When We Still Dreamed

“Zac, it’s time to break the Zipper down.” Taylor called into the trailer. The night was cool, but it felt good. The air inside the trailer was dank and fetid. Taylor wrinkled his nose in disgust. He threw his cigarette down in the dust and settled on the step. The sun had set hours ago. And usually, the night would be filled with the swirling lights of the rides, but this fair was over. Before the sun came up, they’d be on the road, heading to another anonymous city he wouldn’t see beyond a dusty field.

“No, seriously?” Zac said as he stepped past Taylor. He landed barefoot in the dust, sending up little, brown clouds. “Dude, I just laid down. I’ve been running the Tilt-A-Whirl all day. Smoke said I didn’t have to break down any rides tonight. I mean I’m beat. Can’t someone else help take it down?”

“Nope, Crusher sent me for you specifically.” Taylor said. A light wind had begun to blow, blowing straight through the trailer. Taylor turned his head. He couldn’t believe the three of them could live this way. “Fuck man, we need to clean out this trailer. It smells like something died.”

“Talk to Ike about that.” Zac said as he settled into a lawn chair. Zac was bronze and brawny, not your typical carnival worker, but none of them were. He started sliding on his beat up Redman boots. “I think it’s his turn to hose down the trailer. That is, if you can find him sober long enough to give a shit.”

“I’ll tell him as I hand him an enormous cup of coffee.” Taylor said as he leaned back on his elbows. At least, Isaac was a happy drunk. With that said, it was pretty tragic to watch his brother slowly become hard and old before his time. Whether it was conscious or unconscious, he was slowly beginning to look a lot like Mr. Fitzgerald. Watching the toll this life took on his brothers was the hardest part of it all. Taylor sighed; he was tired to his bones. He had dropped his leather belt on the ground at his feet. It was blonde leather, but he had been sweating so heavily, it was dark. Taylor pulled his wet wifebeater off over his head.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Zac asked as Taylor started unlacing his boots.

“I just took down the Ferris Wheel by myself.” Taylor answered chucking his right boot at Zac.

“You pussy, that is the lightest ride out there.” Zac said buckling his belt on. “Now the Zipper, that’s a heavy ride”

“Dude, did you not hear me?” Taylor asked irritated. “I took the ride down myself. Crusher told me to take the rest of the night off.”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Zac said snagging the cigarette behind Taylor’s ear before he walked away from the trailer. “I still say that’s a cakewalk next to the Zipper. Fucking pussy.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Taylor said as he collapsed back. Zac was soon just a glowing ember off in the distance. Taylor was grimy and in serious need of a shower, but mostly, he was tired. He put his hands behind his head, stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back in the door of the trailer. The stars were spread out above him in a moonless sky. He closed his eyes and remembered a time when he would have wished on the stars, would have looked at them and promised himself that one day he wouldn’t need the wish, he controlled his destiny. And really, he did. He’d controlled his destiny right into a life as one of the most reprehensible professions out there. He and his brothers were carnies.

Isaac was known as Brain because he had a head for business. The traveling carnival they worked for made pretty decent money because he always worked the deal to their advantage. He had the smarts, as Mr. Fitzgerald liked to tell anyone who would listen. Isaac never had to do the hard physical stuff. Zac was known as Z-Dawg. Zac was a workhorse. He had strength no one ever expected. He supposed it was because when they stumbled into this life, Zac had only been fifteen. The first time he helped strike the rides, all of the old guys were duly impressed by his ability to lift things about double his weight. Zac was definitely the strongman. Taylor felt a keen wave of homesickness and melancholy wash over him as he realized Zac was about to turn twenty.

Zac’s birthday would just be another day. He and Isaac might remember to grunt “happy birthday” in the general vicinity of Zac, but that was about it. There was a time when birthdays had been nothing short of an event. Friends and family gathered together for the birthday boy or girls favorite meal. Then long hours of games and presents and just general good times, it was a tradition.

The last big birthday had been the weekend of Zac’s eleventh birthday. The three of them had relocated temporarily to Los Angeles to record what was ostensibly supposed to be their brilliant debut album. The family had been visiting them in California, brothers, sisters, parents, an aunt, an uncle and some good friends. Not including the boys, there had been 14 all together. When Zac had been pressed about what his ultimate party would be, he had sheepishly admitted he’d always wanted to go to Disneyland. Even though the price was prohibitive for a family of eight let alone the added family and friends, they all agreed that didn’t matter. As soon as the boys were done recording their album, money wouldn’t be an issue. There was no expectation that the boys would support the family, but it would take the edge off of bill day. All three of them understood the sacrifices that had been made in their behalf and the three of them were more than happy to take some of the pressure off of their father.

