space.
Bill watched this with a kind of amazement.Eventually the bearded lady lifted her head even more and pointed her beard at the moon and gave out a grunt he could hear, and Conrad, shaking like a convict taking his voltage in the electric chair, came to a finish. They lay down together, and Conrad pulled a blanket over them. But the motor home rocked on, Frost either taking long to finish or striving for a double.
The whole thing made Bill lonely as the last pig in a slaughterhouse line.
Bill resented Conrad got to drive the Ice Man’s trailer. This was obviously an important assignment. He, instead, had been given Frost’s motor home to drive. At first he thought this was an honor, but in time he realized the Ice Man was, at least to Frost, the most important member of the carnival, and he trusted it only to Conrad, his number one man. Dog. Whatever. Trusted it to him even if he had to pull the trailer while sitting on a cushion, working the pedals with a stick.
Bill soon lost his resentment, however, and learned to take pride in his responsibility. Gidget had taken to staying in bed while he drove instead of riding with Frost or driving the car. She liked to sleep until they came to the next town and set up. At that point she would abandon the camper for air and cigarettes, always dressed in shorts and T-shirts too small to hold her.
She never did any work that Bill could see, outside of what she did at night with Frost in their bed. Perhaps she saw this as work enough. Bill knew, had he been Gidget, he’d have certainly counted it as a fulltime job with overtime. Maybe a little hazard pay for having to deal with that extra hand.
Bill enjoyed having Gidget in the motor home whilehe drove. He could smell her, even when he was behind the wheel and she slept behind the closed bedroom door. It was a smell rich and wet, like a lathered horse.
One morning he liked it even more. They were driving to a small town called Gladewater, planning to set up just outside near what Frost called “a row of honkeytonks.”
On the dash of the motor home was a mirror Gidget used to apply makeup to her eyes and lips and brush her hair. He looked at it to examine his face, and liked what he saw. A face clear of swelling and strangeness. Not a bad-looking face, a good-looking face actually, the one thing about himself of which he could be proud, yet had nothing to do with. Nature had given it to him, not out of design he figured, but in the manner a blackjack dealer might turn over a card and find a King.
Still, accident or heavenly design, it was his face, and it was almost back to normal, just tired and a little splotched.
But what interested Bill even more than his face was that the mirror showed him the reflection of the now open bedroom door behind him. In the doorway, sleepyheaded, hair tangled, was Gidget. She was naked as the day she was born, but certainly a lot better looking than at that earlier moment, and she was struggling into a pair of blue jean shorts, wrestling the denim with the fervor of a rodeo rider trying to bulldog a steer, throwing her soft butt back and forth like a pendulum, giving him a wiggling peek at other charms, wobbling boobs, legs long and soft and brown and popped with muscle, a dark V of fuzz coating what Eve used to destroy Adam. Apple, hell. Everyone knew what it was Adam wanted and why he did what he did. A womanlike that, like Eve, like Gidget, she could make you set fire to an old folks home and beat the survivors over the head with a shovel as they ran out. A woman like that damn sure wouldn’t have to do much to get some guy to steal an apple.
Much to Bill’s disappointment, Gidget eventually slid into the shorts and straightened up. She turned and looked toward the front of the motor home where he manned the wheel. He could tell from the set of her face that she knew he was looking at her in the mirror. The shorts were unzipped all the way down, and he could see the crease of the
Bill watched this with a kind of amazement.Eventually the bearded lady lifted her head even more and pointed her beard at the moon and gave out a grunt he could hear, and Conrad, shaking like a convict taking his voltage in the electric chair, came to a finish. They lay down together, and Conrad pulled a blanket over them. But the motor home rocked on, Frost either taking long to finish or striving for a double.
The whole thing made Bill lonely as the last pig in a slaughterhouse line.
Bill resented Conrad got to drive the Ice Man’s trailer. This was obviously an important assignment. He, instead, had been given Frost’s motor home to drive. At first he thought this was an honor, but in time he realized the Ice Man was, at least to Frost, the most important member of the carnival, and he trusted it only to Conrad, his number one man. Dog. Whatever. Trusted it to him even if he had to pull the trailer while sitting on a cushion, working the pedals with a stick.
Bill soon lost his resentment, however, and learned to take pride in his responsibility. Gidget had taken to staying in bed while he drove instead of riding with Frost or driving the car. She liked to sleep until they came to the next town and set up. At that point she would abandon the camper for air and cigarettes, always dressed in shorts and T-shirts too small to hold her.
She never did any work that Bill could see, outside of what she did at night with Frost in their bed. Perhaps she saw this as work enough. Bill knew, had he been Gidget, he’d have certainly counted it as a fulltime job with overtime. Maybe a little hazard pay for having to deal with that extra hand.
Bill enjoyed having Gidget in the motor home whilehe drove. He could smell her, even when he was behind the wheel and she slept behind the closed bedroom door. It was a smell rich and wet, like a lathered horse.
One morning he liked it even more. They were driving to a small town called Gladewater, planning to set up just outside near what Frost called “a row of honkeytonks.”
On the dash of the motor home was a mirror Gidget used to apply makeup to her eyes and lips and brush her hair. He looked at it to examine his face, and liked what he saw. A face clear of swelling and strangeness. Not a bad-looking face, a good-looking face actually, the one thing about himself of which he could be proud, yet had nothing to do with. Nature had given it to him, not out of design he figured, but in the manner a blackjack dealer might turn over a card and find a King.
Still, accident or heavenly design, it was his face, and it was almost back to normal, just tired and a little splotched.
But what interested Bill even more than his face was that the mirror showed him the reflection of the now open bedroom door behind him. In the doorway, sleepyheaded, hair tangled, was Gidget. She was naked as the day she was born, but certainly a lot better looking than at that earlier moment, and she was struggling into a pair of blue jean shorts, wrestling the denim with the fervor of a rodeo rider trying to bulldog a steer, throwing her soft butt back and forth like a pendulum, giving him a wiggling peek at other charms, wobbling boobs, legs long and soft and brown and popped with muscle, a dark V of fuzz coating what Eve used to destroy Adam. Apple, hell. Everyone knew what it was Adam wanted and why he did what he did. A womanlike that, like Eve, like Gidget, she could make you set fire to an old folks home and beat the survivors over the head with a shovel as they ran out. A woman like that damn sure wouldn’t have to do much to get some guy to steal an apple.
Much to Bill’s disappointment, Gidget eventually slid into the shorts and straightened up. She turned and looked toward the front of the motor home where he manned the wheel. He could tell from the set of her face that she knew he was looking at her in the mirror. The shorts were unzipped all the way down, and he could see the crease of the
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