Buttercup Read online

  “Della! Tiny says an hour.” A hard bang on her train car door followed. Sylvester rolled on his side. Della expelled a deep sigh. She lifted the lid to her cedar chest; there she tucked the newspaper inside underneath the bible and a journal she kept as a girl. Silvio was not to be. She’d accepted that painful truth long ago. Della rose from her knees and joined Sylvester on her bed, made softer by pillows. Holding him before a show always made her suffering ease.

  Chapter Two

  Six Years Earlier

  1932 Kentucky –A Dancer’s Dream and A Bootlegger’s Scheme

  Lady Joyce screeched. “Della!”

  “Coming! I’s right here!” Della said, throwing open the train car door. Held tightly in her small hands was a large tin of tepid water. The flimsy door swung shut behind her with a smack. In the back, Lady Joyce moaned. The small, cramped, confined space was decked for a queen—a carnie queen.

  Lady Joyce rested on a bed of shiny purple and gold pillows. Multi-colored beads, strung up like lines of jewels, were pinned over and tied back by a silk scarf to keep from concealing the back of the trailer. Della believed them to be magical stones when she was a girl. She even stole a few. Balancing the tin of water, she ambled her way toward the back. Lamps, two of them, were covered with sheer scarves. They cast the place in red lighting, which doubled the shadows. She stumped her toe in her hurry and sloshed the water back over the front of her dress. Della grunted. Her eyes sought a place to set it down. Lady Joyce was everywhere. Frames with her dancing smiling face during her Vaudeville days were tacked to the walls, and her costumes hung about. This train car and Tiny’s were the only two that were wired with electricity. Lady Joyce actually had a radio.

  “You yelling so loud you scaring away the townies,” Della smirked. She swallowed her laugh. Lady Joyce lay in her shiny black and gold polyester robe with her ankle, the size of a grapefruit, peeking through the slight opening at the hem. Tiny attempted to prop it up. She was in a lot of pain. Her skin was pale and pasty, and her eyes were puffy from crying. She smoked from her long stem cigarette holder with a shaky hand.

  “I’m telling you, Tiny!” she began. “Something should be done! I get bit, and I’m the only one suffering!” Lady Joyce groaned as another tear slipped down her rouged cheeks.

  “There, there,” Tiny said, stroking her hand.

  Della cut them both a look and shook her head. They were the strangest non-couple she’d ever seen. And growing up in a carnival, she had seen her share of strange things. She set the tin on the dresser, water sloshing over the top. Joyce would blow a vein if she used one of her imported silks to tend to the pus oozing from her foot. So she reached down to the front of her tattered dress and ripped at the hem. She submerged it in the cool water and listened.

  Madame Danielle Danique, a gypsy snake handler and professed hater of Lady Joyce, said she accidently let her rattler loose. The rattler had to slither from one side of the carnival to the other to slip up behind Lady Joyce and take a plug out of her ankle. If it weren’t for Lone Wolf, that bite would have been the end of Joyce’s dancing days for sure.

  Della wrung the cloth until all the remaining water seeped through her fingers. Her ears perked, and she feigned disinterest.

  “Danique knows what she done, Joyce. She sends her apologies,” Tiny groaned.

  “Apologies? Apologies! The cunt! I want carnie justice!”

  “Now hold on there, Joyce.”

  “Look at my foot! Owe!” she shrieked, after a failed attempt to lift it.

  “Steady yo'self,” Tiny said stroking her thigh with his stubby fingers.

  “How can I when po’ Della got to go on without me? It’s my show! I’m the one they pay to see from county to county! What them boy’s gon’ do with a colored gal waving her snatch in front of them? Huh? Ansa me that! We gots to cancel.”

  “I can do it,” Della spoke up. “I did it in Henry County jus’ fine.”

  Della crept over. She went to her knees. She applied the cool rag over the swelling. Tiny gave her a wink. He raised her with Lady Joyce since she could remember. The entire carnival did. Her mama ran off with a Creole magic man shortly after she was born. They were the only family she’d ever known. That’s how they did their own. No matter the color of your skin or the freakish deformity you were cursed with or your outlaw status, once a carnie, you were always a carnie.

  "Well I can. You two both know I’m better than Trix. Way better.”

