Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (9 page)

The tail straightened out, and then I remembered the deadly drop we’d witnessed every time the tail settled to the earth. Screaming in anticipation, Angie shattered my eardrum as our pod plummeted to the ground. It had to be moving at two hundred, five hundred miles per hour, and I felt my chest caving in, with absolutely no room for oxygen. In just a second this would all be history. I couldn’t last more than that.

When we were about one inch from the ground (I exaggerate), the brakes slammed on and I felt this huge sense of relief. We went from 499 miles per hour to zero miles per hour in a
matter of seconds, and I believe we all three breathed a sigh of relief. I know I did.

Opening my eyes wide I saw Bo and Charlie still sitting there. Still smoking their cigarettes. Smiling at us. And it hit me. No one was pushing the red button. The button that would stop this infernal machine.

“Bo.” I screamed at the bench, trying to be heard above the raucous AC/DC music now playing. Brian Johnson screaming
You shook me all night long.
“Bo, you said half a ride. Push the button. Push the damned button.”

The son of a bitch sat there and smiled at me as the tail slowly rose in the air and straightened out, then whipped to the left. My body slammed into James’s and I thought I was going to lose everything in my stomach.

“Bo, you son of a bitch, turn it off,” my shrieking having no effect on the smiling duo below.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh shit.”

James wasn’t dealing with this well. Angie screamed that high-pitched girlish wail, and I gripped the bar as tight as possible. This was going to be a long morning.

The tail snapped to the right and we were flung the other way like rag dolls, our limbs out of control. Hurled against each other, fingers frozen to the bar.

I wondered if this was reason enough to back out on all my promises. The drinking, the porn—

And then, as we plummeted toward the ground, sure to crash and be buried in the sandy, barren soil, Angie Clark lifted her hands in the air. Screaming at the top of her lungs, the crazy lady raised her hands high above her head, proving she had no fear, and no sense.

I closed my eyes, scrunching up my forehead, and waited for the brakes. As we slowed, I opened them again and saw Charlie by the buttons. I knew I would be eternally grateful.

I took a deep breath, my chest aching. James didn’t open his eyes as the pod settled softly down on the platform.

Everything was peaceful for a moment, except for the raucous music. Charlie strolled back, a smirk on his face as he flipped the lock on the bar.

James sat frozen as Angie lifted the unlocked bar and scooted out of her seat.

Bo was now standing at the button station, hunched in deep conversation with a third party. I knew who it was. The woman and Bo both straightened up, and she shot me an evil glance, stalking off.

James had finally opened his eyes looking white as a clean sheet. Shaking his head, he stared at the lady. From the look of his face I thought he was just like I was about two minutes ago. About to lose the contents of his stomach. But he took a deep breath and swallowed. I saw some color return to his cheeks and he shook his head again, trying to clear the fog.

“Skip, who the hell was that?”

I stared after her as she headed across the grounds, puffs of dust clouds rising from her shoes.

“Did we do something to piss her off?”

I wasn’t sure. “That’s Linda Reilly. She’s Winston Pugh’s girlfriend. I told you about her last night.”

Angie was running up the platform, grabbing Bo and giving him a great big hug. “What a great ride, Bo. Thanks for letting me go.”

James shook his head again, obviously not sharing her unbridled enthusiasm. “Thought we were gonna die.”

I’d had similar thoughts.

Angie turned to us with a big grin. “Anybody want to go again?”

Turning from her, my roommate watched Linda Reilly’s vanishing form. “Dude, that lady—”

“Yeah?”

“She was seriously mad at somebody.”

“Looked like it.”

James shivered, took a deep breath, and slowly eased himself out of the seat. “Looked like she was seriously mad at you.”

Detective Bob Stanton was back with a couple of uniformed police officers and we could hear them peppering the show’s employees with questions about the night before.

“Did you see anything suspicious?” “Where were you between the hours of—” “How long have you been employed by Moe Bradley?” “Did you know the deceased?” “Did you have any close relationship with the deceased?” “Did you have any issues with the deceased?” And on and on and on and on. No one admitted to anything as far as I could tell.

