Joyland

their own version of the Talk, but underneath it’s always carny-from-carny. A hammer-squash is a cony (usually a fump) who bitches about having to wait in line. The last hour of the day (at Joyland, that was ten PM to eleven) was the blow-off. A cony who loses at some shy and wants his mooch back is a mooch-hammer. The donniker is the bathroom, as in “Hey Jonesy, hustle down to the donniker by the Moon Rocket—some dumb fump just puked in one of the sinks.”
    Running the concessions (known as joints) came easy to most of us, and really, anyone who can make change is qualified to push the popcorn wagon or work the counter of a souvenir shop. Learning to ride-jock wasn’t much more difficult, but it was scary at first, because there were lives in your hands, many those of little children.

    “Here for your lesson?” Lane Hardy asked me when I joined him at the Carolina Spin. “Good. Just in time. Park opens in twenty minutes. We do it the way they do in the navy—see one, do one, teach one. Right now that heavyset kid you were standing next to—”
    “Tom Kennedy.”
    “Okay. Right now Tom’s over learning the Devil Wagons. At some point—probably this very day—he’s gonna teach you how to run the ride, and you’ll teach him how to run the Spin. Which, by the way, is an Aussie Wheel, meaning it runs counterclockwise.”
    “Is that important?”
    “Nope,” he said, “but I think it’s interesting. There are only a few in the States. It has two speeds: slow and really slow.”
    “Because it’s a grandma ride.”
    “Correctamundo.” He demonstrated with the long stick shift I’d seen him operating on the day I got my job, then made me take over the stick with the bicycle handgrip at the top. “Feel it click when it’s in gear?”
    “Yes.”
    “Here’s stop.” He put his hand over mine and pulled the lever all the way up. This time the click was harder, and the enormous wheel stopped at once, the cars rocking gently. “With me so far?”
    “I guess so. Listen, don’t I need a permit or a license or something to run this thing?”
    “You got a license, don’t you?”
    “Sure, a Maine driver’s license, but—”
    “In South Carolina, a valid DL’s all you need. They’ll get around to additional regulations in time—they always do—but for this year, at least, you’re good to go. Now pay attention, because this is the most important part. Do you see that yellow stripe on the side of the housing?”
    I did. It was just to the right of the ramp leading up to the ride.
    “Each car has a Happy Hound decal on the door. When you see the Hound lining up with the yellow stripe, you pull stop, and there’ll be a car right where the folks get on.” He yanked the lever forward again. “See?”
    I said I did.
    “Until the wheel’s tipsed—”
    “What?”
    “Loaded. Tipsed means loaded. Don’t ask me why. Until the wheel’s tipsed, you just alternate between super-slow and stop. Once you’ve got a full load—which you’ll have most of the time, if we have a good season—you go to the normal slow speed. They get four minutes.” He pointed to his suitcase radio. “It’s my boomie, but the rule is when you run the ride, you control the tunes. Just no real blasting rock and roll—Who, Zep, Stones, stuff like that—until after the sun goes down. Got it?”
    “Yeah. What about letting them off?”
    “Exactly the same. Super-slow, stop. Super-slow, stop. Always line up the yellow stripe with the Happy Hound, and you’ll always have a car right at the ramp. You should be able to get ten spins an hour. If the wheel’s loaded each time, that’s over seven hundred customers, which comes to almost a d-note.”
    “Which is what, in English?”
    “Five hundred.”
    I looked at him uncertainly. “I won’t really have to do this, will I? I mean, it’s your ride.”
    “It’s Brad Easterbrook’s ride, kiddo. They all are. I’m just another employee, although I’ve been here a few years. I’ll run the hoister most of the time, but not all of the time. And hey, stop sweating. There are carnies where half-drunk bikers covered with tattoos do this, and if they can, you can.”
    “If you say so.”
    Lane pointed. “Gates’re open and here come the conies, rolling down Joyland Avenue. You’re going to stick with me for the first three rides. Later on you teach the rest of your team, and that includes your Hollywood Girl. Okay?”
    It wasn’t even close to okay—I was