WhatFinger


Johnny J. Jones Carnival and Sideshow

Ambidextrous



I was still a little squirt when I learned Dad was ambidextrous. His sister, Nina, my favorite aunt, was visiting with Mom in the kitchen, and I was supposed to be in my bedroom changing out of my romp-around clothes and into my go-to-town pants and shirt.
The Johnny J. Jones Carnival and Sideshow was set up at the fairgrounds, and Dad was taking us to see the sights as soon as he returned home from work. But I wasn't changing clothes. I was crouched behind the living room sofa, eavesdropping. Mom and Aunt Nina usually talked about dumb stuff, like cooking and clothes, but this time they were talking about Dad, and that's when I heard the words that sent me racing to my bedroom, sobbing in gasps that made my stomach cramp. My best friend was Duncan Lee Wingfield, and his dad had cancer. Mr. Wingfield would die before the year was out. Everyone said so. Now Dad had Amber Dexter. I shuddered. With a name like that, it had to be far worse than cancer. Would Dad even make it ‘til sundown? I was still face down on my bed, whimpering, when Dad came home from work.

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Mom and Aunt Nina led him to my bedroom. They'd asked me what I was upset about--as if they didn't know--but I couldn't talk about it. After all, I'd learned the awful truth by eavesdropping, an activity that when discovered always earned me a ton of additional chores. Dad sat at the edge of my bed and scrubbed his knuckles on the top of my head. "What's the trouble, Partner?" He always called me Partner when he was doing grownup talk. When he called me Little Partner, I knew it was going to be gooey kid talk. I sniffled and said, "You have Amber Dexter and you're gunna die." Dad chuckled and pulled me over beside him. "The word is ambidextrous, and it's not a disease. It just means I can use my right hand as well as I can use my left. Your Great Granddaddy was the same way." I hopped from the bed, wiped my eyes, and turned to stand in front of Dad. Every time he caught me in a fib he always gave me a chance to fess up before he took more drastic measures, as he called a swat to my back side. He'd lower his left eyebrow and give me a steely-eyed glare as he asked: "That the straight truth, Partner?" I tried to lower my left eyebrow like he did, but it either fluttered like a crazy parakeet or slammed shut tighter'n Mom's cookie jar. A one-eyed glare was worthless, the way I figured it, so I just used my two-eyed glare and said, "That the straight truth?" "Straight as it comes, Partner." "How about dying?" "Wasn't planning on it today." I leaped into Dad's arms. He had Amber Dexter, but he wasn't going to die. That was straight 'cause Dad didn't lie. When we reached the carnival, Dad gave me fifty cents. Mad Money is what he called it. Thirty minutes later, with a corn dog in one hand and a cherry flavored snow cone in the other, I was mad too. I only had a nickel left in my pocket. This, of course, was when I spotted the prize I wanted: a spotlight that would mount on the handlebars of my bicycle. If I could win it, maybe Mom and Dad would allow me to ride my bike later in the evening. And to win it, all I had to do was bean the laughing clown. The concession counter was lined with straw baskets each holding three baseballs. A huge tarp with a hole in the middle large enough for the clown's head hung from a pair of supports about thirty feet behind the counter. I couldn't see what the clown was standing on, but I could see he wasn't holding his head still. The clown wore a catcher's mask for safety, but that wasn't needed the way I saw it. If a ball was thrown to the right, the clown's head went left, and vice versa. Worse yet, with each miss the clown would center his head in the opening and laugh like the hyena in the cage over by the giraffes. I told Dad why I wanted to win the spotlight. He said to step up and give it a try. I put my last nickel on the counter and picked up a baseball. My first throw was a miss, wide to the right. My next one was wide left. Dad said, "Settle down." I thought of Bob Feller, my favorite pitcher with the Cleveland Indians. What would he throw? Had to be a fast ball. I wiped my sweaty palm on the knee of my pants, licked the tips of my fingers, reared back, and let the ball fly. It sailed over the tarp. I heard a thunk followed by words I wasn't allowed to use. Someone said the ball had hit one of the bumper cars. The clown laughed and the lady behind the counter grinned and said, "Who's next?" Dad stepped up, put a nickel on the counter, and said he'd see what he could do about winning that spotlight. The woman running the counter pushed a basket over in front of Dad. He scooped up two of the balls and nudged the basket back her way. She said, "You get three tries for a nickel." Dad said, "I can do the job with two.” He stepped back three paces from the counter and asked the folks crowded around to give him some room. The lady said he could stand closer, but Dad shook his head and said, "No, this'll do just fine." He stood with a ball in each hand and rotated his arms like a windmill. Bob Feller warmed up this way, so I was sure Dad knew what he was doing. Then he settled into a real pitcher's windup. As his left foot touched the ground his right arm streaked forward. The ball screamed from his hand and slammed into the tarp where the clown's face had been the second before. The spent ball fell to the ground and the clown began to laugh, but Dad was still in motion, and when his right foot touched the ground his left arm streaked forward. The ball covered the distance in a blur, hit the clown's mask, and ricocheted high into the air. Dad made the third step and picked up the spotlight. It was the neatest one-two-three I'd ever seen. The clown wasn't laughing, but I was so happy I almost peed my pants. A man standing nearby said, "Did you see that?" A woman answered, "Yes, but how'd he do it?" I turned and smiled as I hooked my thumbs in my belt loops and rocked back on my heels. "That's my Dad. He's an Amber Dexter."


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Bob Burdick -- Bio and Archives

Bob Burdick is the author of The Margaret Ellen, Tread Not on Me, and Stories Along The Way, a short-story collection that won the Royal Palm Book Award.


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