But all your mother had to do to overcome that reaction was look into his eyes. His eyes were not mean; they were actually quite mellow and just said their owner was probably stoned.
Snake enjoyed pot. He enjoyed it so much that whenever I saw him, he was usually under its mellowing influence. He also liked to keep a stash of scotch under his ride, a large whirling wheel called the Trabant, which was directly across from my joint. On slow nights we would toss one of my game`s softballs back and forth.
Snake also liked to prance. He would dance about the Trabant or swing from its lighted sign, his biceps bulging, and whistle loudly to catch my attention. He did this when he was on an especially good buzz and wanted to share his high with the rest of the world.
Snake also had an obsession with food, or rather clean dishes. He had such a thing for clean dishes that when he ate at a restaurant, he would leave clean not only his own plate but also those of less-hungry customers. The best places for him to do this were diners with long counters where, once he finished his meal, he could easily scan up and down for prospective second and third courses.
But those diners had pitfalls for him, too. If it was an all-night diner or one just on the other side of seedy, as most carny late-night eateries are, then the waitress was not going to have too many qualms about speaking out against the bad manners of a patron like Snake. She might even call the cops. It was in one all-night diner that Snake met his match. He had just started on his clean-plates trick again and was about to enjoy the greasy conglomeration he had dumped from three plates onto one when the waitress said something. Clearly, she was not pleased. Words were exchanged. She asked that Snake leave, but he ignored her. So she threatened to call the police.
”Go ahead and call them,” he said. ”The pigs aren`t going to do nothin` anyway.” And just to be ornery, Snake stuck around until a cop showed up, asking what all the fuss was about.
The waitress told him about Snake`s ”vagrant, criminal behavior” and said it was hurting the reputation of the diner. The patrolman turned to Snake: ”Well?”
”Well, sir,” Snake said, ”I ordered my food, ate it, paid for it, and then there was all these plates with food on `em just sitting there . . . and they were going to throw all that food away. And my mother told me never to waste food. So I was just doing what my mother told me to do. I didn`t wanna waste no food.”
”I see,” said the cop, who then gave both Snake and the waitress a reprimanding look and turned to walk out.
Well, now Snake was quite pleased with himself and wanted to rub in his victory.
”See,” he said to the waitress,” I told you the f – – – – – – weren`t going to do nothin`.”
But the patrolman hadn`t yet made it out the door. He returned to the counter, tapped Snake on the shoulder and pointed to the squad car at the curb.
”He hauled me in,” Snake said, laughing, as he later recounted the incident. ”If I could have just kept my mouth shut for five more seconds, I would have been home free.”
Just as carnival table manners took a bit of an adjustment on my part, so too, did the sleeping arrangements.
Most of the ride jocks and jointees, including me, usually slept in the joints or the trucks. In between spots when that was not possible, we would get a motel room. Two carnies would go in and sign up for a double, and then about six or more of us-along with a dog, a couple of six-packs and some wine- would move in for the night.
We would get extra towels from maids` carts and open rooms. And if we were especially lucky, we would find a room that had been used for just a couple of hours, the key still in the door. Couples had first dibs on the beds, and since I was alone, I usually spent my nights on the floor in a sleeping bag with a mangy dog on top of me, unless we found an empty room. But those ”free” rooms had their drawbacks, too. I couldn`t get over the feeling that I was trespassing, and I couldn`t sleep too well, expecting to hear pounding on the door before the night was over. In fact, I would go to bed in my street clothes, lying down on top of the bedspread and using my sleeping bag for a cover and my coat for a pillow.
Nights without such motel treats I would usually spend in a sleeping bag on a foam mattress spread in the back of a trailer truck. I would wash up in a nearby ”cop shop,” or police station, where I suffered stares from policewomen and washroom attendants as I brushed my teeth and washed my face and underarms. Once I got kicked out of a washroom for trying to wash my hair.
Jim also slept in the truck, and I was banking on the fact that he liked me enough not to want me to get upset with him and so would leave me alone. He kept telling me he would ”grow on” me and he could wait. So could about six others.
I had concocted some story about being worked over and abandoned by my boyfriend, and the carnies were going to give me some time to get over it-about a week, they said. After that I was to choose a man from among the ranks, or else a posse of women, fearful I would prey on their already-spoken- fors, was going to take care of me. It was a matter of survival. A ”single” woman, a woman without an old man, doesn`t exist for long on the carnival lot. Expecting that I would soon pick one of them, the single men kept an eye on me and my joint.
I was a good draw for the marks, too, and it was a cinch to work them when they came in teams and you could get them to compete against each other. Upon seeing a group, say, of Mexican softball players coming up to my joint, Bill, my boss, would pull off my hat, fluff up my long hair and command, ”Okay, Goldilocks, go for it.”
