Robert Crais - The Forgotten Man

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 on a great wide pasture at the edge of town. As Brucie warned, the carnival was gone and the pasture was empty. Elvis kicked through litter for almost two hours until he found a poster that showed the dates and locations for the carnival's next four stops. That was enough.

Elvis hitchhiked to the highway, where, twenty minutes later, two college girls gave him a ride. He caught up with Ralph Todd's midway two days later, one hundred forty-six miles from home.

He had gone to find his father.

That first night, when Elvis finally reached the carnival, he saw a huge banner spread across the gates to the midway that showed a blazing man flying through the air -

See Him EXPLODE from a Cannon!!!

See Him BURST into Flames!!!

See Him DEFY Death!!!

The AMAZING Human FIREBALL!!!

every night at 9pm!!!

It was five minutes before nine when Elvis went through the gates.

A crowd was gathered at the end of the midway. Elvis could see the cannon over the heads of the people in front of him: a long red, white, and blue tube as big around as a manhole, lying atop a flatbed trailer. The strip show was on one side (SEE exotic GO-GO DANCERS from the FAR EAST!!!) and the freak show on the other (SEE the LSD BABY!!! DEFORMED by MOD science!!!).

Elvis shoved his way to the front of the crowd only to find the crowd had gathered for the freak show. A sign hanging from the cannon read: NO SHOW TONIGHT.

Elvis felt a frantic despair, like he had lost his last good chance of finding his father, then pushed back through the mob. He found a ticket kiosk where he asked when the Fireball was going to perform.

A woman with two missing front teeth said, "Might not be for three or four days. Eddie hadda fly to Chicago."

"He's coming back?"

"Sure, kid, but he won't catch up to us until the next town. You're gonna miss his show."

Three or four days. That wasn't so bad. Elvis decided he would wait for three or four weeks, if that's what it took. All he had to do was wait. All he had to do was be around when Eddie got back.

Eddie.

Elvis.

Same first letter.

Maybe that's why his mother had changed his name.

Elvis drifted along the midway until the carnival closed. He was hungry and cold, but he hid in the tall grass behind the tents until the grounds were empty and the thrill rides were dark, and then he slipped back into the midway. He slept beneath the cannon. Saying the name out loud.

Eddie.

The next morning, Elvis watched as the roustabouts and carnies emerged from trucks and trailers to begin their day. They streamed across the midway into a large kitchen tent set up behind the trucks. Elvis fell in with the crowd. He joined a line and was given a tray filled with eggs and French toast, pretending to be just another teenager in the crowd.

That afternoon he met Tina Sanchez.

He was walking along the midway past a ball-toss concession when a woman cursed angrily in Spanish. She stood on a bucket, straining on her tiptoes to reach a row of stuffed cats on a very high shelf.

Elvis said, "Can I get that for you?"

She twisted around to see him, then stepped down from the bucket. She was short and sturdy, and almost as old as his grandfather.

"Unless I grow another six inches, I guess you'll have to. Climb over the counter there, young mister."

Elvis hoisted himself over the low counter into the booth. Wire baskets filled with worn softballs were lined beneath the counter, and the side walls of the booth hung with rainbow-colored animals. Rows of fluffy silhouette cats lined shelves at the far end of the booth. You got three balls for a quarter; if you knocked down three cats, you got a prize.