Carnival Read online

  “You’re eighteen.”

  “I told you that already,” she muttered.

  “It was your eighteenth birthday yesterday?”

  She looked down, but her expression was angry.

  “Yeah, so?” she hissed, grabbing the license and tucking it away.

  I shrugged.

  “Nothing. Just an interesting choice of day to run away.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her, but she didn’t comment. I glanced at Aimee.

  “Guess we’re done here.”

  “Zef! We can’t let her go just like that. She’s got nowhere to go!”

  “How do you know that? Maybe she does. Hey, kid, you got somewhere else you need to be?”

  “I’m not a kid!”

  Aimee frowned at me, then smiled at the girl kindly.

  “Do you have somewhere to go? Any friends you can call?”

  The girl looked down, her face contorting as if she was trying to figure out what to say. Then she gave a small shake of her head.

  “No, ma’am.” She looked up. “There’s no one.”

  “You runnin’ from the law?” I asked roughly, leaning toward her.

  She shook her head again quickly, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Stop scaring her, Zef!” Aimee said, giving me a telling look.

  I grimaced and leaned back.

  “His bark is worse than his bite,” Aimee said soothingly as the girl continued to stare at me.

  Aimee pursed her lips.

  “Well, we’ll be here for two weeks. If you want a job and a place to stay, you’re welcome to both.”

  My eyes narrowed as I glanced at Aimee. The girl seemed equally surprised.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked shyly.

  “Because you need a friend,” Aimee replied.

  The girl gave her a timid smile.

  “Thank you. That would be kinda great.”

  Aimee smiled back.

  “You’re welcome. I’m Aimee, if you hadn’t already guessed. That bear sitting over there is Zef; the one with all the lame jokes is Tucker; and the handsome one is Kes, my husband. You’ll meet Zach, Luke and Ollo later.”

  The girl giggled. Fucking irritating. I couldn’t stand giggling girls.

  Then Bo climbed out of the RV’s window and landed in Aimee’s lap. The girl screamed and jumped about a foot in the air.

  “Oh, and that’s Bojangles—you can call him Bo. He’s part of the family, too.”

  The girl blinked several times, but didn’t try to touch Bo.

  “He won’t hurt you,” Aimee cooed, picking up the little guy and cuddling him.

  I stood up to leave.

  “Oh, Zef, would you mind cleaning out some space in your room for Sara. You don’t mind sleeping in the rig for a couple of weeks, do you?”

  Set. Up. I’d been totally set up. Aimee had planned this from the start. I shot her a filthy look as she grinned at me.

  “Oh don’t look at me like that,” she laughed. “You’ll be fine for a couple of weeks.”

  “He doesn’t need to do that,” the girl said in a tiny voice.

  Without another word, I marched into my small room and started stuffing clothes into my old backpack, cursing under my breath.

  Why should I sleep in the goddamn rig just because some stupid kid had decided to run away for her birthday?

  Even as I was griping and glowering, I felt a small pang of remorse. People didn’t run away on their eighteenth birthday for no reason. Fine, I’d move out for a couple of weeks; I just hope this didn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

  I stomped out of the RV, ignoring the girl’s quiet, “Thank you.”

  Later that morning, I was still irritated to hell and back.

  I stormed across to the arena in a foul mood. Aimee wasn’t thinking straight. Even if the girl wasn’t wanted by the cops, it didn’t mean people weren’t looking for her. And she couldn’t just go around handing out jobs—she knew that Zach ran everything by the book—he couldn’t afford not to. One infraction, and the Daredevils would be closed down.

  When Zach had been the carnival manager, he’d had a zero tolerance policy on anyone operating machinery when they’d been drinking, and random drug tests were standard. Since he’d run the Daredevils full time, the family that owned the carnival, the Reynolds, had eased up some, but it was still one of the better run outfits.

