Eddie's First Circus - Part 1

The battery in the portable radio died, forcing Jessie Mendoza to listen to the argument between Henry and Mandy Turner again. His father and stepmother’s fight was still just as loud as it had been when Jessie pulled on his headphones, but the topic had at least changed from cleaning duties to bills.

Setting the radio beside his pillow, Jessie listened to the fight in the master bedroom over who would be paying the light bill. The thought occurred to Jessie how two months in Henry’s apartment weren’t all that different from life with his mother in Dallas. The fights had almost the same volume and vitriol. The only real difference was, Henry and Mandy were never so angry they got into a physical fight. And so far as Jessie knew, Henry didn’t own a gun.

Though Henry was Jessie’s biological father, Jessie hadn’t lived in San Antonio with Henry most of his life. His first thirteen years were spent living with his mother, Regina Mendoza, and her long string of boyfriends and husbands. Regina got divorced from Henry when Jessie was just three. Jessie’s little brother Eddie hadn’t been born yet, and so neither of the boys knew much about their father. But based on what little he already knew, Jessie didn’t care much for Henry.

Jessie got up from his bed and walked around Eddie, who lay in the middle of the bedroom floor on his stomach while he read a comic book. Eddie was oblivious to the fight, but then Eddie could zone out while reading a shampoo bottle. As long as he could find something with more than three words strung together, Eddie preferred to read rather than focus on anything negative happening in the real world.

Jessie almost envied his brother’s ability to tune out reality, but he knew all too well why Eddie was withdrawn, and the damage to the boy was done long before he’d walked into a hallway to look at his mother’s body.

Jessie cast the thought away before his mind could summon any memories, but he was fighting a losing battle. Having given in to his melancholy sentiments, he could only keep the flashbacks at bay for so long.

Eddie looked up at the sound of the closet door opening, and Jessie smiled at his brother’s curious expression before he took his jacket down from a hanger. “I’m just stepping around back for a smoke.” Jessie pulled on his jacket. “You coming with?”

Eddie nodded and picked up his comic book. Closing the cover, he took it to the desk before he moved to the closet to grab his own jacket. Though his was smaller, both the heavy blue denim jackets matched. Almost everything Henry bought for the boys matched, because he said they would be easy to find in a crowd. Or that was what he’d claimed at the time. In reality, Henry rarely saw Jessie or Eddie other than a few odd hours per day.

Henry tried to do his part as a parent by purchasing anything his sons needed. But he considered parenting to be little more than a set of nightly one hour lectures before he got down to arguing with Mandy. There was no help with homework or attempts at positive reinforcement. Just more lectures.

Jessie watched Eddie pull on his jacket and leaned over to help with the zipper. Though Eddie was ten, he sometimes had trouble with simple tasks. Jessie heard his mother refer to Eddie as an “idiot savant,” but he wasn’t sure if the term accurately described his brother’s behavior.

There was just a limit to how much of the real world Eddie could handle, and it depended mostly on how far into his shell he’d withdrawn. On his better days, Eddie could hold a normal conversation or zip his jacket shut. But Eddie wasn’t having one of his better days, and he’d barely said more than a few words after returning home from school.

Jessie stepped into the hallway behind his brother, then waited for a pause in the fight to shout through the master bedroom door. “We’re going out for a walk! We’ll be back in–” The fight went on without either adult acknowledging Jessie. He didn’t expect them to, but he preferred to have his ass covered. He waited for another respite. “We’ll be back in a few hours!”

“Fine!” Mandy shouted.

Jessie nodded and walked to the front door. A few hours could be however long he liked.

While he walked around the back of the apartment building, Jessie wondered how long Henry and Mandy could last as a couple. Mandy was Henry’s fourth wife, and they had both suffered through two years of bickering. The topics of their arguments were so routine they seemed scripted, and Jessie was already getting used to timing fights based on which topic was being shouted about.

Yet for as bitterly as Henry and Mandy fought, every night they returned to bed and had sex for well over an hour. Which bothered Jessie because he was used to listening to coked out couples who couldn’t have sex. Or if they did, it lasted two minutes before they went back to snorting more coke. Henry was just a low-level alcoholic, and apparently three forty ounce beers a night was his working prescription for an active love life. In an apartment with paper thin walls, that was not a good thing.

Aside from his healthy sex life, the rest of Henry’s time at home was wretched. And while Henry and Mandy fought, they made Jessie feel just as miserable. The constant negativity had Jessie so upset that he felt eager to find reasons to stay out of the house for as long as he could.

