We are all freaks. Like deserters hiding out in the middle of a battlefield, we seek the anonymity of the spotlight. The world turns a cold shoulder toward us, and we huddle together for warmth.
Chapter 3
It was noon when Thaddeus stuck his head out the trailer window and hollered for me. The sun had come out, and while the air was still crisp, it was a lot warmer than when I had spoken with Alma and Queenie a few hours earlier.
"Coming!" I muttered, getting up from the picnic table and shuffling over to the trailer. I slipped once as I was clambering up the four steps—I usually do—and skinned the heel of my left hand.
Thaddeus was sitting on the side of his bed, totally naked, holding his head in his hands and trying to keep the light out of his eyes. There was a young girl I didn't recognize, sound asleep and equally naked, lying next to him.
"Coffee!" he rasped.
I went off to the kitchen and put the pot on, then returned to him. Thaddeus sat motionless for another minute, then slowly began getting into his shorts.
"She's awfully young," I said.
He looked over at the girl. "She wants to work in the meat show," he said with a laugh. "She'll never know how lucky she is that I don't hire everyone I sleep with. Hell, if she's as much as seventeen, I'm Whistler's Mother. You'd think her parents would keep closer tabs on her." He paused, then sighed.
"Slip twenty bucks into her purse and get her out of here."
"Did it ever occur to you that she might consider that degrading?" I said.
"You really think so?" He looked surprised.
"Yes, I do."
"How else do you thank a kid her age? Buy her a doll?" He looked at her again, then shrugged and flashed me a sardonic smile. "I defer to your vast experience with women. Keep the money and get rid of her."
"In a few minutes," I said. "I saw Alma outside."
"So what?" he said ominously.
"Well, I just think you should wait until she's out of sight before—"
"Since when is what goes on between Alma and me any of your business?" he said hotly. "She never minded when people saw her leaving here. She knows I don't sleep alone."
"But this girl is a local. She's not one of us."
"That's Alma's hangup, not mine."
"But you don't have to flaunt—"
"I seem to recall asking for coffee," he said. "I don't remember requesting a sermon."
I sighed, returned to the kitchen, and spent a couple of minutes washing some dirty dishes I found in the sink. When the coffee was ready I poured him a big cup—black, no sugar—and took it over to him. He was totally dressed, and he grabbed the coffee from me, took a long swallow, and handed back the empty cup. "More," he said.
I filled it up again, and when I got back he was standing next to the bed, looking at the girl. He reached down and poked her gently on the shoulder.
"Come on, babe—up and at 'em."
She yawned, stretched once or twice, and then sat up, rubbing her eyes.
Then she saw me, and she shrieked and pulled the covers up over her small breasts.
"What the hell is that?" she yelled.
"My business manager," said Thaddeus, taking the cup from me and draining it again. "He'll walk you home."
"Like hell he will!" she said, shrinking back against the wall of the trailer.
"You!" she snapped at me. "Yes, you! Turn your back until I get dressed, and don't you dare come near me!"
I shrugged and walked back into the kitchen.
"But we're partners, honey," I heard Thaddeus saying to her. "We share everything, if you get my meaning."
"If that little monster so much as lays a finger on me, I'll have my father and brothers down here so fast it'll make your head spin!"
I heard a bunch of rustling noises, and then the door slammed and Thaddeus told me I could come back into the bedroom.
"How many times have I asked you not to embarrass me like that?" I said.
"It's the quickest way I know to get rid of them," he replied with a little smile. "Besides, who knows—maybe one of these days one of 'em will go for the idea." He looked out the window and blinked. "Nice day. What time is it?"
"Almost twelve-thirty," I said.
"Did we make any money last night?"
"Not much, according to Diggs."
"Figures. Speaking of our friend the Rigger, why don't you run off and find him and bring him back here?" said Thaddeus. "I've got a little job for him."
"Does it have something to do with the sideshow?" I asked suspiciously.
"Nosy little dwarf, aren't you?" he grinned. "Yes, as a matter of fact, it does."
"Surely you don't think you're going to be able to get Mr. Romany or Mr. Ahasuerus in a card game with Diggs?"
"No," replied Thaddeus. "Romany didn't look like the gambling type to me."
"Then what?"
"Why don't you just keep reading your poetry books and let me do the thinking around here?"
He walked into the bathroom and started shaving, so I headed off in search of Digger the Rigger. He was an easy man to pick out in a crowd: closecropped snow-white hair, neatly manicured goatee, dapper dresser, fingers covered with diamonds, shoes usually shining brighter than the sun. And since the Midway was never crowded at noontime on a weekday, I hunted him up inside of five minutes.
He was standing in front of the specialty tent, trying to make a bet with a couple of early-bird customers about whether Billybuck Dancer could shoot the head off the king of spades at fifty feet. (I knew that he could: I had to hold it between my teeth the time I worked with him, much to Thaddeus' amusement.) The Rigger was really upset with me when I broke into his pitch and the marks wandered away. He probably couldn't have gotten them to put up more than a dollar apiece, but the amount was never as important to him as the game. Anyway, he bitched at me all the way back to the trailer.
"You want to see me?" he said as Thaddeus greeted us.
"How's your poker?" asked Thaddeus. He had made the trailer a little neater than usual, which wasn't saying much, and had pulled a trio of bargain basement chairs around the aging coffee table where he made out the paychecks (on those weeks he could meet the payroll).
"You had the dwarf drag me all the way over here just to ask a stupid question like that?" snorted the Rigger.
"If I'm going to stake you," said Thaddeus, "I think the least you can do is answer my question."
"Let me get this straight," said the Rigger slowly. "You're staking me?"
Thaddeus smiled. "That's right."
"My poker's the same as it always is."
"You'd be playing with someone else's cards," said Thaddeus.
"What do I care?"
"They're probably marked."
"There ain't a marked deck in the world that I can't read as well as the owner can," said the Rigger with just a trace of pride.
"You're sure?" said Thaddeus. "Eight hundred dollars is everything I've got in the world, as of this minute. I don't want to turn it over to you if you've got any doubts."
"No sweat," said the Rigger, but he looked a little more serious now, a little more tense—or perhaps he was just a little more eager. "Are these people I'm playing with any good?"