Dunk (4 page)

“Come on. Let's just get away from here.” I headed down the boardwalk.

“And Anthony's a jerk,” Jason added as he caught up with me. “He's going to end up shot dead or in jail.”

“Or shot dead in jail,” I said.

Jason nodded.

We walked past the first pier, Sea Squall Mall. There were five piers on the boardwalk. Three were huge, with lots of rides—Wild Willy's, Panic Pier, and Thrillville. The smaller piers weren't very interesting. One was a public area with benches, but no rides or anything. The other—the one we were passing—just had stores on it.

Neither of us wanted to shop, so we moved on to Wild Willy's Pier, home of two awesome coasters and a half dozen other extreme rides that turned you upside down and inside out. “Hey,” I said, remembering the incredible performance I'd stumbled across that afternoon, “you have to check this out. The guy's amazing.” I wove my way around the games, leading Jason past the simulator ride and the NutShack. I headed for the right side of the wide entrance to the pier.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“You'll see. This guy's totally unbelievable. Just don't get too close. He'll rip you right in half, chew you up, and spit you out before you even know what happened.”

“That sounds like fun.”

I rushed ahead. I didn't want to stay for long—I had somewhere else to go to. But I wanted Jason to see and hear the stunning performance I'd witnessed that afternoon.

“Hey, ugly,” the Bozo called.

Jason caught up with me.

“Yeah, you, ugly,” the guy in the tank said. “You're real ugly. You know that? They should call you Mr. Ugly.” He looked toward the left side of the crowd, but didn't bother pointing at anyone in particular.

“What's the big deal?” Jason asked.

“Shoot. That's not him,” I said. This Bozo was a lot heavier than the other guy. He wore pretty much the same clown makeup, but on him it just looked like someone who'd made a last-minute decision to go to a Halloween party. He wasn't creepy or spooky or much of anything. Just kind of pathetic.

Nobody took the bait. “Aren't you fat,” the Bozo said, turning toward another part of the crowd. “You are so fat. They should call you Mr. Fat.”

“This rots,” Jason said. “The average three-year-old is sharper than that joker. Let's go.”

“Yeah.
I
could do better. A lot better.”

I stepped away. Behind me, I heard the Bozo say, “Aren't you stupid. They should call you Mr. Stupid.”

Jason tapped my shoulder and nodded toward the barker running the game. He was the same guy from before, and he still held a part-eaten hot dog. I hoped it was a different one. “Yeah, I'll bet you could do better. Why don't you ask him to try you out?”

“Not now,” I said. “He's busy.”

There must have been something in my voice. Jason stared at me for a second, then said, “Good grief, you sound like you'd really want a chance to be a Bozo. Please tell me I'm wrong.” Sometimes he had this spooky way of knowing what was on my mind.

I shrugged. “It looks like fun.” I could imagine the Bozo tearing into that store owner. And the cops.

“You're insane. You really think that would be fun?”

“Sort of.”

Jason looked at me like I'd just admitted I wanted to try out for the lead role in
The Nutcracker
. “I guess everyone needs a goal in life. If that's what you want, go ask the guy.”

“I told you, he's busy.” There were too many people around right now. I didn't want to take a chance of getting shot down in front of a bunch of strangers. Besides, if you don't ask people for things, they can't say no.

“He isn't busy. Nobody wants to dunk the clown. He's already all wet. . . . Hey, mister,” Jason called.

I grabbed his arm and dragged him away. He let me pull him, but he kept shouting until the tank was out of sight, “Mister! Mister Barker! My friend wants a job. Hey, mister. My friend's a real clown. I swear. He'd be perfect. We even call him Captain Clown. King Clown. Chad the Clown. He's the clown with a million names.”

“Cut it out,” I told him. “People are staring at us.”

“Then stop dragging me.”

I let go of his arm. “The other Bozo was really good,” I said. “You'll see.”

“I'm sure I will,” Jason said. “We've got all summer.”

