The Ring Toss Lady Breaks a Five

It’s all of it rigged, she says, Bust-one-wins, Hi-striker, even the Dozer. It’s like you think you’ll score that giant panda for the wife except you can’t, or not without you drop another twenty and then—what?—then you win a thumb-sized monkey or a little comb. She hands me five ones and then stands. She’s worked the whole of the midway, she says, funnel cake to corn-dogs. She’s worked every game plus half the rides, Krazy Koaster, Avalanche, Wing-Ding, Tilt-a-Whirl and if there’s somebody sick she’ll do a kiddy ride too, Li’l Choo-choo, maybe the Tea Cup. There’s a collapsing soft sigh and she sits, opens the paper, turns a page and as if she were the one assigned to face forwards, as if it were her job to intuit the world and interpret the news, Anymore, she says, it’s out of our hands, it’s all we can do—it’s not up to you. You see that bald bronco tearing tickets at the carousel? We worked the Bottle-drop and now he’s mine: he’s no genius but he loves me and he’s mine. Things happen, she says, you can’t take them back.