Fair 4

Disclaimer: Not mine.

The word passed through the crowd that a Green One was going to be initiated into log rolling. More people arrived and spaced themselves along the grassy bank of the lake to watch the fun.

There were quite a few logs on the water. Each log was capable of carrying several men's weight at a time. Three men had poles with hooks on the end, and they could maneuver the logs by pushing or pulling them into place. One log was positioned so that the water around it was cleared. That was the log for competition.

The three men had Trunks walk the logs like stepping stones and had him try rolling a log by walking its girth, then counter-walking against the roll and using his body and feet to halt the momentum. It was adventuresome. Then they took him to the carefully spaced log, which was alone in the water, but with logs reasonably close by in case of trouble.

Trunks was dumped into the water almost immediately - to shouts. That brought Marron up on her knees, for Trunks was rather heavily dressed and the weight of the boots might drag him down. But then she realized that the water was only waist deep.

Uub lounged on the grass with the others and watched. Marron became gradually aware that Uub inadvertently twitched in body English as he tried to help Trunks. She decided that he acted odd for an opponent.

Amid great hilarity - and a good deal of that was his own - Trunks first learned to stay on the log, then to counter it to try to dump the other man into the water. It was hard work. Finally, he challenged Uub and met him on the log. Almost immediately Trunks went into the water. Uub made Trunks run to keep up with the log's rapid roll before he braked the log. Trunks surfaced and pulled himself back up. There was a tolerance in the crowd and a growing delight.

At one point Trunks simply stood in the water with his arms on the log and laughed. Marron sat and watched him. There's something about a man who can laugh at himself. He hauled himself up on the log to stand on it soaking wet. He was so beautifully made. His body was perfectly tuned. He was so determined, so concentrated and dogged. But he was no log man. Admiration began to grow in the crowd as he kept trying.

Even Uub laughed. And it was he who finally said, "You'll never do it. I guess it's a draw. I can't ring the damned bell and you sure as hfil can't log walk."

"Give me another half hour." Trunks dragged himself up onto the log one more time.

Uub shook his head as he balanced himself against Trunks' effort. "In another half hour I'd have to pull you out of the water or you'll drown."

"I think another half hour I'll be ready to drown."

"Getting a little tired?" The taunt was milder.

Trunks grinned. "Just a tad. Maybe we ought to try the bells again. I doubt I'd be able to lift the hammer."

Uub replied honestly, "That'd be no contest." They looked at each other down the length of the log, then met in the middle and shook hands. It was a very nice thing to witness. The crowd clapped and cheered. The antagonism had been so harsh for Uub but they had gone past it and were shaking hands with a mutual respect.

Uub said, "Be my partner on the greased pole."

"Why?"

Uub seemed surprised. "To get the flag nailed at the top."

Trunks shook his head. "You've permanently incapacitated me. There's no way I could climb even an ungreased pole."

"It won't be till after supper. You can rest. And it's only your legs that are tired." Uub was positive as he instructed Trunks on his body's exhaustion. "Your arms are still good. You shove; I'll climb."

Trunks pushed up his lower lip up thoughtfully as he studied Uub. "Are you sure?"

"It's instinct." Uub assured him. "You'll catch on fast as you watch. It's timing. You got good timing. We'll make it." He closed his fist and stuck his thumb up.

"I'll do my damnedest."

"I know you will."

Uub was still dry, but Trunks ran rivulets of water on the log. He grinned, followed Uub off the log and across the other logs on the bank. Uub asked, "You got dry clothes?"

"Yes,"

"I'll be around."

Trunks came back to Marron. She was sitting cross-legged next to a very pregnant woman. On Marron's lap was a sleeping two-year-old who had dried tear streaks on dusty cheeks and a peacock feather in her tangled blond locks.

The child's dad took her from Marron, and Trunks gave a wet hand to tug Marron to her feet. He said, "You gave her a feather."

"It's okay. She's too young to be married."

With Marron carrying his dry vest, they walked slowly. Trunks stretched himself and moved his shoulders ruefully. They went back to the clothing booth, and the woman there teased Trunks, "What did you do that she had to duck you?"

"She's very narrow-minded," he told them as Marron sputtered and blushed. She laughed to be teased so. She'd never been teased. Sharpener had always been ponderous.

Under a pile of men's clothes, they finally found a pair of gray flannel warm-up pants that would fit Trunks' size. He went into the dressing room and changed into them. One of the women smiled wickedly at Marron and offered, "I'll give you all my fortune, my car and my gold filling for him."

Marron blushed again and shook her head.