He kept talking, but I tuned him out. There was something much more important ahead of us. Coming up, to the right, was the one thing that would make the difference between this being just another summer or maybe being the greatest summer of my life.

P
AST
W
ILD
W
ILLY'S, THE BOARDWALK GREW WIDER
. T
HERE WERE
game booths and food stalls all along the ocean side. On the street side most of one block was filled with a big arcade attached to a fudge shop. Smart planning—while parents waited in line to buy fudge, their kids played video games.

Three booths stood around the arcade entrance. Two of them meant nothing to me. One, on the left, was a wheel. You bet on a number and pushed a button to start a big spinner, then pushed it again to stop the spinner. If you won, you got a box of candy. At a glance, the odds looked pretty good. Six numbers were painted really big around the center of the wheel. But if you followed the lines between them, the actual winning space was real small. And each number was painted in two colors, splitting it in half. So, to win, you didn't just have to pick number five, for example, but blue five and not white five. All together, the wheel had eighteen different numbers crammed around the outer rim. With two colors on each number, the odds against winning were thirty-six to one. At fifty cents a chance, you'd spend an average of eighteen dollars to win a five-dollar box of candy. Nice profit. But good odds or bad odds, I wasn't interested in candy.

The booth on the right side of the arcade was a water race. People competed against each other, trying to pop a balloon by shooting a stream of water into a target. It was an honest game, with a winner each time. You couldn't get the large prize unless there were enough players. Two to six players meant a small prize. Seven to ten meant medium. Eleven or twelve meant large. Since each person plunked down two bucks to play, the game raked in at least twenty-two dollars when a large prize was at stake. The prize probably cost them less than three bucks. Another nice profit. But I wasn't interested in popping balloons, either.

Between the wheel and the water race, in front of the arcade, was the Cat-a-Pult. That was the game I cared about. To play, you put a small stuffed cat in a little scoop at the top of a miniature catapult, pulled the shaft back, and let go. The cat flew through the air toward a group of metal buckets sitting on a rotating wooden disk. If you missed, but were close enough to hit the side of a bucket, someone working the game would usually shout, “Your cat kicked the bucket!” Sick, but sort of funny.

As an added touch, the disk was covered with sand. I guess it was supposed to make the place look like a beach, but I thought it looked more like a giant litter box. The game was the kind you could walk around, with five catapults set up on each of the four sides. The workers got real busy if there was a crowd. Speakers attached to the corners of the booth let loose with a taped cat yowl every half minute or so.

It wasn't hard to win, and you got three chances for a dollar. But there was a trade-up. One win earned you a small prize. You could trade three small prizes for a medium. Then three mediums for a large. In boardwalk language,
large
was nowhere near the end of the line. It went on from there up through extra large, giant, jumbo, and super. Yet another lesson for the mathematically challenged. I figured it out once. You'd need 729 small prizes to earn one super.

“Young love is so touching,” Jason said as I scanned the booth.

“Cut it out. We were just friends.”
Barely friends
, I thought. There was a chance she wouldn't even remember me. I remembered her. All fall. All winter. And all spring.

“She's not here,” Jason said.

“I know. I can see that. Maybe she's coming later.”
Or maybe she's not coming
.

“You going to stand there staring all night like a lost puppy?” Jason asked.

“Maybe.”

He pointed at the two girls working the booth. “They'd probably be able to tell you whether she's around.” The girls, both about my age, wore red T-shirts decorated with a black-and-white drawing of a rather startled cat sailing through the air.

I shook my head. “I'll check back later.”

“No. You need to be put out of your misery.” Jason walked up to one of the girls. “Hey, is there a young lady from Montana working here? About this tall,” he said, holding his hand, palm down, against the middle of his chest. “Long red hair. Lousy taste in guys.”

“Don't know. I just started today. Sorry.” She shrugged and smiled at Jason.

“Thanks.” He glanced back to me. “She doesn't know. She just started working here today. Sorry.”

“I heard. Come on.” I didn't want to give Jason a chance to say anything else.

Too late.

