Joyland (32 page)

I ducked back into Joyland Under, left the fur in the cart, and rejoined Annie and Mike at the ramp leading up to the Carolina Spin. Annie looked up nervously and said, “Are you sure you want to do this, Mike?”

“Yes! It’s the one I want to do most!”

“All right, then. I guess.” To me she added: “I’m not terrified of heights, but they don’t exactly thrill me.”

Lane was holding a car door open. “Climb aboard, folks. I’m going to send you up where the air is rare.” He bent down and scruffed Milo’s ears. “You’re sittin this one out, fella.”

I sat on the inside, nearest the wheel. Annie sat in the middle, and Mike on the outside, where the view was best. Lane dropped the safety bar, went back to the controls, and reset his derby on a fresh slant. “Amazement awaits!” he called, and up we went, rising with the stately calm of a coronation procession.

Slowly, the world opened itself beneath us: first the park, then the bright cobalt of the ocean on our right and all of the North Carolina lowlands on our left. When the Spin reached the top of its great circle, Mike let go of the safety bar, raised his hands over his head, and shouted,
“We’re flying!”

A hand on my leg. Annie’s. I looked at her and she mouthed two words:
Thank you.
I don’t know how many times Lane sent us around—more spins than the usual ride, I think, but I’m not sure. What I remember best was Mike’s face, pale and full of wonder, and Annie’s hand on my thigh, where it seemed to burn. She didn’t take it away until we slowed to a stop.

Mike turned to me. “Now I know what my kite feels like,” he said.

So did I.

When Annie told Mike he’d had enough, the kid didn’t object. He was exhausted. As Lane helped him into his wheelchair, Mike held out a hand, palm up. “Slap me five if you’re still alive.”

Grinning, Lane slapped him five. “Come back anytime, Mike.”

“Thanks. It was so great.”

Lane and I pushed him up the midway. The booths on both sides were shut up again, but one of the shys was open: Annie Oakleys Shootin’ Gallery. Standing at the chump board, where Pop Allen had stood all summer long, was Fred Dean in his three-piece suit. Behind him, chain-driven rabbits and ducks traveled in opposite directions. Above them were bright yellow ceramic chicks. These were stationary, but very small.

“Like to try your shooting skill before you exit the park?” Fred asked. “There are no losers today. Today
ev
-rybody wins a prize.”

Mike looked around at Annie. “Can I, mom?”

“Sure, honey. But not long, okay?”

He tried to get out of the chair, but couldn’t. He was too tired. Lane and I propped him up, one on each side. Mike picked up a rifle and took a couple of shots, but he could no longer steady his arms, even though the gun was light. The beebees struck the canvas backdrop and clicked into the gutter at the bottom.

“Guess I suck,” he said, putting the rifle down.

“Well, you didn’t exactly burn it up,” Fred allowed, “but as I said, today everyone wins a prize.” With that, he handed over the biggest Howie on the shelf, a top stuffy that even sharpshooters couldn’t earn without spending eight or nine bucks on reloads.

Mike thanked him and sat back down, looking overwhelmed. That damn stuffed dog was almost as big as he was. “You try, Mom.”

“No, that’s okay,” she said, but I thought she wanted to. It was something in her eyes as she measured the distance between the chump board and the targets.

“Please?” He looked first at me, then at Lane. “She’s really good. She won the prone shooting tournament at Camp Perry before I was born and came in second twice. Camp Perry’s in Ohio.”

“I don’t—”

Lane was already holding out one of the modified .22s. “Step right up. Let’s see your best Annie Oakley, Annie.”

She took the rifle and examined it in a way few of the conies ever did. “How many shots?”

“Ten a clip,” Fred said.

“If I’m going to do this, can I shoot two clips?”

“As many as you want, ma’am. Today’s your day.”

“Mom used to also shoot skeet with my grampa,” Mike told them.

Annie raised the .22 and squeezed off ten shots with a pause of perhaps two seconds between each. She knocked over two moving ducks and three of the moving bunnies. The teensy ceramic chicks she ignored completely.

“A crack shot!” Fred crowed. “Any prize on the middle shelf, your pick!”

She smiled. “Fifty percent isn’t anywhere near crack. My dad would have covered his face for shame. I’ll just take the reload, if that’s okay.”

Fred took a paper cone from under the counter—a wee shoot, in the Talk—and put the small end into a hole on top of the gag rifle. There was a rattle as another ten beebees rolled in.

“Are the sights on these trigged?” she asked Fred.

“No, ma’am. All the games at Joyland are straight. But if I told you Pop Allen—the man who usually runs this shy—spent long hours sighting them in, I’d be a liar.”

Having worked on Pop’s team, I knew that was disingenuous, to say the least. Sighting in the rifles was the
last
thing Pop would do. The better the rubes shot, the more prizes Pop had to give away . . . and he had to buy his own prizes. All the shy-bosses did. They were cheap goods, but not
free
goods.

“Shoots left and high,” she said, more to herself than to us. Then she raised the rifle, socked it into the hollow of her right shoulder, and triggered off ten rounds. This time there was no discernable pause between shots, and she didn’t bother with the ducks and bunnies. She aimed for the ceramic chicks and exploded eight of them.

As she put the gun back on the counter, Lane used his bandanna to wipe a smutch of sweat and grime from the back of his neck. He spoke very softly as he did this chore. “Jesus Horatio Christ. Nobody gets eight peeps.”

“I only nicked the last one, and at this range I should have had them all.” She wasn’t boasting, just stating a fact.

