Old Elbert was restless and unhappy. Circumstances had hit him all at once and kept on hitting in succession. First he had retired from the automotive component manufactory after 35 years of sweat and toil. That long awaited sudden change in daily habits had hit him hard. He had just adapted to occupying his time with activity around the homestead when a loathsome illness had robbed him of his beloved bride. Then other criseses followed one after another that, dispite the annoyances, had helped distract him from that sorrow. But for well over three years now he had had nothing to do but watch the telly at home and b.s. and chew the fat with his peers at the local 24 hr. diner and till & tend the three-acre truck-patch on his childhood homeplace.

Then one day he found, in his mailbox a crudely reproduced flyer of orange construction paper announcing the coming of a traveling carnival of sorts. Elbert had little desire to be around crowds and noise but he could well imagine himself wandering about such a venue with a sack of popcorn and sipping a cooling beverage through a straw. One of his old buds down at the diner cinched the deal with an impertinent sharp elbow into the ribs and an insinuating wink stating that there was to be sideshow tents of a naughty nature included in the itinerary. It was said that there was a shameless hussy or hussies that could amazingly puff a cigar(s) and exhale smoke in an extremely unconventional manner. The latent hound-dog in Elbert awoke and stretched and yawned before lying back down to continue its nap.

Unknown to Elbert and all of the easy marks of Patona City and neighbouring hamlets, the Pavee were coming. The Pavee, Irish Travelers, Celtic Gypsies et al had been sending spies about the area to feel-out the Buffers as they termed everyone else but themselves and Patona City was ripe for the plucking.

The problem with this particular clan(s) of Travelers was the cost of living and the high overhead of their endeavours. Logistics was the dirty word. Getting to the Buffers and their gullibility and fat wallets from many hundred of miles from home-base severely cut into the bottom-line. They could, like their cousins, live "on the go" in recreational vehicles or caravan trailers but this particular branch liked to live like Buffers in real houses. So they came to Patona City and leased spaces at the old national guard armoury and the flea market/tradeday grounds for their business purposes. Every motel room and r.v. pad/camping site in and around their targets were reserved with credit cards physically lifted from Buffers at the atlantic north-south interstate rest-areas and chip information surreptitiously scanned at any busy convenience store enroute on their south-westward travels.

So by the time that they had all filtered into the area and had paid monies down, they were low of shekels. Their first main effort was the tool sale at the old armoury. The tools, both hand and electrical were of tolerable quality and functionality and competitively priced with an average mark-up of 15% after tempting loss-leaders were ciphered-in. This mostly covered the overhead with the profits coming in the form of the bait/switch dummy item(s) lying on the checkout counter near the cash register. Unknown to the tool-sale customers, they almost all paid for a pocket knife or keychain or cigarette lighter or beverage can insulator that unfortunately didn't make it into their shopping bag. This deceit was aided by the purposely, almost illegible faint print on the sales tickets. There also were a few select pockets picked there not to mention the hundreds of credit card numbers archived to finance the homeward trip east.

Then came the carnival complete with naughty sideshow(s). Old Elbert went and spent nigh-on a green franklin on parking, entrance fee, the minimum allowed number of individual event tickets, a sack of popped corn, a pint of mostly crushed ice and cola and the extra entry fee to the lewd show. His two regrets apart from parting with so many yankee greenbacks was that he chickened-out using the event tickets to ride at least one ride. He thought it undignified and it increased his restlessness & loneliness even thinking of riding alone without his late wife. The other regret was sitting even a brief few minutes in the "hootchiecoo" tent before exiting in disgust. There are somethings once seen, in reflection, were best left unseen. His only hope was that it had been dark enough in the spectators seats of the tent that none of his fellow elderly men sunday school class had recognized him.

Back to the larcenous Travelers. After the tool sale folk had filtered away with little scrutiny and the carnival had broken-up and headed northwest to the next small city or medium-sized town, the various driveway asphalt spraying and aluminum roof painting crews went to work. It was all about timing at this point. One unexpected thunderstorm in the midst of the summertime drought could be disastrous to the Gypsies. Getting as many driveways sprayed and roofs silvered before heavy weather exposed the fraudulent nature of the "asphalt" and "quick-drying" aluminum paint was essential.

Then, of course, there were widow's houses with whole nests of rattlesnakes living unknown to them in the home's crawlspace. Not to mention the numerous doorbells ringing with the ubiquitous grift & flummeries of skilled actors & actresses including variations of : "flat-tire", "broke-down", "out of petrol", "sick baby", "out of diapers/baby formula until payday". Some Buffers voluntarily if not reluctantly paid as much as a double sawbuck at the door. Others paid involuntarily under the ruse of, "can you hold the baby here while I use the landline to call or take a wiz in the potty.", only to later find cash or jewelry or soporific meds. missing.

Then the last hurrah of looting opportunity..... The novelty comedic jackass basketball game at the nearby rural Coloma High School gymnasium. The team's colours were grey and blue with the costumes draped over the backs of the burros that were shoed with sneakers on all four trotters to protect the hardwood floor's glossy varnished finish. The game was a hit ! There were plenty of volunteers of all ages, so many indeed that there were multiple games of shortened playtime and low-score limits in order to placate the numerous entrants. Both the folk attending in the bleachers (a packed house) who paid a lincoln per and the contestants who bought their billet with a sawbuck each had a blast. As for the Gypsies undercover in amongst the locals, there were quite a few pockets and purses successfully & profitably picked.

Old Elbert was deemed the most valuable player in grey in the third game, making three good blocks and scoring two hoops. As he was helped off the back of his burro, Elbert, thinking of his truck-patch, sought to buy the beast but the Pavee proved to play "hard to get" as they say. His initial offer was $350 but as he met disappointment after disappointment going up the Travellers chain of command he finally offered $750 and was accepted. The Travellers having already asked his address, and unknown to Elbert, the former owners of the donkeys had a scheme to retrieve their property. They had long ago lost count of just which beast and how many times that it had been sold.

The Travellers kept the "jersey" and sneakers much to Old Elbert's disappointment. He had hoped to display the grey sheet with the number "11" on his den wall as a trophy of sorts and you never knew when the sneakers might prove necessary. A local cattleman to the school's community there at the game who was also one of Elbert's early morning diner coffee swilling peers offered the use of a small livestock trailer.

In less than two hours from the cessation of the jackass basketball games, Elbert was at his three acre truck-patch trying to hitch the burro to the tack of a long-handled tilling implement that he had borrowed. One of the Traveller's basketball team trainers had adamantly assured Elbert that the burros, one and all, were retired from agriculture service where they had been trained to be harnessed & hitched to plows & carts/wagons & the booms of machinery such as sorghum cane queezers. After several hours of failure, Elbert dropped the reins and left the stubborn beast sitting on its butt like a dog and braying most annoyingly. He calmly and slowly walked to the tractor shed and returned with a bright red can. He then began to gather last harvest's spent cornstalks and stack them on and against the burro like he was raising teepee poles until the braying beast was mostly covered by stalks. Without haste, he began pouring a circular stream of petrol from the red can around the stalks when he heard the distinctive crunch on the chert drive of approaching tires. He recognized his pastor as the man lowered the driver's-side car-door window.

"Brother Elbert, I was just heading up to visit your sister Lily. Is there anything I can do to help you with here in your garden ?"

Old Elbert spat a stream of brown juice, more in disgust than in necessity as he pulled a matchbook from a shirt pocket.

"No Reverend, I'm fine. I'm just about to teach this here jackass how to plow !" he replied as he struck a match.