Slide - Kyle Beachy [70]
“My relationship to the ad has evolved. I'm exploring the boundaries between us. Which is why I can't just hand it over to Edsel, no matter how much he wants or thinks he should have it. He said he's meeting us at the fair also.”
He inhaled, then leaned forward to blow the smoke directly into the stereo. He dropped the rest of the cigarette onto the floor mat and let it burn briefly before stomping it out.
We passed Forest Park and the community colleges along the highway. I had begun to fear her in small but meaningful ways, this simple country girl who was growing less simple and less country each minute.
When she said something I didn't catch, Stuart responded, “We'll find a funnel cake, I assure you of that.”
The downtown streets were like my father's dream, dense with pedestrians. We parked and began walking. The crowd had its own rhythm, bobbing heads and shuffling feet. For a second I saw the vision, the St. Louis Hooray! master plan. Wasn't this what the city was missing? With no urban center there was no crowd, and with no crowd as its opposite, how strong was our sense of the individual? Maybe this explained the region's primary obsession: the crowded ballpark.
The three of us entered the sweeping fairgrounds through enormous inflated Budweiser gates, flanked on either side by enormous inflated Clydesdales. Here among the happening came a fuzzy and numb wave of community. We made our way into the crowd until we came upon two lines stretching in opposite directions, one to purchase tickets, three to the dollar, the other to exchange tickets for sixteen-ounce cups of Budweiser, thirteen tickets to the beer. My head pounded.
“I have pockets full of money,” Stuart said. “I'll wait for tickets, then catch up with you two in the beer line. We're going to show this system who's boss.”
He poked Marianne's bare shoulder and left us. Deceit, gullibility, monogamy. Two men in front of us wore Blues hockey jerseys and jean shorts and smoked menthols. The line moved us forward and I remained quiet because this was the pattern we'd set within the fairground chatter around us, the children and their tantrums, man talk and woman laughter and the reverse of that. Stuart had spoken of honesty and their unprecedented version of nakedness, sweeping admissions and revelations of long-held beliefs. Eliminating the metaphor. The air smelled sweaty and alcoholic. Slightly in front of me, her neck was dark beneath hair gathered into the loosest, most vague version of a ponytail. I wondered what would happen if I just reached for it, wrapped fingers around her hair, and jerked downward, just to see. She'd, what, scream?
Without turning to face me, she said, “He'd better get enough tickets for a funnel cake.”
“What percentage of you, approximately, would you say is full of shit?”
“No more than you, pally.”
“Nice fucking overalls.”
“Coveralls,” she said, turning. “Where I'm from we call them coveralls.”
“No. Coveralls are jumpsuits with sleeves. Onesies.”
“Says you.”
And then Stuart was back, emerging from the crowd to lace an arm between Marianne's tanned back and her dishonest denim.
“I handed them dollars and they ripped pieces of cardboard from a giant spool and expected me to say thank you. Deal of the century.”
A volunteer checked our IDs while the troop in yellow collared shirts behind her filled millions of beers and set them onto a plastic table. We were given bright-green bracelets to prove we were of age. As we left the table I began playing with the bracelet and accidentally broke it. I went back to the table for a replacement, and when I returned Stuart and Marianne were gone. I continued deeper into the fair, through the rows of booths and attractions. I watched darts thrown at a wall of balloons and peered into a cotton-candy machine, relieved to be alone and anonymous among the throng of strangers.
Turning a corner, I caught sight of Edsel in one of the booths, leaning to speak into the ear of a man behind a vending table. The man nodded slowly. For a moment Edsel and I locked eyes, and I nearly