On My Hands

            “Hazel, would you wipe that off your hands? It looks like a crime scene in here!”

            “Sure Ma, hang on.” I tell her. I duck down under the huge baby-belly, and slink sideways to the sink.

            “It’s so darn small in here.” Mama says.

            “It’s not small in here. You’re big in here.” I laugh. I love sticking my tongue in the new space where both my two front teeth have fallen out. I wish they didn’t have to grow back in. Eric and Skully told me, “Out with the old, and in with the new.” They are the smartest people I know. Except for my mom.

            My Mom is a psychic and she reads tarot cards for the people who come to visit or spend money at the carnival. She has dreams, too. Only when my mama has a dream and its one of her big ones, it’s like, Holy Cow something big will definitely happen. It’s our families gift she says. I’ve only done the sight stuff a little bit, but I know all the tarot cards by heart and I can do zodiac charts in my sleep, I swear.

            “Hazel, after you get all washed up you can tell the boys we’re on for penny-poker tonight. I had a few good readings today. One customer followed us from the last town, and even brought her friend. ”

            “That’s ‘cause she knows the real deal when she sees it.” My mother’s back returns to its upright position. She adjust her over-ripe, watermelon breast, then brushes her skirt. “I love you, Mama.” I like telling my mom how much I love her because it always makes her smile. My mom is the most beautiful woman in the whole world when she smiles. My dad is such a dumb ass for not telling her that.

            My name is Hazel. I’m ten years old and I live in the carnival with my mom and dad and some other people who are like family to us now. We travel together like gypsies from town to town. In the spring and summer we live around Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit mostly. In the winter, or off season we play in small towns through the south with less than half of our normal rides or games or people or anything. It’s like; we’re just the core of the carnival.

            I don’t have to go the normal school and my mom teaches me herself from our own books on the road. I study more that just the craft stuff though. She makes me do spelling words and even tortures my life with huge long lists of multiplication problems. I trust there will be a point to them all someday.                     

            My mom hands me a white paper plate with white napkins, heavy as bedspreads, lying over the day’s leftover food. “Here, take Uncles Mike and Jody these corn dogs. I’m willing to bet they haven’t eaten all day.”

            Mike and Jody were like my Uncles because they were like brothers to my mom. Jody was a really big brother. He worked in the carnival since he was little, like me. His dad owned a whole carnival. Then when Jody got old enough his dad bought him a mobile home and sent him to work in his brother’s carnival. Jody’s dad never made him go to school, or even do the schoolwork like my mom does to me. My mom decided that she couldn’t stand to see a grown man who couldn’t read. We busted him for being illiterate when he caught his trailer on fire. He blew up the microwave because he couldn’t read the directions on the back of a TV dinner. It’s easier to teach a dog table manners than it is Jody to read, but we love him anyway because he protects us from dad. Jody is the only carnie on the crew who is bigger than my dad.

            Mike is a handicap hunchback. He was teased and picked on his whole life as a kid. One day the carnival came to town and Mike just ran away with it. He didn’t even say good bye to his mom or anything. We joke that someday the carnival will hit a town and we’ll find Mike’s face on the back of a milk bottle. Mike says he doesn’t think his mom would be sober long enough to remember to report him missing. “Some things are better left forgotten“he‘ll say. And then my mom gives me her “time to change the subject” eyebrow.

            My dad operates the Tilt-A-Whirl ride. He used to be a great guy all the time. Now it comes and goes. Mostly goes. I know it has something to do with some kind of drugs. I think its crank, but it could be crack sometimes, too. No one ever tells me this. I don’t think anyone even knows that I know what they are called, or that my dad does them. I’m might be small, but I’m not deaf or dumb. I hate him when he’ll stress and take everything out on me, and my mom will jump in to change his focus, and make him yell at her. It’s only real bad if no one is watching. He won’t do stuff to us when people are looking at him. So, you can guess my strategy.

            I’m scanning the fairway to plan my most effective route. The plan is to sneak past my dad, get a sweet treat from Skully, then sneak over to Jody’s ride. If I see my dad he’ll make me get him something after something and I’ll never get where I’m trying to. So, I’m going to walk beside this passing baby stroller over to the game booths where Eric and Skully sit.

            I jump under the red curtain in the front of the table where they work. Eric has this game of circles. He has a board with a red circle on it. Then he gives the customer (or mark in hustler speak)  four thin metal disc that are the same size as the circle. The trick is to cover the red circle with the four metal discs. Eric will do it in front of someone two or three times to make it look easy. For some reason, they can never do it. People will stand over his little red circles confounded, and cussing. They accuse him of being a scam artist. Then he’ll do it right in front of them again. No one else can ever do it, but I know how. Skully and Eric are teaching me all their street hustle tricks.

