Whistling Past the Graveyard (17 page)

a firestorm before it’s over.”

I thought of the TV news film I’d seen back in Cayuga Springs of colored people getting drug off stools at a lunch counter, and another where they was attacked by police dogs. I asked if that was what she meant.

She spent some time telling me about the things that the N-double-A-CP was doing and how much trouble they was getting in.
“Just in the South?” I asked.
“Most, not all. Have to start where the problem is the most glaring, then it can spread.”
“I don’t want you or Eula to do it. I don’t want you to get chewed by police dogs or yanked out of a store and arrested.”
Miss Cyrena looked at me and put her hand around my shoulder. “You’re a good girl, Starla. Don’t ever let your pure heart change.”
I wasn’t sure how a heart could change, but didn’t want to talk about such frustratin’ stuff anymore—especially while I was staring at the pitiful colored-kids park. I drank my Co’Cola and thought about how maybe when I got older I could help get some swings for this playground.
After a bit, Miss Cyrena started talking again, this time about Eula’s pies and all the people that might be customers. It was a nice time and got my jitters settled down some.
Then we drove back and delivered the rest of the stuff, to two restaurants and three people’s houses. We kept our eye out for that Jenkins truck, but never saw it. Miss Cyrena said that we could probably shed our worry. I think she was just saying that to make me feel better.
I sure hoped that dog was okay. I kept thinking it belonged to some kid who’d go to bed crying tonight.
The last house on our delivery was Mrs. Clark’s, where them Jenkins boys had bothered Eula while she was working in the flower bed out front. That flower bed was particular pretty, and I knew it was ’cause of Eula’s hands working in it. I was real curious to see what kind of woman scared off three fellas with a shotgun, but Miss Cyrena made me stay in the car again. I stretched my neck to see Mrs. Clark when she answered the back door, but a colored maid took the cake from Miss Cyrena.
After that, Miss Cyrena drove me out to see the new “shopping plaza” and the fairgrounds. The shopping plaza turned out to be a one story string of stores with glass fronts all stuck together with a big parking lot out front. And then I saw the fairgrounds and nearly peed my pants.
“A carnival! Oh, Miss Cyrena, can I go?”
“It doesn’t look like it opens until later.” She sounded like she was glad. I had a feeling she’d have said no if it had been open. I didn’t deserve it after all the trouble I caused today.
But it wasn’t open, anyhow. All of the rides were quiet and still and the only person I saw was a man in an undershirt coming out of his little camper-trailer, scratching his big belly. I couldn’t even smell any caramel corn or hot dogs.
“I was supposed to go to a carnival last summer—with my friend P—Polly.” Whew, I almost said Patti Lynn’s name. “I saved up my allowance money and collected bottles for refunds for three months so I could buy ride tickets and a candy apple.”
“You didn’t go?” Miss Cyrena asked.
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
I shrugged.
“Starla?”
I looked out the window. “’Cause I got put on restriction for forgettin’ to take out the trash.” Now Miss Cyrena knew I was always trouble.
“That was all? The trash?”
I nodded. It still got my insides all knotted up when I thought about it. I’d been so careful not to sass and to keep my room picked up and everything all week. I’d even been extra-helpful to Mamie, doing extra chores without even being asked. But that darned trash and the ants that found it was what done me in.
“This one don’t matter,” I said the truth. “I don’t have any money anyhow.”
“I suppose not.”
Miss Cyrena was quiet the rest of the way back to her house. I was so tired by the time we got there, I ate my supper and went straight to bed. As I was falling asleep, I tried to imagine what that carnival looked like all lit up and full of people, the air filled with calliope music and the smell of sweet cotton candy.

18

w

e spent Friday baking again. Eula said if business kept up like this, we might have enough money to pay Miss Cyrena back, fix the truck, and go on to Nashville in another week and a half. I’d decided not to ask for a dime for that stupid sucker. A dime could buy us a half gallon of gas.

I was glad me and Eula’d have more time baking. Eula promised I could run the mixer next time. Besides, Momma didn’t even know I was on my way, so she wouldn’t be worried.

