Read Madball for Free Online Page B

had taken him to the little green tent that he'd learned was a sleeping top and had said they'd sleep together, and something had happened that night that had hurt him, hurt him bad, but Jesse had fed him and so anything Jesse wanted to do to him was all right, anything. That had been about a year ago, he thought, anyway there had been one winter since it happened, and he'd been with Jesse ever since.
    And Jesse bought him all he wanted to eat, always, and if Jesse never gave him any money, that didn't matter much because there wasn't anything he ever needed money for except cotton candy and he could get money for that sometimes by doing errands for other carneys sometimes when Jesse didn't need him. Right now he had fifty cents in his pocket, burning a hole there, that Mr. Linder had given him early this afternoon for going to a store a block from the lot and bringing back some things Mr. Linder had written down on a list for the Store Man to read. But when Sammy got back Jesse had made him start work right away so he hadn't had time to spend the fifty cents. That was another reason he hoped Jesse would close early tonight because then the Cotton Candy Lady would still be in her booth and he could have five big balls of fluffy cotton candy without having to wait until tomorrow for them. The Cotton Candy Lady charged the marks fifteen cents for a cone of cotton candy but she always gave them to Sammy for a dime if Sammy waited till a time when there weren't any other customers there.
    And now Jesse took the bottle out from under the counter and drank again and this time he drank the last of the little that was left in it and threw down the empty bottle. And sure enough he said, "Okay, kid, let's knock it off. We done enough today." And it was still early enough that everything else in the carney was running, maybe only about ten o'clock or even earlier. And now if only Jesse didn't want to go to the sleeping top he could have those cotton candies.
    Sammy started to lower the canvas front of the booth and he remembered something he'd been wondering.
    "Jesse," he said. He'd called Jesse Mr. Jesse at first, like he called everybody else Mr. or Miss but Jesse hadn't liked it and had made him stop.
    "Yeah?"
    "Jesse, how old am I?"
    "Hell, I don't know. Eighteen, maybe twenty. Why?"
    "The cop asked me. When he was asking about me finding the man dead. I didn't know but I been wondering. How many is eighteen?"
    "Goddam, what you get not minding your own business. You do anything like that again-"
    Sammy cringed for fear Jesse was going to get mad all over again and even hit him. He said, "I won't, Jesse."
    "Goddam well better not. Aw right, run along and do whatever you wanta, long as you stick on the lot. I'm gonna take the boys with the dice tonight."
    Jesse went out under the sidewall.
    Sammy straightened things up, put all the baseballs into the foot locker and locked it, picked up the bottle Jesse had thrown down and pushed it out under the back canvas, then pulled out the plug that turned off the lights.
    And Sammy was free.
    A few minutes later he was eating his first cone of cotton candy and while he ate it he watched the bally of the model show across the way. They were starting to bally again when he got his second cone and with it in his hand he wandered over closer to watch.
    Miss Trixie and Miss Maybelle were on the platform in their silk wrappers. They were both pretty but Sammy watched Miss Trixie. He liked Miss Trixie; she gave him quarters for doing errands for her two or three times a week. And she treated him nice. Some of the other women on the lot acted as though they didn't like to have him around but Miss Trixie didn't seem to mind. She was small and had such smooth nice black hair and such red lips.
    Her silk wrapper was pulled tight around her and in front there were two mounds that were breasts. Other women had them too and he wondered why. For the first time Sammy found himself wondering why women were