Trunks ducked through the booth's drape. The soft flannel molded him from his waist down with loving care. His blue eyes pierced Marron and noted her blush as it deepened.

The woman said to him, "I understand you're going to partner Uub for the greased pole. I'll try to get these dry for you, if you like, because you'll want something else to wear after that mess."

"Why, thank you. That's very nice of you."

"My pleasure."

Marron was impatient. The woman was bold.

Trunks told the woman, "The shirt and hat are Mr. Omi's."

"We'll see he gets them."

Trunks paid for the new pants and they left the booth. He took Marron's arm and said, "Now, Just Marron, when she offered her gold filling for me, what did you say?"

"You came out too soon," she replied primly. "I intended in getting her to throw in her hearing aid too."

He squeezed his long fingers around her small arm and shook a little. "So you think you can trade me off?"

"Gold is down."

"The same thing happens to sassy women." His voice was a low, purring growl, and he licked his lips like a lion when it's hungry.

He led her to their cars and retrieved his shirt. He wore it loose over those soft pants. Marron wondered if her was aware how perfectly they lay on his masculine body, like another skin.

It was suppertime, and Marron had not left. She had a twinge or two of anxiety as she wondered where she'd find a motel that late. Days lingered long in the summertime. The sun was still fairly high in the sky. She and Trunks went to the barbecue tent and selected pork chops, sauerkraut and apples that had been stewed with red cinnamon drops. They found a place on the lake bank to sit, and gradually others joined them, including Uub and his group. Uub asked bluntly, "Where're you from?"

"I'm looking for a place," Trunks replied. "I've been on the West Coast, and now I'm looking around."

Marron felt an odd lick of something like fear in her stomach.

Uub offered, "You could do worse than here." A surprising accolade to bid a late antagonist such a welcome. Trunks gave a serious nod to acknowledge Uub's offer. "I believe I've already found the place," he said obliquely.

"Where's that?"

"I have to look it over a little more carefully."

"Let me know."

"I will."

Marron kept her eyes on her plate. So he would be on his way. He had purpose in his travels. She had just this day. Tomorrow he'd leave and they would be worlds apart. She, too, would go on. Suddenly, she was rather depressed.

He said in her ear, "If you're not going to eat your second pork chop, I'll try to choke it down."

She had to grin. All his activities had given him a voracious appetite. It was something to watch him eat so hungrily. He was supposed to be tired, but his movements flowed in perfect control. Apparently, he had no sore muscles. His eyes were quick and aware. He asked her, "Do you need more sunscreen?"

She shook her head. Their talk became general. The other women easily included Marron in their conversation even as their eyes slid over Trunks. But Uub's girl lay with her head in Uub's lap, and he looked down at her often.

Marron tried to think if she had ever been in a group of peers like this, so casually. They weren't nearly this many young people in Peach. She asked the woman next to her, who was her age and called Leona, "Are all of you from around here? From the same town?"

"We're from a scattering of towns." Leona replied. "We did go to the same consolidated high school and rode school buses together. Then there were meetings and competitions, and the towns have socials so kids can get together. Are you from a big city?"

Marron said ruefully, "No, my town is very small. It's over in Mango."

"Are you travelling?"

Marron could see that Trunks had riveted his attention to her words. "Yes, on holiday."

"What brought you to our fair? I ask because we always wonder what lures in strangers."

"I think it was the word arrow printed inside the arrow."

"Really? That was my idea!" Leona shouted to the others of her committee, who were also lounging around, "She liked my sign."

Marron agreed. "After the "watch for the arrow" and then to have it labeled that way, I couldn't resist."

"See?" Leona bragged to the rest, and they all groaned.

Uub explained, "We all tried to talk her out of it. We thought it was dumb." Then he had a sudden thought. "She told you to say that?"

Marron shook her head, laughing with the rest of them as Leona stood up and flung her arms out to declare, "I'm going to start an advertising company and make my fortune."

It was her husband nearby who explained, "All pregnant women get hysterical. Just yesterday-" But he was interrupted by whoops.

"You did it, Nakago!" Leona protested. "I warned you not to tell yet. You never can keep a secret." She acted provoked.

But Nakago smiled sweetly and replied, "I'm pleased about it."

So what would Leona do? She laughed, forgetting her anger, accepted all the comments, teasing and congratulations.

Marron felt a strange wave of jealousy. Next to her Trunks' deep voice said softly, "That's nice to see."

Marron looked up at him and his face was blurred by her tears of envy, and she replied, "Yes."

