by Kage Baker
She says, I’m supposed to sit in there? with you, in there? with you?
The tractor coughs out turds of black smoke, Mr. Matheson is at the wheel of the open air rig, wearing a white T-shirt with yellow pit stains and overalls that are three sizes too big for him, I know what I said already about looks being irrelevant but I can’t help but be embarrassed for him, the tractor pulls a cage on wheels with damp hay bales as seats, the cage is the punch line, it was supposed to protect everyone in the park from the safari animals.
I say, I know it’s a lot, it’ll be fun, an escape from the daily survival grind.
Joyce takes it all in and says, Do we really need to waste the gasoline on this?
Not sure what she means by we but I like it and don’t like it at the same time, my palms are sweating like they did when I saw a girl anywhere near my age in line at the Whirling Whales, then it got that much harder to press the fly button with my practiced and patented button flair, hiding those old feelings is impossible sometimes, even as useless as they are to me now.
I assure Joyce that we, we, we can spare a gallon, and I make a joke about my unlimited supply.
Mr. Matheson was right for a change, she is my age, give or take a grade, she wears an olive-green shirt and jeans, she’s lost somewhere inside of both, black wool cap mushrooms her head, I don’t know where hat ends and black hair begins, her crossbow is slung across the back of her shoulders, she talks real fast about this being dumb and it’ll attract attention from all the assholes in the south end of the park, and she’s right, it’s true, the sound of the tractor might raise some curiosity in our little neighborhood, but we’re in my area, I’ve made sure we’re safe here.
She says, I’m Korean.
I say, What?
Her confession is abrupt and I’m caught, guardless, I don’t know if she’s making fun of me, or not, I used to be used to that feeling.
She says, I’m Korean, just wanted to get that out of the way, this morning our chaperone asked if my parents were Chinese or Japanese, or from Vietnam or something, to quote him directly, I figured you and he might share the same brain.
I say, We don’t share that lame brain or anything like that, and besides, it doesn’t matter to me what you are, or were, I just see a person like me.
She says, Glad that you’re able to dismiss my personal identity and thousands of years of cultural experience so easily, how big of you.
Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, really.
How did you mean it?
I shrug and say, You’re right, I’m sorry and should’ve been more sensitive, I’ve been spending too much time around Mr. Matheson, my discourse skills are rusty not trusty, my tongue is all feet, left feet, club-footed left feet, with painful corns and bunions.
I turn away, not sure if she’ll follow me, I duck inside the cage and sit, the hay bale is a bit damp and tied too loosely together, falling apart, it’ll do for now, there’s a machete and a field knife underneath mine in case I need them, the hunting blade is almost as long as my forearm, serrated, lots of nasty little teeth, across from me on the most level bale is an old red tray that I scrounged from the wreckage of the World Pavilion, two plates of wild greens, apples, and charred goose meat covered in some of the shake-n-a-bag spice I rationed, only three bags left now, two canteens with sugarless lemonade mix, some good and bad mushrooms in my pocket if I need them.
I say, Are you coming? the tour leaves with or without, and soon.
The Great Balloon Chase
Mr. Matheson thought Mr. Philips died of a heart attack despite the clear physical evidence to the contrary, he only sees what he wants to see, that’s true of almost everyone, you too.
Oh, I found Mr. Philips, I found Dick leaning up against one of his grounded balloons, it was red and he was dying, drool spilled out between those horse teeth of his, it was gross and he was gross, there was no one else around, I was going to cut off his feet with my machete and use them as bait in a bear trap, but I wouldn’t know what to do with a bear if I caught one.
Dick saw me and said some gibberish then he closed his eyes, his puffy eyes, then gathered himself for a clear moment, he said, you and me are a lot different.
