“Gobble ’em up,” Liz said, and giggled again.
“We don’t know,” Nate said.
Jeremy groaned.
“You don’t have to get involved,” Nate told him.
“Nothing to be scared of,” Heather said. “They’ve never got any of us.”
“We’re the getters,” Liz added.
“But you need to know the score,” Nate said. “This is heavy stuff we’re doing. If you’re with us, you’ll be an accomplice in the eyes of the law. Whatever any one of us does to a troll, we’re all equally guilty just by the fact of our presence. Do you understand that?”
“Sure,” Jeremy said.
“So far, we haven’t been touched by the cops. But that could change. Our luck might run out. Sooner or later, some of us might get busted. Could be you.”
“If you rat on us,” Liz said, “we get you.”
“I wouldn’t rat.”
“You still want to join up?” Nate asked.
“Yeah, sure I do.”
“Okay,” Tanya said. “Let’s get on with the initiation. Tonight you’re the bait. We wait here, and you wander up and down the boardwalk till a troll hits on you.” She dug into the pouchlike pocket at the belly of her sweatshirt and drew out a card. She handed it to Jeremy. “Give him this.”
“Or her,” Randy added, “in the event that the troll is of the female gender.”
Jeremy held the card close to his eyes. The hand-printed message was large and dark enough for him to read it. “DEAR TROLL, GREETINGS FROM GREAT BIG BILLY GOAT GRUFF.”
He felt a grin stretch his mouth. “Neat,” he said.
“It’s our calling card,” Tanya told him.
“Most of them maggots can’t read,” Samson said. “We think it’s a cool touch anyhow.”
“Yeah. I like it.” He slipped the card into a pocket of his jacket. “So, I give it to the troll, and then what?”
“You signal us.” Tanya drew a shiny whistle from inside her sweatshirt, slipped its chain over her head, and passed it to Jeremy. “Just give it a short blow.”
He closed his hand around the whistle. It felt warm. It held the warmth of Tanya. It had been under her sweatshirt, resting against her skin, and now it was in his hand. He imagined the whistle down there, swaying on its chain as she walked, brushing the sides of her smooth bare breasts.
“Then all you do,” Tanya said, “is keep the troll from getting away until we show up.”
He nodded, hearing her but paying little attention as he dropped the chain over his head and tucked the whistle inside his shirt. Now it was against his bare skin.
“Any questions?”
“Huh?”
“Are you ready?”
“Which way do I go?”
“Take your pick.”
He turned toward the south end of Funland, since that was the area he knew best. A hand clapped his shoulder. A hand patted his rump (and he liked that and wondered who had done it, but he didn’t look back). A few voices quietly wished him good luck.
Then he was striding down the boardwalk alone.
He raised a hand to the front of his jacket and pressed the whistle against his chest. He thought again about where it had been. Then he realized that it had touched more than her breasts. She not only wore the whistle but also used it—maybe today on lifeguard duty, maybe a few nights ago to summon the trollers. It had been in her mouth, clamped between her lips, filled by her warm breath, wet by her spittle, touched by her tongue.
Jeremy lifted the whistle out of his shirt. He put it into his mouth. Could he taste her? The whistle seemed to have no more taste than an empty spoon. Still, to know that it had been against her skin and in her mouth…
The low, forlorn moan of a foghorn rolled through the night, intruding like the blare of an alarm clock stunning him out of a sweet dream. The magic of the whistle vanished. He was suddenly aware that he was alone on the boardwalk, bait for a troll.
He went cold inside. He felt his scrotum shrivel up tight, his penis lose its stiffness and pull itself in as if to hide.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw only a few yards of dark boardwalk, the iron railing on one side, a game booth on the other side. The booth was a faint, indistinct shape through the fog. There was no sign of the group.
He stopped walking and listened. The night seemed strangely quiet, as if the fog not only blinded him but also muffled sound.
He wished he could hear the others talking back there.
He started walking again. He squinted, straining to see more deeply into the fog. The planks of the boardwalk looked wet. To the right was a bench. Empty, thank God. Beyond it he saw the ghostly, hooded cars of the Tilt-a-Whirl.
