FantasticLand

by Mike Bockoven

  How the hell did I get off on that rant?

  Anyway, no guns, past the Exclamation Point, Karen is nervous, right? That’s where I left off? Right, so we’re coming up on the Pirate Cove, and there are three guys visible when we come up on the gate. Each different section of the park has a large gate … you know this? OK, well, we come up on the Pirate gate, and there’s this welcoming committee that’s not really welcoming, if you follow me. Of the three of them, one turns around and runs, and the other two come up on us and we see they both have what look like pipes in their hands. They reminded me of the kind you see in Clue. I immediately put my hands up, like, “We aren’t here to start nothin’,” and they come up to us and it’s clear they don’t want us to cross through the gate.

  I remember there was a tall one and a not-so-tall one, but the tall one was kind of chunky, and the small one was carved out of wood. He was solid and he was the one doing all the talking. He walks up to us and asks, “How much for the woman?” and at this point, it makes more sense to play it loose, I thought, so I kind of chuckled and said, “She’s not for sale. What’s going on here, fellas?” The little one, he didn’t say anything, he just sort of did that thing where they hold the pipe in one hand and make it hit their palm over and over again, like they were getting ready to hit us. It was quiet for what seemed like a long time, and the tall one says, “Almost time now,” and we look behind him and there are thirty or so guys all marching toward us. It probably took them less than two minutes from the time we walked up to the time all of the Pirates were coming right toward us. They weren’t running, either. They were walking, like, daring us to take off. I didn’t need a dare, and neither did Karen.

  She took off running north, toward the Hero Haven. I had about forty pounds on her, and she ran track in high school, so she was way out in front when I took the first hit. I remember hearing that getting shot feels like getting punched but then you have a hole in you, so when it felt like I had been punched in the shoulder, my brain immediately went, “You’ve been shot!” but I put my hand on my shoulder, and there was no blood there. They were just throwing rocks, but they must have had a couple of major leaguers because I got hit three times, and each time hurt like a bitch, I don’t mind telling you. Karen was way out in front of me after I got hit and then I see her just drop. Her feet were over her head by the time she hit the ground, and she hit hard. I ran up to her and rolled her over, and there was blood everywhere. She had bitten through the bottom of her lip and her nose was all smashed up and she was moaning and going in and out of consciousness. I saw later what got her. We store all the Christmas decorations in the Pirate Cove when it’s not that season, and they had taken the high-tensile wire we use to hang the decorations on the buildings and made a trip wire. It was just when you were leaving the Pirate Cove and could see the Hero Haven. I kind of looked up that way and that’s when I got hit the second time with a rock, a big one it felt like, right along the right side of my back. That one hurt worse than the first. I have had back problems since high school when I wrestled.

  The second rock hit me, and instead of knocking me down it pumped me up. I didn’t know what the hell they were going to do, but I was now super fucking pissed off, so I bent over, picked up Karen, and kept going. Like I said, they were walking toward me, but once they saw that I was making a break for it, a few of them started running. Karen wasn’t a big girl, but she slowed me down a bunch, and when I snuck a look behind me, it was really clear that a couple of the Pirates were going to get to me before I got anywhere near the Hero Haven. There was no chance I was getting away. No chance. There were three of them coming up on me, and the fastest was this skinny kid, and he comes up alongside me and says something I don’t catch, and then he kicks the back of my knee, and I sprawl. I might have fallen harder than Karen, but I had her body to break my fall. She might have hit her head again, I don’t know.

