“You’re pretty handy,” I said, getting out so he could take the wheel. I was honestly impressed this piece of shit car was jugging away. “I think you have a future as an auto mechanic.”
“I’m a mechanic in this life. A firefighter in the next.”
“What does that mean?”
Evan hooked an arm around my shoulders. “You’re calling her Snowball?” He studied the little white car. “Ironic. I’ll be shocked if she can hit fifty without overheating.”
“Damn, you got it running,” Travis said from behind us. I untucked my hair from behind my ear and let it cover my cheek before I turned around.
“She’s running,” Evan said.
“Maybe I gave it to you too cheap.” Travis wore a fixed smile. His expression reminded me of a weasel or an opossum. I itched to get out of there as fast as possible.
Evan extended his hand. “Thanks again. And for the use of your yard. I appreciate it, man.”
“Sure, sure, no problem,” Travis said keeping his hands jammed in front of his pockets. “You’re on your way then? Where you headed?”
“Here and there,” Evan said flatly. He nodded his head at me and flicked it toward the passenger door. I was halfway there. “Take care, now.”
We drove off the lot with Evan watching the rearview mirror almost as much as he did the windshield.
I kept an eye on my side mirror. “Do you think he knows?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s mostly pissed he sold the car for cheap. But he got a little curious at the end.”
We drove in silence for ten minutes. I didn’t know Wichita, but I assumed Evan was taking us back to our motel.
“It feels like we’re going the wrong way,” I said.
“I know. I think we’re…” His words tapered off as his eyes narrowed at interchange. He hit the blinker and took the exit for 135 South.
“South? Where are we going?”
Evan said nothing but drove for another few minutes. South, when he’d been so insistent we stay north. Always north. Then I saw the sign. A tall blue rectangle with the word Joyland tumbling down its length. A curving arrow between joy and land pointed toward the park entrance.
“I’ve been here before,” I said as Evan turned Snowball down the overgrown, pot-holed drive.
“Looks like it’s been closed for years,” he said.
“But I was here.” I stared out the window, my mouth slightly parted and my hand reached for his. “My mother took me here.”
He gave my hand a squeeze as he parked the car. “Come on.”
We walked hand-in-hand through the old amusement park. In the falling light of the afternoon, the park was a quiet and lifeless ghost town. The rides sat motionless, peeling paint and rust. The game booths were either shuttered up or gutted completely, shelves robbed of their prizes. Food carts lay overturned among weeds and dried leaves choked the pathways.
I stopped walking and closed my eyes. My ears imagined children laughing, the metallic grinding of old rides and carnies cajoling passerby to try their hand a game of chance. I smelled cotton candy and popcorn and hot dogs, kettle corn and barbecue sauce. A cloud of carnival perfume wafting in the still dark air of a summer night.
Colored lights flashed behind my closed eyes and I felt my mother’s hand in mine. Now it was her laughter I heard. She laughed as she pulled me by the hand from one game or ride to another. Her lights were on and they shone brighter than all the bulbs of the midway.
I opened my eyes. The park was a burned-out dream. Only rusted metal and rotting wood hung their scents in the air. Evan’s hand held mine now.
We walked on, leaves crunching around our feet. We came to the sign with the clown, his smile manic as he beckoned visitors deeper into Joyland. I remembered him. He was rusted now, his stance tilted on one broken leg. His paint was chipped, the primary colors faded by a decade of sun. But my memory restored him, brought back his conical cap and polka-dots.
“Mama told me to close my eyes,” I said. “Open your mouth and close your eyes. She put a pinch of cotton candy on my tongue. I’d never had it before. I remember thinking it tasted exactly like its name: a cotton ball of sugar that melted away.”
Evan smiled at me but said nothing.
“I wanted more and my mom laughed and held out a plastic bag full of it. I tore out a pink hunk and crammed it in my mouth. Instead of telling me to slow down or take smaller bites, my mother laughed and hugged me and pulled me toward the Tilt-a-Whirl. My stomach lurched the whole ride. I was woozy afterward, so we washed the cotton candy down with ice cream sodas and I crashed on the car ride home. Dozed in the passenger seat with my head cradled in the seatbelt. Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’ was on the radio and my mother sang along. She had a beautiful voice…”