Nightmare Carnival

“Fine, I will. That’s pretty much what it takes with you, totally checking out of reality. You think it’s easy watching you die? My friend the resurrectrix? But I think the young man’s coming back, and I think he has a gun, and I’d rather not see how you ad lib with bullets. So why don’t you and me take a drive around here and see the sights until he finds out you’re not here? Sam won’t want any trouble.”

“Maybe the kid just wants to talk to me.”

“Maybe he wants to shoot you between the eyes. All he had to say about you was you’re a ‘fucking witch,’ and implied you killed his brother. Does that sound like a chitchat to you?”

She hangs her beautiful head and shakes it sadly. “Do you remember Slim?”

“Of course I remember Slim.” He was a charming, haunted alcoholic who used to work the games, who died in my passenger seat on the road to Tucson. How could I forget? It takes a moment to realize what she’s saying. He died looking out over a moonlit desert with a smile on his face a couple of days after he heard Alexandra’s audition.

“Maybe I deserve that bullet. There’s no point running, Orlando. Don’t you understand? I don’t find them. They find me. I’ve found the smallest, most obscure tent I can.”

“There’s always a point in running.” I should know. My name’s not Orlando. I ruined a lot of lives on my way to the carnival life. I should be in jail or worse. I often wish I hadn’t fled, but the thought of whatever rage is in pursuit of Alexandra makes me want to take flight again. The two of us. When the carnival comes anywhere close to certain jurisdictions Sam understands I need to take some time off. I’m not the only one. Otto has an aversion to Seattle, though mostly the area is too classy for our fleabag show. Wilbur claims Otto killed a man there, but you can’t believe half the shit Wilbur says. He says that Alexandra will be the death of me. Where on earth could he have gotten that idea?

“Get up, get your stuff,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. She’ll go just to humor me. She doesn’t take anything except a shoulder bag. None of us has much. There’s not a thing in my trailer I’ll miss if we run, and a few mementos that won’t haunt me anymore. Running. Great exercise. Done it all my life, in ever widening circles.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks as she fastens her seat belt and checks her beauty in the rearview. “You can’t need the aggravation. Wilbur says you can’t go back to Houston, you’re in so much trouble there. He says there’s serious law after you.”

“Fuck of a lot Wilbur knows. It’s Dallas, well, the whole Dallas — Fort Worth Metroplex I best avoid. Waco too, though there’s fuck-all in Waco anyway. Nobody knew me in Lubbock, so that must be far enough, though there’s always federal marshals to consider. Is that where you’re from? Lubbock?” I’ve never gotten her to talk about her past.

She doesn’t answer right away, watching the lush woods roll by. “Don’t be in love with me, Orlando.”

No point denying it, though I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. “Is there a reason for that? Is that part of the curse too? No love?”

We’ve reached the extent of Bartholomew’s estate, which just sits here with acres and acres of verdant wooded beauty, some very expensive horses, and not much else. He doesn’t seem to be famous, so I figure he’s a crook of one sort or another. We’re at the northeast corner of his property. I turn east so we can drive alongside someone else’s land for a while, a rock star or a mystery writer or a philanthropic heiress. The help for all these places must live in the next, poorer county we drove through to get here. We usually don’t perform in this part of the world, nestled between coal mines and national parks. There are plenty of riverbanks close by, but none of them we can sit on for this heart-to-heart. Part of me just wants to keep moving anyway, like a migratory tug toward another impossible future, but I poisoned my happily-ever-after habitat a long, long time ago.

For as long as she remembers, Alexandra says, all she ever really wanted was to sing beautifully, but all anybody ever cared about was her looks. She turns sideways in her seat, tucks in her legs, and tells me her story. I try to tell myself I’m ready. I keep my eyes on the road.

“I was in love with a man,” her story begins, “but he didn’t love me.”

“What kind of fool was he?” I ask.

“Shut up and listen, Orlando. I’m trying to save your life.”

The man’s name was Jacob. In addition to all the usual virtues she goes on a little long about, the man sang like an angel, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted fame. He wanted adulation. He wanted everything, and who can have everything? The more he wanted, the more he despaired because he couldn’t have it, and what he had bored him. So what was Alexandra?

I know the answer to that one — she is everything — but she’s asked me not to speak.