Jessie grabbed the top of the wooden fence which marked the rear of the apartment complex property, and he pulled his body up before hiking his legs over the top one at a time. Beyond the complex was a narrow strip of dried yellow grass. Beyond the strip, a five foot trench was dug for storm drainage, and beyond the ditch was a wide pasture of dead winter weeds.

Jessie glanced around the ditch to check for other kids while Eddie perched on top of the fence. When he was sure Jessie was watching him, Eddie leapt and made a goofy looking pose as he dropped to the ground in a low crouch. Jessie thought Eddie was imitating the Hulk until Eddie turned around and sneered.

Jessie rolled his eyes. He looks so retarded when he’s trying to be Wolverine.

The sneer just didn’t fit Eddie’s wide baby face. The look of contempt didn’t work when it came from his glimmering dark brown eyes, nor did the twist he made with his thick upper lip. The only part of Wolverine’s appearance which Eddie almost had right was the pair of black wingtips of hair jutting out from the sides of his head. Even then, his wingtips were lopsided and looked more like a bird’s nest than a hairstyle.

Tugging a crumpled pack of Camels and a lighter from his pocket, Jessie pushed a cigarette between his lips and returned the scoffing expression. “What ya doin’, bub?”

Eddie laughed and turned around to run along the side of the drainage ditch.

Jessie lit his cigarette, inhaling the first drag as deeply as he could. He almost looks normal, Jessie thought, then raised his head to stare at the sky.

In the back of his mind, he heard the grief counselor’s voice declaring, “Normal is just a setting on a washing machine.”

Jessie snorted at the thought, because when he returned to the apartment, he’d checked the washing machine and discovered there was not a normal setting. Instead, there was hot, warm, and cold. The same was true of the dryer, so nothing was normal.

A bitter voice at the back of Jessie’s mind disagreed. Normal is never finding out what your mother’s guts look like.

He gave up the struggle and let his memory blur back to his bedroom in Dallas. Huddled under his blanket and longing for sleep, he’d listened to his mother fighting with her latest cokehead boyfriend, Pedro Gonzalez.

The fight grew from shouts and screams to slaps and punches, which Jessie was used to. But then Pedro pulled a knife, and he regretted it two seconds later when Regina twisted the blade out of his hand and stabbed it into his thigh. Bellowing “Bitch” while he thumped into the hallway, he was followed by Regina, who screamed “Nobody pulls a knife on—”

By then Pedro had grabbed the shotgun behind his desk. Three shots rang out, and three holes appeared in the wall, spilling light from the hallway onto the bedroom carpet. Through the holes, Pedro’s voice could be heard much more clearly while he started to hiss a long line of cuss words in Spanish and English. His uneven footsteps thumped out of the house, and everything became quiet.

Jessie climbed down from the top bunk and crossed the room on shaking legs. Once he’d opened the door, Eddie was up and creeping from his bed to stand beside Jessie.

Jessie wanted to be brave and tell Eddie to stay back while he checked the apartment. Instead he hung back in the room while Eddie ventured into the hallway first.

Regina’s body sprawled partway out of the master bedroom door. The left side of her face was pulverized, and along with blood splattered on the walls and floor, Jessie could also see chunks of flesh and bone.

Then in spite of the faulty heating in the project-housing apartment, Jessie felt too hot. He couldn’t breathe and his vision swam. When his legs threatened to give out, he set his hand on the doorframe to keep from falling over.

The memory of going into shock was so powerful that Jessie needed to unzip his jacket and pull it away from his chest while he gasped for air. He didn’t want to remember any more, but the flashback continued with Eddie walking to the master bedroom door.

Jessie tried telling his brother to stop, but he managed little more than a squeak before he gave up. His legs were numb, but he forced himself to stumble after his brother. With every short step, he swung his hand out to brace himself against the wall.

Eddie stepped around the blossoming halo of blood in the carpet and stared at Regina’s body, his head leaning over toward his right shoulder while he pouted. His eyes flicked back and forth over the wounds, and he balled his hands into fists while he panted.

Jessie reached out to take Eddie’s wrist, and then he saw the rest of his mother’s body. The hole in Regina’s stomach was big enough to shove a fist through, and the chunk missing from her inner thigh included part of her femoral artery. The floor around her leg was so thick with blood that the texture of the carpet was lost, and the edges of the stain were still spreading out rapidly.

