I could see the Ferris wheel turning in the distance, visible above the row of dark outbuildings that separated the animals and the arena from the fairgrounds beyond. A soft breeze lifted the hair from my damp cheeks and brought with it the carnival cologne of cotton candy and popcorn before it merged with the smell of vomit and manure and lost its sweetness.
I teetered slightly and felt the horror of the last few minutes start to sink in. Sinking, sinking, sinking. I needed to go home.
Moses must have felt me slowly plummeting into the abyss, because without another word, he reached out his hand and loosely took my arm, offering support. I loved him at that moment, more than I thought I could. Way more than our brief encounters warranted. The troublemaker, the delinquent, the crack baby. He was now my hero.
He walked beside me slowly, letting me lean on him. And when we reached his Jeep, I stood, staring blankly at it, a Jeep I’d seen day in and day out since he moved to Levan six weeks before. I had been jealous of his cool wheels when I only had an old farm truck to drive, a truck that didn’t go above forty miles per hour. I’d been jealous before, but now I was so grateful for it I wanted to fall to my knees and give thanks. Moses gently urged me up into the passenger seat and buckled me in. The buckles were more like harnesses and I welcomed the relative safety, even as I worried about the fact that the jeep had no roof and no doors.
“Moses, Jeeps, seatbelts, home, Moses,” I listed, not even aware I was speaking out loud, and not caring that I’d repeated Moses twice. He’d earned two spots tonight.
“What?” Moses leaned in and lifted my chin, his eyes worried.
“Nothing. Habit. When I’m . . . stressed, I list the things I’m grateful for.”
He didn’t say anything, but he kept looking at me as he climbed in and started the Jeep. I felt him watching me as he maneuvered his way across the gravel, around the corrals and horse trailers, through the parking lot and out onto the road.
The wind roared into our faces, tangled in my hair, and pushed against my body as we sped down the highway, leaving the fairgrounds, the glittering Ferris wheel, and the happy sounds that had given me such a false sense of security behind us. Those sounds had lulled me and lured me in all my life. Now I wondered how I would ever go back.
Moses
I HAD GONE TO THE RODEO for Georgia. Not because I had some premonition that she needed me, or even some hope that she wanted me to be there. Definitely not because I expected to find her tied up, covered in mud, crying because someone had tried to hurt her or scare her. Or take her. She said it was probably a prank. I wondered what kind of friends pulled pranks like that. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t have any friends.
My grandma had presented me with an extra, general admission ticket that afternoon and informed me that Georgia was “competing in the barrel races and you don’t want to miss it.” I had the sudden image of Georgia atop a barrel, balancing as she made it roll, her feet flying, trying desperately not to fall off as she tried to cross the finish line ahead of all the other barrel racers.
I had never been to a rodeo before. I had no idea how crazy white people could be. Considering I had been abandoned by a white, crack addict mother, I should have known.
But I actually enjoyed myself. There was a wholesomeness about the entertainment—lots of families and flag waving and music that made me wish I’d worn a cowboy hat, no matter how stupid I would have looked in it. I ate six rodeo burgers, which may have been the best thing I’d ever eaten in my life. Grandma hooted like she’d just been called down on The Price is Right and stomped her feet and generally acted like she was eighteen instead of eighty, which I also enjoyed. Roping, riding, cowboys being flung like rag dolls from bucking horses and twisting bulls, and girls like Georgia, riding like they’d been born in a saddle. I was pretty sure Georgia had. I’d seen her ride plenty of times when she thought I wasn’t watching.
I’d avoided Georgia since the incident in the barn. I didn’t know what to do with her. She was a wild card. She was a small town girl with a simple way of speaking and thinking, a frank way of being that turned me on and turned me off at the same time. I wanted to run from her. But at the same time, I spent all my time thinking about her.
I watched Georgia fly into the arena on her pale horse, dust swirling, hair streaming out behind her, hugging the strategically placed barrels with a grin so huge I knew she was enjoying her flirtation with death. I knew horses were to her what painting was to me, and as I watched her fly, I desperately wanted to paint her. Just like that, full of life and motion, completely unbound. I usually painted when the images in my head became too much to contain and then spilled out in furious frustration. I had rarely painted pictures just for the joy of it, just for the pleasure of painting something that appealed to me. And Georgia, in front of a screaming crowd, hurtling around a dusty arena, had somehow become something that appealed to me.
I left before it was all over, Grandma assuring me she was riding with the Stephensons and didn’t need me to stay. I drove around aimlessly, with no desire to brush up against people at the carnival, ride the Ferris wheel, or watch Georgia with her friends, celebrating her winning ride. I was sure she had friends. And I was sure I was nothing like them.
I drove and drove and then I felt it coming on, the warning that rose in my veins and made my neck and ears throb with heat. I turned up the radio, trying to use sound to drown out sight. It didn’t work very well. Within a few seconds I saw a man by the side of the road. He just stood, looking at me. I shouldn’t have been able to see him. It was dark. And it was a country road, lit only by moonlight and the headlights of my Jeep. But he stood illuminated, as if he’d borrowed light from the moon and wrapped himself in it.