Snodgrass Vacation

Dave Conifer

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2009 Dave Conifer

Cover design by J.L. Penn, author of bestselling women’s fiction books

Discover other titles by Dave Conifer:

Throwback

FireHouse

Man of Steel

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Chapter 1

Ragged lines of cheery park-goers are growing in all directions outside the main gates of the Enchanted Empire in Merv Snodgrass World. Each snaking line sprouts from a separate gate, behind which awaits a turnstile. Some gates have no line at all. Newcomers are forced to make a snap decision after clearing the security tables, where each and every bag is searched for weapons of mass destruction. The safe choice is to take their place at the back of an existing line. Occasionally a group makes the risky decision to start a new line at one of the empty gates in the hopes that it will open. As we watch Marcie tells me that the odds are pretty good for these brave souls, who are gambling brazenly for the opportunity to get into the park at least ninety seconds sooner than if they’d played it safe. I note that the groups that trudge to the rear of existing lines are usually led by men, while it’s excitable women with small children that take a chance by leading their bands in the dash to the front. As soon as these pioneers break new ground, waves of speed-walkers eye each other, sizing each other up as they break out of neighboring lines to queue up in the new one. I watch the scenario play out over and over.

It’s only eight-fifteen, a full forty-five minutes before the gates will open, but the plaza is already buzzing with excitement. For the umpteenth time I pull my damp shirt from my chest hoping to dry out. Jesus, I think as I check out the other dads. Is there anybody here who isn’t a Red Sox fan?

Marcie, her brown hair in a long single braid down her back, scowls at a map of the park. I know she’s trying to memorize the layout rather than make plans. That’ll come later. Sam and Ellie, my blond, blue-eyed eleven and nine-year olds, stand mesmerized as they watch a grotesque seven-foot cricket and a day-glo orange tiger work the crowds from opposite ends. Katie, three years older than Sam and already as tall as I am, adjusts her Ipod and pretends not to care.

“Look, it’s Lickity!” gasps a woman standing just in the next line over. She and her husband throw their arms at their stroller at the same time. The husband gets there first. He yanks his daughter from the stroller as he gushes about the giant cricket that was heading their way. Her foot gets hooked under the food tray but not wanting his offspring to miss a glimpse of the freak insect, he gives his daughter an extra twist and jerk to pull her out. Cheerios spew onto the asphalt around the stroller wheels. The little girl stares dumbfounded at the cricket before burying her face in her father’s neck, knocking her princess-themed sunglasses to the ground. She’s coated from head to toe in thick, pasty swirls of sunscreen slathered on moments earlier by both parents as well as the two grandparents who know their place but are ready to pounce at the slightest opening.

I size up the family ahead of us. Mom and Dad look to be pushing thirty and appear to be Snodgrass fanatics. Clearly these are Enchanted Empire veterans who have completely lost any sense of dignity they ever had. Both wear William Squirrel bushy tail hats complete with stitched-on names. A trio of princesses graces the front of her shirt while his boasts a headshot of Meteor the talking dog. Around both of their waists are complex belts with pouches, straps and compartments filled, no doubt, with indispensable park gear that could be needed at any moment. A water bottle dangles from her hip, a cell phone from his.

“Must be nice,” I whisper to Marcie. “Four-to-one parent to kid ratio.”

“That never turns out well,” she whispers back.

Just before the cricket enters my personal space I’m jarred by an announcement that I somehow manage to hear over the inspirational Snodgrass music that seems to come from everywhere. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It’s almost time! But before you may enter, the Jevik family from Monroe, Indiana is going to help us open the Enchanted Empire this morning!”

That’s us. I look at Marcie. She looks at me. We’re the Jeviks from Monroe, Indiana. “So that’s what that card was for,” we both hear Katie say from behind.

“Are the Jeviks out there?” the voice booms. “Chop chop! Mustn’t keep the squirrel waiting!”

I feel my eye brows creep up my forehead. “Mustn’t keep the squirrel waiting? Did he just say that?”

“Chop Chop?” Marcie adds as an effeminate, pointy-eared boy in a green tunic and cap appears on a platform above the crowd.

“Go!” Katie says, pushing us from behind. “They’re waiting for us.”

“How will they know we’re the Jeviks?” I ask.

She holds up a paper stub. “Come on,” she pleads.

I grab Sam and Ellie by the shoulders and we start walking. I expect everyone around us to be resentful but they are more than happy to step aside. “Better you than me,” one man says with an eerie smile. I turn his comment over a few times in my mind as we walk to the gate. Even before we have a chance to prove who we are it opens and we are waved in by a bear in a straw hat and patched overalls. In single file we are herded up a ramp and around a corner. We don’t stop moving until we’re on the platform overlooking the mob that we had been a part of only seconds before. There are more people out there than I realized.

I turn to Marcie but before I can say a word a chipmunk starts barking orders. He tells everybody where to stand, but is especially specific when he orders me over to a pair of red paw prints that I hadn’t noticed before. It is now that he appears. The one that all of this is about. The squirrel. The Squirrel. William Squirrel.

The crowd is noisy and they don’t quiet down even when it is apparent that the Squirrel is about to speak. Everywhere I look moms and dads are hunched down over their toddlers as they point at us. The acrobatics are astounding from this angle. Not a parent loses eye contact with the Squirrel as they pull this move, which looks more choreographed than a Michael Jackson video. Most of the toddlers look confused but every parent is beaming.

“Good morning everybody!” the Squirrel says in an agonizing falsetto voice. What squirrel talks like that? “Welcome to my Empire!” I couldn’t see a microphone but apparently He doesn’t need one. The crowd responds with incomprehensible garble that hits a crescendo but wanes quickly.

The Squirrel looks at his oversized wristwatch and announces that “We’ll open the gates in less than a minute. It’s time to start the countdown!” What is this, NASA? NASCAR?

The Squirrel walks over to me and extends a paw. “Mr. Jevik, please pass me your wallet!” He squeals. The crowd roars with approval.

“What? My wallet?” I stammer. I turn toward Marcie with my mouth open. She waves her hand in a circular motion, signaling me to do as the Squirrel says. I reach into my back pocket, slide my wallet out and jam it into the paw. I’m not sure what to expect. Maybe He’s going to stuff it with free passes to a show or a ride. The Squirrel turns and struts to the center of the stage with it, his oversized bushy tail swishing side to side.

He turns his back on me so I can’t see what he’s doing with his floppy mitts but He is clearly preoccupied with the wallet. I check the crowd, which has quieted down as though they’re expecting something to happen. More like they know something is going to happen. Then, something does. The Squirrel, despite the absence of opposable thumbs and an obvious lack of manual dexterity, has managed to get into my wallet and is now holding up a crisp, green bill.

“Ten!” roars the crowd. He drops it into a golden bucket and pulls out another one. “Nine!” yells the crowd when they see it. Now I know what the countdown is really about. But why is the crowd so excited?

This continues all the way down to “One!” By the time we reach “Five!” I know the Squirrel has already exhausted the contents of my wallet and is staging it as He goes along. Is that good or bad? Before I come up with an answer I get distracted when I feel pressure on my ankles. I look down in time to see chrome manacles clamped around each one. A scraggly buzzard and a stooping crow scurry away in opposite directions.

Before I can react my feet are jerked out from under me and my body is yanked painfully backwards. The crowd flies past, then sky, and finally the spires and turrets of the castle flash through my field of vision. When my body is finally still, my face is inches from the paw print where my feet had been. I am hanging upside down, ensnared in some contraption that I am unable to see regardless of how I twist and writhe. I hear pocket change rattle on the stage after falling out of my shorts.

“Check his pockets!” the Squirrel commands. “Check everywhere. He might still have some money hidden somewhere.” Coins are still falling onto the stage when a gaggle of webbed feet appear around my face. My car keys and sunglasses are yanked from my pockets by two ducks, while several others scoop up the change that has already fallen out. “Don’t worry about the glasses,” the Squirrel squeaks. “But make sure you get those keys. Take his vehicle to the wholesale lot.”

It has to be a joke. This is crazy! But when do they let me go? My family seems to have disappeared.

“He’s not in the clear yet,” the Squirrel says after the ducks all take a step back. “Who’s doing the cavity search? Toothy?”

That’s it. “Cut me down!” I thunder. “What’s the matter with you people? Get me down! Can’t you see that it’s a damn squirrel? Get me—“

“Dave! Dave! Wake up!” I feel hands shaking me back and forth. Suddenly I am back in my own bed. Not hanging. No manacles. No fuzzy animals. And most thankfully, no threat of invasion of any bodily orifice. I open my eyes and see Marcie, who is just starting to laugh.

“I think somebody was dreaming about William Squirrel,” she teases.

“It was a damn nightmare,” I mutter.

“You might as well get up now,” she says. “The Zandanels will be here in an hour and then it’s on to Florida for our Snodgrass Vacation!”

Chapter 2

By the time I was out of the shower I could hear Vinnie and Nancy Zandanel downstairs. As I pulled my clothes on Marcie poked her head in. They’re here,” she told me. “Everybody’s almost ready to go.”

“You’re kidding,” I deadpanned. “That’s Vinnie? I thought the hot water heater exploded.”

“Everybody’s in a good mood. Don’t start.”

“Who says I’m not in a good mood? I can’t wait to spend a week joined at the hip with a hypocritical overweight loudmouth who looks like Fred Flintstone.”

“I know it’ll be hard on you but it is what it is. Do it for the kids.”

“Look, I love the guy, alright? I don’t know why, but I do. Wasn’t it my idea to invite them? Or yours, maybe. It’ll be a nice vacation. It won’t be much worse than if I was going to work.”

“I know he’s high maintenance for you, but it’ll be fun, okay? Don’t get us off on the wrong foot.”

“I’ll be fine. Vinnie’s okay. He’s just got this sincere dislike for anything that wasn’t his idea. But at least he’s sincere.”

“Just let it roll of your back, okay? It’s your vacation too. You should enjoy it.”

“Yeah,” I agreed as I pulled a razor and shaving cream from the medicine cabinet and stuffed them into a leather pouch. “I’m used to it. As long as he sees my expression change once in a while he just keeps talking. He just needs to know I’m conscious. Then it’s all good.”

“The kids all get along. And Nancy’s a Snodgrass expert. It’ll be like having our own tour guide.”

“Marcie, I’m with you on this. I’m glad they’re coming. Honest. I think. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“On second thought, did I say all the kids are happy? That’s not exactly true. Katie’s petrified that she might get paired up with Justin. Even worse, she’s afraid that somebody might find out she went on vacation with the nerdiest kid at school.”

“He’s not exactly nerdy. I’m not exactly sure what he is.”

“Anyway, I came up to tell you that Nancy wants to be on the road in fifteen minutes, tops. She was coming in here to tell you herself but I volunteered and held her off.”

“And so it begins,” I muttered after I knew she was out of earshot.

~~~

“Dave, my man!” Vinnie bellowed after I followed the sonic boom and found him in the dining room. “What, were you going to sleep all day? Skin me,” he demanded, reaching a hand across the table.

“Hey,” I answered weakly as I returned the soul grip.

“Say, did you ever get those walkie-talkies Nance was talking about? They’d be pretty handy in the park.”

“I ordered them a couple weeks ago but they never came in. But couldn’t we just use our cell phones?”

“You should have bought them online, it’s faster,” Vinnie told me.

“I did.”

“Oh. Well, you should have done Target.com.”

“I did.”

“Amazon would have been faster.”

“Right before I clicked on ‘submit transaction’ it said they’d definitely get here in four days. But every day since then I get an e-mail telling me how unreasonable that would be.”

“You should have just bought them in the store. So no walkie-talkies,” Vinnie concluded. “You know, I was thinking. We can just use our cell phones instead!”

~~~

The happy voices of Zandanel and Jevik kids around the house underscored what Marcie had told me earlier. The kids really did get along well, even if none were the same ages. Justin Zandanel was fifteen but seemed compatible with Katie despite her anxiety about being caught dead with him. At least that’s what I thought, even though I’d never heard him utter a single syllable. Justin’s brother Kyle was the opposite of his older brother, so much so that Marcie and I wondered if one or both had been adopted. Justin was tall, lean and bushy haired while Kyle was short, flabby and crew-cut, and the differences didn’t end with appearance. The youngest Zandanel never left a word unsaid, the last cookie on the tray or a nose unpicked. Marcie once told me his parents insisted on a buzz cut for him because they were tired of cleaning food from his hair.

Despite Kyle’s vulgarity, general sloppiness and low IQ, his bowl-you-over friendliness went a long way with Ellie and Sam, who were one year younger and one year older, respectively. He was the kid who could be dared to do anything. Some called him fearless. Others called him an inspiration for the meek. I called him clueless. The apple didn’t fall from that tree with this one, I realized as I watched Vinnie tear through another packet of pop-tarts with crumbs a-flying all over my carpet.

“Five minutes!” chirped Nancy from somewhere near the front of the house. “Everybody’s luggage should already be here by the door! Who’s slacking here?” Nancy was five foot five and half Vinnie’s weight but she was louder than him when she wanted to be. Her bottle-red Annie Lennox hair-do was as short as Kyle’s. The intimidating hairstyle along with her sharp voice and forceful personality made her a force to be reckoned with and that was just how she wanted it.

Vinnie licked his fingers before wiping them on his shirt. “Let’s roll. We’d never pull this off without her,” he said.

“That’s true,” I said in all honesty. I ran back upstairs and grabbed my lone suitcase. It was a gym bag, really. When I brought it down and placed it near the pile it seemed to disappear into the mountain of trunks, suitcases, backpacks and every other type of luggage ever invented. It looked worse than when the kids were in diapers, when we lugged baby equipment and toys with us everywhere we went.

“We’ll get it in,” Nancy said, reading my mind. “We only have to get it as far as the airport. Then it’s not our problem anymore. Just leave it to Vinnie and Justin.”

I was happy to oblige, even though I feared for the structural integrity of my minivan. “Is that a stroller I see at the bottom?” I asked. “That’s not for Kyle is it?”

“Kyle? No way,” she snorted. “He couldn’t fit one butt cheek in there. I got used to having it in the parks, for carrying stuff. But mostly I use it for clearing a path.”

“I guess people are willing to give you some space if they think you have kids to take care of, right?”

“What? No way. Most of the world hates stroller people once their own kids are past that age. But they’d rather move than get their ankles broken.”

~~~

They did get it all in, except for a few bags which they somehow strapped to the roof. I took my seat behind the steering wheel, trying not to watch at my passengers clawing for space in the overloaded van. When I looked in the rear view mirror I could see Ellie and Kyle lying flat on their backs, wedged between the pile and the ceiling. Vinnie sat up front with me, with Sam on his lap. “Let’s go,” Vinnie said, but I had been counting door slams and we were one short.

“One door still open,” I told him. He got out and walked to the back. The van shook as he slammed the back hatch shut, and I heard somebody moan. Seconds later he was strapped back in and all systems were go. During all the commotion Sam had talked his way out of sitting with Vinnie and disappeared somewhere into the back.

“Hold up! Look out for those OWWs!” Vinnie yelled as the van coasted backward down the driveway.

I slammed on the brakes. Groans filled the air inside the van. “OWWs?” I asked.

“Oblivious walking women,” he explained. “Right there in the middle of the street, for Christ’s sake.” As he spoke three women passed behind the van. They carried tinted water bottles and wore stylish sweat suits, with the jackets tied around their waists. They were too deeply engrossed in conversation even to notice us so we had no choice but to wait until they’d finally labored out of our path. “I don’t know why we bother building sidewalks anymore,” Vinnie commented as we began moving again.

“Yeah, really,” I agreed. “Why can’t they use the sidewalk?”

“The talking is better if they can see each other’s faces. And that’s what the walking is all about.”

“Just leave them alone. Why do you two have to be so critical?” Marcie asked. “At least they’re out there trying.”

“I suppose it’s okay to block traffic since they’re exercising,” I scoffed.

“Exercising? They’re hardly moving! But I guess everybody’s different. I’m not quite as buff as I used to be either,” he conceded as he slapped his stomach. “I’m in the gym every day but I can’t seem to drop any weight at all.” He twisted around in his seat. “Hey, did anybody grab that box of donuts on the way out?”

I stopped at the red light on Cleary Street, then turned right and headed for the expressway. Thanks to Nancy we were going to be five hours early for our flight so I didn’t feel much urgency as I merged onto interstate 70. “You need a new ride,” Vinnie said. “You should pick up something like that sweet Lexus I’m driving. When you drive something that special you get respect on the road.”

“Respect? Every other car on the road is a Lexus SUV in silver or bronze. Everybody knows you’re leasing. Hey, Marcie, you got a few bucks?” I called over my shoulder. “There’s going to be a toll.”

“Relax, buddy,” Vinnie said. “That’s not for another five miles.”

“I know. I just like to know I’m prepared. You won’t be the one getting stared down by the tollbooth attendant.”

“You’re worried about the tollbooth attendant?” Vinnie laughed. “Will you listen to this guy?”

“Marcie,” I repeated.

We passed a billboard packed with images of our Indianapolis Colts. “Boy, Harvey really bites the big one,” Vinnie said. “He blew that game single-handedly yesterday. It’s a good thing it’s only pre-season. I can’t believe we took him in the first round. What a wasted pick.”

“They must know something we don’t know.”

“Yeah, maybe. What about that lame pass that got picked off at the end of the first half? That was a killer.”

“Anybody come up with a couple bucks yet?” I yelled to nobody in particular. “Only three more miles.”

“That was a real rookie mistake, trying to force that pass into double coverage,” he continued.

“What do you mean, a rookie mistake? You haven’t played a down of football in your life. He played in the Rose Bowl last year. You know even less than a rookie does. How come you knew it was a bad pass but he didn’t?”

“Relax, my man. Like I said, he’s a rookie. He’ll learn.”

“My arm fell asleep,” Ellie complained from atop the luggage pile.

“It’s just a few more minutes,” Nancy told her. “Hang tough.”

Easy for her to say, I thought. Then again, she herself was bracketed by two restless teenagers, all three of them sitting in a space meant for one. She wasn’t having a pleasant ride either.

“The toll booth!” I yelled when I saw a sign warning us that we were within a mile. “Come on, somebody help me out!” After most of that mile passed with no money passed forward, I pulled into the longest line and yelled again.

“Dude, why’d you get in the longest line?” Vinnie demanded.

“I’m not ready to pay the toll yet,” I snapped. “I can’t keep the guy waiting until somebody in here decides to help me out a little.” When I felt something brush on my shoulder I reached over and pulled some bills from somebody’s hand. Only then did I lurch into a shorter line, where I handed the money to the collector without a word.

“No need to have a cow about it,” Vinnie said.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Marcie said. “I’ll have it for you next time.”

“First chance we get at the airport I’m buying you a beer,” Vinnie vowed. “You really do need a vacation, don’t you?”

“Nothing wrong with a little preparation,” I answered. By then we were back up to full speed. The airport was no more than fifteen minutes away. “Speaking of preparation, we have to get set up so we’re ready to tip people. There’s the guy at the curb who’ll help with the luggage. Who else? Let’s assign each person to one of us.”

“Dave, don’t blow a gasket. Leave it all to me,” Nancy said. “I’ll handle it.”

“Just make sure you don’t leave me standing there like a moron when there’s a guy holding his hand out, okay? I hate it when that happens.”

“Is he always like this?” Nancy whispered to Marcie.

“Pretty much. He’ll loosen up after we get there,” Marcie answered.

~~~

I navigated through the airport roadways until I found the departing flights dropoff area. “Just double-park by this cab,” Vinnie directed. “We’ll only be here a minute.”

I feared for our lives when the African-accented driver of the taxi that was now pinned at the curb began snarling and waving his fist at me. ”Get over it, pal,” Vinnie yelled at him after rolling down his window.

Kyle, who had somehow managed to move from his original location, pushed his door open into traffic. The horn from a shuttle bus blared as it swerved to avoid shearing it off. “Get out on the curb side,” Nancy ordered everybody.

After checking carefully for oncoming traffic I hopped out of the van. Even before I had opened the back hatch seven security guards were on top of us. “You can’t park here, Bud,” one said.

“Move it!” said another.

“There’s a thirty-second parking zone nineteen terminals over,” said a third. “Fifteen bucks. You need to be there. Get moving.”

“I’m just dropping our luggage,” I explained. “Then I’ll go park.”

The first one pulled a black club from a leather holster and slapped his other hand with it. “You looking for trouble with us, Bub? Maybe you need to sit down with my supervisor in the Homeland Security Offices inside.”

“Give us a break,” Vinnie snapped at them. “We’re dropping off at the dropping off curb just like everybody else. What’s the problem? Calm down, alright?”

“Just doing our job, sir,” he said, sliding the club back into the holster. “Just try to hurry it up a little.”

I’m trying to, I thought. Suitcases and bags fell out onto the oily roadway when I opened the hatch. “Everybody grab something!” I yelled as sweat poured down my face now that I knew Big Brother was watching. “Get this stuff onto the sidewalk!”

Thirty-two seconds later I was alone in the van following the signs for long-term parking with the African-driven taxi three inches from my rear bumper and his horn blaring non-stop in surround-sound. There weren’t many parking spots available but I finally found one in the furthest corner of the lot. By the time I walked all the way back and met up with everybody at the airline check-in counter I was drenched in sweat and thinking about that beer Vinnie had mentioned.

Each time we threw another piece of baggage on the scale for tagging the clerk rolled her eyes. Apparently her computer was telling her that we were going to be single-handedly responsible for bringing the plane down by overloading it. “Young lady, we’ve bought eight tickets for that flight,” Nancy finally told her. “Is this more than eight seats worth of luggage? If not, I can live without you making faces.” The theatrics stopped.

Maybe I was paranoid, but damned if our path to the terminal wasn’t strewn with obstacles, all of whom expected to be tipped. Legions of workers were anxious to graze our luggage with a finger, reshuffle our papers or spout two words of canned directions and advice, followed by that awkward stare. Get used to it, I told myself after we’d run the gauntlet and were seated in the terminal surrounded by heaps of carry-on luggage and fussy children. That’s your life for the next week. There’s a reason everybody in Cojones, Florida has a smile on their face.

“Check it out,” Vinnie said, pointing at a pyramid of soda cans in the window of a Quickmart shop. “They’ve even got Zoom in the airport, but I can’t get it.” I braced myself for another sob story about his soft drink vending and supply business, about which he complained endlessly whenever he thought of it. “I keep calling the distributor but he says they’re not putting it in machines yet. Why the hell not?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“You know, most people think it’s a great business to make a fortune in, but it’s tough to get your machines into new places. And that’s the key.” I’d never known a single person who thought filling vending machines with soda is a great way to make a fortune, but I kept that to myself. “I’d never make it except I do most of my business under the table,” he said. Tell me something I don’t know. “It’s easy when most of your business is done in quarters and dimes, once you get done hauling them around. I hardly paid any federal taxes last year. But I’m a working man. I’m doing my share.”

You are? And why are you telling me this, I wondered. Do you want me to go to jail with you?

~~~

All that was left was killing three more hours with absolutely nothing to do before we could board the plane. I’d grabbed a bottle of water after we checked our bags so I resisted Vinnie’s renewed efforts to get me into a bar. Instead, I picked up a handful of cast away pages of The Indianapolis Post that didn’t look too soiled and read through them four or five times. Our kids were old enough to entertain themselves, which was a relief except for the occasional horror when we caught sight of them racing around the terminal or doing gymnastics on the escalators.

“Are you hungry?” It was Vinnie, back from the bar with a plastic cup of beer in his hand.

“No, I’m good, Vinnie, thanks.”

“I think I’m going to grab a nice fresh salad,” he said. “I saw a place that does salads on the way in. It’s all about eating right, don’t you think?”

“It doesn’t hurt.” He slapped my thigh and stood up.

I was still on the same page when he returned carrying a paper sack and a bottle of soda. “I ordered it to go.”

I peered into the plastic bowl after he uncovered it and didn’t see anything green in it. “Are you sure you picked up the right order?”

“Of course,” he said. “Super-hot-grande taco salad with sour cream. But I told them to go easy on the cheese. What’s the problem?”

“What happened to ‘It’s all about eating right’? You’re pushing right up against a thousand calories in that bowl.”

“What are you talking about? It’s a salad.”

Why am I arguing, I asked myself. I turned back to my newspaper and Vinnie got busy with his fork.

Finally, just as Vinnie finished off the last mouthful of ground beef and cheese, it was time to go. It turned out that not all of our seats on the plane were together so I quickly volunteered to sit away from the group. It got even better when Justin was sent to sit with me. If nothing else I had a quiet flight to look forward to.

Chapter 3

The passenger in front of me got wacky with his seat even before the plane was fully boarded. I was trying to extract a travel magazine from the seatback pouch without touching anything when the seat came flying back at me. I lunged backwards just in time. Whoa. Two of my fingers were still wrapped delicately around a magazine but that changed quickly. The magazine was ripped from my grip when the seat whipped back to its original position.

So far I hadn’t managed a good look at this person. Since it was now becoming apparent that he was going to single-handedly ruin my flight I felt a Tzu-like compulsion to know more about my enemy. I started with Justin, who had probably gotten a good eyeful when the seat was in my lap.

The seat reclined again as I waved at Justin to get his attention. He was already plugged in and tuned out. I could hear the tinny leakage from his headphones as he finally turned his face at me. “Is that a kid sitting there?” I mouthed silently, pointing to the seat with my thumb.

His eyes met mine, as best as I could see through his bangs. His head continued to bob up and down. I waited for something more. Nothing came. I mouthed the words again. “You mean the guy sitting in front of you?” he shouted, forgetting that he was wearing headphones. Aargh. I threw my head back and rolled my eyes, wondering why he’d chosen that moment to speak for the first time. Meanwhile, the seat moved back to the upright position, this time at a gentle pace. Maybe Justin had done me a favor after all.

Five or six rows ahead I saw the familiar faces of Sam, Ellie and Kyle. They took time out from a frenzied exploration of their surroundings to wave at me before returning their attentions to every knob and handle they could reach. Their seats were throbbing and vibrating much like the one in front of me. There had to be some annoyed adults up there. What goes around comes around, I thought as the plane pushed back from the terminal. I just hoped I’d be able to use the tray when my complimentary meal of seven peanuts and a swallow of warm soda were delivered.

An hour later, after we were finally airborne and the seatbelt light had been turned off, the procession to the bathroom began, and in my aisle seat I was in the front row. I catalogued the passengers and their mannerisms, secretly praising that rare one that chose not to slap the top of my seat or swipe my shoulder or face with their filthy paws as they walked by. By the time the food cart appeared in the distance I’d developed a series of psychological profiles. In general the only passengers who were able to keep their hands off of me were males, age eighteen to forty. I was sure it was some kind of survival instinct.

I could still feel the burn where strangers had accidentally touched my face and I was preparing to escape to the bathroom where I could get a soapy paper towel when my tormentor rose from his seat. I watched stealthily as he turned and walked toward the back of the plane. His greying hair, salt-and-pepper mustache and the knuckle dragger stride were all red flags. If experience was anything, he was a short-tempered guy who would be happy to have a confrontation over anything. I’d been hoping for somebody smaller and less scary but now I knew it had been a smart move not to make an issue of the seat slamming. An occasional but incidental body shot was better than a three-hour confrontation, especially when there was no place to hide from this mouth breather.

When snack time was over I gave serious consideration to a short nap. Apparently the retired linebacker in front of me had the same idea because even before I had the tray locked back into place the seat was reclined and his head was again in my lap. I pressed back into my own seat, wanting to tilt back as well but afraid to annoy whoever was behind me. My eyes were half-closed when I spied Vinnie approaching from the front, his hand slapping the aisle seats on both sides as he moved along.

He laughed when he saw how I was pinned down. “What’s with the chair, dude?” he said to the dozing man beneath my chin. I cringed and shook my head violently at him.

“What? Come on! How are you supposed to sit there with a grown man practically laying all over you? Is he retarded or something?”

I put a finger over my lips and shook my head violently at Vinnie.

“Oh, sorry. I should have said ‘special person’ instead of ‘retard.’ Sue me.”

The man opened his eyes, looked at Vinnie, and then craned his head in my direction. “Sorry,” he grunted, before moving the seat halfway back to upright. “I didn’t know anybody was behind me.” Mind boggling.

“Hey Justin, how about swapping seats for a while?” Vinnie said to his son. Justin could barely make out a word I’d said to him earlier but somehow he understood his father perfectly. The headphones came off his ears and went into a pocket, and he stood up. I unfastened my seat belt and slipped into the aisle so he could pass. Vinnie waved me into Justin’s seat before taking mine.

“What are you reading?” I asked. I’d never seen Vinnie holding a magazine that didn’t have quarterback on the cover.

“Some health care mag. It was the only thing there. It’s pretty interesting. I read about a drug test where the people taking a placebo got better and the ones on the real drug didn’t. Those are sugar pills. Just goes to show you the drug companies are ripping everybody off. We could just have a bottle of placebo in the medicine cabinet. It cures everything.”

“It’s that simple, huh?”

“I think so. Then I checked out this article about health care,” he said as he stuffed the magazine into the seat pocket and wiped his hands on his pants. “Practically every other country has free healthcare but us. They just flash a card and everything’s free. It’s like a credit card. We should do that. All the money we have in this country, why shouldn’t poor people get free healthcare? The whole world thinks we suck.”

“It isn’t free, Vinnie. Somebody has to pay for it.”

“Whatever. So what? Maybe everybody would have to pay an extra dollar a year in taxes. Would that be so bad?”

“I think it would be more than a dollar. Besides, weren’t you the guy who just told me this morning that he doesn’t pay any taxes? No wonder you’re so anxious to raise them.”

“Come on, I’m a working man. I’m pulling my weight. Anyway, guess who I saw up in first class?”

“What were you doing in first class?”

“I always do a walk-through. Their leftovers are better than anything we get. If you make eye contact anything can happen. Plus, you never know, they might offer me a seat.”

“They might do what? Has that ever happened?”

“Well, no, not yet. Anyway, guess who I saw?”

“Come on.”

“Remember I told you about my buddy over in Ketcham? He opened up a bistro a few years ago. Whatever the hell that is. Just give me a burger and beer. But anyway, it’s some kind of restaurant. It’s right on the main drag in the middle of town.”

“Yeah, maybe you told me. What about him?”

“Last month some clown tripped over his own feet on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, right? Remember that?”

“Somebody stumbled on the sidewalk in Ketcham? Somehow I missed it.”

“It was completely bogus. The guy’s a buffoon. A rich buffoon. Joe, that’s my buddy, he’s got this sign out front advertising his specials of the day, right? This guy says he tripped over it but he wasn’t even close. He tripped over his own feet.”

“You were there?” I asked suspiciously.

“Well, no. But the point is, he wasn’t hurt at all, see? He was just embarrassed over making a doofus out of himself. He got up and walked away.”

“Don’t tell me. Lawsuit.”

“Big time. Joe gets a letter a week later. The guy’s acting like he’s crippled for life. They’re carting him around in a wheel chair and he’s wearing a huge neck brace. He’s suing for ten mil. And Joe says he’ll get it too. The dirt bag lawyer checked the limit on Joe’s insurance before filing and doubled it. Anyway, that’s who I saw. The guy who fell. They rolled him right onto the plane into first-class. Bastard. Personal injury my ass. He looks healthy as a horse. Got a tan like he just walked off the beach at Aruba.”

“Rolled off the beach, you mean. How do you know it’s him? The Faller?”

“I saw his picture. He’s easy to spot. He’s balder than Peter Frampton in 1985. Don’t you read the papers anymore? I know it’s him. I even remember his name. Van Morrison.”

“Van Morrison?” I asked incredulously. “His name is Van Morrison? There’s actually another human being on the planet named Van Morrison? As in Brown-eyed Girl? Tupelo Honey?”

“Yeah, but not Van Morrison. George Van Morrison.”

“Sure doesn’t sound like he needs the money. Those fake-tanned guys never do.”

“Yeah, but Joe does. He has insurance but it won’t do anything to save the restaurant. If this goes through it’ll put him out of business. He’s still not sure if they can touch his personal stuff. Thank God for lawyers. He’s got somebody to help him out. Otherwise an ordinary guy like Joe wouldn’t have a chance.”

“Maybe he called the lawsuit off if he’s going to Florida.”

“Oh yeah? What about the phony wheel chair bit?”

“Good point. That’s too bad about your friend.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty worried about it. It was only a matter of time. It’s probably one of those ‘No fee unless we hit the jackpot’ deals you see on TV. Goddamned lawyers, none of them are worth a damn. Who needs them?”

