"Well, just take your time with it. You'll get used to it soon enough. Not that I'm trying to turn you into some sort of lush or something, mind you. But you'll probably need a drink once in a while when we really get rolling. It's pretty hectic around this show sometimes."

Sarah nodded. She wanted to ask him once again just exactly what her duties would be, but she thought better of it. He did not seem to be disposed to tell her very much right now, and Sarah figured it best to just let things ride as they were. After all, she was getting paid good money for doing nothing, so far, so who was she to complain?

They talked for a while longer, Sarah mindful of the fact that her words were beginning to slur a bit around the edges and that some of her thoughts seemed to ramble a bit more than usual. But she wasn't drunk, she was certain of that. Maybe she was no experienced drinker, but she surely knew enough to know when to stop. Hawkins fixed her another and she reluctantly accepted it, and she thought for a moment it was a bit strange that he seemed to have everything he needed right here in the camper this time. But why worry? The night was cool and quiet, save for an occasional growl from one of the big cats or a roar from the show's big star, Jomo, the African gorilla, safely locked behind the double steel bars of his cage where she'd seen him – just once – before they left California.

Hawkins rambled on a bit, relating how he had picked up the traveling show for a song from a Mexican couple who needed the money. He conveniently left out the rest of the story – how they were desperate for money for their son's much-needed operation and he loaned it to them, taking the show as collateral. Hawkins was in the used furniture business then, as he called it, though his real trade was in taking over delinquent furniture store accounts and foreclosing for the goods and reselling it to Chicanos in Los Angeles. It had been a quite lucrative business, sometimes bringing the same goods back two or three times before he mistakenly sold them to someone who could actually hope to make the payments.