"Let go, son."
The eerie wrongness faded from Frederick's eyes, and he made an embarrassed smile.
"Jesus, I can't believe I did that, Father. I'm sorry. I'm just so worried about Payne, is all. Can you forgive me?"
"Of course I can. Let's talk about this tomorrow."
"I'm just worried, you know."
"I can see that."
"Listen, will you let me confess to you? I'm not a Catholic, but would that be okay?"
"We can talk, son. You can tell me anything you need to say. Let's talk about it tomorrow."
"I want to confess, is all. Just like Payne. I got a lot to get off my chest. Like Payne."
Father Willie wanted to comfort this man, but could not divulge that Payne's anguish had remained private. Payne had never confessed, not the things that most tortured him. Payne wanted to confess, knew he desperately needed to confess, but he had not yet found the strength. Father Willie had been seeing Payne as a counselor to help him find that strength, but—so far— had failed.
Frederick stepped away and slipped his hands into his pockets.
"Let's go inside, Father. I won't keep you. I know you want to go."
"We can talk tomorrow. Whatever it is, it will keep. You can come back tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
"That's right."
"You're sure it was Los Angeles, where he went? You won't tell me why, but you know it was Los Angeles?"
"Payne's reasons are between himself and God."
"I'll have to go find him. I got no other choice."
"We can talk about it tomorrow."
"Okay, tomorrow. I can find him tomorrow."
Father Willie turned away, but didn't have the chance to slip his own hands back into his pockets. Something powerful lifted him off his feet and carried him struggling to the side of the church. He glimpsed a truck hidden in the darkness.
He did not see the blade, but felt it.
16
When I first came to Los Angeles, I made the drive on Route 66, mostly because of an old television series I enjoyed as a child, two cool guys played by Martin Milner (the rich mama's boy trying to come into his own) and George Maharis (the rootless loner from the wrong side of town), off in search of themselves and adventure along America's pre-interstate coast-to-coast highway (Route 66). Route 66 began in Philadelphia and tracked its way through the center of the country to L.A. where it merged with Sunset Boulevard, then Santa Monica Boulevard, rolling inevitably west until it reached the amazing amusement park that bloomed along the length of the Santa Monica pier. I had followed the highway to its end, not running from but going to, like Milner and Maharis, searching until I reached the sea. It wasn't the first time I had sought out an amusement park, and now I sought one again.
I left my home that night amid the deepening sense that some important business I started a long time ago had remained unfinished. I drove back to the ocean and parked on a bluff overlooking the Santa Monica pier, not so far from Stephen Golden's home in Venice. I got out of my car, climbed over a low fence, and stood at the edge of the bluff. Below me, the lights of the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster spun across the black sea. The bluff was fragile from erosion and uncertain in its nature. Signs warned the unwary not to cross the fence because more than once the precipice had calved like ice from an iceberg, but the earth felt firm to me. Maybe I didn't recognize the danger.
I watched the swirling lights, and wondered if Herbert Faustina had also come to this pier.
Once upon a time I ran away to join the circus. I ran away because my mother told me my father was a human cannonball. Do you think that's silly? My mother never told me my father's name, or showed me a picture, or even described him. Maybe she didn't know these things. Neither my grandfather nor my aunt knew any more than me. After a while, it didn't matter whether he was a human cannonball or not; her description was my truth. If she said my father was a human cannonball, then he was a human cannonball.
I searched, but I did not find him. In my boyhood fantasies, he sometimes came to find me.
Learning a Trade
Wilson
The private detective was a short oval man named Ken Wilson. He wore a dark gray business suit and tan Hush Puppy loafers that didn't go with the suit. Creases cut his jacket and pants because of the long drive, but he smelled of Old Spice and he checked his hair before he got out of his car. Appearance was important in his line of work; people were suspicious of someone ill-kept.
