Authors: Jill McCorkle
Then we heard the carnival was coming to town, and we decided
that
was our perfect time. Everybody got to stay out late those nights since it was a rare event to have so much entertainment in town. The carnival came on a Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday morning, they were already all set up in the big vacant lot across from the shopping center. It was what my daddy called a
snap-to
carnival. He said he’d stood right there in the grocery window and watched it all appear out of nowhere. On Friday night the carnival was going to kick off with The Retching Wretches, a local band whose lead singer was a girl who had once been our babysitter. Donnie and I had planned to meet all of our friends at the band’s performance and then slip off and go for a drive; he said he had the perfect place for us to go. I knew it was the Royal Villa Inn out on Highway 301 (he had talked to Rowland Jones, who told Jennifer
since they had been there before themselves), but I didn’t let on that I knew. I had a black lace bra and underwear hidden in an empty box of Cheerios in my school locker.
“Those rides can’t be safe,” Mama said and wheeled Monterey Jack up to the table. This was on Friday morning, right after she’d informed us that we couldn’t go to the carnival that night. “It’s Granddaddy’s birthday,” she said and bent to kiss Granddaddy’s cheek. “We decided late last night to do something special, have a few of the old neighbors in.”
“But the band is playing.” Bill said.
“You can go tomorrow night,” she said.
“
Old
neighbors is right,” Daddy patted Granddaddy’s shoulder. He was ignoring our pleas. “Right, Pops?” Granddaddy just grinned great big and then focused on Bill, studied him as if he’d never seen him before. I could tell it made Bill uneasy. He had always been Granddaddy’s favorite, and now the old man was looking at him like he had no earthly idea who he was. It was like our grandfather had already died and we were left with this big doll baby to remind us that he’d once been a part of our lives. It was getting hard for me to look at him, and the thought of a whole roomful of old people gave me the creeps.
Bill finally got tired of arguing about going to the carnival and balanced a spoon on Granddaddy’s head. I probably would have laughed, but I was upset about having to tell Donnie I couldn’t make our date. What if he thought I
didn’t
want
to take my clothes off with him? What if he thought I was having second thoughts? What if he couldn’t get his parents’ car a second night, how would we get to the Royal Villa Inn? Where was I going to hide my fancy underwear at home so that I’d have it for
Saturday
night?
I wrote Donnie a quick note while Bill and Jennifer and I waited for the school bus. I made it real mushy so he would believe what was the truth. Then I said that my grandfather, who was old and would probably die before too long (Bill had suggested I say Granddaddy was circling the drain), was having a birthday party and I had to be there. As wracked with grief as I was (Jennifer’s suggestion), I couldn’t keep our date. I said that I longed for our moment together, the one we had planned, the one that filled my every dream waking and sleeping. I said, “But it’ll be worth the wait! It’ll be Grrrrreat, you big bad Tiger” (also Jennifer’s suggestion—she was very good at that kind of letter). He took it all real well, responding with a note wedged up in the vent slots of my locker that simply said “Tomorrow is the Day!” It was Jennifer’s mission (if she could keep some sense about her while on a date with Rowland Jones) to keep an eye on Donnie just in case somebody decided to move in on my turf.
Granddaddy and his guests didn’t know it was his birthday, but we celebrated all the same. Daddy brought home
a bag of cherry tomatoes and made them look like little roses; he hollowed out a red cabbage and filled it with dip. It was all beautiful and everybody told him so, but all Granddaddy and his friends ate were the little pastel butter mints and the Cheetos that left their hands and mouths bright orange. Mama said that such a birthday celebration is like a funeral, a ritual for the living, so you’ll feel like you’ve done the best you could. Bill sang
Happy Birthday, dear Paw Paw
and when Mama gave him a dirty look changed his song to
Happy Birthday, dear Burrhead
. Granddaddy grinned great big and then cried, his mouth twisting silently. By nine Granddaddy was tucked in bed and fast asleep.
While my parents shuttled all the guests back where they’d come from, I cleaned the kitchen. Bill actually offered to help me, balancing his niceness by calling me
asshole
. More and more, Bill was trying to get on my good side. He never would’ve admitted it, but he was terrified of girls. He knew that if he didn’t hurry up and grow taller or get some facial or underarm hair, that he was in for a bumpy ride. He had a crush on Tanya Taylor, who was my fellow flag girl, and more than ever, he needed me.