He wondered if those were empty.
The whistle felt glued to his lips. He peeled it off, let it hang against his jacket, and licked his lips.
He quickened his pace.
He tried to stay in the middle of the boardwalk. The places off to the sides were where the trolls might lurk—in among the rides or booths. If he stayed in the middle, he wasn’t so likely to be taken by surprise.
Then he saw, off to his left, the wooden stairway, platform, and entrance to Jasper’s Oddities.
Right here is where we had the fight, he thought. He liked thinking about the fight. In his mind, he had relived it over and over again. The pounding he took had been worth it. He’d helped Cowboy (“You showed hair”), and he’d trounced those girls and felt them up and even ripped the shirt off one and got a good look at her tits. Whenever he remembered it, he felt excited and proud and got a hard-on.
Now he tried to call up those feelings, but couldn’t.
His mind refused to replay the fight.
Instead it focused on the displays inside Jasper’s Oddities. The Gallery of the Weird with its grotesque photographs. Worse, the real stuff. The eyeless mummy hanging by straps, an old rag hiding its groin. The giant spider. The hairless orangutan of Borneo—or whatever it actually was. The disgusting two-headed yellow fetus in its jar of murky fluid.
All that stuff was just inside the building, there. Just beyond its closed door.
Jeremy felt sick and frightened, knowing he was so close to such a collection of horrors.
He walked faster.
The way the Oddities building was joined to the Funhouse forced him to remember the photo of Jim and Tim, the Siamese twins connected at the hip.
At least the Funhouse had been closed down. He was glad of that, glad that he’d had no opportunity to try it out.
He wished he’d stayed away from the Oddities.
I’ll be lucky if I don’t get nightmares from that shit, he thought.
But if he hadn’t gone into Jasper’s Oddities, the fight wouldn’t have happened.
You’ve got to pay for the good stuff.
Pay with the bad stuff. Like this right now. This is the cost of joining up with the trollers and getting to be with Tanya. Just like looking at the damn Oddities was the cost of the neat fight.
Why doesn’t a troll just come so I can get it over with?
Suppose one doesn’t come? he wondered. Do I have to wander back and forth all night?
Do I pass the initiation if I don’t get one?
His heart gave a sickening thump as he heard footsteps rushing toward him. From behind? He whirled around. Eyes searching the fog, he jammed the whistle between his dry lips. His other hand slapped the pocket of his corduroys and felt the lump of his folding knife. He wondered if he should dig it out. Then he remembered the card in his jacket.
He reached for it.
A dim shape, darker than the fog, came running at him. Suddenly it stopped. It was still obscure, as if standing behind pale gauzy veils.
“Is that you, Jeremy?” a voice asked.
A girl’s voice.
“Yeah. Who’s that?”
“Shiner,” she said.
She stepped toward him. He saw her blowing hair, the blur of her face, her dark windbreaker and j
eans. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
She squeezed his arm. “Come on back,” she told him. “One’s coming in the front way.”
“A troll?”
“Yeah. Quick. We’re going to nail him.”
Nineteen
They stopped running, and Jeremy let Shiner lead him by the hand. They pressed their backs against the wall of a shop. As he tried to catch his breath, he saw Samson crouching behind the ticket booth. Heather stood at his rear. Nate and Liz were against the wall at the other side of the entryway.
Where were the others?
Where was Tanya?
A movement caught his eye, and he realized someone was waiting on the flat roof of the ticket booth. All he could see was a faint curve of back, but he figured it must be Tanya. The others were in sight except for Randy and that bitchy girl, Karen. It had to be Tanya. The booth was seven or eight feet high. Samson, he guessed, must’ve helped her get up there.
As he gazed at her, he heard a man’s low slurred voice.
The troll?
From the sound of it, he must be nearby.
“Who killed Cock Robin?” he intoned. “Who laid her low? ‘’Twas me,’ says I, ‘whom you shall know by the name of…Poppinsack, me.’ Bug-fuck. In this kingdom by the sea. And all the clouds did lower o’er her tomb.”