The would-be Fernando Valenzuelas usually were drunk and rowdy. That was okay as long as they kept missing the bottles and pulling out dollar bills, but they also liked to reach into the booth. But if one made the mistake of stepping inside to grab me, about four carnies were quickly there to pull him out and bust the heads of those who objected. It was better than having 10 big brothers around, except that`s not exactly what any of them really wanted to be.
At midnight closing, a group of the men would be waiting around, leaning on a car or a joint, trying to act nonchalant. Together we would then walk the Houston streets to the all-night bars, poolrooms and barbecues, past the bus station, bums on the stoops and hookers on the corners. Me and my bodyguards, six deep. I would pull out a cigarette, and six Zippos would pop out, spewing flames; I was a carny Scarlett O`Hara requesting punch at the picnic.
During the evening the single men would stop by to ask about my plans for the night, and I would attempt to be vague. But once Rocky invited me to a party in his boss`s trailer, so when anyone came to ask about that night, I told him about the party. It didn`t strike me as strange that no one else knew about the party until, as I walked up to the trailer, I saw Rocky standing in the middle of a group of men.
It was strangely quiet; the only sounds were of the traffic whizzing by on the overpass above and the crunch of the gravel under my feet. They watched me approach, and as I came closer, each of the men turned to look down at the ground or up at the sky. Finally one of the ride jocks kicked at the gravel and muttered, ”Well, s – – -,” and stalked off. The rest followed, leaving me staring at the red-faced Rocky, who sputtered, ”Well, now why`d you go and do that?”
”You told me there was going to be a party,” I said.
Some nights I would lace up the joint from the back and try to leave undetected. That seemed a rather cruel joke, especially the night the men were all standing out there in the drizzle waiting for me, and I slipped out back to a waiting sports car for a date with a ”respectable” Houston businessman I had met earlier that day at a downtown diner.
Several hours later, after fighting off my date, who turned out to be a married cocaine freak determined to take me to a motel, I jumped out of his car at a stoplight.
Then I ran-sprinted-for several blocks back to the carnival-convinced he was following me or that I would be knifed by some local tough. At the truck- trailer door, I pounded and yelled. Jim was in there; it was padlocked from the inside. He could hear me, but he wouldn`t open the door. I had left with someone from off the lot, an unforgivable transgression, and as punishment I could spend the night in the rain.
With my hands hurting, I sat down on the curb and started to cry and then began to laugh. I was sitting on a curb in a ghetto in Houston at 3 a.m. under a drizzle, and I was crying. For some reason I thought it was hysterically funny.
I was still laughing when I went over to my joint, unlaced it and, once inside, shoved together the two milk-bottle platforms, hurting my foot in the process. The platforms were 2 by 2 feet each and about 3 inches off the ground. That made my makeshift bed. It was hard as boards-they were boards-and it was about a foot and a half too short for me, but it was better than the wet ground.
I cradled my throbbing head in my arms and stared at the circle in the canvas where the street light revealed its orange color. I was cold, and I began to shake. The stuffed animals lining the walls began taking on demon faces. Don`t look at them, look at the orange circle.
But childhood bogeyman fears began creeping over my tired body, and then I heard footsteps. I got up, went into a crouch and by the time I managed to creep around to a side of the joint, I was soaking in my own sweat. As I peeked out and around to the front of the misted-over lot, my knees buckled in relief.
Oh, thank you.
A couple of carnies were gathered around a car, and one was walking to my joint, probably to check out whatever noise I had made. I leaned back, tried to light a cigarette but couldn`t; my hands were shaking so badly. Leaving the cigarette in my mouth, I stood up and strolled out to meet them.
”Gotta light?” I asked.
They told me they had just come back from Bubba`s Barbeque and had had a few beers. ”But what the hell happened to you? You`re shaking,” Maine asked as he lit my cigarette. My hand quivered as I grabbed his for support.
”I`m cold,” I said. I then recounted my night`s adventure. I couldn`t stop shaking.
Then, in his beautiful Northeastern accent, Maine offered to share his truck cab with me.
”I can`t handle anything more tonight,” I said.
”I know. I`ll leave you alone,” he said. ”I gotta sleep on my left side `cause the pigs shot out one lung. You can sleep on the right. But you can`t sleep in that joint.”
I nodded. As we turned toward the trucks, one of the ride jocks pulled me aside, grabbing me by the collar and slamming me up against the side of a truck. He hissed just inches away from my face: ”Now you listen to this and you listen good `cause you better `member this `long as you live. Just `cause they got money doesn`t mean they got morals.” With that, he let me go.
Not all my carny lessons were that dramatic. Usually the carnies would take it upon themselves to instruct me in the finer points of becoming a carny after the lights went out and we headed out for a beer or diner.
There was one cardinal carny law, they said. A carny helped another carny in trouble-especially if it was a physical matter. It didn`t matter who that other carny was or what your personal beef against him was.
