A Painted House (23 page)

“Leave him out of it, Stick,” my father said. “He’s just a kid.”

“He’s seven years old!” Pappy snapped. “Why don’t you find you some real witnesses.”

Stick’s shoulders drew back as if he’d been hit.

“Here’s the deal,” Pappy said. “You leave Hank alone until the cotton’s in, then I’ll drive to town and let you know we’re finished with him. At that point, I don’t care what you do with him.”

“That’ll work,” Stick said.

“But I still think you ain’t got a case. It was three against one, Stick, and no jury will convict.”

“We’ll see,” Stick said smugly. He walked away, thumbs in his pockets, with just enough of a swagger to annoy us.

“Can I go to the carnival?” I asked.

“Of course you can,” Pappy said.

“How much money do you have?” my father asked.

“Four dollars.”

“How much you gonna spend?”

“Four dollars.”

“I think two’s enough.”

“How ’bout three?”

“Make it two-fifty, okay?”

“Yes sir.” I ran from the church, along the sidewalk, darting between people, and was soon at the baseball field, which was across the street from the Co-op, the Dixie theater, and the pool hall. The carnival covered it all, from the backstop to the outfield fence. The Ferris
wheel stood in the middle, surrounded by the smaller rides, the booths, and the midway. Shrill music rattled from the loudspeakers on the merry-go-round and the carousel. Long lines of people were already waiting. I could smell popcorn and corn dogs and something frying in grease.

I found the trailer with the cotton candy. It cost a dime, but I would’ve paid much more for it. Dewayne saw me at the midway as I was watching some older boys shoot air guns at little ducks that swam in a pool. They never hit them, and this was because, according to Pappy, the gunsights were crooked.

Candied apples were also a dime. We bought one apiece and took our time inspecting the carnival. There was a witch in a long black dress, black hair, black everything, and for twenty-five cents she could tell your future. A dark-eyed old lady could do the same thing, for the same price, with tarot cards. A flamboyant man with a microphone could guess your age or your weight for a dime. If he didn’t get within three years or ten pounds you won a prize. The midway had the usual collection of games—softballs thrown at milk jugs, basketballs aimed at rims that were too small, darts at balloons, hoops over bottlenecks.

We strolled through the carnival, savoring the noise and excitement. A crowd was gathering at the far end, near the backstop, and we drifted over. A large sign proclaimed the presence of “Samson, the World’s Greatest Wrestler, Direct from Egypt,” and under it was a square mat with padded poles in the corners and ropes around it. Samson was not in the ring, but his appearance
was only moments away, according to Delilah, a tall, shapely woman with the microphone. Her costume revealed all of her legs and most of her chest, and I was certain that never before had so much skin been exposed in public in Black Oak. She explained, to a silent crowd mostly of men, that the rules were simple. Samson paid ten-to-one to any person who could stay in the ring with him for one minute. “Only sixty seconds!” she yelled. “And the money is yours!” Her accent was strange enough to convince us that they were indeed from another land. I’d never seen anybody from Egypt, though I knew from Sunday school that Moses had had some adventures there.

She paraded back and forth in front of the ring, all eyes following her every move. “On his current tour, Samson has won three hundred matches in a row,” she said tauntingly. “In fact, the last time Samson lost was in Russia, when it took three men to beat him, and they had to cheat to do it.”

Music started blaring from a lone speaker hanging on the sign. “And now, ladies and gentlemen!” she shouted above the music, “I present to you, the one, the only, the greatest wrestler in the world, the incredible Samson!”

I held my breath.

He bounded from behind a curtain and jumped into the ring amid tepid applause. Why should we clap for him? He was there to whip us. His hair was the first thing I noticed. It was black and wavy and fell to his shoulders like a woman’s. I’d seen illustrations of Old Testament stories where the men had such hair, but
that was five thousand years ago. He was a giant of a man, with a thick body and ridges of muscles clumped around his shoulders and down his chest. His arms were covered with black hair and looked strong enough to lift buildings. So that we might get the full benefit of his physique, Samson wasn’t wearing a shirt. Even after we’d spent months in the fields, his skin was much darker than ours, and now I was really convinced that he was from parts unknown. He had fought Russians!