By five o’clock, we was done with our orders for the day and the car was loaded up. Eula was rubbing her back and tilting her head from side to side to stretch her neck. My feet hurt—Miss Cyrena said they wouldn’t be if I’d just wore my shoes. I told her that if I had, I’d just have a different misery; hot, swollen, stinky feet. She and Eula laughed and laughed. I think every one of us was in a good mood now that the work was almost done.

I wanted to go with Miss Cyrena to make deliveries, but poor Eula looked dog-tired and I’d have been ashamed to leave her there with sticky syrup on the counter, flour on the floor, and every pan in the house sitting dirty in the sink. Miss Cyrena promised I could go on Monday; that perked me up some. Maybe I’d see that black-and-white dog again and know it was healin’ up okay. She said that if the Jenkins boys was gonna do anything, they’d have done it by now. It was most likely the one that hit the dog hadn’t give me, or that dog, another thought—that’s the kind of fellas they was, hard and selfish.

A while later when Miss Cyrena got back from deliveries, she brought the dirty pie tins she’d collected from Slattery’s. She dropped them into the sink where I was washing the last pan.

I gave her a cross-eyed look. “Can’t I do these tomorrow?” “Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today,” she said. I didn’t like that one bit. We didn’t have no baking tomorrow since

we got all of the weekend orders done. There’d be plenty of time to wash nine pie tins. I opened my mouth to say so, but she used those teacher eyes on me. I rolled my eyes and started washing again.

She nodded at me like she was proud of me not sassing. Then she said, “Eula, would you help me with something outside for a minute?”
Eula put down the floor mop and followed her out the back door. The window over the sink looked out on the driveway. I leaned up on tiptoe, but couldn’t see them. I listened real careful, but couldn’t hear them talking.
I dropped my dishrag in the soapy water and tried to keep my drippy hands over the sink as I took a step backward, leaning as far as I could to see out the back door. They was clear back near the hedges that was the end of Miss Cyrena’s yard.They had their backs to me and Miss Cyrena was talking steady and serious.
I got worried. Was she getting tired of working for nothing but a thank-you? Was she telling Eula it was time for us to find someplace else to stay till we got the money to fix our truck? Had Miss Cyrena somehow found out about Eula doin’ in Wallace?
Just then, I heard baby James start to cry in his sleeping drawer. Neither Miss Cyrena or Eula looked like they heard him, even though the bedroom window was open and sure I didn’t know how they couldn’t.
I shook the suds off my hands and wiped them on my shorts as I headed to get him up and change his diaper, feeling kinda mad that they was out there just talking while I had to do all the work.
Being mad was better than worrying over what Miss Cyrena was saying.
When me and baby James come back to the kitchen, Miss Cyrena and Eula was standing side by side, looking like they had a secret. “You tell her,” Miss Cyrena said to Eula.
“You the one makin’ it happen. You tell her.” She sounded kinda peculiar.
My heart climbed right up into my mouth.
“What? What’s happenin’? Is it bad?” I gave baby James a jiggle as he started to fuss more for his bottle.
After one last look at Eula, Miss Cyrena said, “You’ve been working so hard, helping with the baking and the baby. And it’s summer, when children should be having fun. So”—she paused—“we’ve decided to take you to the carnival.”
Eula nodded and looked like the cat that got the cream.
I closed my eyes for a minute, letting the words sink in. We wasn’t being throwed out. The law wasn’t coming to get Eula.
“Starla?” Miss Cyrena said. “Are you all right?”
I let out a long breath. “Yes, Miss Cyrena.”The idea was sinking in. I was finally going to a carnival! “Yes, I am!” Eula came and took baby James and got a bottle out of the Frigidaire. “When?” My feet were itching to get my shoes and go.
“Tonight,” Eula said. “Right after we have a bite of supper.”
I looked from Miss Cyrena to Eula. “We’re all going?”
“Well, no. Although it’s Friday night and sure to be busy enough not to stand out, we decided it best for Eula to stay home with baby James.”
“In case the Jenkins boys are there?”
Eula gave me a look that was sharp enough to put my eyes out. “I don’t want to hear no more ’bout that. It’s not for a child to worry on. ’Sides, I don’t like carnivals.”
“Everybody likes carnivals!” I said.
“I don’t.” She did a little shiver, like she’d just walked into a spider’s web.
“How come?”
“Don’t hold no happy memories for me.” Then she smiled real big. “But you gonna have fun, fun, fun.”
Then it hit me like a bucket of cold water. “I don’t have any money for rides or games.” What fun would it be to go and just watch other folks have fun?
“It’s my treat,” Miss Cyrena said. “Every child should go to a carnival at least once.”
I looked at Eula.
She nodded.“She right.You need to make your own good memories.”
“Let’s get supper over with,” I said.
We all laughed. I was going to a carnival and I was gonna bring back enough good memories to share with Eula that she would get over not liking them.

