A Stranger in the Kingdom (24 page)

“Don't speak to High Sheriff that way,” Welcome told her sternly. “Can't you recognize an elected official of the county when you see one?”

“Rigged piece of crap,” the sheriff sputtered. “He's got it fixed so's that weight won't go all the way to the top.”

“You think Mr. Kinneson's invention here is rigged, Sheriff White?” Reverend Andrews said.

“Certainly it is. You don't know these outlaws around here the way I do, Andrews. They're so crooked they can't lay straight in bed.”

The minister looked at Welcome. “Is this machine rigged, Mr. Kinneson?”

“It's a rig-put-together,” Welcome said obscurely. Then, to clarify, “From spare parts.”

“I see,” Reverend Andrews said, taking the mall and ringing the bell so quickly yet with such apparent effortlessness that it was a moment before I realized that he had done it one-handed!

Sheriff White scowled, took his gunbelt and hat from Bumper, and melted into the crowd moving down the midway. “Jesum Crow!” Royce St. Onge said. “I want to shake your hand, Rev. Why the hell—I mean, why the
heck
—ain't you playing ball for us this summer?”

“He probably thought the team was just for ‘white folks,'” Charlie said sarcastically.

“Shoot, Charlie K, Stub didn't mean nothing by that,” Royce said. “Old Rev here
knows
we didn't mean nothing by that, don't you, Rev? Shake hands with the man, boys.”

Stub Poulin was so drunk he could hardly stand up. He reeled and staggered and held up his hand. “Shake hands with Rev, boys,” he hollered. “I just did. See? The black don't come off.”

“Come on,” Royce said to Stub, and pulled him off down the midway. “He's drunk, Reverend. He don't mean nothing.”

“He was drunk,” Charlie said lamely to the minister.

But Reverend Andrews only shrugged and said in that faintly ironical way, “Maybe so. But as an old air force friend of mine used to say, he was sober before he got drank, wasn't he? I've seen enough of your fair, Charles. I'm going home.”

 

“Hey, hey, hey, Paris comes to New Hampshire,” yelled the barker, a fat, bald, one-eyed man in a filthy T-shirt.

“This ain't New Hampshire, dummy. It's Vermont,” Bumper Stevens shouted from the crowd of men pushing up near the platform in front of the tent.

“It ain't Vermont, neither,” somebody else yelled. “It's Kingdom County.”

The one-eyed barker seemed to enjoy this repartee. “Paris comes to King's County, then, boys. It don't matter. Inside of that tent you'll think you've died and went straight to heaven. Speaking of which, here she is right now, the star of the Paris Revue, Heaven Fontaine. Step out here, honey, and show these boys what you got. Don't be shy, now.”

Heaven Fontaine, when she appeared on the rickety platform in front of the Paris Revue tent at the far end of the Kingdom Fair midway, did not appear to suffer from shyness. She was a big, strapping, hard-featured, middle-aged woman in a red bathrobe slit all the way up her thigh. With her was a somewhat younger version of herself, whom the barker introduced to the crowd as Heaven's sixteen-year-old sister, A Little Piece of Heaven, though even from the back of the crowd I could tell that this chunky little tart was closer to thirty than sixteen.

“And inside the tent, boys, we've got something very special tonight, which except to say her name is Saint Catherine and she's hot off the streets of downtown Montreal where she got her grammar school, high school, and college, I won't say another word.”

Heaven Fontaine swayed mechanically to the blaring burlesque music. Little Piece jounced and bounced beside her like a stout windup doll with a perpetual grin, not even pausing in her vigorous gyrations when she brushed her hair away from her sweaty face.

In the meantime the adjacent Club California was making a competitive bid for business with a younger barker and two skinny blondes in spangled scanty costumes. “Red-hot ramble, long and strong,” the barker snarled into his microphone, strutting up and down the platform in front of the girls in his shiny black leather jacket and dusty engineer boots. “They strip to please and not to tease.”

“Hey, hey, hey, Paris comes to King's County, Ver-mont,” chanted the barker of my show, though a man in the middle of the crowd yelled that the closest Heaven Fontaine and Little Piece had ever been to Paris was Paris, Maine.