He was right but I think he meant it as some sort of insult, implicating my moral character or lack thereof, whatever, fuckface, he was wrong and I told him so, I told him we are different, I told him about a road deemed worthy of the label scenic route, it was near my house, near where I grew up, that scenic route had a chunk of it washed out into a sink hole during a rainstorm, they closed a half-mile section of route to all through-traffic in both directions, confusing detours branched out for miles, that simple patch of washed-out blacktop was like an octopus, it had a reach in every direction, my mother swore about it all the time, how it would never be fixed, how they might need to have an emergency town vote on a budget override but not everyone would vote for it, how inconvenient getting around town was, she never got how cool it was, and you would never have got how cool it was either, that’s part of the difference, our difference, listen, whenever I could, usually during the day, during working hours, I rode my bike to the route and past the road is closed signs and barriers, breaking the law, right? there were homes on the road but the driveways were usually empty, if they weren’t empty no one seemed to be out, I rode my bike up and down the closed stretch until my legs shook, riding in the middle of the busy thirty-five mph route, that stretch had no more rules, I traced the yellow lines with my tires, it was so quiet and empty, I listened to the birds, that’s all I would hear, I used to pretend the world had ended and that I was the only one who survived, that’s not why we’re different though, I know your secret, you’ve fantasized about that too, everyone fantasizes that they’re important enough to survive, more than survive, to be the last one left, right? it’s why you read those books or watched those Will Smith movies, you imagined how important the last one left would feel, but here’s how we’re different, I actually wished and wanted that fantasy to come true, and you, you only indulged in the fantasy because it was safely impossible in your mind, sort of like daydream sex with somebody you’re not supposed to be daydreaming about, you indulge in the danger until you start thinking about the consequences, until you start really thinking about the big what if, what if it really happened? the difference between me and you, you and me, the only one that matters now, is that I wanted it, I wasn’t as strong as you were, I wasn’t stronger than anyone, I was a frail little ridiculous-looking boy riding a bike, all elbows and knees and nose and bad skin and stupid curly hair but I wanted it, I knew it would happen too, I’m not lying, not a revisionary Larry, that stuff is for you, I figured that if a little rain washing out a small square of road could mess up the everyday lives of the town and commerce routes and anyone else who needed to use that road, well then, it really would take a whole lot less than most people thought to trip up everything, put an end to it all, I knew it was just a matter of time before everything stopped turning.
I was right, I wanted it, I was ready for it, you weren’t.
Tour: Slipshod Safari
She’s very distrustful of me, but we eat, the goose is as good as goose gets, I don’t think I’ll need the mushrooms, things are going well, she’s cooperating, tolerating, the tractor struggles and muggles through the overgrown tour path, the tall grass whispers on the bottom of our cage, sometimes I dream about being on a small wooden boat, a life raft, a dinghy, I’m by myself, everyone in the world is below the water, all those fingernails tapping and scratching on my hull, the grass sounds like a ghost version of that, it’s creepy, it’s perfect.
I eat fast, finish before her, then give the tour, talking into the dead handheld microphone receiver, props are important for a successful tour, I tell her, Over there, in the creek bed, that alligator with the shit-eating smile had big pink sunglasses, a beach hat, and an umbrella drink in his claw, tore that stuff out when I moved in, found uses for them, you know, that giraffe
who’s supposed to be singing in the shower over there, his neck got bent in an attack I fended off a few years ago, now don’t tell anyone but that giant fiberglass elephant is my winter bedroom, it’s very well insulated, very well supplied, I sleep in its belly and made lookouts and breathe holes through its trunk and asshole, yin and yang, baby, the elephant entrance is hidden, just below its pink skirt, warmer months I sleep in the cage or inside the baseball playing bear, more breezy in there, I can show you the elephant if you’d like? moving too soon, too much too fast? I know, ha ha! okay, I let this next area grow over a bit, the Ol’ Fishin’ Hole (with the f backwards and in kid-script), nothing but a few frogs and crawdaddies in there, and the kiddie statues are kind of creepy looking, and annoying, Huck Finn kind of caricatures in unbuttoned overalls, straw hats, and big smiles, so I just let it grow over.
She says, Why didn’t you take them down?
Tour interrupted! She keeps on about if it bothered me so much, why didn’t I take the statues down, take them apart and reuse them like I did with the alligator parts.