He strutted around the ring in step with the music, curling his arms and flexing his mammoth muscles. He performed like this until we’d witnessed all he had, which was more than enough, in my opinion.

“Who’s first?” Delilah yelled into the microphone as the music died. “Two-dollar minimum!”

The crowd was suddenly still. Only a fool would crawl into that ring.

“I ain’t scared,” somebody yelled, and we watched in disbelief as a young man I’d never seen before stepped forward and handed two dollars to Delilah. She took the money and said, “Ten-to-one. Stay in the ring for sixty seconds, and you’ll win twenty dollars.” She shoved the microphone at the young man and said, “What’s your name?”

“Farley.”

“Good luck, Farley.”

He climbed into the ring as if he had no fear of Samson, who’d been watching without the slightest hint of worry. Delilah took a mallet and struck a bell on the side of the ring. “Sixty seconds!” she said.

Farley moved around a bit, then retreated to a
corner as Samson took a step in his direction. Both men studied each other, Samson looking down with contempt, Farley looking up with anticipation.

“Forty-five seconds!” she called out.

Samson moved closer, and Farley darted to the other side of the ring. Being much smaller, he was also much quicker, and apparently was using the strategy of flight. Samson stalked him; Farley kept darting.

“Thirty seconds!”

The ring was not big enough to run much, and Samson had caught his share of scared rabbits. He tripped Farley during one of his sprints, and when he picked him up, he wrapped an arm tightly around the boy’s head and began a headlock.

“Oh, looks like the Guillotine!” Delilah gushed, with a little too much drama. “Twenty seconds!”

Samson twisted his prey and grimaced with sadistic pleasure, while poor Farley flailed at his side.

“Ten seconds!”

Samson whirled and then flung Farley across the ring. Before Farley could get up, the World’s Greatest Wrestler grabbed him by the foot, lifted him in the air, held him over the ropes, and with two seconds to go, dropped him to the ground for the victory.

“Wow, that was close, Samson!” Delilah said into the microphone.

Farley was in a daze, but he walked away in one piece and seemed to be proud of himself. He had proved his manhood, had shown no fear, and had come within two seconds of winning twenty bucks. The next volunteer was likewise a stranger, a bulky young man named Claude, who paid three dollars for a chance to win thirty. He weighed twice as much as
Farley but was much slower, and within ten seconds Samson had nailed him with a Flying Dropkick and wrapped him into a Pretzel. With ten seconds to go, he hoisted Claude over his head, and in a magnificent display of strength, walked to the edge of the ring and tossed him.

Claude, too, walked away proudly. It was apparent that Samson, despite his theatrics and menacing demeanor, was a good sport and would not harm anyone. And since most young men wanted to have some contact with Delilah, a line soon formed at her side.

It was quite a spectacle, and Dewayne and I sat for a long time watching Samson dispose of one victim after another with all the moves in his repertoire. The Boston Crab, the Scissors, the Piledriver, the Jackhammer, the Body Slam. Delilah merely had to mention one of the maneuvers in her microphone and Samson would quickly demonstrate it.

After an hour, Samson was soaked with sweat and needed a break, so Dewayne and I scooted off to ride the Ferris wheel twice. We were debating whether to get another helping of cotton candy when we heard some young men talking about the girlie show.

“She takes off everything!” one of them said as he walked by, and we forgot about the cotton candy. We followed them to the end of the midway, where the gypsies’ trailers were parked. Behind the trailers was a small tent that had obviously been erected so that no one would see it. A few men smoked and waited, and they all had a guilty look about them. There was music coming from the tent.

Some carnivals had girlie shows. Ricky, not surprisingly,
had been seen leaving one the year before, and this had caused quite an uproar in our house. He wouldn’t have been caught if Mr. Ross Lee Hart had not also been caught. Mr. Hart was a steward in the Methodist church, a farmer who owned his land, an upright citizen who was married to a woman with a big mouth. She went searching for him late on a Saturday night, in the midst of the carnival, and happened to see him leaving the forbidden tent. She wailed at the sight of her wayward husband; he ducked behind the trailers. She gave chase, yelling and threatening, and Black Oak had a new story.