Miss Cyrena parked the car so far from the fairgrounds that there weren’t many other cars parked along the street. A couple of groups of people walked past, but they was so excited about getting to the carnival they didn’t give us a look.

“I think it’s best if we walk in separately,”Miss Cyrena said.“I’ll stay close, keep an eye on you. Don’t even think about me being here. We shouldn’t look like we’re together. With so many children here, you’ll blend right in.”

“Okay.” I felt in my pocket to make sure the two dollars she’d given me was still safe.
“We’ll meet back here at the car at, say, eight thirty?”
I looked at my Timex. Even after all of the rain and whatnot, it was still working just fine—Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking. “Can we stay till nine? Pleeeease?”
“You’ll have to pace yourself to make your money last.”
“I will. I want to see everything before I decide what rides to go on anyway. And I want to watch people play all of the games, too. If it looks easy, I might try to win a stuffed animal like P—my friend’s brother did one year.”
“Oh, I’d avoid those games. They’re made to look easy, so they can take your money.”
“I wanna watch anyhow.” I opened my car door.
“Nine o’clock, then. Have fun.”
As I started walking toward the carnival, my stomach got tight and wiggled around a little. I wanted to run, but was afraid Miss Cyrena wouldn’t like running to keep me in sight. I checked over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t going too fast. Miss Cyrena was a ways back. She shook her head to remind me I wasn’t supposed to look for her.
Pretty soon I saw the Ferris wheel sticking up above everything. It was even taller than a house! Its spokes had colored lights that flashed when it stopped and stayed lit when it went around. It wasn’t dark yet, but them lights was bright enough that they showed up real nice against the sky. My stomach got wigglier.
I walked through the grassy parking area. I passed a little boy tugging on his daddy’s pants pocket to get him to go faster, and a man with a little girl sitting on his shoulders. I used to ride on my daddy’s shoulders like that when I was little.
I got a funny tingle on my neck. I sure hoped Eula and me got to Nashville before Daddy came home again. I didn’t want him to get worried.
The breeze blew a sugary smell past me and my mouth watered. Would I get a candy apple, or cotton candy? Or maybe I wouldn’t buy a treat at all and just ride as many rides as I could.
The crowd got thicker as I got closer. Finally, I was there with it all right in front of me. There was so much to look at. It was all movement and sound and smell. A bell rang. Men shouted to get people to play their games. Music came from somewhere. A whirring siren came from right next to me. It was a ride that spun a line of seats backwards up and down over little hills. It went faster and faster. Lightbulbs over the top of it spelled
H-I-M-A-L-A-Y-A.
Must have something to do with mountains, ’cause the riders and cars disappeared behind a wall painted like giant, snowy mountains for a few seconds before they came flying back out.
While I was walking and watching that, a man called out, “Hey, Red! Come win a goldfish!” He stood in a booth with lots of tiny fishbowls that held orange and a few black fish. He held a bunch of little hoops. “Just toss a ring over one and he’s yours! It’s easy.”
“No thank you, sir.” I kept walking. I wasn’t gonna waste my money on getting a goldfish. Our truck was already full with Eula and James and me. And you had to feed a goldfish. We was having enough of a time feeding us. Now, a teddy bear was different. A teddy bear didn’t eat nothin’.
While I was looking up in a trailer window where a man was swirling blue cotton candy onto a paper tube, I tripped over something. It was a long, snaky-looking cable running across the ground. When I really got to looking, I saw they were everywhere. It made it hard to study things while I was moving, so I stopped and looked around some from where I stood. Once I’d seen everything I could from there, I moved and stopped at another place. By the time I’d gone all around the carnival to check it out, it was seven thirty.
