Bakersfield, California, 1952: Minnie Capstan, afraid of change and ready to fight to hold on to her safe familiar place in her parents' overcrowded household, not only embraces change, she ends up leaving in its company. Part Yokut Indian, part Russian Jew, and on the edge of turning eighteen, Minnie will venture beyond the city limits of Bakersfield with an eccentric collection of carnies. But it isn't the carnival's owner, a lady who keeps her beloved late husband's ashes in a mayonnaise jar, that gives Minnie a reason to pick up and go. No, it's the carnival boss who has captured her interest, a handsome moody fellow with a secret that may just send her running home...

Dancing In Circles
By Debra Tash Chapter 1

There comes a season when a person's life changes, like the spring greening in the great San Joaquin Valley, kind of an aching promise of birth. It happened in the spring for me, the very beginning edge of it in fact, 1952. After a month of gray mornings I could well imagine the tulle fog that still haunted Bakersfield. The cool cloudy vapor would settle in every night and last beyond the dawn. It would lay gray tendrils over the city streets, wrapping itself around the old Beale clock tower at 17th and Chester.

I tried my best to oversleep one foggy March morning as the new day inched towards 6:30. But I just lay awake staring out the window and watching the gray wisps swirl beyond the streaked pane glass. My three sisters had already dressed and gone off to school. I'd graduated from Bakersfield High the year before, having gone to extra classes two summers in a row.

I wanted to sleep in that morning and dream of being a child forever, kind of like Peter Pan. Instead I found myself rousted from bed by the youngest member of our tribe, Running Bare, my little brother, the punctuation mark at the tail end of my very large family. Running Bare was a nickname of course, his real one being, Saul. We were part Yokut Indian, a very small part. That nickname wasn’t garnered as homage to that speck of American Indian blood running in his little veins. No, Saul had always had an inclination to run around naked.

"Min," he called softly in my ear.

"Go away," I mumbled and rolled over.

"Get up!" the four year old monster screamed.

I said a curse under my breath, turned to him and stared at his round little face framed with the springy curls of dark brown hair my mother was so loathed to trim.
"You'll be late."

My eyes narrowed.

He grinned. "Work."

Work, it spun around in my brain. Yes, I had to go to work in my parent's hardware store, the only reason I hadn't gotten evicted yet--I worked.

It was close to my eighteenth birthday and I'd be getting my eviction notice soon enough. In all fairness to my fertile parents, with nine kids it couldn't be any other way. I was the middle child, the peanut butter in a Wonder Bread sandwich. There were four kids older and four younger than me, couldn't possibly get any more middle than that.

Even being in the middle, totally overlooked in the family scheme of things and rightly named, Minnie, which said it all, I still didn't want to leave. The world waited somewhere beyond the fog, and I didn’t much care for what I’d seen of it so far.

Being the first girl in the family to approach that milestone of emancipation, all four of the older ones belonging to the male side of the species, I really didn't think I would be forced from the nest. The way I felt, they would have to carry me bound and gagged out of this house and with a shotgun at my back, something my father would probably have tried if desperate enough.

Of course, my parents loved me. Even a middle child can be loved. Besides, I’d never given them any trouble. They just needed me to move. I took up space and space was at a premium in our three bedroom tract house.

I dragged myself out of bed and got a good look at Running Bare.

"Underwear," I reminded him, "Is always a good idea."

He stuck his nose in the air and turned around to reveal that cute little tush he seemed so proud of.

I dressed and came into the kitchen. My parents had already left for the shop, but my grandmother was there cooking breakfast. I never knew how old that woman was, no one did, not even my father, her son. It didn't matter, she was pure grandma material with clouded blue eyes, gray hair worn in a net, heavy rimmed glasses and the standard attire, comfortable shoes and an assortment of muu-muus. A woman from the old stock, the kind that never ages well, their buxom figures turning into something resembling a bulging cardboard box, the basic geometric shape with boobs.

She put her hands on the approximate location of her hips as I came into the kitchen. "You're late."

"No, Bobbeh," I squinted at the clock mounted at the crown of our white, enamel stove, "It's not even seven yet."

"Your mama and papa already take your sisters."

"Good for them," I yawned, "Can't be too early for school."

Her pruned mouth puckered. "Or work."

"Sure." I plopped down in one of the padded vinyl chairs at the kitchen table. "Can I have something to eat?" I grinned. "Ham and eggs."

She snorted at my tease. My bobbeh ran a kosher house. She could have told me to get my own breakfast, that would have served me right for being a heckler. But this grandmother of all grandmothers would never risk one of her own going out the door unfed. She produced a repast of fried eggs and a side of toast in minutes and took the seat across from me to make sure that every bite got into my stomach.

"You saving your gelt?" she asked half way through my hasty meal. .

I nodded and swallowed a mouthful of eggs. .

"You sure?" .

I nodded again and finished off my orange juice. .

"You really sure?" .

Once more I nodded then wiped my mouth on the napkin, going through the same line of interrogation I got every morning. .

"You think some g'vir will come and sweep your feet?" .

"You mean sweep me--off--my feet, Bobbeh. And no, I’m not waiting for some rich guy." "Off, on, the feet, you spend too much gelt, Minnie." .
"No spend plenty wampum." .

She snorted again. "Meshugeh." "Sure. Me crazy Indian."

She leveled her clouded gaze on me. It always seemed as if she couldn’t see clearly because of her cataracts, but in truth this woman could look right down into another’s soul. “You’re scared of moving out.”

My grandmother was right, of course, but would I admit such a thing to her? “White bobbeh speak with fork-tongue. I brave Brave.”