It was the last thing Jessie saw before shock claimed his senses, and his next memory was hours later, when a police officer asked if he was okay. But he wasn’t, and he never had been.

Jessie dropped to his haunches, curling over his knees while he sobbed. He didn’t cry in sadness, or from a sense of loss. Instead, Jessie’s tears were shed in anger and frustration. He was angry because neither of his new parents cared what he and his brother went through. Neither seemed to care about what they’d seen or felt. The only reason the boys had seen the grief counselor was because the state covered the cost of the visits.

Jessie felt frustrated watching Eddie suffer. He needed time, just a few months of quiet to deal with Eddie’s problems, and then his own. But he was denied even a single day of peace, and while he watched helplessly, Eddie drifted further away from reality.

Jessie coughed and reached up to wipe his eyes before he raised his head.

Eddie pouted back at Jessie, perched on the edge of the ditch with his arms closed around his legs. But Eddie didn’t cry. Eddie hadn’t cried in well over three years.

Jessie’s attention was drawn back toward the fence when he heard footsteps, and he closed his fingers around his cigarette, sniffling as he stood up. He relaxed when his neighbor Alice Roth pulled herself up above the fence and swung her legs over in one smooth motion.

Alice was fifteen, but she was shorter and skinnier than Jessie. This often made him forget she was two years older than him. She teased Jessie about being a kid, but just days after he’d moved into the building, she’d begun to invite him to her apartment almost daily.

Alice was dressed in her usual tomboyish way. She was partial to wearing tight denim jeans and baggy football sweatshirts. The sweatshirt combined with her black and red jacket rendered her almost flat-chested, and her tightly braided black hair was held down by a black ball cap with the brim turned back to cover her neck. A bright red A was embroidered into the back of the cap.

She wore no makeup, but despite her androgynous style, there was no mistaking Alice for a boy. Her dark brown cheeks were round and almost hid her slight cheekbones. She had wide hazel eyes, and full round lips that were adorned with only a glimmer of lip balm.

Though some boys in the neighborhood had commented that Alice had a “fat nose,” she looked like the prettiest girl in the world to Jessie.

Alice waved aside Jessie’s cigarette pack and held up her own box. She tapped one out and lit it using Jessie’s lighter before turning around to offer Eddie a wave. “What’s the word today, squirt?”

“Bub,” Eddie said and got back up to start running again.

“What?” Alice asked in a low voice.

“Wolverine,” Jessie said and sniffled, raising his hand to wipe his eyes. “He says ‘Bub’ is Wolverine, ‘Grr’ is the Hulk and, ‘Eh’...well, ‘eh’ could be half the members of Alpha Pack, but it’s his way of being Canadian. ‘Dude’ is probably one of the turtles.”

“He’s been like this all week,” Alice muttered. “Maybe you ought to stop buying him so many comic books.”

“Yeah, I know, but it seems to be the only way I can get him to talk. Besides, I think he needs them so he doesn’t have to listen to Mandy and Henry fighting.” Jessie waved a gesture back at the building, trailing smoke behind his hand. “Can you hear them in your room?”

“Yep.” Alice leaned her back against the fence and puffed out a perfect smoke ring.

Jessie looked up at the sun, figuring there were around two hours of daylight left. “Did they at least move past the credit card bills?”

“Nope. They were on the MasterCard bill when I left, ” Alice said. “Do you want to hit the mall or the arcade?”

“I prefer the mall, but either way we’ll need some cash.” Jessie thought over several ideas while he tried to make a smoke ring. Both of his attempts failed. “Do you mind going bus begging with me?”

“Nah, it’s fun to watch you work,” Alice said. “You’re like a master scammer.”

Jessie grinned sheepishly and dropped his head. “I’m not that good. Masters are the guys who convince people to give up millions on a stock scam. I’m just convincing people to donate to the poor and skip the middlemen in the charity offices.”

They continued to banter back and forth until they finished smoking, and then calling Eddie to follow along, they walked to a bus stop at a busy intersection not far from the apartment complex.

When the light changed to red, Jessie got up and went to the curb before he knocked on the passenger window of a car. “Ma’am, my friends and I were supposed to be back home an hour ago.” Pulling a dollar bill from his pocket, he shook his head and pouted. “But neither of us has enough money to cover three transfers. Could you–?”

“Sure,” the woman said, already digging through her purse to grab a handful of change.

