High and Dry

High and Dry



         “Why don’t you set your purse down and throw with your good arm?” The dig stung and the laughter from the onlookers was like gas thrown on a fire. The mark, a huge red neck in the required uniform of overalls sans shirt, pulled the seventh dollar from the bib of his overalls and traded it to Hughley for three more balls.

         The first throw went low and to the left. When people get mad they tend to try to throw harder than they are capable. Sometimes they’ll chunk it right in the dirt.  The second was about six inches high, at least he was trying to compensate. Now it was time to finish him off.

         “Maybe your panties are bunching up some.”

         It was his first good throw of the night. It came whizzing in at probably 70 miles per hour and if it hadn’t been for the cage it would have put one hell of a dent in my forehead. The mark turned away in disgust.

         “Hey honey, don’t go away mad. Here I made you something.” I blew him the biggest wettest raspberry I could manage. Sometimes when a mark is really riled up the stupidest thing will bring them back to the table. But this fish was done and he just threw me a finger over his shoulder. But I don’t take anything personal. Instead I turned on the man standing closest to Hughley.

         “Are you going to let me talk to your boyfriend like that?” The bills came out and the balls flew. Like the great patron saint of carnies everywhere once said, “There’s one born every minute.”

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         Once the sun went down I swear the temperature actually got higher. It had been at least hours since my ass had seen the water and I was starting to hope someone would dunk me. I saw my chance as three high school boys walked by in their baseball uniforms. One of them was hanging onto a slender girl who looked too young to be out without her daddy. I had my mark.

         “Hey little girly, you should see if a doctor can remove that ugly growth from your arm.” They stopped but didn’t rise to the bait. After some giggling whispers and a few pokes to each other’s ribs they turned to walk away. My mark had a number two on the back of his jersey.

         “Hey Babe Ruth, is that two your IQ or how many nights it’s been since you wet the bed?” He turned and walked slowly toward the table, I had a nibble.

         “Ah, you’d better just go on home junior. We don’t let anybody pitch underhand anyhow.” Fish on!

         The first pitch was barely an inch low. The second came fast behind it and was even closer on the high side. The kid had a hell of an arm for a yokel. I knew I was going for a swim, but I just couldn’t resist one more dig.

         “Be careful with those fingers sport, Blondie was hoping to ride one home tonight.” Hughley gave me a glare of disapproval and the mark’s girlfriend blushed a deep red, but the kid had my number. With a metallic clang and an electric buzz the third ball sent me into the tank.

         The water was cool and I had been in the cage for almost nine hours. I wanted to just float in the tank and tell everyone to get bent, but a man’s gotta eat. So I jumped back onto the bench and beat on the bars.

         “Hardly got my toes wet! Come and get me! High and dry, I’m high and dry!”



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         By eleven o’clock the crowds had thinned out and I was past ready to come out of the cage. I drug my body, half sleeping, back to my trailer and left Hughley and Batch to shut everything down. I stripped out of my overalls, which were stiff from chlorine and sweat. I packed cold cream on my face and slipped into a pair of cotton sweatpants before sitting down with a quart bottle of Gatorade. Hard to believe how dehydrated a guy can get when his job takes place inside a big fish tank. I was wiping the last traces of clown from my face when Hughley walked in.

         “You decent?” He always asked this after walking in without knocking, as if he gave a damn one way or the other.

         “Mind, body and soul.” I replied. It was an old routine but it always brought him a chuckle. “How was the take today?”

         “Not bad for a weekday, but I can’t retire just yet.” Hughley jumped onto the couch making the whole trailer rock. “You should have waited for Batch to walk you back.”

         Hughley actually owned the dunk tank and had stayed in the cage until his arthritis had gotten so bad he couldn’t climb back up on the bench. What was left of his grey hair was sticking up in all directions from under a soiled Dodger’s cap. His eyes were permanently bloodshot from too much booze and years spent in that bleached water probably hadn’t helped. There was a vacant gap where his front teeth should have been. He had been a carney since the age of twelve and he now claimed to be on the back side of fifty. From the looks of him I would have guessed fifteen to twenty years on the backside.

         “Too damned tired to wait on you monkeys.” I explained as I popped a couple of lozenges in my mouth. My vocal chords felt like smoldering sandpaper after a full day of throwing out insults. “You boys looked like you had enough to do and I didn’t see no one lurking around.”

         “Son, you cain’t never let down your guard. I speak from painful experience.” His tongue went reflexively to where those front teeth used to be. When he had just started working the tank he had been walking back to his trailer without an escort. One night in Alabama three locals who had taken the show too personal were waiting for him in the dark. Help came pretty quick but not before one of the toughs had done some dental work with a set of brass knuckles.  I asked Hughley once what happened to those locals. He said things were different in those days. He said the phrase “run off with the circus” could have more than a couple of meanings. I didn’t ask for him to be any more clear than that.

         Hughley handles the money and keeps the marks from getting free pitches, but when it comes to making sure I don’t receive any free dental work he falls a bit short. That’s where Batch comes in. At six three and three hundred fifty pounds, Batch looks like an escapee from the ten in one tent. He used to run his own rig, a gallery setup with rifles and little metal ducks. One night a drunk got mad after a run of bad luck and accused Batch of loading the rifles with blanks. He grabbed up one of the rifles and proved himself wrong by shooting Batch in the throat. Luckily those rifles were just loaded with 22 CB’s  so it didn’t kill him, but he hasn’t spoken a word since that day. To be fair it should be said that Batch had rigged that game. Those rifles had been built with special barrels that had no rifling and oversized bores. They never shot in the same zip code twice. But that didn’t keep the good ole’ boy from doing three to five on an aggravated assault charge. At least he didn’t “run off with the circus”. That gallery rig is still on the midway and last time I checked the same rifles were being used. Anyway, Batch sold the rig, bought a big tractor trailer and started driving. And for a small fee he’s willing to walk me to my trailer at night.