They finished their questioning before the show’s opening, and I watched as Stanton grabbed a uniformed officer by the arm and marched off to Winston Pugh Charlemagne’s fenced-in domain. I wondered what new questions they would ask the little man. Or were they questioning Linda? Winston had found the body. I’d been second. But so far, all I’d had were a couple of vague questions.

To be honest with them, I’d mentioned that the entire evening was a blur. Pugh had pulled me out of the trailer in the middle of an alcohol-induced sleep, and I’ll never forget seeing
the bloodied corpse hunched over on the toilet, lifeless and stone cold.

Moe Bradley, some guy with thin, wispy white hair, and Bradley’s two sisters, the team of Schiller and Crouse, watched anxiously, sitting in a black Cadillac Escalade, hoping any signs of the police were gone by the time the show opened up at ten.

I wondered how this would affect the attendance. Some people would stay away out of fear. Some people would show up to see where the murder took place. Some people would try to go right into the trailer and see the bloodstains. We live in a very sick society.

“Brother,” James looked at me and brushed his hair from his face with his right hand. “I drink now and then because—” He paused. We were sitting outside the Airstream on two cheap webbed lawn chairs, and my roommate still seemed pretty shook up. The ride had obviously had a lasting effect on him.

“Because?” I’ve always wanted to know James’s excuse for drinking. “What’s the reason, James?”

“Well, I don’t know.” He was genuinely frustrated. “I don’t usually open a sentence like that. How the hell do I know why I drink? I never really analyzed the act before. Never really thought about it. But the point is this. Right now, I need a drink.
Need
a drink. I usually don’t need one, but I
need
one now.”

I don’t think I ever drank because I needed to. Wanted to, yes. Needed?

“I believe there’s a beer in the fridge.” It was my beer, and it wasn’t a good idea, but I offered. I was glad when he didn’t take me up on it.

“No, you’re not listening to me. I just went through hell and I need a
drink.
A real drink, Skip.”

I nodded. “Yeah, a drink would be good right now. And there’s Harry’s Hideaway right up there on the strip. That’s pretty
tempting, isn’t it? They’ve been open since six a.m., and we’ve got forty minutes till the Moe Show opens for the rides.”

“You’re reading my mind, compadre.”

“One thing is wrong with this, James.”

“What? We’ve just been through one of the most harrowing experiences in our lives and—”

“James. We’ve got to operate the Tail this morning.”

“Operating the Dragon Tail consists of pushing two buttons, Skip.” He was on his feet holding two fingers in front of my face. “Two. We just have to push two buttons. A third if there’s an emergency.” He stared at me. “Okay. Another one for the smoke. But it’s a total of four, count ’em, four buttons. Come on, amigo. We can do that in our sleep. Don’t push
my
buttons, okay?” I saw the excitement in his eyes. “Let’s go. Harry’s is calling.”

I eased myself out of the chair. “James. If there’s an accident, if someone is injured, or killed, and we’ve had a drink, even a beer—” I let the sentence hang. He had to understand.

“Damn.”

He stared at me, squinting with a frown. Hell, someone had to be the professional, someone had to be the grownup, and it obviously wasn’t going to be James. We were on our first P.I. mission, and this wasn’t a time to screw it up.

“You’re right,” he said. “I hate that about you.”

“Maybe we drink too much, anyway.” I shrugged my shoulders.

He stood there, stretching and looking over the grounds. Finally, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

There was no hesitation on my part. “Actor John Vernon who played Dean Wormer said it to John Belushi in
National Lampoon’s Animal House.”

James usually used more esoteric quotes. But this one I knew I’d nailed. I’d seen the movie about twenty times. And
Dean Wormer was right. Belushi had proved himself fat, drunk, and stupid. And then he died.

“Easy one, pard. But it was apropos.”

And he was right. It was apropos.

“After that ride, do you think you’ve got the hang of it, Jim?”

James scowled at Charlie. There were no more words between them.

We operated the Dragon Tail ride till noon. Bo and Charlie strolled over to Harry’s Hideaway at 10:01, and from a distance we watched them slap each other on the back as they walked in. James gave me a dirty look. I stood by what I believed. It just wasn’t a good idea to drink, then try to run a show ride.

