made three quick noises that were laughs. He jumped for the electric light cord and undressed in the dark.
Once when he was small, his father took him and his sister, Ruby, to a carnival that stopped in Melsy. There was one tent that cost more money, a little off to the side. A dried-up man with a horn voice was barking it. He never said what was inside. He said it was so SINsational that it would cost any man wanted to see it thirty-five cents, and it was so EXclusive, only fifteen could get in at a time. His father sent him and Ruby to a tent where two monkeys danced, and then he made for it, moving shuttle-faced and close to the walls of things, like he moved. Haze left the monkeys and followed him, but he didn’t have thirty-five cents. He asked the barker what was inside.
“Beat it,” the man said, “there ain’t no pop and there ain’t no monkeys.”
“I already seen them,” he said.
“That’s fine,” the man said, “beat it.”
“I got fifteen cents,” he said. “Whyn’t you lemme in and I could see half of it.” It’s something about a privy, he was thinking. It’s some men in a privy. Then he thought, maybe it’s a man and a woman in a privy. She wouldn’t want me in there. “I got fifteen cents,” he said.
“It’s more than half over,” the man said, fanning with his straw hat. “You run along.”
“That’ll be fifteen cents worth then,” Haze said.
“Scram,” the man said.
“Is it a nigger?’ Haze asked. “Are they doing something to a nigger?”
The man leaned off his platform and his dried-up face drew into a glare. “Where’d you get that idear?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Haze said.
“How old are you?” the man asked.
“Twelve,” Haze said. He was ten.
“Gimme that fifteen cents,” the man said, “and get in there.”
He slid the money on the platform and scrambled to get in before it was over. He went through the flap of the tent and inside there was another tent and he went through that. His face was hot through to the back of his head. All he could see were the backs of the men. He climbed up on a bench and looked over their heads. They were looking down into a lowered place where something white was lying,