After they finished eating, the group walked around and watched the acrobats, who were grade school kids from their gym classes. Marron knew she should leave, but she really wanted to watch Trunks in the greased pole competition. So she stayed with him and listened to the amateur troubadours. One young man had made up words up to a standard ballad tune. It was about Invincible Trunks and the Rolling Log. Here and there were sly double meanings and innuendos, and it was quite naughty. The women giggled behind their hands as they looked at one another, and some pretended not to understand. But the men laughed openly as they looked at Trunks or reached to slap his shoulders.

Trunks shook his head at them, put out his hands in innocence, shrugged his shoulders, or put one hand to his chest in a "not me!" manner. In general, he hammed it up quite nicely. But he realized that although Marron laughed, she missed most of the meanings, for she hardly blushed at all.

Then Trunks held out a questioning hand for the young man's guitar, and it was readily given to him. He strummed several chords. In a deep, true voice he sang to Marron. He sang about giving his live cherries that had no stones, and chickens without bones. The crowd was absolutely still. As the day eased down in that place, out under the wide sky with people who were no longer strangers, he sang to a woman he'd met only that morning. To a woman he found and wanted very badly.

With the cheers and clapping at the end of his performance, Trunks returned the guitar to the troubadour and went to Marron. He leaned to kiss her as if that was his right, and she didn't deny him. He took her hand and they went to the clothing tent, where he retrieved his trousers. Then they went to the place where the poles were set for the last contest. He took off his vest, then his shirt, and handed them to Marron. He stood again clad only in his soft gray sweat pants. He was magnificent.
All through the ages, for as long as there's been grease, greased poles have figured in human endeavors. For sport, the greased pole is complete madness, and the pole at the Apricot fair was no exception. People laughed until they had to lie back on the grass in collapse. The worst of it was that the contenders laughed too. There is no weakness as helpless as someone convulsed with laughter. Uub didn't laugh. He was a competitor.

There were two poles. The point was to snatch the flag form the top of the pole. From the bucket of a cherry picker hydraulic arm attached to a truck, the grease had been applied lovingly and with lavishness. Climbing the pole was impossible. Every team had two tries. They ran through the line of contenders, then went through again. By then the pole was only unreasonably slippery as compared to impossibly so.

No one could watch this contest sober-faced. People do such odd things. They put themselves to such ridiculous tasks for the foolishness of it. Anyone doing something foolish always can find someone who will not watch them try but it will bet on the outcome.

Uub never admitted to failure. When he slid back down the pole, he was still scrambling upward, like he was swimming against too strong a current. He would not quit. Others slid down the pole quite clownishly, and everyone loved it.

They were a mess! The greasy men would threaten a woman or two with a hug or a kiss or a pat, and the woman would flee in shrieking, protesting laughter.

Marron was accepted comfortably by the crowd. She gave one of her peacock feathers to an old toothless man. She warned him that, with the feather in the house, he'd never marry. His wheezing laugh alarmed her, but someone close by said he'd be okay.

She had only two feathers left. She discarded her hat and poked the feathers into the top of her hair knot like a Spanish comb. She looked elegant. As Trunks drew stares from women, Marron received many appreciative male ones. Any woman who is with an enviable man will draw stares and advances from other men. Men want what that which is another man's, and a woman who is with a formidable man is coveted. It was an unknown, heady experience for Marron. When she lifted her chin, her feathers appeared regal.

The glow of pride in her wasn't self-pride but pleasure in the man who was Trunks Briefs. He was very special. Look at the turnaround he'd maneuvered that day in Uub. Or in her! Prim, closed Marron Chestnut was now part of a laughing crowd.

She'd never been part of a crowd. She'd been responsible for the feeling of the crowd, but she'd never been an integral part of one. It felt marvelously different. There was a sense of irresponsibility that was so free. She didn't have to do anything about anyone. She had only to enjoy this feeling of... belonging. And it was all because of Trunks.

She looked around her at the friendly faces. She listened to the laughter. Almost everyone there knew Trunks' name. They teased and called to him, and she shared in it all. She was... a part of Trunks.

She became quiet. She could readily accept the phenomenal astonishment of being part of an anonymous crowd, but to a part of a man? She looked at him.

He was phenomenal. Just look at how he was handling that impossible task of keeping Uub from exasperation. Making the excessively competitive Uub enjoy their silly tries.

With a jump up, Uub grabbed the pole and received a powerful push from Trunks as he scrambled and clawed his way toward the top. As the teams were eliminated, they got highest and finally Uub snatched the flag. Everyone collapsed, but Marron saw that Trunks caught and eased Uub down that slick pole to the ground.