  Zach agreed that he’d find Sara a job—something that didn’t bring her into contact with the public. Yeah, because we had so many jobs like that. It was complete bullshit! Everyone worked here; everyone did two or three different jobs. The ride jocks sold tickets and ran the concession stands; the roustabouts moved the props and machinery and restocked the tent shows when it was needed. The guys in the Daredevils did our own bike maintenance and got the jumps and bleachers in place; in the smaller venues where we had less help, before shows we sold programs like anyone else. We all worked.

  I didn’t know what Zach had in mind and letting my anger grow wasn’t helping anyone. Besides, it was going to be up to Zach and Aimee to figure out this mess. So I ignored it and threw myself into the set-up of the jumps. Several of the pieces weighed upward of a hundred pounds and needed careful handling. All the crew wore boots with steel toecaps and hardhats.

  That was just one of the changes Zach had implemented over the years, quoting from his bible, the H&S manual for the International Association of Amusement Parks. On the other hand, the only serious injury in recent memory had been when I’d torn my anterior cruciate ligament, and that was during a stunt, so although the insurance skyrocketed again, no one was getting sued.

  When I did motor cross, a lot of guys wore knee braces as well as kidney belts, neck braces and chest armor. All of that got in the way with the kind of stunts we did. Our bodies needed to be flexible, moving more like gymnasts. Covering ourselves in immovable armor didn’t work. We were more exposed, but in some ways our environment was more controlled. We weren’t getting covered in mud on a track with twenty other bikers. But when some of those jumps were as much as a hundred feet, it was good training for stunt work.

  We finally took a break from the mid-morning heat, Aimee and three other women including Sara arrived with plates piled with food.

  I rested my hardhat on the soil and picked up a sandwich stuffed with ham, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes.

  “Sara made those,” Aimee smiled at me.

  I tossed the sandwich back onto the platter, ignoring Sara’s distraught look, and walked away in disgust. I liked Aimee, but I was fed up being manipulated by damned women. Maybe I should just find a woman from the audience tomorrow and fuck her senseless.

  I sat alone in the bleachers and drank from a bottle of water that had been warming in the sun. It tasted of plastic and I wondered idly how many PCBs I was ingesting.

  Then I saw Ollo crossing the arena to join me, Bo riding him like a ship at sea, swaying with Ollo’s uneven, rolling gait.

  “Have you come to feed me more pearls of wisdom?” I asked dryly.

  Ollo chuckled.

  “Nope, just looking for a place to eat my lunch.”

  He handed me a pack of sandwiches that I recognized, and pulled out another for himself and Bo to share.

  I sighed and bit into the sandwich. I didn’t want to admit that it tasted good and I was damned hungry.

  “The new girl seems okay.”

  I grunted, unwilling to reply.

  “Aimee shouldn’t have kicked you out of your crib like that,” he said, surprising me. “You gotta earn your place. Kestrel told her the same thing.”

  I stared at my food, feeling like shit. I was being a little bitch. It wasn’t the girl’s fault.

  “It’s fine, Ollo,” I sighed. “I wouldn’t have let the kid sleep in the rig anyway.”

  He nodded.

  “I know that. But it’s one thing to offer, and another to be told.”

  I definitely wasn’t looking forward to bend
ing myself in half to fit the small mattress behind the driver’s seat in the cab. It wasn’t too bad, but it was hot and stuffy in summer. I’d probably end up dragging my bed roll outside. I’d have to find the old air mattress I used to sleep on.

  “Having said that,” Ollo smiled, standing up, “give the kid a chance. She makes good sandwiches.”

  He strolled off, his rolling gait almost painful looking. I knew his hips gave him trouble sometimes. It hurt to think that Ollo was getting older. His face was as wrinkled as a turtle, but his hair was still jet black, just a little salt and pepper at the sides, and the guy had more energy than most able-bodied men half his age.

  Bo sat next to me, silently eating a piece of tomato, then carefully licking his fingers and cleaning the fur around his mouth. I’d rather live with him than most species of humanity.

  My cell phone buzzed with an incoming text, and I smiled when I saw my brother’s name show up on the screen.

