said, watching Eve maneuver the truck through the parking lot.
She offered me another beer, but I was still nursing my first one and passed. I hadn’t eaten since my early lunch with Portland, which now seemed a million years ago. The moon was rising and another beer would put me right over it. But it was pleasant to sit here in the cool early fall night and listen to Tally talk about life in the carnival: on the road all summer, their winters in Gibsonton, Florida—Gibtown to its citizens—a town founded by a giant and a half woman, where everything was zoned Residential/Show Business instead of Residential/Agricultural as it was in our corner of Colleton County.
“What does that mean exactly?” I asked.
“Means you can have an elephant in your backyard if you want to.”
I heard about January trade fairs where the latest thrill rides can sell for close to a million dollars or a pizza trailer with ovens and icemaker for a hundred thousand. I heard about buying goldfish wholesale for seven cents apiece, where to buy the best stuffed toys for the least amount of money, and why iguanas don’t make such good prizes. (“Too hard to keep warm on the northern routes.”) She told me how to cool the marks and how you can get sucker sore after weeks on the road.
“Like the time we were with this little gilly outfit up in Pennsylvania. I was working a shoot-till-you-win hanky- pank. That’s what the sign said: shoot till YOU WIN. So up steps this big wide farm lady. She looks at my store, she reads the sign, she lays down her money and picks up the gun, then she looks at me and says, ‘Hey, lady. Which one of them things is Till?”
She talked of the friendships and how much she missed Irene Matusik, who really had tried to mother her and grandmother her sons.
“When did she die?”
“Last winter. Her heart had been bad for years and last October, right after we finished the season, it just quit on her. She died in her sleep, all peaceful—the way I hope I go when it’s my time, but God, how I miss her!”
She spoke of how Eve and Skee were third-generation carnies and how young Kay was first-of-May. “We picked her up in Georgia and I think she’s going to be a keeper.”
“You really like the life, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes and no. Every new place is a challenge. But it’s rough at times, like being nibbled to death by ducks when equipment breaks down, your help runs off or gets drunk, and the festival committee lies about the draw and then tries to stiff you on the percentages. That’s why we’re thinking of becoming forty-milers. Sell off some of our stuff and just play small festivals around the Carolinas and Virginia in the summer, do something with the farm for the fall, maybe work the flea markets in the winter.”
“That would be great,” I said, thinking of the spice they’d add to family reunions. I couldn’t wait to see Aunt Sister’s reaction to this new grandniece. Especially if I could persuade Tally to contribute fried elephant ears to the picnic table instead of banana pudding or pimento cheese sandwiches.
I told her about Daddy and as much of his first wife as I could, about my brothers and their children, and about A.K. and Ruth, her half siblings; but that seemed to make her uncomfortable so I remembered something I’d read about on the Internet and I asked, “Did you ever do a hey rube?”
“Me personally? Nope.”
“Not even when those guys were ripping up your Pot O’Gold?”
“For three drunks?” Her voice held amused scorn as she shook her head. “You only do one when you need a lot of backup quick, okay? First one I ever saw was at the Brandywine Racetrack, about a month after I was with it. One of the towners had some problem with a guy on one of the rides so he got about thirty of his buds together about eleven o’clock one night and they all climbed up and over the back of the ride to attack the eight guys who were crewing the ride. Well, the guy on the mike at the ride booth saw what was happening and he hey rubed over the mike, which brought about fifty carnies running. It was a real short spat.”
She smiled in memory. “If you yell ‘Hey Rube,’ everyone drops everything to assist. I mean, games are empty, rides stop in midturn, food’s left to burn on the grill, so it’s a serious thing. I’ve only seen about five in all my years.”
As she spoke, her husband and son rounded the corner of the women’s bunkhouse.
The boy gave me a curt nod and went on into their trailer, but Arnold Ames sank down into one of the webbed chairs.
“Judge,” he said.
“Please. Call me Deborah.”
“She’s no judge here, Arnie, okay?” Tally said.
He shrugged.
“Get you a beer, hon?”
“That’d taste good.”
“Deborah, you ready yet?”
Again I passed and she stepped inside the trailer.
“I probably ought to be going,” I told her husband. “But it’s been good getting to know Tally.”
“Don’t leave on my account,” said Ames.
I listened for the sarcasm beneath his words, but there didn’t seem to be any. He had a nice face. Not handsome, but pleasant. I guessed him to be midforties. A receding hairline. Shrewd green eyes. The hard wiry build of a man who does physical work outside.
Tally struck me as a complete pragmatist, a woman who’d seen too much crap to put up with anything she didn’t like for very long. If she’d stayed married to Arnold Ames for going on twenty years, it had to be because he was good to her. That was enough for me to cut him all the slack he needed tonight.