Zac had ridden the Matterhorn and Space Mountain until he puked. Then, he went back for more. Taylor had somehow been roped into riding all the princess rides with his sisters. But, he didn’t mind. He adored his little sisters. Whenever he looked back at the sunny October afternoon, it always had a hazy, late afternoon glow to it. He remembered long blonde hair, flushed pink cheeks and breath that smelled like cotton candy. Avery had been riding his shoulders when she’d spied Snow White. She had practically launched herself off of him to get to her. The actress who played Snow White that afternoon saw the blonde dervish running towards her; she dropped to one knee, her arms open. She gathered his beautiful baby sister into her arms and held her. It was beautiful. No, beyond beautiful, it was transcendent.

His smile at this memory slid off his face. The memories of that day were sacred. He held them at arms length most of the time. He felt that even just thinking of that day would diminish the memory just as the oil on his fingers would begin the inevitable process of tarnishing a brand new penny. Also, those memories were inevitably followed by what happened next.

Taylor is never sure who answered the phone. In his memory, it was Isaac. But Isaac says it was their Uncle Christian. Taylor does remember the words tumbling over each other, but he didn’t understand them. In his memory, he just looked at his hands, wondering when English stopped making sense. When he looked down, it had been day. As time passed, he was aware of Zac wailing somewhere in the distance, of Isaac picking up a chair and throwing it through a window. He heard someone vomiting. But it was all outside of the vacuum he found himself in. Then, somewhere deep inside of him, the words connected. The truth of the words “plane crash” and “no survivors” slid into place. When he looked up the world was dark. Sound went from somewhere on the outside, dim and unfocused, to too loud, brash and abrasive. As the words made more and more sense, his hands went to his hair. His chest heaved and yet, air wasn’t going in or out. He was suffocating. He leaned forward over his legs; everything was too much, too loud, too bright, too dark, too real, too hard, too hard. His inability to take a breath was becoming worrisome. The world was beginning to swim before his eyes, his field of vision obscured by dark spots. He felt fingers biting into his shoulders, pulling him upright. The worried face of Isaac hovered over him. “TAYLOR! Breathe!”

Taylor took a deep breath as Isaac held his face. When he finally let it out, it didn’t come out in shudders, but in a scream. He had screamed and screamed and screamed until the doctor arrived and shot him full of sedatives. As the world faded, he heard the doctor say to his uncle, “I’m not surprised. I don’t think the human mind is equipped to hear your entire family has died.”

Taylor wiped angrily at the tear that had escaped. “No wonder my nickname is “girl”,” Taylor muttered as he got up. With the rides turn off and being taken down, the night was dark and quiet, too quiet.

And Taylor was in dire need of some sort of bath. He stood in the door of the silver streamline he and his brothers had called home for almost five years. It was tight, but they didn’t own much. Taylor wasn’t sure how they ended up here. Well, that was a lie. He knew exactly how he and his brothers ended up working for Fitzgerald’s Carnival. He always found it puzzling how easily they had just slipped off the radar. They had decided they didn’t have the heart to finish the album. When they arrived back in Tulsa, they enrolled in public school. But he soon found he was not cut out for the public school system. He was teased for his long hair and tormented over his feminine looks and tortured for his ability to sing. Each morning, he got up and dressed for school. After he left his aunts house, he would duck into the woods, spending his day simply dreaming. Dreaming about the way the world had been, how the world should be, how the world perhaps one day would be.

At first, he felt guilty for lying to his Aunt Sarah. But, his world had totally collapsed around him. He simply was not equipped to deal with all of the changes at once. Eventually, Zac joined him. They would sit in the shelter they had made. In the beginning, they didn't talk at all. Both of them were shell shocked, refugees barely holding onto the will to live. When they did talk to each other, it was about the things they missed and would miss, forever. It was strange to be sitting there talking about their lives being over at twelve and fourteen, old men before they were even men.

Soon, it was like they had never existed.

The three of them fell into an uneasy sort of life. There would never be anything easy about their lives again. But they fell into roles that were easy to define and easy to deal with. Every moment was as hard as the moment before, but they all somehow learned to live with the despair. Isaac finished high school, Zac took care of where they lived and Taylor got a job. He was at various times, a busboy, a fry cook, worked for a landscaper and at McDonalds.

