The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley

eyelid and swung there whileKevin managed to squirm free, get back on swaying feet, and pull Colm into a headlock that sent the two men bursting out the front door of the pub, tangling themselves in Christmas lights that snapped and popped under their feet. They kicked and tripped across the wet road until they were on the sandy ground before the tarp-covered carnival and the Ferris wheel, which sat creaking in the wind in silent judgment, snow dusting its highest carriages. The bar emptied out into the street and Kevin, as if the salty air had awakened him, began to scream a maniac’s scream, the kind Maggie had heard in the Selfish Fetus song “Nightstick,” a scream that filled the sky and made the crowd glance at each other warily, until it was silenced, finally, by Colm’s decisive fist to his face, and Kevin fell, finally defeated, in the sand. In the darkness, his thin body looked like a piece of washed-up kelp.
    Maggie ran to him and knelt next to his body. His eyes were puffed into black slits; his nose and lips ran with blood. He reached up a hand, brushed sand into her hair.
    â€œ ’M fine,” he slurred through thickening lips. A siren blared, and the guards arrived in a whirl of flashing blue light, scattering the crowd back. Dizzy with the lights and the wailing sirens and an all-powerful relief that that he wasn’t dead, Maggie hiccupped, and the four Club Oranges she’d drunk throughout the night reappeared in a fizzy torrent of tangerine vomit in the sand.
    Eoin retreated to the bar to help his aunt clean up the overturned tables and broken glasses while Maggie walked home with Kevin, who said nothing but leaned into her, breathed noisily from his mouth, and dabbed at his broken nose with a red-soaked sleeve. She was in bed by the time Colm and Laura arrived home, and she fell asleep, at last, lulled into nightmares by the persistent murmur of their arguing through the wall.
    She was awoken in the predawn darkness by a shaking of her toe. She nearly screamed out when she saw the hideous clown face hovering at the end of the bed. Her eyes adjusted, and sherealized that the clown was Kevin, his pale blue eyes swallowed up in mushroom bruises, his nose cracked at an obscene angle. He had his bags with him.
    â€œJust wanted to say Merry Christmas, Mags,” he whispered. “I’m taking off a bit earlier than expected.”
    Maggie sat up.
    â€œBut I thought you were staying until New Years?”
    He found her hand and held it. It was freezing and clammy, as if he’d just been in water.
    â€œPlans have changed. I can’t be under the same roof as your mother and that dude.”
    â€œThey didn’t kick you out, did they?” She felt hatred and a wild loyalty rise within her.
    â€œOh no. Not this time. This time, it’s my decision. I gotta get back anyway, got some things with this new band I’m starting that I gotta take care of.”
    â€œBut—what about us? What about spending Christmas with us?” She was aware that she was whining, that her lip was trembling and she was close to tears. But she couldn’t help it. She was so sick of everything being decided by the adults in her life, who only acted like adults when they felt like it.
    â€œNext year, honey,” he said. “You really think this marriage is gonna last? This time next year, you’ll be back home in Chicago, and we’ll have Christmas like normal people.” He smiled at her then, his teeth a broken row of tombstones, kissed her forehead, and left the room.
    The front door opened and closed, and she watched her uncle limp out to the street, a short-brimmed hat his only defense against the wind. He hitched his backpack on his shoulder, turned once to wave at Maggie’s window, then disappeared down the hill and was gone.

Maggie lay awake for a long time after Kevin left. She thought about him, about the demise of Selfish Fetus, about her