  Tiny dropped back down on the footstool at the side of Lady Joyce’s bed. He removed his tattered hat and ran his finger over the thin wisps of hair sparsely covering his oversized head. At barely three feet tall, with stubby little fingers and short arms, he proclaimed himself to be the smallest ringmaster in the world. On some days, he was management, then barker or a diplomat to offer patch-money to pay off the nasty sheriffs that wanted to shut down the hooch tents.

  Tiny may have been small, but his control over the Carnies was long. He could be mean and violent if pushed. Lone Wolf was his fist and the other carnies his muscle. Della had seen that side of his anger once and it scared her to death.

  “She’ll be fine. If’in it gets out of hand, we’ll protect her. You know that.”

  Lady Joyce looked over at Della, her large eyes welling with tears. Joyce was quite a striking woman. Plump with big breasts and hips, her hair was always platinum white from the peroxide shampoos. Her skin was ghostly pale and her eyes blue as rainwater. When she was dolled up and on stage, men would pay sometimes more than a dollar to touch her. And when she took the customers into her train car, she could score as much as ten dollars from a dustbowl of a town like the one they were trapped in for the night.

  She was Della’s idol, mother, advisor, and on days she wasn’t liquored on meanness, her friend.

  “She aint ready,” Joyce said, her voice broken with emotion. “She shouldn’t.”

  Della suspected that the problem was the crowd coming in for the night. Whites in the South were particularly nasty. Once a man waited behind Lady Joyce’s train car near Della’s tent after the show. He had hoped to barter some time alone with the hoochie-coochie starlet. He found Della instead, attacked her, and then tried to drag her off to the woods. Tiny and the other carnies got him good though. Carnie justice. Thanks to that mean bastard, the Carnival can’t ever travel to northern Mississippi again. And that’s when Tiny’s rule was made into law. No man, carnie or otherwise, was to ever touch Buttercup.

  “I’s fine. I can do the show, and if they don’t like it then I don’t care.” Della stood up proudly. She was eighteen. Grown by all standards but still the baby of the group. She wasn’t a virgin either. She gave her cherry away to a townie when she was fifteen and did it once more for an ace behind Tiny and Lady Joyce’s back. She didn’t like doing what she called 'the pokie'. It felt like nothing between her legs. But she liked the attention. Problem remained that if Tiny or Joyce ever found out they’d skin her alive. Of that she had no doubt.

  “Settle down, Buttercup. We all know what you can do.” Tiny waved her off. He patted Joyce’s thigh once more. “You rest. If you want to see to her, have Lone Wolf carry you in the tent. Otherwise, it’s Buttercup tonight.”

  Joyce sighed. Tiny’s word was law. No one questioned it. Not even Joyce if the matter was decided. Tiny reached for his cane, a whittled walking stick made of old oak. Della grabbed it and handed it over. His dwarfed legs weren’t working for him as well as he’d like. He made his way to the train car door, stooped to pick up his hat, and sat it on his round head. He cast them one more parting glance. “You come on down in half an hour. Joyce, make sure she wears yellow. She’s our Buttercup after all.”

  Della smiled. “Thanks, Tiny!”

  She closed the door behind him. Before turning, she could feel Joyce’s’ eyes on her. “What is it? What’s so different from me performin' with ya, than without ya?”

  Joyce scooted back into her pillows, several dropping to the floor. She g
runted, putting down her cigarette for a fan. “The difference is that you gettin’ to like it too much. I should’ve never let you on. You coulda’ done the trapeze like Tiny wanted, or read them cards like Adeline. Hooch dancin’ ain’t just about rolling those brown hips of yours or turnin’ a few in the back of a train car, which I better neva’ catch you doin!” She wagged the fan at Della, then popped it open to chase away the sweat beading over her brow.

  Della’s smile faded.

  “Come here. All I want is to make sure you’re safe.”

  Della moved closer. Lady Joyce patted the lumpy mattress on the bed for her to sit. She did. Her surrogate mother gave a sad sigh.

  Della tried to comfort her. “I knows that. But I can help. Folk’s ain’t payin’ and comin’ like we need them to. We can’t afford to not have a show,” she sighed. “If you don’t like it, then fine. Tell me what to do and what it’s about other than what I do out there with you.”

