Joe Lansdale - All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

“If you say so,” I said.

“Watch your hands,” Junior said, and closed the door.

A moment later, I was driving the truck up the little road that led out to where Junior told me I should go.

As we rode along, Jane said, “We’re like Odysseus.”

“Who?”

“Odysseus. The Romans called him Ulysses.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He was an ancient traveler who went to war, and then, after ten years of it, he decided to go home. On his way he ran into all kinds of problems, and it didn’t look like he was going to make it, but he got through them and finally did go home. Of course, he had to put a giant’s eye out with a sharp stick and kill a bunch of people, but he made it.”

“We aren’t going home. We left home.”

“So we did. Well, maybe it’s more like we’re Jason and the Argonauts. I’ll be Jason and you be somebody on the boat.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“She reads a lot,” Tony said.

“Jason took a boat with heroes on it and went in search of the Golden Fleece.”

“Did he find it?”

“He did,” she said. “Point is, he left home, did a great deed, got the fleece, went back home.”

“Are we going back home?” I asked.

“I’m not,” she said.

“Me neither,” I said. “So how’s that like Jason and the whatevers?”

“Argonauts. You’re missing the point. We are having a great adventure. I’m speaking symbolically again.”

“As you noted, I quit school before that lesson.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, grinning. “I did say that, didn’t I. Well. It’s true. But still, we’re having an adventure.”

“Even if we are, we may not be in time to help this Strangler. He could have been dead for days now.”

“Could be,” she said, “but sometimes it’s just about the quest.”

“Strangler might think it’s about us telling him two gangsters who don’t like that he took their stolen money are going to kill him. So for Strangler, it’s not just the quest.”

“That’s an excellent point,” Jane said.

We rode on through the late afternoon until we came to the edge of Tyler. We stopped and got a dollar’s worth of gas at a station; then we stopped at a barbecue joint and got some sandwiches. We took them outside by the building, sat on the steps, and ate them.

While we were eating, Tony got up and went over to look at a poster on a telephone pole near the street.

“Ain’t Strangler spelled like this?” Tony said.

We got up and went over to look at the poster. It was for a carnival. It said, COME DEFEAT OUR MAN AND MAKE SOME MONEY! COME BATTLE THE UNDEFEATED STRANGLER NUGOWSKI! Then there was a painted picture of him that made him look a little like a redheaded movie star.

Underneath, it said there was a carnival that night, and it wasn’t actually in Tyler, but in Lindale. That was where Pretty Boy said the train would go if we didn’t get off. It was where Big Bill took his peas to be canned. I went inside the barbecue joint and asked for directions to Lindale. It wasn’t all that far. We got in the truck and I drove us out of there.

“What luck,” I said.

“No luck to it,” Jane said. “We’re looking for him. We know he’s in the area. His name is Strangler and he beats people up in carnivals.”

“It’s still lucky,” I said. “We might never have seen that poster. Good job, Tony.”

“I liked it. It was bright colored,” Tony said.

As we drove along, we saw a lot of the posters on telephone and lamp poles, and even two big billboards talking about the carnival. Plastered across the billboards in big letters was Strangler’s name, and how he would take on all comers.

“It’s like Bad Tiger and Timmy got a map straight to him,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jane said, “he might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his forehead and send them telegrams. What I want to know is why a thief that’s supposed to be hiding from gangsters is working in a carnival, just like nothing ever happened. What is he thinking?”

“Maybe the answer is simple,” I said.

“And what would that be?” Jane said.

“He’s an idiot.”

43

It was late afternoon when we got to Lindale, and I had to drive around and ask a couple of people before someone could tell me where the carnival was going to take place. Turned out it was out near the Lindale canning factory, and that made me think of peas and Sheriff Big Bill.

When we got there, the carnival was setting up for the night. There were people pulling ropes for tents, and there were people putting together stands for places where you tossed balls at bowling pins or tried to flip rings over bottles, and there were carnival rides going up.

I parked the truck on one side of the highway and we went over to the carnival.

When we were on the lot, a man by a Ferris wheel, who looked like his last bath had been taken about the time of his birth came over to us. He walked like he had one leg in a ditch, and the other was short.

“You ain’t supposed to be here till tonight,” said the carny. “You could get hurt around here before then, things going up and all.”

Jane eyed one of the rides not far from the Ferris wheel. It was some kind of ride that looked as if it would swing way out and high and then swing back close to the ground. It was fastened down by ropes and stakes. A couple of men were positioning and tightening bolts that held the ride in place. She said, “Looks to me like we could get hurt tonight, way those bolts are being fastened. They could come loose and throw the whole lot of the riders out there in the street, not to mention puncturing them to death with all those spokes, dropping the seats on them. I’ll tell you now, I’m not going to ride that stuff.”

“Then don’t,” said the carny, “it’s no skin off my nose.”

“We’re looking for Strangler,” she said. “I’m the captain of his fan club, and he promised an interview for our newsletter. We send it out to thousands.”

“He’s got a fan club?” the carny said.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “He’s modest, and probably didn’t tell you about it. And I’m going to tell you something I shouldn’t, ’cause it might take away from how you feel about him having a fan club. But I’m his cousin.”

“Cousin?”

“That’s right. Truth is, he hired me to come up with the club, but then it caught on. Who knew? But the main thing is, that interview should promote the carnival in the next town, wherever that might be.”

“Atlanta, Texas.”

“Good. Now, where is he?”

“Do you really know Strangler?”

“Boy, do I,” Jane said. “All right. I’m not his cousin, and there’s no fan club.”

“I didn’t think so,” he said.

“Can I speak to you privately?” she said.

“I suppose so.”

Jane walked off with the carny and whispered something and came back to join us. The carny, looking a little stunned, went back to the rickety rides.

“I got directions to Strangler’s trailer,” she said.

“What did you tell him?” I said.

“That I was pregnant with Strangler’s baby.”

“And he believed you?”

“It’s a better story than the fan club one.”

Strangler’s trailer was a colorful one with a painting of him on the side. In the painting he had on wrestling shorts and shoes and he was bare-chested and well muscled. He had bright red hair.

The door to the trailer was open, and we could see Strangler sitting inside on a stool reading a comic book. He had on wrestling shorts, wrestling shoes, and a big gray sweatshirt.

Jane knocked on the side of the trailer, “Knock, knock, Mr. Strangler.”

Strangler looked up. He resembled the painting on the side of the trailer enough you could tell it was him, but he had gone a little to fat. His red hair was touched with gray around the ears.