Free See You on the Backlot by Thomas Nealeigh Page B

but didn’t come off too badly. That’s what he said, anyway… but I know he might have been hiding the truth. After all, he’s the one who taught me how to fight – how to defend myself from a townie in a clem, or knock out a drunk who loses control. Besides, if I hadn’t put some hurting on him, would those other carnies have jumped intothe fight, sucker punching me from behind? I don’t think so.
    Do you like that stuff? Here, let me pour you some more. I got something else to tell you…
    Just now, I lied when I told you I haven’t really seen anyone else. See, being stuck in the trailer is hard for anyone – but particularly for me. I need my freedom, son, that’s what I’m saying. So one night, well after the show was dark and everyone should have been done – and Charlie had been snoring away like a good drunk for nearly an hour – I snuck out to take a walk around the lot.
    I swear to you, I wasn’t planning any trouble. I certainly didn’t want anyone to see me – I’ve got enough trouble as it is! So, I made sure to avoid the living lot (though, when I walked an aisle over, I saw that Mutt and Jeff seemed to be keeping watch at the gate to the back yard), and kept myself to the parking lots and front end. It was late… and I mean,
late
. Hardlya peep from anyone. So it was easy to hear the security walking their rounds of the lot, and avoid them. Well you can imagine my surprise as I was making my way back through – because I decided to make sure our banner line was still fine and can’t trust Charlie to do it – and I heard voices coming from inside our joint.
    Anyone else, greenie, and they never would have heard anything. But, me? I guess I was already so much on edge trying to keep from getting caught, I was paying extra attention to everything.
    Now, it seemed to me that whoever was in our joint had gone to a lot of trouble not to be heard. I couldn’t see any lights from inside and could only hear a murmur of voices, without being able to tell what they were saying. So I figured it was an inside job – especially if Murphy and Charlie had tied the place down like they usually do. But then I thought that if Charlie was on a tear or anything, who knows what could be going on in there?
    So I snuck up, nice and quiet. A quick check of a couple of entrances showed it was tied up tight from the inside, so I went around to where I knew there was a place in the canvas that couldn’t be seen from inside, and used my knife to cut a slit, big enough to let me in. I knew Charlie would be steamed about it – even if he didn’t know I did it – but if something was wrong it’d be worth it. Besides, I knew it would probably be me who’d have to sew it back up.
    I got inside without hearing anyone raise an alarm, and found myself just where I thought I’d be: behind some of the big wooden crates we use for storage. Now the voices were louder, I could tell there was a group of people in there, but I couldn’t tell what they were talking about. Real quiet-like I snuck around the side to peak out and see what was going on.
    You can imagine my surprise to see just about the whole show in there, greenie. I mean,
you
weren’t there, but I could see Jerry and Travis, along with Sharon, Bettie and Abdul. I saw one of the other canvasmen too, plus a couple of shadowy shapes I wasn’t sure of. Maybe the half-and-half and her boyfriend or something. Like I said, I couldn’t tell. They were crowded up in the pit, with just a single light in the centre of the ring, like it was a campfire they’d all sat around to sing songs or something.
    And standing there in front of them was Frank. Yeah, Frank… the guy I brought in to replace Sam. He’s standing there like he owns the place and he’s addressing them like he’s the almighty Grand Pooba of the Masonic Lodge or something. I couldn’t hear much of what the others were saying – but I could hear exactly what
he
was saying.
    He was saying, ‘I’m