         

            “Hey Skid-kid! How you doin’ sweetheart? You come here to give me some of your mama’s good mojo?”

            “Yes and no. I came to give you a kiss.” Eric bends down to my face and I plant a big smooch on his cheek. He hand me my favorite candy, a Werther’s caramel “And I came to tell you that my mom and I are going to beat you in poker tonight. I want a Taco-Bell dinner tomorrow. So if you think you got the nerve to keep up with me, see if you can find your way over to Jody’s trailer tonight after close down. And since I’m feeling nice, I’ll let Skully lose to me, too.”

            “That’s my cocky girl! What’s your first rule?” Eric stares at me down his long pointy nose. I like the smell of his cigarettes. They smell like something old and grown up.

            “Psyche ‘em before they even sit!” I announce.

            “That’s my girl!” He smiles big and gives my head a hair shake and a pat.

            “Hazel! Get your filthy ass over here!”

            No, no, no. He ruins anything. Eric and I look at each other with big eyes and a sigh in unison.

            “Eric, will you keep these here until I get back?”

            “Of course I will. I’m watching him, hunny. No one will let him hurt anyone. Just do right in your head.” I sigh again, shrug my shoulders, and walk toward the Tilt-A-Whirl that my dad operates.

            “Hazel! I‘m thirsty! Get me a damn beer!”

            “Dad…” He knows I can’t do that. He’s operating a children’s ride for goodness sake.

            “Fine. Get me a fucking soda-pop then from the Piggly Wiggly next door. When you get up there, I have a friend of mine who will be waiting out front by the pop machine. Give him this money. Then I want you to take what he gives you, and bring it straight back to me. And pick up some, uh, aluminum foil, too while your up there. You can buy a candy with the change. Fuck that, I forgot, I’m hungry. Get me some chips or something. And not that faggy sour cream flavor. I want vinegar and salt, or barbeque.” My gross dad pulls the little bit of change he’s made today for the carnival out of a red apron. He drops a leather pouch onto the ground. I threw myself to the blacktop to pick it up for him. I felt a sharp sting in my palm as I reached for my dad’s pouch. I looked at my hand. I was bleeding at the palm. Upon closer inspection I see that I got a little piece of glass stuck in my hand.

            “There’s blood on your hands. Damn it, Hazel leave your bloody hands off my stuff! Wipe your hands and go do what you’ve been told! Git!”

            I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. I try to throw Skully a “save me” glance. He’s busy hustling a young redhead boy. Oh well. I’ll tell Jody and Mike when I get back.

            As I’m walking to Piggly Wiggly the setting sun is in my eyes. I walk backwards and take in all the sights of the new spot.  There are three rides on each side of the micro-fairway. At the ends of the fairway are about four or five prize games. On the other end are a moon bounce, a refreshments trailer, and my mom’s psychic tarot reader table. We’re spread out in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall. We are about two-hundred feet from a grocery store/Laundromat. About a half-mile past that is a string of gas stations and fast food restaurants. It’s the same small town with a different name that I’ve been to a hundred times this season. About hundred or so feet behind our carnie-camp is a trailer park. Some short round Cajun kid told me that’s where the Satanists live, and that they do their satanic rituals in the bayou beyond that. His black eyes almost fell out of his head telling me that if I hear the “dogs crying at night, don’t go look. They’ll gitcha and throw you to the ‘gators.”

            My mom, dad, and I have been on the road with this carnival for about a few years now. I started out in a small town up north. That’s where I was born. I remember that I went to an elementary school. The teacher was very nice and always smelled like a gingerbread cookies. There was a little girl in my class who had the biggest ears I had ever seen on a person. There was a little boy with white hair who lived next door to me and he used to throw dirt on me a lot. I remember I had cousins, and aunts. Barely, I can remember winter. They don’t have snow storms in Louisiana. I remember my boots prints in the snow. I remember I had red gloves.

            The Louisiana sun is getting braver. It’s been trying to intimidate the clouds all week.  This parking lot seems to go on forever today. Did we move farther away from the store in the middle of the night while I was sleeping?

            My head is getting lighter, and lighter all of the sudden. Maybe it’s the heat but I’m feeling really dizzy. I ate some pop tarts with my mom this morning and catfish on a stick for lunch. My eyes are starting to hurt and go black. I’m getting scared. I’m trying to yell for my mom, but my throat is full. It feels like it’s closed off. I’m on the pavement in the middle of this stupid Piggly Wiggly parking lot. I wish I could talk!

