Texas Summer (9 page)

XI

T
HE FAIRGROUNDS, WHERE
the Big Red Onion was held, were devoid of any permanent buildings except for the Pavilion — a big shed, open on all sides, with rows of folding chairs, and a platform stage at one end. It was a place where prayer meetings were frequently held by the Holy Roller people. Before these meetings, mattresses would be stacked alongside the Pavilion, and members of the congregation who lost consciousness during the service would be carried outside and placed on one of the mattresses, there to recover their senses in the cool of the evening under a haze of Texas stars. During the Onion, however, families would spread blankets on the grass and sit there all day, listening to the country music played inside, while eating fried chicken, and drinking iced tea from a thermos.

Members of the family would occasionally leave the blanket and go over to the exhibitions of livestock and produce. For the children, the carnival midway — with its rides and fortune-tellers, its weight guessers, alligator woman, and cotton candy — was the important thing. The children would abandon the family blanket and not be seen again until after dark, when they returned, limp with exhaustion. The preparations that went into the Onion, as seen from afar — hammering the stakes, raising the tents, stringing the banners and lights — did not seem related to that moment of sheer magic, when, on the first night, the car or truck reached that curve in the highway where it all suddenly came into view — like a night mirage, in blazing color...and with the vision came the sound — the calliope, that miraculous music of the spheres, associated exclusively with this ambiance where hours were no longer measured in minutes, but in the number of times on the Ferris wheel, the roller coaster, and the all-new, and terrifying, Loop-O-Plane, which not only swung the rider upside down at great speed, but simultaneously around and around — as though inside a spinning top being twisted on a vertical string.

At the entrance to the midway, Harold and Big Lawrence bought two cones of cotton candy and a cup of frozen custard. They proceeded to eat them in the traditional manner: a bit of cotton candy, which was then wrapped around the custard on the tongue.

The first game of chance they encountered was the hoop stand, where, cotton candy and custard in hand, they watched the people try to toss ten-inch wooden hoops over valuable prizes, the centerpiece of which was a chrome-plated, pearl-handled .45 pistol, with a crisp new fifty-dollar bill stuck in the barrel. The dapper man who ran the concession demonstrated again and again how easily it could be done, practically without looking, sometimes tossing the hoops over his shoulder, each to encircle a diamond ring, a gold watch, or the fabulous silver six-gun itself, and he maintained a spirited patter all the while: “Well now you don’t have to play for the Fort Worth Cats to win yourself a very valuable prize,” he chanted to the small crowd. “Any man, woman, or very small child can do it...this mor-nin’ a little lady won herself a five-hunnert-dollar engagement ring, an’ now she’s lookin’ for a cowboy to slip it on her finger...ten cents a hoop, six for a half, thirteen for a one-dollar bill...everybody’s a winner today.”

Big Lawrence snorted. “I think you’re switchin’ the dang hoops,” he said querulously, after losing about a dollar. “I bet you’re usin’ a bigger one than we are.” He flourished the hoop he had in his hand. “I bet this one won’t
fit over
that dang gun!”

For a moment the hoop-man seemed genuinely amused by this notion. “Well, young man, would you like to make a ten-dollar bet on that advanced theory of yours?”

“No,” said Lawrence, “but I’m gonna see for myself,” and he started to climb over the counter, which, at chest height, seemed designed to make this difficult.

“No one allowed beyond the toss-line,” said the hoop-man, and he snatched the hoop out of Lawrence’s hand, “but I’ll be glad to prove it for you.” And, turning away, he adroitly tossed Lawrence’s hoop directly over the pistol.

“He could’ve switched it right then!” said Lawrence, looking to Harold and the others. “When he turned away like that he could’ve switched it right then!”

This idea did not go without acceptance by several in the crowd, who murmured knowingly — and something might have come of it, except that, as if on cue, a woman with a roadhouse hairdo, who had been leaning against the counter all along, and who had tossed a hoop from time to time to no avail, suddenly, but somehow laconically, tossed one that, as the hoop-man was quick to proclaim, was now encircling “
a solid gold bracelet!
”

He plucked the bracelet from the peg and presented it to her with a flourish. “Young lady, this must be your lucky day!”

“But how do I know it’s really gold?” she asked, looking from the hoop-man to two or three nearest her in the crowd.

