their newfound, nervous energy. A decapitation and some spilled blood
were apparently just the sort of things that Buzz and Liz, if not
Richie, needed to see in order to burn off the chemicals bubbling in
their bloodstreams, the sort of thing they needed to experience in
order to mellow out again.
No more dope tonight, Amy vowed. No more dope ever. I don’t need
drugs to be happy. Why do I use them?
They went to a sideshow called Animal Oddities, and the bizarre
creatures in that attraction gave Amy the willies. There was a goat
with two heads, a bull with a three-eyed, triple cranium, a disgusting
pig with eyes on either side of its snout plus two more eyes higher in
its head, greenish drool trickling over its cracked and leathery lips,
two extra legs coming out of its left side. They finally came to a pen
that contained a normallooking lamb, and Amy reached out to pet it, but
when it turned toward her, she saw it had an extra nose and a bulging,
sightless, third eye on the side of its head, and she pulled her hand
away. The nightmarish animals were a beer chaser to the whiskey-like
effect of the spiced grass she had smoked, when she left Animal
Oddities, she felt higher, more thoroughly detached from reality than
when she had entered.
They rode the Rocket-Go-Round. Amy sat in front of Buzz on the
motorcycle-like seat, in one of the two-passenger, bullet-shaped
cars.
In the relative privacy of that rapidly spinning container, he put his
hands on her braless breasts.
The centrifugal force pushed her back against him, and she felt the
heat and size of his erection as his crotch was jammed hard against her
buttocks.
Y want you,” he said, putting his mouth against her ear, making himself
heard above the roar of the Rocket-Go-Round and the fierce whining of
the wind.
It felt good to be wanted so badly, to be needed as Buzz needed her,
and Amy wondered if maybe it was a good thing to be like Liz. At least
you always had someone around who needed you for something.
At Bozo the Clown’s booth, both Buzz and Richie managed to hit the
bull’s-eye and dunk the jeering clown in a huge tub of water. Buzz
went about it doggedly, buying three baseballs, then three more, then
three more, until at last he connected and sent Bozo into the tub.
Richie, on the other hand, disdained that approach. He considered the
situation with a mathematician’s eye and sensibilities, threw two bad
pitches, learned from each of them, and banged the bull’s-eye on his
third try.
Later, when their car stopped for a moment at the top of the Ferris
wheel, with the diamondbright midway spread out below them, Buzz kissed
Amy, kissed her deeply, hungrily, his tongue probing her mouth. His
hands were all over her. She knew that tonight had to be the turning
point in their relationship.
Tonight she would either have to drop him or give him what he wanted.
She couldn’t stall any longer. She had to decide who and what she
was.
However, she was so high, so loose that she didn’t want to thinkouldn’t
think-about complex problems like that. She just wanted to float
along, enjoying the lights, the sounds, the blur of motion, constant
action.
After the Ferris wheel, they boarded the bumper cars and bashed each
other mercilessly. Sparks crackled and flew from the exposed-wire grid
overhead. The air smelled of ozone. Each noisy, shattering collision
sent a jolt of sensual pleasure through Amy.
On one side of the bumper-car pavilion, the carousel turned in a blur
of brilliant lights. On the other side, the Tilt-a-Whirl spun, rose,
fell.
Calliope music mixed with the roar of the crowd and the constant
chatter of the pitchmen and the crashing of the bumper cars.
Amy loved the carnival. As she pursued Richie’s car and slammed into
it broadside, as she was spun around by the impact, she thought that
the carnival, with all of its lights and excitement, might be a little
bit like Las Vegas, and she wondered if perhaps she would enjoy going