The day he met Mr. Fitzgerald, he had been sitting out in front of the pay by the week hotel they had moved into, dreading the thought of going to the carwash for another day. He had fairly effectively pulled himself out of all social situations. But once in a while, someone he knew came in to get their car washed. That was when he wanted to disappear. But to be honest, there were perks to working in the carwash. His looks got him great tips and lots of offers to scratch various itches. As much as he hated who he had become, he didn’t necessarily hate the easy and plentiful sex being thrown at him. It was a Wednesday. That meant Mrs. Turner would be in for a wash and a little something extra. There was a certain shame in what he was doing, but the way he looked at it, they’d find a way to satisfy their needs. So, he may as well benefit. And truthfully, he was a fantastic lover.

He was smoking his third cigarette of the morning. He grimaced thinking about all the damage he was doing to his voice. But, he knew his singing days were over. The line of trucks and trailers that pulled into the parking lot hardly merited his notice. In fact, if Mr. Fitzgerald hadn't walked right up to him, it wouldn't have even been a blip that registered on his day.

“Hey, pretty boy,” Mr. Fitzgerald had barked at him. “Where’s the office?”

“Fuck you.” Taylor had snapped back, flicking his cigarette butt towards the fat man.

“Nice mouth,” he said smirking at him. “You got some balls.”

“That’s what all the ladies say.” Taylor said lighting his fourth Camel of the day after adjusting what he was assured was a very healthy package.

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Fitzgerald asked. “Why aren’t you in school?”

“Who are you? My truant officer?” Taylor snapped back totally not intimidated by the older man.

“Kid, if you ever want a job where you can see the world, just let me know.” Mr. Fitzgerald said flipping a business card at him. “You got quite the attitude and your pretty face couldn’t hurt business.”

Taylor had looked at the card for a long time.

That day had been particularly brutal. Several of the people he once considered friends had come to the carwash. Each of these moments had been punctuated by long, uncomfortable silences. And Mrs. Turner arrived for her weekly detail. Taylor had looked at her expectant face and mumbled to his supervisor that he was going out for a smoke. When Mrs. Turner had finally found him out behind the carwash, she was less than pleased, telling him he could easily be replaced by any number of two-bit man whores. And he had just shrugged before dropping his lit cigarette at her feet and walking away.

That evening, the convoy of carnie vehicles came back late. Taylor and his brothers were sitting out in front of their room, smoking, not talking, watching the stars.

"So, girl, have you thought about my offer?" Mr. Fitzgerald fired over at Taylor.

"What offer?" Isaac queried. He was in his second year of community college, studying accounting. He hated it and everything about it. But he also knew there would always be jobs for accountants.

"I offered your brother here the opportunities of the lifetime, travel, decent pay and more sex than he'd know what to do with." Mr. Fitzgerald said smiling his oily smile.

"Are you some sort of traveling porn show?" Zac asked watching as the carnies each disgorged from their vehicles with local girls all done up in the trampy best. Zac watched wide eyed as a girl he recognized from his short stint in Junior High. This girl was obviously very drunk and doing things to the carnie that made him blush. When she dropped to her knees in front of him, Zac had definitely seen enough.

"Naw, although sometimes it feels that way." Mr. Fitzgerald laughed heartily and loudly as another girl pulled her scanty shirt off to the cheers of the grimy men. His teeth looked too big for his mouth and his green, satin vest looked to small for his beer belly. "We're just a humble carnival, but the best of them all. I think your brother here has what it takes to make a good carnie."

"He can't go." Isaac said coolly. "He's not 18."

"Well, that's too bad." Mr. Fitzgerald said shaking his head. "Give me a call if you change your mind."

By the time the carnies were packing up ready to leave. Taylor had made up his mind. He was getting out of Tulsa. There was nothing left for him in Tulsa, just some shattered dreams. He promised Isaac he'd send his paychecks home to him, but he just needed to escape. After a lot of yelling and several conversations with Mr. Fitzgerald, it was decided all three of them would go. So, with the little bit of money they had left from their parents’ life insurance policies. They bought a King Cab pickup truck and a Streamline trailer and hit the open road.