  Got a pre-season game

  LA Aug 31.

  You in Pomona then?

  Meet up?

  My talented little brother was starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons his second season in the NFL. It would be really good to see him again. We were hardly ever in the same place at the same time, and he knew I avoided going back to Georgia if I could help it.

  Awesome!

  Back in So Cal on July 2.

  I’m in.

  He texted back immediately.

  I’ll leave tickets at the players entrance.

  See you then.

  Daniel was one of the few people that I trusted. We were pretty close, especially during the tough times. He’d been with the same girl since his Freshman year at college. Lisanne was a musician, the singer in an indie band who’d recently recorded their first album. Not many people knew that Dan co-wrote most of their songs. Or that he’d started to lose his hearing from the age of thirteen and was completely deaf by fourteen.

  And I could only imagine how hard it would be for them to schedule their time together if the band took off the way it looked as though it was going to.

  Thinking about my brother’s problems took the edge off my own irritation. I didn’t have any real problems, except being a giant asshole.

  I decided to join the rest of the roustabouts and ride jocks, and stop taking life so seriously. Mirelle had dented my ego, but I was surprised to find that my heart had only sustained minor injuries.

  As for Sara . . . I took a deep breath. She needs a friend.

  Kes slapped me on the shoulder when I came back, and I knew that was his way of showing solidarity. Not that he’d ever apologize for his wife, that wasn’t his way, and I didn’t expect it either.

  By late afternoon, the jumps were set up, and along the midway games, rides, and food stands were nearing readiness. A steel and canvas city had bloomed under the scorching sun. You could still see the inner workings, the skeletons under the canvas, the tent pegs and guide ropes, but by the time the gates opened at noon tomorrow, everything would be ready. Ollo said that’s when the magic happened. I just knew that it was a lot of hard work, but it made people happy, too.

  Earlier in the day, Zach had sent a crew to make sure that all the RVs were hooked up to power and that the water pipes were all linked to the site’s fresh water. We had a ton of backup generators, but those were for emergencies. All the RVs had water tanks, too, but when you had six or eight people living in one trailer, water ran out quickly. Kes had lived his whole life with two-minute showers. I’d gotten used to it, too, but that didn’t mean I didn’t dream about the rare occasions when I slept in a house and could shower for as long as I wanted. Damn, I was getting soft.

  But it wasn’t only life on the road that had molded me—two long years in prison had just as much effect, more in some ways. Trusting people was hard—another legacy from my time inside.

  I shook my head, promising to free myself from the dark pull of the past, and headed to the rig to grab my leathers for a run through of the show. We’d done it a thousand times, but no one wanted to make a mistake on one-thousand-and-one.

  With a full scale arena, we could play the extended show here, a little more gloss than we’d been able to give it in Missoula.

  So we started the run-through with screaming donuts, handstands on the handlebars, that kind of thing, before progressing to the jumps. We didn’t do the fire stunts today because the gas cylinders hadn’t been refilled yet and Zach was waiting on a delivery from Spokane. We’d been promised it would arrive in time for the show tomorrow.

  I’d learned not to stress about this stuff. If it arrived, great; if it didn’t, we’d be fine and work around it.

  An hour later, hot and sweaty but feeling more like myself, I rode the bike back across the bumpy back lot to the rig. I cleaned off the dust and dirt from my bike. It was a KTM 350 SX-F, or to put it another way $15,000 worth of dirt bike. KTM bikes had won three consecutive 450 Supercross World Championships—motocross racing—good build quality for stunt work.

  Satisfied that my bike hadn’t sustained any damage during practice, I peeled off my sweaty leathers and hung them in the sun to dry out.

  I had to go back to the RV to shower because neither Tucker nor I’d had time to set up the outdoor shower. Besides, I was craving hot water right about now to soothe the ache in my tired muscles.