            Now I feel light. I feel light like I have no skin to hold me in. I am floating through a crystal ball like my mama’s. I can see into the clouds far away. They are gray clouds swirling all around my dad. The gray clouds are getting darker and darker, and they are around him like they will swallow him. There is a fire below him. The fire turns into a snake and is crawling up his leg. I check to be sure it isn’t crawling up my leg, but I still feel numb. The fire-snake crawls into my dad’s mouth. His eyes are all red now too. He is glowing red from the inside. The clouds are swirling ink black now. Up above him is a light blue glowing symbol. My mama has that symbol tattooed on her breast. The symbol is spinning wildly and I feel like I’m going to throw up. Then lightning comes from up above the symbol and slices into my father skull. My father falls apart in two pieces and the snake falls out of him. It is a snake still, but now it is white. The snake curls into a circle, and then it swallows itself starting from the tail until it gets up to the head. Then I hear a loud crack noise. Like cement breaking. I am awake. Everything is pink for about twenty seconds, then returns to normal. At first there are a lot of people, and then they start to fade away to only a few people as I come back into my skin again. That’s so weird. I think that was a vision. I’ll have to ask mama later.

            My dad’s dealer better still be here. Of course he is. I tell him to hold on and wait while I go into the store. He is tall, and toothless. That’s how I know which one he is. All those guys lose their teeth. My mom said it was from the drug. He’s toothless, but full of hair on his body and none on his head. He smacks his lips together, and I shiver a little because I know he’s going to open that sick hole and talk to me.

            “Hey. Why did you go and fall down like that? Is you epileptic? I knew me an epileptic once. But they done cut out part his brain so he don’t do the shaky thing no more. You do that howling twitching thing all the time? I’d hope not.”

            I roll my eyes at the toothless, hillbilly, skank, and then enter into the divine miracle of air conditioning. The sweat on my skin feels like it is crystallizing. The crisp air helps me get my head back to clear too. I have a whole list of things that asshole wants. Doing his nasty shopping for him. Now I’m remembering that I just had one hell of a vision.

            I’ve only had a couple of them. They were little peeks behind the curtain of time. My mama warned me that they would start coming more frequently now. Something about ‘puperty’ and getting ‘my moon’ with my ‘woman gifts’. I stopped in front of the cooler filled with soda pop. I closed my eyes. It all came into my head again, only a little fuzzier, like mama said it would, I feel my dad dying. I feel free. He’s going to get struck by lightning and die. I know it. I know it like I know something special. Information meant just for me. The cold air conditioning fills my nose, and scrapes away the slimy sweat in my lungs. I am filled with the air that feels clean.
       

            I get his stupid soda. I grab his damn aluminum. I even get the stupid bag of chips. I almost grab sour cream, because I hate him. Then I remember, it’s his last meal anyway. I buy him the salt and vinegar chips in the small ‘to go’ bags.

            ‘To Go’. I giggle out loud. “Pun intended.”

            “Excuse you?”

            I look up. “Did I say that out loud?” Obviously I did.

            “Mm-hm.” grunts the cashier from behind her register.

            I take my flimsy white bag of paraphernalia for my dad and walk outside. The toothless big-foot is still waiting for me beside the soda machine. I put my hand in my jean short pocket and dig around for my dad’s money. I take a green, red and black wad out of my linty pocket and extend it to the guy who I now decide looks like a turtle. He starts to reach out for the money then jumps back.

            “Ewww! What’s on your hands? Is that blood?”           

            I think the cut I got from the glass earlier must have reopened. I’m secretly glad to scare this creepy guy.

            “Just do this so I can go.” I am pleading sincerely. I want to get this stuff back to my dad quick. I know I’ve taken too long. I’ll have to make sure somebody I know is watching me talk to him so he can’t get away with smacking me when no one is looking. It’s not illegal to abuse your children or wife in Louisiana. He tells me that every day. I do have to be careful the carnival owners don’t see. They know about my dad’s drug problems and they act like they are trying to keep him from it. I think as long as he works his ride, and doesn’t hump the local minors, they don’t care what he does. All I know is that it has something to do with a record up north why we live down here in the carnival and not up north with mama’s family any more.

         

            I just want to get this stuff over to dad and go play. Maybe I could just avoid him for a while and act like I forgot. But then I'd get spanked for forgetting. I guess I'll just get it over with. Good. He's letting a new group of kids on and off the Tilt-A-Whirl. One kid with spiky blond hair is holding his stomach, and his friend starts laughing and fall over when he gets to the ground again.

            “Hazel! Sweetie! Is that you?” My dad is calling me sweetie?

            “I saw you fall down earlier. Are you okay Hun? You know you’re my one and only daddy’s girl. I still worry about you sometimes.”

