We followed the group outside. I realized I’d been holding my breath a little. Now I spread my arms out, feeling better. Cricket went to help Jack and Denise, then started the wheel up and let it make a few rounds. The fairground was mostly dark now, except for the ride lights against the black sky. I wanted to be up there, suddenly. I wondered how it would be, traveling with the carnival with Kirstie, together for the season at least.
I looked at her. Her dark eyes reflected the lights. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“It’s good, getting out of yourself sometimes.” She squeezed my hand, then dropped it.
“Yeah.” I turned to kiss her.
But instead of Kirstie, there was an old woman, older even than the people I’d seen when I visited Tristan’s great-gramma at the Park View nursing home once. Her face was all wrinkles but her hair was black, pulled from her face like a ballerina’s.
“This is Antonia,” Kirstie said.
“The Amazing Antonia,” the woman corrected.
“Hi, I’m—”
“No.” Kirstie held up a hand. “Don’t tell her. Let her guess.”
“Guess?”
“That’s what Antonia does here,” Kirstie said. “She guesses.”
I got it. “Oh, you’re one of those people who guesses people’s age and weight.”
“Bah!” She waved her hand. “Age and weight is easy.” She had some sort of accent. I couldn’t tell from where. “I guess much more harder thing than that. There are some who say … I can read minds.”
I laughed, then was sorry for it and put on a serious face. “Okay, what’s my name?”
She held up her index finger. “One letter. I am always needing first letter.”
“M.” Not commenting that a real mind reader wouldn’t need the first letter.
“Then, I guess Michael. And, for make good guesses, I guess you are sixteen and weigh one hundred eighty-two, give or take three pounds.”
I’d weighed one eighty-four last time I’d weighed in, but my muscle tone was probably going. That was a good guess. I figured Kirstie had told her my name, for a goof. But I said, “That’s great.”
“Ask something else,” Kirstie said. “Ask where you’re from.”
I shrugged. “Okay. Where am I from?”
The old woman touched my forehead and her own like she was really reading my mind. A few people were looking. Finally, she said, “Born right here?”
“Yes.” I remembered telling Kirstie I’d never left Florida. I started to move away, but people were crowded around, watching like they were used to Antonia’s routine. Again, I felt crowded like in the tent.
“Do another one,” someone said.
Antonia did. “Occupation: Full-time student. You live with your mother, have not seen your father in, hmmm, twelve or thirteen years.” She poked my upper arm. “You once play sports but haven’t lately. Muscles, they start to go dead.”
I pulled my arm away. “She told you that, huh?” I gestured toward Kirstie. I didn’t remember telling her about my father, but maybe I had. I was ready to leave then. The old woman was a fake, but still, it was creepy.
She kept going, sort of staring off beyond the Ferris wheel lights, not at me.
“When you were, let me see, eight or maybe seven years old, you were trapped somewhere, no? I see dark. You are banging, screaming, but no one comes for too much time.”
The closet. It had been the week before my eighth birthday. I’d been there hours.
“Since then, being trapped is what you fear most. Any tight place, an elevator … even a crowd, it bothers you. Am I right?”
“Yeah.” I sort of choked it out.
“Until recently,” she said. “Recently, your greatest fear is not of closed spaces, is it?”
I couldn’t answer.
Kirstie touched the woman’s arm. “Hey, Toni, Mike’s supposed to ask the questions.”
Others around, maybe seeing my face, started going, “Yeah.” “Looka that, the kid’s freaked out.”
But I said, “What’s my biggest fear now?” I held my breath.
The old woman turned and faced me. “Now your biggest fear is here.” She tapped my forehead. “Inside you. It is anger, what anger will make you do.” Her voice was a whisper.
“I have to get out of here.” I shoved between Kirstie and the woman, then more, making my way through the wall of people. Some guys I shoved by looked pretty rough and pissed off. But I didn’t care what happened. I just had to leave.
“It was a joke, kid!”
I turned. It was the old woman, but her creepy accent was gone. Now she sounded like she was from Brooklyn or something, not a gypsy.
I stopped. “Did she tell you all that?”
Kirstie caught up with me then. I let her. But I could see from her face that, no, she hadn’t told her. She hadn’t known all that.
“It’s my job, kid. I … guess. An educated guess, you’d call it like. Your name starts with M so it was probably Michael. Where you’re from, I tell from your accent. Age and weight—that’s an easy thing. I see thousands of people each day.”
“But the other stuff? Like getting locked in the closet.”
“Good, huh? That gets most people. All kids get locked somewhere, and they always remember. Watching you in the crowd, I could see you can’t stand being closed in. That’s all.”
It was enough. It had to be. I couldn’t ask about the other stuff. I couldn’t. “That’s all?”
“Except …” she said. The crowd around us had sort of backed away now, going off into the shadows, away from the light.
“Except what?”
“Except that last part. I give that ‘trapped somewhere’ line all the time, and it always works. But that last part, I don’t know where it came from.”
“Which part?” But I knew.
“The part about being scared of anger. I never said that before. I just sort of … felt it, talking to you.”