~~~

By the time coach passengers disembarked it was too late to catch a glimpse of this Van Morrison invalid. Everybody on the plane had the same agenda so the entire lot of us trudged en masse through Cojones International Airport without ever making eye contact with each other. First we waited by the carousels to pick up luggage, and then it was off to the car rental counters. Ninety minutes after the plane touched down we jammed our gear into the back of our full-sized Chevrolet rental van and were loose on the highways of the Sunshine State.

“It’s too hot,” Ellie whined.

“You can jump in the pool when we get to the hotel,” Marcie told her.

“Not just any hotel,” Vinnie boomed. “The Space Age Resort. We’ll be able to throw a rock into the Enchanted Empire from our balcony.”

“But don’t get any ideas,” I added. Since Vinnie had volunteered to drive I pulled out the directions I’d downloaded from squirrelworship.com. After guiding him onto a highway that appeared to be named after an indigenous insect I pulled out my wallet and sorted some money into piles for the tolls that were coming up. When the first booth was in sight I handed Vinnie seventy-five cents. “Exact change, so you know which lane to get in.”

“Great,” he said, grabbing the money and throwing it on the seat between his legs. I grimaced as one quarter bounced off the seat and rolled into the darkness at his feet. Relax. Breathe deep. It’s okay. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you hyperventilating?” I’d done all I could so I folded the directions back up and stared out the window without answering.

“I see the giant ball!” Kyle yelled. “The giant ball! I see it! It’s the giant ball!”

“No you don’t,” Katie snarled. “That’s a bowling alley.”

“Well it looks like it.”

After another minute I pulled the directions out again. “We know where we’re going, right?”

“It’s all coming back to me. We’ve been down here just about every year since I don’t even remember when.”

“There’s Galaxy Sprint!” Kyle screamed from the back of the van. “Galaxy Sprint! Galaxy Sprint! I see Galaxy Sprint!”

“Chill out, Junior,” Nancy told him. “We’re still ten miles away from Snodgrass. That’s a sewage treatment plant. Vinnie,” she called up front. “Let’s stop off for a few groceries. We paid extra for a refrigerator in the room. We may as well use it.”

“Yes, Dear. Same place as usual?” He heard her nod yes from the back seat and immediately exited the freeway. We pulled into the parking lot of a sparkling, pristine supermarket that couldn’t have been more than three hours old.

“I guess we should all go in,” Marcie said. “It’s too hot to stay in the car.”

Our trip down each aisle in the supermarket was more excruciating than the last. Nancy had an uncharacteristic lapse in leadership which led to anarchy. By the time we were on the third aisle the kids were just grabbing what they wanted and dropping it into the cart without bothering to check with the parents. A half hour later we emerged with a shopping cart brimming with carbohydrates and saturated fats, very little of which looked like it would need to be refrigerated. “Are we even allowed to bring all this stuff into the hotel?” I asked.

“Sure, why not?” Vinnie asked. “Who’s going to say anything?”

“We’ll look like a bunch of bumpkins, don’t you think?”

“We’re from Indiana. We’re Middle Americans. They expect this from us.” He did a bad imitation of banjo licks from Deliverance.

We packed the food into the van wherever we could find space and then got back onto the road. When I was bored with McMansion housing developments teeming with stucco exteriors and terracotta roofs I was ready to help out with directions again. Even without my help Vinnie had made it through a maze of tollbooths and exit ramps without a problem. He seemed to know the route once we got closer to Snodgrass World but I wasn’t taking any chances.

“I see the castle!” Kyle yelled. “I see the castle! We’re here! I see the castle!”

“That’s a power plant,” somebody said from the back.

“Take this exit coming up here,” I said. He cut across as many lanes of traffic as he needed and drove onto the ramp. After we merged onto the next road everything looked different. All the cars were white and all the road signs were purple.

“Oh yeah!” yelled Kyle when we passed under a six-lanes-wide archway and entered the hallowed grounds. “Sweet!”

“There’s Snodgrass Soundstage Studios,” announced Nancy. “See the water tower with the squirrel tail? They just renamed it from Snodgrass MBS.”

“What’s the tall brown thing?” I asked.

“Hollywood Bowl Hotel, my man!” Vinnie told me without needing to look. “Home of the Plunger. I thought you said you’ve been here before.”

“Monorail! Yellow!” Kyle yelled when we pulled abreast of a sleek tram moving silently atop an elevated concrete track. “Sam, see it?”

“You can put those directions away now, Dave,” Nancy said. “Vinnie knows where to go.”

We approached a row of information booths that spanned the entire roadway. Vinnie eased the van to a booth on the far right. “Space Age Resort,” he barked at the attendant without coming to a complete stop. It didn’t feel right but when I looked back the attendant had already turned her attention to the next vehicle. We turned onto a two-lane road, behind a loud Snodgrass-painted bus that quickly filled our van with exhaust fumes. When the bus disappeared to the left it seemed that we were passing through a remote jungle, except for the purple road signs and swarms of white rental cars heading in the same direction we were.

Another smoke-wreathed bus came and went before we reached the bottom of a hill and emerged from beneath an underpass. “That’s a water bridge we just went under,” Vinnie said proudly. “It’s like a bridge that connects two lakes. You can see it from the hotel.” I hadn’t quite made sense of what he’d said when the Snodgrass Castle and the hotel appeared at the same time that we crested a hill. I’d seen them a thousand times in pictures and I was as cynical as the next guy. Maybe even more cynical than the next guy. But I had to admit that pictures didn’t do the scene justice. There it was for real -- The Space Age Resort. Just for the moment I tried not to think of how much money this was costing me as I watched a monorail cruise right inside the building. Shockingly, the hotel had been within sight for at least three seconds and I hadn’t heard from Kyle. But then the alert came. “There it is!” he bellowed into Ellie’s ear. “I see the Space Age! We’re here!”

Chapter 4

“I’m ready with the money for tips,” I said as Vinnie eased the van up to a gated booth outside the hotel.

“Not the tips again. This is just a traffic director,” Vinnie said. “He doesn’t need a tip.” He rolled down the window and told the man, who couldn’t have been any younger than ninety-seven, that we were here to check in. Security was much tighter than back at the information booth. The gate didn’t rise until he’d seen some paperwork and personal identification.

“Follow the blue line, sir,” he told us.

“Screw that,” Vinnie said after we had passed through the gate. “He’s sending us into the tip zone. Watch this.” A uniformed man with a sneer on his face waved us to the left without even looking at us. “Sorry, partner,” Vinnie said. He increased speed and veered right, successfully blazing a trail through a mass of SUVs and white sedans, each in various stages of unloading and each orbited by men in printed shirts and khaki shorts pushing brass carts. “He doesn’t look too happy about that, does he?” he asked me as he squinted in the rear view mirror.

“I think he wants us over there,” I said.

“I know what he wants. Screw him. Tough beans. We have to keep moving. As soon as we stop we’ll be trapped. Helpless. They’ll come out of the woodwork with their hands out. They’ll practically lie in front of the van to keep us from getting away. We can lug our own stuff in.” He looked into the rear view mirror again and scowled. “Here comes another one. We don’t need this little guy or his cart any more than we needed the last one.” As he spoke he drove all the way through the covered drop-off area and parked against an ivy-covered wall. A tiny man with a huge mustache approached hurriedly. “They don’t give up,” Vinnie said. “They expect us to feel like schmucks and give in. But they’re messing with the wrong guy. Nobody can outschmuck me.” I could see a half dozen bellhops and porters staring in our direction with their mouths open.

“Wow,” I said. “I never knew we could do that. I always feel like a schmuck and give in.”

“Sure we can. We don’t have to be sheep. We’re paying out the ass to be here. What are they going to do, cancel our rooms because we don’t want to be an ATM for these guys?” He pointed towards the parking lot. “Check out the valet parking dudes. They sprint from the door like Carl Lewis to make it look like they’re hustling but then they take their time once they’re behind the wall of shrubs where the customer can’t see them. We watched it from our rooms one time.”

The angry, giant-mustached man tapped Vinnie’s window, which he promptly rolled down. “You can’t park here, sir. I’ll tell you what I need. I need you to go back around and stop back there with the others.”

“I’m checking in,” Vinnie said smoothly. “I didn’t want to get in your way.” By the time the angry giant-mustached man thought of an answer Vinnie had rolled the window back up. When the doors of our van began to open he had no choice but to retreat, shrugging helplessly back at his cohorts.

“I always wanted to do that,” I said out loud before stepping out onto the sizzling concrete. “I didn’t know you could get away with that.”

~~~

“So let me get this straight,” Nancy said to the smiling young woman behind the counter, the one with the “I’m Natala – Kiev, Ukraine,” badge on her lapel. “The castle view room that I reserved seven months ago isn’t available? But you can get me into a bay view room immediately?”

“Yes,” Natala answered as though she thought Nancy would be overjoyed. She still hadn’t deprived us of a look at a single tooth in her head. Her fingers flew across the keyboard in front of her. “I could call the porter and get you moved in right avay,” she told us.

“Forget the porter,” Vinnie interjected. “Don’t need him.” He turned to me. “Like I said, it never ends.”

“But what about our reservation for the castle side room?” Nancy persisted. “I paid for that room last winter. Why do you take reservations at all if you won’t honor them?”

“Mam, ve can only offer you rooms that are available.”

“But you offered me that room seven months ago and I accepted it. It was available.”

“I can vaive the castle view premium fee for you,” Natala said, still maintaining her smile.

“Of course you can. We won’t be in a castle view room anymore. Why wouldn’t you waive the fee?”

“Nancy, let it go,” Vinnie whispered. “A room’s a room. Let’s just take it.”

“But it’s the principle. Why tell me I have room A when you’re giving me room B once I actually get here?”

“It’s okay,” Vinnie said to Natala. “We’ll take it.” Nancy glared at him but said nothing.

“Vonderful,” Natala gushed. Her fingers flew across the keyboard again. “I vill have to add the bay view premium fee.”

Nancy’s face reddened. Luckily I saw what was about to happen. “Uh, Marcie, why don’t you and Nancy take the kids to explore? Like, right now would be a good time,” I said before Nancy could say another word.

~~~

“Hey, check that out!” Vinnie said as we walked away with our room cards and several hundred trees worth of Snodgrass propaganda. “See the dude in the wheelchair? That’s Van Morrison! You know, from first class on the plane. Is the son of a bitch staying here?”

“Van Morrison is staying here?” Marcie asked. Vinnie and I took turns explaining who he was.

We walked past the lounge where the wheelchair was parked and got a good look. He was surrounded by an entourage of seven or eight people, including some kids, but we got a pretty good look. “That’s definitely him!” Vinnie confirmed.

“With that neck brace he looks like Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick,” I said.

“Does he play for the Broncos?”

“Never mind.”

“Hey, let’s walk through there again. This time I’ll take a picture with my phone. I’ll send it to Joe and we’ll find out if it’s really him. Joe will know as soon as he sees it.”

“What if it is? Who cares?”

“I’m just curious. Look, when we get over there you pretend you’re posing next to that statue of William. Van Morrison will be right in the frame and he won’t catch on.”

The plan worked, except the part about Van Morrison not catching on. “May I ask what you’re doing?” he asked Vinnie when it became obvious that he was taking a picture with him in it. “I didn’t say you could take my picture.”

“Me? I’m taking a picture of William Squirrel and my friend here.”

“And me!” he bellowed indignantly before turning toward an overstuffed companion who was standing by at the ready in an overstuffed chair. “Let’s go.” Before the two word sentence had been uttered the sycophant had his hands on the chair’s handles and awaited further instruction.

“You’re no James Bond, that’s for sure,” I said after they’d gone. “It’s safe to say that our cover is blown.”

“Well, anyway, I got the picture. I’ll send this off and see what Joe says.”

~~~

With everybody pitching in it didn’t take long to hump our luggage up to our rooms. The toughest part was avoiding the icy glare of the bellhops, especially since so many arriving guests followed our lead and carried their own suitcases. Our rooms were as large and beautiful as they should have been at the rates we were paying. Nancy was still bitter that we couldn’t see the Enchanted Empire from our balcony, but to me the ‘Castle View’ was more parking lot than Empire. Looking out over the pool and the boats on Lake Bay was good enough for me. She was still talking to Vinnie about getting both families moved across the hall but I hoped it wouldn’t happen.

“Hey Dave,” Marcie called out from the bathroom. “Look at this. If we leave our towels on the rack the maids will leave them instead of putting them in the laundry and giving us new ones. There’s a whole little pamphlet about it. I bet they put this offer in every room. There’s a section on saving paper, too.”

“That’s William Squirrel for you.”

“If we re-use our towels it’s good for the environment. I wish every company cared about the environment this much. The world would be a better place.”

“How many pages in that pamphlet?”

“Yeah, but still. It saves energy and water.”

Saves them a few hundred thou a year on expenses, too, I thought to myself. “Very gracious of them. I’ll go along with it.”

~~~

With no plans for the afternoon we were at the pool an hour after check in. Our Indiana skin was no match for the Florida midday sun so Marcie sent me inside to the sundries shop for a bottle of sunscreen. “It’s 30 SPF. It was the only one with a SPF to dollar ratio greater than 1.” We slathered it on the kids and set them free. Not my problem, I thought as I watched Kyle being scolded by a lifeguard for cutting in line on the water slide before his sunscreen was even dry.

“This is the life,” Marcie said as she lay on a lounge chair with a shirt across her face.

“That’s why they call it vacation. I could get used to this.”

“Where’d Vinnie go?”

“To the gym. He told me he tries not to miss a workout. Ever. No wonder he’s so thin,” I added.

“Vinnie? Thin?”

“My point exactly. Where’s Nancy?”

“She’ll be here in a few minutes. She wanted to stop off at the front desk.”

“There’s probably somebody she forgot to berate.”

“I think she was getting maps.”

“They’ve been here so many times they hardly need a map.”

“So what do you think, Dave? How are you and Vinnie getting on? Is this trip going to work?”

“I’ve got this weird feeling that it will. Vinnie’s not as bad as I was expecting. You just have to ignore eighty percent of what he says and you’re fine. I’m actually having a lot of fun with him.” I watched Ellie weaving through a series of fountains at the edge of the pool before holding her nose and jumping in. “I’m glad we’re here. It’ll be a good time. I feel a lot better about it than I did twenty-four hours ago.”

~~~

After a few hours at the pool, some of which I was awake for, we cleaned up and rode the elevators down for dinner at William’s CookHouse, the character-themed restaurant on the concourse of the hotel. As we approached the hostess to check in we heard angry shouts from inside. Clearly all was not well in Squirrelville.

“So where is he?” an angry male roared. “Where’s the goddamned chicken?”

“What chicken, sir?” a calmer voice replied.

“You know damn well what chicken! White feathers, big yellow beak, talks funny. Sometimes he wears a scuba suit. My five-year old is screaming for his ass. When’s he coming out?”

“Do you mean Durwood?”

“How the hell should I know his name? I’m a grown man!”

“Durwood doesn’t appear here, sir.”

“What? A hundred bucks for dinner and we don’t get to see the goddamn chicken? Every time I turn around there’s a goddamned chipmunk standing there picking his ass! Whoever heard of a Snodgrass chipmunk! This is a bunch of freaks! You’re putting on a freak show here! Where’s the goddamned chicken?”

“Sir, Durwood is a duck, not a chicken.”

“I don’t care if he’s an ostrich! I want him at my table! Where is he?”

“Sir, Durwood only appears at select venues. Unfortunately this isn’t one of them.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! Hello! It’s just a kid in a chicken suit!”

We were escorted to our table before the dispute was resolved. The last thing I heard was the berating of Toothy by the same unhappy customer who described him as ‘some kind of mutant freak dog.’ I wondered how much the kids had heard. There was no doubt in my mind that Kyle would be reciting the conversation verbatim for the next week.

Dinner was buffet style, and all you can eat. The food was so good and there was so much of it that hardly a word was spoken for fifteen minutes. Eventually I saw Justin and Katie mumbling to each other at the end of the table. Kyle and my two youngest didn’t sit much after the first two trips through the buffet lines, too busy posing with the Snodgrass characters that circulated in the restaurant. When they weren’t doing that they were dancing between the tables and waving their napkins wildly in the bone-rattling pep rallies that spontaneously occurred every six minutes.

“I just saw the two biggest fruits I’ve ever seen waiting for some beef,” Vinnie said after returning with another heavily loaded plate.

“How can you tell just by looking at them?”

“What? No I mean I saw two humongous zucchinis on display behind the counter.”

“Oh. Aren’t those vegetables?”

“Whatever.”

“Did you eat your beef on the way back to the table?”

“No, I changed my mind before I got to the front of the line. Anyway, I meant to tell you. They have beer here, you know. If you order it they bring it in from that bar we passed on the way in. When I’m in Snodgrass I take the alcohol wherever I can get it.”

“Maybe next time I’ll need it. This is far less unbearable than I expected. I don’t need alcohol yet.”

“Here comes Meteor!” Marcie yelled at Ellie. “She’s been waiting so patiently,” she explained to the adults at the table. “All the others have been here.”

“Except the chicken in the scuba outfit,” I countered. She scowled at me as long as she could before she broke out laughing.

“Looks like Meteor’s going to be delayed,” Nancy said sourly. “All four of those kids have those dopey autograph books. How is Meteor supposed to sign them? Look at his hands. I wish Snodgrass would ban those.”

“They were selling like hotcakes at the gift shop,” I pointed out.

“Kids don’t even care about them,” Nancy protested. “See? It’s the mom that’s pushing them at poor Meteor.”

“No wonder,” Vinnie said. “Those four kids don’t look like they have a brain to share between them. And these first-time parents are just killing Snodgrass.”

“Whoever’s in that Meteor suit is probably cussing a blue streak,” I whispered to Vinnie.

“I bet,” he agreed. “I don’t know how he can even grip the pen. What does he even write? Dogs can’t write. Ever heard of a deposable thumb? Dogs don’t have them.”

“It’s not a real dog. Maybe they found a way to build one in.”

Eventually Meteor finished signing autographs and made it to our table. While everybody was busy with him I grabbed Vinnie’s arm. “So was it him? The wheel chair guy? What did your friend say?”

“It’s him. It’s Van Morrison. No two ways about it. He was pretty pissed to hear that the guy trying to run him out of business is taking a Snodgrass vacation.”

“Van Morrison,” Marcie chuckled from down the table, interrupting her conversation with Nancy.

“Well, that doesn’t mean he’s not injured,” I said. “It’s not like he came down here to try out for the Dolphins.”

“True. He’s sitting in a chair, same as he’d be doing up there back home,” Vinnie said as he built another pulled pork sandwich on his plate. Ellie had gotten up to go back for thirds so I followed her over to help. When I sat back down I managed to keep from laughing at Vinnie’s gravy mustache. It would last longer if I kept quiet about it.

“So about your friend Joe, the guy with the restaurant. He’s a pretty good friend?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I met him in my bowling league a few years ago. Nancy and I hung out with him and his wife a few times after that.”

“Good enough to help him out with his problem?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Just what I said. I have an idea. But only if he’s a good friend because it could be a lot of work for us.”

“He’s a decent guy. A little bit of a blowhard. A tightwad too, if you ask me. We were over there once and he was getting rid of a T.V. Pretty nice, a forty-incher, but he’d just picked up a plasma. He was going to jump through a bunch of red tape and sell it on Craig’s List. He can’t just give it away to somebody who might not be able to afford it.”

“Are you talking about Joe Gumm?” Nancy asked. “They didn’t sell it. They ended up putting it at the curb for the scrap guys to take. You know, the old guy with the rusted out pickup truck who drives around picking people’s trash?”

“Oh, the scrap guys,” Vinnie said sarcastically. “See what I mean? Nice guy, but a little full of himself. He can’t be bothered to sell it. He just throws it out there like a crumb for the scrap guy. Like the scrap guy needs the pity of Joe Gumm.”

“Well,” I said. “I was thinking. What if we came home with a picture of Van Morrison doing something he says he’s too injured to do?”

“Joe would love it,” he answered through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Like what?”

“Like anything except sitting in a wheel chair.”

“Sure, I guess so. If he does anything we should take his picture.”

“Maybe we could even help him along if we were clever about it.”

“What are you saying, Dave? You’re going to trick Van Morrison into jumping out of his chair or something?”

I bit into an acorn-shaped slab of cornbread. “We have cameras on our cell-phones, right? What if we caught him doing something he says he can’t do? Say we tricked him into doing it and got a picture of it? Wouldn’t that blow his lawsuit right out of the water and save your friend’s restaurant?”

“I could see us pulling this off, yeah. I’m pretty good at covergent action and stuff.”

“If he’s cheating, it shouldn’t be too hard to catch him. Who sits like a statue in a wheel chair when they come to Snodgrass? If they can help it, I mean.”

He stared at me as he considered it. “I think you’re on to something here. Craziest idea I ever heard, Dave. Especially coming from you. When do we start?”

Chapter 5

Vinnie showed up at our room the next morning at a few minutes past six. Waking us up wasn’t anything he needed to worry about. He knew we were all long out of bed because Nancy had decreed that we’d meet for breakfast in the cafeteria at seven. “Let’s talk on the balcony,” he suggested as he handed me the complimentary copy of USA Today that had been laid at every one of the three billion rooms in the hotel. There won’t be a tree left anywhere in fifteen years, I thought as I dropped the newspaper into the trash can. It’s Snodgrass. Who has time to read a newspaper?

“Sure thing.”

“Dad, she’s still in there,” Sam complained from outside the bathroom door. “I have to go real bad!”

“Let me get him set up first.” I told Vinnie before I knocked. “Katie, are you okay in there?” She knew that was a Jevik code phrase which translated roughly to “Get your butt moving and give us poor souls a minute or two in there, will you?” The door flew open and Katie stomped out. I pushed Sam in and pulled the door closed. “Thanks, Kate,” I said, patting her on the shoulder while she sorted through jars and tubes from her makeup kit.

“The showers here blow,” Vinnie said. “No water pressure at all. It felt like three guys peeing on my head.”

“Good morning to you, too, Vinnie.”

“I talked with Nancy about our project,” he told me when I joined him on the balcony. “Turns out she heard the whole story at dinner last night. We can do it, but not today. Do you know why?”

“Nope.”

“Because today is Flappy or Die day, that’s why.”

“Flappy or Die?”

“Yeah. You know, Flappy the flying elephant? She just scheduled a pre-breakfast briefing at six-forty sharp over in our room. It’s mandatory. I mean, everybody’s invited.”

“A briefing? What in the world is Flappy or Die?”

“Sorry pal. She doesn’t kid around. You know that by now.”

When we filed into the room promptly at six-forty Nancy was staring at a satellite photo of the Enchanted Empire that she must have downloaded from Google Earth. It was taped to a mirror over the desk and she was making notations on it with a grease pencil. “Have a seat,” she said. “Be right with you.”

“Nancy, there’s a color-coded park map in the Snodgrass guidebook,” Marcie said. “Would you rather have that? It’s got everything labeled.”

“No. It doesn’t have everything labeled, just the stuff they want you to see. I picked up one of those yesterday but this is better. They leave a lot of stuff out on those to make it look prettier. We need to know where every trash can and bathroom really is. We have to have the raw intel. Now, does everybody know why we’re here?”

“Flappy or Die?” I offered.

“Yep. Family ritual. We will, I repeat, will be on board for the first Flappy ride. It’ll take some coordination and tactics with a group this size. No matter what, stay the course. Follow your orders. Do not compromise this mission. We will overcome every obstacle. We will go around any slackers. Stroller people be damned. Everybody still with me?” It wasn’t a question.

I wasn’t sure how serious her rap was but I didn’t dare look around to see what anybody else was thinking. Was this for real? Were we about to be briefed on a mission?

She picked up her grease pencil. Nobody moved. “This,” she continued as she drew a circle on the satellite photo, “is the objective. Notice how deep it is in the park. It’s in the heart of Whimsical World. We’ll have a lot of ground to cover once we’re in and some of it could be tough going. There’s a lot of balloon salesmen and candy shoppe customers that we’ll be up against if we want to keep charging, not to mention the photographers. We’ll advance up America Boulevard, roll through the castle, flank the carousel and regroup at the Flappy entry ramp. Here’s how we’ll do it.”

“Mom, it’s ten of,” Katie whispered to Marcie. “I’m hungry.”

“If a trolley or bus comes at us, hold your ground until the last possible minute, when you can see the driver’s face. He won’t hit us. If we wait long enough we can slip past anybody who lost their nerve and moved out of the way.”

“Are you going to tell her?” Marcie whispered back at Katie. “Because I’m not.”

“Whatever you do, don’t let yourself get corralled by a photographer. Families are prime targets and they usually go for the slow and weak so we’ll be okay if we keep our pace up. If it looks like one has you, fake to the empty hand and then shoot around the camera hand. They won’t risk blocking with the hand that’s holding their hardware.”

“I’m not skipping breakfast,” Katie hissed to her mother. “I’m eating as soon as we get inside the park.”

“Now, let’s talk about what happens outside the gates before we get in. As we approach the security tables we need to make sure all bags are open and ready for a quick inspection. With so many of us nobody needs to handle more than one bag. Open them up and pass them around. If we do it right we can get through without breaking stride. The last thing these guards want to do is waste their time looking for anything. They’ll just joke with the men and flirt with the ladies.”

She drew a rectangle around the row of turnstiles. “Whoever gets past inspection first will need to make a quick choice before we make our dash for the turnstiles. We need two adjacent lines that are reasonably short. If we don’t all get through the turnstiles at the same time we’ll have to abort. So don’t go for the absolute shortest. Go for the two most reasonable adjacent ones. Questions?”

There were none so she continued. “After we’re inside we’ll head up America Boulevard. Stay off the sidewalks. Those will be jammed with lollygaggers. We’ll go right up the street. We’ll be moving fast. Make sure you keep up. There’ll probably be a rope-drop once we get through the castle. Once we get there we’ll push as close to the front as we can and then form up. By then we’ll be within sight of our objective. Everybody with me?”

