Texasville (61 page)

“Over to the carnival,” Bobby Lee said. “Little Mike’s upstaged the human fly.”

Duane saw to his surprise that almost everyone crowded onto the courthouse lawn was gazing upward. Some were looking at the human fly, a well-known local performer named Jerry Cooper, who hailed from the small town of Megargel, Texas. Jerry, a rig painter, supplemented his modest income by doubling as a human fly, climbing courthouses, water towers and other lowly structures, generally in connection with rodeos or county fairs. He had performed in Thalia many times, climbing the water tower, courthouse or jail, as the mood struck him.

This time, what seemed to have struck him was panic. He was clinging to the side of the courthouse, midway between the second and third floors, going neither up nor down.

“What’s wrong, Jerry?” Duane asked. He had always admired Jerry’s skills and had been responsible for hiring him to make the centennial climb.

“This courthouse is a mean booger, Duane,” Jerry said in a wan, discouraged voice. “I think it’s gonna get me this time.”

The crowd hooted. The courthouse was made of rough sandstone and looked easy to climb—or easy if one was a climber. Several drunks immediately started climbing it to show how easy it was. One of them reached the second floor in a matter of seconds but then grew overconfident, slipped and fell into some shrubbery. He did not appear to be hurt, but his fall didn’t improve Jerry Cooper’s mood.

“See what I mean,” he said.

“But you’ve already climbed this courthouse five or six times,” Duane said.

“I know, but that was in the daylight,” Jerry said. “It’s more slippery at night. Seems like these rocks kinda sweat.”

The crowd booed mercilessly. It was plain they had little use for a human fly who couldn’t climb a three-story courthouse.

“You just like one story being up,” Duane said, to encourage him.

“The way I look at it, I like two stories being down,” Jerry said, morosely. “I ain’t going up.”

Duane heard screams from behind him. A crowd of women were looking up at the Ferris wheel and screaming. Jacy, Jenny and several men stood under the Ferris wheel. The men had picked up Junior Nolan’s mattress and were using it as a safety net. Seated on a stanchion, high atop the Ferris wheel, was Little Mike.

“Hang on, Jerry, we’ll get you down in a minute,” Duane said. He saw Karla and Nellie standing back a little way from the group of women. They were both yelling at Little Mike, but the crowd drowned out their yells.

Duane ran over to the Ferris wheel, which was stopped. It was also full. Many teenagers were suspended in midair. They seemed to be enjoying the excitement. The large man who operated the ride was leaning on the brake lever with a look of impatience.

“Meanwhile I’m losing business,” he said to Karla, who had kicked off her dancing shoes and was preparing to climb up after her grandson.

“Now wait a minute,” Duane said. “Let’s think this through and not do anything rash.”

The crowd screamed again. Little Mike, holding casually to a cable, had bent over to spit at the men with the mattress. The farther he bent, the louder the crowd screamed. In the quiet moments after the scream Duane heard Little Mike babbling happily to himself.

“Where have you been?” Karla asked, eyes flashing.

“Fishing,” Duane said.

“Momma thinks he’ll fall but I don’t,” Nellie said. “He’s a real good little climber.”

“Meanwhile I’m losing business,” the Ferris wheel operator said.

“Duane, will you buy this Ferris wheel?” Karla asked, as she started her climb. “This profit-minded son-of-a-bitch is bugging me.”

The operator looked startled. “Is she serious?” he asked.

“Now, Karla, hold on a minute,” Duane said. Karla had quickly climbed to the first crossbar.

“Why?” Karla asked, peering down at him. “That’s my grandbaby up there.”

“He’s just sitting there spitting,” Duane pointed out.

“If she’s serious you can have the whole carnival for sixty thousand,” the operator said. “And that’s installed wherever you want it installed.”

“Duane, somebody’s got to get him down,” Karla said.

“He’s got good balance, he might not fall,” Jacy said. She too was looking upward, appraising the situation.

“He can tell when you’re mad,” Duane said to Karla. “That’s why I don’t think you should climb up after him. He might try to get away and fall accidentally.”

“We’re all trained volunteer firemen, we can catch him right on this mattress,” Eddie Belt said.

“I wish Julie would hurry,” Nellie said. “He’d come down if Julie told him to.”

“Where is Julie?” Duane asked.

“Down at Ruth’s, playing cards with Sonny,” Karla said. She had paused in her ascent. Little Mike bent over and spat again, provoking more screams.