Several times since the “Madonna Marathon,” Bill and I had seen those same two cars pull up and park, the station wagon left behind while the other drove off down that
dark road that led to Hermit’s Crossing. Bill told me a lot of high school people went there, too. He waited for me to say something, and the way he looked at me it was almost like he knew about my plans. Bill said some older boys told him that you could find
things
out there: underwear and stockings and
things
you wouldn’t want to touch. I had only seen Hermit’s Crossing in the daylight. All it was was a little wooden bridge crossing a stream, but there were lots of stories about how it was haunted.
It was after ten when my parents got home and we all went to bed. I knew that Bill was probably already up and sneaking back in to watch MTV or to call one of those 900 numbers that had mysteriously appeared on our phone bill the month before. “What is this?” my mother had asked and handed the number to my dad. I don’t know if she was accusing him or not. She had already called the number to see who answered and had gotten quite a shock. Then they called back for
him
to hear. “Good grief,” he said. “You thought I’d called that?” They never even asked Bill about it, just assumed aloud that some
sordid
person had charged his
filth
to our number. Still, I did notice that every night before going to bed my mother adjusted the phone on the table just so; it seemed to me that it was positioned on the phone book in such a way that she’d know if it had been touched. “What kind of young girl takes such a job?” my mother had whispered to my father when she thought I wasn’t paying attention. “And I wonder,” she continued,
“is she reading what she says or making it up right off the top of her head?” I didn’t hear what he said to her but it was one of those times I wished I hadn’t seen. She just sort of smiled and turned red. She pushed his arm and said, “Oh really, Jack,” and then they kissed that slow close way that made me feel like I didn’t belong on this earth. It seemed to me that every time she touched the phone book it was a signal for him to give her that look.
I lay there that night half waiting to hear Bill dialing. I was trying to picture myself in the act with Donnie, but I kept picturing my parents or the weird guys from the Madonna video instead. It was like I was watching a scrambled channel and I couldn’t keep it focused on just me and Donnie. I must have been lying there for about a half hour when I heard a car pass and then the engine cut. I tiptoed out into the living room, expecting to see Bill perched in front of the window, binoculars up to his eyes, but he had fallen asleep. The figures on MTV were moving around in silence. The phone was exactly the same on the table. I knelt just as the other car drove off. I started to wake him but then I changed my mind. I needed some time to myself to think through things. I’m not one to ever go creeping around at night, so I’m not quite sure what came over me. It was like I had a sudden urge to sneak out. The next thing I knew I had my jacket on and was tiptoeing through the kitchen.
Quietly, I stepped out the back door and crept through
the side yard, following the edge of the parking lot so that I was always near some high shrubs. I sat watching the lot for what seemed like an hour. It was quiet out there, too chilly for any frogs or crickets to be calling. The station wagon was a Camry, black or dark blue or burgundy. (My dad said we were about the only people in town without a car that was made in Japan.) I tiptoed around, pressing my face against the windows, but I couldn’t see anything. I was about to squat down and try to read the license number, when I saw headlights coming down Hermit’s Crossing Road. My whole life I’d heard those stories about Hermit’s Crossing and how that’s where witches had been killed hundreds of years before. They said if you went and stood in front of the huge live oaks you’d hear the creaking of the ropes as they hung, hear the crackling of the fire as they burned. With a rush of gooseflesh I crouched down in the bushes and held my breath. I waited, barely breathing, while the other car pulled up beside the wagon. I couldn’t see the driver at all. It was a Honda, but the color was difficult to figure in that light: white, yellow, pale blue. I felt my chest tighten like I might have to scream or laugh or something. I was about to run when the door on the passenger side opened and then I saw him, Mr. Sinclair, just as big and thick-necked as ever. “See ya, babe,” he said. Then he clucked his tongue and said, “Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm.”