“Well now, that’s a fair question,” said the hoop-man, “and it’s a smart one, too,” he added, taking the whole audience into his confidence, as he leaned forward across the counter. “Because a lot of things in this old world are passed off as gold when they are really only gold-
plated
— but now here’s how you tell.” And without taking it off her wrist, he pointed to something on the inner side of the bracelet.

“Now you see where it says ‘fourteen K’? That means ‘
fourteen karat gold,
’ and you see that little mark right there next to it? Well, that there is the government
stamp
and the mark-of-the-maker is what we call that, certifying that is
genuine gold.
” Like an expert lecturing on the subject, he indicated the marks to those, including Harold, who craned forward in avid interest — except for Lawrence, who continued to glare at the hoop-man — he who now assumed his most genial tone: “And I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do, young lady, because my missus has gotten mighty fond of that bracelet, and her birthday is comin’ up right soon, I am going to offer you” — and he pulled out a roll of bills from his pocket — “
fifty
dollars for that bracelet. Now it’s your bracelet, no doubt about that, it is your property, won fair and square at a game of skill — so you’re free to keep it, or” — he counted out five ten-dollar bills — “you’re free to take the money — unless, of course, someone in the crowd would care to better the offer...though I can assure you it is a fair market price, maybe even a might on the high side because of my wife’s birthday comin’ up,” adding this last with a neighborly chuckle.

“Take it,” someone in the crowd prompted, “take the money.”

“Hell yes,” agreed another, “take the fifty.”

The young woman looked at the faces in the crowd. And Harold realized she was looking at him.

“What would you do?” she asked with a gentle smile.

Harold was surprised. “Me?” He was also flustered. “Aw, I dunno — take the money, I guess.”

She looked at the hoop-man. “I guess I
will
take the money,” she said almost shyly — and she returned the bracelet and he handed her the money, which she carefully folded and put in her purse.

“All right!” said the hoop-man with sudden gusto, “there goes another big winner! And as long as we’ve got this roll of money out, let’s just sweeten the pot!” So saying, he peeled off two fifties, rolled one up and tucked it in the band of the gold watch; the other he stuck inside the one already sticking out of the barrel of the pearl-handled .45.

“It’s ten cents a hoop,” he said, “it’s six hoops for half a dollar. Everybody’s a winner today!”

Harold was about to buy six more hoops, but Big Lawrence pulled on his arm. “Let’s git outta here,” he growled.

“What’s the matter with you?” Harold wanted to know when they were clear of the crowd.

Lawrence was furious. “Don’t you know that was pro’-bly his dang
wife?
” he demanded.

“Who?” asked Harold, looking back toward the hoop place. “You mean that woman that won the bracelet?”

“Yes!” Lawrence fairly shouted.

“His
wife?
What the heck would she be doin’ there?”

Lawrence looked away in disgust, then spat. “Boy, are you
dumb!
”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” said Harold stubbornly, “I’m gonna have a try at that six-gun before we leave here —
and
them fifties he stuck in the barrel!”

“They were in
cahoots,
dang it!”

“He give her the money, didn’t he?”

“He give her the money ’cause I was ’bout to
ex-
pose him! That’s why he give her the money! That son’bitch oughtta be strung up! An’ I may be just the one to do it.”

Lawrence continued ranting until they reached the Loop-O-Plane. Because of the outlandish nature of the ride — its obvious discomfiture and its apparent danger — there were more people watching it than waiting to ride it. A large sign read:

WARNING

DO NOT WEAR GLASSES, WRISTWATCHES,

JEWELRY, OR CARRY LOOSE CHANGE ON

THIS RIDE. THE MANAGEMENT IS NOT

RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SAFETY OF

PATRONS OF THE LOOP-O-PLANE.

“Let’s ride it,” said Lawrence gruffly, “unless they find out you’re too dumb to trust on it.”

“Will you shut up about that,” said Harold impatiently. “You’re just sore ’cause you didn’t win nothin’ at the hoop place.”

“Dang, I can’t even talk to you when you act so dumb. How much money you got anyway?”

“Five dollars.”

“Is that all?”

“Why? How much have you got?”

“Seven-fifty...maybe more.”

Harold took off his wristwatch and put it in his pocket as they approached the entrance. “Ain’t you gonna take your watch off like the sign said?”

