“We’ll dodge it until it blows over. Hell, cops don’t catch one in ten criminals anymore, and I bet there’s not that many people sweating over a firecracker stand and its owner. Then again, there may not be any warrants. Probably don’t even know you’re involved. We start with this one thing, then we worry about the other problems as we come to them.”
“Christ, I don’t know.”
“Tell you what,” Gidget said, getting up, sliding into her shorts more easily this time. “You think about the poontang you aren’t getting and the poontang he’s getting, and you think about that dead hand of his rubbing me down.” She fastened her shorts and pulled on her T-shirt. “You think about that, baby. Then you let me know how you feel. Tell me you haven’t got anything against him. Fact he’s fuckin’ me like I was a fertility goddess ought to be cause enough you want to see him dead. What he’s getting, you aren’t getting. Remember that.”
Gidget pulled the slicker over her head, stopped at the door, and looked back. “You ought to clean up that mustard. And there’s a corn dog under your bed. I can see it from here.”
She went out in the rain and closed the door. After a time, Bill got up, cleaned the freezer, rinsed off the corn dog, rewarmed it in the microwave and ate it.
Twenty-four
Next day the rain cleared up. Dampness hung from every tree limb and leaf and blade of grass and the trailers were slicked as if coated with gloss. The whirligig arrived from its last location via the trailer, along with the Pickled Punks. Phil had driven the trailer himself and a wetback he’d hired followed him in a car with a smoking exhaust. It looked like an old-fashioned mosquito fogger.
Phil and Frost parleyed and Phil went out of there with a scowl on his face, his South of the Border driver at the wheel.
Frost rounded up enough folks to erect the whirligig. It was wet from being dragged around on the damp grass. Much of it had worn bright silver through the green paint.
This was the very thing that was getting Frost. The green paint worn away. He was standing under the whirligig with the only two helpers who hadn’t faded. Double Buckwheat and Conrad, who, as usual, was smoking a cigarette. Breakfast had not only involved eggs but grits, so Double Buckwheat’s two heads looked like Brillo pads that had scoured most of the breakfast dishes of the continental United States.
Each stood with a hand over his eyes to shield out the brightness of the sun. Conrad had on a felt hat with a black band with a feather in it. He looked kind of cute, the way a dog does when you dress it up in clothes.
Bill, who had not participated in erecting the whirligig or done anything else this morning, came out and leaned against the Ice Man’s trailer, eating a corn dog. He watched them stare up at the whirligig. He would have felt last night had been a dream had he not woken up this morning and found Gidget’s ruined panties. He had lain in bed with them over his face, his nose sticking through the slit designed for what he felt might be the best part of her. He smelled the panties for a time, and when he got up, he realized he had missed breakfast.
He ate the corn dog slowly. He was so worn out his teeth hurt. He thought about what he and Gidget had talked about, and decided maybe Gidget had been half goofy last night, thinking out loud about something she didn’t really want.
He walked over to where Frost, Double Buckwheat, and Conrad stood looking up at the whirligig.
“Bird watching?” Bill asked.
“Bird watching,” one of Double Buckwheat’s heads said.
“Needs paint,” Frost said.
“Needs paint,” the other Double Buckwheat head said.
“I think it’s all right,” Conrad said. “Especially since he’s wanting to get us up there to paint it. This ground down here would be littered with pinheads and such. And I’m not so good at climbing either.”
“Not everyone here is mentally handicapped,” Frost said.
“Handicapped,” Double Buckwheat said.
“Let me think on that,” Conrad said. “I ain’t so sure.”
“He ain’t sure,” the other head said.
“I’m just saying it needs paint,” Frost said.
“Paint,” said Double Buckwheat.
“I know how you are when you think something needs paint,” Conrad said. “Or something needs this, or something needs that. You can’t leave it alone until it’s done. And that generally means I’m in on the doing it.”
“You do work here, Conrad.”
“I do everything but wipe the twins’ ass,” Conrad said, “and I ain’t about to add to my job description ass-wiping or climbing up there on that bolt-rattling sonofabitch to paint it.”
“Sonofabitch,” both heads said.
“Very well,” Frost said. “I’ll paint it myself.”
“He’ll paint it,” one head said.
“It’s gonna rain again anyhow,” Conrad said.
“Rain,” the other head said.
Frost turned and looked at Double Buckwheat. He smiled. “Do you think you boys could go somewhere else to stand? And maybe you could wash your hair.”
One of the Buckwheats said, “Packin’ it in,” and off they went.
“I think the rain is finished for the next day or two,” Frost said, “and if I can get it painted, the sun’s hot enough it’ll dry out all right before this weekend’s show.”
“What makes you think the rain is over with?” Conrad said.
“It’s stopped.”
“Oh, good. You’re a regular weatherman.”
“What makes you think it’ll continue? Huh?”
“Hey, you win. Just as long as I don’t paint it.” Conrad peeled back his ugly lips, showed his teeth, tipped his hat, and went off on all fours.
“What do you think, Bill?”
“Mr. Frost, I ain’t got a clue.”
“Would you help me paint it?”
It wasn’t something Bill looked forward to, but he felt he was in no position to quarrel.
“Sure.”
Frost went into town and came back with lots of green paint and a sackful of brushes. By midday the dampness had burned off and the whirligig was dry and receptive to paint.
Frost enlisted the help of a couple of others but as the day progressed, like vapor, they disappeared, leaving brushes and cans in whirligig buckets. Complaints of old ailments kept popping up. One of the workers, whose only handicap was his lack of hygiene, was not missed. There had been just enough wind up there to blow his armpit aroma about, and by the time the man climbed down with some minor excuse, Bill and Frost were glad to see him go. Bill felt as if he had been wrestling a stink demon all day, and was about worn out from it.
Even though a certain amount of climbing was to be expected, mostly they rode about on the rails and in the cars by having one of the pinheads pull the switch. The problem was making the pinhead not pull the switch, and after half a day the pinhead wandered off and was last seen rubbing his ass out by the river.
Bill climbed down and tried to work the switch, but nothing happened. He had to go get Conrad to take a look. Conrad sniffed about and worked this and worked that. He got a little box of tools and tore off the gearbox lid and eyeballed the situation. The gearbox was packed with dirt. It was surprising it had worked as long as it had. Phil had left one last little surprise for Frost.
“It’s screwed,” Conrad yelled up. “Phil packed the gearbox with dirt.”
Bill glanced up. He could make out Frost looking over the edge of the stranded bucket he was in. Frost let out a sigh audible all over the camp.
“It won’t run at all?” he yelled down.
“Nope,” Conrad said.
“Can it be fixed?”
“It can be replaced.”
Another sigh from Frost. “I guess the only thing is to climb around and finish what we can reach. We’ve gone this far. Tomorrow I’ll go into town and see if I can find someone who can fix or jury-rig a new gearbox. Phil had some problems, but I wouldn’t have expected this of him.”
“Hell, I would have expected worse,” Conrad said. “He was hoping it would jam up carnival night, kill some major revenue.”