There’s a string tucked behind my hay bale, I reach back, pull on it twice, the other end is tied around Mr. Matheson’s ankle, he stops the tractor like he’s supposed to, I say, That’s a good idea, come on, let’s go, you can help me knock them over and perform a field autopsy, not that I mean to make that sound so grim, think of them as piñatas instead, who knows what we’ll find inside when we crack them open, I’ll let you take their fishing poles, I don’t need them, they’re made out of bamboo, bamboo is real strong stuff, very useful.
Joyce puts down the charred flank from a goose that never laid any golden eggs, that attraction is in the south of the park, she says, You want me to go into that thick brush with you? why would I go in there with you? I’d probably get ticks too.
Come on, it’ll be fun.
I don’t find wanton destruction fun.
No, not wanton, we’re destroying to create, that’s the big idea, like you suggested, we’re harvesting parts to help us survive, we will survive! we’ll be Gloria Gaynor! as long as we know how to love we’ll always be alive! I sing/say to her, which was likely a too bold too goofy too weird thing to say, but I’m feeling good.
She says, Oh, gross.
Come on, I’m just kidding, pulling your leg, pull pull pull.
Stay away from my leg!
Let’s go, let’s chop ’em down and chop ’em up.
No.
Okay, all right, I drop my chummy tone, there’s too much of my charisma and charm to handle, so I get formal, soothing, I say, Tell me, Joyce, from whence did you come? how’d you get to the yonder Polar Coaster?
She rolls her eyes at me, and that’s all good, of course, she says, Does it matter? I’m new, that’s it, I’m new here.
Completely new to the park, are you? I say, and then I cross my legs proper.
She says, No, I tried a couple nights in the south end of the park, in Miss Muffet’s Market, but I was displaced.
She’s answering my questions, finally, she’s digging my formalized speak, I say, Displaced? how fascinating, do continue.
She says, Thrown out, a mob of jerks wearing football pads and helmets chased me out, broke up and stole what little stuff I’d collected.
Mr. Matheson shuts off the tractor engine, sighs loudly, I flash mad, feel hot blood pooling in my cheeks, red, ruddy, we might not get that tractor started again, composure, though, must compose, I say, That’s what those football guys do, they try to clear out and claim that area, they’re a joke, an annoying one for sure, they never come up here, though, never.
She says, I know that now, but it doesn’t make sense, Muffet’s Market is at the very southwestern tip of the park, still a good distance away from the Castle, probably as far away from the Castle as this place is, whatever, the south end was too crowded, too loud, and not good enough for me anyway, I could’ve fought off those assholes if I really wanted to.
I say, I know you could’ve, you’re a bad mo fo, whoops! shut my mouth.
Joyce eyes me up and down and sideways, she’s not sure whether to laugh or stab my thigh, whether she needs to take me seriously or not, she says, I left the market of my own free will but I’m heading back to that area soon, I deserve the Castle, I want the Castle.
I’m disappointed, it’s always about the Castle, always, about, the, Castle, I don’t know why, everyone goes there, they sleep and fuck and fight on the front lawn if they can’t get in and if they do get in the stay is never long, I haven’t had word trickle up here of a permanent resident, the Castle is always under siege, stuck in a permanent coup loop.
I say, I thought you were better than the Castle, you wanting to live there, I have to say, is so cliché, thought there was more to you than that, Joyce, really.
She says, Fuck you, don’t even pretend to know me, so typical, I want what I want and I have my own reasons for what I want.
Okay, I’m sorry, I take it back, I say and pretend to catch the words out from the air and stuff them in my mouth, I say, Mmm, tastes like goose, let’s talk later about the Castle, maybe we can work something out, now, don’t be freaked out but I have a machete on board with us, we can use it to clear us a little path to the fishing hole, right there, I only keep the machete here because I’m always prepared, prepared always.
Joyce stands and doesn’t have to crouch in the cage, pulls her hat down tighter, unsheathes her own machete hidden inside her pant leg, strapped around her calf, she says, Fine, we’ll do this, but after you and me are going to talk about the Castle, seriously talk.
