The Funhouse

twenty-nine.” He was surprised that he could lie so easily and smoothly. Usually he was a lousy liar, he couldn't fool anyone. But now he was different. Now it was almost as if someone older and wiser were speaking through him.
        He didn't know why he was so positive that he had to lie to this man. Mama couldn't be the woman that Conrad was looking for. Mama wouldn't ever have been friends with a carny, she thought they were all dirty and crooked. Yet Joey lied to Conrad, and he had the feeling that someone else was guiding his tongue, someone who was looking out for him, someone like… God. Of course that was a dumb thought. To please God, you always had to tell the truth. Why would God take control of you just to make you lie?
        The carny's blue eyes softened, and the tension went out of his voice when Joey said his mother was twenty-nine. “Well,” the carny said, “I guess your mother couldn't be my old friend. The woman I'm thinking of would have to be around forty-five.”
        They looked at each other for a moment, the boy just standing there and the man stooping down, and finally Joey said, “Well… thanks a lot for the free passes.”
        “Sure, sure,” the man said, standing up, obviously no longer the least bit interested in the boy. “Enjoy them, son.” He turned and walked back to the funhouse.
        Joey went across the midway to watch the workers erect the Octopus.
        Later, the encounter with the blue-eyed carny seemed almost like a dream. The two pink passes-with the name Conrad Straker neatly written on the backs of them, below the printed words, “this pass authorized by"-were the only things that kept the incident real and solid in Joey's memory. He remembered being afraid of the stranger and lying to him, but he couldn't recapture the gut feeling that had made him so certain that lies were necessary, and he felt somewhat ashamed of himself for not telling the truth.
        
        * * *
        
        That night, at six-thirty, Buzz Klemmet picked up Amy at the Harper house. He was a ruggedly handsome guy with a lot of hair, muscles, a cocky attitude, and a carefully cultivated tough-guy image. Mama had met him once, the second night he'd come for Amy, and she hadn't liked him one bit. In keeping with her statement that she no longer cared what happened to Amy, Mama hadn't said a word for or against Buzz, but Amy could see the loathing in her mother's eyes. Tonight, Mama stayed in the kitchen and didn't even bother to come out to glare at Buzz.
        Richie and Liz were already in the backseat of Buzz's vintage GTO convertible. The roof was down, and as soon as Buzz and Amy got in, Richie said, “Hey, put the top up so we can pass a joint around on the way to the fairgrounds without everyone seeing us.”
        “Good old Royal City, Ohio,” Liz said. “Still frozen in the Middle Ages. Would you believe there are some places in this country where you can smoke grass right out in the open without getting thrown in jail?”
        Buzz put up the top, but he said, “Hold the joint until after we've stopped for gas.”
        Half a mile from the Harper house, they stopped at a Union 76 station. Buzz got out to check the oil, and Richie got out to pump the gas.
        As soon as Liz and Amy were alone in the car, Liz leaned forward from the backseat and said, “Buzz thinks you're the hottest thing he's ever seen.
        Oh, sure,” Amy said.
        “No, he really does.”
        “He tell you that?”
        “Yeah.”
        “We haven't done anything,” Amy said.
        “That's one reason he thinks you're so hot. He's such a dreamboat that he's used to girls just falling on their backs for him. But you tease him along, let him feel a little, and then stop him right on the brink. He's not used to that. It's different for him. He's got the idea that when you finally give in you'll be absolutely wild.”
        “ If I give in,” Amy said.
        “You'll give in,” Liz said confidently. “You still don't want to admit it, but you're just like me.”
        “Maybe.
        “You've been dating him every night for a week, and each night you let him get a little farther than the night before,” Liz said. “You're coming out of your shell an inch at a time.”
        “Buzz told you exactly how far I've let him go?” Amy asked.
        “Yep,” Liz said, grinning.
        “Jeez,” Amy said. “He's got such class.”
        “Oh,