They had always imagined a life on the road, but not like this. They had dreamed of nights under bright lights and screaming voices, but not this way. Each night found them dirty and exhausted. But finally able to sleep without nightmare visions of those days and weeks immediately after a plane filled with people they loved fell from the sky. Life was simple again, Taylor worked rides, Isaac minded the books and Zac was the king of concessions.

In the five years on the road, they had done fairly well. Zac quickly moved out of concessions when it was discovered that he was stronger than anyone could imagine and had a quick and keen mind when it came to fixing things. In fact, Zac was a more natural handyman/engineer than the actual engineer that worked for Fitzgerald's. Isaac was pretty much useless when it came to the hard and heavy work, but the first time he looked at the books, he told Mr. Fitzgerald what he could do to not only save money, but make more of it. This earned a special place in the old man's black little heart, because money was all that mattered. Isaac was a good negotiator and a natural born con man. He could relieve people of vast amounts of cash and have them thanking him, a talent that was put to use on a daily basis. Soon, Isaac had his own green satin vest, a burgeoning cigar habit and a taste for 12-year-old scotch. Taylor could never figure out when a highball of pearly ice cubes and scotch became Isaac's constant traveling companion. Isaac exuded the warm, woody almost sharp smell of scotch all the time.

The other guys had stopped their merciless teasing the first time Taylor decked Smoke. After one too many invitations to suck Smoke's dick, Taylor had balled his hands into tight fists. It only took one punch to lay Smoke out flat and break two of his knuckles. But, the pain was all worth it. He was still called Girl and Pretty. But now it seemed to be a tribute to his ability to bed pretty much any girl that walked through the gates. Soon, it was a joke that there had to be tons of little Taylor's running around the country. He again closed his eyes and imagined having a family again. Even though he said this wasn't forever, he was afraid it just might be.

Taylor sighed again. The silence was becoming overwhelming. It was punctuated occasionally by the sound of swearing as rides were dismantled and the lusty laugh of Isaac in the office. The quiet was getting under Taylor's skin. He stepped into the trailer and began fishing through the box of CD's looking for something to break the monotony. His fingers closed around a CD he hadn't even realized they had with them. The red cover of Mmmbop caught him totally off guard. He couldn’t even conceive of ever being that young. On a whim, he stuck it in and soon the trailer was filled with his voice. The ripples of his voice gave him chills. He hadn't heard this CD in years. He sighed again. He was mired in a mixture of melancholy and regret. He hadn't felt this lonely in a long time. This wasn't the way he wanted to spend his evening.

He stripped off his dirty jeans and gave himself the closest thing to a shower he had access to. Generally, they had rooms in seedy motels to return to, but since this was the last night of this carnival, they had checked out that morning. Soon, it would be winter and they’d head to Florida with the rest of the carnies. Crusher had said there was one more stop before the season was over. They would return to the dirty town on the Gulf of Mexico that was the landing place of every carnie and freak in the lower forty-eight. Then, he could bathe every day. He actually couldn't wait to soak in a tub, finally getting all the grease and oil out from under and around his fingernails. Until then, sponge baths were the order of the day.

Once he felt close to human, he pulled on a clean pair of boxers and a wifebeater. He knew there was no way he'd get Isaac to clean the trailer, so he started just picking everything up. There were more dirty clothes than he thought they even owned. At the next stop, he definitely had to find a Laundromat and wash some of these disgusting clothing. He scrubbed every available surface, opening all the windows to let the air move through the trailer.

“Our lives are filled with enough garbage without adding this shit on top of it.” He muttered to himself as he worked. Again, he wondered how he’d gotten here. As he worked, he mumbled along with the impossibly pop songs; he couldn’t even believe the words to these songs came out of his psyche. The music got him moving. Soon, he had filled two large garbage bags with the detritus of their daily lives. He had discovered the root of the smell; it was some uneaten fast food that was in a bag decomposing. The bags were heavy with emptied ashtrays, alcohol bottles, crushed aluminum cans and more fast food cups and bags than he could even believe. As he stepped out into the night, happy to have at least started the process of cleaning, he felt his stomach rumble, yearning for a home cooked meal. He stepped into his battered work boots, but didn't bother to lace them. He was only heading over to the dumpster, so the wifebeater and boxers were okay.