We jump out of the cage and hack two separate paths in the brush, Mr. Matheson pretends not to watch us like a good chaperone, maybe I’ll forgive his shutting off the tractor, I swing the machete wildly, freely, and all the other ly-ies, I’m losing control, it’s a good feeling, I catch the back of my knuckle on the recoil and open up a bright cut, skin opens as easily as the brush, the shrubbery, the lean green, I’m at the fishin’ hole’s edge, so is Joyce, she pushes her sleeves up, smiles at me, she says, We could do this over near the Castle, make a path, sneak in the back, it would work.
She takes a mighty hack at the freckle-faced all a-okay usa fisherboy, loosening the right arm at the shoulder, I know she’s pretending the kid is one of those footballers who chased her off, I hack away at his buddy, punch through the plaster chest, cave in his always happy face, Joyce and I are daydreaming about what we can do, together, it feels good, it feels more like practice than daydreaming.
Professor Wigglesteps’s Loopy Lab
Mr. Matheson couldn’t start the tractor again, we ditched him there, his head inside the engine trying to figure out why everything falls apart, breaks down, good luck with that, I invited her back to my elephant, show her my supplies, I think Joyce sensed how nervous I was, I am, that neither of us were ready for that, she declined, I was relieved, instead we jogged out of the Slipshod Safari, past the Great Balloon Chase.
Joyce was a self-described average student but very intelligent, there’s a difference of course, she was quiet, no friends, accepted school as her great trial, a personal gulag she said, then when it all ended she lost her parents during the great panic, all of the state became a refugee camp pressing up against the canadian border, it was epic and sad, maybe her parents were trampled during a border rush, Joyce remembers being squeezed so tight, face pressed into someone’s sweaty back, her feet didn’t touch the ground, her movements determined by the tide of humanity coming in from every direction, it was no way to die, it was no way to live, she swam out, kicked punched clawed out, climbed on top, walked on heads and scalps, away from the border, she hiked back down through the state to Fairy Tale Land, she doesn’t really know for sure if her parents died under a million desperate heels, it feels true, it’s what she fears but at the same time it makes living here by herself easier, wondering if they were alive or if they missed her would be too difficult to bear, care bear, or maybe the truth is that Joyce�
�s parents were overbearing snot-jobs she couldn’t kick to the curb fast enough, for her the great panic was the day she was born, the great panic was an opportunity, like it was and is for me.
I’m not sure, I don’t really know anything, Joyce doesn’t tell me any of this, but the border-scenario is what I imagine for her as we walk to Professor Wigglestep’s Lab.
The lab is an empty but cavernous building that has been stripped, just a few hunks of two-by-fours lying around, and stray red-blue-green-yellow plastic balls from the ball pit, we rustle up the stray balls, corral them into the pit, less a pit than a depression in the floor, the balls are hard and brittle, and deflate easily into hard shapes with uncomfortable nubs and corners but we sit on them anyway, Joyce puts her hands behind her head and closes her eyes, I just start talking, tell her everything I know about the park, give her an oral tour of the north section, tell her about the stilled boulder at the World Pavilion near the Polar Coaster, she’s seen it but hasn’t tried to spin it, I tell her about me and my mom, about the Whirling Whales, about the washed out road, about how I took care of Dick.
She says, Stop it, the kids down near Muffet’s Market told me about Mr. Philips, how he died of a heart attack.
That’s the story Mr. Matheson told them, I’m giving you the real deal, I say, and I pout, blood filling my cheeks again, blood always wants to break out from beneath the surface, that’s what I think about while picking at the splintered edge of the ball depression with my pocket knife.
Joyce must feel bad for calling me out like that and finally starts telling me stuff, she talks about some books and blogs she used to read, Jungian treatises on the nature of reality, stuff on cultural appropriation and radical politics, she tells me her utopian visions for the park, she makes it all sound so cool, I’m mostly listening and she uses the word opportunity, I do envy her big social ideas, her ability to include everyone who deserves to be included, but I can’t go fooling myself or anyone else, not anymore, I’m in this for me and no one else, then I think about Mr. Matheson and wonder if he’s still working on the tractor, working on it by himself.
