When he arrived back at the camper he had a large cardboard box in his arms. I was already stressed. It was dark. I didn't know how to light the lantern, he never let me touch it and I wasn't allowed to remain outside if he wasn't handy. It wasn't often that we were apart so late in the evening but Lochlan had been recruited reluctantly to help break down a temperamental, rusty structure. The rain had finally let up after four days and we were pulling up stakes tomorrow. An unholy mess at this point. Everyone was demoralized and exhausted.
Um..okay, just turn around and close your eyes.
I can't see, it's okay.
Just do it, Bridge.
I put my hands over my eyes and began to sing. He laughed and asked me if I was peeking so I turned away and put my back to him to prove I wasn't looking.
He crashed around for a good seven, eight minutes and boy, did I ever get tired standing there listening to my stomach growl. It was my thirteenth birthday, well, for another three hours at least.
It's ready. You can look now.
I turned around slowly and opened my eyes. Lochlan had lit a candle. A single white taper but we didn't have any candle holders so he jammed it down into the center of the potted ivy plant I set outside the camper every morning in the sun and brought in every evening at dusk. Lochlan regularly emptied the last drops of his beer into it and still it persisted, sort of like we did.
He had found a small white tablecloth to cover the drop leaf table and real plates! Real china plates were on the table. On the counter was a bag that I could smell before he told me to open my eyes. Chinese take out. And a big cold bottle of Dr. Pepper and something else. A bundle wrapped in a cloth that I couldn't identify at all. Maybe his laundry. Sometimes he took it and hung it on the line behind the poker game tents to dry.
He grinned.
Happy birthday, little lady.
I smiled back. Huge. I counted four boxes of take-out. My stomach groaned at the delay.
Thank you.
A speech before we eat?
No, after. Starved.
He laughed again and pulled my chair out. I sat down and he brought over the bag and took everything out. Sweet and sour chicken. Fried rice. Chow mein. Two egg rolls. Two fortune cookies. A feast! He poured us each a tall glass of Dr. Pepper and began to dish up the food. We ate and drank and laughed until all of the food was gone as he described the men's jokes as they fought to pry the bolts loose earlier to dismantle the ride and failed at so many the torches were brought in. The jokes were crass and nasty. Carnival humor. There is no room for delicate sensibilities or offense in a place such as this. There's very little room for newly-thirteen year old girls either. But out of two different sorts of desperation I had been accepted into the fold, into the gypsy family and mostly I felt at home.
I laughed when Lochlan laughed and acted outraged when he did. And then I burped really loud and he laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair.
That was beautiful. Here, birthday girl. What's your fortune?
"You create your own stage and your audience is waiting."
Uncanny. Mine: "Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence." (He would later have this Mencken quote tattooed from shoulder to wrist.)
That's beautiful. And true.
And how. And I have another surprise for you, Bridget.
I am too stuffed for surprises now.
Not this one.
He went back to the counter and took the bundle and brought it carefully to the table. He unwrapped it slowly and then I realized why as he removed the last sheets of plastic only to be confronted with a final toothpick defense which he quickly removed, using a plastic spoon to smooth away the tiny holes. One that he licked clean first.
A cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate icing. That he made.
For me.
For my birthday. Still warm, which meant that he hadn't been tearing down machinery in the dwindling rain and light. He had been baking. Baking! My eyes filled up. He pointed out he did help tear down the machinery and then they let him off early so he could get the cake done. And then he went back out in the rain while it baked but kept such a close eye on his watch that they began to tease him for it. He sang Happy Birthday to me quite seriously. It would be the first time.
Later on, after I was so full I moved slower than usual, I sacked out on the bed, the sugar high taking over, fatigue not far behind. Best night of my life.
There's more.
I can't eat anymore. I might die.
It's not food.
I'm surprised. We must have had a better week than I realized. I am slurring sleep into our conversation. What is it?
A trip.
A trip? Different show or new one?
Not a show, a trip. Just you and me. We'll get away from it all. He laughed at the cheesiness of his own words. We were perpetually away from it all. The circus was an imaginary landscape, life in costume distilled into a freakshow and a high-wire act, punctuated with his batons, lighting the night on fire, outshining the stars.
Where will we go?
That's the best part, Bridget. It doesn't matter. The whole world is ours.