“I think Duane’s got a point,” Jacy said. “As long as you don’t scare him he’s probably safe enough.”

“Safe enough? He’s fifty feet in the air!” Karla said, but she didn’t climb any higher. Several of the men holding the mattress, too drunk to be particularly interested in Little Mike, were not too drunk to enjoy looking up Karla’s skirt.

“Fifty-five thousand and you install it yourself,” the carnival operator said. “It’d fit in a good-sized backyard and then your kids would never be bored.”

To his relief Duane saw the twins wheeling through the crowd on their bikes. They were taking their time, and appeared to be their nonchalant selves.

“Want me to climb up and shake the little dickface off?” Jack asked, not visibly disturbed by the plight of his nephew.

“No, we don’t want him shook off,” Duane said.

“And you watch your language, this is a public place,” Karla said, crouching on her crossbar.

“These louts are looking at your snatch,” Jacy informed her.

“Oh, let ’em dream,” Karla said. “Julie, will you see if you can get Little Mike to come down?”

“Get down from there, you little showoff!” Julie yelled, not bothering to dismount from her bicycle.

Hearing the command of his goddess, Little Mike immediately began to climb down. Various people, including Duane, positioned themselves to catch him if he fell, but he made a smooth and rapid descent.

“That kid should be sent to reform school right now,” Jack said jealously.

“Shut up, you fuckerface!” Julie said. They rode off together, arguing.

Little Mike avoided his irate grandmother and climbed directly down into his mother’s arms.

“I forgot how I got up here,” Karla said, still crouching on the crossbar.

“Just drop, we’ll catch you in the mattress,” Eddie Belt said. He was disappointed at not getting to exhibit his firefighting techniques.

“No way,” Karla said.

“Why not? We’re trained volunteer firefighters,” Eddie said.

“Don’t listen to them, they’re just hoping to get a better look at your snatch,” Jacy said.

“Duane, back the pickup under me and I’ll drop onto the hood.”

“You’re just eight feet up,” he said. “Dangle off the crossbar and I’ll set you down.”

That proved doable. Just as Duane was setting Karla down they heard a roar from the crowd on the courthouse lawn. Bobby Lee, another trained volunteer firefighter, was backing the city’s one fire truck across the lawn. He had already raised the ladder and was preparing to rescue the distraught Jerry Cooper. The crowd reluctantly made room for the fire truck.

Bobby Lee had not bothered to remove his sombrero despite the fact that he could not see out from under it very well. Instead of backing up slowly, until Jerry Cooper could grab the ladder, Bobby Lee roared backward. The ladder struck the courthouse ten feet south of where Jerry clung, and went right through the wall of the building. The shock dislodged the luckless human fly, who plunged, unflylike, into the shrubbery.

“If we’d been over there instead of over here we might have caught him,” Eddie observed. He and several other trained volunteer firefighters still held Junior’s mattress.

“Oh, no,” Karla said. “Now look. Bobby Lee’s punctured the courthouse.”

The sight struck Jacy as hilarious. She burst into peals of laughter.

“This centennial gets better with age,” she said, gasping for breath.

Duane ran over to see if Jerry Cooper was hurt, but could find no trace of him. He had crept out through the shrubbery and left town. Several weeks later, curious as to what had become of him, Duane discovered that he had given up rig painting and was driving a beer truck. He felt rather bad about it—Jerry had once been a competent human fly. Perhaps it had been unfair to ask him to climb the courthouse at night.

Meanwhile the ladder had pierced the courtroom where Lester and Janine were hiding. Their startled faces appeared at a window. Neither of them appeared to be clothed.

“Hey, knock it off!” Lester yelled to an audience of hundreds of drunks.

Bobby Lee, conscious that his rescue effort had misfired and that he was an object of ridicule to most of the crowd, was trying to drive the fire truck off the lawn. But the crowd, now that life and death were no longer at stake, went back to their drinking. What Bobby Lee hadn’t noticed was that the ladder was stuck to the courthouse. When it had opened to its fullest length, the truck stopped. Bobby Lee put it in low and gave it all he had, but the truck wouldn’t budge. It was stuck to the courthouse as firmly as Sonny’s car had been stuck to the Stauffers’ house.

The refusal of the ladder to come loose infuriated Bobby
Lee. He jumped out of the truck, threw his sombrero on the ground and stomped on it.

“He’s ruined our one historic building,” Jenny said. “What a terrible way to end our beautiful centennial.”