  The Pirate kid, he’s standing over me, and he’s motioning for his buddies to hurry up, and I’m lying down looking up at him, and then, bam, he’s just gone. Out of my field of vision. I have no idea where he went. I look to my left, and he’s lying on the ground, blood coming out of his head, and I look to my right, and there’s six or seven other kids throwing pieces of wood at the Pirates. One of them ran up and grabbed me, and I got to my feet and tried to pick up Karen. The one kid who got me up said, “We got her, get behind those barrels,” and I look, and they’ve set up this barrier, and there are a whole bunch of kids on the other side of it. I pushed my legs as hard as I could, and that’s when I got hit the third time, this one right on the back of my head. I didn’t feel much pain, but I immediately started getting dizzy and losing my footing, and a couple of the Hero Haven kids, they grabbed me and hustled me behind the barrels. I passed out after that. I’m glad I did.

  They didn’t get Karen back. The Pirates got to her first. I … I choose to believe that she was in and out of consciousness a lot and she didn’t know what was happening. I choose to believe that. There’s some evidence that isn’t the case, but I believe she didn’t see it coming, and I didn’t either. I was passed out behind those barrels or wherever they took me. When I woke up, they told me the Pirates had beaten Karen to death, right there in front of the other kids who were throwing bricks and logs and whatever they could at them. There was a lot of screaming and name-calling, they said. Their leader, a girl named Riley, said they got in some good shots, and a couple of her gang had been hit by rocks and whatnot. She wouldn’t go into detail. I’m sort of glad she didn’t, but at the time I was dizzy and mad and sick, and I wanted to know what had happened, you know? What happened to my girlfriend? Riley just told me to rest, and when I insisted, she walked me out of the lounge we were at and down the road, and she showed me the puddle of blood, then handed me some binoculars. I looked through them and saw Karen’s body hanging from one of the high lampposts in Pirate Land. The ones that are made to look like lantern hangers, sort of a gaslight district thing. She was on one of those. There wasn’t a Pirate in sight.

  Riley and I talked a long time, and I told her almost everything. I told her about the guns being missing and about how we were pretty happy in Fantastic Future World and how maybe they could all come and join us, and Riley said no. She said this was their section of the park and no one was going to take it from them. That seemed a little much. I tried to tell her, “Let’s get out of here,” you know, “Let’s all join up in Fantastic Future World and not worry about these assholes,” but she was having none of it, and neither were the people in her group. They were all about patrols and prepping for the next thing. My head was absolutely spinning, but Karen’s death sort of hit me as I watched these kids move around like they were in the army or something. I mean, we were four days into this thing, and the kids were turning into murderers? How does this happen? What … Karen was a good person. A great person. There was no reason the last image I have of her is bloody and broken and moaning in pain. It didn’t need to be this way, but it was, and I cried. I burst out there on a couch in some stupid lounge, and I bawled my eyes out. To Riley’s credit, she left me alone and let me cry. It helped me pull myself together a little bit.

  Riley’s boyfriend got a hold of me on Facebook a while back. I should say, her fiancé. I didn’t tell him any of what I’m telling you. I don’t know why.

  I was really nervous when I asked if I could go back to my group, but Riley was really cool about it. She said the more people who knew about what was going on over here, the better. I drank some of their water and said thanks, but not before promising to come back. I said, “Why don’t we check on you in a couple days to see if there’s anything you need?” and I think that cinched it that I would be able to go. It occurred to me as I headed back to my kids that I didn’t know how long I had been gone. Two hours? A day or more? I didn’t know, but I decided, if I had already lost so much, I might as well swing by the World’s Circus and see what was up there. Maybe there were more allies there, you know
? It was when I came up on it and saw the severed heads on pikes that I ran back to Fantastic Future World as fast as I could. I told the kids the whole story, and they got on the roof and could see the severed heads from up there with a set of binoculars. A lot of them were crying, and I told them to believe the worst until we heard otherwise. To trust anyone other than the Deadpools would be irresponsible. We had to come up with a plan, I told them. We had to defend ourselves, I told them. They were not going to end up hanging from some street lamp, and they were not going to end up on some spike outside the big top. That wasn’t going to happen.

