Six

SIX

There came a morning when they ate breakfast and instead of heading out to work on the machines Hazel brought a clean shirt out of the back bedroom and handed it to the boy.

`Here. We’re going to town. You need to be cleaner.`

He hesitated. It had been a week, no, ten days that he had been here with the old woman and Robert and he felt it was not long enough to be safe if they were looking for him. `I’ll stay here and work on the machines.`

`It’s the county fair,` she said. Then, turning to the picture, she added, `Every year the fair comes. We go it.`

He washed at the kitchen sink and when he came back outside buttoning his shirt she was at the car.  She was still wearing bib overalls – had worn them every day since he’d first met her – but they were clean and she had a clean work shirt on beneath the overalls.

`Here,` she said, handing him a folded piece of paper. He looked down and was surprised to see that it was a twenty-dollar bill. `Man’s got to have some money. For spending at the fair.`

`You don’t need to give me money…`
`Of course I do. You want it getting out that I don’t give my hand money for the fair?`

They drove in complete silence, setting off at thirty miles an hour on the highway for the two miles into Clinton.

The town itself was small – not over a thousand people – and the fair was equally small. It was a sideshow banner, a Ferris wheel, a Tilt-a-Whirl, some small car rides for children and a row of game booths. The boy was surprised to see that there were hundreds and hundreds of people there, all scrubbed clean and milling on the short midway. At one end of the fairgrounds there were two large sheds and he could see livestock in the buildings, cages with chickens and rabbits and turkeys, pens with sheep and hogs.

`So many people,` he said to Hazel as they walked from the grassy meadow where the cars were parked. `Where do they come from?`
`Farms,` she said. `There’s farms all over the place. Town wouldn’t even be here except for farmers. `Sides, it’s the last day of the fair and that brings them in a little extra-`

At that precise moment the boy saw the sheriff’s deputy who had arrested him and taken all his money and made him a fugitive. He thought of it that way. He saw not just the deputy – who was walking away from them at an angle across the midway – but the deputy who had arrested him and taken all his money and made him a runner from the law.

He had to hide. If the lawman saw him it would be over. He’d probably go to prison, being a fugitive.

`I have to go,` he said to Hazel, interrupting. `You know.. to the bathroom.`

He left her walking towards the fair and angled off in the opposite direction taken by the deputy. It led him past the draglines and the Ferris wheel and near the Tilt-a-Whirl.

`Hey, kid you want a job?`
The boy turned and found himself looking at a figure who summed up everything he ever wanted to be in a man. The man wore Levi’s so low the crack of his butt showed in the rear and the top edge of pubic hair in the front and a T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in a sleeve, one of which he lit now with a Zippo lighter that he snapped open and flicked in an easy motion with one hand. His hair was combed in a perfect greased-back jet-black ducktail and as a final touch of glory he wore heavy-duty black engineer’s boots with straps and buckles that looked freshly oiled and polished.

`Doing what?` the boy asked.
The man looked over the boy’s head when he spoke, coolly ignoring him, letting his eyes move up and down the fairgrounds.

`I’ll give you thirty-five bucks a week to set up and run the Tilt-a-Whirl for the rest of the summer. We’re leaving tonight.`

Thirty-five dollars a week from a job with the glory of the carnival seemed unbelievably rich and absolutely perfect for a man who was on the run and the boy at first nodded, then shook his head. `I can’t.`

The man shrugged. `The world is full of can’ts- it’s a word used by losers.`
`No. I mean I can. I want the job. But I have some… trouble. I have to stay out of sight.`
`For how long?`
¬Just until I leave … you know, for the day.`
The man studied him, looked up and down slowly, looked away again, dragging deeply on the cigarette. `You’re serious.`
`Yes.`
`Is it the law?`
The boy hesitated. `Yes.`
`You’re wanted?`
`I ran off.`
`Oh, hell. We all did that.` He brought his eyes back to the boy, flicked ash neatly off his cigarette.
`Good arms – can you work?`

Can I work? The boy thought – thought of beets and tractor driving and days so bent over he couldn’t stand straight. `Yes. I can work hard.`

`Hmmm,` the man said, taking a long drag on the Camel. He thought for a moment more, then shrugged. `All right. I’m Taylor. You screw me and I’ll find you and cut you. Deep.` He fished into his pocket with two fingers and extracted a twenty-dollar bill. `Here. From your first week’s pay. Get your butt into town and get some boots and a T-shirt. You look like a trick. Get back here about midnight to work the breakdown. The law ought to be gone by then – or he’ll be so drunk it doesn’t matter.`

The boy took the money and started out behind the Tilt-a-Whirl, into some low trees that led off to town, and had gone twenty paces before he remembered Hazel. She would worry. He stopped. It wasn’t like leaving the Mexicans, somehow. They had themselves, their families. Hazel had nothing. In the short time he’d been with her she had become something for him; someone inside him.

He trotted back to the midway, stopped in back of the Ferris wheel where the machinery hid him and looked for her. And for the deputy. He saw the deputy first, talking to two women near the draglines. He stood with his back straight and his stomach sucked in and the boy thought, You bastard, you’ve got my money, you son-of-a-bitch of a thief.

He looked away and at length saw Hazel in her bibs moving towards the livestock barn. He gave one more glance at the deputy, who was still by the draglines with the girls, and moved to intercept Hazel, keeping the sideshow tents between him and the lawman.

`Oh, there you are,` she said as he came up. `We’ve got to see the workhorses. There might be some I’d want to buy. For when Robert comes back…`
`I have to leave,` the boy said because he did not yet know a way to say things smoothly. `I have to go.`

She stopped and turned and he was surprised to see a tear in the corner of her eye. `Is it the talk about Robert? Because I just talk, you know. I know he isn’t coming back. If I talk about it, it eases the pain of knowing. But if its that I can -`

`No. I have some other things in my life. Somethings I’ve done. I have to leave,` he repeated. G’damn, he thought, why does it hurt this way? Goddamn! I don’t even know her. Jeez. `I’m sorry. Here.` He dug into his pocket and held out the Twenty-dollar bill she’d given him. `You take this back.`

`No. you go now. Take the money. You’ll ned it.` She took his hand and with surprising strength folded his fingers back on the bill and pushed the hand back towards his pocket. `Go. Now.`

And she turned and went into the stock barn, leaving him. He felt some loss he didn’t understand, a loss he would always feel and never understand, started after her and stopped, remembered the deputy, his new job, and turned, jogging off towards town, his eyes burning and his feet heavy.