Wilson was one hundred sixty-two miles from home, having made the long drive to collect a fourteen-year-old runaway named Elvis Cole. This was the third time Wilson had tracked down the kid, and at least one other dick had worked for the family before him. Wilson had to hand it to the kid, he had perseverance. He kept trying to find his father.
The carnival was set up at the edge of a small town in a field used mostly for crop dusters. Wilson left his car in the parking area and walked through an arched gateway beneath a shabby banner that proclaimed: Ralph Todd's 21st Century Shows & Diversions!!! Twin rows of tents swallowed anyone who walked through the gate, but not before running them past roach-coach food stands and game arcades that Wilson suspected were magnets for pedophiles. Everything looked patched together and poorly maintained. Wilson thought that if this was the twenty-first century they could keep it.
The manager's trailer was at the opposite end of the midway behind the tents that housed the featured attractions: Whores billed as "exotic dancers," a freak show featuring a three-eyed cow, and, behind a final banner, the midway's star attraction, the Human Fireball... See him flash thru the sky like a blazing meteor!!! Wilson cynically noted that every banner ended with three exclamation points. The future was hyperbole.
A dwarf who smelled of vegetable soup pointed Wilson between the tents to a silver Airstream trailer. It was dull and spotted with grime. A small sign on the door read MANAGER. The manager would be a Mr. Jacob Lenz, with whom Wilson had spoken. Mr. Lenz would be expecting him.
Wilson rapped at the door and let himself in without waiting to be asked. Time was money.
"Mr. Lenz? Ken Wilson. I appreciate your cooperation."
Wilson offered his hand.
Lenz was a broad, heavy man with lined skin and small eyes. He stood to take Wilson's hand, but he didn't look happy about it.
"I just wanna get this straight, you know? I don't want any trouble with the family."
"There's no trouble. He's done this before."
"I can't keep track of all the people around here. Kids come, they go, I don't know who belongs to who. I just wanna do the right thing."
"I understand."
Wilson took out a picture and held it up. It was a black-and-white school photograph taken two years earlier.
"Now let's be sure we're talking about the same boy. Is this Elvis Cole?"
"Yeah, that's him, but he tells everyone his name is Jimmie."
"His name was Philip James Cole until his mother changed it. He used to go by Jimmie."
"She changed his name to Elvis?"
Wilson ignored the question because the answer left a sour ache in his stomach. Wilson felt bad for the kid. Here was this little boy, one day out of the blue, his mother changed his name to Elvis; not Don or Joey—Elvis. Here's this poor kid with no idea who his father is because the crazy bitch won't tell anyone, and bammo—she feeds him a bullshit story that his father was a human cannonball. Wilson believed that parents should be licensed.
"Does the boy know I've come for him?"
"You didn't want me to say, so I didn't say. You want me to get him?"
"It's best if you take me to him. That way he won't run."
"Whatever you want. I jus' don't want no trouble with the family."
"There's no trouble."
"I'm glad to get rid of him, all the trouble he made. He was a pain in the ass."
Wilson followed the manager out past a giant tarpaulin showing a stripper crooking her finger. The pai
nt was faded and her hairstyle was ten years out of date. A voice balloon over her head read: C'mere, big boy!!!
Wilson clucked to himself.
Three exclamation points.
These people were something.
Elvis Cole
Elvis Cole, fourteen years old, heard about Ralph Todd's 21st Century Shows & Diversions from a kid named Brucie Chenski who lived in the trailer park where Elvis and his mother stayed when his Aunt Lynn threw them out. Brucie was sixteen years old, the only other teenage boy in the park, and a sociopathic liar.
First day they met, Brucie told Elvis his older brother was a dealer and the two of them were going to San Francisco to get Free Love. Everything Brucie said was like that: large dramatic adventures involving his brother, dope, and Female Conquest. Elvis never believed him. Then one day Brucie said, hey, bro, my brother and I fucked these whores at the carnival. The part about the carnival nailed Elvis's attention like an iron spike through his feet.
