Page 22 of Exit: Us
It was just the two of us. She took a seat down in one of the chairs, and I went right next to her, after handing the worker the money.
“Okay, folks. First one to make it to the top wins. On your mark… get set… go!” he stated, and I let Amina get a head start, thinking that she was going to win, but seconds later, I came at her ass hard, letting the water shoot out exactly on the black dot that was in the middle, and my clown shot up, bypassing hers. Within seconds, the bell started ringing, letting me know that I’d won.
“We have a winner. We have a winner,” the worker yelled out.
I wished I had my phone in my hands to pull out and record the look on Amina’s face. She looked sick to her stomach, knowing that she’d just lost this race.
“You cheated! You said that you never played before,” she fussed, while I laughed.
“I ain’t cheat. I lied, love. It’s a difference. Choose the prize you want. Which one you going to get?” I asked, standing up from the chair.
“I’ll take that brown teddy bear right there,” she said, pointing with her finger.
She picked the one that I wanted her to have. It was the biggest teddy bear that was hanging. It had dark brown fur. Big round ears, with a cream- colored snout.
The worker reached up for it, and with a smile on his face, he handed it to Amina. That big ass bear swallowed her once she held it in her arms. She wrapped her arms around it and laughed. Her laugh was contagious, so I stood next to her, legs spread a little, with my arms crossed, looking down at her, as I smiled.
Something about this moment made my chest tighten a little bit. This felt familiar. Nostalgic in a sense. Made me feel like a teenaged boy all over again. The teenaged boy that used to get dropped off to the fair, chasing behind the girls. Blowing my money that my mama, and my step- dad had given me, trying to impress the girls with the carnival games, winning them teddy bears and shit. I remember back in the days, if you could win your girl a teddy bear, you were the shit, especially if you won her something in one of those basketball games.
Standing here, watching Amina laugh and smile, while carrying this giant ass teddy bear in her arms, made me realize that I hadn’t felt something like this in years. It doesn’t even have much to do with me finding her attractive. That wasn’t the feeling. It just made me think about my youth, compared to where I was now. Life had gotten so serious with bills, running a business, and all the responsibilities that I had. In this moment, none of that shit mattered to me though. Seeing Amina smileand laugh about this goofy ass teddy bear, had the ability to make me feel as if I was a teenager all over again.
“What you going to name him?” I was curious to know.
“You like Bruno?” she asked me after a few seconds.
“Yeah. I fuck with it. Come on. You lost the bet, so you gotta get on the Ferris wheel with me,” I said.
I just knew that she was going to have some kind of rebuttal. I knew she would be a sore loser, and not get on the Ferris wheel with me, but she didn’t. She walked over to the ride with me, and she was able to get on with Bruno. Like he was a real person, she sat him next to her once she sat. I sat on the opposite side of her. The worker gave us a quick set of rules, made sure that we were secured, and he walked away. I could see it all over Amina’s face that she was scared out of her mind.
“You scared because you’re thinking about it. Don’t think about it. Just chill. Look at Bruno. Bruno chilling. That’s how you gotta be,” I joked.
I could tell that her fear subsided just a little bit. She relaxed a little. When we made it to the top, she did let out a little scream, but once she realized that her ass wasn’t going anywhere, and that she was safe, she calmed down and took it for what it was. Once she saw that we had the perfect view of the carnival and was able to look down and see the entire thing, she relaxed and wasn’t freaking out anymore.
She did that for a little while, and then she turned her head, so that she could look at me. I was looking at her as well. Because we were so high up, every few seconds, a different color from the carnival lights flashed over her. The lights caused the brown in her eyes to really stand out. Big, beautiful brown eyes. Her eyes is how I would know the kind of mood that she was in. Since they were so big, it’s almost like they spoke for her. I’ve been seeing sadness in them since she’d got on the truck with me. I saw something different in them tonight though. Her eyes showedthat she was relaxed. She wasn’t thinking about the problems that she ran away from back home in London. Instead, she was caught up in living in the present.
“I don’t know if I’m losing my mind behind everything that I’m going through, but I’ve never been the type that’s easily persuaded. Once my mind is made up about something, I stand on it. I got on a truck with you. Mind you, getting in the car with other people isn’t something that I do often. Everyone doesn’t drive like they have sense, so I’m very cautious about who’s passenger’s seat that I sit on. Not only that, but I showered at a damn truck station. Not once, but twice, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other times to do it too. I slept on a bunk bed inside of a truck. I’ve never in my life been on a Ferris wheel. I don’t get on carnival rides. I’ve always been too afraid of doing it. What is it? How do you keep getting me to do things that I would never in a million years agree to?” she inquired.
“Shit. I’m him,” my answer was simple. She rolled her eyes at me, waving me off like I was talking straight bullshit to her.
“Nah, in all honesty, I don’t think it’s me that’s making you do all these things. Probably the only thing that I really made you do was go inside the truck stop, so you could shower, and then making you get in bed and go to sleep. Your ass thought that you were going to leave Tallahassee and get a fuckin hotel. Everything else, I think it’s your own doing. You probably just reached a point in your life where you’re going with the flow. You experienced the worst already. Shit, the life that you thought you were going to have was taken away from you. Since you went through that, it was easy to agree to getting on the truck with me, and riding on the Ferris wheel,” I told her the truth.
She nodded at that, as if what I said made a lot of sense. For the rest of the time on the Ferris wheel, we didn’t really say anything else. We went around a couple of times, and once we were back at the bottom, the worker let us know that it was aslow night, and no one else was waiting in line to have a turn. He asked if we wanted to go again. I turned to look at Amina, basically letting her know that the ball was in her court, and we could do whatever she wanted. She surprised me when she said that she wanted to go again. The worker heard her, so he walked away, so he could have us go back up.
Being on this Ferris wheel was peaceful to me. We were circling for about fifteen minutes. Amina had her own thoughts, and so did I.
We eventually got off, and she carried that big ass teddy bear, telling me what she wanted to do next. She pointed in the direction of the roasted corn. We both got one. It was good as hell too. She pointed to the funnel cake, saying that she wanted that as well. Anything she said she wanted, I would get it for her. One, I was just happy to see her eating something, and two, I liked that she was in better spirits, so I wanted to keep it that way.
We didn’t leave the carnival until about another hour or so. We made it back to the truck, where I assisted her in getting inside. She went to the back, so that she could prop Bruno up on her bed. She came back to the front, getting in the passenger seat, and once she was good, I started the truck up, and left the field.
It took about thirty minutes for me to pull into a truck station. I found a spot in the back, and Amina and I repeated the same steps as last night. We grabbed all the things that we were going to need for our showers. I didn’t have to fuss at her this time. She wasn’t trying to walk off, surprised about her sleeping arrangements. I’d turned her into a little pro, and this was only day two.
We handled our business on the inside. Showered and everything else. We were back on the truck, and Amina was already in bed. She was lying on her side, cuddled up withBruno. Her scarf was on her head, covering up the front part of her braids. I stood by the sink, looking into the mirror that was next to it, putting my durag on, but through the reflection, I could see her behind me.
Her eyes were on me. When I finished up, I turned, so that I could look down at her. Seeing the lowness in her eyes, I knew that she was going to knock out soon, and that this wasn’t going to be a part two of last night. She wasn’t going to be doing all that crying, keeping me from falling asleep. I was sure that the second I turned this light off, she would be calling it a night.
“Thank you,” she said, once I turned around and looked at her.
“What you thanking me for?” I wanted to know. She took a while to answer the question. A few seconds went by before she cleared her throat, prepared to respond.
