta' go?”
I imagined Lupe waiting by the ticket booth, enveloped by a throng of screaming teenagers, searching their faces, rubbing her hands on her thighs. “No,” I said. It's okay.
Dallas and I walked over to an open area with a view the Ferris wheel and she stretched out on a sparse strip of crab grass. I thought about how close I should position myself without making Dallas feel uncomfortable.
We didn't talk for a good while. When we did, Dallas said that didn't I think stars were awesome. With all the light from the carnival filling the sky, you couldn't see but a single star, which was sickly and yellow, and most people wouldn't even have noticed it, but I said that tonight the stars were more awesome than I ever remembered them. Dallas was quiet for a while and I thought that maybe at that moment, our minds were considering the same idea, and maybe that meant it was possible for us to go out together, maybe go to McDonald's or Dairy Queen or the mall. It took a minute to realize she had turned and was watching me.
“You're like a total nerd, right?” she said with a laugh. Her laughter had a shrill tone to it, so that it stayed in my mind for a long time after it was ended.
I didn't know what to say so I forced out a squeaky laugh. “Why would make you think that?” I said.
“I don't know. It's like the way you act,” she said. She was serious now. “It's okay. It's how things are. Like some people are rockers and some are preppy and some are nerds. ”
Then she was quiet. I couldn't think of anything to say to prove her wrong so I stared up at that one star for a long time and tried to think about something else; not about my hot cheeks, or that it was way past nine and I'd have to think of something quick to redeem myself to Dallas, or that the Guess jeans dad bought me probably had a grass stain on the butt, or that I wished that just this one time, I could feel like a normal person.
Then I thought about Lupe and how mad she'd be. She was always treating me like I was a baby. I hated that. Then, even though I was already too old, I looked at the star and wished that Lupe would disappear forever, that the sky would clear and reveal a spread of shiny silver stars, and that Dallas would accidentally touch my hand.
But I knew Lupe wouldn't go anywhere and each minute that passed, the angrier she'd be. I had to leave. I plucked a strand of crab grass and tried to act relaxed, making music by placing it between my thumbs and blowing. I glanced over at Dallas, expecting a look of disapproval, but she wasn't even watching. She was intently picking the last bits of lavender polish off of one her toes. I stood up.
“Well see ya',” I said.
“Sure,” she said without looking up. She had removed the last of the paint and was ripping up the edge of her toenail. I thought about saying something disparaging about the town or school, but I could only think of what she had already said, nothing new, nothing that was my own. I would have liked to say I'd see her at the carnival again, but this was the last night and tomorrow all this would just be an empty lot filled with weeds and garbage. In the end I said nothing. I left, looking back only once to see if Dallas was watching me go, but she wasn't. She was on her back looking up at the sky.
On the way to meet Lupe, I passed through the midway where the guy at the ball and basket game was busy packing away the black glass panels. I put my head down, in the hope he wouldn't recognize me. I watched my feet kick up bits of hay that were spread across the ground.
“Hey kid,” I heard him call out. He called again and then ran up to me, grabbing my shoulder. He came close, so close I could smell cigarettes, and slipped me a small cardboard box. “You should have won this,” he said in a quiet voice. “But what is a carnival anyway but a big racket meant to steal your money?
I said I didn't want him to get in trouble, but he said he could care less. “Come on, take it,” he said. “You, more than most these assholes,” he gave a vague hand gesture, “actually deserve it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
He offered me good luck with my girl and said he remembered being my age and trying to get laid. He said I would have him to thank when she let me jump her bones.
“I wish,” I said and he laughed.
Lupe was pacing in front at the ticket booth and when she saw me she screamed and called me a “bad boy” in front of a group of high school kids. Then, all the way to the parking lot, she kept saying, “bad boy. You make me worry so bad.”
She grumbled all the way home, but later, when we sat in the living room waiting for my dad to finish the argument he was having with my mom so he could drive Lupe back to her apartment, she'd calmed down. I showed her the glass piece and explained how Axl Rose and Slash contributed to the distinctive sound of Guns N' Roses. I said how excited I was for them to come to Cal Expo because I heard they put on a crazy show full of lasers and fog and pyrotechnics. She smiled and rubbed my head and at that moment, I didn't care at all if she messed up my hair. She asked if I really liked that crazy music. I said that I did.