“Listen,” Jason said to the girl, “if she shows up, tell her Chad was asking for her. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“Don't forget. Chad. With a C. Rhymes with bad.”

She nodded and went back to work.

“You jerk,” I said, hitting Jason on the shoulder.

“You're welcome,” he said. “Always happy to help a buddy. Hey, I just realized Chad rhymes with mad, too. And sad. And Trinidad.” He turned around like he was going to share his discovery with the girl at the Cat-a-Pult.

I grabbed his arm and spun him back. As we walked toward Panic Pier at the midpoint of the boardwalk, my mind returned to last summer. She'd been there the whole season. But, just my luck, I didn't meet her until the end of August. Gwen O'Sullivan. From Montana. Last year, one happy day, I'd wandered past the Cat-a-Pult when a little boy was playing. He wasn't strong enough to get the cats anywhere near the buckets. This girl inside the booth was helping him, sort of guiding the cats through the air, making sure the boy won a prize. I stopped to watch.

The prizes hung from hooks along the top of the booth. The one the little kid wanted—a tiny plush turtle—was high up. The girl had to stand on the counter. As she grabbed for a turtle, she started to slip. I reached up and put a hand against her side, steadying her.

She clutched my arm for an instant as she caught her balance. A surge shot through my body, jolting my heart and robbing me of the ability to breathe. I felt like I'd made contact with a power line.

“Thanks,” she said. I know this sounds corny, but her voice—even that one word—was like music. She plucked the prize from its clip and hopped back down to the ground.

“Sure.” My own voice sounded like the croak of a frog. My body felt like it was made of liquid, with nothing but the thinnest layer of skin to keep me from flowing into a puddle across the boards at my feet.

Her eyes were green, with brown flecks.

“Here you go,” she said, handing the stuffed turtle to the boy. She glanced back at me and said, “My hero.”

Her red hair, laced with copper and gold, fell halfway down her back, shimmering like polished metal.

I drifted away, clueless of what more to say and afraid that if I opened my mouth nothing would come out but braying donkey cries.

The next day I walked past the Cat-a-Pult at least twenty times. She was always busy, working hard. I tried to catch her eye, but she never looked my way. The day after that I made the ultimate sacrifice. I dug out my money and played. For the first five dollars, I didn't say anything. As I handed her my sixth dollar, I tried to think of something clever.

“Nice game.”
You dork
. That sounded so lame, I cringed.

But she smiled. Oh, lord, she had small dimples in her cheeks.

Somehow, by my tenth dollar, we were exchanging full sentences. To tell the truth, she was providing most of the full ones while I was building my way up from one word to two or three at a time.
Montana. Wow. Sounds cool. Like it there? Like it here?

Montana seemed as far away as China. I'd never been to any state that didn't share a border with New Jersey. I'd never been anywhere that didn't look just like New Jersey.

Two days and thirty dollars later, I was actually talking with her—hanging out at the booth and chatting whenever she wasn't too busy. I found out she was staying with her cousin, who worked downtown.

The day after that we took a walk together during her break. For two more days we walked, while I listened to the music of her voice and tried to find the courage to ask her out. On the next afternoon, as we strolled along the boardwalk, I got ready to mention that there was a really good movie playing in the theater on Thirty-fourth Street. Before I could even start, she said, “Good-bye,” and told me she had to go pack her suitcase. The morning after, as far as I knew, she got on a plane back to Montana. Or maybe China.

I'd never even thought to get her address. Gwen O'Sullivan. Short for Guinevere. “My dad's a big fan of King Arthur,” she'd explained.

When she'd said good-bye, she'd said one other thing. “See you next year, Chad Turner.”

Those words, and the memory of her voice, had carried me through three seasons.

Next year was finally here.

W
HACK
!

I jumped as Jason smacked me on the back of the head.

“Wake up,” he said. “You look like a druggie.”

“I was just thinking,” I said. I noticed we'd covered more than a block while my mind had traveled back a year.

“Summer's no time for thinking,” Jason said. “Save it for school.”