The Dead Zone(9)

But by the time they reached the Esty fairgrounds, where the naked bulbs of the midway twinkled in the darkness and the long spokes of the Ferris wheel neon revolved up and down, she had forgotten the mask. She was with her guy, and they were going to have a good time.

3.

They walked up the midway hand in hand, not talking much, and Sarah found herself reliving the county fairs of her youth. She had grown up in South Paris, a paper town in western Maine, and the big fair had been the one in Fryeburg. For Johnny, a Pownal boy, it probably would have been Topsham. But they were all the same, really, and they hadn't changed much over the years.

You parked your car in a dirt parking lot and paid your two bucks at the gate, and when you were barely inside the fairgrounds you could smell hot dogs, frying peppers and onions, bacon, cotton candy, sawdust, and sweet, aromatic horseshit. You heard the heavy, chain-driven rumble of the baby roller coaster, the one they called The Wild Mouse. You heard the popping of in the shooting galleries, the tinny blare of the Bingo caller from the PA system strung around the big tent filled with long tables and folding chairs from the local mortuary. Rock 'n' roll music vied with the calliope for supremacy. You heard the steady cry of the barkers - two shots for two bits, win one of these stuffed doggies for your baby, hey-hey-yer-here, pitch till you win. It didn't change. It turned you into a kid again, willing and eager to be suckered.

'Here!' she said, stopping him. 'The whip! The whip!'

'Of course,' Johnny said comfortingly. He passed the woman in the ticket cage a dollar bill, and she pushed back two red tickets and two dimes with barely a glance up from her Photoplay.

'What do you mean; "of course"? Why are you "of coursing" me in that tone of voice?'

He shrugged. His face was much too innocent.

'It wasn't what you said, John Smith. It was how you said it.'

The ride had stopped. Passengers were getting off and streaming past them, mostly teenagers in blue melton CPO shirts or open parkas. Johnny led her up the wooden ramp and surrendered their tickets to the whip's starter, who looked like the most bored sentient creature in the universe.

'Nothing,' he said as the starter settled them into one of the little round shells and snapped the safety bar into place. 'It's just that these cars are on little circular tracks, right?'

'Right.'

'And the little circular tracks are embedded on a large

circular dish that spins around and around, right?'

'Right.'

'Well, when this ride is going full steam, the little car we're sitting in whips around on its little circular track and sometimes develops up to seven g, which is only five less than the astronauts get when they lift off from Cape Kennedy. And I knew this kid ...' Johnny was leaning solemnly over her now.

'Oh, here comes one of your big lies,' Sarah said uneasily.

'When this kid was five he fell down the front steps and put a tiny hairline fracture in his spine at the top of his neck. Then ten years later - he went on the whip at Topsham Fair... and ...' He shrugged and then patted her hand sympathetically. 'But you'll probably be okay, Sarah.'

'Ohhh. .I want to get olliff...'

And the whip whirled them away, slamming the fair and the midway into a tilted blur of lights and faces, and she shrieked and laughed and began to pummel him.

'Hairline fracture!' she shouted at him. 'I'll give you a hairline fracture when we get off this, you liar!'

'Do you feel anything giving in your neck yet?' he inquired sweetly.

'Oh, you liar!'

They whirled around, faster and faster, and as they snapped past the ride starter for the - tenth? fifteenth? -time, he leaned over and kissed her, and the car whistled around on its track, pressing their lips together in something that was hot and exciting and skintight. Then the ride was slowing down, their car clacked around on its track more reluctantly, and finally came to a swaying, swinging stop.

They got out, and Sarah squeezed his neck. 'Hairline fracture, you ass! ' she whispered.

A fat lady in blue slacks and penny loafers was passing them. Johnny spoke to her, jerking a thumb hack toward Sarah. 'That girl is bothering me, ma'am. If you see a policeman would you tell him?'

'You young people think you're smart,' the fat lady said disdainfully. She waddled away toward the bingo tent, holding her purse more tightly under her arm' Sarah was giggling helplessly.

'You're impossible.'

'I'll come to a bad end,' Johnny agreed. 'My mother always said so.'

They walked up the midway side by side again, waiting for the world to stop making unstable motions before their eyes and under their feet.

'She's pretty religious, your mom, isn't she?' Sarah asked.

'She's as Baptist as you can get,' Johnny agreed. 'But she's okay. She keeps it under control. She can't resist passing me a few tracts when I'm at home, but that's her thing. Daddy and I put up with it. I used to try to get on her case about it - I'd ask her who the heck was in Nod for Cain to go live with if his dad and mom were the first people on earth, stuff like that - but I decided it was sort of mean and quit it. Two years ago I thought Eugene McCarthy could save the world, and at least the Baptists don't have Jesus running for president.'

'Your father's not religious?'