~~~

The next hour went according to plan. For most of the ten-minute walk from the Space Age to the Enchanted Empire I couldn’t take my eyes off the monorail track that we walked under. How long before one of us catches a blob of grease in the eye? Kyle busied himself trying to stamp on the lizards that darted across the sidewalk, which was comprised of bricks bearing commemorative messages from New Jersey. By the time we reached the Empire I wanted to choke him.

“This is a good formation,” Nancy announced. “We’re strong on the wings.” She and Vinnie were leading the way with Kyle between them. Marcie and I made up the second row with Sam and Ellie tucked in the center. Katie and Justin brought up the rear. I wondered if they would be able and willing to keep up with the pace that I knew Nancy was going to set. We passed through the bag inspection tables with little delay, and then Nancy herself led us to a couple of lines in the center where we formed up and repacked.

“We might get split up when we walk through the tunnel under the train station,” Nancy said after we huddled up. “That’s okay. As long as everybody keeps moving we’ll hook back up on the other side. Remember, we’re walking in the street, not on the sidewalks. They’ll be a lot of amateurs standing in the middle of the street posing for castle pictures. Way too early for that. Don’t drop your speed or change direction until the last minute if you end up behind one of these newbies. If you look determined and maybe make some kind of growling noise they’ll probably jump out of the way.”

As I looked around at the other lines I was eerily reminded of my nightmare. The parents looked more animated than the kids, just like in the dream. “Were we ever like that?” I asked Marcie as we watched a father screeching in falsetto at his daughter, who was balanced on his hip.

“I’m sure we were. With Katie, at least.”

“Is that a skywriter up there?”

“Yeah. What’s he writing?”

“Something about Jesus,” Nancy said. “Nobody ever sees what it is. By the time he finishes the first part’s faded away.”

For the next fifteen minutes we were treated to warm, joyous Snodgrassian choral arrangements through a multitude of unseen speakers. Just like in my dream, a troupe of B-level Snodgrass characters danced on the railroad platform at the head of the plaza. The music and performance whipped the crowd into a bloodthirsty frenzy which intensified when the countdown began. I wondered how many Nancys there were in the crowd around us. What would happen if they came face to face? Unlike in the dream I was right-side up and ready to go. Nancy passed out the tickets at the last minute, trying to minimize the chance of Kyle losing his. “Hold these until we get to the rope drop. Then we’ll collect them back up.” I fought the urge to step aside and let Katie go through ahead of me. That wasn’t the plan. After my ticket failed to open the turnstile three times a very old woman punched a few numbers by hand and waved me in. Without looking back I pushed into the streaming crowd. After we reached the plaza at the foot of America Boulevard I twisted around to look for Justin and Katie. There were quite a few bodies in between me and them but they were dutifully working their way forward. By the time the asphalt narrowed onto the boulevard we were in proper formation.

Every few yards we were forced to dodge the picture-takers, who stopped on a dime to pose for the money shot with the castle over their shoulders. It was clearly a race walk but Nancy skillfully guided us past slower walkers by moving alongside and then turning on the gas. Every time she passed a group our formation morphed into two columns and followed around on both sides of the obstructer.

Halfway up the street Nancy slowed. Vinnie, Marcie and I instinctively leaned in. “See the chick at ten o’clock with the squirrel-tail headband?”

“With the two beautiful little girls?” Marcie asked.

“Whatever. Yeah. And the baby. Mark my words. She’s going down. Big time. She was way behind us in line and she’s been giving us the eye the whole time. No way she’s getting into that castle ahead of us.” With that she cut to the left edge of the street, led our group on a quick-footed detour on the sidewalk, and popped out on the street just ahead of the woman and her three children. I looked away in horror when it appeared that the squirrel-tailed woman and Justin were going to collide as he stepped off the curb.

When we reached the circle in front of the castle we had nearly caught up with the Whimsical World vanguard which was already pouring up the ramps into the castle. When Kyle momentarily eased to the right, following a splinter group that was headed for Future World, I grabbed his shoulder and corrected his course. At the top of the ramp we entered a passage which would take us through the base of the castle and, based on my limited recollections, into Whimsical World.

There was a thick blue rope stretched across the far opening of the passageway just as Nancy had anticipated. When we finally stopped moving we were only three or four rows from the front of the mob, which was far closer than I’d expected after seeing the rampage up the boulevard. Nancy was right that the sheer size of our group hurt our mobility but we had rallied nicely after a sluggish start. “The crowd divides up pretty evenly,” Nancy said. “Tropic World and Future World are open too. That draws off a lot of people. We’re in reasonably good shape. All we need to do is maintain our position. And there’s a lot going on in Whimsical World. Not all these people are heading for Flappy.”

“Mission accomplished?” Marcie asked as she pulled the three youngest kids in tighter.

“So far. As it stands now we’ll achieve our objective. There are enough rides open that this crowd will spread out. But we still have to be on guard for wormers and scouts.”

I choked on the water from the eight-dollar bottle that Ellie had opened the night before in the hotel when nobody was looking. “Wormers and scouts?”

“Look, there’s two wormers right over there.” I followed her eyes until I saw two Asian teens wriggling through the crowd. “See what happens?” Nancy asked. “People step out of their way and let them pass. They assume nobody would just push their way through without a good reason. Then they get steamed up about it, but by then it’s too late. Not me. I see the big picture. If they think they’re getting past me they’ve got another thing coming.”

“But they’re not even close to us.”

“Yeah, too bad. There’s nothing we can do about those two,” she admitted. “We’ll just have to run them down once the rope hits the ground and we start moving again. I’ll be keeping an eye on them, believe you me.”

“What are scouts?” I asked.

“You’ll see plenty of them this week. As a matter of fact, a slow line like Flappy is prime scout territory because there’s plenty of time for them to make their play. So you might see some in a few minutes. That’s where a big group, usually full of slow movers, sends somebody ahead to grab a prime spot in line. They always send the most fit, fleet-footed member of the group. That one’s the scout. After the scout gets there he turns and gives a signal. Then a train of plodders bulls their way through the crowd. They’ll have pained looks on their faces, pretending they don’t have any choice but to move ahead to keep their group together. At the front of the line, of course. People will get plenty mad, too, but the scout groups just pretend they don’t speak English or don’t hear well, and just ignore the yelling until they get on the ride.”

“Do you see any around here?”

“No. It’s more common in the ride lines. If they tried it here they’d have to stand too long next to the people they cut in front of.”

She stopped talking and glared at something behind me. I turned and saw a thirty-something mom working through the crowd with a toddler in tow. “Excuse me,” the mom said over and over as she moved ahead of us.

“People are such saps,” Nancy sputtered. “Everybody here has busted their hump getting to the front. Why give it up so easily?”

When the interloper reached the front of the group she immediately began smiling and talking with a middle-aged man. “That’s the oldest trick in the book,” Nancy said. “I guarantee she doesn’t know that guy. She’s faking it so we all feel better about letting her get in front of us. Look at his face. He’s never seen her before. He thinks she’s some kind of wack job.”

“I don’t remember so many wheel chairs and scooters the last time we were here,” Marcie commented. “Now I see them everywhere I look.”

“More every year,” Nancy agreed. “It’s a cottage industry. There must be two-hundred wheel chair supply houses within five miles of where we’re standing. I was reading about that last time we were down.”

“It’s a great way to get the special treatment,” Vinnie said.

“So they say.”

“Why is everything all wet?” Sam asked. “Did it rain?”

“They scrub the streets with a fire hose every night,” Nancy explained. “It’ll take a couple more hours of sun before everything dries out.”

“They scrub down every night?” I asked as I eyed the railing that I was carefully avoiding any contact with. “What else gets cleaned? Do they use some kind of soap or something?”

A piped-in flourish of trumpets rattled the tiled walls of the passageway, followed by a deep baritone male voice. “Ladies and Gentlemen, before we open Whimsical World--“’

I couldn’t hear the rest because the crowd erupted in chatter. When the voice was finished the rope fell to the pavement and the mob surged forward, enveloping and then passing the pastel rabbit and dour donkey that had come to greet us. As the crowd swept us along I prayed that everybody remembered their marching orders.

Our formation stayed intact until a woman and daughter became flustered by a puddle and hesitated. “Go around!” barked Nancy. We split roughly in half and swept around the woman, her daughter and the puddle. Nancy was eying the baby-toting lady from America Boulevard until she veered right, away from Flappy. Thirty or forty others peeled off at Long John Silver’s Cutlass, apparently bound for the Carousel. By then there were only about thirty people in front of us heading for Flappy, all walking as fast as we were.

“Keep moving!” Nancy encouraged. Another family ahead of us turned to the left and away from our objective, putting us even closer to the front. When we were thirty feet away I began counting elephants, and then people. It was going to be close.

“One last burst!” Nancy yelled as we watched the leaders begin to funnel into the Flappy cattle chute. “Push it! Show them what you’ve got!” I cringed as we barreled past a slower moving family before cutting in front of them just before we entered the queue ourselves. Knowing they were directly behind me in line, I was afraid to turn around. If I were in their shoes I’d be pissed off.

“Did we make it?” Vinnie asked.

Nancy was already counting bodies with her index finger. “Sure did,” she finally said. “We’ll get the last four elephants.”

Before we had a chance to celebrate the air was pierced with the staccato shrieking of a woman near the front of the line. Twenty or so people ahead of us, she was flailing and jumping in an attempt to get somebody’s attention. When she began waving them into the line I knew what was going on even before Nancy announced it. A Scout!

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “If anybody gets past us we’re screwed. I told you we’d be seeing this.” At least a dozen of the shouter’s companions were advancing, giving every appearance that they intended to squeeze past anyone and everyone until the group was reunited. Nancy stepped backwards until she was next to me. “That’s completely not cool. They’re not pulling this off.”

“Hey,” I said. “Check it out. Is that a blind guy trying to get on the Pasty Maiden ride?” A man in sunglasses with a long white stick was being guided to the head of the line by a girl holding tight to his arm. A wheel chair-bound teenager with a cast on her leg stopped in time to avoid hitting them.

“Sure looks like it,” Vinnie answered. That’s one way to beat the lines. All you need is a cane and sunglasses. I’ll bet they bought those on the boulevard.” Marcie shook her head at him, trying not to laugh.

“They better look out,” I said. A heavy woman on a scooter zigged and zagged through the crowd at breakneck speed, lurching to a stop in front of the blind man before urging the toddler on her lap to disembark. “Man! That was dangerous!”

Vinnie began to laugh. Hard. “Now what are they going to do? Who gets on first? They’ll have to pull out the manual for this one. A wheel chair, a scooter, and a blind guy! I wish we were playing poker!”

“The blind guy has to be first,” I said. “He’s got the worst handicap, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but the woman on the scooter is black. If they don’t take her first that’s two strikes, not just one. She’s old, too, so that might be three strikes. The wheel chair girl is definitely going last. She’s white and young. Nobody will care if she complains. Funny thing is, she’s the only one who really has a handicap.”

“What about the blind guy?”

“The so-called blind guy. I need proof.”

“So Nancy,” I said quietly as she pushed me into a wall formation, sealing our position against intrusion from the rear. “I get that cutting in line is wrong, but what about when we slid past that family at the last second?”

“You mean before we got in line? It’s within the bounds of acceptable conduct,” after her face scrunched up in thought. “We weren’t actually in the line yet.”

Before we could see how the Pasty Maiden quandary was resolved the Flappy line began to move. As people moved into a holding pen at the top of the ramp they were handed colored plastic cards, which I took to mean that they were in for the first flight. All we needed to do was get our hands on some of those. The fast-talking interlopers advanced quickly through the line, which put up little resistance. They pushed past the family behind me when Nancy and I were just a few feet from the pen. The shouter was already at the gate waiting for her party to cut their way to the front. “Nobody gets past us,” Nancy commanded under her breath. “Don’t move at all. Not for anybody or anything. Don’t even turn around if they start squawking. We just have to hang on for a few more seconds before victory is ours.”

The scout became more distressed, and louder, as we approached her without yielding. She gave me a dirty look as the metal gate slammed shut behind us after we entered the pen. It had been a challenge, but we’d been equal to it. Flappy’s first flight of the day wouldn’t depart until the Jeviks and the Zandanels were aboard.

Chapter 6

The Flappy ride wasn’t much different than the standard rotating ride at every parking lot carnival back home except that it was wedged between Cinderella’s Castle and Mermaid Haven. Every few revolutions, depending on how high Sam elevated our elephant, I caught a glimpse of our hotel between castle spires. When the ride ended sixty seconds after it had begun I didn’t understand Nancy’s fixation with the Flappy ride but we all had family traditions that were unexplainable. It only mattered that we pulled it off.

“We have to keep moving,” Nancy said as she shepherded us off the ride and through the gate. “We have to do Sticky before it gets too crowded. All the newbies flock to it.” We walked around a bend to the Sticky Bear ride and then I saw what she was talking about. Whimsical World was still relatively empty but it seemed that nearly everybody there was in line for Sticky. Still, we waited no more than three minutes before we were seated in rolling honey pots and hurtling inside.

“Mr. Frog!” yelled Kyle as we moved passed a picture of a well-dressed frog handing a document to a two-tone brown pheasant.

“This used to be the Mr. Frog ride,” Nancy explained from the front seat. “That’s him passing the foreclosure papers to Mr. Pheasant.”

I knew there were at least seven or eight Sticky characters but only Tiger the Tiger and Sticky himself got much face time, with the others making appearances here and there. Mostly we rolled through random scenes from a book painted onto the wall. A middle sequence made me think that the ride designers had some experience with LSD. There was something about a rainstorm going on at the end.

I trailed the group as we exited through the Sticky Bear gift shop and into the Pasty Maiden ride next door. Vinnie dropped back so we sat together for this one. We rode through the dark as our car jerked our spinal columns around. “I’m surprised they’re still allowed to call these guys dwarfs,” Vinnie said as we rolled past a diamond mine. “Aren’t we supposed to call them midgets or something?” The ride finished up with Prince somebody or other holding vigil over the Pasty Maiden’s motionless body, followed by a wedding scene. “No way that prince is straight,” Vinnie muttered. “Take a look at the guy. What’s going on with his pants?”

“You were right,” I said to Nancy after we came out of the Pasty Maiden gift shop. The Sticky line already went from zero to twenty-five minutes.”

“It’s a blessing for anybody who knows what they’re doing,” she answered. “It sucks up the clueless moms and their families for hours. That way the other rides are less cluttered. It’ll be an hour wait in a few minutes but they’ll keep coming. Sometimes I think Snodgrass does this on purpose to help manage the crowds.”

“What’s next?” Marcie asked.

“We’ll knock out most of Whimsical World then we’ll head over towards Revolution Square.”

“I’m tired,” Ellie announced.

“There’ll be time to be tired later,” Nancy promised. “Right now we’ve got to get across the plaza. We’ll do Peter Pan and then Symphony Capers.” She took off without another word so we all followed her to Pan. “This line is longer and slower than it looks. We need to do this now.”

A boy who looked to be about eight squeezed past me every few minutes and flitted around behind Nancy and Marcie before retreating to his family behind us. After the third time I knew what was coming. Nancy accidentally turned and jammed an elbow in his face, pinning him against the wall, without even missing a word in her conversation with Marcie. She didn’t even need visual, I marveled. She never even had to look! When she released him he scurried back to where he’d come from and we never heard from him again.

I rode with Vinnie as we flew over the streets of London and into Never-Never Land. He elbowed me as we passed over a group of ridiculous caricatures of an Indian tribe. “Check out these lyrics,” he whispered.

“What makes the red man red?” sang a chorus of deep voices in a primitive three part harmony.

I smiled. “Only Snodgrass could get away with that.”

“And only about Indians. Can you imagine singing ‘What makes the Negro brown?’ or ‘What makes the Chinese yellow?’”

“Or the white boy white,” I suggested.

When the journey was over Vinnie and I struggled to keep up with the vanguard of our group as we raced through the Peter Pan gift shop and into the Symphony Capers show, which turned out to be a 3-D movie.

“Hey, did you see that fairy back there when we were getting on our magic ship? Oy vey! What’s with the tights?”

“How can you tell? Besides, I don’t think the employees get to decide what they wear.”

“What? No, I meant that little green woman with the magic wand. They need to update her wardrobe.”

“The last time we were here this was the King of the Jungle show,” Marcie broke in to tell me. “Remember the stick puppets?”

This time I led the way inside. We clustered with everybody else in front of a set of auditorium doors that, as we were reminded over and over again in two languages, would swing outwards. Batches of people continually wormed their way ahead of us and up against the doors. I looked at Nancy and Marcie anxiously. “Let them,” Nancy whispered. “These newbies are signing their own death warrants. You’ll see.”

When the doors opened and people poured through I understood what Nancy had meant. A disembodied voice and some well-placed Snodgrass workers forced everybody to walk all the way across the auditorium as far as they could go before sitting down. The line cutters had outsmarted themselves and were now sitting against the far wall, while we were sitting directly in front of the center of the screen. Not that there was a bad seat in the house.

The LSD-inspired designers seemed to have been involved with development of this show as well. Some musical instruments played themselves, Durwood screwed up, William saved the day and then it was over.

“We might be done with Whimsical World for now,” Nancy yelled back at us as we maneuvered through the Symphony Capers gift shop.

“What about Tea Cups?” Kyle demanded.

“Cups and Flying Saucers? Fast line, we’ll save it for later.”

“What’s that ride?” Ellie asked, pointing across the square.

“Children of the Global Village. Fast line, we’ll do it later while we’re passing through. We need to move on while it’s still early and lines are short. It won’t be long before the softies get out of bed and overrun the place.”

I scooped Ellie up and put her on my shoulders and we walked down a hill past a Swiss chalet and out of Whimsical World. After we passed underneath a restaurant we saw the gates of the mansion at Ghostly Acres, but we were told by a ghastly Edgar Allen Poe-ish man that “The ride is down and it’ll be, like, a while, dudes.”

“Critter Falls and Gold Rush Miner’s Railroad,” Nancy barked before we took off again. “This is bad,” she said moments later. “More people going out of Whimsical World than going in.”

“Nice boat,” I said about the Mississippi River paddle wheel behemoth that was docked in the river that looked like a lake. We had just crossed into Wild West World.

“Nice to look at, maybe,” Nancy said. “We’re not getting anywhere near it. It’s not worth the time we’d lose. Same with Tom Sawyer Island over there. Once you get over there you’ve lost hours. It was even better when the Huck Finn keel boat ride was still running. Once people committed themselves to the river they were out of the way for half the day. It’s like the Sticky ride,” she explained between breaths as we walked. “It drains off the rookies and gives the rest of us more room.” We kept moving along through a Western town before veering onto an express lane over the edge of the river that was largely inaccessible to stroller people.

“Vinnie, here are the tickets. Run over and get fast passes for Gold Rush. We’ll wait at the entrance of Critter Falls.” Vinnie took off across a stone bridge, dodging stroller traffic before disappearing between a wheel chair and a scooter.

We worked our way across the bridge, which looked like it used to be a splash platform for Critter Falls before Snodgrass realized that 58.7 or so percent of its visitors didn’t like to get wet and turned the water down. Suddenly everything was the color of the Grand Canyon, only browner. By the time we reached the ride entrance Vinnie had somehow gotten the Gold Rush passes and beaten us there.

“This line is usually a killer,” he said. “Hopefully it isn’t too bad yet.” It wasn’t. We went along a path, up some steps, over a wooden walkway and down a tunnel that overlooked the log flume loading area before we stopped. All along the way I fielded questions I couldn’t answer about who all the characters named ‘Brer were. Apparently this was one Snodgrass movie I’d never seen. Once we’d reached the inner loading sanctuary it wasn’t long before we were sorted into logs.

“How do you do that so quick?” I asked the plaid-shirted worker who was expertly arranging the parties into chutes.

