Hot Night in the City Read online

  Earlier on, back in '30 or '31, when people still had reserves of spunk left over from the good old days, local wiseacres down at the feed store would plunge their fists into the pockets of their overalls until their elbows were straight and say, "You mark my words, boys, this fine young country of ours is going to lick this depression. Yessir! It'll kick Mr Depression in the ass so hard he'll have to eat his dinner standing up at the sideboard! Pretty soon, all the Gloomy Guses who run around bitching about not being able to find work will be busier'n the official fart-catcher at a Baptist baked bean social!"

  But months stretched into years, and still there was no work. Dust storms came and blew farms away; and a man's kids would look up at him with big eyes when there wasn't enough to eat; and most people couldn't remember the last time they'd laughed.

  Early in the depression, carnivals and circuses and medicine shows had done lively business for the same reasons that movies showing slick-talking rich people with white telephones and tuxedos were popular: because the people were hungry for dreams. They wanted to be told that the best things in life were free, and that you could find million-dollar babies in five-and-ten-cent stores; they needed to believe that you could get something for nothing, because nothing was how much they had in their jeans. Every hayseed from Rubeville to Hicksburg wanted to forget his troubles for a while and lose himself in the blare and glare of the midway, in the oom-pah-pah of the jenny organ and the mind-numbing gabble of the pitchmen. He wanted to show off his skill to the little lady by spilling wooden milk bottles and winning a ten-cent Kewpie doll with a buck's worth of battered baseballs. But as the months and years passed without things getting any better, it was no good telling the rubes that the only thing they had to fear was fear itself, because they were scared stiff. Fear was sucking their hopes dry, leaving their spirits too brittle to bounce back. Pretty soon pickings got so slim that even rinky-dink three-truck carnivals began to offer free entrance to the shows. The rubes would shuffle around the midway, licking the rides and games with their eyes, but holding on to their nickels so tight that little drops of piss ran down the buffalo's leg. The wheels and the jennies would turn all day long under the hot sun, empty, and the guy ballyhooing the girlie show would find himself talking to a handful of kids and a couple of old geezers who'd ask wise-assed questions, then cackle and nudge one another as though they'd been around and there was no fooling them.

  But no matter how bad things got, the true carnie never lost his inborn sense of superiority to any mark: the gullible local townspeople whom he viewed as an undifferentiated wad of humanity whose only purpose in Life's Great Plan was to ride the rides, gawk at the shows, lose money at the games, and gobble down cotton candy, candied apples, and all the rest of the punk junk. Oh, sure, a carnie might be down on his luck; he might not have had a square meal for three days or a bath for a week; and he might be forced to play in a stubble field to a thin trickle of rubes from East Yokelburg; but he was still a carnie, and he knew that the lowest carnie was the superior of the richest, most successful mark. Well just consider: Did you ever see a carnie play a bucket game? Or bet on a G'd wheel? Or go double-or-nothing on a roll-down? Or lose his last five-spot on three-card monty? Of course not! But marks do it all the time. All the time! What was the Crash of '29 but a bunch of marks losing their asses on some fancy-assed version of the bucket game? Eh? Well, there you are.

  The difference between the mark and the carnie is as simple as it is profound. No matter how bad things get, the carnie is 'with it'. While, no matter how rich or famous or powerful the mark may become, he isn't 'with it', and couldn't be, and will never be. End of story.

  I first learned about the essential superiority of the carnie over the mark from an old-timer who called himself Dirty-Shirt Red—not that he was redheaded or that his shirt was more than ordinarily dirty. I was thirteen, and I'd run away from a correctional home they'd put me into as punishment for running away from the foster home they'd put me into for running away from home. I was walking the railroad ties north when I overtook Dirty-Shirt Red, who had left the Bumpkinburg where he'd wintered over, pearl-diving in a greasy spoon, and was planning to snag the Jonah J. Jones Greater Shows as it made its swing west from the red dirt country of western Tennessee. As I overtook him, I put my head down and picked up my pace so as to pass him with no more than a grunt and a quick nod because kids on the drift soon learn to give wide berth to old men. But he laughed and said something funny, and I could tell right off that he wasn't that kind, so we fell into step and started talking. He told me he knew the country we were passing through like the palm of his hand because he'd played it with carnivals more times than a tall yellow sow's got teats. I asked him what he did in the carnival.

  "Everything and anything, kid, and a bunch of other stuff, too. In my golden youth, I was a ten-in-one. You know what that is?"

  I didn't.

  "A ten-in-one is a one-man sideshow, a real boon for a small carnival trying to make believe it's worth going to. Oh, I could do it all. I could eat a little fire, swallow some sword, walk barefoot up your ladder of razor-sharp Cossack sabres, and juggle flaming torches while recounting the shocking mating rituals of the Fiji Islanders in word and gesture (men only, and not until midnight, to avoid inflaming young imaginations—I'm sure you understand, gentlemen). I could do magic, sleight of hand, and prestidigitation while reading the Declaration of Independence off a pinhead where it was engraved in letters so small that the marks I sold the pins to couldn't even see it—but I assured them they they'd be able to read it word for word when they got home and put the pin under a magnifying glass. (That's a last-night-in-town sort of sting, kid. You want to give them a whole year to cool off before they see you again.) Oh yeah, I did the whole scam. 'Course, I'm a little old for all that now, but I'm still worth my bed, brew, and beans. I can run a jenny, front a bottle shop, tell fortunes, belly a wheel, and sell my share of candy-candy-apple with your caramel-caramel-corn. I am what you call your genuine all-round carnie, born and bred, taught and trained, guaranteed not to rust, bust, corrode, or explode. The only original patented version. Beware of imitations."

  Well, one thing was sure: he could talk. And, impressionable kid that I was, I'd have given anything to have that swinging, chanting, gabble of his: talk that was meant, not to inform, but to numb and mystify. I didn't know it, but from that moment on, I was a carnie at heart. And maybe Dirty-Shirt Red recognized this because when we had gone on for a couple of hours with that tiring not-quite-a-full-stride pace of men walking on railroad ties, he turned to me and said, "Jeet?"

  "What?"

  " 'Jeet' is Carnie for, have you eaten. It's the way carnies greet one another, because the state of your stomach is what matters most when you've been on the drift. So one carnie says to another, Jeet? And the other says, no or yes, whichever's the case, then he goes on with his meeting-people patter, too proud to make a point of being hungry and broke, but knowing that if he says, no, the other carnie'll rustle him up some grub first thing. So, Jeet, kid?"

  "Not today, no, sir."

  "That's not what you say! Don't you listen when I talk? Am I just farting into the wind, here? You got to blend that no in and slide smoothly on: something like no, but Lord-love-a-duck, it sure is hot. Why, a man could fry an egg on the sidewalk... and you go on with your meeting-folks patter. Just to say a naked no, then stand there with your teeth in your mouth would be too humbling for a carnie. Get it? So let's try again: Jeet?"

  "No, and I sure could use a couple of those eggs you're frying on that sidewalk."

  Dirty-Shirt Red laughed. "You're all right, kid. You got some sass in your ass, and that's what it takes in this world, where there're only two kinds of people, the carnies and the marks: them that takes, and them that gets took. Well, you'll be glad to hear that there's an easy mark of a widow lady at a farm up the line a bit. She ought to be good for a meal, if she hasn't curled up and died, or been dragged off to the loony bin, or done some other t
hing that would render her unheedful of the needs of her fellowman."

  After about an hour, a dirt road bent in from the east and ran alongside the railroad until it came to the gate of a small farm: just an unpainted house and barn and a couple of sagging outbuildings. Dirty-Shirt Red stopped and wiped out the sweat band of his battered old hat. Then he pointed at one of the creosote-smelling telegraph poles that followed the tracks. "See there?"

  Someone had scratched the pole with a big X and put a small x between the top arms of the big one. "Know what that means, kid?"

  I didn't.

  "That's a 'bo sign meaning this place is a soft touch. The little x at the top says you can get grub here. If it'd been at the bottom, that woulda meant you could sleep in the barn or somewhere. You're going to have to learn a little 'bo, if you want to follow the carnivals, 'cause life ain't always cherries and cream. Sometimes it's just the pits and the curds, and that's when you might have to live like a 'bo for a little while."

  "A 'bo?"

  "A hobo."

  "Oh."

  "So!" He took up a sharp piece of crushed stone from the ballast and gouged three deep lines through the X, then underneath he scratched what looked like a stubby arrowhead. "There! Now let's go see what the widow's got for us, kid!"

  As we walked up the dusty road to the gate, I asked what his scratching on the pole was all about.

  "Those lines passing through the X tell passing 'bo's that things have changed and this is no longer an easy touch. The blast sign—the thing that looks sort of like a backwards arrowhead?—that means that someone here has a shotgun and uses it."

  I stopped in my tracks.

  "No sweat, kid! This widow lady is a born-again, lifelong do-gooder from deepest Dogoodville. She wouldn't know one end of a shotgun from the other."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "I scratched that stuff over the 'bo sign to put them off the track. This great republic of ours is in a depression, in case you hadn't noticed, kid. The last thing a fella needs is competition for handouts."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "Yeah but's ass. Now you and me know about a soft touch that others don't know about. That puts us one up. A good carnie is always one up, 'cause if you ain't one up, kid, you're one down. Now when we get there, you just smile. Don't say a word. I'll size things up and play our cards; you just follow suit. And above all, don't help me! Last thing I need is some kid trumping my aces. You got a hat in your bindle?"

  "I got an old cap."

  "Put it on."

  "But it's hot!"

  "I ain't running no debating society here. Just do what I say."

  I pulled my cap out of my bindle and crammed it onto my head, muttering, "I don't see why I gotta put my cap on."

  "You gotta put it on so's you can take it off!" he told me, stressing each word like he was talking to a dimwit. "Women like kids who are nice and polite. Especially widow ladies. Now, let's go."

  A big yellow-fanged dog came running out to bark and scratch at the gate and snarl through its slats, making my stomach tingle the way it does when you look down from a high place. Dirty-Shirt Red stayed on our side of the fence, but he smiled and talked to the dog in a cooing voice, calling it nice fella, nice fella and saying, "You really know how to bark, don't you, old fella?" then saying under his breath, "I'd like to kick his hairy ass into next Wednesday for him." Then aloud, "There's a nice fella! Yes, there's a nice fella!"

  A gray-haired woman came around the side of the house and shouted, "Hugo?" and instantly the dog's menace dissolved into a slack, moist grin with a slippery tongue hanging out the side of its mouth and lots of whimpering and whining for attention. "No need to get scared," the old woman said when she got to the gate. "There ain't a peck of mischief in a bushel of him."

  "I could tell that right off, ma'am," Dirty-Shirt said, peeling off his battered hat and elbowing me in the same motion. "But you mustn't scold him for barking, ma'am, because that's his job, and he's only doing it to protect his mistress. Ain't you, big fella? Yes, you are. Yes, you are! Fact is, ma'am, I just love dogs. It may be a weakness in my makeup, but there it is." He elbowed me again, hard, and I dragged my cap off. "Yessireebob, I've had dogs since I was knee-high to a grass snake, and I'd have one still if I wasn't on the road and didn't have any proper way to care for it."

  "Say, wait a minute," the lady asked. "Don't I recognize you? Haven't you been at my gate before?"

  "Gosh, I'm afraid I haven't, ma'am. This is the first time me and my boy's been in this neck of the woods."

  "This your boy?" She looked at me, and I just smiled.

  "Yes, ma'am," Dirty-Shirt said. "He ain't much, but he's mine."

  "Looking for work, are you?" Her voice still had a certain measuring tone to it.

  "That's right, ma'am. Back home, there's no work to be had for love nor money. We're hoping to find something up North."

  "Just the two of you, is it?"