Those two didn’t seem to care at all that they could later be impaired with their alcoholic intake. And maybe, just maybe, that was part of the problem. After my short trip to Winston’s trailer where the tequila shots were plentiful, after the visit to Moe’s American Eagle, where mimosas ruled the morning, after hearing Pugh tell me that Kevin Cross drank to excess, and seeing Bo and Charlie head off to Harry’s, I figured that this Moe Show was fueled on champagne and grain and cactus alcohol. A wicked combination.

But other than the occasional accidents, the death of a customer, and the shooting of a guy who ran the rifle booth, maybe that didn’t mean much. These were carnies. Carnies, for God’s sake. I
expected
them to act in an irrational manner.

“Get me a rag and disinfectant, Skip. Damn.”

We’d just emptied our fourth group of riders from the Tail, and for the second time James had found urine on a hard plastic seat. I told him from the beginning, I wasn’t going to clean it up. It was his business, and I reminded him that I was just along for the ride. If these people had the piss scared out of them, that was
his problem. I just kept thanking God that I didn’t have to ride this beast again.

He wiped and sprayed, and cursed the whole time. Two hours of this work was wearing on both of us. A mother screamed at us about allowing her thirteen-year-old daughter to ride the Tail. The girl had gotten dizzy and vomited as soon as she exited the perimeter. Another job for James.

Of course Mom hadn’t even missed the teenager for thirty minutes. And then an elderly couple claimed that the man had suffered a severe stroke while on the ride and they wanted to know who to sue. The guy took meticulous notes while I pointed out Moe Bradley’s trailer.

Two women who professed to be married lesbians threatened us with a sexual harassment suit because we wouldn’t allow their fourteen-month-old baby on the ride, and a group of eighth graders from Delray attempted to take thirty water balloons onto the Tail. Of course we denied the request. I could just imagine thirty water balloons reining down on the unsuspecting people below as these cocky middle schoolers laughed it up above the masses. And the worst thing was they were young kids and could all probably withstand the crazy tail gyrations.

As the sun soared high in the heavens, we kept glancing at our watches, the minutes slowly approaching noon. There was no sign of our replacements. Charlie and Bo appeared to have disappeared into Harry’s Hideaway, and we wondered if they’d ever come out.

“Son, it appears we may be at our post a little longer than anticipated.”

I glanced at the strip mall, peering through a steady stream of customers. No sign of our full-time operators.

“So what are our options?”

I looked again. Nothing.

“Skip?”

“
Our
options?”

“Amigo, you stand to make a couple of bucks on this project. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

I glanced at my cheap Timex. We had one minute left on our shift. “I’ve about had it with the Tail, James.”

I had a college degree, for God’s sake. This wasn’t what I’d signed on to do. Operating a carnival ride? It was like flipping hamburgers, or emptying bedpans at a nursing home. Pushing buttons at an amusement park was not a job for me. These were jobs for people who—people who had fortitude. Stamina. People who were a whole lot braver than I was. Thank God for people who could do those jobs. I wanted to hide behind a desk, never ride a Dragon Tail again, and make two or three hundred thousand dollars a year.

People who flipped burgers, emptied bedpans, ran rides? They were the backbone of our country.

“Compadre, we can’t just walk away from this.” He glanced out at the line starting to form for the next ride. There were probably forty people, and we’d see another forty before it was over.

“No,
you
can’t walk away from it. It’s your training program, James. Me? I’m just here for the—” and I finally got the joke, “the ride.”

Charlie and Bo stepped behind the railing, from where I do not know. Walking up to me, Bo stood two inches from my face. “Thanks for taking over, guys. Maybe you appreciate the Tail a little more now?”

There wasn’t a trace of alcohol on his breath.

“We do. We really do. Boy, do we appreciate what you go through.” James was almost sobbing.

Charlie pulled a rag from the stand that housed the four buttons. He ran it over the red, yellow, and green switches. Heaven forbid he would get any of our germs on his fingers.

“So you guys are private investigators, eh?”

I glanced at James and just shook my head. This was getting old.

“I’m the damned marketing director for this operation. That’s all there is to it.” James folded his arms across his chest.