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"I was watching you out the window while I was making the po'boys," the widow told him.
"That was very neighbourly of you, ma'am."
"Didn't seem to me you was moving around any too frisky. I think your boy'd better give you a hand."
"I just can't let him do that, ma'am," he muffled through a mouthful of bread and chicken and greens. "It's his heart, you see."
I set my glass down and pressed my hand against my chest.
"But don't you worry," Dirty-Shirt continued. "I'll do the work of two men."
"It ain't often you hear tell of a child with a weak heart," the widow said.
"That is so true, ma'am. So true. It's a rare congenital form of subacute bacterial endocarditis. But please don't let my doctor talk bamboozle you. The only reason I know the medical term is because... well, I suffer from the malady myself. Have ever since I was a kid. It's hereditary. Thankfully, it ain't a quick killer... so long as you don't tax yourself none."
"But... how on earth did you ever run a farm with your subacute bactra-what it is?"
"Slowly, ma'am. Real slowly. And maybe that's why there wasn't enough put aside to care for my Maudie when the fever came and she..." He couldn't finish. I mean he couldn't finish what he was saying. He finished his po'boy and milk just fine. And seconds on the milk. But the widow wouldn't let him finish stacking the wood, no matter how much he begged her not to shame him by treating him like some shiftless bum because he was eager to give a fair day's work for a fair day's— "Is that apple pieI smell?"
"Happens it is. Like I said, this is baking day."
"Now you listen to me, ma'am, and don't you dare argue with me!" he said, shaking his finger at her. "There is nothing in this world that could make me accept a slice of that apple pie; not after eating your delicious sandwiches without properly earning them. But there is something I wouldaccept, but only after telling you that here comes what you might call the sting. What I will accept-and the onlything I'll accept-is your permission for me to stand here for a minute and get my fill of that splendid aroma of ci
Unwilling to intrude upon his silent memories, the widow turned her pitying eyes towards me, so I set my milk down again, put my hand to my chest, and smiled sort of thinly.
Ten minutes later, we were walking up the tracks, Dirty-Shirt Red carefully carrying half a pie wrapped in a newspaper, and the dog following along, criss-crossing close behind our heels. "You trip me and make me smash this pie, Hugo," Dirty-Shirt warned him, "and you'll get my boot so far up your ass you'll be able to taste the leather!"
As soon as we were out of sight of the widow's farm, Dirty-Shirt shied the dog back home with chucks of ballast, then we continued along, quickly falling into the not-quite-a-full-step gait of the tie walker.
I could tell he was pretty pleased with himself. Me, I felt ashamed, and I told him so. "It wouldn't of done us any harm to stack that lady's wood for her."
"Harm's ass. Harm don't come into it. It's a matter of principle. The dumbest mark in the world can earna sandwich. But to scoreone without working... that takes a carnie. And the sign of your top-flight carnie was the way I scored those toppings."
"Toppings?"
"That's 'Bo for desserts and sweet things, the stuff you top up on. Your ordinary run-of-the-mill carnie would of been content with just the sandwiches, particularly as she'd just about recognized me from the last time I came through and scored off'n her. I hope you noticed how when I co
"I don't see that it takes all that much grit to tell her you're stinging her when she doesn't even know what a sting is."
"There's no end of things you don't see, kid."
"Maybe so, but it seems real low to do down a nice old lady like that."
He stopped in his tracks and looked down at me with a deep frown. "That wasn't a nice old lady. That was a mark. And marks aren't old or young, or nice or nasty, or male or female. They're just marks, and they've got to be treated like marks. If you can't manage that, then there's no hope of you ever becoming a true carnie."
"But I admire her kindness to strangers."
"You what?"
"I admire it," I repeated, sort of pugnaciously because I'd just learned the real meaning of 'admire' and I wasn't completely sure I had it right. Where I'd come from, people said 'admire' to mean 'like', as in: I'd sure admire to go to the movies tonight, Ma.
"You admire a dumb mark? And yet you're thinking about becoming a carnie?
"Yeah, but-"
"Yeah but's ass! If you're so cut up about scoring off that mark, then you don't have to eat your share of these toppings." He scrambled down from the raised track and sat in the shade of a tree, where he opened his newspaper bundle.
Between us, we got that pie down pretty quickly, then we continued along the tracks for a couple of hours before we came to a little tank town that I thought was called Marksville until I realized that carnies call all towns Bumpkinburg or Hicksville or Rubetown, or some such. We left the tracks and took the road because anyone seen walking the tracks was assumed to be a hobo, and in some towns you'd do ten days or two weeks in the local hoosegow on a vag charge, and they'd work you as free labor, digging drainage ditches or patching up roads from dawn to dark. When things got real bad, especially in winter, men would sometimes walk right into town along the tracks, and even do a little panhandling on the main street, hoping to get picked up by the local badges so they'd have something to eat and somewhere warm to stay, even if it was only for two weeks. But lots of times, the law would be on to that scam, and they'd just run you out of town after giving you a going over with an ax handle to make sure you didn't come back any too soon.
Dirty-Shirt Red and I were sauntering down the main street, still heading north, when this big shiny black Packard passed us and pulled up in front of the town bank. The driver jumped out and opened the back door, and this real well-dressed man stepped out and went into the bank, after saying a word or two to people who took off their hats and smiled and bobbed with pleasure at his attention.
"Man, look at that," I said. "Owning a bankful of money, and having everybody sniffing up to you? I do believe I could get used to that sort of life."
"Not me," snapped Dirty-Shirt.
"You're telling me you wouldn't change places with that man and his fancy suit and big car and everybody bobbing and gri
"Not for anything in the world. Why, I'd sooner look down and discover I was pissing blood than be that man. And you know why?"
"No, why?"
"Because for all his high-toned ways, he ain't nothing but a mark."
"Oh, come on!"
"I'm not shitting ya, kid. He's a mark. I've played this town, and I've scored on him."
"Youscored on him?"
"You better believe it. Seven, maybe eight years ago, David Meeker's United International Shows played through this rinky-dink, one-dog town. I was ru