Dunk

Copyright © 2002 by David Lubar

All rights reserved. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, New York, in 2002.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Lubar, David.
Dunk / by David Lubar.
p. cm.

Summary: While hoping to work as the clown in an amusement park dunk tank on the New Jersey shore the summer before his junior year in high school, Chad faces his best friend's serious illness, hassles with police, and the girl that got away.

[1. Amusement parks—Fiction. 2. Clowns—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Sick—Fiction. 5. Beaches—Fiction. 6. New Jersey—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L96775 Du 2002
[Fic]—dc21 2001058428

ISBN 978-0-618-19455-1
hardcover

ISBN 978-0-618-43909-6 paperback

eISBN 978-0-547-26397-4
v2.0615

For my dear friend and fellow writer Marilyn Singer
;
who knows the value of a good laugh

H
IS VOICE RIPPED THE AIR LIKE A CHAIN SAW
. T
HE HARSH CRY
sliced straight through my guts the first time I heard it. The sound cut deep, but the words cut deeper. He shredded any fool who wandered near the cage. He drove people wild. He drove them crazy. Best of all, he drove them to blow wads of cash for a chance to plunge his sorry butt into a tank of slimy water.

This was just about the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Which made it that much more amazing, since I lived in one of the coolest places on the planet and I'd seen some of the freakiest things man or nature had ever created.

I was on my way down the boardwalk to get a slice of pizza at Salvatore's. Today was the start of the tourist season. The crowds were thin because the ocean water was still chilly. That wouldn't last. In a few weeks the place would be mobbed. It would stay that way until the end of summer—wall-to-wall tourists frantically packing as much activity as possible into their vacation at the Jersey shore. I hoped someone special would also return. But if I thought about her too much right now, I knew I'd go crazy.

Thin crowds or not, a dozen people had gathered near the tank, watching, listening, laughing at the marks. That's what you call someone who's about to play a game—a mark. Or a vic, which is short for victim. I'd seen dunk tanks before, but I'd never paid much attention to them. Not until now.

The whole tank wasn't more than five feet wide and maybe eight feet high. The bottom half was filled with water, the top half was protected by iron bars. The protection was
definitely
necessary. A shelf on a hinge ran along the back wall. A metal target attached to a lever stuck out from the left side of the booth. The other end of the lever supported the shelf. Behind the target, a large sheet of canvas hung from a wire stretched between two poles. A wooden sign in front of the cage simply said:

DUNK THE BOZO
3 BALLS FOR $2

That pretty much explained the object of the game.

Ten feet in front of the cage, a guy with a change apron—a barker—sold balls to the players. This barker didn't have to do much barking—the game sold itself. I edged closer but stayed behind the crowd so I wouldn't attract the Bozo's attention. I shouldn't have worried. He wouldn't waste his breath on some kid who looked like he didn't have more than five bucks in his pocket. What would be the point in that? He sure wasn't there because he liked falling into a pool of bacteria soup. He was there to rake in the dollars.

“
Hey!
” the Bozo shouted at a guy near the front of the small crowd. “Where'd you get that wig? You scalp it off a poodle?”

The crowd laughed and the guy's face turned the color of a bad sunburn. His right hand jerked up toward his head, as if he wanted to adjust the fake hair that was plastered there.

“Yeah, you,” the Bozo shouted, pointing straight at the guy, turning himself into a nightmare version of an Uncle Sam poster. “What's the matter? Did you get glue in your ears when you pasted on that wig?”

The mark yanked his wallet from his pocket and whipped out a couple bucks. The barker traded the money for three baseballs he'd grabbed from a plastic five-gallon bucket at his feet. He did all this with one hand while holding a half-eaten hot dog in the other. I noticed mustard and ketchup smeared on the change apron tied over his belt. Crumbs littered the front of his shirt and dangled from the shaggy fringe of his mustache, making me think of snowflakes on a pine branch.

“Imagine that,” the Bozo said, his voice growing less harsh as he spoke to the crowd. It was almost like he was sharing a secret with us. “Somewhere there's a poor dog running around with a bare butt so this guy can have a curly head. Woof, woof.”

“Oof,” the mark grunted as he threw the first ball.

Thwunk!
The ball smacked the large sheet of canvas, missing the target by at least a foot. The back of the mark's neck grew even redder.

“Hhhhhaaaaawwwwhhhoooooheeeeeeeyyaaaa!” The Bozo leaned close to the microphone that hung from the top of the cage and let loose with a screaming laugh, another chain saw through my guts. “If that's your best throw, you'd better just mail the other balls to me. Anybody got a stamp?” His grin was amplified by a huge red smile. He wore a clown's face—white forehead and cheeks, black stars around the eyes, red painted nose. Like most clowns, he was scary as hell.

Thwunk!
Ball two. Nothing but canvas. It sounded like a pro wrestler getting body slammed.

“If I had your arm, I'd trade it for a leg,” the Bozo screamed. “Hhhhhaaaaawwwwhhhoooooheeeeeeeyyaaaa!”

Above us, a flock of circling sea gulls squawked in agreement.

The mark, his face as red as the Bozo's nose, hurled the last ball so hard he nearly fell over. I could feel my own shoulder muscles burning in sympathy.