  I remember telling the group all of that and walking up to one of the kids who had torn a chunk of metal off the ride. I told him to make it an effective weapon, you had to wrap the handle, or it would cut your hand when you used it. They listened to me. They didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, but they listened to me.

  Cristobal, man. We were doing fine until he showed up.

  INTERVIEW 10: SOPHIE RUSKIN

  Ride Operator in the Pirate Cove, Unaffiliated.

  The only reason I’m here, and I mean the only reason I’m here, is to talk about Austin. Austin Rowland was the best hustler I ever knew. The man was wired to take whatever he had around him and make money out of it, and that’s what he did. When he wasn’t working or sleeping he was hustling, and that man could sell sand in the desert. Or water in FantasticLand.

  Austin was my boyfriend. We met when I was running the Davy Jones’ Locker ride in the Pirate Cove, and he was working maintenance. He didn’t have much family. His dad ducked out on him early, and his mom didn’t give a shit, I mean didn’t … give … a … shit. About her own kid. He told me once he was five years old when he figured out no one was going to take care of him, so he had to take care of himself, and he started asking people on the street to take him to the grocery store. And some people would do it! This five- or six-year-old kid would come up to them and say, “I’m hungry, please buy me some food,” and they would do it. It didn’t take him long to start selling that food to some of the kids at his school who wanted snacks, then he made enough money to buy his own snacks and have some money left over, and he was off to the races, man. Off to the races. He was that kind of guy. He’d learn whatever anyone would teach him, and he’d use it. That’s how a nineteen-year-old skinny-ass kid whose parents weren’t worth a shit ended up working maintenance. He learned it from old guys who would teach it to him. He didn’t need to go to a technical school or anything like that. He was just smart, and he hustled fast, and he hustled hard.

  Like I said, I’m here to talk about Austin. Y’all don’t need to know nothin’ about me.

  OK, I’ll tell you this one thing about me. I worked the ride. So, working the ride, it’s boring, right? It’s mind-numbing, brain-crushing boring. Bor-ing. The same people doing the same shit over and over, and when they get to a spot you push a button and say your spiel into the microphone and then do that same thing a billion fucking times. They don’t allow phones in the park, even though I knew how to sneak one in, and it was the only thing that kept me from losing my damn mind most days … just on Facebook or whatever. One day, it’s way at the end of the shift on a day when not a lot of people are riding, and I see this guy get on, and I don’t think much of it other than he’s got a coat and a hat and, like, layers on. The coat was what got my attention. I don’t know how well you know Florida, but it is fucking hot all the time. Even when it’s cold it’s muggy and hot and not anywhere you’d want to wear a coat, but there’s this dude with a big heavy coat on. He rides the ride and gets right back in line but this time without the coat. He’s still got all these layers, but his coat is gone. Then he rides again, but then his hat his gone. Then his gloves, then one of his shirts, then shoes, and by then, all us operators are gathered around the front of the line just watching this idiot get back on the ride over and over again losing all his clothes as he goes. He finally gets to where his shirt is gone, and he’s this skinny guy and everyone is laughing at him. And he hasn’t said or done anything, he’s just riding the Davy Jones without a shirt. That’s, like, super against the rules, but everyone was laughing so hard, plus we didn’t really give a shit.

  The next time around, my friend Samantha, she starts chanting, “Pants, pants, pants,” like she wants him to ride without pants on. At this point he’s shirtless, and all he’s got on is pants and socks, right? He comes up and says, “If I ride this thing in my skivvies, you give me twenty bucks,” and Samantha was totally down for that. So he said, “Give me a few more rides. Get your money ready,” and I was already kind of thinking, “Damn, this guy’s got game.” He wasn’t my type, necessarily, but he had a lot of charm. What’s the word? Personality. The man had personality, and he had it locked up.