Janine Wells had put on her nightgown. She leaned out of the window, looking bouncy. Several drunks were trying to persuade her to come down and dance with them.

“Look at Bobby Lee, he’s having a fit,” Karla said. “He’s cute when he’s mad, unlike you, Duane.”

Nellie came over and handed Little Mike to Duane.

“Just hold him while I dance one dance with Joe,” she said.

Duane carried Little Mike around for the next hour, during half of which Little Mike slept soundly on his shoulder. He searched through the crowd, hoping to find Minerva, but Minerva was nowhere in sight. The street was so thick with dancers that he could never even spot Nellie again, though Dickie had reappeared and was dancing with Jacy. After several circles of the courthouse, with Little Mike snoring on his shoulder, the only relative he encountered was Karla, who refused to take her grandson.

“Come on, take him for a while,” Duane said. “Marriage is fifty-fifty.”

“Marriage is the survival of the fittest, and I can’t dance with a baby on my shoulder,” Karla said, before allowing herself to be led off by Junior Nolan.

Finally Duane got a beer, sat down with his back against the courthouse, and put Little Mike face down on the grass, where he slept peacefully. Bobby Lee, having stomped his sombrero into straw, came and sat with him.

“I’ll rest for a minute, then I’ll get my second wind,” Bobby Lee said.

While he was waiting for his second wind, he and Duane watched the dance. The twins were break-dancing with one another. They whipped in and out of groups of large shuffling drunks, gyrating, doing splits, whirling on their hands. Jacy and Dickie stopped dancing and clapped for them. Then Janine and Lester, who had just joined the revels, also stopped and clapped for them. Nellie and little Joe Coombs began to break-dance. To everyone’s surprise, little Joe was a spectacular
break-dancer, flinging his stocky body around with wild abandon.

“That Nellie, she’s a beautiful dancer,” Bobby Lee said, a throb of love in his voice.

“Not only that, her mother is too,” Duane said.

Karla had joined the twins. She had tried dancing with Junior Nolan for a few minutes, but Junior soon wandered away, a puzzled look on his face. Jacy stepped in and started dancing with Karla. They tried to mimic the twins. Then they began to improvise and the twins mimicked them perfectly. Dickie stepped in and danced with Jacy and his mother.

“By God, I hate to think I’m the kind of man who’d sit around all night and watch other people dance,” Bobby Lee said.

He took a deep breath, handed Duane his beer, and rushed into the street, where he began to shriek and shake, rotating his pelvis in imitation of Elvis Presley. He grabbed Nellie and spun her around five or six times. He imitated, in the space of a few seconds, virtually every dancing style Duane had ever seen. Impressed, Karla started dancing with him. Dickie went back to Jacy, and Nellie to little Joe. The twins, looking disgusted, got on their bikes and rode away.

Janine and Lester came over and sat down by him.

“Duane, you was always a wallflower,” Janine said, offering him some gum.

“No, there are people still living who can remember when I was the life of the party,” Duane said.

“I’m one of them,” Lester said. “I can remember when you threatened to whip my ass in front of the Legion Hall.”

“It’s a good thing he didn’t, I would never speak to him again if he had of, sweetie,” Janine said, taking Lester’s hand.

Lester seemed irritated by this remark.

“Sometimes your logic eludes me, honey,” he said. He got up, wandered off and was soon dancing with Charlene Duggs. Janine watched, chewing her gum with increased intensity.

“What logic was he talking about?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Duane said. “I sure haven’t noticed any logic around here.”

“Sometimes I think it was a mistake that we broke up,” Janine said.

Bobby Lee had danced himself out. He came over and flopped down by them.

“Janine, would you get me a beer before I die of dehydration?” Bobby Lee asked.

“I’m certainly not getting beer for someone who hasn’t even had the courtesy to ask me for one dance,” Janine said.

Before Bobby Lee could reply, John Cecil walked up and politely asked Janine to dance. They were soon doing a lively two-step.

Bobby Lee got up and headed for the beer truck.

“Bring me one,” Duane said. He felt a little left out and a little depressed. He really wanted to drive back out to Suzie’s. Maybe he could apologize successfully and they could continue their talk. He hated it when conversations ended on an awkward note, as theirs had. He had a sense that Suzie was angry with him, and the sense held him in check in some way. He wanted to go back and talk out their differences, so as not to feel in check, but was afraid if he went back Dickie would arrive with the engagement ring while he was there.