            Just like that I’m a little girl again. My daddy does love me! I really do love him. At least I want to. I want us to all love each other again. Maybe if I tell him about my vision, he’ll not have to die. I’ll tell him about the lightning, and then it will make him see how close to dying and losing me and ma and the new baby he was. He’ll be so happy to be alive he’ll never do the yucky stuff anymore.

            “Now be a good girl and give daddy his medicine.” I do. He grabs the baggie away from me and hovers over it like a ravaged vulture. He shoves the little package into a cubby hole above the control box. Then he kisses the top of my head. I remember the lightning from my vision. I recall the smell of burning hair. It freaks me out, so I yell out loud.

            “What the hell?” says dad.

            Here it is. This is the moment I should tell him. Open your mouth Hazel! Say, “Dad I dreamed your death! Stay away from the lightning!” My mouth opens. My throat is clenched tight. I smile and go back to delivering Mike and Jody their corn dogs.

    "Damn weird kids."

            “Hazey! You got my corn dogs your mama sends me?” Uncle Mike always called me his ‘Hazey’.  I look back at my dad. He’s already plotting in his head how he’s going to get a chance to sneak off after close and do that icky stuff. I don’t have to be psychic to know that. Dad is stroking his package behind the control box. I turn my focus to Mike.

            “Hazey sweetness how is my best girl? Did you figure out how to get that skateboard to slide across those parking blocks? I’ll build you some more of those ramps too. It's like watching you dance when you ride that skateboard. I can’t figure out how you can keep your feet attached to it when you’re in the air. Must be the same kind of magic your mama uses on her broom stick. Give me a hug. Your dad leaving you alone today?”

            “Be careful where you leave your change tonight Uncle Mike. He made me get him stuff. Again.”

            “How the hell do these people find him? It don’t matter what town we hit. He always finds it. I can’t even find my chocolate Yoo-hoo in every town we hit, and he finds that stuff.”

            Dark clouds start to fill the sky overhead like a giant oak tree come to shade us. Mike puts his long, rat-like nose into the air. He even has a mustache that makes him look like a rat with whiskers.

            “Rain is coming, Hazey. Go help your ma’s pack up.”

            “Aye-aye!” I salute and take off running at full speed to the other end of the fairway.

            My mom is already putting her cards back into the cloth. It’s almost close anyway. As soon as I look at her she knows we’re closing up, and nods her head. I watch my mom touch everything slowly. She taps her long untrimmed fingernails on the top of her Ouija board.

            “Hazel, hunny?” Mama has that far away look in her eye that tells me she’s about to know something.

            “Hazel, did daddy have you get something for him today?”

            “Yea, I guess.”

            “Did something happen to you today? Did you... Go wash your hands.”

            She knows. What if I’m bad for not saving daddy? Does mama know that I haven’t told him what I saw? Does she know what I saw? Did she tell him yet?

            I stare at her for a moment while I try to figure out how to say all this. It only takes a moment to close up our stand. Mom and I aren’t allowed to close up the big rides and stuff because we’re girls.

            Dad suddenly burst into the little pop-up trailer where the three (soon to be four) of us live. Ma and I are getting some cards and snacks ready to take to Jody’s fifth wheel trailer. That’s where all us carnies gather up at night and play penny-poker.

            “You bitch! Where the hell’s my shit?”

            “Lance, what the hell are you talking about?”

            “I know the brat told you by now. You won’t let a working man have a moment’s happiness for his hard work. Everything nice is for you and your howling babies. You stupid bitch. Where is it? Now, or I’ll smack the taste right out your lying mouth! I need this! Quit fucking with me!” My father’s face was purple and he was spitting, and nearly frothing at the mouth. My mom looked like she could either cry, or stab him at any moment. I hate this, but it’s the only way out.

            “Dad, you left it back at your ride. I saw you put it behind the control box.”

            “Spying on me? Spying on me now, huh? Well you better bet your sweet ass it’s still there, or so help me God, I’ll beat you until you piss blood”

         

            He’s walking toward his ride. The sky is dark now. It’s that fresh bruise color the sky gets at twilight. Like we’re all living inside this giant bruise. I see him still walking. Everything is moving like ticks on a clock. One second at a time. And I still have this option of opening my mouth, or so it would seem. But my mouth doesn’t open. I feel a hand soft like whispers, but warm has an honest kiss, hold tight my trembling lips. My mama is looking at dad out the window too. The sky opens up and a jagged arrow of light shoots from a giant black bow in the sky. It hits my dad square on the head. He falls to the ground. He does this howling, twitching thing, but only for a moment. Then he goes limp.

            I look over at my mama. Her eyes are closed; a peaceful grin rises across her cheeks. She looks over at me. I can see that she is trying to prepare herself for my reaction.

            “My hands are clean, mama.”


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