Thaaaawunnnk!
I jumped back as the baseball smacked the canvas. A couple people chuckled, but most of the crowd murmured sounds of sympathy. They were beginning to root for this clumsy David to luck out and drown Goliath.

I braced for the laugh, but the Bozo surprised me. “Aw, shucks,” he said, quietly. “That was really dose. I was sure you had me that time.” He looked down for a moment, as if he'd lost interest in the guy. Then, before the mark was even two steps away, the Bozo snapped his head back up and shouted, “Loooooooserrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

The word stretched out like a cheap motorcycle engine stuck in first gear.

I couldn't believe it. The mark spun back so fast, I thought his wig would fly off. His hand was already digging for his wallet. He wasn't a person anymore—he was a puppet. The Bozo had control.

The guy missed again with all three balls. Before the last ball had even stopped rolling, he'd bought another round. This time his third throw nicked the edge of the target, but not hard enough to trip the lever under the Bozo's seat. The crowd let out a sigh of disappointment.

The poor vic went through twelve dollars before he finally nailed the target, sending the Bozo plunging into the water. It caught me by surprise. He'd missed so many times, I figured he'd never score.

“So there,” the mark said as he strutted away, smirking. Amazing—he'd just blown more money than a lot of people make in an hour, and he was leaving empty-handed. No prize of any kind. But he still acted like a winner.

In less than a blink, the Bozo lifted the platform, locked it in place, and scampered back to his seat. He reminded me of a seal slithering out of a pool. As he flicked his head to the side, throwing a shower of water from his hair, I realized he'd already picked his next vic.

“Hey, lady,” he said, staring at a woman who was laughing at him. “I may be wet, but you're funny looking. And tomorrow, guess what? I'll be dry.”

He paused for an instant as the crowd grew quiet, then added, “Yeah, I'll be dry, and you'll still be funny looking. Haaaaaaahhooeeee!”

Thwunk
.

Thwunk
.

Thwunk
.

She did better than the guy. It only took her eight bucks to get satisfaction and revenge. She walked away with a dark smile.

Not me.

My shoes might as well have been nailed to the boardwalk. I forgot all about pizza. Even the drifting scent of candy from the NutShack over to my left didn't lure me away. An hour passed. Maybe two. I watched and listened, unable to tear myself from the performance of this outrageous clown.

For the first time in my life, I knew something for dead certain. Some way, somehow, I had to have a turn. Not throwing balls at the target. I wasn't going to waste money trying to dunk the Bozo. No, I wanted to be on the other side. I wanted to make the marks dance like puppets on a string. I wanted to shout and scream at the world from the safety of a cage.

I wanted to be the Bozo.

W
HEN
I
FINALLY LEFT TO GET THAT SLICE OF PIZZA, A WONDERFUL
scene filled my mind. I imagined the Bozo sitting in the back of Ms. Hargrove's class. She'd been my history teacher last year. All she ever said to me was, “You'll never get anywhere in this world, Chad Turner.” Just because of what happened the first day. Things were fine until I noticed that every third or fourth sentence, she'd nod her head and say, “That's the truth.” I couldn't help trying to guess when those words would pop out next. I got pretty good at it after a while. Then I started keeping count. I swear I was hypnotized.
Blah blah, blabitty blah. That's the truth. Blah blah, babble, blah
.
That's the truth. Blah blah. . . .
Her words all became sound without meaning.

I was so busy listening to how she talked, and watching this little flap of skin under her chin wiggle with each head nod, that I forgot to pay any attention to what she was talking about. Or who she was talking to. Then, too late, I realized she was talking to me.

“You. I just asked you a question.”

I tried to sort back through her words and figure out what she'd asked. I thought I remembered her saying something about Columbus. “Fourteen ninety-two?” I guessed.

She glared at me. I looked past her to the board. No clues there.

“Well?” Ms. Hargrove turned up the temperature on the glare.

I knew what I wanted to say.
Don't ask me. You're the one who was alive back then
. But I wasn't in the mood for a trip to the office. I'd practically lived there the year before. “I don't know. . . .” I admitted.

She lowered her head and unleashed the full power of the lasers that lurked beneath her eyebrows. “Of course you don't know. It's obvious you weren't even paying attention. That's the truth. I can't understand why they let troublemakers like you into my class. You'll never amount to anything. That's the truth.”

From then on, she seemed angry every time she looked in my direction.
That's definitely the truth
. She never gave me a break. I'd bet the Bozo wouldn't give her a break, either. I could just see her face when he let loose.

Hey, you! Why don't you try smiling for a change? Afraid your teeth will fall out?

Thawunk
. She'd throw the chalk. Not even close.
Thawunk
. The eraser. Missed by a mile, leaving a patch of chalk dust on the wall. The Bozo would shoot back another stunning line.
Thawunk
. Flying stapler. Another miss. As the scene played out in my mind, Ms. Hargrove emptied her desk of every throwable object, then finished up by yanking out her false teeth and hurling them at the Bozo. They shattered with a satisfying crash against the wall. Molars went flying. Canines bounced on the floor like Tic Tacs.