Shiner, still holding Jeremy’s hand, inched sideways along the wall. Jeremy stayed with her. Leaning forward, he looked past her and saw the man staggering toward the darkness beneath the archway.
A fat old guy in a weird feathered hat and a jacket with blowing fringe. He carried a walking stick in one hand, a duffel bag on his back.
“To pee, to piss, perchance to take a whizz,” the man proclaimed, turning to a wall.
He sounded to Jeremy like a drunken actor, one with a rich voice like Richard Burton in the Hamlet movie he’d seen in English class last year.
Jeremy heard a splashing sound.
The guy was taking a leak right there in the entrance, no more than three yards from where Nate and Liz stood waiting.
At least the dirty old fart’s back is toward us, Jeremy thought. But he could feel himself blushing. He wished Shiner weren’t here to witness this.
“And in that whizz, perchance to flood the very marrow of the land and soak the roots of Satan’s beard. ’Tis a fine thing. ’Tis mete that we should meet, this night, in the warm bosom of…’tis meat, indeed.” He chuckled. “And shall the cockless Robin meet this meat? This staff of life?”
The splashing stopped.
Shiner turned her head. She smiled at Jeremy. He made a disgusted face, but wasn’t sure how well she could see it.
The old troll turned away from the wall.
Jeremy was glad to see nothing hanging out.
He wasn’t so glad to see the troll start staggering at an angle across the entryway—a route that was bringing him toward the place where Jeremy stood with Shiner.
“What ho! What ho! ’Tis a brave night to be abroad. A broad, a chick, a dame, a quiff. A rose by any other name. Arise, my rose, or be forever fallen!”
He weaved, flung up a hand, and caught himself against the side of the ticket booth.
“Steady as she goes! I am an ancient mariner. Not a cross, but an albatross. I plugged it with my gat. It falls on me to tell my tale to every tail will hear it. And every piece that hears my piece will have no call to fear it. And every—”
Tanya leapt from the roof of the ticket booth.
She dropped. Feetfirst. Crouching slightly. Arms out. Sweatsuit flapping. Pale hair swept up by the wind of her descent.
Jeremy heard the quiet slap of her soles striking the leather shoulders of the troll’s jacket. He heard a grunt of pain and surprise.
The old man’s knees folded and he crumpled forward. Tanya hopped off his shoulders as if he were a diving board. She cleared his back. She landed on her feet and stumbled away for a few steps before finding her balance. By the time she turned around, the troll was sprawled facedown.
“Let’s get him,” Shiner whispered. She tugged Jeremy’s hand, pulling him away from the wall. Staying beside her, he rushed toward the fallen bum.
Shiner got two kicks in. Jeremy went ahead and gave him a good one in the side. Then the others arrived. Samson hurled the duffel bag out of the way, and they rolled him over. He seemed too stunned to struggle. Hands grabbed his arms and ankles, stretched him out. Heather stomped on his belly. Randy, who’d found the troll’s walking stick, whacked him across the chest with it, barely missing Liz’s head.
Wheezing, the troll jerked a hand free of Shiner’s grip. His closed fist struck her in the chest and she tumbled backward off her knees. Jeremy caught the troll’s wrist. The hand flew open. Jeremy clutched the middle finger and yanked it back until it snapped and the troll yelped in agony. That’s for hurting Shiner, he thought, but he felt a little sick.
Liz drove an elbow into his chest, just below the throat.
Karen kicked him in the groin, and Jeremy winced.
The troll’s head jerked up. Samson pounded him between the eyes and his head shot down and bounced off the wood.
He went limp.
“Okay,” Tanya said. “That’s enough. Let’s get him up.”
Jeremy helped. The old man seemed to weigh a ton. But when they raised him off the boardwalk, Samson drove a shoulder into his midsection and hefted him.
“You got him all right?” Nate asked.
“No sweat,” Samson answered, but his voice sounded squeezed, as if the load was almost too much for him. “Where do we want him?”
“Follow me,” Tanya said.