What carnival?
The carnival out past the water tower, Brucie says, Jesus, they got this one girl was in Playboy, I saw her picture right out of the magazine, tits out to here, they got rides, a retarded midget that eats worms, these strippers who are total slut whores, my brother sold this girl some acid and she sucked our dicks while —
Elvis interrupted.
They got a human cannonball?
Yeah...
Elvis walked away, just like that, not even caring when Brucie called out the carnival was already gone.
Elvis hitched a ride to the water tower, which sat on a great wide pasture at the edge of town. As Brucie warned, the carnival was gone and the pasture was empty. Elvis kicked through litter for almost two hours until he found a poster that showed the dates and locations for the carnival's next four stops. That was enough.
Elvis hitchhiked to the highway, where, twenty minutes later, two college girls gave him a ride. He caught up with Ralph Todd's midway two days later, one hundred forty-six miles from home.
He had gone to find his father.
That first night, when Elvis finally reached the carnival, he saw a huge banner spread across the gates to the midway that showed a blazing man flying through the air—
See Him EXPLODE from a Cannon!!!
See Him BURST into Flames!!!
See Him DEFY Death!!!
The AMAZING Human FIREBALL!!!
every night at 9pm!!!
It was five minutes before nine when Elvis went through the gates.
A crowd was gathered at the end of the midway. Elvis could see the cannon over the heads of the people in front of him: a long red, white, and blue tube as big around as a manhole, lying atop a flatbed trailer. The strip show was on one side (SEE exotic GO-GO DANCERS from the FAR EAST!!!) and the freak show on the other (SEE the LSD BABY!!! DEFORMED by MOD science!!!).
Elvis shoved his way to the front of the crowd only to find the crowd had gathered for the freak show. A sign hanging from the cannon read: NO SHOW TONIGHT.
Elvis felt a frantic despair, like he had lost his last good chance of finding his father, then pushed back through the mob. He found a ticket kiosk where he asked when the Fireball was going to perform.
A woman with two missing front teeth said, "Might not be for three or four days. Eddie hadda fly to Chicago."
"He's coming back?"
"Sure, kid, but he won't catch up to us until the next town. You're gonna miss his show."
Three or four days. That wasn't so bad. Elvis decided he would wait for three or four weeks, if that's what it took. All he had to do was wait. All he had to do was be around when Eddie got back.
Eddie.
Elvis.
Same first letter.
Maybe that's why his mother had changed his name.
Elvis drifted along the midway until the carnival closed. He was hungry and cold, but he hid in the tall grass behind the tents until the grounds were empty and the thrill rides were dark, and then he slipped back into the midway. He slept beneath the cannon. Saying the name out loud.
Eddie.
The next morning, Elvis watched as the roustabouts and carnies emerged from trucks and trailers to begin their day. They streamed across the midway into a large kitchen tent set up behind the trucks. Elvis fell in with the crowd. He joined a line and was given a tray filled with eggs and French toast, pretending to be just another teenager in the crowd.
That afternoon he met Tina Sanchez.
He was walking along the midway past a ball-toss concession when a woman cursed angrily in Spanish. She stood on a bucket, straining on her tiptoes to reach a row of stuffed cats on a very high shelf.
Elvis said, "Can I get that for you?"
She twisted around to see him, then stepped down from the bucket. She was short and sturdy, and almost as old as his grandfather.
"Unless I grow another six inches, I guess you'll have to. Climb over the counter there, young mister."
Elvis hoisted himself over the low counter into the booth. Wire baskets filled with worn softballs were lined beneath the counter, and the side walls of the booth hung with rainbow-colored animals. Rows of fluffy silhouette cats lined shelves at the far end of the booth. You got three balls for a quarter; if you knocked down three cats, you got a prize.
She said, "I gotta take down the top row. Just drop'm into this bucket here, okay?"