Mrs. Hart, for some reason, told everyone what her husband had done, and the poor man was an outcast for many months. She also let it be known that leaving the tent right behind him was Ricky Chandler. We suffered in silence. Never go to a girlie show in your hometown was the unwritten rule. Drive to Monette or Lake City or Caraway, but don’t do it in Black Oak.

Dewayne and I didn’t recognize any of the men hanging around the girlie tent. We circled through the trailers and flanked in from the opposite side, but a large dog had been chained to the ground, guarding against Peeping Toms like us. We retreated and decided to wait for darkness.

As four o’clock approached, we had to make a painful decision—go to the matinee, or stay at the carnival. We were leaning toward the picture show when Delilah appeared at the wrestling ring. She had changed costumes, and was now wearing a two-piece red outfit that revealed even more. The crowd flocked
to her, and before long Samson was once again hurling farm boys and hillbillies and even an occasional Mexican out of the ring.

His only challenge came at dark. Mr. Horsefly Walker had a deaf and dumb son who weighed three hundred pounds. We called him Grunt, not out of disrespect or cruelty—he’d just always been called that. Horsefly put up five dollars, and Grunt slowly climbed into the ring.

“He’s a big one, Samson,” Delilah purred into the mike.

Samson knew it might take a bit longer to shove three hundred pounds out of the ring, so he attacked immediately. He went in low with a Chinese Take-Down, a move designed to slap both ankles together and cause the opponent to collapse. Grunt fell all right, but he fell on Samson, who couldn’t help but groan in pain. Some of the crowd yelled, too, and began cheering on Grunt, who, of course, couldn’t hear a thing. Both men rolled and kicked around the ring until Grunt pinned Samson for a second.

“Forty seconds!” Delilah said, the clock running much slower with Samson flat on his back. He kicked a few times, to no avail, then employed the Jersey Flip, a quick move in which his feet swung up and caught Grunt by the ears, then rolled him backward. Samson sprang to his feet as Delilah narrated the moves. A Flying Dropkick stunned Grunt.

“Fifteen seconds!” she said, the clock once again moving quickly. Grunt charged like a mad bull, and both men went down again. The crowd cheered again. Horsefly was
hopping around the outside of the ring, delirious. They grappled for a while, then Delilah said, “Ten seconds.”

There were some boos directed at the timekeeper. Samson twisted and yanked Grunt’s arm behind his back, grabbed a foot, and slid the poor boy across the ring and through the ropes. He landed at his father’s feet. Horsefly yelled, “You cheatin’ sonofabitch!”

Samson took offense to this language and motioned for Horsefly to enter the ring himself. Horsefly took a step forward and Samson spread the ropes. Delilah, who’d obviously seen such threats many times, said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He hurts people when he’s angry.”

By then Horsefly was looking for a reason to hold his ground. Samson looked ten feet tall standing at the edge of the ring, sneering down. Horsefly bent down to check on Grunt, who was rubbing his shoulder and appeared to be on the verge of tears. Samson laughed at them as they walked away, then to taunt us, began flexing his biceps as he strolled around the ring. A few in the crowd hissed at him, and that was exactly what he wanted.

He handled a few more challengers, then Delilah announced that her man had to eat dinner. They’d be back in an hour for their final exhibition.

It was now dark. The air was filled with the sounds of the carnival; the excited screams of kids on the rides, the whoops and hollers of the winners at the booths on the midway, the music shrieking forth from a dozen assorted speakers, all playing different tunes, the constant jabbering of the barkers as they enticed
folks to part with their money to view the world’s largest turtle or to win another prize, and, above all, the overwhelming electricity of the crowd. People were so thick you couldn’t stir ’em with a stick, as Gran liked to say. Mobs crowded around the booths, watching and cheering. Long lines snaked around the rides. Packs of Mexicans moved slowly about, staring in amazement, but for the most part, hanging on to their money. I had never seen so many people in one place.

I found my parents near the street, drinking lemonade and watching the spectacle from a safe distance. Pappy and Gran were already at the truck, ready to leave but willing to wait. The carnival came only once a year.

“How much money you got?” my father asked.

“ ’Bout a dollar,” I said.

“That Ferris wheel doesn’t look safe, Luke,” my mother said.

“I’ve been on it twice. It’s okay.”

“I’ll give you another dollar if you won’t ride it again.”