I felt all the blood pumping to my head, and every muscle
in my body tensed. He stood there in the dark empty parking lot and watched the Honda pull away, his keys jingling in his hand. The car rolled right by me, the tires kicking up sand. There was a piece of twine hanging out of the trunk like maybe it had been tied down or something, and then I realized that I had studied the twine, its ends painted fluorescent yellow, and had missed my chance to read the license. All I caught was a “booster club” bumper sticker, which everybody in town had bought to support the high school athletic department. It seemed like hours before Mr. Sinclair got in his own car and cranked the engine, the roar vibrating across the empty lot. I sat back and took a deep breath, the fumes from the Camry still in the air. My knees were shaking like they never had before, like rubber, like jelly. I didn’t feel normal until I got inside and collapsed on Bill’s pallet on the living room floor. “Bill.” I shook him and he rolled towards me, let out a deep sigh. I shook him again but he shrugged me away. It took a good ten minutes before he was really awake, and in that time, I decided that I had some leverage and ought to use it. I told Bill everything I’d seen except
who
it was. He was begging. He was ready to do my household chores for a week, ready to pay me ten dollars.
“What kind of car was it?” he asked.
“A station wagon.”
“The other car.” He was getting impatient.
“A Honda.”
“Oh, great.” He sat up and pulled a bag of Doritos out from under the sofa. “Everybody drives a Honda. Was it an Accord or a Civic?”
“What do I look like, a car dealer?” I asked. I was enjoying myself. After all the times he had taped mine and Jennifer’s conversations or tried to spy on me and Donnie, I had him where I wanted him.
“I’ll just go out there myself,” he finally said, tired of begging. “I’ll go tomorrow night and every night until they come back.” He wanted me to tell the end again, the part about
mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm
.
“Who said that?” he asked quickly, thinking he could trick me into saying, and we both fell out laughing. I had never felt so close to Bill, and I almost reconsidered and told him that it was Mr. Sinclair. There was even a part of me that wanted to tell him about mine and Donnie’s plan, how we were in love and ready to make a move,
show
how we loved each other, but I let the moment pass. Bill seemed so vulnerable at night stripped down to a T-shirt and gym shorts, spots of Clearasil on his chin and forehead, but come morning he would be right back to his tricks. As much as we
wanted
to trust each other, we just couldn’t. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure Donnie, but all I could see was Mr. Sinclair’s thick neck and back moving up and down in a back seat, some unknown
babe
beneath him.
Donnie picked me up in his dad’s new Chrysler at six the next night. My face was so flushed with nervousness
that Mama kept asking if I was sick and pressing her hand up against my forehead. Bill had already left to go to the carnival with some boys his age, but I knew that he was planning to set up camp in the parking lot later that night. All day long he had talked about it, and all day long I was torn between the sick feeling I had thinking about Mr. Sinclair saying “Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm” and the nervousness I felt when I put on that lace bra and underwear. I was terrified that my mother would see the lacy outline under my sweater.
“Have fun, kids!” Mama called as Donnie and I got in the car. My dad had gone to rent a movie, which is what they always did (or said they did) when Bill and I were both out. They rented movies we’d never heard of with stars who had either died or gotten real old and fat. I breathed a sigh of relief as I leaned into the plush leather seat. I had made it over the first hurdle. Donnie was all shaved and smelling of Obsession. I watched the key chain I’d given him dangle from the ignition as we drove to Shoney’s. We were both nervous. Donnie asked for a booth by the window so we could look out at the carnival, where all the lights were coming on, the Ferris wheel moving in a circle as jumpy as our conversation. Donnie got the fried chicken plate and I got the salad bar. We started to have dessert but then passed as we watched the Bullet in the distance, the passenger cars on either end spinning and twisting. Everybody had talked about the Bullet at school. Dares had been made about who could ride it the most times without getting
sick. Scooter Clark had talked about how, the year before, he and Andy Hamilton had found all kinds of money that had flown from pockets to the ground around the ride.
We walked from Shoney’s, since it was hard to find a parking spot. Donnie grabbed my hand, and his felt almost as cold and clammy as my own. I kept waiting for him to mention our plans, but instead he kept talking about how pretty the moon was coming up in the distance and was I up for riding the Bullet and did I really believe that there was any such thing as a miniature horse only fourteen inches high. “No, I don’t believe it,” I said just as we were passing the trailer that said there was a fourteen-inch horse.