steer with one hand and wave to folks with the other. Strangler said she was a natural. Fact is, she was a dang site better than me in two days. I didn’t like hearing that, but it was the truth. Tony decided he wanted to go back to Mrs. Carson. Me and Jane didn’t like the idea on one hand, but we figured it was for the best. He liked having a home, and ought to have one. Besides, growing up with either of us, me and Jane decided, was akin to being raised by wolves.
Jane had a few dollars, and Strangler gave Tony a few, and she and Tony left early one morning.
It all happened so fast the day they left, I didn’t feel I got to tell either one of them a proper goodbye.
Jane said she’d write in care of the carnival, general delivery. The carnival’s next town was Tyler, so she said she’d send it there. She did just that, and the letter said she was coming to see me.
She came and I met her in Tyler, at the carnival. Me and her and Strangler had a visit, and then later that night I walked with her off the carnival lot and we rode in Junior’s truck, which was now her truck, and we ended up at a spot outside of town where the earth rose up high and there were lots of trees and a little drop-off where you could see the dark roll of a few hills and the high bright light of the moon and the stars.
She sat with her hands on the wheel. She said, “Sometimes I lie a little.”
“I know that.”
“I love Tony, and I want him to be happy,” she said. “I even dragged him all over creation with us. But that isn’t what he wants, Jack.”
“I know that too.”
“He’s happy where he is. I’m not.”
Suddenly, my stomach felt a little queasy. “I was planning on getting loose from the carnival, coming to see you and Tony.”
“You love the carnival. I can tell.”
This was true, but I didn’t say anything.
“I think a person ought to go their own way, if that way is tugging at them,” she said. “You know what I mean?”
“I think so. But I don’t know it bodes well for me.”
“Let’s don’t talk about it anymore. Kiss me, Jack.”
I did. Long and hard. It was as sweet a kiss as I ever had. When it was finished, Jane leaned forward and cranked the truck. The moonlight was bright enough I could see tears on her cheeks.
We drove out of there then, back to the carnival, but when we got there, Jane didn’t get out. She said, “I got a long ways to go, so I’m going to get after it.”
“Tonight?”
“Tony will expect me back.”
“All right,” I said.
She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. Kissed me good. I gave her the same kind of kiss, and feeling a little stunned, I got out of the truck.
“Goodbye,” she said as I held the door.
“Goodbye,” I said. “I love you.”
I hadn’t planned it, but the words had just jumped out of my mouth like a frightened frog.
She smiled at me. “I’ll write.”
“I’ll be in Hawkins in a few days,” I said. “Send it to general delivery there. I’ll leave a follow-up address for when we move on.”
“That’s good,” she said.
Without really thinking about it, I gently closed the door, then watched as the truck moved away, rattling along, picking up speed, heading down the road, into the moonlight.
50
She didn’t write.
A few days later, I rode with Strangler to Hawkins, and pretty soon I was helping out with the carnival. Helping Strangler, actually. Kind of an assistant. He paid me for the work. It wasn’t much, but it was money, and it was my own money. I was a carny and I loved it.
Thing is, though, we got to Hawkins, and I went to the little post office there every day, and no letter ever came.
I had Mrs. Carson’s address, and I wrote Jane when we moved on to Texarkana. I told her to address my mail to the Memphis post office, general delivery. That was our next stop.
When we got to Memphis there was a letter for me from Mrs. Carson. She wrote that Jane had moved on. I felt like my insides had fallen out of me.
Moved on?
That wasn’t quite what I had hoped for.
The carnival wound up into Missouri and even Kentucky, before coming back down along the edge of Oklahoma. When we got there, Strangler bought a car, and he let me borrow it. It was an older car, but it ran fine. I drove on across Oklahoma to where Mrs. Carson lived.
It was a pretty burnt-out state, the dust still blowing, the grasshoppers still eating. I had a little money saved up now, so I stopped and got gas and ate at cafes, and even stayed a night in a boardinghouse. All things considered, it was a pretty comfortable trip compared with the one I had taken with Jane and Tony.
But, I got to be honest, it wasn’t as much fun.
When I got to Mrs. Carson’s, I went up to the house and knocked, and she was glad to see me, and Tony was too. He told me he had been going to school, and he loved it, and had only been in two fights.
I thought that was pretty good.
Jane didn’t write them often, Mrs. Carson said, but the last time she had written, she had sent a letter for me. She said Jane wrote in their letter she figured I’d show up there eventually, and would they give it to me.
I didn’t open it right away. I ate supper with Mrs. Carson and Tony, and then I had coffee with some pie, and Tony had milk and a lot of pie, and then me and him went out on the porch swing and sat there in the soft night watching the fireflies flit about.
Tony said, “I miss Jane, but I got to say, Jack, I like it here.”
“Mrs. Carson is a good woman.”
“She’s like a mother, I think. I didn’t really have one that mattered, so I don’t know what one is supposed to be like. My mother is out there somewhere with a Bible salesman. But Mrs. Carson, she seems to like me.”
“Sure she does.”
“She said she’s going to adopt me.”
“I’m glad you’re happy,” I said.
“Yeah, but you don’t look so happy,” he said.
“I guess I miss Jane too,” I said.
“She liked you,” Tony said.
“Not enough,” I said.
“It’s just the spirit in her,” Tony said. “She’s got lots of spirit. You can’t hold that spirit down. It was hard for her to leave me. She tried to explain it to me, but she couldn’t. But she didn’t need to. I knew she had to leave. I don’t like it, but I knew it was coming.”
I smiled at him. “You’ve grown up a lot in a short time,” I said.
“You think?” he said.
“I think.”
51
I spent the night there, and Mrs. Carson put me in the room I was in before. Tony had his own room now, so it was just me in there.
I turned on the lamp by the bed and sat down on the edge and opened the letter.
I unfolded it and read:
