Life is a Carnival

This time I accepted the drink, and after draining it, I straightened Kim out.

"My Dad is not cool," I told her. "No Dads are cool, and mine is even less cool than most."

"You're making way too much out of this, Sport," Kim assured me as she sat down next to me. "Besides, he's got a sense of humor."

"He does? Not when a naked girl is wandering through the house he doesn't. With a quart of his beer, no less!" I added.

"He smiled at me when he saw me taking the beer out of the refrigerator," Kim said.

"I can't believe my old man saw you naked and hasn't come in here."

"He didn't see me naked," Kim said, pulling on the fabric of the top. "I had his shirt on."

"Okay, he saw you half-naked. Wearing his t-shirt and drinking his beer."

From the living room, I heard the sound of the TV. Match Game was on, and that was a good sign. Maybe he wouldn't embarrass me or come storming in here after all. Must be the cold, I presumed.

"You'll laugh about this next week," Kim informed me. "Probably the two of you will piss your pants talking about it years from now."

"Maybe," I said softly as Gene Rayburn and Charles Nelson Reilly wise-cracked away. "I just can't imagine me and the old man talking about the way he saw your ass when he met you."

"No, he saw my pussy when he first saw me," Kim said as she corrected me. "He saw my ass after we spoke and I walked away. That's when I knew he had a sense of humor."

"Why?" What did he say?" I asked.

"He said, buzzzz."

It took Kim standing up and sticking her tattoo in my face for me to figure it out, and we had to stifle our giggles for a time, although that probably wasn't necessary, because the old man was half-deaf and the TV was blasting.

"Shit," I exclaimed suddenly. "Tomorrow - they're both gonna be home all day. My Mom and Dad. They don't work on Saturday."

"Wouldn't matter, Sport," Kim told me. "Saturday's the busy day. I'm working from sunrise all day, right up until we pull out Sunday morning, so I wouldn't have time to come over here anyway."

"You mean..."

"This was it," Kim said with a shrug, and her face twisted as she saw my reaction to that news. "Hey! You aren't gonna start bawling again, are you?"

"No," I snapped, hating how easily Kim could see right through me. "Maybe late tonight?"

"Friday night is prime time for me," Kim explained. "If this place ever livens up, that is."

"Who do I see to get a job with you guys?" I said, my father coughing as Tom Kennedy explained the rules of the game show "You Don't Say" that had just begun. "I want to be with you forever."

"Sure you do," Kim retorted. "You want to leave all this to travel around like a bum hustling for a buck? You're nuttier than you look."

"Then you stay here," I suggested. "With me."

"Here? Me and you living in this room?" Kim asked, waving around the little box we were in. "Besides, I don't think your folks would be crazy about that concept."

"Hey," Kim said as she probably sensed how much I was not expecting this to ever end, for some reason. "I'm gonna miss you too. Gonna miss your shower and your cooking too. This thing too."

Kim's hand snaked down between my legs and grabbed my limp noodle, giving it a couple of tugs as she nuzzled into my neck.

"Want to do it one more time?" Kim asked, and even though I was pouting my dick began to stiffen in her hand. "That's it. Get nice and hard for me."

"I feel lucky about this time," Kim said as she climbed up onto me and put me inside of her.

I always felt lucky every time, so I didn't know what she meant by that, but once Kim started writhing around on top of me, her titties rolling from side to side as she ground herself into me, it didn't matter.

"Cum for me, Sport," Kim said after she came. "Fill me up."

Obediently, I did, and as my dick spurted away inside of Kim, she clamped her muscles around me, almost as if she was trying to keep me deep inside of her, and as she rolled off of me she curled into a fetal position and smiled.

"That was so good," Kim said, and for a second she seemed to be getting emotional, so I reached over and held her tight, hugging her until it was time for her to go.

***

Chapter Eighteen: The Load-out.

Kim was right about Friday night. With the mud drying up in the field and the oppressive humidity returning to the area, the carnival grounds were a madhouse. Roaming the place with my friends like always, I kept my eye peeled for Kim, but she was always scurrying around from ride to ride trying to keep them going.

We did almost collide one time, when Kim came from out behind the Giant Rat exhibit, pulling the strap of her overall up over her shoulder.

"Hey!" Kim yelled as she flew by, on her way to fix something or other, and that was all I saw of her that night, because she disappeared as the crowds thinned out.

Saturday I got called in to work, and since I had begged off the rest of the week I felt obligated to go in. Besides, if I wasn't going to spend the day with Kim, what difference did it make, so I spent the afternoon being depressed at work instead of moping around at home.

Saturday night was even worse. After I went up the street to the grounds and started walking around with my buddies for the final times of the year, my stomach was tied up in knots. Even the greasy french fries that were a guilty pleasure of mine did nothing to brighten my mood.

"I'm going crazy," I confided to Barry as I watched Kim on the other side of the midway, working on the electrical panel of The Scrambler yet again. "I love her so much."

"Billy, I know it hurts," Barry said. "It'll pass. You had a week you'll never forget."

"I'm gonna try and hook up with this outfit," I explained to him. "Get a job."

"What about school?" Barry asked. "College starts in a few weeks."

"COMMUNITY college," I said derisively to my best friend, who was going to a real college, as I often reminded him. "It can wait. Besides, we both know I'm no genius."

"You're way smarter than you think you are," Barry explained. "When you apply yourself you're just as smart as anybody. Too smart to throw it all away like that."

"They're going to Poughkeepsie next," I said, starting to walk toward Kim, who was pulling an empty hand truck as she went down past the basketball game with the tiny rims and toward the Giant Rat.

"And you're going to Hudson Valley," Barry reminded me.

Kim turned and looked around before ducking behind the Giant Rat, and I wondered if she was looking for me. Sometimes she would sneak back there for a beer, she had told me, and that place had a special spot in my heart anyway so I started to follow her back there.

"Billy, we've got to talk," Barry said, grabbing me by the arm and leading me away.

"Can't we later?" I asked, barely avoiding colliding with some old guy who cut in front of us.

"Now," Barry said. "It's important."

For an hour Barry talked, and for the life of me I couldn't make any sense out of why this was so important that it couldn't have waited. He ended up talking about the same stuff we always talked about, and while I fidgeted and tried to pay attention, my mind was elsewhere. If it was anybody else I would have just walked away, but this was Barry, so I listened.

By the time we headed back to the midway the crowds had started to thin out. I ducked behind the Giant Rat but all that was there was some litter and some empty beer cans. Probably Kim's, I figured, as I rejoined Barry and the guys for one last circuit for the year.

One by one the booths and rides shut down as the patrons and suckers went home, until the lights dimmed for one last time. They began breaking down the rides in the semi-darkness, and I watched from a distance, unable to let go.

It was after 3 a.m. when the trucks started to pull out of the field, and I walked over to where Kim was finishing disconnecting the electrical connections, never having lost sight of her while they closed up shop.

She looked tired - weary and covered with grease, but still every bit as attractive as she was the first time I saw her. Kim seemed surprised to see me, and shook her head as she tossed the heavy cables into the back of a truck that was idling - one of the last vehicles still there.

"Hey, Sport. What are you doing here?"

"Wanted to say goodbye, kind of."

"I thought we did that yesterday," Kim said with a grin.

"I'm going to see you again," I told her.

"Who knows?" Kim said,using the back of her hand to push her hair back off of her face. "If I'm still with this thing next year, and we come back up here, maybe we'll get together again. You're a good cook."

"That's too long," I said. "I'm going to see you in Poughkeepsie next week."

"Is that where I'm going next?" Kim asked.

"I've been thinking about this, and I'm going to see if they will hire me here."

"Sport, go to college," Kim said, ignoring the tap of the horn from the driver waiting to leave West Albany in the rear view mirror just as badly as I did. "We had fun, and hopefully next year around this time both of our lives will be better than they are now."

"But you and me..."

"I had a blast, Sport. Really. Try and remember me. I know I will remember you."

A kiss on the lips and she was gone. I waited until the taillights had disappeared down the road before I let it out, and while I'm sure that it must have been a pitiful sight to the remainder of the caravan that passed by the crying kid in the middle of the now-deserted field, I didn't care.

***

Chapter Nineteen: Poughkeepsie.

I asked my father's permission to take the car. Initially, I was just thinking about taking the car and driving to Poughkeepsie without approval - you know the theory about begging forgiveness being easier than asking permission - but instead I got up enough guts to ask to borrow the car for a little while.

Surprisingly, my father gave me the keys, and didn't really question me about it, which was a good thing. If I had told him I was taking our piece-of-crap Mercury Comet 100 miles down the Thruway to Poughkeepsie, there was no way he would have gone for it.

My plan was simple. After talking with the weasel who ran the O.C. Buck operation - a Snidely Whiplash look-alike I had spoken to a couple of times during the course of their stay - and making sure I could get a job, I would track down Kim and tell her the good news. Then I would drive back home and back my bags and catch a bus back down. The rest would take care of itself.

The ride down was uneventful, but when I arrived at the carnival grounds, I had a bit of a culture shock. Like Dorothy, I soon figured out that I wasn't in Kansas anymore, and Poughkeepsie was not West Albany.

The grounds were near a very urban neighborhood, with none of the open fields and trees that buffeted the field that the O.C. Buck Shows had just left. The people were different too. Not many of the simple country bumpkins with kids in tow. The people looked rough and dangerous to me, even though nobody did or said anything to me to make me feel that way. I saw more black people in the first two minutes than I had my entire 18 years before then.

The carnival midway was set up differently too, crammed tightly into a much smaller area than they were allotted back home. While that took away a lot of the easy going feel the carnival had the week before, it did make it easier to find the general manager.

Half paying attention to me while his eyes darted around, I asked him if her remembered me and without waiting for an answer, told him that I wanted a job and was willing to do anything.

"Sure," he said before scurrying away to break up an argument between an irate customer and the guy running the squirt gun game, and just like that I had a job starting the next night.

Buoyed by the easiest job interview I had or would ever have, I searched for Kim to tell her the good news. Figuring that she would be around the troublesome Scrambler, I immediately headed in that direction.

The usual single toothed guy was running the ride, and seemed unmoved by my presence there, although he did give me a nod of recognition when I came up to him and asked him if he knew where Kim was.

"Eh!" he grunted, shrugging his shoulders as he looked around the area, paying as little attention to his job as ever. "She was here about 20 minutes ago - you check the Rat?"

"No," I said.

"Wait there long enough, she'll show up there," he said with a laugh that sounded evil.

I walked quickly in the direction he waved, and as I approached the truck with the big canvas banner of the Giant Rat, my heart raced as I tried to imagine the reunion we would have when I found her.

Kim was there.

***

Chapter Twenty: Finding Kim.

Before I made it around to the rear of the exhibit, I could hear the slapping sounds. It didn't register at first, but when I went around the corner, it all made sense. I had found Kim, and when I first saw her, my immediate reaction was to find something - a club or something to use to help her, but I quickly figured out that she wasn't being attacked.

Kim was leaning over a saw horse, with her bib overalls down around her ankles, and standing behind her was this guy who looked like The Incredible Hulk. This enormous giant was behind Kim, holding her by her bony hips while he thrust into her with a savageness that equalled the thunderous sounds that their bodies made with each collision.

Kim let out a whimper each time the behemoth slammed forward, and the giant grunted right along with her. Then he let out a guttural groan and his thrusting stopped soon after. I had only been there for about 30 seconds, but that was a half-minute too long for me.

The brute pulled himself off of Kim and saw me for the first time as he pulled the condom off his now-flaccid cock, and after giving me a sneer he flung the cum-filled sheath to the ground, brushing past me while putting his cock away and rejoining the crowds on the midway.

Kim was slowly pulling up her overalls when she saw me, and in the relatively dim light she squinted to see who had been there watching.

"You want some too?" Kim asked, shoving some crumpled bills into her jeans pocket as she waddled toward me, but I just stood there with my mouth open, unable to speak.

"Sport?" Kim said, recognizing me in the brief second I was facing her. "What the..."

I spun away, throwing up violently as I staggered away from Kim, tripping over a support rope and nearly landing on my face before grabbing onto the back of the truck and continuing to hurl.

"What are you doing here, Sport?" Kim asked me, putting her hand on my back as my body kept dry-heaving long after I had emptied my stomach.

"I told you," I said after catching my breath, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "I told you I was coming to see you."

"Shit, everybody says that," Kim said, rubbing my shoulders as my tears started to flow.

"I'm not everybody else."

"I guess not," Kim said softly.

"How could you... what were you doing with him?"

"What was I doing?" Kim snorteded. "Hell, Sport. You ought to know what that was. We did enough of it last week."

"But why? Why with him?"

"Why? You can't figure out why?" Kim asked as she reached into her pocket. "It ain't for love. That's for sure. It's for this. It's for making enough to get out of this before I end up being one of these lifers around here."

Kim took out the wad of bills, straightening out the little pile before sticking it back in her pocket.

"I got myself a job here," I said, watching Kim reach under the truck and grab a can of beer, popping it open and handing it to me.

I drained that beer as fast as Kim ever did, glad to get the sour taste out of my mouth, and as I looked at the ground around the saw horse, littered with condom wrappers and beer cans, I felt like the biggest fool alive, and told Kim so.

"No, you aren't," Kim said leading me away from the area and out to the midway. "You're just naive, and that's not a bad thing either. I figured you had to have known the score."

"I didn't think you were a - you know," I said, not able to say the word.

"Well, now you know," Kim said. "Good thing too. You can go back home and forget about me. I'm flattered you went all that way to see me, but trust me. I'm not worth it. Find yourself a nice girl."

"I already did that," I said. "I still love you, no matter what."

"Well, you need to get your head examined," Kim said, laughing as she put her arm around my shoulder.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"I don't plan on doing this forever," Kim told me, and suddenly I realized that we were leaving the grounds. "I know you don't understand, but I used you."

"You mean the food and stuff? I don't give a..."

"Not just that," Kim said. "Maybe you'll figure it out someday. Maybe not. Either way is fine. When I met you I saw my chance to get out of this life. I needed a reason - something that I thought you could provide. The stuff we did together, I never did with anybody else. Not ever. Not the way we did it. I had a feeling about you - thought you were special. Still do."

"Then we could get married or something," I suggested.

"I need a fresh start. Get myself a GED and try living like a human being," Kim said. "And you - you need to get your butt to college - bear down and kick ass in school."

"This?" Kim said as she waved her arm at her world, with the spinning rides and the blinking lights. "This is not what either one of us needs. Life is not a carnival. At least I hope not."

"Look, I've got to get back to work," Kim said, melting me with her eyes just like always. "If I'm still with this loony bin and we end up back in Colonie, we can get together again, okay?"

"I guess," I said.

"Believe in yourself, Sport. You're special," Kim said, giving me a kiss on the cheeks before turning away.

"Don't you even know my name?" I blurted out, causing Kim to stop after only a few steps. " I mean, you always call me Sport, and my name is..."

"Billy," Kim said, frozen and looking up before turning around, and as she did I saw the tracks of the tears that were trickling down her cheeks. "Billy Morton. You live on Exchange Street and your birthday is May 17th. You like the Yankees and your best friend's name is Barry."

"The 'Sport' thing - guess that's just a defensive mechanism for me. I try not to let anybody in. Sometimes I slip up, I guess," Kim confessed as her lips quivered a bit. "When you think of me, please try not to think about what you saw back there. Think happier things, okay?"

We kissed again, and we kissed like it would be the last time, which it would prove to be. Then, after wiping her cheeks dry, Kim smiled weakly and spun around to head back to the carnival, and she didn't turn around again.

The ride home was eventful, mainly because I was so distraught that I didn't pay attention to the gas gauge and ran out on the Thruway. Thanks to a helpful fellow motorist, I was able to get home as the sun rose, making it back only 10 minutes before my father had to go to work.

Red-eyed and tired, I handed him the keys and waited for the explosion, which for some reason didn't come. Grateful for that, I tiptoed into my room and fell onto the bed, not waking up until late afternoon.

When I woke up, I called Barry, and started to tell him the story of my trip to Poughkeepsie. When I got to the part I dreaded telling him about, he stopped me.

"I figured out that you didn't know about her during that last night up here at the carnival," Barry said. "It was kind of common knowledge."

"Guess I was blind," I admitted.

"Love is, I guess. No harm done, right?" Barry asked. "You had fun, I know that."

"Well sure, but did you - you know?"

"Me? No," Barry said, and I knew Barry well enough to realize he wasn't in the habit of paying for things like that.