He grinned. “Did you ever play Tetris?”

~~~

“I didn’t even get wet on the big drop!” Sam said as we shuffled through the Critter Falls gift shop after the ride.

“I got wet at the end when we were stopped next to that smelly waterfall,” Kyle reported.

“There are still twenty minutes before our fast passes are good for Gold Rush,” Nancy said. “There’s not much else to do over here.”

“What about Bumpkin Bears?” Vinnie suggested. “I mean, if we’ve got some time to kill.”

“Rural Mammal Ho-down, but they’ve got a schedule. We could end up walking all the way over there and not even get to see it.”

“Thank God,” Vinnie mumbled.

“Why don’t we just hang out here?” Marcie said. There was a small, shady play area that would amuse the little ones, at least. The rest of us found some space on a ledge and sat down to rest.

“I’ve hardly heard a peep from you two,” I said to Justin and Katie, who were sitting on the ground leaning against a wall. Katie smiled while Justin looked away. Are they holding hands? I couldn’t tell because they were squeezed together in a confined space. That’s something to keep an eye on. I think. A quick look at my watch told me why my stomach was gurgling. It was nearly twelve-o’clock. We’d have to think about eating soon.

“Should we go?” Vinnie asked ten minutes later.

Nobody answered but we all stood. The kids ran over from the play area when they saw us on the move, anxious for the next ride. Kyle yelled “The wildest ride in the widderness!” in a goofy western accent over and over as we approached the Gold Rush Miner’s Railroad fast pass entrance. A group of customers who couldn’t seem to figure out if they wanted to ride had the entrance blocked but we were able to squeeze past. Starting to catch on to her style, I looked back in time to see Nancy give one of them a healthy accidental shove into a gnarled cactus on her way through. I don’t know if it was the desert scenery or the dried wads of gum stuck to every surface but this didn’t look like a line that would be fun to spend a lot of time in. Nancy had gotten it right, as usual. I was glad we had those fast passes.

I avoided the stares from the regular line as we bypassed them on the way to the ramp that took us down to the trains. The ride was great. We sped through abandoned mine shafts, caverns and bat caves, several sets of rotting bones and some miner’s rotting underwear. Everybody wanted to do it again but the line was just too long.

“Isn’t anybody hungry yet?” Marcie asked. All the kids were.

“Wyatt Earp’s is just across the bridge,” Nancy said. “Or we could hit the McDonalds French Fry Cart.” They all opted for the french fries. We ordered about a bushel of fries and a barrel of lemonade and sat in some shade on a nearby curb to eat.

“The wildest ride in the widderness!” Kyle crowed over and over with his mouth full of fries, much to the delight of Sam, Ellie and most of all, Vinnie.

“We’ve got to map out some strategy,” Nancy said after everybody slowed down on their fries. “This place is starting to get full. We got our money’s worth this morning but from here on out it’ll be a lot slower.”

“We’re still going to do the haunted house, right?” Katie asked before glancing at Justin.

“Ghostly Acres. Yup. But don’t forget, we’re coming back here another day. I thought we’d leave Tropic World and Future World for then. We can finish off Revolution Square and catch Ghostly Acres, too. There isn’t much left to do in Wild West World. Flying Saucers and Global Village are fast lines, so they won’t be a problem,” she said before jamming a handful of French fries into her mouth. “We should pick up a fast pass for something while we’re doing those. Maybe Brutal Yet Fun and Lovable Buccaneers if anybody feels like going on a hike. We can do that both days.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marcie said.

It’s not like we have a choice, I thought. “Hey Nancy, does the paddle wheel boat take people over to that island? I never see it landing anywhere.”

“No, it just wallows around and blows its whistle. See where that mob of people is?” she said, pointing toward the river that looked like a lake. “That’s how you get to the island. They send just a few of them over at a time. They use little tiny rafts to make it take longer.”

“What’s on the island?”

“Some fort and a few shacks and a bunch of dirt paths that go nowhere. It’s like every playground back home. I haven’t been over there in years. Empty-headed kids just insist on going over there.” Don’t look at Kyle. Don’t look at Kyle. “Five minutes after they’re on the island their bored to tears.” I looked at Kyle.

“Dave and I can go get fast passes for Buccaneers,” Vinnie offered. “Should we meet you somewhere?”

“How about at the mansion gates?”

“Okay. Ready, Dave?”

“Take that restroom tunnel on the way back,” Nancy advised. “By Amir’s Fuse. It’ll be more direct.”

“I thought you’d been here before, Dave,” Vinnie said after we’d walked some. “You guys seem a little clueless about everything.”

“I guess it’s been a few years. Ten, maybe. I hardly remember a thing. But if I know too little, you and Nancy are making up for it. You know way too much.”

The scenery changed as we walked out of Wild West World and into Tropic World as the American West gave way to the South Pacific. I was suspicious about the tie-in between pirates and the Pacific Ocean. Had there ever been pirates there at all? That seemed like a post-Brutal Yet Fun and Lovable Buccaneers interpretation of history.

“Buccaneers is up there on the right,” Vinnie said. “I can’t wait, it’s nice and cool in there.” By now the park was packed. When I slowed momentarily to wipe the sweat from my face I felt a stroller scrape my ankles so hard that I was sure I’d lost some skin. I felt the same sting three more times on the way to the Buccaneers ride before I learned to keep my feet moving. Vinnie found the fast pass machines and inserted our tickets one by one. One of the wafer-thin fast pass tickets fluttered away in the hot breeze but I chased it down to where it landed between the pasty legs of a balding man in a bright soccer jersey and tiny shorts.

“That had to be a Brit,” Vinnie remarked after I’d returned with the curly slip of paper. “Great people but they look like vampire zombies.” I started back in the direction we’d come but Vinnie grabbed me. “Nancy’s right, this’ll be faster.” We squeezed around the Amir’s Fuse ride, a Flappy clone that barely fit into the Arabian Bazaar it occupied, and entered a tunnel.

“Wow, it’s like forty degrees cooler under here,” I said.

“This is my favorite spot in the park. Great bathrooms. I’ve spent a lot of quality time in there over the years. And it’s right in the middle of everything.” Thirty seconds after being in the heart of Tropic World we popped out on the other side smack dab in the middle of Wild West World. We dodged bodies until we caught up with everybody else at Ghostly Acres.

My favorite part of the mansion turned out to be the witty epitaphs on the tombstones on the way to the entrance, although it was hard to concentrate on them because of the wolf that howled every sixteen seconds. As soon as we went inside Ellie clamped onto me and never let go. She relaxed some once we got into our death cart and rode through the mansion. There was plenty to see and hear, and if I missed something the narrator said I could always hear it at least one more time from the speakers of the death carts behind us.

“I’d like to see Presidents on Stage,” Marcie said after we were back outside. All five kids groaned. Nancy frowned. Apparently that hadn’t been on her itinerary, now or ever.

“That’s right over there, isn’t it?” Vinnie asked. Nancy glared at him but he was looking the other way.

“I see it,” I agreed, pointing into a cluster of colonial architecture.

“I guess we can spare a few minutes,” Nancy conceded. “It might set us back some but we’ll make it up.”

We went inside and wandered around the lobby, except for Nancy, who immediately grabbed the space at the front of the line. That didn’t seem like a good idea to me. How were the other liner-uppers going to feel when eight people cut into the front at the last minute? Even Vinnie figured this out. He went over and whispered to her. I realized that Presidents on Stage was one of the few attractions she was unfamiliar with and she’d probably misplayed it.

A Betsy Ross look-alike invited the crowd into the auditorium. James Earl Jones, or somebody who sounded like him, hosted a ten minute film that was mostly about slavery. “If they don’t play up inequality the libs have a cow,” Vinnie whispered to me while leaning across and blocking Sam’s view. After the movie ended we were greeted by each and every president before the lights came on and the show ended.

“I never heard of half those guys,” Vinnie said as we reassembled. “We had a president named Millard Fillmore? Tyler? A guy named Warren was our president?”

“They can’t all be household names,” I said.

“I guess not. And you’d think they could find actors who look more like the real guy. The guy who played Kennedy looked more like Dobie Gillis. You know, the guy on the cover of Mad Magazine.” Marcie and I looked at each other, both of us trying not to laugh. For God’s sakes, they’re robots, Vinnie!

“It’s just about two o’clock,” Nancy said. “How about if we go back and finish Whimsical World, hit Buccaneers and call it a day? The place is so mobbed now we’ll be waiting in line for hours if we try to do more than that. We can hang out at the hotel.”

“The pool is calling me,” Vinnie said. “After the gym, of course.”

We walked back up the hill and into Whimsical World without another word. Nancy led us to Global Village. She was right. The line wasn’t very long and it moved quickly. Within ten minutes we were at the loading platform. There were only three passengers in the boat ahead of us but they were all on the heavy side so the loaders distributed the tonnage as evenly as possible and sent it on its way. Our group was seated in our own boat, with Vinnie and me occupying the rear bench. We floated under a window into a restaurant and into Global Village.

“Get ready to have this song in your head for the rest of the week,” Nancy warned us.

“That’s okay,” I told her. “It’ll just replace the songs from Critter Falls.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if they showed what a country is really like?” Vinnie asked as we cruised into Europe.

“You mean, like the dark side instead of the good side?”

“Exactly, I guess.”

I smiled. “Like, a bunch of drunk, fighting little redheaded guys in Ireland?”

“How about France? Right next to the Eiffel Tower put a bunch of immigrants burning cars.”

“What’s that, Holland? Where are all the people sitting in cafes doing drugs?”

“And where are the hookers?” Vinnie added.

“Is that supposed to be Scotland right there?”

“Braveheart!” we both yelled at the same time. Our wives turned around and scowled at us.

“That’s Germany,” Vinnie said. “Hey, they ought to have Nazi goose-steppers marching into all the other countries and taking over. Tanks and parachuters and everything! Blitzkrieg!” We erupted into laughter again but this time nobody even turned around.

“Instead of that guy yodeling on the mountaintop, Switzerland should show all the corrupt dictators at Swiss banks with the money they stole.” Vinnie looked at me funny.

“Arab countries!” he said as we passed into a new area. “Take your pick. Suicide bombers, harems, kids throwing rocks. Hey, these people are all starting to look the same. Where the hell are we?”

We sailed into a new area that was unmistakably Africa. “Uh oh,” I said. “A lot of material to work with in here.”

“For one thing, that elephant shouldn’t be standing. He’d be lying on his side with his tusks gone.”

“They could have a bunch of those flies circling around him like the bee hives on Critter Falls.”

“This must be Mexico,” he said a few moments later. “Where are the people wading across the Rio Grande?”

“Where are the South American drug cartels?”

“Are we in the rainforest now? There should be smoke and bulldozers!” We both burst out laughing, prompting another glare from up front.

“Shh,” Marcie said. “You’re spoiling it for the kids.”

We were either out of ideas or just felt guilty enough to keep our mouths shut for the rest of the ride. Just before we unloaded we crashed into the boat ahead of us, which had bottomed out. Several workers appeared out of nowhere and heaved until it was again bobbing toward the exit with us right behind them.

“The wildest ride in the widderness!” crowed Kyle from the front of the boat.

“You know what, Vinnie?” I asked when I could see daylight ahead. “If there was an American section, all the jokes we made about other countries would be there too. We’re no better than anybody else.”

He stared at me with his head cocked. “Even the elephant?”

~~~

“On to Teacups?” Marcie asked when we were back outside.

“Cups and Flying Saucers? I’d say so,” Nancy answered.

“I just can’t get over how the place filled up. There are people everywhere.”

“That’s why you have to get up and get here early like we did. Other wise don’t bother coming at all.”

Getting over to Flying Saucers took a few minutes, half of which was spent doubling back to find Kyle. I recognized the teacups style ride immediately when I saw it. Spinning rides usually didn’t agree with me.

“I don’t know,” Marcie said. “Are you sure you should go on this?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It doesn’t look like it spins that fast.” I was wrong. Katie, Justin and I split off into our own cup fifteen minutes later when we reached the front of the line. Justin must have been trying to show off for my daughter because he put his whole body into it and had our cup spinning at the speed of sound. I forced myself to look at the floor halfway through the ride, which helped combat the nausea. When it was over I staggered out of the cup and through the gate, hoping nobody noticed what a wreck I was. A giant chipmunk and his handler hopped aside when they saw I wasn’t stopping for anybody.

We collected ourselves against a wall that abutted a go-kart raceway. Exhaust fumes poured into our faces and down our throats. I tried to think about anything besides vomiting. “It’s three-thirty,” I heard Nancy say. “By the time we get across the park to Buccaneers we might not even make our fast pass time. What do want to do? We’re coming back here for another day. We could always leave it for then.”

“I’m done for the day,” I admitted without elaborating. “I’m all for going back to the hotel.” Thankfully everybody agreed. Amazingly, we saw when we reached the entrance there were still more people coming into the park than going out. We could have walked back but instead we rode the monorail, which deposited us in the ice-cold lobby of our own hotel. Everybody else was talking about changing clothes and heading to the pool. I just wanted to crank up the air conditioning and lay down on the bed.

Chapter 7

“Nice place. Not too much squirrel around here at all,” I said as we stood in the doorway of The Milky Way waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. There were small bunches of people, mostly middle-aged sunburned dads looking for some down time. Some were perched on stools at the bar while others clustered in upholstered chairs around small tables. Many had vacant looks on their faces much like I’d seen in pictures of battle-fatigued soldiers as they came off the front. They were probably the ones finishing up their first day at Snodgrass.

“Yeah, it’s just a regular bar. I noticed it when I hit the gym while everyone else was at the pool. I stopped in after I worked out and had a beer and a basket of fries,” Vinnie told me. “I tried the wings special too. That’s why I was late for dinner. But you know me, I never take a day off. Winners never quit. Use it or lose it. No pain, no gain.”

“Must have been some workout.”

Even though I doubted that he’d worked very hard in the gym I was secretly in awe that he even made the effort to go. It was more than I was up to after a grueling day in the Enchanted Empire, especially after topping it off with the teacups fiasco. All I’d done is push everybody out the door to the pool, taken most of my clothes off, and sprawled on my back in the air conditioning. Even after a refreshing dinner of micro-waved chicken and reheated potato wedges in the cafeteria I still felt drained. I had mixed feelings when Vinnie came knocking later but he convinced me to go out for a few cold ones.

“This is going to be great. We can do this every night if we want. We can get as sloshed as we want and the ride the elevator home. Can’t beat that, you know? How are you feeling anyway? Justin really had your cup flying. That’s my boy!”

I glared at him. “That he did. I was fine.”

“Did you notice how he and Katie were looking kind of cozy today? What’s up with that? That’s my boy!”

“I can tell you’ve never had a daughter. Let’s leave it alone for now.”

“Sure, whatever you say. So this place is alright, huh?”

“It looks alright to me. The only thing that bothers me is that homeless guy over there. He’s sitting right underneath the A.C. vent.”

“Homeless guy? What are you talking about? He’s just a guy on vacation. Besides, what do you care where he sits?”

“He doesn’t look too clean and he doesn’t care what anybody thinks. Look what he’s doing with his hand. The air from the vent washes over him and then circulates around the whole place. It’s like a jet stream of filth.”

“A jet stream of filth? Where do you get this stuff? I need to get a couple beers into you fast. Come on, let’s sit at the bar.”

I followed him through the tables and we both hopped onto empty bar stools. He grabbed a handful of peanuts from a wooden bowl and jammed most of them into his mouth. “These are good. Real salty,” he said as he pushed the bowl in front of me.

“You’ve got to be kidding. You don’t know who had their hands in there. Probably the homeless guy from under the vent.”

“I’ll have a draft, whatever’s good,” Vinnie told the bartender. I ordered a bottle of Heineken. “I always get it in a bottle. One less step for somebody to rub their grubby hands on something that goes in my mouth.”

“You are something else,” he said, shaking his head. “They say it’s actually good for you to have a few germs around. It helps you build up amenity. You know, immunobodies. You’re like the boy in the bubble. Why are you so afraid of germs?”

“I’m not afraid of germs. I know a few germs can’t hurt me.”

“So you’re not afraid to lick my fingers after they’ve been in that bowl? How about the nuts? Are you afraid to lick my nuts?”

“I just don’t want anybody else’s filth near me. Or in me. There’s a difference.”

“But a few germs aren’t going to hurt you, dude,” he persisted.

The bartender plopped a glass mug of beer in front of Vinnie and a bottle in front of me. “We’ll run a tab,” Vinnie told him. He nodded and walked away.

“Did you not hear what I just said?” I continued after the bartender was out of range. “It’s not the germs. Look, if I know a guy just ate a spicy bean burrito with guacamole sauce before he went to the movies, I don’t want to sit in the same seat after he leaves. Who knows what’s happening on that seat while he’s in it? I just don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to sit in it, I don’t want it on my clothes, and I definitely don’t want to bring it home with me into my own house. Not because of the germs. Because of the filth. Okay?” I slugged down some beer and put the bottle back on the bar a little more loudly than I intended to.

“Alright, alright. No offense, okay?” he said. “It’s all good.”

“Whatever. No biggie.”

“I won’t bring it up again.”

“Great.”

“Nope. Not me. I’m done. You won’t hear me talking about your fear of germs again.”

I took another sip of beer. This time when I slammed the bottle it wasn’t an accident.

“So Nancy’s pretty intense, huh?” he asked. “Tougher than a drill sergeant at boot camp, I always say. At least the ones on T.V. Were you okay with her today? You know, Flappy or Die?”

“It was fun,” I answered. Nancy and everything else was easier to take after chugging the rest of my beer in a single gulp. “It was nice to have an expert leading us around. Intense is the word, though.”

“Not everybody can handle her. You know the Delaneys, right? They live on the street behind us.”

“They have a daughter Katie’s age, I think.”

“Could be. You’d have to ask Justin. He’s the ladies man, but I guess you know that after today, right buddy? We came down here with them one year. They couldn’t take it. After one day they wouldn’t go to the parks with us anymore.”

“That bad?”

“Worse. The whole family looked like they were having a heart attack every five seconds the first day we hit the parks. So the next night, after they went off on their own for a day, I was talking to Dan. Get this. They were in the Enchanted Empire for eleven hours and they got on like two rides the whole time, and they waited two hours to get a table for lunch. Two hours! There aren’t enough people in the entire state that it should take two hours to get a table. They’re just too damn polite to make it in Snodgrass. Too polite and too nice. They let the crowds eat them up. You have to check your manners at the door if you’re going to survive here. Otherwise don’t waste your money. Just go to some lame state park or go camping or something when it’s time for vacation.”

“I just stare at the ground and count to ten when it gets to be too much,” I confessed. “I can’t complain. Thanks to Nancy we didn’t miss anything at all today. And she’s like a walking guidebook.”

“And that’s just half the park. We won’t miss anything when we go back for the other half either. Not if she has anything to do with it.”

“Here here,” I said, raising my bottle.

“NFL preseason,” Vinnie said as he glanced at the game on the television. “Could there be anything more meaningless? I guess the league makes a lot of money putting on these games that don’t even matter.”

I watched as men trotted onto the field carrying their fluorescent orange down-marker posts as though they were medics rushing to fallen soldiers on a battlefield. “I hate all the phony theatrics with those first down markers. Like they really need those things out on the field to know if they made it.”

“What are you talking about? Of course they do. The sticks measure exactly ten yards. They can’t go by the hash marks on the field. The marks could be imperfect.”

“Answer me this, then. How do the guys know where to put the sticks after they run out on the field? By the hash marks on the field, that’s how. All they need is one guy with a twelve-inch ruler. It’s all about the drama.”

“Yeah, but the chain between the sticks is exactly ten yards. It’s a great system. What time is it, anyway? About ten o’clock? Maybe we should think about getting back.”

“I’m in no hurry. Before we came down I saw the worst sight known to married man. I’d rather be here.”

“What was it?”

“Tampon wrappers in the bathroom trash can.”

“Dear lord. Bartender! Could we get a couple more here?”

“Don’t startle him. I don’t see a defibrillator anywhere in here. He’ll dodder over eventually.”

“Good point. We don’t want him breaking a hip on our account. That’s bad news about the trash, partner. There’s nothing tougher to deal with, especially when you’re on vacation.”

“I pretty much already knew before I saw it. All day long I was getting morose questions and introspective thoughts about what a louse I am. It always starts with drama day.”

“I hear you. And you know where it’s all coming from but God help you if you accidentally mention it.”

“A major no-no.”

You have to play along and pretend that all of a sudden everything in your lives really did fall apart.”

“I couldn’t help hearing what you guys were talkin’ about,” the bartender said after making his way back over to us. He slapped three shot glasses on the bar alongside our next round of beers. “Sounds like you could use a chaser.” He expertly poured Jim Beam into each shot glass without waiting for an answer.

“Thanks much, barkeep,” Vinnie told him.

“I’m glad I’m past all that,” the bartender said. “The first day was always the worst. The wife and I’ve been together for fifty-two years now. That’s a lot of first days.”

“It seems like they’re the last one to figure out what’s happening,” I vented. “It happens every month and it’s the same pattern every time. Shouldn’t they catch on after twenty or so years that maybe it’s not me, it’s the hormones?”

He smiled. “That’s a mighty tall order. It’s just how they’re wired. Look at it this way. Next time you’re in a bad mood, ask yourself ‘what’s my excuse?’”

“Maybe, but I can’t take another solemn conversation about everything I do wrong. I think I’ll be okay with it in the morning.”

“You’ll get through it. Just go slow. My name’s Stan. Stan Goestenkors. Just call me Stan.”

“Okay, Stan. I’m Dave Jevik and this is Vinnie Zandanel.”

“Nice meetin’ you fellows.”

“Speak of the goddamned devil,” Vinnie suddenly said. “Look who just rolled in.” I turned my head in time to see George Van Morrison being pushed up to a table by the same lackey we’d seen with him the day before.

“This is starting to get weird,” I said. “He’s on the plane, he’s at our hotel, and now he’s at our bar?”

“The cue ball in the rollin’ chair? He’s nothin’ but a pain in the ass. He was in here last night. First guy I ever knew who sent a bottle of beer back because it wasn’t fresh enough. What the hell does that even mean? He sent his messenger boy to return it. Didn’t drink the next one I gave him anyway. I doubt he’s ever had a beer in his life. Just doesn’t look like the type. He’s too good for it. You know him?”

“Only by sight. He’s from Indiana, same as us. You tell him, Vinnie.”

“His name is Van Morrison. He tripped over his own feet on the sidewalk in front of my friend’s restaurant and now he’s suing.”

“Van Morrison? Isn’t that the hippie with the guitar?”

“George Van Morrison,” I said. “He’s the guy who falls on sidewalks.”

“So that’s what the wheel chair’s all about?”

“And the neck brace. Dave and I were hoping we’d catch him doing something to show he’s faking it. We know he is. He’s got to be. But the only place we’ve seen him so far is on the plane and here in the hotel. Not much room for him to cut loose.”

“Could just be he doesn’t get out much,” Stan said as he refilled the shot glasses with bourbon.

“He’s only been here one day,” I countered.

“Maybe the trick is to follow him,” Vinnie said. “When it comes right down to it there are only two ways out of this place. He could go through the front entrance or the back entrance. It’s not like he’d be hard to spot, with his wheels and his posse.”

“First of all, that’s not true. There are a lot of other ways in and out. You can’t possibly cover every door on every floor. Unless you brought your kids and were plannin’ on puttin’ them to work. Bottoms up, fellas,” Stan said, hoisting his shot glass.

Vinnie and I nodded obligingly. “Yeah. Besides,” Vinnie said. “What would we tell our wives? They didn’t come here to play spy.”

“Say, I’ve got an idea,” Stan said. “I know people all over this place. Been working here damned long enough that I ought to know every last one of them. I bet I could get every door covered for you.”

“You’d do that for us?”

“Sure I would. But only because he sent back my beer last night. I don’t know what good it’ll do you, but I can do it,” he answered before shuffling down the counter to help another customer. After he’d made change he picked up a phone next to the ice machine.

“Look at him. I’ll bet he’s setting it up now,” I said. “But how would this work? Are they going to call us if they spot him? What if we’re already gone? And what will we do, follow him?”

“Let’s just play it by ear. Nancy’s not going to go for the idea of setting our schedule around wherever Van Morrison rolls off to. She’s got every day planned out to the second.”

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world if we never saw him again. I’m sure he’s not dumb enough to go horseback riding or anything like that. Just tell your friend we took our best shot.” We watched the game in silence until Stan hung up the phone and walked over to us.

“You guys are in luck. I just learned all about Mr. Dandy over there. He’s been givin’ the staff a hard time everywhere he goes. Nobody around here can do anythin’ right if you ask him. He’s already made plenty of enemies here that would be happy to help you boys out.” Before he could explain one of the smiling, nodding barmaids signaled him from the electronic cash register. “Hold on. I’ve got to educate that smilin’, noddin’ barmaid. Be right back.”

“This ought to be good,” I said. “I hope he picks up the pace. It’s getting late.”

We watched Stan show the smiling, nodding barmaid how to ring in an order. When he came back Vinnie and I leaned over the bar at him and waited.

“I remembered somethin’ from last night,” he said. “He made damn sure we knew he’s stayin’ on the concierge floor. Mentioned it every chance he got.”

“What’s that, the floor where the invalids stay?” Vinnie asked.

Stan laughed. “No, it’s where guests pay about six hundred extra dollars a day for a few donuts for breakfast and a bottle of beer at night. Oh, and a complimentary set of complimentary park maps. The same ones you can get at the front desk for free. And there’s somebody up there to point them in the direction of Snodgrass World in case they need it.”

“Nancy told me about that floor,” Vinnie said. “She said it was for first-timers and suckers.”

“I’m not allowed to agree with you,” Stan said. “Company policy. I just called upstairs to the concierge on duty, who I happen to know very well. She confirmed that a George Van Morrison is stayin’ with them.”

“That’s no surprise,” I said. “We pegged him as a guy who travels first class all the way.”

“There’s somethin’ else that the concierge does for guests up on that floor. They can help with any schedulin’, reservations or pretty much any kind of vacation plannin’. And it turns out that fancy-pants over there asked for a lot of help.”

“So?” Vinnie asked.

“So we know his schedule for the entire week. Or at least somebody up there knows. They’re callin’ me back as soon as they check his file. All this is on the Q.T., of course.”

“The Q.T.?” demanded Vinnie.

“It’s all confidential,” I said before turning back to Stan. “You can tell us what he’s doing tomorrow?”

“Probably. Not yet, but soon.”

“Mr. G.!” called the smiling, nodding barmaid. “Phone’s for you.”

“There it is. Be right back.”

“This is great!” Vinnie said. “Is this an incredible break or what? All we have to do is keep an eye on him tomorrow. If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work. But we really can take our best shot now. It’ll be cake.”

“So long as he’s going where we’re going.”

“Check it out, here comes that smiling, nodding barmaid. Wow, look at those cans!”

“Chill out, will you? You’re in Snodgrass.”

“No, I mean, look on her tray. Is that the new Budweiser logo?”

Stan hung up the phone and came back over. “He’s goin’ to SEPWAR tomorrow,” he said when he finally reached us. “He has eight o’clock breakfast reservations in the Motion Ocean Center. I guess he likes fish with his eggs. He’s here all week if SEPWAR doesn’t work for you.”

“What does SEPWAR mean again?” I asked.

“I think it stands for stuffy educational park with a few rides,” Vinnie said.

“You’re not far off. I can get the rest of his schedule tomorrow. I’ll keep you men posted.”

~~~

“I really liked that guy,” I said to Vinnie as we waited for the elevator a few minutes later. “Even before he tipped us off about Van Morrison.”

“That was some lucky break. I don’t know where we’re going tomorrow but I’ll try to talk Nancy into SEPWAR.”

“Just try to make her think it was her idea.”

“Yeah, that’s the trick. You catch on fast. I’m sure we were going there anyway, just not tomorrow.”

“Stan really helped me feel better. I’ve got to tell you.”

“He’ll help us deal with Van Morrison too.” By then we were off the elevator and at our rooms. “I’ll see you at sunup, baby,” he said. “It’ll be spying time.”

Chapter 8

The next morning Vinnie filled me in on what happened while we were strolling through the lobby on the way to the bus stop in front of the hotel. Nancy had agreed to the change in plans, but only if we squeezed in a jaunt to Snodgrass Bazaar for a round of shopping before continuing to SEPWAR. He’d signed off on the plan knowing that both Marcie and I would go for it, albeit for different reasons. Marcie wasn’t one to pass up a chance to shop.

As we passed the check-in counter I became aware of a strange whirring hum coming from behind us. I hadn’t yet identified the source when Marcie stopped cold and yanked Ellie backwards by her collar. Moments later two electric scooters whizzed by, inches in front of us. Each was driven by a sour-faced fifty-something, their bodies pouring over the edge of their seats. “Cool!” Kyle shrieked as he caught the sunglasses that had blown off his face. “How come we don’t get motorcycles Dad?”

“That was close,” Katie said as she smoothed her hair and pushed it behind her ears. “Don’t you need a license to drive those things?”

“You ain’t kidding,” Vinnie said as we watched the scooters plow through a crowd and into the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet without slowing down. “Slow down lady!”

“What’s going on with these scooters, Nancy?” Marcie asked as she took my arm and turned me gently toward the exit. “Yesterday in the park I felt like I was walking across I-70. They’re all over the place.”

“I don’t know,” Nancy admitted. “I guess Snodgrass doesn’t want to tell anybody ‘No’ if they want to ride instead of walk.”

“And they probably make a ton of dough renting those things out,” I added, thankful that Marcie and I were on speaking terms.

We walked through the automatic glass doors into a hot, wet blast of air. The heat was still a novelty at that time of day, especially after a night of air-conditioning, but I knew I’d be wringing wet and sick of it in an hour. Even though it wasn’t much past seven there were already plenty of people in various lines at the bus stop. We found the one for Snodgrass Bazaar and filed in between steel barriers. After we settled in I counted bodies ahead of us.

“Looks like we’ll make it on the first bus,” Vinnie remarked after doing the same.

“I’d say so.”

“Too bad we couldn’t have tacked this on at the end of the day instead of the beginning. This is the only time all day that we know exactly where Van Morrison will be.”

“Van Morrison,” Marcie chuckled.

“Maybe if we get the shopping over with early enough there’s still time. His reservation isn’t until around nine, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. Fat chance of that, but it’s our only hope. If we get there after breakfast he could be anywhere, if he stays in the park at all. But let’s face it. The shopping isn’t going to be done by nine.”

“We’ll find him. He stands out in the crowd. He makes sure of it.”

“Let’s hope,” he answered. “Do you know how big SEPWAR is? It’s like four times as big as the Enchanted Empire.”

By then a bus had pulled into the lane and was belching blue exhaust fumes into Sunny Florida. I tapped Kyle, who climbed back over the barrier and joined us in line just as the bus door was about to open. But it didn’t.

“They have to stay on their schedule,” Nancy explained. “Even if they’re early.”

Before anybody answered I heard the now-familiar whirring from the direction of the building. I looked in time to see the scooterized version of Hell’s Angels barreling menacingly out through the doorway riding three abreast. They buzzed behind us looking like they weren’t taking any prisoners before circling around and screeching to a halt directly in front of the still-closed bus doors. “Which one’s Peter Fonda?” I asked.

“I’ve had it with all these slimy old bags,” Vinnie snapped, venom dripping from his words.

“Geez, that’s a little harsh, isn’t it?” Marcie said. “They’re people, Vinnie.”

“What? No, I mean the paper sacks from the pickles they sell inside in that shop. A big wad of them just blew under the bus.”

After they stopped I recognized the leader as one of the two riders that had nearly run us down in the lobby. The bus expelled a loud blast of air before its doors spread wide. “Oh, now they open up,” Vinnie grumbled as the riders hopped off their scooters one by one.

The floor of the bus entryway slid outward and descended towards the sidewalk like something on the Death Star. “Did I say Peter Fonda? Make that Darth Vader.”

One of the scooter people jumped nimbly onto the sinking floor and disappeared inside the bus. We could hear him snarling instructions at the driver while the others mulled around in front of the lines. “There are six of them,” I pointed out. “Does that bump us off the next bus?”

“We were here first. I’m sure they don’t get to go to the front of the line,” Vinnie answered. I could hear the doubt in his voice.

“Yeah, right. This is Snodgrass, Vinnie. Besides, there’s nobody in charge here. Are you going to be the one to push them aside?”

Before he could answer the driver emerged from the bus and eyed the scooters that were arrayed in front of him. He looked us over before he trudged to the closest one, swung his leg over and started it up. By the time he’d driven it up the ramp and into the bus the scooter gang had scattered. Some walked back inside the hotel but most wandered nearby. One unfurled a cloth napkin to reveal a mountain of buns and rolls which must have come from the breakfast spread at the buffet. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Those scooters ride inside the bus with us,” Nancy said. “The driver has to strap each of them down. We’re not leaving for twenty minutes, at least. And that’s if we make the first bus. We might not with the late arrivals.”

“So much for catching Van Morrison at breakfast,” I muttered to Vinnie. “That’s not happening now.”