"How did you put them up there?"
"I had a young fella working for me, but he left last night. They do that, you know. Probably after a woman. Now I gotta find a ladder."
Elvis pulled down the top row of targets, putting them into the bucket like she asked. Each cat was eight inches tall, and wedged into a little groove built into the shelves. Fluffy hair stuck out around the cats so they looked bigger than they were. Elvis figured that with all the hair and the tight bases, it would be almost impossible to knock off a cat unless you hit it dead center.
"That's a big help, young mister. You want a prize or a dollar?"
"I guess the dollar, but I'll take that guy's job instead. I'm looking for work."
She frowned at him.
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
She frowned harder.
"I'd say more like thirteen or fourteen, you ask me. You a runaway?"
"I'm trying to find my father."
She pulled a dollar from her pocket and pushed it toward him. She added a second dollar.
"Take this and go back to your mama. She's gonna be worried sick. You're too young to be off by yourself like this. You could be murdered."
Elvis's mother had been leaving him alone since he was a baby, but he didn't tell her that. His mother vanished three or four times every year for as long as he could remember. He woke on those mornings to find her gone—no word, no note, just gone. He never knew when or if she would return, and when she did, she never told him (or his grandfather or his aunt) where she had been or what she had done. She was like that. But every time she left, he—secretly in his secret heart— prayed that she was going to find his father, and this time—this time—would bring him home. Which is why he loved her still; for the hope that one day she would bring his father home.
Elvis glanced at the cats filling the bucket.
"How are you going to get them back on the shelf?"
"I'll get a ladder."
"Tell me where it is and I'll get it for you."
She looked up at the shelf that was beyond her reach, and a little smile played at her lips.
"What's your name?"
"Jimmie."
The woman abruptly put out her hand, and Elvis knew he was in. She had one of the strongest grips he had ever felt.
"You can stay long enough to help me fix up these cats and put them back, but after that you gotta go home."
An hour later she offered him the job, and that night she let him sleep on the floor in her tiny Airstream trailer.
Elvis Cole ran for coffee when Tina needed a refill, wiped each of the o
ne hundred eighteen softballs (he counted) with an oiled cloth, and touched up the shelves where the nightly onslaught chipped, splintered, and bruised the paint; he retrieved thrown balls, replaced targets that had been knocked down, helped work the counter, and in between he tried to find out more about Eddie Pulaski.
Three days later, the midway was struck, packed, and trucked seventy-four miles where they set up in a new town. The following day, Elvis was eating lunch when several roughnecks took seats around him, their trays laden with food. They were young guys, with weathered skin and callused, banged-up hands.
A man with an anchor tattooed on his left forearm lit a Marlboro, then abruptly looked at Elvis.
"Seen you around. Who you with?"
"Tina Sanchez."
The man blew a cloud of Marlboro and sucked food from his teeth.
"Nice lady, that Tina. She's been with this midway a long time."
The man beside Elvis belched. He was the oldest.
"Hell, she's been here longer than me. They used to be with the Big Top, y'know, that whole family. You ever seen her bend a nail? She can bend a twelve-penny with her thumb, just push it right over, a little woman like that. They were tumblers."
Elvis said, "Do you guys know when the Human Fireball is coming back?"
"He's the big ticket, kid; the boss ain't gonna let that cannon sit. We're pullin' out the cannon for tonight's show."
Elvis's heart pounded so hard he thought he would jump out of the chair. He made excuses all afternoon to leave Tina's booth, each time running to watch the roustabouts position the cannon and string a tall skinny net to catch Eddie Pulaski at the end of his flight.
By eight-thirty that night, the business at Tina's booth was furious. A crowd of high-school baseball players crowded the counter, firing balls in a competition to see who could peg the most cats. Five minutes before nine, an announcer's voice cut through the din of the crowd; the Human Fireball was only moments away from exploding into the air, Come one, come all, SEE if he survives!!!