Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [34]
Ruby insisted this was fine. The fact was, it would be horrible. Ruby wasn’t particularly extroverted, and she disliked noise. The idea of spending her afternoons shouting at strangers, trying to get them to play the horse-racing game, wasn’t a pleasant one. But Ruby had to work. She’d called Bob again, and in a cold voice he’d confirmed to Ruby that she was fired. Ruby had a small paycheck coming, but that was it. No savings, and the rent was due in two weeks. What’s more, Ruby didn’t know if Ed was ever coming home or paying his half of the rent.
Glenda’s ash finally fell. Slowly, some of it sticking to the front of her pink T-shirt. Ruby watched the woman rub the ash into the fabric of the T-shirt.
“You ain’t gonna make shit. You know that, right?” Glenda asked. “Like fifty bucks a day will be a good day.”
“I need something to hold me over,” Ruby shrugged.
“What happened, anyway?”
Ruby was surprised it had taken Glenda this long to ask. There was a solid divide between people who worked the games and rides and those who worked at the sideshow and museum. The two groups almost never mingled, and it was unprecedented for someone of Ruby’s position to come slumming in the proletariat like this. The only reason Glenda was giving Ruby a job was that Ruby had been coming to play her horse-racing game since she was twelve years old.
Ruby tried to make light of Bob’s firing her, hinting that it stemmed from a personality clash as opposed to an accusation of thievery.
“So what are you gonna do? Live out your days working at my game?” Glenda asked. She’d lit another cigarette and was squinting at a pack of young girls idling by the balloon game across the way.
“I have no idea,” Ruby said honestly. She didn’t have the strength to go hunting for a “real” job. She needed money, and she needed it fast. Asking Glenda had seemed her only option.
“Here,” Glenda suddenly shoved her microphone into Ruby’s hand, “get them girls to come over here and play.” Glenda motioned at the pack of girls across the way.
Ruby froze at the idea of shouting into the microphone.
“Come on,” Glenda urged.
“Ladies,” Ruby said tentatively. None of the girls looked her way. “Horse-racing game, ladies, two dollars to play.” Ruby got louder: “Every game a winner, two dollars any prize on the table.” Ruby picked up one of the immense teddy bears and brandished it above her head the way she’d watched Glenda and others do for so many years.
“You out of your mind?” Glenda hissed at Ruby. “You can’t give out no jumbo prize unless you got at least ten players.”
“I can win that bear?” One of the girls had sauntered over.
“Yes, you can,” Ruby said. “I’ll take it out of my own pocket,” she whispered to Glenda.
Glenda shrugged and started collecting money from the girl and her three friends. Glenda flicked the switches, activating each of the berths, as Ruby showed the girls how to practice rolling the small plastic balls forward and into slots.
“Get your ball in the red slot, moves your horse three jumps, blue is two, and green is one. Remember, one ball at a time or you’re gonna get ‘em jammed,” Ruby said, getting into the flow. She’d heard Glenda and others do this speech so many dozens of times, but she never realized she’d memorized the damn thing.
“Hold on to the balls, ladies.” Glenda’s double entendre was lost on the girls. “At the sound of the bell, start rolling. Sound of the bell,” Glenda said, then depressed the bell and the game started. One of the girls, a tiny, dark-skinned girl in a bright green outfit, was hurling the balls so violently they were popping out of her berth, and Glenda went over to scold her. Meanwhile, the apparent leader of the pack, a big girl with bleached-blond cornrows, was hitting one after another red slot, making her mechanical horse valiantly lurch forward. She won by many lengths, and before Ruby could hand her the bear, the girl was tearing it from Ruby’s arms.