~~~

We didn’t make that first bus after all but another one pulled in as soon as the first had departed with the scooter people. The shopping trip went pretty much as expected. We grabbed some bagels at a stand near the entrance. Then Vinnie and I found some space with the other dads on the shopping-widower benches along the main walkway. Justin and Kyle showed up within twenty minutes and in another fifteen Katie and Ellie appeared. For some reason Sam stuck it out with his mother.

We were all shocked when the shoppers showed up empty-handed an hour later. “Just looking?” I asked.

“Please,” Nancy answered. “They can send everything we bought directly back to the hotel.”

“How thoughtful of them.”

“Should we take off?” Vinnie asked.

“I think so,” Nancy answered. “This’ll be our last bus ride. We can take the monorail back to the hotel since it runs there from SEPWAR.”

“Hey Nancy,” I asked as we headed for the bus stop. “This is your second day without pulling out the stroller. Change of strategy?”

“No, it’s just a matter of having the right tool for the job. Flappy or Die is all about speed and agility, not blunt force. We’d never have made it if we had a stroller to drag along. And SEPWAR is so spread out that clearing a path usually isn’t an issue. Don’t worry, I’ll put it to use soon.”

~~~

SEPWAR had been open for hours when we got there so there were no lines to wait in. We knew Van Morrison had finished breakfast ninety minutes earlier so there was no point in hustling over to the Motion Ocean Center to look for him. If he was still in SEPWAR at all, the only way we’d find him would be by random chance.

“Can we go in the big ball first?” Kyle asked as we approached the eleven-story geodesic dome after entering the park.

“You mean Communication Journey,” his mother corrected. “No, we’ll save that for later when the park’s more crowded. Communication Journey lines move really fast. We should do the most popular rides first. I was thinking Road Kill or Mission Pluto. Those might be the slowest two lines here.”

“Pluto!” Kyle yelled.

“I tell you what,” Vinnie said. “Everybody give me your ticket. I’ll go get fast passes for Road Kill while you do Mission Pluto. Then we can just walk onto Road Kill afterwards.”

“Are you sure?” Marcie asked. “Don’t you want to do Pluto?”

“Not really. Especially so close to breakfast. I can’t take that ride.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re wimping out?”

“Get back to me in an hour, pal, after you come off the ride. I saw you yesterday. You were about to turn Flying Saucers into Flying Sauces. This ride is like Saucers on steroids. You may be singing a different tune.”

~~~

“Is it as bad as Vinnie was saying?” I asked Nancy after we’d been in line for about fifteen minutes. Maybe he knew what he was talking about. He was right. I’d barely survived the teacups ride the day before.

“He has a tough time with spinning rides like this one. Have you ever seen how a centrifuge works?”

“Oh boy.” I remembered the appliance from chemistry class that spun test tubes so fast that solid particles separated out of liquids. That visual was interrupted by the jarring smack of something heavy between my shoulder blades. I figured Kyle was entertaining himself by hurling his body against mine but when I turned there was nobody there but a teenager wearing a backpack.

“See those people flying by in the other line?” Nancy asked.

“All those senior citizens, you mean?”

“Yeah. That’s the non-motion version of the ride. Vinnie was thinking about going that route this year.”

“It just sits there? Like a movie? I can make it on the real ride,” I declared as I checked the growing queue behind us. The teen behind me must have wondered what I was looking at because he twisted the same way. His backpack slammed into my gut, its velocity boosted by the slingshot effect as he whipped his body around. I stumbled into Nancy, who pushed back.

“That’s twice now. Switch it up. I’ll handle this,” she commanded as she motioned for me to get out of her way.

“Really, it’s okay. I’m fine.”

“The line’s not moving,” Sam whined from somewhere ahead of us.

“I know,” Ellie chimed in. “I’m hungry.”

“There’s a lot to look at,” Marcie told them courageously. “Look, that shows what it’s like to live on a space station,” she said as she pointed to a display on the wall.

Which one of those gadgets turns urine into water, I wondered. But what I was really thinking about was what to expect when I stepped onto Mission Pluto, a moment that was fast approaching. Vinnie wasn’t the type to back away from any challenge but he’d found an honorable way to skip this ride. Was I up to it?

Nancy must have stared down the teenagers down because there were no more backpack assaults. Our group was split into two different rocket ships after we reached the head of the line. I would travel to Pluto with Justin, Katie and two men from India. It wasn’t long before the hatch was closed and Lieutenant Dan was on the cockpit display screen to brief us. Our crew positions were determined by the seat we occupied. I would serve as commander. The heads of our Indian shipmates swiveled and bobbed and their eyes darted around the compartment as the duties of each crew member were explained. Sure that any buttons I pushed were merely for show and would have no effect on the ride, I knew I could have some fun at their expense.

Suddenly the compartment rumbled and vibrated and we were treated to a vertical view of the launch pad gantry on the screen. A few seconds after liftoff I was ordered to “engage second stage rocket,” but I only waved my hand harmlessly at the control panel. Both Indians alternated their glares between me and the controls. When I flashed my sickliest smile they chattered furiously at each other in their own language. Despite the obvious progress of the mission they continued to watch me closely, apparently concerned that I was a saboteur.

I ignored the torrent of buzzwords and astro-speak from Lieutenant Dan as we cruised over Florida and left the Earth’s atmosphere. My nausea problems started just as the Indians high-fived one another after one had masterfully pulled off the “slingshot around the moon.” I stayed calm until Justin the Engineer activated hyper-sleep, which is when I realized I was in serious trouble. After another minute I’d never felt so sick in my life and I understood what Vinnie had been worried about. I eyed the barf bag that hung beneath the console. Until then I’d thought it was just a prop. Was it real?

It came as no surprise that the trip to Pluto ended with a dramatic, treacherous but of course ultimately successful landing after a near-descent into a bottomless chasm. Presumably the NASA planners either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t been concerned about the proximity of the chasm when selecting the landing site. As the capsule was tossed about I noticed that one of the Indians was also fixated on the barf bag. The only barf bag. Should I grab it before he did? Which was worse? Losing out on the barf bag grab, winning the barf bag grab, or puking my guts out onto the floor?

I knew I could never survive the trip back to Earth. I reached for the bag after Lieutenant Dan cheerfully confirmed that we’d landed safely. That’s when the miracle happened. Without any explanation as to why we were being marooned on a distant planet the cockpit doors opened and our seatbelts unlocked. I skillfully altered the trajectory of my hand so it came to rest innocuously on the console before anybody was the wiser. The Indian man did exactly the same. Our eyes met and we shared a private mind-chuckle of mutual understanding as we left the ship.

~~~

“You’re looking a little green there, buddy!” Vinnie roared as we came off the ride and into the sun. “How’d the mission go?”

“I’m still in the danger zone. Can’t talk.”

“Just breathe deep. Next year you’ll be in the other line with me, won’t you? Just nod yes or no.”

“Did you get the fast passes?” Nancy interrupted.

“Yup. We can go anytime.”

Nancy grabbed the passes and squinted at them. “We have a ninety minute window here. We should fill in the gaps with anything that has a quick line.”

“Giant ball!” shrieked Kyle.

“You mean Communication Journey?”

“How about something that doesn’t move?” I suggested.

“We could go into the Earth Center,” Marcie said.

“You mean Agrarian Center?” Nancy asked. “We could do that. There’s not that much going on in there except for Airborne but we can check it off the list.”

The long slow journey across the park helped settle my stomach. I lingered until I was behind the rest of the group so there was even less pressure to walk fast in the growing heat. I was almost back to normal until we were halfway up the ramp into Agrarian Center, which was longer and steeper than it looked. The exertion set me back a few minutes but I knew by then that I’d recover. Nothing could have felt better than the icy blast of air as we walked inside.

“What’s wrong with Airborne, anyway?” I asked. “Is it new?”

“It’s been around at Snodgrass Land in California,” Nancy explained. “They just brought it here last year. It’s an awesome ride but the line is killer. If we want to do it we’d have to come back later.”

“I heard it’s pretty good,” Marcie said. “It’s like a hang-glider ride all around California.”

We circled around the huge concourse and squeezed onto an escalator that took us down a level. A troupe of dancing fruits on a stage entertained the people in a food court in one corner. Most everybody else was pushing toward what could only be Airborne. “Don’t even think about it,” Nancy warned. “If we hustle we can do the water ride. The line doesn’t look too bad.”

We walked over to a line that wasn’t very long, but turned out to be on the slow side. “This is where they show us how they grow the giant pumpkins, right Nance?” Vinnie asked. “Or something about plants, anyway.”

We reached the front of the line but before we could board a boat the worker held up her hand and fastened a rope across our path. “Come on,” she called to her left as she waved somebody forward. A man in a wheel chair pushed by a teenager rolled in front of us and stopped just before going over the side and into the water track. “You’ll have to transfer here,” the smiling worker said to the man in the chair.

“Transfer?” the elderly man said in a gravelly whisper.

“Yes. Into the boat.”

“What? I can’t walk into the boat! Can’t you see I’m in a goddamned wheel chair?”

The worker with the eternal grin reached for a phone and started pushing buttons. Nancy smirked. “She’s probably never seen somebody in a wheel chair that can’t hop out of it when the time is right.”

“What’s he supposed to do?” I asked. Before anybody could answer the teenager turned the chair on a dime and rolled it back in the direction he came from.

“Right this way,” the smiling worker said as she unfastened the rope and stood aside. I watched their progress until the chair was parked in the front row at the dancing fruit show. There would be no water ride for them today.

~~~

The boat sailed through some dioramas that depicted various dusty, barren landscapes and then we were in a high tech greenhouse. There were plants growing in sand, plants growing in water and plants growing while suspended in midair. A cadre of scientists busily tended the crops and monitored instruments. We floated past a botanist in goggles with her hair tied back. She was oblivious to us as she harvested a crop of bulbous, multicolored vegetables and sorted them by size onto plastic carts.

“Look at the melons on that one!” Vinnie said loud enough for everyone on the boat, as well as the botanist, to hear.

“What?” he asked helplessly as passengers turned backwards to get a look at him. “What’s everybody looking at? Those aren’t cantaloupes on the front cart?”

On the way back to the boat landing we passed through a series of glass tanks containing a lot of cramped, unhappy fish and very little water. A groan went up when the boat driver informed us that fish from this very room were served at the restaurant in the Motion Ocean Center.

“I thought you were kidding about the giant pumpkin,” I said to Vinnie as we walked off the boat.

“Wow, the wait time for Airborne is up to ninety minutes,” Marcie said.

“We’re done in here,” Nancy announced. “The Agrarian: check.”

“Can we do Road Kill now?” Kyle demanded.

Nancy looked at her watch. “The window is still open. We can check something else off the list and still use our fast passes for Road Kill. How about Communication Journey?”

“The giant ball?”

We joined a growing stream of people toward the front of the park. I could easily identify the ones that would keep on going out the exit. They walked slower with heads hung, carried their bags instead of stowing them under strollers or in backpacks, and generally had a beaten look in their eyes. Instead of staying together, the stronger members of each group surged ahead of the weak, looking back only occasionally. As our group peeled off into the cattle chutes for Communication Journey my eyes met those of a young mother on her way to the exit. I wasn’t sure who envied who.

Nancy was right. There was no line at all for Communication Journey. We walked inside and barely had time to sort ourselves into groups and climb into the shiny plastic cars which would take us to the top of the ball and back. When the car tilted back in the cool darkness I realized how tired I was but I kept my eyes open. We spent the next twenty minutes tracing the history of communication. The stench of the burning Roman Empire snapped me out of my daze. I laughed out loud as we passed a mannequin of black woman wearing knee-high boots and a beach ball-sized afro running a seventies-era computer system. Somehow it was all wrapped up on the way back down with a snappy summary of how InfoMetrix Incorporated had saved the world by enabling us to communicate.

When we were all off the ride we met up outside. “Five minutes left,” Nancy said. “We better get going over to Road Kill. Double time.”

“Let’s go!” Kyle shouted as he broke into a sprint right past the sign that indicated to the rest of us Road Kill was in the opposite direction.

Chapter 9

“What’s going on by the fountain?” Vinnie asked. “Looks like some nutty woman’s about to take a bath.”

“What would they do?” Katie asked. “She can’t do that can she?”

“I’m sure they’ll throw her out.”

“I don’t think she’s diving in,” Marcie said. “She’s got something in her hands.”

“Hold on,” Vinnie said, holding his arms out to stop the rest of us. “Wouldn’t it be funny if it’s a bomb or something?”

“She’s got a bomb!” a man behind us immediately yelled. “Someone said she’s got a bomb!” I turned around in time to see him dragging a little boy in the opposite direction. Half of the people around us walked or ran away but the space was quickly filled in by curious cynics.

Two security guards burst through the crowd. “I don’t think it’s a bomb,” I heard Marcie say as I watched the guards, who moved quickly past us. “Look what she’s doing.”

One of the guards raised a walkie-talkie his mouth and barked into it. “What did he say?” I asked Vinnie.

“It sounded like ‘HEPA Cleanup.’”

“That’s what I heard too. What the hell does that mean?”

Marcie turned to face us. “I think she’s got somebody’s ashes in the box. She’s got a creepy look on her face.” Just after she said it the woman on the fountain ledge began pulling handfuls of grey dust from the box and throwing it at the water. Some of it actually made it there. Most of it wafted over the crowd, which began to groan and stampede away. I heard somebody shouting that it was anthrax. She had repeated the process at least two dozen times before a crew of workers in hazmat suits appeared out of nowhere from the opposite side of the fountain. When the ash scatterer saw them she turned the box upside down and shook it over the water, generating an expansive cloud of drifting DNA.

When the guards reached her she hopped down voluntarily. The hazmat team pulled the box from her hands and sealed it into a steel chamber as she was ushered away.

“Wow,” Vinnie said. “What kind of freak does something like that?”

~~~

We used our fast passes to bypass the Road Kill line, which wound through a world of crash test dummies. After a short wait we were routed into a sealed room for the dreaded pre-show. As the lights dimmed I heard Nancy whispering to Marcie. “Check it out, seven o’clock. Japanese guy and his daughter.”

I saw them creeping along the wall in the back of the room. “Wormers,” I breathed. Nancy nodded her approval at me.

“I can hardly blame them,” I whispered. “Who wants to sit through this?”

“They’re just looking to get in the car sooner. I’m in a good mood or we’d slide back and get in the way. They wouldn’t know what hit them.”

When the pre-show was over the door opened and the Japanese pair passed through it first as if they had been shot out of a cannon. We were herded into chutes and after a dozen cars passed through we boarded one. My head jerked back when the vehicle took off without warning to begin testing, which theoretically mimicked those that Regal Motors used to design their cars in the real world.

Almost immediately we raced down a cobblestone hill with the urgency of a roller coaster. By the time we reached the bottom my nausea was out of remission. We rounded a bend and took off at high speed for a demonstration of the virtues of antilock braking systems. Naturally, when we braked without ABS the car slid sideways and florescent cones flew through the air in all directions. When we tried it again with Regal Motors ABS the car stopped smoothly without disturbing any of its surroundings. Miraculous. “Isn’t this just a ride?” I asked Marcie as an authoritative voice lauded the benefits of ABS, especially Regal Motors ABS.

The car rolled into a heat chamber and then a deep freeze chamber to test the effects of extreme temperature. “The only difference was that everything was painted orange in the hot room and grey in the cold room,” I whispered.

“Look out!” a voice warned us. “Somebody must have left the robots turned on!” As it turned out there was no cause for alarm because the robot arms were tethered tightly to the wall and never came within twenty feet of us.

We eased past a pre-smashed SUV full of twisted, bloody crash-test dummies. “Boo! Boo! That stinks,” Nancy protested. “We used to get to watch the crash happen.”

I knew as soon as the vehicle accelerated directly at an imposing set of closed doors that the ride was about to reach climax. Amazingly, the doors flew open just as we were about to crash into them, and we burst out into sunlight and onto the elevated track that ringed the building. The wind rushed through our hair as the engine roared. An electronic digital readout stenciled above the track in fading paint indicated that we were traveling at 64.8 miles per hour. As we completed the lap I could hear Kyle howling with delight from somewhere behind me as we slowed and rolled back inside to disembark.

“That was awesome!” Vinnie said as we walked through a Regal Motors showroom on our way out.

“Maybe not what I needed after the space ride.”

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t any worse than riding to the mall with Nancy.” Curious, I peeked just in time to see the corners of Nancy’s mouth turn up slightly with pride.

~~~

“Where to now?” Vinnie asked.

“I think we should cross over and do Shrunken Heads,” Nancy said.

“Is anybody getting hungry?” Marcie asked. I knew she felt horrible but so far she was getting through the day without taking it out on anybody, me in particular. I slid over and put my arm around her waist.

“I am,” Katie said.

“We didn’t eat much breakfast,” I pointed out. “If we don’t get going we won’t max out our meal plan.” A man at a kiosk threw a huge inflated ball at Ellie before anybody answered. He jerked it back with a previously unseen cord just before it hit her but not before she fell down and skinned a knee trying to dodge it.

“How about in here?” Marcie asked, pointing at a fast-foodish looking restaurant we happened to be passing.

“The Mushroom of Progress,” Nancy said as I pulled Ellie back to her feet. “Not bad. They have everything.”

I looked at my watch as we filed inside. One-fifteen. No wonder everybody’s hungry. “I guess the lunch rush is over,” I remarked. “Doesn’t look too mobbed.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Vinnie agreed.

“Dave, I need Marcie to get your orders. Why don’t you take Katie and Kyle and go get us a table? I’ll still have plenty of hands to carry the grub.”

The three of us headed towards the dining section of the restaurant. “I’d feel kind of funny taking a table,” I said. “By the looks of that line it’ll be twenty minutes at least.”

“But at least we could sit,” Katie countered.

“But we shouldn’t hold a table until we need it. Look at all those people in line ahead of them. Besides, there’s hardly anybody over at the tables.” That was true enough, but as we got closer I started to see what was going on. At nearly every table sat a single lonely, foodless soul, usually under the age of eight. It was obvious that the least approachable member of each party had been sent to stake a claim by groups that were still in the food line. Anybody who looked cross eyed at these angelic young table hogs would be arrested on the spot. As I looked around our sightlines were crisscrossed by bands of people carrying trays of corn dogs and cups of French fries in search of a place to eat. That’s what happens when you don’t stake your claim.

“This is terrible!” I said. “The people with food don’t have a place to eat and the people at the tables have no food! What the—“

“So what?” Kyle asked.

“So, well, it’s stupid,” I told him. “That’s what.”

“You’re just like the Delaneys,” he said dismissively. “My dad says they’re a bunch of losers.”

I knew Kyle was right. If we didn’t want to end up like wandering, food-bearing nomads we’d have to play the game.

“I hope they get here soon,” I said after we won a footrace with a family burdened with unwieldy trays of food and snatched up the next available table. Every time a woeful group passed by with their lunch I was overcome by guilt. I could feel beads of sweat breaking out all over my body as I pretended to be engrossed in my tattered SEPWAR brochure. I was ready to pass out from the tension when the rest of our group finally arrived with lunch.

“We got a lot of food,” Marcie said.

“I can see that,” I answered as I looked over the six trays piled high with cardboard.

“You’re right. We’re not using our meal plan coupons fast enough.”

“This will help. I’ve never seen so many chicken nuggets in my life.”

“You mean chicken strips,” Kyle corrected. Up yours, dumbass, I thought but didn’t say.

Somehow the trays looked just as loaded twenty minutes later when we finished eating, but now the cardboard and wrappings were empty. It took six of us to heft the trays to a bank of trash receptacles which were being constantly emptied by bustling employees. The temperature was at least one hundred and fifty degrees when we stepped out into Florida. I looked forward to the late afternoon storm promised by the dark clouds that were already collecting in the distance.

The line for the Shrunken Heads show was wide and slow. Every five minutes we moved forward by about eight feet. The saving grace was that it was inside and everybody in line ignored the rules and sat on the floor, so the kids got a cool rest. Occasionally a solemn figure would be rolled past us in a wheel chair, pushed by an equally stoic handler. In most cases the chair was closely followed by a gleeful mob of approximately fifteen people who were somehow indispensable to the wheel chair occupant. Many members of these vital handicap support teams were adept at the rebel yell and other celebratory warbles as they raced past waving their fists in the air.

“I don’t remember this show,” I remarked. “What happens? What do they mean by ‘4-D’?”

“Basically it’s like ‘3-D’ but they throw water and stuff on you,” Vinnie explained.

“Gee, thanks for the spoiler alert, Mr. Z,” Katie said.

“Oops. Maybe they changed it.”

~~~

I was relieved to see a hint of water on the 3-D glasses that we were handed on our way into the theater. Maybe they do wash these things between uses. Unless it’s 4-D water from the last show. The show was enjoyable and I fully understood the term 4-D by the time it was over. Ellie had been in tears ever since the fifty foot snake lunged at us and was walking out with her hands clapped over her ears, but she shook it off admirably once we pitched our 3-D glasses into the bin and stepped outside.

“With all the wheel chair traffic I was hoping we’d see Van Morrison,” Vinnie said after sidling up beside me. “Do you think he’s still here?”

“Van Morrison,” Nancy chuckled.

“I doubt it,” I answered as we walked along an array of futuristic fountains and pools, away from the glass pyramid we’d just emerged from. “I’d say he’s long gone.”

“I thought we’d do Power Place next,” announced Nancy, who had dropped back from the head of the pack.

“Sounds good to me. I’m thinking about taking notes. Marcie and I were talking about throwing some solar panels on the roof. Maybe I can learn something useful while I’m on vacation.”

Vinnie stared at me. “You’re kidding? Like those hippies out in California or something? Cumbaya, Dave, cumbaya.”

“You don’t have to be a kook to think about solar energy.”

“You do know that BigGas sponsors Power Place right?” Nancy asked.

“So? They’re an energy company aren’t they?”

“They’re also the biggest oil company in the world. I’m just saying, don’t get your hopes up. Spoiler alert.”

“Why not? Solar energy is energy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, sort of. I guess,” Vinnie conceded.

“When are we going in the born air ride?” Sam asked.

“Whenever we feel like it,” Kyle snarled at him. I thought Sam was tired enough that he’d burst into tears but he just stared blankly at the geosphere.

“It’s almost four,” Marcie said. “Why is everybody still here? I thought it was supposed to be emptying out by now.”

“Maybe they all got here late like we did.” I put my arm around her as we walked. She’d suffered quietly all day.

“Looks like you and Vinnie are getting along pretty well,” she said.

“Yeah. How can that be? I thought I couldn’t stand the guy.”

“Maybe you never gave him a chance.”

“Hopefully we can wait inside at Power Place,” Nancy said as we walked past the gleaming BigGas signpost pointing us in the right direction. “They aren’t conserving any energy in there. It’ll be about fifty degrees max.”

“That’s what I like best about that place,” said Vinnie, he of the prominent ‘V’ of sweat on his grey William Squirrel tee shirt.

“Only eight minutes until showtime,” I said when we were close enough to read the electronic sign. We went inside, where it was dark and cold.

“Walk slow until your eyes adjust,” Nancy warned. “There are sweaty people wallowing on the floor all around you.”

“Same as I’m about to do,” Vinnie announced.

We groped our way to empty space and set up camp. When the pre-show began we were implored several times to stand up. It didn’t sound like anybody else did so we didn’t either. A giggling woman named Allie, who I recognized from a sit-com, cackled through a monologue made up of one ad-lib after another. I felt like I was traveling back in time as she stepped on her own lines. On purpose. She eventually got around to introducing her co-host, a cooperative and cheery scientist called Shill. We then boarded the vehicles that would take us on a tour of geological history that would explain all the mysteries of energy in fifteen minutes.

“I know it’s just schtick but I can’t take any more of these airheads,” I whispered to Marcie.

“Tough it out for twenty minutes.”

“That guy calls himself a scientist?”

“They’re actors.”

“Yeah, well why do they have to act like this? At least I know they’ll eventually have to talk about energy, even if it’s by accident.”

They did, but not the way I hoped. Each time Allie mentioned another form of energy Shill quickly batted it down while wearing an ever-growing grin.

“Solar? Maybe someday, but it’s not sunny everywhere and by the way, it’s expensive!”

“Wind? Maybe, someday, but it isn’t windy enough everywhere. And you’d need so many windmills! What would happen if the wind stopped blowing?”

“Nuclear? Maybe someday, but nuclear energy is expensive, and highly controversial!”

“Hydro-electric? Maybe, someday, but we’ve already dammed up the best sites, and it’s bad for the ecosystem.”

“Alternative energy provides for a tiny percentage of our needs but there are pros and cons for all these bogus types of energy,” Shill concluded.

“So what’s the answer?” Allie giggled. “What about the other ninety-nine point nine percent?”

“I’ve got two words for you. Fossil fuel. It’s the answer to every energy question, same as it was a hundred and twenty years ago! Same as it will be for the next five hundred years! We’re always pushing the limits of science.”

“Won’t we run out?”

“No way! They’re finding more sources every year! Oh, but of course the easy stuff’s already gone. It’ll cost more to get the rest of it. So don’t get bent out of shape when gas prices skyrocket. Just chalk it up to progress and technology!”

After a scary trip through a dark land of dinosaurs and really big green plants, the ones which would eventually turn into gas and oil, we were back outside squinting at the crowds.

“Still thinking about those solar panels?” Vinnie asked. “They’re expensive, you know. And highly controversial. Or is that nuclear?”

“Maybe I can set up a coal-fired power plant in the back yard.”

On the way to see the country pavilions in Showcase of Random Allied Countries Nancy insisted that we stop at Weird Soda! “It used to be a temporary little igloo but I think it’s permanent now.” We stepped inside and saw an array of soda fountains, the type that you see behind the counter of fast food restaurants. “Everybody get a cup. You can sample soda from all around the world. It’s free,” she added proudly.

Most of it was horrible and I couldn’t believe people in any country would drink it. One even appeared to have leaves in it. Some couldn’t be consumed without a fork. Occasionally I stumbled across one that tasted, well, interesting. Kyle loudly created a concoction comprised of a squirt from every soda in the building. I thought he should take it outside and find a bathroom before he drank it just in case it went badly, but he stood in the center of the igloo and guzzled it without incident.

~~~

We spent the next two hours walking through the Random Countries Showcase. Each country’s pavilion sported a bigger gift shop then the one we’d just left. “I wonder why Russia doesn’t have one,” Vinnie asked at least seven times.

Norway had a fun water ride and lots of cool Viking souvenirs that everybody in the store played with but nobody bought. “You know, the Vikings were great warriors and explorers,” I told Marcie. “I wonder if Erik the Red ever thought he’d end up as nothing but a plastic trinket in a souvenir shop. Nobody even buys this stuff. They’re just props for pictures.” I felt like a racist when I liked Canada and England the best but couldn’t tell the difference between the China and Japan pavilions. The America pavilion instilled in us a detailed understanding of the wars, slaughter and repression of minorities that define our nation.

“We have to do Mexico,” Vinnie said. I was tired and wanted to leave but when he and Nancy found out that we’d skipped it the other time we’d been to SEPWAR they demanded that we go inside. It was as spectacular as they said it was, especially the open-air restaurant at the foot of an erupting volcano. Even the water ride, which reminded me of a bad seventies book report on Mexico, was enjoyable, right down to the helmet-haired, speedo-clad Acapulco cliff divers.

“You were right, that was really good,” I conceded after we were back outside. We stopped at a cart and bought a round of Margaritas for the adults and lemonade for the kids. That gave us the strength to walk all the way out of the park and to the monorail station.

“I always wondered why the bathrooms are the same in every country’s pavilion,” Vinnie said. “Shouldn’t they be more like how they really do it in each country?” Nobody answered.

“We didn’t go to the Motion Ocean Center,” I pointed out after waiting carefully until it was too late to turn back.

“It’s not what it used to be. Norman the talking fish took it over. Are we still thinking about Van Morrison?” Vinnie asked after we’d been enjoying the quiet air-conditioned monorail ride back to the hotel.

