Joe Lansdale - All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

“Well, we got carnival tickets,” Tony said.

45

It was nighttime when we got to the carnival, and it was shiny with lights and metal rides reflecting light. It was so bright you couldn’t see the sky. The air was thick with the smells of hot dogs, cotton candy, and popcorn.

We hadn’t no more than given our tickets and gone inside, when we saw Bad Tiger and Timmy. They didn’t see us. They were across the way, walking. They both looked rough, like they hadn’t changed their clothes in days. They each had a growth of beard, and they had a slump to their walk, like their feet hurt and their souls were no fresher.

Even though I’d been half expecting them to show up, my jaw still dropped. On some level, I think I figured they’d given it all up and we’d never see them again. Or that there wasn’t any chance of us showing up at the same time. But there they were.

They were wandering between gaming stands and stacks of cheap teddy bear prizes. We saw them walk in front of the freak show tent with crude paintings of freaks on the sides, bearded women and pinheads and wolf boys and so on. Barkers were beckoning to them, calling out to “Come and give it a try.” They didn’t break stride. Like us, they were on a mission.

They were going in the opposite direction of Strangler’s trailer, which meant they were using guesswork. After a moment, they passed out of our sight.

I caught Jane’s shoulder, and she said, “Yeah, I saw them.”

Tony said, “I can run around to Strangler’s trailer. I can warn him.”

“You’re nothing but a kid,” Jane said.

“Yeah,” Tony said, “but I’m a kid that can run fast.”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he was gone.

We waited there, nervous as long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. Time went by and the rides circled and swung and dipped and rose, and people yelled and screamed as they did. The carnival ride we were standing next to vibrated like a drunk man about to fall down.

After enough time passed to have planted a crop, harvested it, and sold it on the edge of the street, we saw Tony running toward us. He was all sweated up and he was gasping for air. He stopped in front of us, bent over, and held his side.

“Run all the way there,” he said, “and run all the way back.”

“We can figure that,” Jane said. “What about Strangler?”

“He wasn’t there.”

“Dang it,” Jane said.

And then we heard over a loudspeaker, “Come one, come all! Strangler Nugowski will take on anyone! Prize money twenty-five dollars green American. Come one, come all! Take on Strangler and prove yourself a man! Come one, come all!”

“Oh great,” Jane said. “Bad Tiger and Timmy might as well be wolves and Strangler a pork chop.”

We went swiftly toward the voice that kept repeating the challenge. We finally ended up in a crowd around a boxing ring raised above the ground maybe five feet. There were steps that led up to it, and right then we saw Strangler jerk off his sweatshirt and go up the steps, like any man going off to work. Some people in the crowd cheered, some booed. He tossed the sweatshirt out of the ring and onto the ground.

Pushing through the crowd, we got yelled at, and threatened, and Jane even got pinched. She slapped a man so hard on the side of the head he went to his knees. He looked up at her like such a thing had never occurred to him.

“Keep your hands to yourself, simpleton,” she said, and then we were moving again.

When we finally nudged and shoved our way up to the front of the ring, a man was already in there with Strangler. We tried to get Strangler’s attention, but with the way the crowd was hooting and calling, our words got pushed down by the noise. We might as well have been using sign language.

The man in the ring was as big as Strangler, and younger. He came at Strangler, and Strangler jabbed him with a left, and the man went back a step. Strangler dove and grabbed the man’s legs and hit him in the stomach with his head and took him down. When the man hit the mat, he hit so hard I was a little sick to my stomach. In the next moment, Strangler had the man by the ankle with both hands and had a leg thrown over the man’s knee.

The man actually yelled “Uncle!”

Strangler let him go and stood up. The man got up. The referee took hold of Strangler’s hand, preparing to raise it.

The man was supposed to be through, but he decided to throw a low blow at Strangler. The shot caught him in the groin. Strangler, unlike Timmy when Jane kicked him, took the blow and turned his head and looked at the man in a way that made me feel as if the world had just turned dark. Strangler jerked free of the ref, grabbed the man around the waist, and ran with him until he hit the ropes with the man’s back. He squeezed like he was trying to get grease out of a tube, and the man passed out.

Strangler just dropped him. A couple of men on the sidelines pulled the unconscious tough guy through the ropes and took him away.

Strangler called out, “Next.”

We got on the steps that led up to the ring, hoping to get close enough to yell out to Strangler that the gangsters were there and looking for him, but the referee yelled for us to get down.

Strangler looked and saw us.

“They’re here,” I said, loud as I could.

Strangler let what I said hang in the air before he mouthed, “Don’t matter.”

Another man entered the ring, and Strangler went back to it. This guy was burly and only wearing pants and a T-shirt. He was a little bit more work for Strangler, but I think the truth was Strangler was giving the crowd a show. The last one had been too easy. The two of them flopped this way, and then they flopped the other way, and it all ended with the challenger pinned to the floor with Strangler’s knee in his neck.

After three more challengers lost to Strangler, it was over. No one else wanted to step into the ring.

I looked this way and that for Bad Tiger and Timmy but didn’t see them.

Strangler lifted up a ring rope and stepped under it onto the steps. As we backed down to let him pass, he picked up his sweatshirt. “You ought not to have come back with them around.”

“You need to run,” Jane said. “They were bound to find you, and now they have.”

She pointed. Timmy was standing at the back of the crowd, which was beginning to break up.

“Me and him got to talk,” Strangler said, and headed in that direction. But Timmy just turned and walked away briskly.

“I think he doesn’t want to shoot you in this crowd,” Jane said. “But I don’t think he’s giving up.”

Strangler started across the lot carrying his sweatshirt. We followed.

“Go home, kids,” he said.

“Ain’t got no home,” Tony said.

“Then go away.”

“Why don’t you run?” Jane said.

“ ’Cause I probably deserve what I’m going to get.”

“Why? You gave the money back,” she said.

We had crossed the lot now, and we could see Strangler’s trailer. Bad Tiger was sitting on the steps smiling at us. I suppose we should have broke and ran right then, but we didn’t. Like ducks, we followed Strangler to his trailer. Just before we got to the steps, Bad Tiger stood up, reached inside his coat, pulled out a gun, and held it to his side.

“Howdy, Strangler,” Bad Tiger said.

“Just get it over with,” Strangler said. “Kids ain’t got nothing to do with it.”

“Sure they do,” said a voice behind us. “We’re all old friends.”

I turned and there was Timmy. He had his coat thrown back and his hand was across his chest, resting on the butt of his gun in its shoulder holster.

Timmy said, “I always wanted to try you, Strangler.”