“Thank you so much, ma’am,” Jessie smiled and went back to the bench to count out change, an act he stopped as soon as the woman’s car was out of sight. Handing the change off to Eddie, Jessie sat through one red light and then picked another car at the next change.

For two hours, he worked the stop, and by then, both Alice and Eddie had bulging pockets. Alice started to reach into her hip pocket to try counting some of her coins, and Jessie stopped her. “Wait until we get on the bus.”

Alice smirked at him. “You’ve got this down to a science. How is it that no one ever gives you exact fare?”

“The trick is holding up your own money,” Jessie said. “People stop thinking they’re being scammed if you ask for only a small part of the price for bus fare. They know the red light won’t last long, and they’re in a hurry to leave. So instead of looking for two quarters, they grab a handful of coins and pass it over.”

Alice whistled and favored Jessie with an admiring smile. “Marry me.”

Jessie snorted. “I would, but I don’t want to argue with you.”

“My parents don’t argue,” Alice said.

Jessie nodded, getting up when he saw the bus pulling around the corner. “Yeah, your folks are cool. Especially your dad.”

Clinton Roth worked as a freelance DJ. Though he sometimes worked shows in other states, his regular checks came from his being a featured DJ on “club nights” for one of the local FM stations. Clinton’s part-time job granted him instant cool status in Jessie’s mind, and the night shift schedule allowed him to stay home until late in the afternoon.

But Jessie’s visits to the Roth residence and his talks to Alice also revealed Clinton was a great guy whose only real addiction was to beats and loops. He could sit at the dining room table looking as high as any pot smoker while he made pops, hisses, or grunts to mimic a certain musical sound he was searching for. Though some of his efforts were silly, most of his improvised mouth music blew Jessie away. Jessie even found himself falling under the spell while he began coming up with lyrics for the beats.

In Alice’s home, there was no fighting over who paid the bills, because Alice’s mother Samantha owned a thriving herbal remedies shop. She was a self proclaimed “tree humper,” and had been known to chain herself to older trees just to prove a point. During her last outing, she made the local news wearing a white shirt with bright green lettering which read: TREE HUMPER. Alice kept a copy of the photo pinned to her bedroom wall with her own comment scribbled in permanent marker over the caption: I will kill myself if I ever do anything this stupid.

The term hippie fit both of Alice’s parents, but not in a negative sense of the word. And it was for that reason that Jessie spent so much time hanging out at Alice’s apartment with her parents. Sometimes Eddie followed along. Other times, he stayed in his room to read comics, which was why Jessie tried to keep his brother stocked up on new titles.

“Jessie!” Eddie’s excited voice pulled Jessie from his thoughts. Glancing at his brother, Jessie noticed how Eddie’s eyes were spread wide with amazement while he raised his hand to point at the circus tents in the mall parking lot.

“Can we go, Jessie?” Eddie asked.

Jessie smiled and nodded. “I was thinking about a trip to the candy store and food court before we watched a movie, but this could work too. Alice, what do you think?”

“Sure, sounds cool to me.” Alice stood up to follow Jessie to the exit, then craned her neck to look around the parking lot. “I wonder if they have a sideshow.”

“I want to see the freak show,” Eddie said.

Alice laughed and patted his shoulder. “Did you look in a mirror today?”

To emphasize her point, she ran her hand over his hair, and her playful act made the mess on his head look slightly improved.

The sounds of carnival music filled the air as soon as the bus doors opened, and wafting in the wind along with the music were the scents of popcorn, cotton candy, and freshly roasted peanuts. Once they were closer to the concession stands, the new aromas of hot dogs, roasted corn, and funnels cakes joined the mixture and made everyone’s stomachs growl. But while hunger spurned them on, indecision kept them frozen while they debated which way to go first.

“Oh, pizza!” Alice pointed and wandered one direction at exactly the same moment that Eddie squealed “Gorilla!” and took off running in another.

Jessie was so hungry by then, he thought Eddie made a serving suggestion. “I don’t think they make that—” He watched Eddie run toward the sideshow trailers, and one of the trailers declared that it had on display one LIVE SAVAGE GORILLA.

“But...food,” Jessie whined before he started jogging to catch up with his brother.

Eddie had a long head start, and his stocky legs got him all the way up to the carney even with his pockets loaded full of coins. He had already paid for his ticket by the time Jessie caught up, and he was waving for Jessie to pay the carney as well.

