Page 7 of The Code
And not a small one.
There is a massive Ferris wheel and spinny rides and trailers and hot-dog stalls and carnival games. There are families and couples holding hands and carnival workers of various ages. He drifts forward in stunned disbelief, passing a strongman game where guys are lined up to smash a lever with a rubber-headed mallet. A figure-eight coaster whooshes by, the car sending out a wash of air and screams. A colorful sign over a house of mirrors spells out a devil’s promise: WHY NOT NOW? FUNN FUNN FUNN!! An exhausted mom hip-carries a toddler inexplicably swathed in a ladybug costume. “No, Madison,” she intones. “The Dragon Wagon went ni-night.”
Given Evan’s current state and lack of group social experiences, his brain hardly knows how to process what he is seeing.
People pay money. To strap themselves into machines. Which throw them around in a completely safe manner. So they can experience—what? Fake risk? Zero-stakes fear? Ordinary life confounds him. How far this all seems from the concrete jungle he grew up in and the wild and dangerous life he navigates now. His are worlds that break people apart and—if they’re lucky—remake them stronger.
He drifts past a shooting-gallery game that is clearly rigged, the misalignment of the sights on the barrels evident even at distance. He notes where an anchor bolt could be loosened on a Tilt-A-Whirl to make the track come apart and cause disaster. He thinks back to that three-mile night swim he’d undertaken through shark-infested waters with his feet, ripped-open big toe and all, rammed into Inquisition flippers and can scarcely believe it was less than twenty-four hours ago.
People are staring at him and he realizes he has forgotten to pull the moss out from beneath his shirt. He finds a vacant porta-potty and tugs the natural insulation free. In the tiny clouded mirror he does his best to clean himself up, but the water leaks slowly from the plastic faucet and the sewage reek is revving his OCD; he can practically feel the stench taking up residence in his lungs.
He comes back out.
Light-headed from exertion and calorie depletion, he stumbles on the two plywood steps and bumps into a passerby.
The guy wheels on him. Whorls of facial hair form a ragged almost-beard. Around Evan’s age, he looks ropy and wolfish, a too-big jean jacket hanging on his tall frame. His name tag, CLAY, sports the carnival logo.
Evan says, “Sorry.”
“You drunk, man? A meth-head?”
Clay shoves him. Evan lets him.
Evan says, “No.”
“This is a family place, man.” There is booze on Clay’s breath, something cheap and syrupy like triple sec. “You look like a fuckin’ hobo.”
Clay goes to shove him again but Evan swats his hand aside.
“Don’t,” Evan says. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Not in the mood?” Clay snickers. “Or just scared?”
On the main thoroughfare, people keep whisking by, the altercation by the row of porta-potties relatively unseen . Evan cannot kill anyone. Jack has recounted the cautionary tales—the SEAL who accidently snapped a guy’s neck in a bar fight in Virginia Beach, the Delta candidate who paralyzed a mouthy outlaw biker at a gas station when the guy fell back in a fight and hit his head on a curb. Evan stares at Clay’s throat. He can see the pulse beating faintly in the side of his neck. But it cannot happen.
Never let an innocent die. The Tenth Commandment.
And the Eighth: Never kill a kid.
But oh how he wants to.
Clay sucks his teeth at him. “Not tonight, dear, says the scared little faggot. I’m not in the mood.”
Evan shows his palms, backpedaling. Clay holds his spot and eye contact, watching Evan go.
Once Evan disappears into the crowd, he searches out food. Everything is junky—cotton candy, caramel popcorn, funnel cake. He cannot risk the crash after a sugar high. One stall has a bag of FunTime trail mix for $3.99.
The family in line ahead of him debate what to do with a knocked-out three-year-old in a stroller. “We’d better play the keep-the-baby-awake game till we get him in the car,” the dad says. He starts to tickle the child, who stirs and grunts.
The grandmother considers the sleeping boy, one angular arm flopped to her side, hand perched out from the wrist as if awaiting a cigarette holder. Her head is drawn back with Dorothy Parker wry cynicism. “Perhaps a shock collar,” she observes.
Her daughter swats her: “Mother!”
Evan buys his little bag of protein, breaking the precious and slightly moist twenty-dollar bill. The girl working the register is high-school cute, with baby-fat cheeks and braces.
He asks, “Is there a bus stop nearby, ma’am?”
“‘Ma’am’? Ain’t you cute?”