  So he rides again with one sock, then with no socks, and then we’re all gathered around to see if he’s going to go through with it. So he comes up, no shirt, no socks, and Samantha has the whole group chanting, “Pants, pants, pants,” again and even some of the visitors are getting in on it, they’re cheering, and he saunters up all cool, undoes his belt, and drops ’em. As he pulled them off his right leg, he gave a kick, and his Levi’s went flying over the car where people get on the ride, and I caught them. They were all damp because there were a couple of spots in the ride where you could get splashed if you were at the very front or very back of the car. At that point, I didn’t even care, I pulled out my phone I had hidden and told him, “Smile, you goofball,” and he, like, struck a pose. He gave me this wink, got in, put his arm around this lady who was laughing her ass off, and rode the ride again. He must have ridden over twenty times, man. That’s a lot of the Davy Jones. That may be more than I’ve ridden the thing in my entire damn life, and I was like, I have got to get to know this dude who rode it without any pants on. Got to.

  Turns out he was riding so many times as part of a bet. He collected over $300, well, $320 with Samantha’s money. I said, “You could’ve lost your job over $300,” and he said, “Nah. I knew you guys were cool.” And we were. By the end of the day, we were so bored, we were desperate for anything to break the boredom. All he did was give us and some visitors one hell of a good story. No harm, right? I want to, like, make sure you understand, that was Austin. His hustle never hurt anyone or robbed anyone. That wasn’t his thing. People who gave him money always did it with a smile on their face. Every time. He made people happy, that was part of his hustle. He made me happy.

  We got together not long after that, and we were together a couple of months when the storm hit. Like I said, he was always looking for ways to make money and he had a mind that just would not stop taking stuff in. He read the rule book for the park. He read the disaster stuff. He read history books, and he could tell you all about the park and about where everything was kept. He talked me into doing the Operation Rapture bullshit. He said, “It’s free money. If there’s a disaster, they’re going to come looking for us, and in the meantime, chill out, eat some free food, and make enough money to do whatever you want.” Plus, he told me there was no better person to be stuck in the park with, and I kind of believed him. There was no one else I wanted to be with. I … I don’t come from the best background either, though my mom, she tried really hard. I’m just telling you this so you understand, Austin was my world and I was his. I know it was only two months but if we weren’t working, we were together. And it wasn’t all about the sex, either, it was … we really liked each other. I mean, he was good in bed, too, but it wasn’t just that. He was pretty great, and he thought I was pretty great too, and FantasticLand was where we could be together.

  Austin, he had worked at the park for a little under two years, and the dude knew everybody. He knew the maintenance guys, he knew the ride operators, he knew who ran the snack stands, and he knew the poor bastards in the costumes. The only people he didn’t know were the restaurant folks because they were behind closed doors, but Austin was sort of the guy who could get you stuff, a
nd it didn’t matter if it was supposed to be in the park or not. He got weed for people, he got special food for people, he would do favors for people, like the best spots to fuck in the park, or sometimes he would steal the schedule of the people in charge of FresnoVille, and he would say, “For ten bucks I’ll tell you when the guards are coming,” and he was always right. Always. And people loved his ass. He couldn’t walk the park without getting high fives and, like, people coming up and begging him for stuff. One time, he was so busy I did his laundry and I emptied out his pants, and they were just busting with tens and twenties. Like I said earlier, best hustler I ever met.

  When that hurricane started up, he came to find me at the ride. He ran over to me, and he said he had a plan for how we were going to get rich off this. He said there were three rules we had to follow from now until we got out of the park. Rule one was we had to be first everywhere. First in the shelter, first out of the shelter, first to wherever we went after that. Rule two was that we went together. We could separate, he said, but we always had to know where the other one was. We couldn’t get too far away or bad things could happen, he said. The final thing was we rely on us and only us. He said the next little bit of time was going to be a bitch, and what we needed to do was hustle then hunker down, hustle, then hunker down. He said he guessed there would be beef between management and employees before too long, and he wanted to steer clear of that shit. We were the only ones we could trust, he said, and I believed him. So we ran to the shelter.