“Come on, Jessie, hurry!”

“Can’t we just come back in a few minutes?” Jessie asked. “I wanted to grab some pizza before we check out any of the shows.”

“Aaw, but...can’t we see him for a minute?” Eddie plead, his gaze flicking back to the ramp which led up to a door in the front of the trailer.

Jessie sighed and started digging change from his pocket. “All right, hold on.”

“Hey, tell you what,” the carney said. “If you’re only heading in for a quick peek this time, I’ll let you go back in after you eat.”

 “Okay, thanks.” Jessie smiled and pointed back toward the concession stands. “We’ll be bringing another friend for the second trip, but she can pay her own way in.”

The carney tore off a ticket from the wheel and passed it to Jessie with a flourishing wave. “Be careful in there. He’s a killer.”

Jessie resisted the urge to snort. He went up the ramp to open the door, and the gorilla in the cage roared at someone. Jessie couldn’t see the gorilla. A folding partition positioned just inside the door blocked his view. He couldn’t see the cage either, but he heard the bars rattling with an ear splitting volume. Under the animal’s enraged growls, he also heard a boy making monkey like shrieks.

Eddie walked around the divider right away, but Jessie froze while his heart exploded into a frenzied beating. They wouldn’t keep killer animals, Jessie thought. If an animal killed someone, they’d have to put it down.

With the assurance set in his mind, he walked around the partition.

The gorilla snarled and howled, its black face wrinkling in a mask of fury while it gripped two of the bars and flexed them rapidly. But the boy standing in front of the barricade appeared unimpressed, because he still went on mimicking a chimpanzee.

Eddie tapped the boy’s shoulder. “You’re not doing it right. That’s a gorilla, not a chimp.”

The boy turned to frown at Eddie, then glanced back at Jessie. “Is he for real?”

Jessie’s first thought was to answer “Look who’s talking?”

The boy had greasy black hair and beady brown eyes, and his face was covered in acne blemishes. From where Jessie stood, he could smell the boy’s grubby clothes, and he could see food stains all over the boy’s heavy black jacket.

Instead of hurling an insult, Jessie decided to be polite. “Eddie is right. You’re making the gorilla angry by speaking the wrong language. It would be like me talking to you in Spanish.”

“Yeah, I don’t know Mexican,” the boy said. “I’m Richard.”

“Charmed to meet you, Richard.” Jessie walked to the barrier to stand a safe distance away from Richard’s funk. He looked up at the gorilla, who calmed down once Richard stopped yammering. “Wow, that’s a pretty big gorilla. How much does it weigh?”

“Six hundred pounds,” Eddie answered.

“Nuh-uh!” Richard said.

“Yeah-huh.” Eddie hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “His weight is written on the sign outside.”

Eddie grunted, and the black ape swiveled its head around in confusion before it uttered a similar grunt.

Jessie stopped smiling. “Eddie? What did—?”

Eddie raised his hand in a gesture for silence before he grunted again. The gorilla looked at him and leaned over, its brown eyes widening with what looked like shock. It made a longer grunt.

Eddie nodded and made another grunt.

The gorilla toppled back, roaring while it rolled around the cage. Jessie thought the beast was furious until the roaring broke down into smaller grunts, and then the gorilla started slapping the bottom of the cage.

“Did you just tell a joke?” Richard asked.

“No, he’s just easily amused.” Eddie dipped under the barrier and grunted while he held up his hand.

The gorilla stopped howling and moved to the bars. It hunkered down at the edge of the cage while Eddie alternated between grunts and growls

The thought occurred to Jessie that his brother was within the gorilla’s reach, but he couldn’t say anything. He was too stunned by the sight of the gorilla’s face warming with a smile. The gorilla tilted back its head and uttered a low growl followed by a thump on its chest.

Eddie nodded before he grunted and pointed at the gorilla. He uncurled his fingers and slipped them between the bars of the cage. The act was cute before, but Eddie was starting to press his luck.

“Eddie...” Jessie whimpered.

The gorilla closed his fingers around Eddie’s whole hand, then shook it timidly. Jessie swallowed and turned to look at Richard, whose mouth hung open in a wide O.

“That’s funny,” Jessie said. “I thought he only spoke Spanish and English.”

Eddie made two more grunts before he backed away. “Okay, let’s go have some pizza.”

Jessie nodded and moved to follow his brother out, then stopped himself at the divider. “Hey, uh...Richard?”