There were two different booths where you could win a teddy bear. One where you had to pop balloons by hitting them with darts—you only got three for a dime, but the balloons were pretty close together. The other one took knocking over stacked milk bottles with a baseball—three balls for a dime. I could chuck a rock pretty good and had pretty fair aim, so maybe I’d try that one. I was gonna wait until the end though, so I didn’t have to carry Teddy on all of the rides.
I took my money to the little wooden ticket booth. I had to wait in a long line, but finally got up there and bought ride tickets with all of my two dollars, except the ten cents I was gonna use to win Teddy. I decided to skip the treat. I’d get a chance at cotton candy or a candy apple before I’d get a chance to ride a ride again.
Since I’d never been on a carnival ride and I wasn’t too crazy about being high up in a tree, I decided to try a low-to-the-ground one first. It couldn’t be a baby one, though. I picked the Tilt-a-Whirl.
I had to wait in line. When I climbed up the steps and onto the wavy platform, the man running the ride pointed me to a car that already had a boy with blond hair sitting in it.
“Somebody’s in that one,” I said, and started to walk on to the next one.
“Too busy tonight for single riders. You go with him.”
I didn’t want my first carnival ride to be ruined by someone who might be a wienie and scream like a baby the whole time. I studied him for a second. He looked like he was maybe in fifth or sixth grade.
I asked him, “You been on this ride before?”
He grinned, not snotty, but kinda nice. “I been on all the rides before.”
I turned to the man running the ride. “Okay, I’ll go with him.”
“Darn right you will,” he said. “Now get in, you’re holding up the line.”
I got in and sat as far from the boy as I could. The man loading us pushed the lap bar across us and I put my hands on it. It was sticky.
“I’m Troy,” the boy said. “My friend got sick and went home, that’s why I’m by myself.”
“Why’d he leave?” Nobody’d leave a carnival.
“Threw up after the Himalaya.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t get sick on rides do you?” he asked.
“No! Never.” It wasn’t a lie.
Right then, the ride started to move. Slow, but in just a second, our car spun around in a circle, making my stomach jump out of my body. Then it started to go faster. I grabbed the bar tighter.
Troy didn’t scream, except to yell, “Faster! Faster!” every time we passed the man who ran the ride. After the first spin, I was yelling it, too. Sometimes our car would spin up so we was facing the center of the ride, then stop and hang there for a second before it whipped in a circle so fast everything around us got blurred. That ride was the most fun I’d ever had.
I couldn’t believe it when it started to slow down and our car swung one last time, then rocked to a stop.
“That’s it?” I said. “It was so short!”
“Yeah.” Troy pushed the lap bar up. “They’re all that way.”
I just sat there. Maybe if I didn’t get out, I could go again.
The man walked around the platform. He stopped by me. “Out.”
“I wanna go again.”
“It’ll take another ticket. Since there’s a line, you gotta go wait anyhow.”
“Come on!” Troy was outside the ride waving his arm at me. “Let’s do the Scrambler!”
I jumped out of the car and ran around the platform to the stairs.
“Hurry up.”Troy pulled a long string of red tickets out of his pocket. He musta had more than five dollars’ worth! “This way.”
The Scrambler didn’t look exciting enough to waste a ticket on. Troy got in line, but I stayed back.
“Come on—”Then he looked at me funny. “What’s your name, anyway?”
I couldn’t tell him my real name like I could if it had been Kathy or Debbie. Instead of risking a made-up name that I might forget, I said, “Red.”
“Well, come on, Red.”
“I don’t think I want to ride this one.”
“Yeah, you do. It’s fun!”
I looked at the Scrambler again. It looked boring.
Just then, a kid coming out of the exit bent over and threw up all over his shoes.
I jumped in line with Troy.
Turned out, the Scrambler was as fun as the Tilt-a-Whirl. The first time it looked like our seat was going to slam into one of the seats on another arm, I screamed. But it was just an optical delusion—which is something that tricks your eyes into believing something that’s not true. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep from sliding over and mashing Troy against the edge of the seat.
When we got off that ride, I asked, “What’s next?” Troy seemed pretty good at picking out rides.
“Ferris wheel.”
“I’m gonna take a break. I’m using my tickets pretty fast.”
“Go ask your mom and dad to buy you more.”
“They aren’t here.”
