Slow Dollar (27 page)

We drove in tandem through the lanes over to my house and when we got there, we discovered that we were hungrier than we realized. I kicked off those shoes and dumped them in the Goodwill box I keep by the garage door and slid out of my dress and into a light robe while Dwight hung his jacket and tie over one of the chairs and started opening the boxes. I brought plates and utensils. We had our choice of practically everything that had been on the table at lunchtime, and Maidie’s hot cheese biscuits were just the right accompaniment to supper.

While we ate, I pulled out scissors and the stack of photos Dwight had dropped in my car.

“What are you doing?” he asked curiously.

“You did say these aren’t needed anymore, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a glue stick in that drawer behind you,” I said. “Can you reach it without getting up?”

He could.

In none of the pictures was there enough of the woman’s face to form an image. I snipped the chin and mouth from one, the cheek and ear from another, hair and brow from still others. As I cut, I glued each piece to a sheet of paper as if putting together a jigsaw puzzle. In the end, one eye was still missing and the image looked like an abstract Picasso portrait. Nevertheless, it was enough.

“I’ll be damned!” said Dwight, reaching for a third biscuit. “Brad Needham’s a cross-dresser?” Then he laughed. “Bradley Needham, Lee Hamden. Of course.”

“Different strokes for different folks,” I said, staring at what I’d created and suddenly wishing I hadn’t.

“Suppose his wife knows?”

“If she did, he wouldn’t have had a storage locker since they married. He probably stopped by it and took out a few things or deposited new stuff whenever he was on his way in or out of town. The rooms look like your standard Holiday Inn.”

I gathered up all the pictures and my collage and dumped them in the garbage pail.

“Hey!” said Dwight.

“Why not?” I asked. “What would be the point of letting Brad know we know? Of telling Janice? Or anybody, for that matter? There’s nobody else in these pictures. Who’s he hurt?”

I thought how terrified he must have been, but how brave, too, to come out to the carnival and strike up a conversation with Braz just to see if Braz would recognize him. I wished there were some way to let him know the pictures had been destroyed and his secret was safe, but I didn’t see how that could be managed without alerting him that someone had connected him to the pictures after all.

As if I’d spoken all this, Dwight said, “Yeah, you’re right. Dump ‘em.”

I smiled at him. “Where’s my ring?”

He fished the old-fashioned circle of gold from his pocket and slid it on my finger. The square-cut diamond flashed and sparkled in the kitchen lights.

“Want to stay over tonight?” I asked.

(
Ping!
)‘

The carnival left town in the small hours of Sunday morning to make the jump to Kinston for four days the following week before working their way back to Florida for the winter.

I got to see Tally a couple of times more before they left. The day after Skee Matusik’s arrest, she was numb with disbelief. “He killed Irene? And Braz knew? But he loved Irene. How could he keep quiet about something like that?”

She and Val were still wary with the rest of our family when they left. Too soon to tell whether they’ll actually move to the Hatcher place and become more familiar to us. She says that’s what she wants, but I’ve heard the ambivalence in her voice. There are reasons she’s with the carnival that have nothing to do with Carol or Andrew. I’ve listened to her talk about great dates they’ve played, the crowds, the excitement, the fun of keeping someone peeling off the dollar bills like that first evening when she had Reese going.

Arn? I think he could sublimate with his lockers and eBay, but I remember my own brief years of wandering in the wilderness, free as a leaf torn from the tethering tree and blown by a capricious wind, and I have a feeling Tally will always want to load up the trailers every spring with plush and slum and hit the road for Anywhere, USA.

We’ll see.

About three weeks after the carnival left the county, Dwight turned on the little television in my bedroom to catch the late-night news.

At the commercial, I went in to brush my teeth and was rinsing when I heard Dwight call, “Deb’rah! Quick! Come here, you gotta see this!”

I dashed back just in time to hear the news anchor say, “—Bascom Wrenn, who died in Colleton County this past spring. Outsider, or Visionary, Art has won growing recognition among serious collectors worldwide, and Joseph Buckner of the Buntrock Gallery just off Fifth Avenue in New York is here to tell us about this significant new find. Mr. Buckner?”

Mouths agape, Dwight and I watched while the camera panned over crudely painted boards and Mr. Buckner explained the significance of the stick skeletons and roaring flames, and rhapsodized over the Eye of God, the Tree of Knowledge, and the Biblical exhortations in ungrammatical white printing that covered every square inch of the scraps of plywood now hanging on the gallery walls.

He was aided by a large young black man chicly dressed in a dark suit and one of those black silk shirts with the banded collar and no tie that I’ve only seen on movie stars when they broadcast the Oscar ceremonies. It was Lamarr Wrenn, that erstwhile economics major, looking like a seasoned New Yorker as he fingered his small chin beard and spoke of his grandfather’s naive but utterly sincere attempt to paint the Rapture.