  “It’s about sellin’ yo'self, Della, and not just the physical. Sellin’ it all. They call it hooch dancin’ because you got to get them boys all liquored up so they thinking a peek and sniff is better than bread and potatoes on their family tables. They dangerous, Della, and mean. You know how mean they can get. Get ‘em all riled up and... you need me on that stage to handle them.”

  “I hears you. I won’t do it. I trust you. Always have. We make the scratch how we can. I can play the shill and draw them marks over to Lone Wolf and Ed’s tables or sumthin’.”

  “A colored gal in these times actin’ as an outside-man. It’ll clue in every one of them townies that you makin’ a play for their pockets.” Joyce shook her head, sinking back into her pout. Della knew the truth. They were living in the days of the soup kitchens and bread lines. Sober, these townies were looking for a fortune, not trying to spend it. Drunk, they all stumble into a hooch tent. These shows were the Carnival’s lifeblood. Regular cons were only turning over pennies.

  “Be careful is all. Jus’ be careful. Get Trixie up there tonight. Get a dress for you both.”

  Della squealed. Leaping to her feet, she threw her arms around Lady Joyce’s neck. Her surrogate mother grimaced in a tight breath through her teeth. “Sorry!” Della laughed. “Okay then!” She turned to the stringed up line of costumes and snatched dresses before Joyce could speak. Then she ran for the door. Her tent was just beyond it. She couldn’t wait to get dressed.

  Silvio spun the wheel hard left, not bothering with the brake. If he’d hit the brake, they’d be seen for sure. Silent prayers tumbled off his lips. Speed was his guide. The 1932 Hudson took a nosedive into the ravine, slamming into a tree. His forehead smacked the steering wheel. Impact gave him a nosebleed.

  “Fuck!” he grunted, slinking down in the seat. “Fuck!”

  Sheriff Tuck and his boys raced down Dixie, sirens wailing, several hanging off the back of pickups with shotguns in hand and a rope for his or Jelly’s neck. They hadn’t seen him veer off. At least he didn’t think they had. He slipped even lower. The steering column pressed into his chest. His knees were cramped up under the dash. He pulled down the front of his cap over his bruised forehead; his breathing came out in short quick pants.

  “Did we make it?” Jelly asked in a loud whisper.

  “Shut your trap!” Silvio barked.

  Together they waited.

  They listened.

  Nothing.

  Silvio inched up. He squinted hard to see through the thicket out to the road. “I’ll be damn. I think they’re gone.”

  “Applesauce! They out there. Told you this was a deadman’s run. We need to get the shine out of the trunk and buried before they double back.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Give it a sec.”

  In truth, neither of them wanted to get out. Sheriff Tuck was no one to meddle with. And running shine through his county without the proper tariff guaranteed jail or worse. Problem with this rule was it didn’t apply to the Sheriff’s nephew. Silvio was tired of pennies on the jar. He was aiming for a bigger payday.

  Silvio threw open his door. Jelly hissed a warning, but he went ahead and eased out from under the steering column. He landed knees first in the moist dirt and leaves. Half of him expected to look up and find the sheriff standing over him.

  “Get out,” he said, rising and slapping his cap against his thigh, dusting off dirt and twigs. “Out, Jelly. Now!”

  The back door to the Hudson pushed open. Jelly poked his head out like a shut-in child. Silvio looked around. He heard the sounds of laughter, and music, dings and bells. Walking around the banged up Hudson, he knocked tree branches from his face. “Hey, you hear that?”

  Jelly arrived at his side, breathing through his nose, his large belly deflating then inflating. As a kid, he survived on jelly sandwiches and even now preferred them over a steak. “Think it’s a carnival. Heard one was near. Smell that? Roasted corn and apples.” His mouth watered. “We should go on down,” Silvio smirked.

  “Huh? You bumped your head in there, Sil? We got to deal with the two crates of shine in the truck and the sheriff before the sun catch us.”

  “Can’t get on the road now. They’ll sweep back. We push the car down there.” He pointed to the deepest dive in the ravine. “Take the shine with us. Carnies can probably give us a lift out. Perfect cover.”

  “Carnie folk don’t help or take to strangers. You know that. No way they smuggle us. And that’s my pa’s Hudson. He’ll tan my hide.”