“Yeah, I guess. Maybe we can get down to the bar and see Stan,” I said as we watched an army of landscapers in a swarm under the monorail track.

“Fat lot of good it did us today. Besides, no way Nancy lets us change the itinerary two days in a row.”

“We can’t blame Stan. It’s not like we didn’t have solid information. We just didn’t do anything about it. Not fast enough, anyway.”

We watched the endless line of groundskeepers as the monorail glided along. “I don’t weed wack anymore,” Vinnie said. “It just got to be too much work with no payoff,” he explained as several men skillfully wielded string-trimmers through tall grass. “My neighbor gave me hell about it. She told me I could use theirs since mine must not be working.”

“Man. What did you say?”

“I told her thanks, and that she was welcome to borrow a mirror since it looked like none of theirs were working.”

“You’re a real charmer.”

“Yeah, you’re right about Stan,” he sighed as the Space Age Resort came into view. “Maybe we should drop by and see the old guy later. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Chapter 10

Our meal schedule was so fouled up by then that everybody just attacked the mountain of snack food when we got back to the hotel because nobody was hungry enough to eat dinner. After that we all followed Marcie and Nancy around the concourse level of the hotel while they took care of some shopping. Vinnie and I broke free long enough to check the bar but Stan G. was nowhere to be seen. About an hour before sunset we returned to our rooms to change into swim wear before everybody headed down to do some swimming. I spent a few minutes in the pool playing with Sam and Ellie before toweling off and stretching out on a lounge chair.

“Need any more towels?” Kyle asked. He’d just returned for at least the fourth time with a tall stack of neatly folded clean towels from the bin. “They’re free.”

“We better hope so,” I said as I surveyed the litter of crumpled but dry towels that surrounded us. “I’m fine, thanks Kyle.”

As hot as the day had been, I actually felt a refreshing chill after a few minutes in the pool. As I dabbed the water from my ears with a towel from one of Kyle’s stacks I noticed Katie and Justin walking through the sand past the volleyball nets to the other, more sparsely populated pool at the edge of Lake Bay. I pulled my shirt on as I wondered what was up with them.

“I grabbed some extra towels just in case we’re running low. They’re free, you know,” Vinnie reminded me while dropping the newest stack in a heap between two chairs. I hadn’t even noticed his arrival because I was concentrating on my teenage daughter. “Something’s up with those two,” he said, nodding towards Katie and Justin. “That’s my boy! I remember those days like it was yesterday. You know, just trying to find a place where you’re parents can’t find you and your girl. All you need is a few minutes. Remember those days, eh Dave?”

I glared at him. Before I could think of anything to say we both turned our heads toward a sudden explosion of sound. A group of about twenty people of various shapes, sizes and decibel levels appeared out of nowhere from the direction of the hotel and were moving in a fury down the concrete steps and rushing at us. It was an even mixture of young and old, male and female. The chatter was a loud, jarring blare of Spanish with an English word mixed in here and there. Even the words spoken in my own language didn’t sound remotely like what normally came out of my mouth. It was evident that the man with the green flip-flops and oversized tee shirt, who was probably about my age, was the leader. He was tall and lean, with a dark ring of hair on his mostly-bald head. Come to think of it, except for the hair he looks like those guys in the pictures diving off the hundred foot cliffs on the Mexico ride. Somehow he made himself heard over the din and guided the group past us to the corner of the pool behind a lifeguard stand.

“Where’s the bullfight?” Vinnie asked.

“I don’t think they have bullfights in Mexico. That’s Spain.”

“Whatever. Same difference. You know, I always figured those people stayed at budget motels. I wouldn’t have expected them here. They must have just checked in today. If they were already here we’d have noticed. They’re kind of, you know, noticeable.”

“They sure seemed like they were in a good mood,” I answered, still thinking about Katie. I looked back towards the bay where I’d seen her and Justin last but they were gone. “Is today a holiday I don’t know about? Cinco de Mayo maybe?”

“Dad, can we go down the slide?” Sam shouted from the edge of the pool. “There’s a lifeguard up on the top.”

“Sure,” I yelled back. “Make sure you follow directions. And keep an eye on your sister,” I added when I saw Ellie coming over to join in. He turned and headed for the steps that would take him to the top of the sliding board platform. Before he got there Kyle pushed past a toddler in water-wings and overtook my son and daughter just as they reached the slide. He grinned magnanimously in victory as Sam and Ellie followed him into the line of small children that snaked all the way up the stairs. Learning to deal with Kyle is good life-training for them, I thought with a smirk. There are Kyles all around you no matter how old you get. They were even harder to deal with the older they were.

“Do you think I’m allowed on the slide?” Vinnie asked. Before I could answer he threw his towel off and bounded over to the line with an inspiring lack of self-consciousness about his jiggling midsection. He looked back once before climbing in front of five or six kids, until he reached Kyle, Sam and Ellie. He turned and gave me a thumbs up, which I helplessly returned along with a forced smile.

While watching them ascend towards the top of the slide platform I noticed that there was a second hot tub tucked away over there behind the bushes. So far I’d avoided the main tub, which was always packed with bodies, most of which were no doubt oozing various bodily fluids and gasses. I craned my neck and saw this one was empty, so I took my shirt off and walked over. Steam rose from the surface. I summoned my high school level science education but couldn’t remember what that meant, given that the air temperature was at least ninety. I stepped in until the water was just past my ankles, pausing on the first step. It felt like it was nearly boiling, just the way I liked it. Any filth or bacteria on the body of anyone who joined me would be instantly vaporized by the scalding, chlorine-laden water before it got anywhere near my personal space.

After a few minutes of sitting I was acclimated to the temperature and had learned to periodically release the air that accumulated in my swim trunks before anything embarrassing could happen. I slid my body forward on the concrete ledge until my head was underwater. All I could hear was the hum of the motors that churned the water. Life was good. Everything was in perfect balance. It had been a grueling day but now I was rejuvenated. Things were right. But when I popped my head out of the water and wiped my eyes I knew immediately that the fleeting Nirvana was gone and all wasn’t well in my Snodgrass universe. That was history.

The hot tub wasn’t my own anymore. There was an interloper, and not just any interloper. Standing at the edge dipping his toe into the water was the bald, green flip-flopped, oversized-shirted leader of the Spanish-speaking mob that Vinnie and I had watched parade by just a few minutes earlier. You can’t make this stuff up.

There was no point in being a jerk about it. He had just as much right as I did to use the tub. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get away from there without hurting his feelings. I wondered if he even knew the difference between the tub and the regular pool. Had he ever seen one before? Did they have these where he came from? Knowing he wouldn’t understand me anyway if I spoke, I waved half-heartedly at him. He nodded gratefully back at me as he kicked off his footwear, threw his shirt onto a wooden bench and cautiously stepped into the water. It was going to be awkward, no two ways about it. How could it not be? Two grown men from different cultures, with no ability to communicate, sharing the same hot tub was a recipe for an uncomfortable situation. The most I could hope for was that he would know a few phrases of broken English. I tried to prepare myself for an exchange of grunts and gestures.

“Whew! Much hotter than I expected! How long before you got used to it?” he asked. I stared at him. “Damn that’s hot!” Did I hear that? Did he say that?

“Excuse my language, please,” he said quickly, obviously startled by my open-mouthed stare. “Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you in pain?”

“Uh, yeah, sure, I’m fine,” I stuttered. “Sorry. Yeah, hot. The water’s hot. Real hot.” His expression told me he was worried that I was mentally handicapped.

He stepped all the way in and bent to submerge his shoulders, much the same way that I had. Then he buried his face in the water momentarily before moving across and taking a seat opposite me. “My name’s Jorge,” he said as rivulets of water rolled down his scalp and from his chin. “Jorge Garcia. Or just plain George if you prefer. I apologize. Obviously I disturbed you.”

“No, no, not at all. You didn’t disturb me. Nope. I, uh, I had water in my ears so I didn’t hear you. ”He smiled and looked away. “I’m Dave Jevik. Nice to meet you, Jorge. I’m from Indiana, right here in the United States.”

He looked surprised, either that I introduced myself or that I was from Indiana. “I’m from Kansas City. Same country.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised. “You’re from America?”

“Well, I’m Mexican-born but I live here in America now. At least for a little while longer. I work for Pilot Machinery and they transfer me once in a while to keep me fresh. I like to say that they’re grooming me for upper management,” he said with a smile and only the faintest trace of an accent. “They have an office in Mexico City that I want to end up in but I’ve been just about every where else along the way.”

“But you live in America?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, Kansas, anyway.”

It was all too much. The guy in charge of the roving fiesta is from Kansas City? He might be more American than I am! I looked around, trying to figure a way to escape. When I saw there was none, I tried to think of something to say. “Are you here with your family?” Who were all those people?

“Yes. We’re having a family reunion this week and we decided to do it here, where the kids wouldn’t be so bored. You know kids these days. If there’s no instant gratification they’re not happy.”

“I know just what you mean,” I nodded. Was this even the same man I’d seen earlier? He spoke better English than me, and definitely better than Vinnie. But the facts fit. It did look like he was here with extended family. Very extended. “Where do the others in the reunion live?”

“All over. Some live up here in the states, some came up from Mexico.”

“It looked like they were all having a good trip.”

“You noticed,” he said, smiling again. “We’re wearing our hearts on our sleeves today. I guess that’s just our way. Besides, it’s hard not to be happy when you’re in Snodgrass World.”

Two members of Jorge’s entourage appeared out of nowhere, breathless, agitated and seemingly in a frenzy.

“Jorge! Donde se le?” demanded a twenty-something woman.

“That’s my cousin Marta,” Jorge said. “She’s a weekend anchorwoman at a television station in Louisiana. “I fue aqui,” he told her with a shrug.

“Que es se Nuevo amigo?”

“Esto es Dave. El es de Indiana.” He turned to me and told me “She’s asking who you are.”

“Iban a visitor la playa y quizas, alquilar un barco.”

“Creo de que sea demasiado tarda pero voy a ir con vosotros,” Jorge said. As he climbed the steps out of the hot tub he turned to me. “They’re going on the beach and then they want to rent a boat but I think it’s too late. It’s almost six o’clock. I told them I’d go over with them and check it out. It was nice meeting you, Dave. I hope I see you around.” We shared a wet handshake and then they were gone.

~~~

I was ready to get out of the tub myself after I’d submerged my hand in the near-boiling water to sanitize it after the handshake. I dried off and made my way back to our lounge chair home base, which I located by looking for the landmark mountain of clean towels. Once there I looked around for Vinnie. He’d get a good laugh out of it when I told him who I’d hung out with, if he didn’t already know. “Where’s your dad?” I asked Kyle when he showed up.

“Right behind you!” he squawked before dropping a fresh, crisply folded stack of clean towels on a chair and running back to the pool.

Always a smartass, I thought, but it turned out he was telling the truth. Vinnie really was behind me, at least one-hundred feet away but closing fast. Why was he running? “Vinnie! You’re not going to believe this!” I said when he was near enough to hear.

“I just came back from upstairs,” he gasped, ignoring what I’d said. “I’ve got a real bad chafing situation going on. But anyway, guess what? There was a message on the phone from Stan. He says he’s got information on Van Morrison. He knows where he’s going to be.”

“Oh yeah? When?”

“I guess he called while we were here.”

“No, I mean he knows where Van Morrison will be when? Tomorrow?”

“I think he meant right now. He told me to come to the bar as soon as I can. I figured I should stop by and grab you.”

“Sounds like there’s going to be some excitement. Do we need to change? At least we have shirts and shoes. Let me go tell Marcie we’re going.”

“No time. Let’s just go. We can come back and tell them later. It sounded like he might not be there for very long. Come on partner, we have to go right now.”

I guess it’s okay, I thought, when I saw that both Sam and Ellie were with Marcie. We grabbed our shoes and headed for the building. I knew what was coming when I saw a worker unloading freshly laundered towels into a bin along the sidewalk ahead. Vinnie grabbed a clean one, waved it near his face and tossed it into the dirty towel basket all in one motion without breaking stride. “They’re free, you know,” he said when he caught me watching.

~~~

A few remaining drips of pool water rolled down our legs and into our squishy sneakers as we carefully padded into the cool building. Now I really could use a towel, I thought as we rode escalators up two levels amid dry, fully-clothed hotel guests. A man selling Snodgrass timeshares tried to gain my attention but I twisted out of his grasp and stiff-armed his props without losing more than a step or two to Vinnie. “He said he’d be in there no later than six-thirty, which is just about now,” he told me over his shoulder. “I think we’re good.”

We saw Stan immediately when we walked into the bar. This time he was seated at a table in the corner with a stack of pink receipts and invoices. “Well how are you boys doin’?” he asked when we reached his table. “Don’t mind all this. Takes a lot of damned paperwork to keep this place runnin’, believe you me.” He shoved most of it into a three ring binder and pushed it aside. We both sat.

Maybe it was the daylight that still peeked in around the black curtains but Stan wasn’t nearly the charismatic geezer I remembered from the night before. All of a sudden he looked more like ninety than seventy. He seemed smaller and hunched, and the thick silver hair I remembered was stringy and grey this time. It must have been the beer goggles.

“I told you I’d keep an eye on that jackass in the wheel chair. Sorry about the false alarm at SEPWAR this mornin’. He never showed up for his reservation. We have no way of knowin’ if somebody’s going to do that, you see.”

“Well actually,” I began, only to feel Vinnie’s foot come down hard on mine.

“We had the place staked out,” he told Stan, nodding hard. “We were the first ones at the turnstiles. But these things happen.”

“We don’t have much time. I know what he’s doin’ in about ten minutes,” Stan said after glancing at his watch. “And I think it’s somethin’ you fellows might be interested in. Get this. He’s doin’ a jet-ski tour of Lake Bay and the Lagoon Sea. This so-called chair-bound man is about to get on one of those jet-ski contraptions and go flyin’ around the bay like a maniac. Now, isn’t that just the kind of thing you boys were hopin’ to see?”

“A jet-ski? He really is crazy!”

“And a royal pain in the ass to boot. They stop rentin’ those things at five o’clock,” Stan said. “Do you know how much green he had to flash to make this happen? They’re stayin’ open three hours later than usual. The guy thinks his crap don’t stink. I’ll tell you, the rental folks are madder than wet hens. They have lives too. They want to go home.”

“This is perfect!” Vinnie said. “All we have to do is stand on the shore and snap some pictures.”

“I fixed up somethin’ better,” Stan said. “He may have money and he may be a pompous ass, but you’ve got old Stan on your side. I called in a few favors. There’s only one jet ski he didn’t take. I got it for you boys. You can pick it up right out back by the pool.”

“Uh, no thanks,” I said immediately. “We can get our pictures from the dock. I’ve never even been on one of those things.”

“These are two big lakes,” Stan warned. “I doubt you’ll ever get close enough for a decent shot. By the time he comes back in it’ll be too dark.”

“Come on, Dave, they’re easy to drive. Much easier than a car. Anybody can do it. We’ll be fine.”

“Have you ever driven one?” I asked. “Have you ever been on one? Have you ever even seen one?”

“I see them on T.V. They’re easy to drive.”

“Are we supposed to ride on this thing together?” I asked Stan.

“They’re probably two-seaters,” Vinnie said. “That’s better anyway. One can drive, the other can take pictures. I’ll drive. I’m a natural at stuff like this. I’ll pick it up quicker.” He turned to Stan. “Dave, here, he’s a worry-wart. He spends too much time thinking. Not me. I don’t have that problem.”

“I don’t know about this,” I said slowly. “Will there be anybody there to train us, or you know, show us how to drive it?”

“This is all happenin’ right now, boy!” Stan said. “As we speak your man is out on that dock with his sad sack friends, about to saddle up. You have to go now and there’s no time for practice.”

I looked at Vinnie. “Let’s pass on this one, Vinnie.”

“No way!” he answered. “Remember what happened this morning? We may never have a chance like this again! It’s a golden opportunity!”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Stan assured me. “You should see some of the numb nuts that rent those things. They all survive. Now, here’s what you do. The place is called Skip Schooner’s Water Sports Center. It’s right out there on the dock, next to the bar. Tell them you’re the guys that Stan hooked up. They’ll get you out on the bay in no time. And that’s all the time you got.”

We scrambled out of the bar and past the mobs waiting in line for dinner at William’s CookHouse. Marcie wasn’t going to like that we’d disappeared without permission any more than Nancy would, but I figured we’d talk our way out of it later. Vinnie led the way as we sprinted around anybody in our path and charged through the automatic doors to the pool deck and over to the rental shop. “Hi!” I yelled at the kid behind the counter when he finally moseyed over from a computer in the corner. “We’re with the Van Morrison party. Stan sent us over.” I was too out of breath to say anymore. Hopefully he’d already gotten the message from Stan.

“I just got done talking with old Stan,” the kid said, holding his thumb and pinkie to his ear and mouth. “I just put the phone down. I love that old codger. The jet ski tour is cancelled. They’re not going out tonight.”

“What? Why not?” Vinnie barked. “We were just with Stan two seconds ago. When did all this happen?”

“Beats me,” he shrugged. “Sorry.”

Dejected, we walked back to the pool. Along the way I looked out onto the bay and saw what looked like Jorge and his families tooling around in a power boat. At least somebody got out onto the water.

“Let’s go back in and tell Stan he screwed up,” Vinnie said. “The old buzzard wasted our time. He needs us to set him straight about feeding us bad information. We can’t trust him anymore.”

“It’s not his fault, and it was only ten minutes of our time. I don’t think we should get on his case about it.”

“Who said anything about getting on his case?”

“Maybe he knows if it’s been rescheduled. I guess it couldn’t hurt to go back. But Vinnie, give the guy a break, okay? He’s on our side. Besides, he could keel over if you’re too rough on him.”

Stan hadn’t moved since we’d left but there was now a cordless phone on the table in front of him. “Sorry about that, fellas,” he said before we opened our mouths. “I got the call right after you up and left. Last minute cancellation. He’s probably doin’ the same trip later in the week, or at least that’s what my sources say. You’ll have your chance.”

“Great sources,” Vinnie mumbled.

“I did get somethin’ for you while you were gone,” Stan said.

“In five minutes?” Vinnie asked. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“He’s got reservations for lunch tomorrow at one o’clock at the Kentucky Derby Inn.”

“Isn’t that in MBS? I mean, Snodgrass Studios?” Vinnie asked. “Or whatever they call it now? Hey, I think that’s where we’re going tomorrow! Maybe we can accidentally swing by the Kentucky Derby right about that time! Are you sure?”

“I’m sure he’s got a reservation. Just as sure as I was that he had a reservation for those jet-skis tonight and he was eating at the fish place this mornin’. Doesn’t guarantee he’ll show up.”

“This just might work!” Vinnie said. “Thanks Stan! I always knew we could rely on you!”

Chapter 11

We were sitting on our balconies overlooking the pool later that night when the phone rang in the Jevik room. The fireworks show in the sky above the Enchanted Empire was underway and I was surprised I could even hear the ring over the booms and hisses. “Who could that be?” I said to Vinnie, who was on the adjacent balcony. Bursts of light over the bay flashed on the bottle of beer he held. “Nobody even knows I’m here.” I slid the door open and pushed the curtains aside and made a dash to the phone. “Hello?”

“Is this Jevik? Dave Jevik?”

I recognized the voice instantly. “Stan! What’s up?”

“You’re skinhead friend just left the bar and I’m steamin’ mad. I just want to tell you that whatever war you’re wagin’ on him, count me in.”

“Uh oh. What happened, Stan?”

“That uppity bastard tried to embarrass me. Soft city slicker thinks I’m some incompetent coot, does he? He’ll find out otherwise. He’s got another thing comin’.”

“What did he do?”

“Well, for starters, he called me ‘old-timer’ once too often. I don’t take too kindly to that type of stuff. He was just showin’ off for those yes-men he’s got with him. Then he ordered some pansy-ass woman’s drink, complained about it and that was it. He’s got a lot to learn and I’m volunteerin’ to learn him.”

“Sorry you had such a bad time.”

“I did some checkin’. Remember I told you about his lunch reservation tomorrow? He cancelled it. Too early for him. He’ll still be sittin’ in his jammies having room service. Now he’s got dinner reservations at the sci-fi place.”

“Cancelled lunch, now doing dinner,” I recited. “Where again?”

“The sci-fi restaurant. It’s in Snodgrass Studios, same as the Kentucky Derby. He’s got a table for five-thirty. A car, I should say.”

“A car? This place is right in the same park? That works. We’ll be there all day. Maybe we’ll eat in the same place.”

“Better get a reservation for yourselves, then. It books full every damned night.”

I thought about asking him why he couldn’t just make one for us but I didn’t want to push our luck. “Okay, Stan. I’ll go see if we can stake out that restaurant. I’m not even sure if we had the Kentucky Derby lunch cleared anyway.”

“Good enough. I’m all for nailin’ this creep. I’ll try dig up what I can from the inside and keep feedin’ you information. And that’s the least I’m gonna’ do.”

I hung up and sat on the bed trying to decide how much everybody besides Vinnie should know about this and how I could relay it only to Vinnie. How late does that place stay open, I asked myself after the noise of yet another pep rally at William’s CookHouse trickled up from the concourse of the hotel.

The light boat parade was about to start on the bay when I returned to the balcony. “What movie is the sea serpent from?” Kyle asked as I rubbed Marcie’s shoulder before squeezing past.

“Who called?”

Damn. I completely forgot that I’d have to explain the phone call. “Uh, uh,” I stuttered, stalling for time. “It was the bartender from the bar downstairs. I left my credit card there the other night.” Had I used my credit card since then? Had Marcie seen me use my credit card since then? Oh well, too late for that.

“Oh. That was nice of him to call. Do you have to go get it?”

It seemed as though my ruse had worked. Good. This was going to be delicate. We might have to let the women in on what was going on but we would want to think carefully about how and when to let them in on it. We have to be tactful. We didn’t want to say too much. Did the women even know about the Kentucky Derby reservations yet? Delicate situation here.

“Was that Stan?” Vinnie yelled from his own balcony, spilling drops of beer over the railing as he lurched in my direction. “What did he say? Are we still tailing him at the Kentucky Derby tomorrow? Don’t tell me. That bald prick backed out of his reservation, right?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said out of the side of my mouth as I pretended to be engrossed in the boat parade.

“Tell me what? What did Stan say?”

“Who’s Stan?” Nancy asked from behind Vinnie. It’s all over. I rolled my head backwards until I could see the top floor of the hotel. Now what?

“He’s the bartender,” I heard Vinnie say. “You remember the guy who’s suing Joe Gumm, right? The guy who happens to be staying right here in the same hotel as us?”

“Yeah, of course,” Nancy said. “The guy in the wheel chair.”

“Hey, did you ever catch up with him at SEPWAR?” Marcie asked. “I forgot all about that.”

“Nope. He never showed up. But we got another tip tonight. He’s having lunch at the Kentucky Derby tomorrow. We’ll be right there anyway! It’s perfect.”

“If it doesn’t interfere with our schedule I’d like to see this twerp get nailed,” Nancy said. “But we’re not eating at the Kentucky Derby. No way, we can’t afford the time.”

“Van Morrison isn’t either. That’s what Stan was just telling me.” The light boats launched into a rousing electronic version of “It’s a Grand Old Flag.” I stopped and watched a twinkling row of flags dancing on the bay.

“Van Morrison,” chuckled Marcie.

“What? What did he say?” Vinnie demanded.

“I’m not sure I got it all,” I confessed. “Instead of lunch he’s doing dinner, but it’s still in the same park we’re going to. It sounded like a Greek place. The Psi Pi or something like that.”

Nancy was the first to laugh. “You mean sci-fi? He probably meant the Cheesy Science Fiction Movie Grill.”

“Yeah, that’s what he kept saying.”

“Talk about perfect. That’s where we’re eating dinner tomorrow too. We already have reservations,” she said.

“Gee, maybe he did mean the Greek restaurant,” Vinnie said. “Should we call him back?”

“There’s no Greek restaurant,” Nancy said firmly. “Got to be the Cheesy.”

“The place is awesome,” Vinnie said. “You’ll love it. What time’s he coming? Wait a minute, what time are we coming?”

“He’s there at five-thirty.”

“We’re there at five,” Nancy said.

“Awesome!” Vinnie said. “I’ll still be on my first beer.” He turned to me. “Did I tell you they have alcohol there?”

~~~

We assembled in the hallway the next morning at seven sharp. “Our mission’s simple today,” Nancy announced. “No briefing.” We ate a quick breakfast in the hotel cafeteria. Nobody said much. I smiled when I saw that she was pushing the empty stroller.

Snodgrass Studios wasn’t on the monorail line so we filed past the pool to the parking lot after breakfast. Kyle got a crazed look in his eye when he saw the first lizard of the morning but Justin wasn’t having any of it this time. “Don’t,” he said sharply. Kyle didn’t.

Five seconds after I’d handed the keys to Vinnie the van’s lights were flashing and the horn was going off. “Damn,” he said as he struggled with the tiny black key ring. “They’ve got all the buttons labeled wrong on here!” Nancy snatched it out of his hand and silenced the alarm.

“Well, that ought to wake everybody up. I guess the parks will fill up a little sooner today,” Vinnie said with a shrug.

After we were all strapped down Vinnie drove past the information booth and out on to the road. “Look! The Hollywood Bowl Hotel!” Kyle shouted, pointing at the soot-stained mural on the back of the Snodgrass bus that appeared out of nowhere and pulled in front of us just before we’d reached cruising speed. “I’m going on the Plunger!”

“First on our list,” Nancy said.

“I hope I know what to do when we get there. We don’t have marching orders this time,” I pointed out as I sipped what was left of my coffee.

“It’s so simple we don’t need a review. We’ll wait in the turnstile line. Then we’ll push as far ahead to the rope drop as we can. When they drop it we sweep to the right on Sunset Boulevard. Unfortunately that’s what everybody else will be doing too. There aren’t as many premier rides in this park.”

“It’ll be like the running of the bulls,” Vinnie said. “Without the bulls. Wait until you see Sunset Boulevard after the rope drops.”

“Is it safe? Should I stay back with the kids?” Marcie asked. “I don’t mind.”

“Nah. We can all stay together,” Nancy said. “It’s not like Flappy. If we’re not on the first Plunger ride it’s not the end of the world. As long as we’re on the second. And we need to go over a few commands. We’ve missed out on a few crucial in-line maneuvers.” For the next five minutes we went over some formations and scenarios that she would respond to by quietly issuing orders to us. “Be on your toes,” she cautioned.

The fumes from the bus were making me sick so I turned off the air conditioner to keep them out. “If we’re low-keying it today, what’s the stroller for then, Nancy?”

“There are a few tight corners here and there,” she explained. “It’ll keep us moving through the bottlenecks just in case somebody ahead of us tries to slow down to look at anything. Besides, who says we’re low-keying it?”

~~~

A few minutes later I could see the SEPWAR geosphere. “I didn’t know this was so close to SEPWAR,” I remarked as we turned the other way into Snodgrass Studios.

“Oh yeah,” Vinnie. “There’s a bunch of Snodgrass hotels right around here. They can take a boat to SEPWAR. Or, they can walk to this place if they don’t mind crossing this highway.”

“They can get a boat to here too,” Nancy countered. “Right under the road. Next time I was thinking about staying over here for a change.”

The parking lot looked like the surface of an aircraft carrier, with workers enthusiastically guiding us safely to our parking space with fluorescent wands. We walked across a heavily-used bus access lane and a busy tram path to a sidewalk which took us the rest of the way to the park entrance.

“Check out those amateurs,” Nancy said after we picked a line and waited for the park to open. “They put a person in each line.”

“I guess they’ll wait to see whichever line is fastest and then they’ll all rush over and cut in?” I asked.

“It’s not exactly like that. Line-splitting is the newest thing. They think they’ll all get through in parallel instead of serial to make it faster. They re-form on the other side after they get across.”

