A Burdened Family

Chapter 4

"You kids picked one hell of a time to join up." Mr. Cooper led us into his office. "Take a seat."
   
The three of us glanced around the room. There were only two chairs, one of which was painted to look like a clown. The three of us all made a beeline for the normal chair, but Dean got there first. I bit my lip to hide my smirk before sitting on the arm of Dean's chair.
   
There was no chance in hell I would sit in that clown seat.
   
Sam glared at Dean before sitting down in the freaky seat. I smirked at him, and Dean did the same. Dean's smirk quickly turned to a frown when he moved to put his arm up on his chair.
   
"Get off." He hissed at me.
   
"No shot." I hissed back. "Just deal with it, Dean. We've shared a goddamn bed, you can spare an armrest for your sister."
   
"You've bunked with Sam, too." Dean half whined.
   
"And his chair looks like a clown." I glared at him. "I'm not moving."
   
"All righty." Mr. Cooper looked back at us from behind his desk. "We got a lot of local trouble."
   
"What do you mean?" I asked, placing an arm on the back of Dean's chair for balance.
   
"A couple of folks got themselves murdered." Mr. Cooper spoke, but I barely heard him. I was too engaged watching Sam squirm in his seat. Poor boy. "Cops always seem to start here first. So, you three ever work the circuit before?"
   
"Yes, sir." Sam answered, leading both me and Dean to look at him. Last year through Texas and Arkansas."
   
"Doing what?" Mr. Cooper asked us. "Ride jockeys? Pull shoot? A and S men?"
   
"Little bit of everything." My voice cracked slightly. "I guess."
   
"You three have never worked a show in your lives before, have you?"
   
"Nope." Dean replied. "Unless you count her weekend as a bearded lady."
   
"I'll kill you where you stand." I hissed at him. "He's kidding, Mr. Cooper."
   
"So you have worked a circuit?"
   
"No. That was true. About my weekend as a bearded lady. I've never had a beard, and I'll keep that streak for the rest of my life."
   
"I'm lost."
   
"Look, Mr. Cooper." Dean leaned forward, patting my knee. "We've never worked a show before, but we really need the work.
   
"You kids see that picture?" Mr. Cooper pointed behind him, and we all followed his finger to a picture of an old man sitting in front of a ferris wheel. "That's my daddy."
   
"You look just like him." Sam commented.
   
The man in the photo looked exactly like Mr. Cooper. Eerily so.
   
"He was in the business." Mr. Cooper looked between the three of us. "He ran a freak show 'til they outlawed them, most places. Apparently displaying the deformed isn't dignified. So, most of the performers went from honest work to rotting in hospitals and asylums. That's progress, I guess."
   
Sam gave a fake, sympathetic smile and Dean shook his head. I twiddled my thumbs in my lap.I probably should have acted more engaged, but the man was boring me.
   
"You see, this place is a refuge for outcasts, always has been, for folks that don't fit anywhere else." Mr. Cooper furrowed his brow. "But you three, you should go to school, find a couple of girls and a boy, have 2.5 kids, live regular."
   
I glanced sadly at Sam. Sure, all three of us wanted that "regular" life, no matter how deeply we pushed that dream away. But Sam had that life not much more than a year ago.
   
"Sir..." Sam clasped his hands together and leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees. "We don't want to go to school. We don't want 'regular'. We want this."
   
"We tried to live normally." I added, glancing at the boys. "Apparently, it didn't agree with us. I don't think my family was meant to live normal lives."

***

Ultimately, we talked Mr. Cooper into giving us jobs. They weren't the jobs we expected, we got jobs as janitors. Because that's every person's dream job: spend the day picking up trash.
   
I held an EMF detector in my pocket, scanning just about anything I passed. Nothing gave off EMF. I groaned in frustration, when my phone rang in my pocket.
   
"Hey." I answered, recognizing Sam's number.
   
"I got a theory."
   
"Cool. Where you at?"
   
"Fun house. Dean's on his way. Get here."
   
"By-" Sam hung up the phone.
   
I rolled my eyes, shoving my phone back into my pocket and heading towards the funhouse.