The teams were all a mess. The men laughed as they slid their hands down their bodies, chasing children and women, who fled shrieking. For the observers that was probably the best part of the whole contest. But while the men had a hilarious time chasing and threatening to, they never actually touched anyone to share the mess.

The greasy men finally went down around the lake, some modest distance from everyone else. There stood a barrel that sat in the sun all day, so the water in it was warm. They dipped into the soapy water and began to clean themselves. "This soap is raw lye!" They objected, but they said that every year.

It took them some time to clean up. Then they put their unspeakably greasy clothes into the barrel to soak and, amid laughter and distant cheers and jeers, they ran out naked into the lake to rinse off, exuberantly to play, and to finally drag themselves from the water to dry off and put on dry clothes.

They walked back along the side of the lake and talked among themselves as they returned to they returned to the families and friends who waited. They would retrieve the greasy clothes from the barrel the next day.

"Maybe tonight someone will be kind enough to steal the barrel," someone said.

"We say that every year. It never happens."

Trunks returned - as one of the group- and kissed Marron in greeting. She leaned her head back to smile up at him, accepting his kiss. He touched the two peacock feathers stuck into the top of her hair and told her, "Only two are left."

She nodded more elaborately so that the feathers would move.

"You must keep these two," he told her quite seriously. "I'll tell you when to burn them." He put on his shirt and vest, took her hand, and they walked with the rest back to the fair, where Trunks made a ceremony of presenting Uub with the panda.

By then it was nine o' clock. The day was almost spent. The sun had left the sky, and the beautifully golden afterglow slowly changed to red. Trunks said softly, "Someone wrote that if there was a sunset only every hundred years, the anticipation would be intense, and no one would miss it. We waste them because there will be another gorgeous, different one tomorrow."

Marron thought, What an interesting thing for such a man to comment about. He seemed so physical, but he read, he observed and appreciated. He was complex. He was very different from Sharpener.

There were going to be fireworks, which Marron wanted to see. Trunks gathered his two quilts and handed them to Marron. Then he went to the horse tent, where he, like some others, had reserved a bale of hay. Marron watched him pay for it, and she frowned a little. What would they do with a bale of hay and two quilts?

"Why the hay?" she inquired.

Trunks glanced at her rather distractedly as he balanced the bale on his shoulder and took her hand to walk toward the lake. "We're going to watch the fireworks reflected in the lake."

She thought that sounded logical. "Oh," she said. And there were other couples who were walking along who also had bales of hay to sit on.

She noticed that the couples split away. Some went into the woods. Marron wondered how could they expect to see the fireworks through the tress, or to see them reflected in the lake if they were in the woods? She was turning and looking back, but Trunks kept walking. "Trunks..." she began doubtfully.

"If we're lucky we'll find a reasonable place just opposite the fair."

"We don't have to go that far."

"Right. Just far enough."

Why should he sound amused? She mused, and her steps began to lag.

"Come on, Marron we have to be settled before it starts. You know it won't take long. We have to be ready."

He sounded so reasonable. She went along but stayed several steps behind him. The moon wasn't up yet, but the night sky was bright with stars. It was beautiful. Being in the dark and away from all artificial light, the stars were there to see, and to see by.

Trunks looked around. He finally stood on the edge of the lake and decided he'd found a place. "It could be damp here with the water absorbed into the mud. We'd best move back a ways."

They moved back under the trees. With the undergrowth, it was almost a bower opened at one side toward the lake.

He dropped the bale and stretched. She started to put one quilt on it, but he took a pocketknife from his pocket and snapped the baling twine. She was somewhat startled to see him open it out and spread the hay in a nice thick pad about the size of a folded quilt - or a bed.

She became thoughtful. What had she gotten into? She looked around and the other couples had all disappeared. They were alone out here. Was he making a bed? She wondered, and stiffened.

He said matter-of-factly, "This should be quite comfortable. We'll be able to see them busting in the sky against the stars. It should be quite a show." His white teeth glinted as he smiled at her.

She was uneasy as she stood there. He took the quilts from her unresisting arms and spread one on top of the hay. She looked across the lake. Almost all the lights from the fair were out so they wouldn't detract form the fireworks. She could see no one else. But then she saw a tiny pinpoint as someone lit a match.

How had she gotten out here all alone with Trunks Briefs, a total stranger?

This chapter's for my roommate at the uni. That's where I write my chapters when I'm not buried in books or hanging out. Hope you're happy Leona! You finally got your man. (

I've added names to the chapters because they look pretty boring without any names. Thank you for your support and please keep on reading. Onegaishimasu!