  “You twenty or twelve?” Silvio frowned. “Besides, it’s smashed. Engine’s busted. Look at it.”

  They stared at the plumes of steam hissing from the front grill. The car was bent inward around a thick oak tree. “Jelly, we don’t know if we don’t try. You got a better idea?”

  Jelly closed his eyes, his left cheek pulled inward as he sucked hard on the inside of his jaw. He was a preacher’s kid with the bad luck to be friends with Silvio. He was the only kid Silvio knew who had access to a car to run Dan Crichton’s hooch through this county. There was no turning back. Jelly shrugged his fat shoulders, and his belly flopped over his belt from under his shirt.

  “Bad run is what it is. I told ya. I told ya.”

  Silvio grinned. His blue eyes sparkled in the darkness. “Help me push the car out, and I promise to show you a good time.”

  Chapter Three

  1932 Kentucky – A Hooch Dancer Named Buttercup

  “You done gone and did it. Aint ya?”

  Buttercup ran the zipper up the side of the dress, then down—up then down again. She grinned at how easy it was. She’d slip it off to her one good pair of garter stockings with no panties, just as Lady Joyce would. She’d done this before. She’d seen Lady Joyce do it too many times to count. It was going to be as easy as you please.

  “Ya hear me talkin’ to ya?”

  She didn’t bother to look back. “What you want, Trix?”

  “I want to know why it is that I’ve been performin’ before you were off your mammy’s tit, and I ain’t never had me own peepshow? Only chance I get is when someone run-off. That’s fine, but Lady Joyce down for the night, and Tiny picks you?”

  Buttercup turned on her. There was a simple answer to Trixie’s question. They could get a pig to stand upright and do the jig before they could sell one seat to see Trixie down to her skivvies. If she was pretty before, it washed away with her youth. Her refusal to bathe regularly and love for the hooch left her skin looking aged and saggy. Her breast drooped. Her lumpy butt cheeks drooped. Even her mouth drooped at the corners of her thin lips. She could barely cover her flaccid features with rouge. The Daisy twins told her that Trixie was thirty-four. That was ancient!! Besides that, she looked more like one hundred and four with dirty feet and missing back teeth. The only reason Trixie was included was because Claudette run off and they needed a third girl. “Take it up with Tiny. I’m jus’ doin’ as I’m told.”

  “Buttercup! You and Trix get out. Tiny calling,” Stan, the lot guy, yelled from outside t
he tent. Della swallowed her nervous tongue. It was show time.

  “I say it’s a bad idea. That’s what I say,” Jelly went on. Silvio ignored him. He let his nose be the guide. Too many storm clouds had formed. He couldn’t see the moon. That was a good sign. A moon on a night like this would be a bad omen.

  Silvio swatted and snapped branches out of his face before they cleared the forest. The lights of the Ferris wheel, sounds of laughter, and calls for townies to test their luck filled the air. That and the sweet smell of the open plain, mixed with the roasting treats, had the inner muscles lining his stomach twisting with pangs of hunger. He dropped his hands in the pockets of his knickers and walked the line with Jelly into the mix. Tents were up. Folks gathered. The crowd was mostly thin. That could be due to the late hour. Maybe it was because a storm was rolling in. Possibly the location hadn’t spread through the rest of the town. Those thoughts faded when he noticed the true reason why. The barker’s voice drew his attention first; the crowd of men circling made him stop in his tracks.

  “You see that, Jelly?” he asked.

  “Fortune? I can tell you boys need some.” A gypsy woman of ill refute stepped out of the shadowy opening of her tent. Jelly slowed to a stop, forcing Silvio to do so and look back.

  “Jelly, let’s go.”

  “Leave him with me. For a fifty-piece I’ll tell him everything he need,” she offered. Draped over her head was a dark blue and black scarf with a fringed edge that had tiny coins attached. Her raven dark hair matched the coal black eyes focused on them both. She tossed one end of the scarf over her shoulder, and gave them a secretive smile. The kind a cobra gives before he strikes.

  Silvio had to shake the willies. Jelly could not. He stood there, transfixed and rooted to the spot. The gypsy stepped to a table outside of her tent and moved her hand over a stack of cards, fanning them out. Her black nails were long and pointed. She batted her lashes at Jelly. The top left corner of her mouth curled up with a tempting smirk.