Henry had the lumbago.

Well, that's what he said it was. I just thought he strained his back when the sledgehammer slipped off that tent stake and he jumped away before it come down on his toe. But anyway, Henry went to bed with a hot water bottle and some of the Professor's pain remedy, and I set out to walk in to town alone.

I always like to look around any new town when we stop, and I thought maybe I'd have a drink or two and get something different to eat and maybe visit the cathouse, if there was one. It had been a long time since I'd been with a woman and I'd about forgot what it was like.

Our big carnival show was rolling along like it does most every night, but all of us roustabouts don't need to be there except for set up. The boss always gives us a turn at time off to do as we please.

This town wasn't the biggest one I'd ever been in, but it was fair-sized. There were plenty of drinking places to choose from, and I walked into the first one that looked bright and cheerful.

Several men were lined up at the bar and I found a spot next to a heavyset feller almost as big as me, but wearing a blue suit and a tie instead of overalls. I ordered a shot of whiskey and a glass of beer. When those were gone, I ordered some more. There was a feller pumping out tunes on a player piano and the music was real nice. Some of the men were dancing with a couple of pretty women in red dresses. I thought maybe I might try that out myself in a little bit.

Nobody spoke to me nor gave me more than a nod, but that was all right. Lots of folks don't favor strangers. I listened to the talk around me and enjoyed the change of scene. It sure was different from the carnival, 'cause there I know everybody but the marks. The feller next to me was chatting with some other men; one was tall and skinny with a handlebar mustache.

"You going to that carnival that's set up out south of town?" said the skinny feller.

"No," the heavyset man said. "I never did favor the circus. All those folks do there is try to cheat you out of your hard-earned money with their damned crooked games. I've heard they even run pickpockets in the crowd. Nothing but bummers and gypsies, I say."

His friend shrugged.

I didn't say anything. It wasn't my business to tell folks what to think. Anyway, I didn't feel like bothering much with a man who couldn't tell a carnival from a circus.

"Besides," he went on, "I heard that this particular show is run by one of those unnatural fellows, a faggot, what they call a ho-mo-sex-ual. Even if I liked such doings as circuses, I wouldn't go to that one no-how."

"Do tell," his friend said. And a bunch of the other men turned their heads to listen.

The bigger man sidled up real close, like he was gonna whisper, but his voice was loud enough for the whole room to hear. "You know what those faggots do - besides all those things the Bible talks against? They steal away innocent young boys and make them do unspeakable things - most any filthy thing you can imagine, I'll wager. Give them boys dreadful diseases until they're so far gone their own families won't have them back. That's the way they spread their plague since they won't breed a woman like the Good Book says you should. The sheriff should never have allowed that show to set up here. This is a decent, God-fearing town. I say we should all be on the alert!"

Now, I'll listen to a whole lot of things I don't like, and from some I'll just walk away... but this feller was going too far. I wasn't about to let him bad-mouth Mr. Stone. The boss was the kindest man I'd ever worked for. He paid fair, and he always had a smile for everyone, even us roustabouts.

"Excuse me," I said, tapping the big man's shoulder, "but you shouldn't ought to speak ill of Mr. Stone. He's a good man and he never hurt nobody, especially no little boys."

The heavyset feller just barely glanced at me. "What's it to you?" he said.

"Well," I said, "I happen to know because I work for Mr. Stone."

Well, the feller looked me up and down and he started to laugh. "You work for him? No wonder you'd stand up for the dirty pervert. He must be putting it to you regular." He slapped his knee and all the listeners got to laughing.

"And I bet he likes it, too!" another man added.

Now, I got a bad temper and that's a fact. Henry says I got to fight against it, and I do all right and peaceable most times, but for a minute there the room went all red and blurry on me. The boss and me never did any such a thing. The man was being just purely hateful.

Maybe half the folks there was paying attention now, laughing and pointing, even those ladies in the pretty red dresses. I looked all around, fixing in my mind who was going along and who wasn't, just in case the boss wanted to know.

"Look at him," the big man said. "He ain't even denying it. The big ox is too dumb to know he's been insulted!" And then the folks laughed some more.

Well, I turned right around and looked the big feller in the face and said, "You don't know Mr. Stone a t'all, and to go around talking meanness about somebody you never even met makes you a sight dumber than me."

He blinked, like he hadn't thought I'd answer him back, and then he hauled off and hit me on the jaw with his fist - so hard it almost turned my head a little.

His eyes opened big and then he frowned and balled up both hands, ready to strike at me again.

I ain't no Jack Dempsey, but I let him have a couple of little jabs then - one in his belly, which folded him over, and the other in the jaw as he was trying to straighten back up. After that one he fell over flat on his back on the floor. I probably wouldn't have hit him the second time, but somebody broke a wooden chair on my shoulder, and it made me forget to not be mad. The whole ring of other men backed up when I turned to them, so I just put a dollar on the counter and said 'thank you kindly' to the bartender before I left.

I decided to head on back then, being kind of fed up with town folks for one night. On the walk back I thought a lot about what had happened, but couldn't make much sense of it. I wished Henry had been with me. He always seems to know the right thing to do and say.

Henry was doing pretty good when I got home. I fixed him a bite to eat and rubbed his back a little and he said he believed he'd live and his lumbago was feeling a lot better. Henry ain't big as me, but he's strong enough for anything, and he's awful smart. I told him about what happened in town and he said I done right by walking away, quick as I could. It would have been no good for me to forget and hurt somebody. That would just cause trouble for all of us carnies. As it was, Henry didn't think that the big man would report me to the sheriff, and I guess he didn't. Last I saw of him, his friends had turned to laugh at him for letting a faggot knock him down.

When the show had closed down for the night and all the lights were off, Henry and me got in our big bed in the back of the trailer, and after a while of laying there thinking quiet-like, I reached over and did the things I know Henry likes me to do for him. A little while after that, he said he thought he felt good enough to do the things I like for him to do to me. Henry knows just what I like, and I ain't going to catch nothing from him like you might catch off the women in one of them cat houses. Anyway, likely nobody could please me as good as he can, not even one of those red-dressed fancy women. Henry and me been together a long time.

When we was just laying there, not sleeping yet, the moon shining in the trailer's little window, I asked Henry, "Why do you suppose that some folks seem to take such pleasure in talking mean about other folks? I don't see why they care what two people do alone at night. It ain't like it hurts them at all."

Then he said something about how folks who had already made a mess of their own lives were out to make a mess of others folk's lives, if they could, because misery loves company, and them kind of people don't think that other folks need the same exact things as they do, like money and love and all, but human beings all got needs and none of us are all that different - one from the other.

And when I said, 'What?' he said, "Will, I reckon them folks is just ignorant."

And I reckon he's right.

Thanks to Rock Hunter for editing.