Just Drive [old version]

[ chapter twenty-one ]

            “Yes.”

            He smiles smugly. “That’ll be two tickets.”

            I hand him two of our remaining ride tickets in exchange for a large, heavy, wooden mallet. I hear the carnival barker snicker and mutter something behind our backs, but I choose to ignore it.

            I reach for the mallet, but Austin stopped me. “I got this,” he says confidently. When he saw the expression on my face, he adds, “Trust me.” He doesn’t address me beyond that.

            He steps up to the game and swings the mallet around just to get a feel for its weight. Even from here, I could see his knees buckle occasionally from the sheer magnitude of the mallet. I could only pray that we were both going to arrive in California in one piece.

            Without warning, Austin starts to swing the mallet back. I hear a tiny grunt coming from his direction, and then the mallet comes smashing down. I see the carnival barker smirk, but before his smirk came to full bloom, the little pinger for the game shoots up the pole and hits the bell.

            For a moment, no one breathed. I see the carnival barker’s eyes grow wide with disbelief and Austin’s glimmer with pride. All the people passing by seem to stop and stare at the bell before turning their attention to Austin. Of course, all of that magic seemed to dissipate when the little pellet dropped back down to the ground.

            In an attempt to regain his composure, the carnival barker fixes up his tie and swings a fatty arm around Austin’s shoulders. “Hey, congratulations, boy!” he says with false enthusiasm. “You are now free to pick from any of them prizes over there.” He points a chubby finger at the top row of prizes.

            Austin doesn’t even hesitate to point at the stuffed, blue animal. “I want that one.”

            The carnival barker grumbles, but he agrees. His pudgy body sways side from side on the little ladder he had to get on to reach the top of the prize rack, but he makes it up and down with no problem. “Here you go, boy-o. Have a nice day.” He seems to spit out the last part, but he hands over the prize nonetheless.

            Austin turns around and beams at me. Now, I could see that the blue animal was actually a dog and that it was about half the size of Austin’s lanky frame. I refrain myself from running over and hugging him, so I settle for standing there with my hands bundled together and my lips pulled apart in a smile.

            “Oh my God, how did you do that?”

            He simply shrugs and hands me the dog. “My dad taught me all these carnival tricks. He said that’s how he convinced my mom to go out with him.”

            His words have an immediate effect on me. My heart starts to flutter and I feel the heat start to rise to the back of my neck. I open my mouth to say something profound, but all I could manage to get out was, “Oh.”

            Austin doesn’t seem to notice the butterflies. His attention was already turned to the next carnival game. “Hey, want to go there?”

            I turn my head to the left. The booth he was pointing at was one of the goldfish bowl games. There was already a line of kids lined up in front of the booth. For every kid that piled onto the line, another one left from the front empty-handed and utterly dejected. The girl running the booth, an apathetic pre-teen volunteer, was leaning against the framework with her eyes glued to the phone. The kids, at this point, were literally crawling around the booth searching for more ping-pong balls and then taking a shot on their own. She was completely unaware of the situation, but it didn’t make much of a difference; none of the kids could throw far enough to reach a goldfish bowl.