Nate lifted the duffel bag. “What’s he got in here, bricks?”
Tanya led the way, Nate on one side, Karen on the other. Samson strode along behind her, the fat troll folded over his shoulder, limp arms swinging against his back. Jeremy saw that the broken finger was sticking out at a right angle from the rest of the hand.
God, how could I do that to someone?
Shiner came up beside him. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“He sure clobbered you. But I busted his finger for him.”
“Good going.”
They turned left and headed down the boardwalk.
Randy hurried to the front, holding the knobby cane high, the feathered derby perched on top.
Like a severed head on a pike, Jeremy thought, though he wasn’t sure where the image came from. A movie? A drawing in a history book?
Somebody patted his rump. He looked back, and saw Heather behind him. “How you like it so far?” she asked.
He shrugged. He didn’t know what to say. He felt a little sick with guilt, but also very excited. His heart was pounding, his mouth was dry, and his throat felt tight. All he said was, “Neat.”
“A blast,” Heather said. “But it’s gonna get better.”
“What happens next?” he asked.
“It’s up to Tanya,” Shiner said.
Heather added, “You can bet it’ll be cool,” and put an arm around his back. He felt her big soft breast against his upper arm, and wanted to pull away.
Of all the girls here, why did she have to be the one snuggling up to him?
Tanya was too much to hope for, of course, but he liked Shiner and she didn’t seem to have a boyfriend here. Even though the darkness had made it impossible, so far, to get a good look at her face, she seemed pretty. She certainly wasn’t a fat slob with stinky breath.
Just what I need, he thought. This one hanging all over me.
Shiner, walking on the other side of Jeremy, quickened her pace and moved ahead, leaving him with Heather.
Who slid a hand into a rear pocket of his corduroys and rubbed his rump. “Good and warm,” she said.
“Too bad Cowboy’s missing out on the fun,” he told her.
“He’s an asshole.”
The word, coming from her, sounded especially gross.
“He’s my best friend,
” Jeremy said.
He hoped she might back off, hearing that. Instead, she gave his butt a playful squeeze and kissed his ear.
Jeremy turned his head away.
And saw Jasper’s Oddities through the fog. An image filled his mind: Heather inside—an exhibit—her bloated, naked body suspended in a harness of leather straps. She looked as if she were made of white bread dough that hadn’t gone into the oven yet. The straps sank into her flab so far they were almost out of sight. Her tongue lolled out. Her dead eyes were rolled upward so he could see only their whites. The picture made him go hot with shame.
She’s just being nice to me, he told himself. She’s probably lonely. It’s not a crime.
The troll suddenly began to struggle. With his good hand he pounded Samson’s back.
Samson bent at the waist and hurled him down. The troll crashed against the boardwalk. Before he could move, he was surrounded.
Jeremy, free of Heather, sighed with relief and stepped on the man’s wrist.
“Don’t hurt him,” Tanya ordered. “Just bring him along.”
“I’ve got him,” Samson said. He grabbed one side of the troll’s thick handlebar mustache and started pulling.
With a lot of gasps and whimpers and groans, the old guy got to his feet.
Samson walked beside him, leading him by the mustache.
“Over here.” Tanya hurried on ahead, Randy rushing after her with the derby wobbling high above him. They both melted into the fog. Then Karen and Nate vanished too.
Jeremy heard the squeak of a gate swinging open.
“Where’d you go?” Samson called.
“The Ferris wheel,” Tanya answered.
“Oh wow.” That came from Heather. Close behind him.
Jeremy hurried forward and caught up with Shiner. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’re about to find out,” she said.
Samson and the troll, with Liz walking close behind the troll as if to grab him if he should somehow free himself, angled across the boardwalk toward one of the low fences that enclosed each of the rides. They passed through the open gate.
The Ferris wheel stood beyond the gate, mostly hidden by the fog. Jeremy could see only the front of it: a few of the gondolas, some distinct and others vague in the grayness; the curves of the wheels connecting them; spokes running inward toward the axle, but fading, and vanishing entirely before they reached it.