“Science at work.”

“Not really, because they don’t know the line speeds. If they were all in one fast line it might actually be quicker. But there’s no way to know what kind of line you’re in. Call it whatever you want but guessing is still guessing.”

“They’re letting people in!” Kyle yelled as he pushed himself to the head of our group.

Nancy distributed the tickets. “Hold on tight to these until we meet at the rope drop.” Each of us in turn inserted our ticket cards into the turnstile, were told that our card didn’t work, and were hand-processed by the attendant. We kept moving through the plaza and up the faux-Hollywood avenue until we were squeezed into the crowd outside a souvenir shop. My ankles were rammed repeatedly by strollers and Nancy was doing the same with hers, unknowingly exacting retribution.

“We’re going right, right?” Marcie asked after everybody passed their tickets to Vinnie. She must have been studying the guidebook map on her own.

“Right, right. We’ll go right at this corner, up Sunset Boulevard and go all the way down to the Hollywood Bowl Hotel. That’s where the Hollywood Bowl Plunger is and just about everybody else here is going in the same direction, unfortunately.”

This is going to be ugly, I predicted. “I don’t think that street was even here last time.”

“True. Sunset Boulevard was added a few years after this park opened.”

“I guess we better make sure we stay together.”

“Yes,” Nancy agreed. “Let’s form a line cross-ways after we get going, rather than going single file. We’ll keep track of the kids better and it’ll make it harder for anybody to pass us.”

Maybe I was getting jaded but it seemed that the nine-o’clock rope drop wasn’t nearly the big deal at Snodgrass Soundstage Studios that it was in the Enchanted Empire. I only knew it had happened at all when the crowd surged forward in the race for the Bowl Plunger. There was a giant pointy hat straight ahead but as Nancy had told us to expect, nearly everybody ignored it and turned the corner. Most people tried to retain their dignity by walking as fast as they could, heads swiveling from side to side to assess the competition. Some, mostly the single or kidless, broke down completely and sprinted down the boulevard, dodging and hurdling anything in their path.

Since we were race-walking nine abreast the only way we could pass slower groups was to melt around them. Whenever she deemed it necessary Nancy inserted the stroller between slackers and leveraged a path for us. After we passed a row of shops I saw a produce market on the left and an amphitheatre on the right. We were in the shadow of the hotel when Vinnie pared off and disappeared, only to rejoin us when we joined a short line outside some iron gates.

“Got ‘em,” Vinnie said. We followed the quick-moving line along a brick path through some gardens and then into the hotel. We didn’t stop moving until we were inside a cobweb-infested library, pinned into the corner by a rapidly growing mob. In the darkness I could see several shadows forcing their way to a door on the far side of the room. Wormers!

“This is the best!” Kyle said. “I can’t wait.”

Ellie grabbed my hand. “I don’t want to go!” she whined.

“I don’t either,” Sam quickly said.

“Maybe I should take them out,” I said to Marcie.

“They’ll be fine. Besides, everybody rides everything,” Nancy said flatly. “That’s the deal.”

I didn’t recall agreeing to any deal, but the kids quieted down so I went along with it. After a predictable Twilight Zone pre-show the mob exited and walked through the hotel basement until we reached an elevator door. A busboy guided us onto a complex, numbered schematic on the floor outside the elevator. “Your number indicates your place in the elevator,” he announced.

“I have no idea what to do,” I told Marcie. “What do all these numbers mean? It looks like something from a Dan Brown novel.”

“They’ll tell you where to go,” Vinnie assured me. Sam and Ellie resumed their whimpering when the elevator doors opened but since it was too late to turn back I blocked it out.

There was no shortage of know-it-alls who were anxious to tell me where to sit after we entered the elevator. After we were all belted into the correct seats I gazed around and noticed that many riders were preparing physics experiments, no doubt to test the velocity of the sudden drops the elevator was going to make. One girl stacked pennies on the armrest while a man up front placed wads of paper of various sizes and weights all around himself. I cringed when I saw a teenager open a full bottle of red Gatorade in front of me and hold it up.

The elevator moved around the hotel for a few minutes before dropping and bouncing back up four or five times. It was too dark to know how the experiments turned out but when it was over I was still dry and there were no stray pennies or paper wads that I could see. I couldn’t tell if Ellie was laughing or crying. Sam was definitely crying. On the way out we looked at photographs of our contorted faces on a bank of monitors. It looked as though the loudest pre-ride boasters had the most terrified looks on their faces in the picture. We passed through the Hollywood Bowl Plunger gift shop and out into the sunlight. I hoisted Sam up and onto my shoulders and we walked down a hill and under a giant guitar as Aerosmith’s “Last Child” filled the air. We’d reached the Sixties and Seventies Rock Coaster.

“Everybody grab a fast pass,” Vinnie said, holding them out before breaking out into song. “Take me back to a south Tallahassee!“

Sam was stable by then, at least enough that I could put him down. I asked him if he was okay with a roller coaster and he nodded bravely, by now aware that Nancy was sending him on the ride whether he signed off on it or not.

Vinnie played some air guitar after the last of the fast passes were taken. “I love these guys! Down cross the bridge to my sweet sassafrassy!”

“Me too,” I said. “But this music’s thirty years old. Don’t the younger folks get pissed that they have to hear our music? I wonder why they don’t pick a band that isn’t wearing Depends and using walkers on stage.”

“Dude! It’s classic rock! That means it’s got to be old!”

We handed in our fast passes and were whisked past a line full of frowning people and into the ‘studio.’ After filing past some Sixties memorabilia we watched a video of Aerosmith shooting the breeze at a studio console. Next we took a ride in our ‘stretch limousine’ through the streets of Los Angeles, including banked turns and at least two loops, serenaded all the way by Aerosmith tunes.

“That was cool!” Kyle raved as we walked through the Sixties and Seventies Rock Coaster gift shop. “How-do people? How-do people?” he laughed, mimicking Steven Tyler. Even Katie and Justin laughed.

“Dude looks like a lady!” Vinnie crooned.

“What are we doing now?” Marcie asked. “Beauty and the Beast show, since it’s right here?”

“Oh, no,” Nancy said. “We have all day to do shows. We need to do the big stuff before the park gets too crowded.”

“We already knocked two out,” I said.

“That’s a good start,” Nancy agreed. “And we have all day, since we’re eating dinner here. There’s a lot less that we have to get done here than at SEPWAR or the Enchanted Empire.” We walked back up Sunset Boulevard, fighting the hordes that were racing towards the hotel the way we had been an hour earlier.

“How-do people!” Ellie yelled happily.

“I want to ride the dinosaur!” Sam said as we walked past Reverb Lake.

“Not a ride,” Nancy told him. “Just a dinosaur.”

“Guess my get-up-and-go must have got up and went,” Vinnie screeched. A passing Japanese family turned and stared as he brandished his air bass with no apparent inhibition.

~~~

By lunchtime I started to wonder how well Nancy really knew this park because most of what we hadn’t done yet were shows of one type or another. By lunchtime we’d watched the Salty Voyage of the Sweet Princess show and the Beauty and the Beast show. I tried not the laugh when the family ahead of us filed too far across the Muppets 3-D theatre for that show. After they ran out of seats we looked back to see if we could make room but it was too late, so they had to scramble to find room in the back. Next we rolled through the Soundstage Secrets Tour where we were engulfed in a canyon full of fake fire and then washed away by a torrent of fake water.

“Hey, have you been keeping an eye out for Van Morrison?” Vinnie asked as we waited for the kids to get tired of a giant mist-spewing bottle of soda.

“Yeah, but I’m getting a certain vibe the more I hear about him. I don’t think he walks around a humid amusement park in this kind of heat. I think Stan’s got him pegged right. But yeah, every time I see a wheel chair I take a closer look.”

After each of us scarfed a cup of French fries for lunch at the Steve McQueen Stunt Show Canteen we hopped onto the Super Flick Extravaganza Ride. The alien that dropped from the ceiling wouldn’t have been so anticlimactic had I not already seen it drop a few times before for the people ahead of us. I would have enjoyed Darwin Carew’s ‘Hear Me be Funny,’ an audio show that takes place in total darkness, except that there were at least thirty screaming infants in the audience drowning out the dialogue. It was about two-thousand degrees when we released the kids into the Shrunken Heads playground and sat down on some giant poison darts to catch our breath and plan the rest of the day.

Chapter 12

“He said you ain't seen nothin till you're down on a muffin, then you're sure to be a changin your ways!”

“What’s next, Nancy?” Marcie asked.

“So I took a big chance at the high school dance with a missy that was ready to play!”

“Why don’t we hit the Star Wars ride?” she suggested. “Then we can make the two o’clock Steve McQueen show. It’s right next door.”

We collected the kids and walked through the streets of New York. When I saw a three-story robot dog I knew we were getting close. “This is another space cruise,” Marcie said. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“It’s Star Wars,” I answered. “Come on.”

“Is it ‘Rollerama Day’ or something?” Vinnie asked after dodging a man jetting past on a scooter. “I’ve never seen it this bad before. When did America get so sickly that nobody can even walk?”

“There going to need traffic lights pretty soon,” Justin droned, opening his mouth for the first time all day.

A creature that could only be a pit bull or a little boy tormented me from behind as we advance in line for our Star Wars ride. When I heard a set of first-time parents begging and pleading with ‘Blair’ to be less bad I had my answer even without turning around.

The next time his attention span was exceeded Blair pushed his way along the railing in front of Nancy and Vinnie while gaping open-mouthed at the display of droids. After his third foray into her personal space I could see by the look in Nancy’s eyes that something was about to go down. The next time Blair retreated I wished for his own good that he’d stay there but I knew he wouldn’t. There was a good chance we were going to need a body bag.

After another chunk of skin was sliced from the back of my legs I was as steamed as Nancy was, and welcomed the ‘Breach’ command that she quietly issued. Knowing the drill, I stepped sideways. Sure enough, empty-headed Blair shot through the gap within two seconds. I slid back to my original position, sealing Blair into a dangerous envelope of angry Jeviks and Zandanels. Katie and Justin showed that they’d been paying attention to Nancy’s morning instructions by slipping to the rear when they heard the ‘Wall’ command, forming an imposing outer shell. I could hear Blair’s parents whimpering from behind us but his fate was now out of their hands.

Nancy moved next to Blair, who didn’t fully understand the trouble he was in. She swiveled at the hip several times without ever turning to face him. The scene played out in slow motion for me. With each twist her Durwood Duck backpack whipped savagely across his face. She can’t even see him, I marveled. That’s going to leave a mark. Blair’s parents had penetrated the first line of defense by then. I cleared my throat as loudly as I could when I saw Nancy’s elbow coming up. “Release!” she whispered as she stood down. Vinnie and I separated and allowed Blair to flee back through the lines to his parents.

We finally boarded a spaceship and were flown around the universe by a mechanical captain whose voice sounded remarkably like Pee Wee Herman’s. I brought this up as we exited through the Star Wars gift shop. Nancy confirmed that it was indeed the same voice.

~~~

The Steve McQueen Stunt Show was fun except that we arrived late and had to sit in the section of bleachers that Merv Snodgrass had decided didn’t need protection from the August Florida sun. After the thirty minute show we were ready to pass out, but a round of six dollar sodas in the nearby canteen revived us.

“We’ve still got about two hours to kill before dinner,” Nancy said. “What do you want to do? We still haven’t been over to Cartoon Central or whatever it’s called this year. It’s usually just a bunch of sappy shows about Merv Snodgrass but it wouldn’t hurt to walk through there. Or we could go back and do our favorite rides again.”

“I’d like to hit Bowl Plunger again,” Vinnie offered. “If anybody’s asking, I mean.”

“How do, people,” Kyle answered.

“Anybody want to watch the parade?” Marcie asked. “It starts in thirty-five minutes.”

“Me,” Sam said immediately. He didn’t usually like sitting still long enough to watch a parade but I knew he’d do anything to stay off Plunger.

“Me too,” followed Ellie. No surprise there.

“Me too,” Kyle announced. Whoa.

“Sitting at a parade is like watching TV without the remote,” Vinnie said. “I guess I’m not a parade kind of guy. Doesn’t anybody want to do anymore rides?”

We decided it was okay to split up, and meet later for dinner at the Cheesy Science Fiction Movie Grill. Ellie, Sam and Kyle would stay with Marcie for the parade while Vinnie, Nancy and I would head down Sunset Boulevard. Katie and Justin didn’t commit to either group. I thought I was watching them closely but after I looked away once they’d disappeared.

“Where did the older kids head off to?” I asked as I walked past the giant blue hat with Vinnie and Nancy. “I thought they’d want to come with us.”

“They’re teenagers,” Vinnie replied. “I’m sure Hollywood Bowl Hotel Plunger is the last thing on Justin’s mind right now.” I felt his elbows in my ribs. “Don’t you remember what you were thinking about when you were his age? That’s my boy!”

“I heard Katie say she wanted to do some shopping,” Nancy said, much to my relief.

“There’s the Kentucky Derby,” Vinnie said.

“That reminds me. What do we need to do to get ready for Van Morrison at dinner?”

“Van Morrison,” Nancy mumbled.

“I didn’t even think about it. What do you think?”

“Not much we can do,” I told him. “Just have our cameras ready, I guess. Now that I think about it, I don’t know why we even made a big deal over it. Why did we think he’d do anything special at dinner for us to take a picture of?”

“We turned the corner onto Sunset Boulevard. “Yeah, that’s what I was starting to think. It’s not like he’s going to do back flips or anything.”

Nobody said anything as we moved with the crowd towards the imposing Hollywood Bowl Hotel in the hot afternoon sun. Every half minute or so the screams of people in the elevators permeated the air. I was racking my brain for a way to restore hope about nailing Van Morrison and I knew Vinnie was doing the same thing. The opportunity didn’t seem as promising as it had earlier.

“Should we fast pass the coaster again?” I asked.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Vinnie answered. “Not for me. One more ride’s enough.” I looked at Nancy who nodded her agreement. We walked through the iron gates into the Bowl Plunger line, which was a lot longer than it had been in the morning. None of us said much as we snaked in line through the garden until a middle-aged woman stepped over a chain and trampled a row of shrubs to join a man with two kids.

“How do we know they even know each other?” I asked. A pack of teenagers, evidently unhappy with the speed with which we’d covered the last eight inches, bore down on us from behind. I could see the tips of their shoes practically between my own feet and I could almost feel their cell phones vibrate as they texted each other, probably about the old goats in front of them in line.

Nancy smiled. “It wouldn’t be the first time somebody tried that move. Remember at the rope drop?”

“Even if she’s the mom, what makes that okay?” I asked. “If those were a bunch of teenagers we’d all be up in arms.”

“That’s true,” she agreed. “I guess there’s a Mom and Dad waiver for line cutting because I see that a lot.”

“How about if it was one of the kids?”

“Same thing,” Vinnie answered. “I think that’s okay. Reuniting the family. Nothing wrong with that. Family values.”

“How about two kids?” I asked. “Or three?”

“Good question,” Nancy said, nodding. “I think the more kids that do it, the worse it is. At some point you’ve got to say ‘Why did you get in line if you weren’t all there yet?’”

“What about if the dad holds a place in line and his wife and kids show up at the last minute?” I asked. “Is that okay? Maybe the kids had to go to the bathroom. Or maybe the kids are pains in the ass and they were sparing everybody else the agony of having them around.”

“Not okay to me. This isn’t a lifeboat out at sea. We’re talking about a Snodgrass ride. Wait in line or don’t ride. That’s how I see it. I guess everybody has their own answer, especially the clowns who do it.”

“We already know their answer,” Vinnie said. “They do it because they know they can get away with it. Nobody wants to start World War II so they let them go.”

“Have you ever done anything about cutters?”

“I just don’t get out of their way,” Nancy said with a shrug.

“How about this one,” Vinnie said. “What if it was two adults cutting, but there are already a mom and dad in line? They might not even be related. Just adult friends. Is that okay?”

“Now you’re pushing it, in my opinion,” I said. “I look at it this way. Do the people in line need those other people? The kids need their parents so that’s okay, but not these other two, whoever they are.”

“Here’s a tough one that came up last year. What if the cutter is joining his family after getting fast passes for another ride? He’s cutting in front of me on Critter Falls because he was off getting fast passes so he can get onto Gold Rush ahead of me too. And he came right out and admitted where he’d been.”

“That’s hard to take,” I agreed.

“Alright, how about if it’s a couple of lesbos?” Vinnie asked. “They just got in from Massachusetts. Can they get away with it? I say no way. Come on, they’re not really married.”

By then we were inside the hotel, moving steadily to the front. Not unexpectedly, the anxious teens clattered past us in the dank, dusty pre-show room we were sealed into. I celebrated privately when they unwittingly chose the slower line to the elevators after emerging from the dark room. A half hour later we’d completed our ride and were back outside. “That was totally different than this morning,” I said. “Is it my imagination? I think I liked it better this time.”

“They’ve got it computerized,” Nancy said. “It’s different every time.”

The tail end of the parade was passing by when we got back to the center of the park so we followed it until we found the rest of our group. Katie and Justin were there too, a welcome sight. “Is it too early to go the restaurant?” Marcie asked. “I don’t think I have the energy to do anything else.”

The decision was made for us when huge drops of rain, so big that they made loud splats when they hit concrete, began dropping from the overcast sky. The world around us burst into motion. Sedentary people could suddenly run and were darting in every direction. Ponchos and sheets of plastic were draped over strollers, wheel chairs and old people. Judging by the reaction I worried for an instant that it was more than water that was falling from the clouds. Then we got caught up in the hysteria and ran too, nearly knocking over a barrel of machine guns as we took shelter in gift shop near the entrance to the Steve McQueen Stunt Show amphitheater.

“We may as well head over to the Cheesy,” Nancy said. “Everybody will want to eat now. It’ll be a madhouse even with our reservation.”

“How do, people,” Sam said before breaking up in laughter with Ellie and Kyle.

~~~

Everybody’s feet were soaking wet by the time we’d slogged over to the neon-festooned Cheesy Science Fiction Movie Grill except for Ellie, who had climbed into the vacant stroller for the trip. As Nancy had predicted, the tiny lobby was mobbed and it took ten minutes just to check in at the counter. It was fifteen minutes before five o’clock, just about the time of our reservation, but the top of the hour came and went without a call. Each of us died a little death every time a name was called that wasn’t ours. I knew Nancy was tracking the steady stream of walk-in customers, ready to pounce if any were seated before we were. As I sat on a wet bench, hungry, cold and wet despite the heat, I knew I’d have her back if it came to a dispute over that.

It didn’t. The Zandanel name was finally called. Miraculously, Kyle hadn’t wandered away. His short attention span had been trumped by his exhaustion. We followed the hostess inside and I knew immediately that it had been worth the wait.

The dark restaurant was a themed as a Fifties drive-in movie theatre under a simulated starry sky. At the front of the cavernous room was a huge movie screen. As we entered a group of doctors were on the screen in black and white, teaming up to plunge a six-foot syringe into the foot of a one-hundred foot man. The tables were period-piece convertibles complete with chrome, fins, white-walled tires and garish tail lights. As we walked through the cars I noticed that all eyes were riveted on the screen. When I turned and looked the doctors were gone, replaced by a furry spider which was apparently supposed to look as though it was the size of an elephant.

“Kind of makes you appreciate that George Lucas guy,” Vinnie said after we were all seated in our own car. “Just compare this trash to Star Trek or E.T.”

“I don’t know, Vinnie,” Marcie said. “I think you’re missing the point. These are supposed to look cheesy to us,” as she waved at a laser-toting raccoon rappelling down the side of a saucer-shaped space craft. “That’s what going to the movies was like back then.”

“This was cutting edge special effects at the time,” I added.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It was the Golden Age or something.” He turned to me. “Remember, they have alcohol here,” he said as he tipped an imaginary bottle back. “A cold one is just what I need. It’ll make waiting for the ZapQuest show much more bearable,” he promised.

After we ordered our food everybody was quiet as we watched clips from fifty-year-old science fiction movies. The air conditioning took its toll and soon I wasn’t the only one shivering in damp clothing. Sam rubbed his hands over a steaming breadstick trying to warm himself. I finished my first beer long before the food arrived and thanks to an empty stomach I caught a pretty good buzz in doing so. I raised my empty bottle to attract the attention of the waitress but Marcie shot me a look, so I sheepishly placed it back on the table. “It’s pretty dark in here,” I observed. “Think we’ll even see V.M. when he rolls in?”

“I’ve been watching like a hawk. I was thinking the same thing.”

“It’s a tough place to take a picture, too. But I don’t think it’s going to matter.”

“Yeah, I know. But it can’t hurt to keep an eye out, at least. By the way, I forgot to tell you. They have a two-beer limit here. You’ll never see it on paper but I know from experience. Once I think I got three. They can’t wait to get you the first couple but after that it’s like Prohibition.”

“Really? I should have paced myself.”

“Yeah, they’ll never come right out and say no but that third beer just never comes. We can get another one over at the show though.”

“I wonder why they’d cut us off?”

“Are you kidding? With all the burned out parents walking around out there? The place would look like a western saloon. There’d be fights, and drunks lying around passed out on every corner. It would be like Columbine.”

“Maybe so.”

“Isn’t that him?” Marcie said. “Just coming in? His reservation was for right about now.”

“Van Morrison?”

“It is!” He was being rolled in through the same door we came in. A half a dozen men followed behind. We all followed them with our eyes as they were led by the hostess through the back of the restaurant before occupying a car all the way in the front. Good, I thought. They’re right under the screen. It’ll be easy to watch him.

“Get your camera out!” Vinnie said. “Your phone, I mean.” I did, and so did he.

“Maybe we should do some recon,” he said. “We need a ‘before’ shot to establish that it’s him.” Before anybody responded he slid out of our car and walked to the front of the theater with his phone held high in front of his face.

“Hopefully he’ll hide it better than that,” I mumbled. He didn’t. I winced when I saw Van Morrison turn and speak sharply at Vinnie as he passed by. “Shoot,” I hissed. “Well, so much for keeping a low profile. Why do I keep letting him blow our cover?”

When Vinnie returned I could tell by his expression that he knew he’d blown it. I thought back to the episode when we checked into the hotel and realized that this wasn’t even the first time Van Morrison had caught Vinnie taking his picture. If anybody had to go it should have been me. “I guess he knows we’re watching him,” I said simply. “That complicates things.”

~~~

Vinnie and I were disappointed about what had happened but neither of us mentioned it as we herded the kids out of the restaurant and across the park to the ZapQuest amphitheatre. The show was still nearly two hours away but there was already a steady stream of spectators moving along a mile-long narrow path in the shadow of the Hollywood Bowl Hotel. Stern ushers guided us away from the empty front and center metal bleachers and over to the next available seats on the edge. I knew Nancy had to be steaming that the latest arrivals would get the best seats. Luckily I was still too buzzed to feel the tension.

“What are ECVs?” I asked after reading a sign.

“Scooters,” Vinnie said. “Easy cruising vehicles.”

“Electric convenience vehicles,” corrected Nancy.

“Convenience is the word,” I agreed as I watched crowds emerge from an ECV lot and scamper down the steps to premium seats without daring to look back at the rest of us.

“I’m thinking that’s the way to go from now on,” Vinnie said after he saw what I was getting at. “I’m completely serious.”

“Is there any crap souvenir not being sold here?” I asked Marcie as I watched vendors tramping up and down the aisles hawking crates of glowing, spinning knick knacks that would soon be banished to the bottom of closets. Luckily Nancy had seen it coming and read all the kids the riot act about asking for goodies on the walk over. “It’s like a hall of fame for overpriced trinkets.”

The threatening clouds hadn’t dissipated during dinner, and a light rain began to fall thirty minutes before the show was to begin. I looked around, expecting an exodus and secretly hoping we would be part of it, but nobody moved. In fact, I was the only one in the crowd who even seemed to notice the rain. Vinnie reappeared shortly after the rain did with a tray full of beverages including fruity alcoholic ones for the adults. That made the waiting easier.

“They won’t cancel,” Nancy told me as I watched the mist and rain in the lights. “They do these shows in the rain all the time.”

I was trying to restore my circulation by rocking back and forth from butt cheek to butt cheek when I heard a low roar from the crowd. Then there was a hush, followed by a flourish of activity. The lights went down and suddenly the reverent crowd was ready to pay homage. I thought I heard women and children weeping. Men clapped. I swept the amphitheater with my eyes, certain that Jesus Christ had returned to Earth and was nearby. Then, a white-hot spotlight illuminated the Squirrel high up on the stage on a protruding rock. He was dressed like Michael Jackson.

The reaction of the crowd made the Beatles fans at the Ed Sullivan show look like a gathering of monks. It seemed as though everybody but me was screaming. Fifteen dollar candy apples and ten dollar snow cones in flashing cups were inadvertently heaved from laps to clatter down the concrete steps as people leaped to their feet with hands in the air. Just when the fervor began to die down I heard that squeaky voice, enflaming the crowd all over again.

The show itself was some kind of struggle between good and evil, with scenes from Snodgrass movies cleverly interspersed. The Squirrel had his hands full for a while, battling a giant snake, a dragon and some sort of super bat. There was fire, water, explosions and a lot of smoke. After William’s inevitable triumph over the bevy of frightening but predictable villains, boatloads of obscure Snodgrass characters sailed in front of the stage on paddleboats, much to the delight of the roaring crowd. When I looked at my watch after the lights came back on I couldn’t believe the show had only lasted twenty-five minutes. It seemed like hours.

I couldn’t understand what the holdup was as we stood in the aisles waiting to climb out of the amphitheater after the show. Then I remembered the long narrow path we’d come in on. It was after nine o’clock and we had three small, grumpy, sleepy children to deliver from the park. Everybody else did too. I thought we’d never get out. Some people grew so frustrated that they defied the ushers and cut across the slick, wet bleachers and in front of those who’d followed the rules. There were a few nasty glares between frazzled parents and an occasional exchange of words, but no fights broke out. Finally we reached the narrow path. A few thousand baby steps later we‘d made it back to Sunset Boulevard where there was more room for the mob to breathe. Somehow Vinnie remembered where the van was after we’d fought our way out of the park.

Not a word was spoken as Vinnie drove us back to the Space Age and dropped us all at the main entrance. I was partially revived when waves of icy air blew over us as we entered but I wasn’t even at half strength. When we were back in our room I collapsed on the bed. The last thought I remembered was what I would say if Vinnie wanted to go the bar. Can’t make it, sorry buddy. Stick a fork in me. I’m done.

Chapter 13

Somehow Vinnie never figured out that I couldn’t be bothered. He came after I’d slept for about a half hour. Marcie and the kids were out on the balcony and I was sleeping with my eyes open when he appeared in my face. At first I couldn’t make his words out but eventually I realized that he was telling me I had to go with him to see Stan. “Okay, okay,” I said, knowing I didn’t have a choice, “but I’m only drinking soda. I don’t care what anybody says. Especially you.” I poked my head onto the balcony to tell Marcie where we were going and then we left.

Stan was at his customary position behind the bar at the Milky Way. When I ordered a Diet Coke to go along with Vinnie’s Bud Light he glowered but didn’t say anything. He dropped the drinks off, took care of a few other customers and then propped his elbow on the counter in front of us. “So what happened this time? Did you boys catch up with Gimpy?” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me he slipped through your fingers again. I can see it in your faces. What happened?”

Vinnie and I looked at each other. “Yeah, he was there,” I said. “But he didn’t get out of the chair. We were ready but he behaved.” Vinnie looked relieved that I hadn’t told Stan about his gaffe. “We were hoping he’d finally make a mistake.”

“He’s a pompous weasel but he’s not dumb,” Stan said. “It was worth a shot but it’s not like they have dancin’ there at the Cheesy. I’ll bet that dandy prick thinks he’s a good dancer. They all do.”

“That’s an idea,” I said. “Is there any place to dance in Snodgrass?”

