He went into the tent and then emerged with his hair
brushed neatly. He had such rich, soft ebony hair. I
felt like running my hand over it.
"Ready, mlady?" he asked, offering me his arm. "Yes, I am." I put my arm through his and we walked to the show tent. We could hear the barker calling the crowd to the next show and Luke's eyes lit up. As we joined the line moving through the front entrance, I felt the excitement building. There was the sense that we were about to see the greatest show on earth. Children were laughing excitedly, but even their
parents looked flushed and happy with expectation. The ticket taker just nodded at Luke and we
entered free. He hurried me around to what he said
would be the best seats in the house. Once we were
seated, he bought us bags of peanuts, a soda for me
and a beer for himself.
"How can you drink so much beer, Luke?" I
asked him. "Doesn't it make you woozy?"
"Woozy?" He laughed. "Naw. This stuff ain't
nothin' compared to the moonshine I grew up on," he
replied, but I saw Low it was beginning to make his
face red. He saw the concern in mine.
"But you're probably right about this, too," he
said raising the cup of beer. "I won't drink any more
today."
That made me feel better and I turned to the
show. The music started and the clowns came rushing
in, slapping and falling over each other, squirting each
other with water guns and dropping water-filled
balloons on each other's heads.
While the clown show went on, a young girl,
surely no more than my age, dressed in a gold
costume that glittered with multicolored sequins,
performed acrobatics on a palomino horse,
somersaulting, standing on her hands and on her head,
and flipping this way and that, taking the audience's
breath away. The announcer pointed out one act after