Another step, and then another, toward the merry-go-round, there went Jim.
”Go get him, Will,” said his father.
Will went.
Jim raised his right hand.
The brass poles flashed by into the future, pulling the flesh like syrup, stretching the bones like taffy, the sunmetal color burning Jim’s cheeks, flinting his eyes.
Jim reached. The brass poles flick-knocked his fingernails, tinkling their own small tune.
”Jim!”
The brass poles chopped by in a yellow sunrise at night.
The music leaped in a clear fountain, high.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Jim opened his mouth with the same cry:
”Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
”Jim!” cried Will, running.
Jim’s palm slapped one brass pole. The pole whipped on.
He slapped another brass pole. This time, his palm glued itself tight.
Wrist followed fingers, arm followed wrist, shoulder and body followed arm. Jim, sleepwalked, was torn from his roots in the earth.
”Jim!”
Will reached, felt Jim’s foot flick from his grasp.
Jim swung round the waiting night in a great dark summer circle, Will racing after.
”Jim, get off! Jim, don’t leave me here!”
Flung by centrifuge, Jim grasped the pole with one hand, spun, and, as if by some lone lost and final instinct, gestured his other hand free to trail on the wind, the one part of him, the small white separate part that still remembered their friendship.
”Jim, jump!!”
Will snatched for that hand, missed, stumbled, almost fell. The first race was lost. Jim must circle once, alone. Will stood waiting the next charge of horses, the fling-about of boy not-so-much boy—
”Jim! Jim!”
Jim awoke! Circled half round, his face showed now July, now December. He seized the pole, bleating out his despair. He wanted, he did not want. He wished, he rejected, he ardently wished again, in flight, in heat-spell river of wind and blaze of metal, in jog of July and August horses whose hoofs thudded the air like thrown fruit, his eyes blazed. Tongue clamped in teeth, he hissed his frustration.
”“Jim! Jump! Dad, stop the machine!”
Charles Halloway turned to see where the control box stood, fifty feet off.
”Jim!” Will’s side was stabbed with pain. ““I need you! Come back!”
And, far over away on the far side of the carousel, traveling, fast-traveling, Jim fought with his own hands, the pole, the empty wind-whipped journey, the growing night, the wheeling stars. He let go the pole. He grabbed it. And still his right hand trailed down and out, begging Will’s last full ounce of strength.
”Jim!”
Jim came around. There, below, in the black-night station from which this train pulled away forever in a flurry of ticket-punch confetti, he saw Will-Willy-William Halloway, young pal, young friend who would seem younger still at the end of this journey, and not just young but unknown! vaguely remembered from some other time in some other year … but now that boy, that friend, that younger friend, ran along by the train, reached up, asking passage? or demanding he get off? which?!
”Jim! Remember me?”
Will lunged his final lunge. Fingers touched fingers, palm touched palm.
Jim’s face, white cold, stared down.
Will trot-paced the circling machine.
Where was Dad? Why didn’t he shut it off?
Jim’s hand was a warm hand, a familiar, a good hand. It closed on his. He gripped it yelling.
”Jim, please!”
But still they spun on the journey, Jim borne, Will dragged in a jog-crazy-trot.
”Please!”
Will jerked. Jim jerked. Trapped by Jim, Will’s hand was shot with July heat. It went, like a kept animal, held and fondled by Jim, along, around, into older times. So his hand, far-traveling, would be alien to himself, knowing things by night that he himself, abed, might only guess. Fourteen-year boy, fifteen-year hand! Jim had it, yes! cramped it tight, would not let go! And Jim’s face, was it older, from the journey round? Was he fifteen now, going on sixteen!?
Will pulled. Jim pulled opposite.
Will fell on the machine.
Both rode the night.
All of Will rode with friend Jim now.
”Jim! Dad!”
How easy it might be to just stand, ride, go round with Jim, if he couldn’t pull Jim off, just leave him on and, dear pals, travel! The juices of his body swam, binding his sight, they drummed his ears, shot electric jolts through his loins…