“Oh. Well, you’re gonna want to ride this one. You can see everything from up there.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me along.
As we waited in line, I looked up at those seats, rocking way up at the top. My skin started to itch and my mouth got dry. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom while you ride this one. I’ll meet you after.”
He looked at me and his eyes got squinty. “You’re scared.”
“No, I’m not. I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Scaredy.”
“Am not.”
“Then ride with me.” He lifted his chin like it was a dare. “You can go to the bathroom after.”
“Next up!” the man loading yelled.
Troy used his dare stare on me.
I sucked in a big breath, pushed past him, and sat in the seat waiting to be loaded.
Troy sat next to me, and the man locked the bar in front of us. I held on to the bar and kept my eyes on the teddy bears waiting to be won across from the Ferris wheel.
We went up backwards and real slow, stopping as the seats were loaded. I felt like I was gonna pee my pants. When we got up high, I held real still and told Troy if he rocked it, I was gonna break his nose. He musta known I’d do it, ’cause he sat still.
After I’d made it around once, I started to feel a little better about it. You really could see everything from up there, church steeples, the water tower, the whole carnival . . . and the people looked so little. I didn’t think I could see as far as the Bottoms though.
As we got off, Troy said, “You liked it, right?”
“Sure.” I liked it okay. And I’d got over being scared of being up high, too. Good thing, ’cause the next thing we rode was the Paratrooper.
We rode more rides and walked for a bit, watching the games and whatnot. It was weird, hanging around with him. We wasn’t friends. We didn’t talk much. But we stuck together anyhow.
When we stopped, we were standing right in front of the Bullet. “This one next,” he said.
I looked up at the thing. The car on the end of a long arm swung back and forth, back and forth, getting higher each time until it went upside down and on around. I didn’t like it.
“I’ve only got one ticket left. I want to save it for  .  .  .” I looked around; we’d ridden everything scary. “For the bumper cars.”
He laughed so loud the people around us stopped and looked at us. “You’re kidding, right?”
I looked at the Bullet again. Up high was one thing. Upside down up high was a horse of a different color.
Troy was staring at me.
Well, I’d found out I wasn’t scared of a whole lot of things lately. Maybe this would be like the rest.
We got in line. And Troy looked at me like I’d gone and done the biggest dare ever . . . like he was proud of me or something.
I made it to the second swing before the screams I was holding in busted out. “Let me off!” I stomped my feet because my hands couldn’t let go. “Let me off! Letmeoffletmeoffletmeoff!”
All my screaming didn’t do nothing but get a bunch of people to stop in front of the Bullet and watch.
When it finally stopped after what felt like an hour, a horrible hour, I got off. I couldn’t tell how far the ground was from my feet when I took a step. Lots of people stood there laughing. Troy was one of them.
“You’re not as nice as I thought you were.” I shoved him and walked away as fast as I could considering I was walking like Eula’s broke truck, this way, then that, not able to keep a straight line.
Troy called after me, “Hey, Red, don’t be sore! You did good.”
I ignored him. I’d wasted my last ticket and people were laughing at me.
I was too mad even to win my teddy bear. I walked away from the rides and back toward the parked cars.
“Red!”
I walked faster, right past a man in a deputy’s uniform. I got madder yet; I needed to be more careful. Lucky, he was looking the other way.
After being in all those lights, it seemed extra-dark out in the parking area. After a few seconds, I got so I could to see better. I was deep in the parked cars when I saw it. The red-and-white truck with the big Confederate flag on the hood.
I thought about the meanness of those Jenkins boys, how they’d scared Eula. I thought about that poor black-and-white dog. I thought about all those people laughing at me. I thought about being scared.
I picked up a rock and broke one of the headlights. The sound of it shattering and little pieces of glass hitting the bumper made me feel better. I took aim at the second headlight. Just as I was about to swing the rock, someone grabbed my arm.