I got to my feet just as she tossed a crumbled napkin my way. Our Indian blood came from my mother's side, my father's being all Russian Jew. Yes, it made for a strange combination, Jewish Indians. But to paraphrase my paternal grandmother: both Jews and Indians have been kicked out of their homeland and they dance in circles. That’s a lot to have in common.

I walked over to her side of the table, leaned down and kissed my grandmother on one of her wrinkled cheeks. She patted me on the arm. The teasing aside I loved her more than most of my family, and I loved them all so much. That fact only made it even harder to leave this safe, warm house. "You be careful, Minnie. The fog's thick outside. Watch for machinas." "I'll make sure a car doesn't flatten me, Bobbeh."

She snorted one last time as I went out the door and into the garage to get my bike. Despite what my grandmother may think about my spending habits, I was as frugal as the rest of the family. It's just that I hardly got paid anything to work in my parents' hardware store and they took out room and board from my meager wages. After all, one doesn't come by eggs and toast for nothing.

The damp fog clung to my bare legs above the bobby socks I wore, crept under my plaid skirt as I pedaled down the street to the bus stop. I should have been used to it by then. After all I grew up in Bakersfield. But this felt different, almost as if the heavy wet air was sinking into my skin, going deep inside layer by layer to chill me. I never had that kind of feeling before. Here it was just past seven in the morning and it felt the way it gets just before nightfall, that blanket of hushed yearning settling over a body’s soul.

I pedaled faster and faster, almost as if I were trying to out run the fog. I rounded one last corner, jumped off my bike and chained it to a light pole just in time to catch the bus. I was glad to be settled in the green vinyl seat, but I still didn't feel right. My maternal grandmother, the one with the Indian blood, would have said I was being chased by spirits. Maybe that was true--something was about to change.

I went across town on the bus, riding past Turxton and the funeral home they had taken my late grandfather to last year, on past California Street where the High School stood. I got off at Chester and walked at a good clip the three blocks to the store.

"Cappies'," that's what it was called, "Cappies' Hardware." We were Caplans, my father's last name but my father had changed it in 1930 to get a job with the oil company, his way to avoid the “No Jews allowed” sentiment around then. So, instead of being Caplans we were Capstans. No one ever got it that our family had been named after part of a ship.

So I worked that day with that tingling, weird feeling itching under my skin, even as the fog burned away outside, the sun angling gold streamers along the sidewalks and passing cars. I counted out screws and nuts, and got the same old remarks about what was a nice looking girl doing in a hardware store counting out screws and nuts. My bobbeh always called me her zaftik maidel. I wasn't a plump girl, just had some very nice curves at the time. My hair was straight and shining black, not the curly locks like my other siblings. Suppose it was from my Indian blood, like the deep tan color of my skin. I wore my hair short and swept back behind my ears. My eyes were blue in color, not at all part of my Indian heritage but more from the wandering Jew side of our clan.

Four o'clock came, one more hour to freedom and my parents would give me a ride to my bike. My dad was in the back checking stock while my mom had gone off to the bank. The bell by the door tingled as someone came inside. I stood in the plumbing aisle explaining to one of our regular customers, Mrs. Fredericks, that she needed a ball-cock to fix her toilet and not to worry about buying an item like that--she could still go to church on Sunday and not have to ask forgiveness, people bought ball-cocks every day.

The bell sounded again. I recognized my best and only friend's high pitched voice. I let Mrs. Fredericks alone to contemplate the merits of a questionably named plumbing item and went over to the front of the store where Shelley stood near the counter with a couple of other girls. Where my hair was straight, hers exploded from her head, a mass of auburn frizz and she had a spate of freckles down her nose. The three of them must have come here to taunt me. Shelley and the other two girls were still in school, their senior year, real big shots.

"Can you get off early?" Shelley asked me. .
I looked around, wondering who else had come in just before them, but I only caught a glimpse Mrs. Fredericks in the plumbing aisle still trying to make up her mind. I turned to Shelley and shook my head. .

She punched out her lower lip in a pout. "Too bad we were going to drive over to the fairgrounds." .

"What for?" .
"They're setting up a carnival," one of the girls answered, "Something to do with a big revival meeting this week." .

Shelley took me by the arm. "You should come." Her voice lowered an octave. "It could be good." .

"Really?" Shelley would go anywhere to get a look at a new assortment of men. Then it hit me. "What's a carnival have to do with a revival meeting?"

"All the churches in Bakersfield are putting on a family festival and revival," Shelley said. "They got a traveling carnival to come into town. We can go watch them set up. You get it? Watch?"

The feeling that had plagued me all day grew stronger. I turned around and saw this man standing not far behind us. He was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt. He had wavy black hair and deep summer-green eyes. There was something in those eyes, some buried wounded thing. He had to be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties.

The man walked to the front counter, laid down a coil of rope, a screw driver and a can of oil on top as he called: "Anybody work here?"

Shelley and her two friends stepped clear of me. I went to the counter and rang up his purchase and put the screw driver and oil in a paper bag but the rope wouldn't fit.

He had one of those perfect faces, straight nose, high cheekbones, dark bristles speckled his chin, a handsome man. Yet there was that thing in his eyes, an unnamed pain.

"Thank you," I croaked as I let go of the bag.

The man gathered up the rope, latched onto the paper sack and started for the door. He stopped and spoke to Shelley. "Yea, come to the fairgrounds. You better believe it--there's plenty to see." His mouth twisted up at the corner. "Be looking for you, honey."

He went out the door. The girls hung back just staring, but I found myself walking to the front window, that creepy feeling inching up my spine. Somehow I knew despite that feeling, I would be going to the fairgrounds after work.