I looked at her. Was she screwing with me, playing with my mind because of how I’d reacted? I couldn’t tell.
“I have to go,” I said. I started walking away, not even thinking about Kirstie until she was running after me.
“She freaked you out, huh?” Kirstie said. “She does that to new people. Some carnies aren’t very nice to outsiders.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “Listen, I have to go home.”
She caught my hand. “Are you coming back?”
I looked back at the group. I couldn’t see Antonia anymore, but Cricket gave me a wave. I turned to Kirstie. Her hair was still shining, still full of the moon and the ride lights.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I’m coming back.”
When I reached home, after more than two hours on a train and two buses, the house was quiet. Mom’s embroidered runner was on its table. Everything was fine.
THIS YEAR
I realize everyone here knows my name’s Michael, from that night. From Antonia. They’re calling me Robert because I asked them to. But they know the truth. I won’t be safe here much longer. I don’t even know if I want to be safe. It hasn’t helped me this past year. And suddenly I feel just as choking-up breathless as I felt that night—without the crowd.
I go back to my trailer. Everyone else is out partying, but I have an appointment with Angela tomorrow. And Mom.
I pull the sheet aside and find another copy of the Herald. This time my picture’s circled. Cricket’s not the only one who’s figured out who I am.
I bolt from my trailer and go to the pay phone. Even though it’s after midnight, I know I’ll try to call Kirstie.
LAST YEAR
In the next week, I spent as much time at the fair as I could. Mostly, I was with Kirstie. When she wasn’t around, Cricket could usually find me someone who needed help and was willing to pay me for it.
It’s weird to say that after quitting the team to stay home more, I spent so much time away. But I justified it by saying I didn’t have to go to the fair like I had to
go to practice. If I sensed a storm gathering, I’d stay home. I told myself that.
After a few days of this, Mom said, “See? You don’t have to worry about me. He’s really changing, Michael.”
I didn’t think so. It was like in football, you have hang time—that second or two when the ball’s in the air and everyone’s running, getting in place for the moment the ball descends. Walker had hang times, a few days, sometimes even a week, when nothing happened. But sooner or later the ball would be in play again.
“Be with your friends, Michael,” she said. “It’s easier.”
I skipped a couple of days then, stayed home and had dinner with them, and missed Kirstie and Cricket, missed having some kind of life.
And nothing happened.
The third day I went back. Mom said Walker would be late anyway. There were problems at the office. Some days he worked until midnight, I knew. So I went.
“Hello, stranger,” Kirstie said when she saw me.
“Hey,” I said. “Can you get some time off?”
She rolled her eyes. “Some people never learn.” She sort of sang it, gesturing toward her mob of marks, all just dying for an opportunity to lay down a buck for a chance at a two-dollar stuffed animal. “Come back later.”
“I’m not sure I can.” I touched the beeper in my pocket. “I need to get home soon.”
“There you go again.”
“What?”
“Checking that beeper.” She collected a dollar from a kid, then strolled over to try and bait some guys my age into playing. I watched how she worked them, making eye contact and showing off her body, same as she’d done with me that first day. Same as she was doing now. Only when she threatened to move away did they pay. She started the game with a ring of the bell. She came back to me. “Still here?”
“Should I leave?”
“I want you to stay. It doesn’t do any good, checking your beeper every two minutes to make sure it’s working.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t you?” She glanced at my pocket. My hand was on it, and I jerked it away. “You’ve been doing it the past week. At first I thought it was a nervous tic, maybe.”
“Maybe it is.”
“I know what it’s like, you know?”
“What what’s like?”
“Hating to go home, but being afraid what will happen if you don’t. Not knowing whether to be loyal to someone else, or to yourself.”
“Look, can’t we just—”
“Drop it? Sure.” The game ended again, and again she walked away.
She spent longer with the two guys this time. When she returned I said, “You don’t know anything.”
“Is it your father?”
“No.” Too quickly. “Don’t have one of those.”
“Stepdad, then?”
I reached for the beeper, then stopped my hand.
“Look, it’s no big deal. He doesn’t beat me up or anything.”
“What does he do?”
“He doesn’t do anything to me!”
“What does he do, Michael?”
“He doesn’t do anything to me,” I repeated. I was lying, and she knew it. We both did.
“I know you can get beat up from the inside, Michael. Get beat up without anyone laying a hand on you.”
She laid her hand on me then, fingers touching mine. I felt myself nod. Her hand was cool, soft, like I remembered my mother’s hand on my forehead when I had a fever long ago.
“He beats up my mother,” I said. “He beats her, and I have to watch it.”
It seemed like all the music went silent a moment, probably in my head. I figured she’d walk away, that she’d hate me. I hated me, weakling that I was, watching, powerless. And what I really hated was, I wanted to be there at the carnival with Kirstie, instead of home doing something about it.
She kept touching my fingers. Her hand, softer than I remembered, stayed there.
“It’s hard … watching. Isn’t it?”
I felt something like a sob, curling in my throat. But I would not cry. I choked out, “Look … why don’t you go hit on one of those guys? I need to go.”
