“That’s right. You probably don’t remember it.”
Of course I do, and I remember my father prancing around afterward, singing “Put on a Happy Face “effeminately, making a mockery of the whole play in a few minutes.
“And he was always on the honor roll, which is more than I can say for two out of three of mine, though most of those smart kids turned into druggies and are a misery to their parents, so you never know. That Lukie Whitbeck, you remember him, with all the hair? I think he got every award in Scott’s class. Everyone thought he was so wonderful, but he had a mean streak; I had to talk to his parents more than once about it. He was in jail last year, not for long, but still. Well, I’m so pleased you’re here, Daley.” She smiles broadly. She seems to have perked herself up by that dip and spit into the past. “You’re a good daughter.” And she kisses me on the cheek, takes her food, and leaves.
My father comes home at three and falls asleep on the couch. When his snoring reaches full volume, I bend over him and smell his breath. Hamburger, fries, and ketchup is all I get. At six-thirty I wake him for his meeting.
“Losers of the world unite,” he says as he hobbles upstairs to shower.
I cleaned out the Datsun that afternoon, brought a few bags to my room, and put the rest in the shed. He groans when he gets in and exaggerates the lack of head and legroom by scrunching up into a little egg. The smell of his Old Spice fills the small space.
“You don’t have to keep driving me,” he says.
“I like to.” I want to get to the point where I trust him to get to the church every night at seven, but that will take time. Sometimes he is so sad and quiet on the way I feel certain that if I weren’t there he’d pull into Shea’s, the liquor store, and down a quart of vodka in the car, or head to the Utleys or the Bridgetons, who were sure to be having cocktails on their patios.
After I let him out at the church, I walk to the carnival. The fried dough is calling me. I have nothing due, nothing to research, no deadline. My mind keeps moving to that list and finding it empty. Over and over. Each time my body grows a little lighter.
It’s hard to recognize the park when the carnival is planted in it. All the structures — the swing set and slide, the baseball diamond, the gazebo — are swallowed by it. As a kid I had a hard time holding the two concepts in my head at once, and if on occasion I did notice that it was the baseball bleachers people were sitting on to eat red foot-long hot dogs before going on the roller coaster beside them, it was like discovering an artifact from another lifetime, the way they discover the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes.
I pay the six-dollar entry fee and go in. They’ve put down hay to protect the grass. It used to be free to wander around the carnival, and no one ever cared about the grass. It always grew back. Ashing is starting to be self-conscious that way, with its new matching awnings above the storefronts and the renaming of certain streets I read about in the paper. Snelling Street is now Coral Avenue. And Pope’s Road has become Bayview Lane. But the music at the carnival is the same as always, “Sweet Caroline” and “Mandy” and “My Eyes Adored You.” I can see Jonathan rolling his eyes, but he’d be singing along with me anyway. He’d know all the words. It’s packed, full of kids and teenagers and brand-new families, the parents my age, the children in little pouches and strollers. Again I feel like an interloper, a spy on my own past.
I go directly to the fried dough window. The woman hands me an enormous slab with pools of oil on top, and I shake the plastic tub of cinnamon sugar over it until it’s a deep, dark brown. I mean to find a bench and eat it slowly, but it’s so good I polish it off right there next to the condiments. After I buy a small book of tickets I go in search of the Tilt-a-Whirl. It’s right where it always was, to the left of the Ferris wheel, its hooded blue and white cars just coming to a slow undulating stop on their circular tracks. Mallory, Patrick, and I probably took this ride together over a hundred times. I always sat in the middle because Mallory and Patrick were heavier and could make the car spin faster by leaning to each side. Mallory screamed shrilly in my ear and Patrick kept his mouth shut, making little ghostlike moans every now and then. Just the sound of my feet on the thin metal steps after I give over my tickets brings whole summers back to me. The seats are still smooth red leather, the bar that comes down over your knees the same scallop shape. I have the same rush of anticipation as the man pulls the lever, and the belt that all the cars are on begins to move. I sit on one side of the car to make it spin more. Soon I’m being flung in circles so fast my brain gives up trying to ground itself, and I am left with that rush of abandon that is one small part fear and the rest sheer ecstasy. I hear myself shrieking along with other shriekers. There are moments on the Tilt-a-Whirl when you can raise your head and look briefly around before you are sent into another vortex. At one point I look up and see Neal Caffrey on a bench watching me. The next time he is gone. When the ride ends I stumble along its edge to give the operator more tickets and go back to my red seat. While I am spinning it’s impossible to think about Jonathan or Oliver Raskin or the cottage with the yellow door.
When I get off, I only have twenty minutes left. I want to ride the Scrambler, the Salt ‘n’ Pepper Shaker, and the Ferris wheel. I can’t decide which, so first I get some more fried dough. This time I shake out the cinnamon sugar and the powdered sugar until it is tick-gray. Delicious. Then I get in line for the Ferris wheel, which is on a long ramp leading up to its base. Two little girls and their mother are ahead of me. The girls are trying to decide which color compartment they hope to get. The compartments are round, with a column in the middle that holds up a matching metal umbrella. The girls are hopping with the same mix of sugar and excitement that I feel. I wish I could ride with them, and am almost on the brink of asking when Neal taps my foot.
He’s on the ground below. “Hey.” He looks like he’s forgotten the rest of what he was going to say.
The girls and their mother get into a green compartment. One of the girls is crying. She wanted blue.
I look at the long line behind me. “Are you trying to cut?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, you’d better hurry,” I say, and he hoists himself up by the metal railing and threads his body through the bars.
Our basket arrives. It’s blue and the little girl is howling above us. I give the man enough tickets for both of us then we crouch down to fit beneath the rim of the umbrella and sit on opposite sides of the circular compartment. The man drops a bolt through three rings on the door. We rise up a few feet and stop. I have no earthly idea what to say to Neal Caffrey. And really, I don’t want to talk. I want to go up high and look down at the town and out across the pale water.
“Oh Jeez,” Neal says as our basket rises again, much higher. It stops close to the top and swings a bit. “Oh shit.”
“Don’t tell me the winner of the Renaissance Cup is scared of heights. Look how gorgeous it is from up here.” I turn to see the harbor spreading wider and wider below us as we ascend, and then the open ocean beyond, dotted with islands, and the beginning of night lying flat against the horizon.
“Please don’t do that. Please don’t move around.” He is leaning forward, gripping the circular bar.
“You mean like this?” I shift my weight the slightest bit, a little forward, a little back.
“Please don’t,” he whimpers.
I’m a little shocked by what a baby he is.
We move and stop again, right at the very top. All the color is gone from Neal’s face, and his eyes are clenched shut.