This was what Nat and I had been waiting for. This was the show we intended to see. But how? We'd already determined that sneaking in through the back of the tent was next to impossible. It was pegged down every foot or so to prevent just such incursions.

To complicate matters, Elijah Kinneson was standing off to the side of the crowd, handing out religious tracts he'd printed up the previous week at the shop. If he saw me “navigating” around, he'd certainly report me to my father and there would be hell to pay.

“Say, what youse two up to?”

It was Little Piece, standing just behind us in the shadows. “You boys want to see what-all goes on inside?” she said in a teasing voice. “Five bucks apiece and I sneak you in through the truck.”

I was flat broke, had been within twenty minutes of hitting the midway earlier that evening.

My heart fell as Nat shook his head. “Don't have it,” he said.

Little Piece shrugged. “How much do you got?”

Nat grinned. “Five dollars for us both.”

Little Piece licked her bright red lips thoughtfully. “Tell youse what. For that, one can see the show. Hurry up and decide which. I got to get in there.”

“No deal,” Nat said. “Both of us or neither of us. Double or nothing.”

“Gimme the fiver,” Little Piece said quickly.

I would have forked the money over before she had a chance to change her mind. Nat knew better. “When we get there,” he told her.

“Okay, smartie. Follow me.”

We detoured out around the crowd of men now lining up in front of the barker's stand for tickets. As we passed Elijah, I scrunched down, but I was quite sure he saw me anyway.

We slipped in between the side of the Paris Revue tent and the adjacent Club California, and Little Piece led us up a set of portable steps and through the side door of the show truck. We followed her into a narrow passage between a tiny gas stove and sink, past a cot and two bunkbeds, and past a curtained-off section where Little Piece paused to shout, “Show's about ready, honey,” she turned to us and hissed, “
Saint
Catherine. She ain't no saint, I'll tell you that, and she ain't from no ritzy Montreal nightclub. We picked her up by the side of the road last night on our way down here from Canada, walking the roads like a common tramp. Hollywood! That's all she talks about. Hollywood and being in the movies. Dumb little French bitch! Says she's a performer, though, and that's good enough for us. Gimme that five-spot now.”

We had pushed through another curtain into the rear section of the track. The wide metal tailgate jutted out into the tent, forming an impromptu stage illuminated by two or three harsh spotlights fastened to the tent poles. Nat gave Little Piece the five-dollar bill and she gave us a shove.

“Get down there, in under the tail,” she said. “Them johns'll be pouring inside in a minute. Wait two, three more minutes till they all in. Then slip out and stand off to the edge. Old One-eye, he'll be too busy up here to see youse. Just watch out for that cattle prod, zap youse right on youse asses.”

“She doesn't seem to like that new girl much,” I said to Nat as we scuttled in under the tailgate and hunkered down onto the stubbly ground.

“She's probably jealous of her,” Nathan explained. “Afraid the new girl will replace her.”

After a minute he laughed softly. “Kinneson, tell me something. What in the bloody hell are you and I doing here?”

I began to laugh too. This was so totally different from anything I'd expected or ever could have predicted. And at that moment, laughing together in the darkness under that battered show truck at the far end of the midway of Kingdom Fair, I think Nat and I were as close as we would ever be.

“Alley oop!” the barker yelled from the entrance. “Show time!”

In swarmed the paying customers, though all we could see of them was a shuffling forest of denimed legs from the knees down. Brass burlesque music blared out inside the tent. The tailgate above us vibrated furiously and a rousing cheer went up. The trousers and boots and sneakers pressed closer. I could smell the manure on a pair of barn boots scant inches from where I lay, and I had to fight back a trapped sensation. The tempo of the music increased. The men cheered again.

“Okay, Kinneson. You sure you're ready for this?”

“Damn right,” I said, though my face felt unnaturally hot, as though I were coming down with summer flu, and my stomach was queasier than when I'd gotten off the octopus an hour ago. But the die was cast.

Edging along crab-fashion on our knees and elbows, we sneaked out from under the tailgate, scurried back toward the dim recesses along the sidewall of the tent and looked up at the stage. Heaven and Little Piece were grinding and bumping away as naked as jaybirds!

