“Stop tryin’ to figure me, Jake.”
Dang, she’s good. While I was looking over her, she was watching me. She always was a smart cookie, that Jane. Shame what happened with Aces ‘n Eights, but there you hav-
“Jake? You drifting off?”
I smile. “Jane, honey, you bring back a lot of ghosts, you know? I mean, I know we only worked together a few years, but those were, well. . .” I lick my lips, nervous. “Well, quite the years, you know?”
“I know, Jake. I remember it all. How’d you end up here?”
“Not much to tell. After our group broke up during the War, I actually enlisted. Didn’t go far- they said I had fallen arches. Wouldn’t be able to last on long marches. They told me I could go home, but I just went to the next recruiter station and asked to be . . . something. Anything. I heard the Nazis were killing Jews, along with Blacks, the queers, and my people, the Gypsies.”
“I thought you wanted to be called Roma these days.”
“Some of us. Some just wanna let the truth be the truth and let it stay there. It’s like the Indians- the Indians call each other Indians, black people call each other ‘nigger’ alla time…it’s mainly whites who’ve spent too much time in college who make up this stuff. The rest of us just ignore it, unless there’s money in it somehow. You know?”
“Not really, no. My family’s Dutch and Irish. Can’t get too many nicknames out’ve that these days.”
“True. But that’s because the Irish actually became part of things, and don’t get all offended when they call a police truck a ‘paddy wagon.’ Did you know that? Anyways, I got a gig in the war helping do the USO thing. Frustrating as all hell for a guy like me. All healthy and girl-crazy, but those dames all wanted soldiers, an’ me? I just drove the truck and pointed the spotlight during the shows. After that, well, I found my first carnival. Gals weren’t too pretty, but the best ones always went to the trapeze guys anyways. Short version of things is that I’ve been doing carny work in the on-season and joe-jobs in the off season for most of my life, and got damn little to show for it except for a few friendships that’ve started ending with my friends in the ground and air in my wallet.”
We talked until she says she wants to get some air. We leave my tent- she walks, I wheel it. I made enough money offa that last mark to where I can take the day off if I want. Plus, I want to show Jane I’ve been busy and getting better at what I did in the past.
We talk about next to nothing while we walk. She tells me about Russ and his mothman suits. Poor bastard is in an old-age home in his 70s, if you can believe that. “You got money?” I ask her as we start to get closer to the place.
“Some. I usually use the card these days.”
“Save your card, honey. Hang on.”
The wheelchair helps this a lot. I stop a fellow walking who’s wearing nicer shoes than I ever will. I put my wrinkled hand on his wrist while I ask him the direction of the nearest sandwich shop, all the while looking him in the eye with total confidence, while taking a squeeze bottle of water and sucking on it. After a couple of seconds I talk to him, ask him to hold my water, and could he give me his wallet, too? Thanks. Bye.
And we walk away. I scoop a ten out of his wallet and leave the rest, dropping his wallet on the ground. In seconds, there’s a sea of people separating us from him. When and if he figures out that I just slicked him, he’ll come looking for me, sure. But he’ll see his wallet on the ground, see that most of the money is there, and be happy about it. Meanwhile we’ll be long gone and in a sandwich shop, ordering food and talking about the old days while I weigh my options and decide whether or not my little mind-fucks are gonna work on Jane in her current state.
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So she keeps pushing me in my wheelchair and we kep’on yakking and yakking, and we kept walking until we got to the edge of the strip mall. There was a sandwich shop in there and I got her to open the door and help me inside. Yes, I got her to. Jane’s the kind of gal who likes to think she’s running the show, and that’s the best kind of person for me to mark and make ‘em do what I want. In five minutes, we were sitting at a booth, my chair on the end an’ me hefting myself up an’ over onto the nice, fake red-leather seats. There’s subtle ways you can get a person to feel sorry for you, hate you, love you, and be loyal to you. Today, I used the ‘loyal/feel sorry’ bit on Jane. Maybe she really felt that way, maybe she didn’t, but all I care about is that she paid for lunch and I didn’t hafta eat one of the crappy corndogs they sell in the center of the carnival.
Best part for me? When the mark knows what I’m doing and they know I’m pulling their strings, but they buy me lunch anyway. Yeah, doesn’t work every time, but I’ve gone for a month without having to shell out a dime of the crappy pay they give me.
‘Course I was lying about having to work the carny angle for the last fifty years! Shit, you think I’m that stupid? No one takes this life for good unless they’ve hit rock bottom and wanna stay forgotten, or unless they don’t have the brains God gave a goose and they’re stuck. “Hey, you hungry?”
“Sure. You buying? I can’t eat no corndogs, though. Bad on the waistline, and the fat slows down my head something awful.”
Jane. Still into the whole health thing. Meh. It’s how she makes her bread and butter these days. “Sub-sandwiches, good?”
I mean, folks, don’t be mad at me or think I’m a pig or anything, but a man never loses wanting it, you know? And Jane- well, damn, but we all wanted her back in the day. The only one who made us go “23 Skiddoo!” more was that gal who dressed up in the bee costume- and damn if she didn’t marry a hero…one who became a cop, no less!
And here she is, looking at least thirty years younger than she oughta.
“So what jumps, Jane?” we’re seated now. I’ve moved a chair away to make way for my chariot so I can eat my philly cheesesteak. She’s eating something vegetarian.
“Whadja mean?”
“C’mon, Jane. It’s been a while. People don’t drop into your life after a few decades unless they got a good reason. You’re making out good, with the toys and the tapes and all that. Why’d you come looking for an old con-man like me? Why now?”
She puts down her sandwich and smiles. “You like the carny life, Jake? Or d’you want something else?”
I look at her for a couple of seconds. Dang, but she’s good. She knows what I’m gonna be looking for with a cold read, and her face doesn’t give up a damn thing.
“I like having a bed every night. And there’s worse ways to make a living than making sad people feel better about their lives. You, know, that’s one reason I’m not conning people with the rest of my gypsy family? They turned me out years ago in Cincinnati, where they got an old gypsy king buried. At the annual pilgrimage we all take to his grave, I let some normie know that he was gonna lose everything he’d been saving for his kids to my family. I got sick every time I saw them take some shmoe’s life savings, and I wasn’t able to do a damn thing about it.”
Jane looks at me for a long while. “So, you didn’t like stealing, but you joined a crew of folks that did?”
“Jane, c’mon. You know how that was different. You, me and the rest of our crew, we never took old ladies or lonely bachelors in their eighties. We robbed banks, jewelry stores. We did stick ups at places where the rich folks went, and now I sometimes think we did it so we’d have an excuse to fight other folks just as screwed up as we were, like the Airman or that cowboy boyfriend you had- the Ace of Spades, or something?”
“Aces and Eights.”
“Yeah, him. You know, we were a special kind of screwed up, if you think about it. I mean, what kind of person decides to wear a goofy outfit and do that for a living when everyone else is getting a job, going to college, right? Still, remember how much fun we had when we made a score? A real one?”
“Like the First National.”
“Yeah! Dear God, that was a great day. For some reason, the capes were all busy doin’ something else, and we just burst in. Guards did what we told ‘em to do, for once. In and out in under two minutes with two hundred big ones! I mean, if I’d cared about my family at that point, I might’ve tried to buy my way back in. But who cares then, right? Even when you split the take, we had fifty large each, back in the 30s, when most shmoes only made, what, two grand a year? Maybe? What’ja end up doing with your share?”
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TO BE CONTINUED...