“Fine. I’m fine. Thanks a lot, Lou. I’ll talk to you soon.” I hang up.
Fat Thomas comes into the room and stands in front of me. “I’m going to work,” he says.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I just look straight ahead at his stomach. I move my eyes up to his face. “Where do you work?”
“All over.”
I question him with my eyes.
“I fill vending machines,” he says. “You know, candy, cigarettes, bubble gum, little toys in plastic cases.”
“That’s what you do for a living?”
“Yeah.”
“Like it pretty much?” I’m just trying to make conversation with the man.
“Yeah. I get to move around a lot.”
“You got a truck?”
“Station wagon.”
“I see.”
“Well, I’m going to work now.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll see you later.”
“See you later.”
“Yeah.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Thomas walks out of the room and out of the house. I call the bus station and I find out there’s a bus leaving at one o’clock in the afternoon for Parkdale. I go up to my room and I play my horn for a while.
At about noon I collect my belongings. I find some cord and I rig things up so that my bat and my saxophone are strapped behind me. I put my record in the briefcase with the money and I grab my phonograph and start downstairs.
The front door slowly opens and there’s Sid Willis and he’s holding a gun.
“I’m here for my money, boy,” Sid says. “Then I’m going to blast you.”
“How’d you find me?” I am taking a step backwards.
“I didn’t have any luck looking for you, but everybody knows about that three-hundred-pound Chinese she-boy.”
“Oh.”
“Now, let me have my money.”
I shake my head.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to blast you first.”
Then Thomas appears in the doorway and he raises his finger to his lips and then he throws his arms around Sid. Sid’s gun falls to the floor and Thomas’s fat arms have got the old man tied up good.
“Run, Craig!” Thomas says. “I’ve got him! Run, darling!”
“Get this funny Oriental off me!” screams Sid.
I move out of the bedroom and into the hallway. I turn again to Thomas and I says, “Thanks.”
“Somebody get this faggot off me!” yells Sid, struggling.
“Take my car,” Thomas says. “The keys are in it.”
“Thanks.”
And Thomas blows me a kiss. I frown and run out of the house and I hop into Thomas’s station wagon and drive away.
Bud was looking out the front window and then he turned to Daddy. “Doc, I wish you’d come look at this.”
His tone pulled not only Daddy but Martin and me as well to the window. Coming down the street was a white pickup truck. It was moving real slow and sitting on the lowered tailgate was McCoy in a white sweat suit, looking back at my mother, who was chasing the truck. McCoy was waving his arms, yelling for Ma to keep up the pace.
Daddy was outside in a second and we were all with him. We were in the driveway and Ma came trotting past. “Kathy!” Daddy yelled. The neighbors were out of their houses. Daddy looked around and then he picked up some gravel from the driveway. “Throw rocks,” Daddy said and ran toward the truck. Martin and I grabbed handfuls of rocks and ran, too. So did Bud. McCoy was up and slapping on the cab of the truck. Daddy threw his rocks and McCoy ducked behind the wall of the truck’s bed. We pelted the truck with gravel. Daddy picked Ma up over his shoulder and carried her into the house.
“Maybe just different,” Bud said.
Martin thought I was asleep. He pulled on his trousers and grabbed his flashlight and climbed outside through the window. I got dressed real quick and went out after him. He was halfway down the block when I was out of the tree to the ground. I followed him a good many blocks and I saw him go behind Watkins Funeral Home. My eyes got big. I couldn’t figure why anybody should be going there late at night, especially my brother. I walked down the driveway, alongside the big black cars, to the backyard. Martin was standing at the back door, knocking lightly. The door opened and Martin went in.
My wind got short and I moved around and looked at the door. I looked at that door for a long time and then I grabbed the knob. It was open. I walked in. I moved down this dark hallway. I heard noise coming from this room. I pushed the door open a crack and then I heard Martin’s voice. I walked in and in the back of this room Martin was kissing Naomi Watkins and touching her all over. Then Naomi climbed on this table and Martin got on top of her.
Just then, the door that I had come through opened. I ducked into a corner and I heard Martin and Naomi running and then the light came on. I guess they got out some way because Pernell Watkins walked past me, looking around, and then he left. He left the light on and I looked beside myself and saw jars and tubes and then I looked behind and found myself face to face with a dead person. I closed my eyes tight and stood motionless for a long time.
Chapter 15
So, I’m driving through Portland in Thomas’s station wagon and it’s filled to the gills with cigarettes and plastic bags of gum balls. There’s a box of clear plastic bubbles with little toys inside on the seat beside me and in one of them there’s an eye. The eye is staring right at me and I think of Sid and I think of fat Thomas’s arms wrapped around him. I laugh out loud.
A light rain is starting to fall as I enter this spic-and-span suburb of Portland called Gresham. There are many small houses that look alike and a lot of yellow-haired children that look alike, riding bicycles with banana seats. As I’m driving by the Gresham Mall I see a big tent and there’s a mob of people standing around. The tent looks like the one that was on the waterfront in Seattle. I pull into the parking lot and I’m out of the car, walking toward the tent, and I hear an elephant scream.
I weave through the mob and I push my way into the tent and there’s that same elephant. And that same man is barking his carnival line, but he’s got a new scam.
“Give it a try! Give it a try!” shouts the man. “See if you’ve got the brains to master this enormous beast from the jungles of the Dark Continent. If you can make the pachyderm nod his head ‘yes’ and shake his head ‘no,’ I will give you five hundred dollars, half a grand!”
I stand there for a spell, watching a number of people try to make the elephant move his head. Two boys toss a ball back and forth in front of the elephant without success. This old lady comes bouncing up and down on a pogo stick and the animal’s eyes move up and down, but not his head. I turn around and push through the crowd and I walk back to the car.
I unlock the car and I grab my bat and then I return to the tent. I pay two dollars to try with the elephant and I’m standing in line. The man who was shouting walks up to me and smiles.
“That bat won’t help you this time,” he says.
I don’t say anything.
“What do you say we make a little wager?”
I look at him and nod.
“What’ll we bet?”
I look at him for a second, then I look at the elephant. “If I can do it, you give me the elephant.”
His jaw drops and he looks over at the elephant and then back at me. “And if you can’t?”
“I’ll give you two thousand dollars.”
“Two thousand?”
“Two thousand.”
“It’s a bet.” He shakes my hand and then he steps out into the middle of the tent and waves his arms for silence. A hush falls over the crowd and he turns to me and nods.
I walk out in front of the elephant and the tent is dead quiet and the elephant’s eyes fall slowly to mine. The silence is really annoying and I swallow. I raise the bat and wave it in the elephant’s face. “Remember me?” I ask the elephant. The elephant’s head moves up and down. The crowd goes “Ooooooooooo.” I look around and the silence returns. I look back at the elephant. “Do you want me to do what I did last time?” The elephant moves his head from side to side and the mob of people explodes with cheering. I turn to face the carnival man.