Lawrence scoffed. “Heck no, that’s all bull.”

The ride was a frightening one, spinning relentlessly, and turning them upside down with such violence that they reached out in reflexive desperation, their hands striking the top of the wire cage that kept them from falling out — the illusion of which was heightened by the straps across their laps being fairly loose, so that actually falling out of the contraption seemed imminent. It was during one of these reflexive hand-flings that Lawrence smashed his wristwatch against the top of the cage.

They emerged pale and shaken, but the shared experience seemed to have brought them closer.

“Dang,” admitted Harold quietly, as they threaded their way through the curious onlookers, “I nearly peed in my pants on that last loop.”

Lawrence flaunted his smashed watch as if it were a war trophy. “Look at that dang watch,” he said. “Boy, it really took a lick to do that to it!”

“You reckon it’s ruined?” asked Harold.

Lawrence frowned. “Aw, it wudn’t worth a goddam anyway,” he said. “I bought it fer a dollar off a ole nigger washerwoman.” He raised his arm so that the crowd could see the broken watch, still on his wrist. “Don’t wear your watch on the Loop-O-Plane!” he warned them, grinning crazily.

They walked along the midway, pausing at the roller coaster, which was called “The Killer,” but Lawrence said the line was too long. “Let’s go on the dang
wheel!
” he said, referring to the huge Ferris wheel, which was about three stories high. The seats on the Ferris wheel were simply short padded benches with a single bar across the front to hold the rider in. With some effort Lawrence got the bench seat rocking back and forth until it seemed like it was going to go all the way over. “Loop-O-Plane!” he kept yelling at the top of his voice. “This dang bar won’t save us!” — and he would watch Harold’s reaction. Harold knew the seat could not go all the way over, but then, when they were stopped at the very top and Lawrence was rocking the seat with all his might, causing them to be almost horizontal, he also began shaking the security bar and reaching under it, at the end where it was supposed to be locked in a complicated manner.

“I can unlock it!” he shrieked like someone possessed. “
I can unlock it!
” And he grappled at the locking mechanism in a pretense of frenzy, while still rocking them back and forth.

“
Kamikazi!
” he screamed. “
Kamikazi! Ai-eee!
”

“Are you crazy!” said Harold in real alarm now that it seemed the bar was about to unlock. Meanwhile, far below, the operator had his hands cupped and was yelling something up at them in what appeared to be urgent tones.

When they reached the bottom, the Ferris wheel operator, a burly westerner, stopped the wheel and made them get out.

“We ain’t been round but once!” Lawrence objected.

“I seen what you was doin’ up there,” said the operator, his face flushed with anger. “You oughtta have your goddam head examined!”

Lawrence hitched up his pants and was ready to square off. “It was our money and our ride,” he said. “I reckon we can do what we want on there.”

“Not on my wheel you can’t,” said the other, as he put a teenage couple into the seat, secured the crossbar, and started up the wheel. “I see you ’round here again,” he continued, raising a finger of caution, “I’ll knock you to the goddam ground.”

Harold started pulling Lawrence away. “Come on, dang it,” he said.

“Whatta you mean ‘again’?” Lawrence demanded of the operator. “I’m here right now, ain’t I? Come on, you lard-ass, I’ll tear your head off!”

From somewhere in the control box the operator withdrew a two-foot hardwood baseball bat — a souvenir from his distant past, inscribed “Louisville Slugger” — and looked directly at Harold. “You better git your friend outta here right quick, sonny, ’cause if I have to pull a ‘Hey, Rube,’ you boys will be in more trouble than you ever thought was possible. I mean, around here we can git down to the nut-cuttin’ faster than you can
jack-off!
”

“Awright, we’re goin’,” said Harold, continuing to pull Lawrence by the arm, but now more forcefully. “Come on, dang it,” he implored, “you’re gonna get us throwed outta here — or worse.”

While it was apparent that Lawrence did not like the idea of backing down, his resistance to being led away by Harold lessened noticeably after the appearance of the bat. “I’ll stick that dang pecker-bat up his lard-ass A-hole!” Lawrence warned, jerking his arm out of Harold’s grasp, but moving along now, away from the wheel. “Did you see that lard-ass?” he went on. “Wouldn’t stand up to me man to man! He had to pull a dang pecker-bat!”