Her eyes went sort of steely then, and she walked off. I stayed, watching her fawn over the guys. One of them finally won a round. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but he gestured toward me, and Kirstie shook her head.
When she came back my way, I said, “What was he saying?”
“What do you care?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m going nuts, okay? That’s no excuse, but I am.”
“Then why don’t you just stop worrying about it?”
“Yeah, right. I can just stop.” I slapped the side of my head. “Wow, how about that? I stopped worrying. Boy, that was a great idea!”
Kirstie looked at me. “Are you done?”
“I guess.”
“Does worrying make her leave the asshole? Does it even make her get beat up less?”
I thought about that day in the dining room. I’d probably made things worse.
“Michael, sometimes you have to help yourself because that’s the only one you can help.”
Maybe it was because of what she’d said, or maybe it was because it was what I wanted to do anyway. But I stayed late that night.
The next day, Mom was wearing a turtleneck in eighty-degree weather. I couldn’t say I was surprised.
“You didn’t beep me,” I said.
She spent a while trying to convince me that the turtleneck was because it was cold in the house. But finally she said, “It was nothing. It was over before it started. I didn’t want—”
I nodded before she could finish and left.
I went outside and started walking. I didn’t know where, just away. I should have been home last night. I should have stopped it.
I was running then. It was rush hour on the bridge. A line of cars snaked out to the mainland. My eyes stung from the rainbow haze of gas fumes. I barely noticed the traffic. Cars honked, and swerved to avoid me. One guy gave me the finger. A woman swore in Spanish. I didn’t care. I knew where I was going now. I’d find Walker. I’d get him. I wasn’t some kid, some ninety-eight-pound weakling who had to take it because there was nothing else to do. It had been a year since I’d confronted Walker physically. I’d gotten bigger since then. He’d just gotten older. I was weak then. Now my anger made me strong. I was a man. I’d finish this.
My sneakers pounded on the bridge. Each step was a metallic thud. The bridge shuddered with each passing car. I looked at Biscayne Bay below and wondered how it would be, to dive, to swim for it. Would I die when I hit the bay? Or would I turn superhuman, fly through the air, then cut through water like a torpedo? I kept running. I’d hated doing nothing. Now I was doing something.
Hurry up, and wait.
I’d stood by Walker’s car for more than an hour by his dashboard clock. It was seven thirty and the parking garage security guard eyed me when he passed the second time.
“I’m waiting for my stepfather,” I explained. “Mr. Monroe?”
“Monroe. . . .” The security guard was an older guy, and after a second he gave me a knowing smile. “Ah, your mother’s the…”
The secretary. The gold digger.
“She used to work here, right? Pretty blond girl.” He nodded. “How’s she doing?”
She’s been better.
“Fine. Walker’s supposed to be driving me to … track team practice.” I gestured toward my clothes. “Guess he forgot.”
“Go up to his office, maybe. He sometimes stays until nine or ten.”
I shook my head. I wanted the element of surprise. To go up, I’d have to call and be let in. “It’s after hours. I don’t think he’d answer the phone to get me into the building.”
“I can let you in the lobby.” The guy patted the keys in his pocket.
I nodded and followed him into the elevator. The place was almost empty, and the night air was cold against my damp T-shirt and hair. We reac
hed the front door, and he let me in.
The lobby was empty. I waited for another elevator, wondering what I’d find when I reached the top. The bell rang, and two lawyer-type guys got out.
“I hated having to tell him,” said one. “He hired me. I was so impressed with him then. He built this firm from the ground up—they say he comes from nothing too.”
“Hey, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.” The second guy loosened his tie. “Maybe the old man will shape up. But there’s no room here for deadwood.”
The elevator door closed in front of me.
I rode to the twenty-fifth floor, which was entirely devoted to the offices of Monroe, Reyes, Friedman, Geerling, and Nicholson. I remembered the firm name had changed last year, when they’d merged with that guy Reyes’ office. We’d heard an earful about that.
The receptionist there was gone too, so I sat on the steps that went up to the rest of the firm’s offices, in the penthouse. I waited. It was dark and getting darker, but I curled up on the hard step, listening for sounds. I had to. If Walker decided to take the elevator from the top floor, I could miss him. I didn’t intend to miss him.
I heard the AC go off. It began to get warm. I stayed there. Half an hour. An hour.
Finally I heard shoes on the steps above me. I looked up. It was Walker.
I don’t think he saw me there in the shadows. He carried a briefcase, and his tie was off, his shirt rumpled. He looked tired. I listened to his footsteps on the spiral staircase. When he’d almost reached bottom, I made my move. I stood, grabbed him, and threw him against the wall.
“You and I are going to have it out right now!”
He looked dazed at first, not seeming to understand who I was. I pulled him back, then slammed him against the wall again, so hard my hands vibrated and hurt from the impact.
A second passed.
He said, “Have what out?”
His voice was strangled.
“You know what!” I let go of him. He stumbled on the stairway, almost falling. I would have let him, but he caught himself, so I took hold of his collar again. He was heavy, but I shook him. “What you do to her, you asshole! What you’re doing. I’m not putting up with it anymore. Hit her again, and I’ll kick your ass!”