The camera caressed the ecstatic, semi-hysterical paintings, paintings Arnold Ames had planned to nail onto the outside of his haunted house. Validated by the cool ivory walls of a Fifth Avenue gallery, they had suddenly acquired an oddly compelling aura.

Back on the screen, the gallery curator was answering our local anchor’s question.

“It’s always difficult to put a dollar price on pictures that haven’t had their value tested in the marketplace,” he said. “But conservatively speaking, we’ll be surprised if this important body of work doesn’t bring at least two hundred thousand.”

“Conservatively?” I croaked.

Laughing, Dwight clicked off the television and pulled me down on the bed beside him. “Wonder how Arnold Ames feels about his quick dime now?”

The following were used in the text of this book and were gleaned from personal conversations or from postings on Internet chat boards. They are but a fraction of the colorful terms used by the carnies themselves
.

Agent
—The concessionaire who works a store (as opposed to a clerk, who just takes the money).

Bozo
—The clown who works the dunk tank and entices players with insults and a clever pitch. The clown makeup is for his own protection so he won’t be recognized when he’s off duty since some of his customers take his insults personally.

Cake eaters/Rubes/Clems
—The paying customers, particularly those at rural or small-town venues.

Carnival
—The loose affiliation of independent ride owners and concessionaires that provides traveling outdoor amusements for the public to enjoy.

Cool the mark
—Send a tapped-out patron away happy... or if not happy, at least resigned to his losses so that he does not complain to the police that the game is rigged.

Cutting up jackpots
—Swapping stories with fellow carnies and bragging about the money taken off the hairy mooches (loaded marks).

Dark night
—An evening when the carnival is closed unexpectedly. Usually due to rain.

Donniker
—Rest room or toilet.

First-of-May
—Someone newly with the carnival. Floss—Cotton candy.

Forty-miler
—Concessionaire who doesn’t travel far from his home base.

Gaffed game
—One that is rigged so that the agent can control how much stock is thrown.

Lilly outfit, Gillies
—Small carnivals that only work rural areas.

Hey Rube!
—The call for help when a carny is in serious bodily danger from outsiders.

Jump
—The move from one location to the next town.

Mark
—The paying customer. Dates back to when agents would let someone with a full wallet win and give him a congratulatory slap on the back with a chalked hand so that other agents would see the chalk mark and know that here was someone loaded with money and ripe for plucking.

Nut
—The show’s operating expenses. According to carny lore, the term originated on a circus lot. An owner owed a lot of money and to prevent him from leaving town without paying, his creditor took the nuts off the wheels of his wagons and kept them till the debt was paid. To make your nut is to break even. If you’re showing a profit, you’re “off the nut.”

Outsiders
—People who are neither associated with the carnival nor part of carnival life.

Patch
—The go-between for a carnival and local authorities. If bribes need to be paid, whether in cash, passes, or plush, he pays them. He also fixes the problem (“patches the beef”) and smooths things over with any unhappy customer.

Plush
—Stuffed toys given as prizes.

Pop-ups
—Hidden props, usually triggered by a pressure mat or electric eye, that pop up at eye level to startle the customers in a “dark house” (a horror/haunted house attraction).

Possum belly
—An auxiliary storage space beneath an equipment truck. It’s usually empty when the rides are set up and therefore often doubles as a sleeping place for green roughies. (Women who use it for casual sex are scornfully called “Possum belly queens.”)

Rake ‘em and scrape ‘em
—Take the marks for every penny by every means both foul and fair.

Razzle-dazzles
—Add-up games with virtually impossible odds of winning and the distinct probability of losing serious money.

Roughie
—Unskilled laborer who helps set up or tear down the rides and equipment.

Route markers
—Small red arrows posted on the road-side by the advance agent or carnival owner to show drivers the route. Arrows point straight up, left or right, and down. Down means to slow down. More than one means a turn coming up. Route markers are essential for drivers who can’t read.

Sharpies
—Carnivalgoers who have practiced a game till they can win almost every time (which is why some games post the warning ONE PRIZE PER DAY PER PERSON).

Stores/Joints
—What an outsider calls a game or concession. Run by agents or clerks. There are three kinds:
(1) Hanky-panks—You win every time. Maybe not a great prize, but still a prize.
(2) Alibi stores—You could win, but if you do, the agent will try to avoid giving you a big prize by saying you violated some rule of the game. If he’s really good, you’ll continue to play.
(3) Flat stores/Flatties—You flat-out won’t win. Most of these games are gaffed. What you’ll get for your money is the fun of trying, plus an entertaining spiel from a smooth-talking agent. (Keep your wallet in your pocket!)

Sucker sore
—A carny’s state of mind after being on the road so long that he’s fed up with the public. He’s tired of their questions, tired of their stupidity, tired of their corrupt elected officials or police force.

Sunday schooler
—A clean show with no alcoholic beverages on the lot, no erotic suggestiveness, no razzle-dazzles, no overly gaffed games.

Throwing stock
—The percentage of a store’s gross revenue (usually 25 to 30 percent) that is given back to the players as prizes.