Ralph Todd's 21st Century Shows Diversions!!! Twin rows of tents swallowed anyone who walked through the gate, but not before running them past roach-coach food stands and game arcades that Wilson suspected were magnets for pedophiles. Everything looked patched together and poorly maintained. Wilson thought that if this was the twenty-first century they could keep it.
The manager's trailer was at the opposite end of the midway behind the tents that housed the featured attractions: Whores billed as "exotic dancers," a freak show featuring a three-eyed cow, and, behind a final banner, the midway's star attraction, the Human Fireball… See him flash thru the sky like a blazing meteor!!! Wilson cynically noted that every banner ended with three exclamation points. The future was hyperbole.
A dwarf who smelled of vegetable soup pointed Wilson between the tents to a silver Airstream trailer. It was dull and spotted with grime. A small sign on the door read MANAGER. The manager would be a Mr. Jacob Lenz, with whom Wilson had spoken. Mr. Lenz would be expecting him.
Wilson rapped at the door and let himself in without waiting to be asked. Time was money.
"Mr. Lenz? Ken Wilson. I appreciate your cooperation."
Wilson offered his hand.
Lenz was a broad, heavy man with lined skin and small eyes. He stood to take Wilson 's hand, but he didn't look happy about it.
"I just wanna get this straight, you know? I don't want any trouble with the family."
"There's no trouble. He's done this before."
"I can't keep track of all the people around here. Kids come, they go, I don't know who belongs to who. I just wanna do the right thing."
"I understand."
Wilson took out a picture and held it up. It was a black-and-white school photograph taken two years earlier.
"Now let's be sure we're talking about the same boy. Is this Elvis Cole?"
"Yeah, that's him, but he tells everyone his name is Jimmie."
"His name was Philip James Cole until his mother changed it. He used to go by Jimmie."
"She changed his name to Elvis?"
Wilson ignored the question because the answer left a sour ache in his stomach. Wilson felt bad for the kid. Here was this little boy, one day out of the blue, his mother changed his name to Elvis; not Don or Joey-Elvis. Here's this poor kid with no idea who his father is because the crazy bitch won't tell anyone, and bammo-she feeds him a bullshit story that his father was a human cannonball. Wilson believed that parents should be licensed.
"Does the boy know I've come for him?"
"You didn't want me to say, so I didn't say. You want me to get him?"
"It's best if you take me to him. That way he won't run."
"Whatever you want. I jus' don't want no trouble with the family."
"There's no trouble."
"I'm glad to get rid of him, all the trouble he made. He was a pain in the ass."
Wilson followed the manager out past a giant tarpaulin showing a stripper crooking her finger. The paint was faded and her hairstyle was ten years out of date. A voice balloon over her head read: C'mere, big boy!!!
Wilson clucked to himself.
Three exclamation points.
These people were something.
Elvis Cole
Elvis Cole, fourteen years old, heard about Ralph Todd's 21st Century Shows Diversions from a kid named Brucie Chenski who lived in the trailer park where Elvis and his mother stayed when his Aunt Lynn threw them out. Brucie was sixteen years old, the only other teenage boy in the park, and a sociopathic liar.
First day they met, Brucie told Elvis his older brother was a dealer and the two of them were going to San Francisco to get Free Love. Everything Brucie said was like that: large dramatic adventures involving his brother, dope, and Female Conquest. Elvis never believed him. Then one day Brucie said, hey, bro, my brother and I fucked these whores at the carnival. The part about the carnival nailed Elvis's attention like an iron spike through his feet.
What carnival?
The carnival out past the water tower, Brucie says, Jesus, they got this one girl was in Playboy, I saw her picture right out of the magazine, tits out to here, they got rides, a retarded midget that eats worms, these strippers who are total slut whores, my brother sold this girl some acid and she sucked our dicks while -
Elvis interrupted.
They got a human cannonball?
Yeah…
Elvis walked away, just like that, not even caring when Brucie called out the carnival was already gone.
Elvis hitched a ride to the water tower, which sat