  Dirty-Shirt's smile suddenly collapsed. He looked down at his shoes and in a thin, dry voice he said, "Yes, ma'am, there's just the two of us now. After the drought and the dust had done their worst, then the fever come along and..." But he couldn't go on. He covered his face with his hand, pushing his finger and thumb into his eye sockets until there were tears. Then he sniffed and wiped them away. "My woman was always sort of frail, and I guess she just didn't have the strength to go on, so she..." He didn't have the strength to go on, either. But he sniffed and made a brave, if pale, smile. "I'm hoping to make a new start up North. For the boy's sake."

  The woman looked down at me with compassion melting in her eyes. I frowned and looked at the ground.

  "Fact is, ma'am," Dirty-Shirt continued, "I was hoping your husband might have some work I could do to earn dinner for the boy and me. Now, before you say anything, I want you to know that if you don't have any honest work that needs being done, or if things are so hard that you really can't spare a couple of meals, I'd understand completely because that's just how things was with me and Maudie before she..." He couldn't go on.

  "I'm a widow woman," she told us. "So of course there's always plenty of man's work that wants being done."

  "True. I noticed there's a pile of wood yonder that needs stacking."

  "That's right. A couple of tramps came by yesterday, and I give them each a po'boy to split that wood for me. But they left without stacking it."

  "Those tramps are all the same, ain't they? We was forever being pestered by them back on the farm before..." He stopped again, but pulled himself together with a shake. "Now, I know as well as you do that most of these 'Knights of the Road' are nothing but bums looking for handouts, and trying to avoid honest work. But nevertheless I always used to give them whatever I could spare because, like our parson once said, you never know but what one of them might be honest-to-God down on his luck, and it would be a crying shame to turn that one hungry man away, even if all the rest of them is just no account bums. I've never forgotten those words of wisdom and guidance."

  "Well, you might as well come into the yard. Today's baking day, so there's fresh bread. I can make you a couple of po'boys out of cold chicken and whatever else I find. I hope that'll do you."

  "That'll do us just fine, ma'am. Down, Hugo! Ain't it cute the way he sticks his nose just about everywhere, the little... rascal?"

  The widow led us to the pile of split wood and left us there while she went into the house to make the sandwiches. As soon as she was out of earshot, Dirty-Shirt told me in a quick whisper, "Now you just sit over there by the pump and press your hand to the middle of your chest, like this. See? When she comes back, you smile and smile, but don't you say a word."

  "But why—"

  "Why's ass. Just do what I say."

  I perched on the edge of a wooden watering trough next to the pump, feeling stupid with my hand pressed against my chest like that, while Dirty-Shirt selected a small stick of wood from the stack and brought it over to the woodpile, walking slowly and stopping a couple
of times to suck air in with long, painful inhalations, then push it out with breaths that puffed his cheeks.

  He had managed to move three pieces to the woodpile, and he was resting, cradling the fourth in his arms like a baby, when the widow came out with a short plank on which there were two half-loaf po'boys, chock-full of chicken and tomatoes and greens, and two big glasses of milk, cool and frothy from the spring house. She gave one of each to me, and I smiled at her without a word, just like I'd been told.

  "Didn't your ma teach you to say 'thank you', boy?" she asked in a tone more joshing than pestering.

  I smiled even broader.

  "He's a good boy," Dirty-Shirt called from the woodpile as he hoisted the split piece up onto the top with some effort, then stood leaning on the pile to catch his breath. "Yes, ma'am, he's a good boy, and a kind-hearted one, but he's a little..." He made a vague gesture towards his head and shrugged.

  "O-oh," the widow said in a melting voice. "Well, that's all right, then. You just sit there and enjoy your sandwich. And when you're done, you can help your pa."

  I was so embarrassed I could have kicked Dirty-Shirt in the shins. Instead, I smiled even more broadly—just like an idiot should—and I took a huge bite from my po'boy that squirted stuff out the back, and that made me even more embarrassed.

  "I'm afraid I can't let the boy help me," Dirty-Shirt said as he came over to take his sandwich and glass of milk. "But don't you worry none. I'll do work enough for the two of us... soon as I finish this dee-lish-ious feast you've prepared with your own two—Get down, Hugo!—God bless it! Sure is a healthy, active dog you've got there, ma'am."

  "I was watching you out the window while I was making the po'boys," the widow told him.