Chapter 1: Fremont

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George says to me, “If you’re going to steal from somebody, you do it when they’re right in front of you. Right when they’re looking in your eyes.”

At first I think this is some interesting advice. He’s been conning people forever. Then I wonder, does George know we're stealing? Has he told anyone? Maybe we should stop.

The paranoia begins, like a dirty fear.

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Our first spot is Fremont. I’m standing in what they call a 'joint'. It’s a trailer with an open side - a booth for games. My game is the 'balloons'.

The darts thrown keep bouncing off the balloons, and people get angry and feel cheated. I tried to persuade my boss that I should blow the balloons up the whole way. But that’s the trick, you see, blowing them up only half way - to keep them from popping.

There’s an old guy beside me, George, who won’t ever use my name. He calls me 'Greenhelp' - even to my face. I guess I haven’t yet earned the right to a name.

Patty’s in the goldfish joint, where people toss ping-pong balls into glass bowls to win fish. All she has to do is run around and pick up the balls. She's far down the aisle from me so I never see her.

A fat old woman that can barely walk runs the joint. She sits on a stool and squawks, “Get ‘em in and win one! Get ‘em in and win one!”

If Patty gets quiet she’ll squawk, “Call ‘em! Call ‘em! Call ‘em!” Then go back to, “Get ‘em in and win one! Get ‘em in and win one! Ten for a dollar, twenty-five for two! Get ‘em in and win one!” She’s like a large demented bird.

For Patty it’s a little like being chained to Jabba the Hut. You want to get behind her with piano wire or a phone cord. But she’s the sister of Bud Butler - the guy who owns the whole carnival, so you can’t say a thing to her. Her name is Olie.

I wish I could pick up balls. I’m supposed to call people in to my joint. It’s very awkward. I don't know what to say. I try, “Hey. Over here. Look. Darts.”

Usually I just stand there, and conspicuously hold the darts, hoping somebody will walk over. I can tell the old guy beside me hates my guts because I’m not calling them in. But for what? To throw darts at skimpy balloons, to win these tacky framed pictures from the 80’s? It’d be hard to give this shit away.

It’s $2 a game for three darts. There’s a deal I can offer, three games for $5, if somebody comes over to only play one. It’s a way of weaseling more money out of people. They don’t call them 'people' here - they call them 'marks'. But I haven’t tried the three-for-five. I’m worried it’s pushy. And it’s also illegal, since I don’t have it posted anywhere.

We’re not getting paid any wages at all - just a commission. It’s 20% on whatever we bring in. So far today I’ve brought in $6. My uncle comes around to collect every so often, to keep people from stealing.

At first it was great. My uncle Richard gave Patty and I each a $25 advance because we were broke. To get paid before we even started seemed like a cool job. And the ride down from Oregon was a sort of adventure.

But now we’re in a mall parking lot, somewhere in California, watching people go by, humiliated, and hardly making a dime. And we sleep in the back of a Ryder truck.
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Chapter 2: Home

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The sight of my girlfriend naked over my best friend is an ax slammed into my face.

“Fuck you Jon! Fuck you!” I yell.

“What, Rob. All that talk?” he yells, defensive. Then “Shit,” soberly.

I don’t know whether it’s my cue to cry, to scream, or to throw an epileptic fit. My whole world is being ripped apart.

Later Jon comes in with a large tree branch I guess he found outside, and wants me to hit him with it.

Life turns to hell. A steady ooze of hell. Nothing really matters anymore.

Patty and I leave school and camp in some woods behind a grocery store. It’s winter in Pennsylvania. It’s somehow critical that we stay together. When our food runs out, she sneaks home and steals a bag of canned food, and one of her mother’s credit cards.

I’ve become numb to everything but fresh injections of pain, as I press her for details. Much like an addict. Each one scalds my mind. The image of his hands sliding over her breasts is like a brief hit of electrocution. I want to punish her, and keep guilt uppermost in her mind, so that she suffers as I suffer, and somehow owes me. I’m no longer sure of her, and this is a way of shackling her.

When it snows we use the credit card to get a room. Patty pays day by day. Eventually the manager gets suspicious, because we’re both young. I’m 18 and she’s 17. So we leave the motel, and go back to camping in the snow.

Jon picks us up a week later, and takes us to the train station. Patty’s bought tickets for Utah with the stolen credit card.

We’re out on the platform waiting for the train. It’s cold, dreary, and windy, and it’s beginning to snow. We have a half-hour before the train arrives. Jon’s got somebody with him, as a buffer. He says goodbye and leaves early. I feel like he doesn’t give a shit about us.