When he stepped back into the trailer, he noticed it smelled better and it had the distinct odor of cigars and scotch. Isaac had returned. Taylor continued with the cleaning, wondering not for the first time, how long it had been since this trailer had been this clean and ignoring the sounds of Isaac retching. This usually happened the last night in any given city. Mr. Fitzgerald and Isaac sat and counted the earnings for the stand. And with each stop, they made more and more money. So, to celebrate, they both drank and drank. Unfortunately, Isaac didn’t eat much anymore. He had his scotch and that seemed to be enough. Where Mr. Fitzgerald was round, Isaac was angular. But the amount of alcohol he and Mr. Fitzgerald put away affected him badly. He could hold his liquor, but not at the rate of Mr. Fitzgerald.

Taylor quickly began opening and closing the various cupboards, pulling out more trash and dirty clothes. He found a cupboard that was mostly empty, save for one metal box. It was a box that he knew and hadn’t seen in years. He thought Zac had left it in their storage unit in Florida. But, here it sat, dusty and untouched for probably months.

margin-left:0in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace: He gingerly took it out as though it were made of the finest crystal. His hands left greasy smudges in the dust. As his voice played behind him, he traced the drawings that covered the box, pictures drawn by little hands with a sharpie. Taylor remembered how angry Zac had been to see the box his new cymbals came in (and the cymbals themselves) was covered with childlike graffiti; but the way Jessica and Avery smiled and said they had only wanted to make it pretty had completely disarmed him. Taylor gently popped the lid and felt the full force of the pictures hit him. There right before his eyes was his smiling family. All of them gathered together, arms linked, hands held, in front of the clock at Disneyland.

The body blow was complete. Taylor felt his knees collapse under him. He had known what was in there and yet, hadn’t been prepared. As he hit the ground, he heard Isaac call for him.

“Tay, is that you?” Isaac called from inside the bathroom.

“Uh, yeah.” Taylor called back hoping the tears weren’t evident in his voice. He sat on the floor and sorted through picture after picture, so many smiles, so many happy faces. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen a real smile on Isaac and Zac’s faces.

“Wow, look at how clean this is! You caught Ike in a sober moment?” Zac said joking as he stepped into the trailer. When his eyes landed on Taylor his face fell. “Tay, are you okay?”

This time Taylor knew if he tried to speak it would come out in sobs. He just held out the picture. Zac took it in his hands, holding it gingerly careful not to spread the black grease on his hands onto the pictures. “God, they were beautiful.” Zac sat on floor next to Taylor. They silently sifted through the pictures. Neither of them daring to say anything, this moment fell somewhere directly between sacred and profane. Isaac eventually stumbled out of the bathroom, without a word, he settled on the floor next to Zac. They communed over the pictures of those lost.

“I just can’t believe it’s been almost nine years.” Zac whispered as the CD ended.

“I can,” Isaac said lowering his head into his hands. “I feel everyday they’ve been gone in my bones.”

“How old would they have been?” Taylor asked quietly, the picture of Avery hugging Snow White in his hands.

“Jess would be seventeen, Avery almost fifteen, Mackie would have been eleven, as old as you were when they died.” Isaac answered.

“I think that is the first time I’ve heard their names out loud in years.” Taylor said his words catching in his chest. “I just miss everyone so much…”

“Hey guys, saddle up!” Crusher said leaning in the door of the trailer. “I got your map to the next location here.”

“Thanks.” Zac asked jumping up rubbing his greasy hands over his face. He snatched the map out of Crusher’s hand. Under Crusher’s skeptical eye, Taylor and Isaac pulled themselves off the floor. Taylor gathered all the pictures together and placed them back in the metal box. “Where are we going?”

“Last stop is Tulsa, then home.” Crusher said his voice just one step above a growl.

“Cool,” Zac said nodding towards him. Taylor was amazed that the only reaction the word “Tulsa” brought was a little bit of a sway. Other than that, Zac stood strong. “How long ‘til we leave?”

“About fifteen.” Crusher said banging the side of the trailer.

“We’ll be ready.” Taylor said surprised at how strong his voice sounded. As Crusher walked away, they just stood looking at each other. Once again, a total silence had descended. “Tulsa, then home…”

“Tulsa is home.” Zac mumbled.

“We can go see mom and dad.” Isaac said softly. “We haven’t been to their graves for a long time. Maybe, it will be good this time. Maybe, we can stay.”

“No,” Taylor answered. “We can’t stay. Or at least, I can’t.”

“Why not?” Isaac asked his hands in his hair. “It is our home. It’s where we come from. It’s where we left them. It is what we know.”

“No,” Taylor said sadly, shaking his head. “It’s just where we were… when we still dreamed.