  We were all feeling the strain. Driving all night and working all day, it was hard on the body. I sometimes used a martial arts wooden dummy to build up my adrenaline before a show, but Luke had gotten us all into doing yoga a while back, and even though I’d been skeptical, I found that I was in better shape after doing the stretches and balance work he taught us. Anything that kept us going and kept us injury free. Kes was fanatical about it, which meant we all paid attention.

  Another innovation that we’d brought in last season was trampoline work. Practicing somersaults and aerial work was surprisingly useful, even though we weren’t on the bikes at the time. I was working on a few new moves and getting my body used to moving in the air helped. Kes was a perfectionist and worked us hard, but our show was the shit, and that was why we made the big bucks when we were back in Pomona.

  I didn’t spend much of the money I earned. I don’t know what I was saving for, because the future was a foreign country.

  I took my allotted two minutes under a spray of steam and hot water, not worrying about getting dry after. In this heat, it would only take a few minutes. I’d forgotten that all my clothes were now crammed in the bottom of my backpack, so I threw a towel around my waist, only to come face to face with the girl.

  She backed away nervously when she saw me.

  “I . . . I’m sorry about your room. You can have it back.”

  God, she must think I’m such a dickhead.

  “It’s fine. Keep it. I’m used to sleeping in the rig.”

  She sucked in her full bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth.

  “But it’s not fair.”

  “I’ve slept worse places, kid. Don’t worry about it.”

  Her cheeks flushed pink.

  “My name is Sara,” she said defiantly. “Not ‘kid’.”

  A small grin formed on my lips.

  “Noted. Thank you for the sandwiches. Sara.”

  She blinked several times, then turned on her heel and darted into my . . . her room.

  Staring after her, I shook my head. Chick was strange.

  I headed back to the rig and found some wrinkled khaki shorts and a Falcons t-shirt, then helped the other men build a bonfire.

  We were all tired, even without being open to the public today. Full of good food and feeling calmer than I had in a few days, I let myself relax, enjoying the entertainment as Kes was persuaded to bring out his set of throwing knives and show the kid . . . Sara . . . what a guy who was brought up in the carnival could do.

  He placed her next to a large wooden board, scarred from use. Then he threw knives around the outline of her thin body
, laughing as she squealed each time a knife thudded into the board next to her.

  I was impressed that she didn’t flinch even once. I’d let Kes practice on me a few times and I gotta say, staying still when someone is tossing razor sharp steel knives at your favorite face isn’t that easy.

  Kes got a round of applause and led Sara back to her place by the fire, laughing when her legs gave way and she crashed down between me and Maddie who’d been talking about her grandkids. They weren’t carnies, but they thought their grandma was pretty darn cool. I had to agree.

  Sometimes you didn’t choose the life; sometimes the life chose you.

  I was surprised when Sara leaned against me, watching as Kes winked at Aimee and she blew him a kiss back.

  She acted like she was a little drunk, even though I knew for a fact that she’d been drinking soda all evening.

  Then she sighed loudly, “She’s so lucky!”

  Zach rolled his eyes in amusement as yet another woman fell for Kes.

  It was a good thing I loved the guy like a brother or I might have been jealous.

  Jealous? About a skinny little kid like Sara? No way. I must be more tired than I thought.

  “Hey!” Tucker yelled at Aimee. “You’re gonna name your kid after his Uncle Tucker, right?”

  Kes raised an eyebrow.

  “No way I’m naming my kid after a guy whose name rhymes with ‘motherfucker’.”

  Tucker’s face fell and everyone laughed.

  “Maybe we’ll name him Joseph,” Aimee said, smirking in Tucker’s direction.

  “You wouldn’t!” he huffed out. “You can’t name him after that loser.”

  Sara’s skin seemed pale as the firelight threw shadows across her face.

  “You’re having a baby?” she whispered to Aimee, and I wondered if I was imagining the pain in her expression.

  “Yes, I’m eleven weeks,” Aimee smiled. “The baby is due January 1st.”

  “You’re having a boy?”

  “We don’t know yet. I just think of him as a boy.”

  “I like the name Joseph. Is that what you’d name him?”