“Yeah?”

“I wouldn’t try the same trick if I were you.” Jessie shook his head. “You don’t know gorilla.”

“But...but if that retard can do it, so can I,” Richard said.

“Do you know enough Spanish to understand pendejo?” Jessie asked, then snickered when Richard shook his head. “Then you don’t know enough gorilla to be sticking your hand in that cage either, pendejo.”

Jessie still didn’t think the warning carried enough weight, so when he passed the carney, he said “Hey, that idiot in there is about to go under the barricade.”

“Aw hell,” the carney muttered and jogged up the ramp. “Thanks for the warning, kid.”

Jessie stepped aside to let the carney run into the trailer before he tried to walk down the ramp calmly. “Bro, please don’t ever do that again.”

“Nothing bad happened, right?” Eddie said.

Just a few yards away from the trailer, Jessie turned around to watch Richard being dragged out of the trailer by the carney. Richard shouted “Let me go! You’ll pay for this! I’ll sue!”

“Quit yapping and keep stepping, nitwit,” the carney barked, his thick hand gripping the boy by the collar.

Jessie nodded. “Okay, now I’ll agree that nothing bad happened.”

Alice held out two plates with slices of pepperoni pizza when the boys made their way back to the concession stands. “So how was the gorilla?”

“Well...” Jessie opened and closed his mouth several times before shaking his head. “No, forget it. You just wouldn’t believe it.”

Alice watched him with an uncertain expression while he ate. But when he wouldn’t offer an explanation, she leaned over to smile at Eddie. “What did you do?”

“I talked to the gorilla,” Eddie said around a mouthful of pizza. “His name is Brian.”

“Did you really?” Alice smiled at Jessie, but her amused look faltered when he also nodded. “No, really.”

“He really did. He even walked up to the cage and shook the gorilla’s hand.” Alice passed Jessie her cup of soda, and he paused long enough to sip from it before he added, “I told this kid he wasn’t speaking in gorilla, but I didn’t know Eddie really could...” Jessie’s slim black eyebrows bunched together, and he dropped his head to stare at his brother.

“What is it?” Alice asked.

“Nothing, just a stray thought,” Jessie said. “Maybe when we get done eating, Eddie can show you what he did.”

“Probably not,” Eddie said.

“Why not?” Jessie asked, then looked back where his brother pointed. Richard was sneaking back into the trailer while the carney talked to a woman. “No.”

He handed Alice the paper plate and took off running, but he was slowed down by crowds milling into his path. He made it up the ramp to the door, and then the carney turned around.

“Hey, slow down, kid!”

“I can’t! The idiot went back—” Jessie’s voice dried in his throat when Richard squealed.

Flinging open the door, Jessie ran around the partition and closed a hand over his mouth. The gorilla had a firm grip on the front of Richard’s heavy jacket, and it slammed his head into the bars by jerking back as hard as it could. Richard’s screams faded after the first few hits, and deep cuts began appearing in his cheeks and his eyebrows. Blood covered his face in a slick red mask and poured from out of a dozen smaller wounds inside his mouth. And still the gorilla kept hammering.

A man in a brown uniform ran around Jessie and aimed a rifle. Jessie was still trying to cover his ears when the gun went off, but it clacked instead of making a bang. Then a tranquilizer dart struck the shoulder of the enraged ape. The gorilla uttered a loud grunt before it let go of Richard, who didn’t react when his wounded face struck the metal floor. The gorilla slumped over and stared at Jessie with an expression that looked like disappointment before it closed its eyes.

Jessie’s legs buckled, and he barely felt his knees striking the floor. He swallowed to prevent himself from vomiting and watched the man check Richard for a pulse. “I-is he–?”

“He’s alive.” The man turned around to give Jessie a look of concern. “Are you okay?”

Jessie shook his head and thought, Why do they always ask that? It’s a stupid question.

He got up to leave and the world became a blur. Walking down the ramp was difficult when his legs felt weak, and he came close to stumbling into several people while he returned to the concessions stands.

Alice was kneeling down to dab a napkin at Eddie’s pizza sauce covered cheeks when Jessie found them. She turned her head and gasped when she saw Jessie.

Then she noticed how pale he looked and her face filled with concern as she stood up. “What happened?”

Jessie leaned over to glare at Eddie. “What was the last thing you said to the gorilla before we left?”

Eddie grinned impishly. “I said, ‘the chimp is full of peanuts.’”