Mike said, almost apologetically: “Told you she was good.” He curled a fist over his mouth and coughed into it. “She was thinking about the Olympics, only then she dropped out of college.”

“You really
are
Annie Oakley,” Lane said, stuffing his bandanna back into a rear pocket. “Any prize, pretty lady. You pick.”

“I already have my prize,” she said. “This has been a wonderful, wonderful day. I can never thank you guys enough.” She turned in my direction. “And
this
guy. Who actually had to talk me into it. Because I’m a fool.” She kissed the top of Mike’s head. “But now I better get my boy home. Where’s Milo?”

We looked around and saw him halfway down Joyland Avenue, sitting in front of Horror House with his tail curled around his paws.

“Milo, come!” Annie called.

His ears pricked up but he didn’t come. He didn’t even turn in her direction, just stared at the façade of Joyland’s only dark ride. I could almost believe he was reading the drippy, cobweb-festooned invitation: COME IN IF YOU DARE.

While Annie was looking at Milo, I stole a glance at Mike. Although he was all but done in from the excitements of the day, his expression was hard to mistake. It was satisfaction. I know it’s crazy to think he and his Jack Russell had worked this out in advance, but I did think it.

I still do.

“Roll me down there, Mom,” Mike said. “He’ll come with me.”

“No need for that,” Lane said. “If you’ve got a leash, I’m happy to go get him.”

“It’s in the pocket on the back of Mike’s wheelchair,” Annie said.

“Um, probably not,” Mike said. “You can check but I’m pretty sure I forgot it.”

Annie checked while I thought,
In a pig’s ass you forgot.

“Oh, Mike,” Annie said reproachfully. “Your dog, your responsibility. How many times have I told you?”

“Sorry, Mom.” To Fred and Lane he said, “Only we hardly ever use it because Milo
always
comes.”

“Except when we need him to.” Annie cupped her hands around her mouth. “Milo, come
on
! Time to go home!” Then, in a much sweeter voice: “Biscuit, Milo! Come get a biscuit!”

Her coaxing tone would have brought me on the run—probably with my tongue hanging out—but Milo didn’t budge.

“Come
on
Dev,” Mike said. As if I were also in on the plan but had missed my cue, somehow. I grabbed the wheelchair’s handles and rolled Mike down Joyland Avenue toward the funhouse. Annie followed. Fred and Lane stayed where they were, Lane leaning on the chump board among the laid-out popguns on their chains. He had removed his derby and was spinning it on one finger.

When we got to the dog, Annie regarded him crossly. “What’s wrong with you, Milo?”

Milo thumped his tail at the sound of Annie’s voice, but didn’t look at her. Nor did he move. He was on guard and intended to stay that way unless he was hauled away.

“Michael,
please
make your dog heel so we can go home. You need to get some r—”

Two things happened before she could finish. I’m not exactly sure of the sequence. I’ve gone over it often in the years since then—most often on nights when I can’t sleep—and I’m still not sure. I
think
the rumble came first: the sound of a ride-car starting to roll along its track. But it might have been the padlock dropping. It’s even possible that both things happened at the same time.

The big American Master fell off the double doors below the Horror House façade and lay on the boards, gleaming in the October sunshine. Fred Dean said later that the shackle must not have been pushed firmly into the locking mechanism, and the vibration of the moving car caused it to open all the way. This made perfect sense, because the shackle was indeed open when I checked it.

Still bullshit, though.

I put that padlock on myself, and remember the click as the shackle clicked into place. I even remember tugging on it to make sure it caught, the way you do with a padlock. And all that begs a question Fred didn’t even
try
to answer: with the Horror House breakers switched off, how could that car have gotten rolling in the first place? As for what happened next . . .

Here’s how a trip through Horror House ended. On the far side of the Torture Chamber, just when you thought the ride was over and your guard was down, a screaming skeleton (nicknamed Hagar the Horrible by the greenies) came flying at you, seemingly on a collision course with your car. When it pulled away, you saw a stone wall dead ahead. Painted there in fluorescent green was a rotting zombie and a gravestone with END OF THE LINE printed on it. Of course the stone wall split open just in time, but that final double-punch was extremely effective. When the car emerged into the daylight, making a semicircle before going back in through another set of double doors and stopping, even grown men were often screaming their heads off. Those final shrieks (always accompanied by gales of oh-shit-you-got-me laughter) were Horror House’s best advertisement.

There were no screams that day. Of course not, because when the double doors banged open, the car that emerged was empty. It rolled through the semicircle, bumped lightly against the next set of double doors, and stopped.

“O
-kay,”
Mike said. It was a whisper so low that I barely heard it, and I’m sure Annie didn’t—all her attention had been drawn to the car. The kid was smiling.

“What made it do that?” Annie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Short-circuit, maybe. Or some kind of power surge.” Both of those explanations sounded good, as long as you didn’t know about the breakers being off.

I stood on my tiptoes and peered into the stalled car. The first thing I noticed was that the safety bar was up. If Eddie Parks or one of his greenie minions forgot to lower it, the bar was supposed to snap down automatically once the ride was in motion. It was a state-mandated safety feature. The bar being up on this one made a goofy kind of sense, though, since the only rides in the park that had power that morning were the ones Lane and Fred had turned on for Mike.

I spotted something beneath the semicircular seat, something as real as the roses Fred had given Annie, only not red.

It was a blue Alice band.

We headed back to the van. Milo, once more on best behavior, padded along beside Mike’s wheelchair.