After a minute or so the two women plunked down and draped their legs over the tailgate. Yet another cheer went up as the one-eyed barker climbed onto the stage.

“All right, boys,” he yelled. “Just two at a time, now, or I'll give you a thrill you didn't come in for.”

As he brandished his electric cattle prod, the men pressed forward and began to lick and fondle those two great bovine women. Except to say that I was about equally shocked and fascinated, I cannot accurately describe my sensations. Outside, watching the girls' come-ons, especially those of the limber young pros at the Club California, I had been aroused and excited. Now I was scared and confused. There was a brutal quality about the men and a dreadful grim yet cheery resignation in the submission of the women.

“Okay, Kinneson,” Nathan said. “This is bloody disgusting. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life. Let's get the hell out of this hogpen.”

I was more than ready. By now I was afraid I was going to be sick right inside the tent. But the surging crowd of men had completely blocked the entranceway. For the moment, at least, we were trapped in the place we'd most wanted to be.

At this point Bumper Stevens, who was pushing in behind us, spotted me. “Say now,” he said, “what have we got here. A young buck that ain't had a chance at the ladies yet. Don't be shy, Jimmy. Don't hang back, now. That ain't no way to get what you come here for.”

Bumper seized my upper arm and began to steer me straight through the reeking crowd.

“Let go of him,” Nat said, grabbing the old fool.

Bumper shook him off. “Your turn next, Sambo,” he said and hauled me straight toward Little Heaven, who was spread-eagled on her back on the hard metal tailgate.

I have no idea what effect this intended initiation might have had on me, then or later, had not the one-eyed barker chosen that moment to announce, “And now, gentlemen, what you've all been waiting for, the star of the Paris Revue, a girl not yet seventeen years old, in town for a one-night performance only, Saint Catherine of downtown Montreal!”

On the stage above us, trembling like a frightened kitten, appeared a girl who seemed no more than two or three years older than me. Her rain-colored eyes were glazed over, as though in terror, and she had on a long red and blue and yellow dress, like some sort of costume, with a tear halfway up the side. Through the rent in her dress I could see one slender white leg, and it was shaking too, and not with the music.

“Jesus!” Bumper said, letting go of me. “That's just a kid!”

At that moment a strong hand gripped my shoulder from behind and began propelling me toward the entrance. I twisted around and looked up into Charlie's face. “Let's go, boys,” he said. “I trust you've already seen what you came for.”

Cousin Elijah must have told him that we had sneaked into the tent!

As we moved through the crowd the barker made a grab at Saint Catherine, missed, grabbed again, and tore her dress down off her shoulder and front, revealing one small breast, which she instantly covered with her hands. She tried to retreat back into the truck, but the barker blocked her path and seized her arm.

Charlie had stopped to watch what was happening on the stage. The young girl in the tom dress twisted and cringed away from the barker, who yanked her roughly toward the press of men.

“LET GO OF HER, YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH!”

My infuriated brother was up on the stage like a shot. The barker jabbed at him with the cattle prod. Charlie kicked it out of his hand. The barker grinned and swung at him and Charlie kicked him squarely between the legs as hard as a man can kick.

At the same time that the barker went down, Saint Catherine flung herself into Charlies arms and screamed, “Monsieur Kinneson! Monsieur Kinneson!”

I had never seen Charlie look so surprised. But before he could say a word, a whistle blasted out. It was followed instantly by two pistol shots.

“It's a raid!” somebody yelled. “We're being raided, boys!”

Sure enough, in the entranceway of the tent, not far from where Nat and I were being jostled back and forth by the excited crowd, his head nearly scraping the canvas tent roof, his revolver drawn and pointed upward, was High Sheriff Mason White, and beside him his deputy Pine Benson. Instantly Bumper Stevens grabbed Little Piece by the hair and yelled, “You're under arrest, whore! I've got her, Mace. This one won't get far.”

The crowd was in an uproar. Heaven tried to bull past Pine Benson. Pine muckled onto her arm. She swung at him and missed. She swung at Mason and smacked him squarely in the stomach. Still holding the pistol, he bent over and gasped for breath like a stranded sucker.