We get on the train and find a seat. Patty’s very nervous. I’m anxious, and hope things work out . . . but have a bitter and almost suicidal indifference.

I picked out a lake in Utah on a generic map of the U.S. I’m hoping to camp in woods beside it, and find some work in Salt Lake City. We both want to get far away from Pennsylvania, and put family, friends, and memories behind us. 'Home' has become a prison.

We have sex as often as possible. For me it’s a way of owning her, possessing her, knowing she’s truly mine. And she wants me to feel that way, to counteract whatever happened.

The train has a big palatial bathroom. One entire wall of the room is a mirror. Sex has become pornographic for us. We try many different positions, and watch. Just being with her is no longer enough. There’s got to be some sensation with it – the sight of it, a novelty in it. Otherwise her body bores me. The very smell of her nauseates and bores me.

We change trains in Chicago. We have a few hours to kill. There are two guys in their early twenties playing chess. I play the winner.

He’s in the Navy or something. We talk a while. It sounds like he’s had a lot of experience. I tell him about the stolen credit card, and ask his advice. He says we should buy bus tickets because they last for a year. That way if we need to get out of Salt Lake when the card freezes we can.

He’s got a house somewhere in South Carolina, and he writes down the address. He says we’re welcome to come live there whenever we want.

We sit in the lounge car through the Rocky Mountains. It’s all windows on either side, and I can smoke. The train cuts through total nowhere. It swerves and climbs, and we go through tunnel after tunnel. The whole route is gouged out of the mountains.

We get in to Salt Lake City at night. I notice my wallet’s missing as I walk into the station. I panic and run back into the train. I find it lying on my seat. It’s only got forty dollars, but it’s all the cash we have. Patty has the credit card.

A taxi takes us to a cheap motel. The driver says the city is laid out like a grid, and one of the cleanest, and best organized we’ll ever see. He picks out the motel. Paying for anything is always nerve-racking in case they ask for I.D. But here they don’t.

That night I have a nightmare about Patty. I wake up relieved to see her okay beside me. She’s awake. I start telling her about the nightmare. She looks at me strangely for a while. Then she slowly gets out of bed and walks to the door. She starts coughing, and choking. She gets down on her knees.

I say Are you all right Patty? What's wrong? Are you okay? She starts violently coughing, and then her eye falls out. It’s dangling a few inches down from the socket. I yell Oh my God, I'm going to call 911, it's okay Patty, they can put it back, they can put it back! But no one answers the 911 call.

I wake up and she’s beside me again, but this time asleep. I wake her to make sure she’s fine, and to check if I’m awake. I tell her about the double nightmare. I almost want to run out of here and wander the streets.

Since the credit card won't last long with all these charges, we go buy a suitcase-full of canned food. I don’t get cigarettes because she’s buying and under 18. It seems too risky to try. The suitcase has wheels, so I tow it along the sidewalks on the long walk back to the motel. But I forget to get a can opener.

We go to the bus station and Patty buys tickets for Portland, Oregon. I’ve got relatives somewhere in Oregon, along the coast. Port something, I don’t remember what. I guess Portland because it’s all I see on the map.

I ask a bum on the street about the local shelter. It’s comforting to know there’s some place we can turn when the money’s gone. But it’s a shady prospect. We’re both straight out of suburbia.

The bums seem well established here – sitting out on sidewalks sipping coffee, their cups and pans set out for change. They say it’s a good place to be homeless.
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Chapter 3: Dan

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Halfway through Freemont I call a guy in and get him to go three-for-five. He walks away with a small picture, probably worth a quarter. I happen to catch George’s eye after I hand out the prize. He nods to me.

A tall, thin guy walks up in a cap. He's got a short red mustache and asks, “They got any holes here?”

His voice is smooth and cocky and I dislike him immediately. He’s got a small pinched face and freckles. Something about the mustache and the wrinkles around his eyes makes him seem older, sleazy, and repellent. He’s got on a gray 'members only' jacket, which I notice because they went out of style so long ago.

A 'hole' is a job, and I don’t know. I point out my boss. I hope he doesn’t work with us.

An hour later he’s in the balloons with me. They don’t pay their help, so why not cram in as many people as you can? His name is Dan, and he’s very tall. At least 6’4”. We’re right on top of each other. His arms are always waving around with darts.

He calls out to nearly everyone that walks by. I don’t feel as embarrassed and call some myself.

He complains about my overcalling. There’s an invisible line between joints (and between people within a joint) that you can't call across - it's like stealing somebody's potential customers.

One group I bring in he says he called first - so I give him the five dollars I make. It's irritating, but I'm not going to fight over money. I just quietly despise him.
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