“SnodgrassTopia is full of dance clubs. Name any kind of music, they have it there. Even that goddamned disco crap.”

“It’s looking like we’re not going to catch him at all,” Vinnie said in monotone as he stared at the counter.

“Don’t forget, he’s still got that jet-ski tour comin’ up,” Stan reminded him. “We just don’t know exactly when.”

“I’m sure he’ll back out of that too,” Vinnie droned.

“There’s a reason I called you boys tonight. Where are you fellows goin’ to be tomorrow?”

“You didn’t call us,” Vinnie snarled.

“Well, I was about to.”

“We’re heading back to the Enchanted Empire,” I told him.

“That’s what I thought, since it’s Enchanted Hours in the mornin’. First hour just for Snodgrass hotel guests. Well, you’re in luck. So is your friend. Van Morrison, I mean.”

“Van Morrison’s in luck too?”

“No, goddamnit! I mean he’s goin’ to the same place you’re goin’!”

“We’ll keep our eyes open. Whatever,” Vinnie said. His face was practically resting on his bottle.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll run into him,” I added. “There’ll only be forty or fifty million people in there.”

“I can narrow it down a whole lot,” Stan said. “He and his monkeys are takin’ a tour of the subterranean portals at eleven-o’clock. You’ll know exactly where he is. I know for a fact that his first stop is lunch at the Tropic World Eatery.”

“A tour of what?”

Vinnie’s head snapped up. “The sub ports. I’ve heard of that. Those are the tunnels underneath the park. It’s like a subway down there. Merv Snodgrass dug them in so the cast members could get around easier without us seeing them.”

“Well, not exactly,” Stan said. “They didn’t even have to dig them. The tunnels are above ground. The part you all walk around in is actually the second floor of the park. Before they built the park they built this fancy basement at ground level. Then they built the park right on top of it. So it really isn’t a basement at all.”

“I didn’t know that. I bet Nancy did,” I said.

“You’re damn tootin,” agreed Vinnie.

“Yeah,” Stan said. “You can’t dig basements around here. The water table is too high. It doesn’t take much diggin’ before you hit water. Now, these tunnels are the heart of the park. There’s all kinds of stuff down there. They’ve got these three foot tubes that suck all the trash to one place. All the computers that run the park are down there.”

“That’s pretty neat,” I said. “I never thought about it before. You never see anybody lugging around bags of trash, and this place cranks out a lot of trash. We’ve generated a few tons all by ourselves.”

“And it’s not just trash. Sewer lines, water lines, power lines, supply rooms. There are lockers and showers for us workers. There’s even a barber shop down there. Excuse me. A salon. All the kitchens for the restaurants are down there. Did you ever see anybody drivin’ around the place deliverin’ supplies? Nope. Hell, no. It’s all done underground. Well, like I said, not really underground.”

“Nancy told me about this,” Vinnie said. “One day in Snodgrass Land out in California Merv Snodgrass saw a spaceman walking through Wild West World or something. He wanted to walk right over and stick his foot up the spaceman’s ass because it ruined the western frontier atmosphere. I think the spaceman stopped in and shot the breeze with a few ranchers in a saloon. He had a space helmet and everything. But what was he supposed to do? He’s got to go to work. How was he supposed to go to Future World without passing through Wild West World? That’s why Merv built the tunnels.”

“I always thought that story was a load of bull but you just broke the B.S. meter,” Stan said. “We’ll never know what really happened. But yeah, that’s how the employees get around without anybody seein’ them.”

“How do they get into the tunnels?” I asked. “Or out?”

“There are stairways and doors all over the park,” Stan assured me. “It’s just not somethin’ they like to point out to regular folks. The average customer never gets anywhere near the tunnel doors. There’s one main tunnel entrance at the back of the park near Whimsical World where all the employees go in and out every day. It’s right through the trees, kind of near that elephant ride.”

“But I don’t see how this helps us,” I argued. “If Van Morrison is in the tunnels, what good does that do us? We can’t get down there and we don’t know that he’ll get out of his chair anyway.”

He shook his head so violently that I thought his turkey neck would snap. “Why do you think I called you boys? I know a lot of people over there. You don’t work for Snodgrass for fifteen years without gettin’ to know the right people. Some of them, anyway. Most of them are jackasses. But I can get you down there. I might even go with you. I’m holdin’ a grudge against this man.”

“Now you’re talking!” Vinnie said, lifting his chin out of his beer for the first time. “You can do this?”

“I can. Even if I’m not there I’ll get tipped off when he goes underground.”

“So how do we work it?” I asked. “Should we meet you some place over there?”

“I just said I might not even be there. You fellas give me your cell phone numbers. I’ll be in close contact with my sources. When Stuffy is ready to go down I’ll give you boys a call. I’ve been on the phone all night. It’s all set up.”

“Okay,” I said. “But where should we go when you call?”

“You just tell me where you are in the park. I’ll tell you where the nearest tunnel entrance is. If I can I’ll meet you there myself. Otherwise there’ll be somebody there. I’ll make sure I have somebody at every entry.”

“This is great! We’ll get to see the tunnels? Can we bring the kids?”

“Slow down, slow down. I can get you two down there but I don’t know about everybody else. That’s a tall order.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s asking too much,” I said. “There is one other problem.” I explained how Van Morrison had gotten a pretty good look at Vinnie in the restaurant. Vinnie went back to muttering into his beer but I kept talking. This was important. “Even if he does get out of the chair he’ll sit right back down as soon as he sees us.”

“Hmm,” Stan said. “Well, I think I’ve got an idea. Did I mention that the entire costume department is down there in the subterranean portals?”

~~~

We thought Marcie and Nancy would be upset that they couldn’t go into the tunnels with us but when we explained it later they were okay with it. “Just make sure you take a lot of pictures,” Nancy said. “Whether you see this Van Morrison clown or not.”

“Van Morrison,” Marcie chuckled.

~~~

“I thought the lines would be a lot shorter,” I said as we waited in line outside the Enchanted Empire the next morning. “Are there this many people staying in Snodgrass hotels? I thought Enchanted Hours was going to be a big deal.”

“It is a big deal. That’s exactly why the lines are long. There are a lot of hotels,” Nancy said. “And having the park to themselves for an hour is a big selling point even though it isn’t what it seems. It’s a wash, really. Sure, there’ll be fewer people in there for the first hour but only half the park will be open.”

“Are we rushing the rope again today?” Marcie asked. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“No, it’s not as urgent. We’ll go right for Galaxy Sprint but we won’t crack any heads today. As long as we keep our speed up. I can’t maneuver as well with this stroller anyway when it’s a flat out stampede. It’ll come in handy later though.”

It was still a footrace once the park opened but it wasn’t as tense as the last time. Half the crowd went straight through the castle to Whimsical World while the rest of us peeled to the right to Future World. There was some jostling as the walkway narrowed after we crossed the bridge but it hardly mattered because most people were going to the same place anyway. Vinnie ran ahead, disappeared into a mass of Middle Americans, and popped up just as we were about to enter the Galaxy Sprint line. “Space Spacely fast passes,” he said when he saw the puzzled look on my face.

The Galaxy Sprint line was cool and dark, a nice contrast to the Florida morning. I stood to the side and let the wives and kids pass so Vinnie and I could talk business. “You have your phone turned on?”

“Yeah. You too? It’ll be a few hours though. It’s barely eight o’clock.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing those tunnels. Do you think Stan can pull it off? He doesn’t have much of a track record.”

“I’m sure he can,” he answered. “He’s never let us down. It’s not his fault if Van Morrison never follows through on his own plans.”

It was only ten minutes before we reached the rocket loading platform. I knew Ellie, and probably Sam, too, was nervous about riding, and the screaming that was coming from the darkness above us wasn’t helping. I left that for Marcie to deal with as I watched the faint glow of the rocket coaster cars as they flew through the pitch black over our heads.

Once we were moving in our own rocket I felt like screaming too. There was just enough light for me to see tracks and cross beams that I thought my head was going to slam into. I had to keep reminding myself that taller men than I had survived this ride. I was glad when it was over. It was a little too rough and jerky for my tastes. At least it didn’t spin.

It was too early to use our Space Spacely fast passes so we took a ride on the Future World Transit Authority railway. We cruised over crowded plazas, through Galaxy Sprint and a few gift shops before returning to the station, where we stepped out onto a revolving platform. The line for the Space Spacely ride went quickly. I volunteered to drive Ellie and Sam’s spaceship while they blasted away at a bad guy whose name began with Z.

Vinnie and I each checked our watches constantly but there were still hours to go before Van Morrison was scheduled to go down into the tunnels. “Better make sure your phone’s on,” Vinnie said for the eighth time. “He’ll probably call you first.”

“Anybody up for Plodding Through Yesteryear?” Marcie asked after the kids had emerged from a bathroom break. Nancy frowned, but Kyle yelled “Yeah! I love that ride!”

My younger ones joined in so Nancy surprised us all by relenting. Curious, I caught up with Kyle as we walked past a shuttered amphitheater to Plodding. “So what’s this ride about, Kyle?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. Progress and stuff. I think it spins around fast.” We went inside and watched the four part presentation of typical family life during various periods in the twentieth century. The seats revolved around the stage but not as fast as Kyle was hoping. The temperature had gone up by at least thirty degrees when we were back outside.

“How about if we go over to the Snodgrass County Fair next?” Nancy said. “When we’re done we can catch the train right there and ride all the way to Tropic World. There’s a lot to do over there since we bugged out early last time. We can get fast passes for Buccaneers and then do Tropical Birds Talkfest or Tropical Cruise.” She turned and started walking without waiting for an answer. Question marks were not part of Nancy’s vocabulary when it came to Snodgrass. We walked past Galaxy Sprint and the arcade onto a brick walkway that I’d never seen before. It was a nice walk except for the exhaust of the go-kart track that was just over a grassy ridge. Two minutes later we’d bypassed Whimsical World and were in the heart of the County Fair.

“Look!” Marcie said to the little ones. “William Squirrel’s house! And Xue Li Squirrel’s house! Right next door to each other!” she gushed. “How sweet.”

“Ew!” countered Kyle. “I’m not going in Xue Li’s house!”

“They each have their own house?” I asked. “Aren’t they married?”

“Look, there’s a train now,” Marcie said as she pointed to the station.

“That’s Loco Motive. We’ll get the next one,” Nancy said. “That’ll give us a few minutes to look around.”

Loco Motive’s whistle blew and the train chugged and hissed. It was already heading out of the station by the time a woman in tight shorts barreled past us and slammed her stroller against the closed steel gate. “Nice caboose!” Vinnie remarked.

“Geez, Vinnie, keep it to yourself,” I whispered. “Nobody wants to hear that.”

“What? So I like trains. Sue me.”

I mopped my forehead with my shirt and was about to tuck my shirt back in when my phone rang.

“Jevik? Dave Jevik?” said a familiar scratchy voice after I answered it. “This is Stan the bartender.”

“Stan? What’s wrong? Did he cancel again?” I said after instinctively turning away from my family.

“Just the opposite. He’s goin’ down into the tunnel now.”

“Now? It’s not even ten o’clock!”

“Hold your horses. I’m just the messenger. I have a source over in Ye Olde Holiday Shoppe. He and his tush kissers are there and they’re about to start their tour. I’m still over at the hotel. I was hoping to take you down there myself but I’ve got you covered, don’t you worry.”

“Isn’t Ye Old Holiday Shoppe over in Revolution Land? It’ll take at least twenty minutes to get over there. This place is mobbed right now.”

“It’s in Revolution Square. You’ve got to think like Merv did. Don’t travel above ground, travel below ground. It’s faster. Tell me where you are and I’ll send you to the closest subport entrance.”

Moments later I snapped my phone shut. “He’s going in now!” I told Vinnie.

“It’s way early! What do we do?”

“We have to get moving. Stan told me what to do.” Luckily the wives already knew everything except about the early start. I filled them in before we took off running. Even Vinnie ran.

“He’s going underground in Revolution Town!” I yelled over my shoulder at Vinnie as we dodged through the crowd. I knew when I smelled the go-karts that we’d reached Galactic Gary’s Supernova Luncheonette, where we would go below the surface. Vinnie got stuck behind a family of chattering Germans so I slowed down enough for him to see where I was going. Without looking back, because there was no time to lose, I pulled the luncheonette door open and ran inside. A smiling reptile in a tuxedo was crooning lounge tunes in the front of the restaurant while little kids danced between tables. “Back there!” I yelled out loud to nobody as I sprinted past lines of customers catching an early lunch. After I rounded a corner I realized I didn’t know where I was going. Luckily Stan was one step ahead of me, even from back at the hotel.

“I am Emil,” said a dark-haired man wearing a futuristic uniform and holding a futuristic mop. “Stan say to me you are coming to here,” he said, accenting all the wrong syllables. He looked me up and down. “Where is ze fat, dumb one?” Seconds later Vinnie burst through the door and ran right past us before yanking open the door to the ladies room and disappearing inside. “Never mind.”

“Vinnie! What are you doing?” when he popped back out two seconds later.

“Oh, well, I figured you’d be in there.”

“Can you get us down in the tunnels?” I asked Emil as I tried to catch my breath. “Did Stan tell you what we’re doing?”

“You are ze friends to Stan, no?”

“Yes, yes. That’s us. We are ze friends. Can we get down into the tunnels from here?”

“Follow me.” We walked through a door, past some shelves and cubbyholes stuffed with cleaning supplies and through a short hallway to yet another door. Emil leaned his mop against the wall and swiped his I.D. card through a slot. We heard a loud metallic click before he pushed this door open and waved us in. We walked through and quickly descended a set of plain concrete stairs. “Here you are. Go zat way to ze tunnel. Please not to say my name.”

“We won’t. I promise. Where do we find Van Morrison?”

“Van Morrison?” Emil chuckled. “He is hippie with guitar, no?”

“He’s going in the tunnels at Ye Olde Holiday Shoppe. How do we get there?”

“Zat is in Revolution Square near Wild West World. Follow color codes on ze tunnel walls.”

“Okay. We better roll, Frenchie,” Vinnie said.

“One thing more. Stan say you need to hide ze faces, no?”

“Disguises?” I asked. “Now that you mention it, that would be very helpful. Ze friend here kind of blew it by showing himself once too often.” Ze fat, dumb one.

Emil pulled open a nearby cabinet and rummaged around. “Stan said you to wear zese on ze face.” He reached in and pulled out two costume headpieces. Very large costume headpieces. We would tour the subports as dwarfs. “Which one is dimwit?”

Vinnie and I pointed at each other. Emil pushed the Dimwit the Dwarf head at Vinnie. “And you are Grouchy,” he said as he handed me a surly face half covered with a messy grey beard. We both slipped the heads on without putting up a fight. There was no time to argue.

“Damn, I’m burning up already!” I said after Emil was gone.

“I can hardly understand you,” Vinnie answered, his voice muffled by four inches of stuffing. “How can we communicate? And how are we supposed to take a picture wearing these things?”

“We can figure it out later. We better get going before Van Morrison slips away again.”

Chapter 14

“How do you keep this thing from falling off?” Vinnie complained as we passed through a double doorway and into the tunnel.

“Mine’s loose too,” I told him. “I bet if you have the full costume there’s something to hook it onto. It stinks inside mine, too. I hope whoever wore it last wasn’t a leper. I wish I’d wiped it out some before I put it on. I’d give anything for a can of Lysol. Something smells filthy about it.”

“I thought it would be a little snazzier down here. It looks like a parking garage,” he said as we left the stairwell and crept into the hallway. I didn’t know what Vinnie was thinking but I was fully expecting to be grabbed, slammed against the wall and arrested for trespassing.

“Look how big that pipe is,” I said. “It says AVAC on the side. Is that the one the trash goes through?” As if to answer my question, I heard the sound of an approaching tornado. The roar from the pipe grew loud and then passed us by, leaving us in relative quiet again. There was more than just air or water in that pipe. “I’m guessing that was somebody taking the trash out.”

I felt like we were alone after Emil left us but that changed quickly after we emerged from the stairwell. People rushed back and forth in both directions. I was uncomfortable, alarmed even, knowing we didn’t belong there and especially because we were wearing dwarf heads. Everybody I’d seen so far wore a laminated ID badge somewhere on their person. Even so, nobody paid too much attention to us as they hurried by. So far the disguises were working.

“We should get moving,” I told Vinnie. “We look suspicious just standing here looking around like we’ve never seen this place before.”

“But where do we go? We haven’t seen this place before.”

“Exactly. We don’t want anybody figuring that out.”

“Which way?”

I looked at a subport map on the wall, trying not to look too interested. “It’s a big circle. Look, V.M. came down here,” I said, pointing to an entrance marked ‘Stairway 12: Ye Olde Holiday Shoppe.’ “He’s almost directly opposite where we are. I don’t think it matters which way we go.” I started walking toward the back of the park. Vinnie followed.

“Unless he starts walking the other way,” he grumbled. “We’re either on a collision course or we’ll never see him at all. Some things never change.”

After we’d walked a few steps I understood why we didn’t look conspicuous. Coming our way were three partially costumed bodies in various stages of undress. Sticky Bear without his headpiece turned out to be a middle-aged man with an icy glare and four days worth of stubble growing on his face. Tiger was intact except she carried her head under one arm and had the other arm hanging out of the costume. Peter Pan, who turned out to be a woman underneath the leafy-green suit and makeup, was a complete mess. Except for the pointy boots and pixie cap she carried the entire costume in her hands, having stripped down to a sports bra and a pair of gym shorts. Vinnie and I fit right in.

“Holy Hell!” Vinnie yelled from inside his dwarf head as I watched Peter Pan’s finger come dangerously close to her own nostril. “Two Williams coming our way! Wait, make that three!”

I laughed inside my dwarf head. All three Squirrels wore the complete costume from head to toe. I wondered if William costumes didn’t come with detachable heads like the rest of them. “Hilarious. That’s something you don’t see every day.”

Should we take a picture?”

“Probably not,” I advised. “We’re trying not to stand out, remember?”

“What are you looking at, butthead?” one of the Williams demanded of me when he decided I’d stared too much. Heeding Vinnie’s reminder, I looked away without responding. Don’t give anybody any reason to remember me by, especially The Squirrel.

“Did William Squirrel just call you Butthead?” Vinnie laughed after they were gone. “That’s one for the ages. Now I know I should have taken a picture.”

“I’ve got to take this head off for a second,” I said. “It’s not just hot. I’m suffocating from the stench.”

“Okay, but keep it handy. These heads are all we’ve got to make us look legit.” After I removed mine he did the same thing.

When we came to a break room Vinnie stopped. “You think there’s a water fountain in there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What if somebody tries to talk to us?” Is he about to blow our cover again? Despite my worries I didn’t argue, mostly because he was already through the doorway before I’d even opened my mouth. Another William trotted past with a towel around his neck and a tiny dumbbell in each paw. He was checking a stopwatch as I followed Vinnie into the room. Maybe I could keep him out of trouble.

We walked past two rows of tables toward a bank of vending machines. Sure enough, there was a water fountain next to a stainless steel sink. Just like the hallway, the room was crammed with half-dressed Snodgrass characters. A long-nosed marionette boy and an Arabian peasant were arm wrestling over in the corner while a hippopotamus in a skirt sat on the floor against the wall reading a hunting magazine. I had pulled my dwarf head back on but Vinnie was still exposed. Why he wasn’t worried about getting caught was beyond me. I’d never seen anybody in my life who looked less like a guy hired to play one of the seven dwarfs. I watched as he drank and was relieved that somehow, nobody gave him even a second glance. Most eyes were fixed on the puppet, who had grabbed the Arabian’s turban and was parading around the room in it to celebrate his victory. Once we were back in the hall Vinnie seemed to sense my discomfort and he too slipped his head back on.

A woman I recognized as Cinderella slammed out of a nearby locker room, the door crashing into the wall because she’d thrown it open so hard. “Well he’s an asshole too, just like you!” she screamed back into the locker room before leaning against the wall and lighting a cigarette. “What are you looking at, butthead?” she said when she saw my dwarf face turned her way.

“That’s twice now,” Vinnie laughed beneath his mask as we hurried away from the princess. We both stopped cold a minute later when reached a fork in the tunnel. “Which way?”

“How should I know?” I snapped.

“It looks like Revolution Square is this way,” he said. “I think that’s what the red line on the wall means.”

“Let’s just make sure,” I said. “Then we won’t have to backtrack. We turned right and walked up an ever-widening tunnel. We were both too engrossed with the photographs of the Enchanted Empire under construction to be aware that the passage was brighter with each step we took. We weren’t climbing but somehow there was daylight ahead. “This doesn’t seem right,” I said when I finally noticed what was happening.

“Stan did say the main entrance was behind Whimsical World,” Vinnie said. “That’s where we are. I bet that’s where this hallway goes. We just got in, we don’t want the exit.” We turned and went back the way we came to the fork, where this time we headed down the other hallway.

“You know, we’re in a real pickle,” I said. “We don’t know our way around down here in the first place. To top that off, we don’t even know where we should be going. It’s no different than it was when we were above ground. Our only chance to find him is dumb luck.”

That’s when I heard the voice. I know for a fact that his first stop is lunch at the Tropic World Eatery. It sounded like Stan’s voice, sort of. Had he said that? I heard it again. I know for a fact that his first stop is lunch at the Tropic World Eatery. He had! He’d said it in the bar the night before but I’d been so tired at the time that it hardly registered in my memory. I know for a fact that his first stop is— “Okay, okay, I heard you the first time, Vinnie. And the second time. Is that supposed to be your Stan imitation? And where is this Tropic Eatery place?”

“Well, it sounds like it’s down here in the subports or Stan wouldn’t have brought it up,” Vinnie said. “And he did say ‘Tropic World’ so I’m guessing it’s under Tropic World. So that means we go this way.”

It made sense, so we walked. Suddenly remembering why we were there, I pulled my phone from my pocket and set it up so it was ready to take a picture. When Vinnie turned his Dimwit face my way I explained. “For all we know he could be coming this way right now. I want to be ready.” His giant head bobbed up and down and he pulled his camera out too.

I panicked when we heard a beeping sound behind us, thinking we’d been caught, but it was only a woman driving a golf cart towing a trailer full of condiments. She was probably bound for the restaurant supply rooms.

“Look at those jugs!” Vinnie said as she passed. “They’re the biggest I’ve ever seen!”

“Don’t get distracted Vinnie.”

“Yeah, I know, but they sure go through a lot of ketchup in this place. Wait a minute. Is this it?” he asked when a short hallway appeared on our right. He studied a sign on the wall and answered his own question. “No, can’t be. It goes to Peter Pan. We’re right on the edge of Whimsical World. We’ve got a ways to go before we get to Tropic World.”

A man in colonial dress appeared in the tunnel ahead of us. “He definitely looks like a Revolution Square kind of guy,” I said. “We must be near the holiday store entrance. We better be ready. That’s the place of the last Van Morrison sighting.”

That’s Ben Franklin himself,” Vinnie said when the colonial man came closer and we saw his bifocals and pillow stuffing. He nodded at us before pulling off his stringy grey wig, revealing a closely cut green Mohawk hairstyle. “A friggin’ penny saved is a friggin’ penny earned. No kidding,” he spat in a British accent as he passed. “I need some new lines,” we heard him grumbling to himself before he disappeared around the bend behind us.

“I’ve got to take this off again for a minute,” Vinnie said when nobody was around. He pulled the dwarf head off and wiped his forehead with it. “I don’t know how people can wear these things outside.”

“I guess that’s why everybody’s half naked down here. They cool down whenever they can.” We heard a clattering of heeled shoes ahead of us. “Put it back on, Vinnie,” I hissed. Before he was able to, five uniformed security guards appeared and were running straight at us. Were we busted?

Three women in business attire emerged from behind the guards and, while they held their speed down, they looked to be in a hurry as well. The sense of urgency I was picking up made me uneasy. “Just keep walking,” Vinnie whispered from inside the Dimwit head that he’d pulled back on. “Remember, we look just like everybody else.” Except for the fanny pack around my waist, I thought, but it’s too late to do anything about that.

Why were these people running? Had they discovered that unauthorized visitors had entered the subports? Had we, the infiltrators, been detected? Were we heading for a showdown? If only Stan was here to talk our way out of this.

“Stop right there!” one of the guards yelled at us after they’d closed to twenty-five feet. “Keep walking,” I said quietly. “Pretend you don’t know what they’re talking about. We’re just going to work.”

“We’re stopping, we’re stopping, keep your shirt on,” came a voice from behind us. I turned and saw two men, each pushing a chrome cart in the opposite direction. I had no idea where they’d come from. This was turning out to be quite a mysterious place.

The guards kept coming but slowed to a walk when they were near us. “Good work,” one said to another after nodding at us. “Those bastards have slipped the pastry cart past us for the last time. We’re on to them now.” Along with the women in street clothes, the entire group swept past us without giving us a second look and descended on the carts like locusts. The clanging of platters and lids rang through the tunnel but the sound faded as we quickened our pace. Neither of us spoke as two Toothys appeared from another break area and disappeared in the direction of the feeding frenzy.

“I think we went too far,” Vinnie finally said a minute later. “Look, that’s an America Boulevard exit. We must have kept on going all the way past Tropic World.”

“Yeah, we’ve been walking for a long time. I’ll bet we were so worried about the rent-a-cops that we walked right past it. We better turn back.”

Sure enough, there was a hallway marked ‘Tropic World Extension’ that we’d missed. This time we walked up the hallway to a set of glass doors marking the entrance to the Tropic World Eatery. “This must be it.” It looked a lot like a lunchroom at any high school except for the Snodgrass characters that filled it. We secured our dwarf heads and went inside. It didn’t take long for us to realize that whether or not Van Morrison had been there before, he wasn’t there anymore.

“Dang,” Vinnie said after plopping down at an empty table. “What do we do now?”

“Well there’s no point in staying here. He might still be down in the tunnels. We have to keep looking.” He stood back up and we walked out.

“I don’t see any point in going back the way we came,” I said. “We’d have seen him if he went that direction. Let’s go to the boulevard and look around. Under the boulevard, I mean. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Okay,” he sighed before looking at me with his whiskerless dwarf face. “We’re not going to find him are we?”

“Probably not,” I replied, stroking my thick beard. “But we’re down here so we may as well try.” We walked back around a curve to the front of the park. “We’re definitely under America Boulevard now, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah. It’s like a rat maze now. Where do all these passages go?”

“Some of those rooms look like offices. We should stay away from those before anybody starts asking questions. Let’s keep to the left. I’ll bet after we get through this mess we’ll start curving to the back again. That’s probably where he went. It has to be.”

We kept to the left whenever we could, but the hallway never curved the way we expected it to. It was straight as an arrow. “Hey, we’re walking downhill,” Vinnie said. “We’re going deeper into the ground.” No sooner had he said it than the hallway bottomed out. “It’s kind of creepy that all of a sudden there’s nobody around.”

I spotted a tunnel map on the wall and stopped to check it out. “I see where we are. We’re not on the outside of the circle anymore. We’re walking straight up the boulevard. It looks like we’re about to walk under the castle! Wow.”

“We probably just walked under the mote. That’s why it went down.”

Somehow it felt better when we started walking up hill again. There was another maze of halls on both sides that we continued through, and then I recognized the curved passageway. “We were here before. I think we’re back in Whimsical World. We went that way last time,” I said, pointing to my left.

“Hey,” Vinnie said, elbowing me in the ribs. “Dave, check it out! Look down the other way. Is that who I think it is rolling our direction? It’s Van Morrison! Jesus God, I think it is!”

“I can’t believe it! It’s him!” I said. “He must have rolled around the outside of the circle while we cut down the middle! Perfect! What a break!”

“For once. Too bad he’s sitting in the chair like a good boy.”

“Let’s just watch for a second,” I suggested. “He’ll have to come right past here but he’ll never know it’s us. Not even you can blow our cover with these heads on.” The group came closer. As always, Van Morrison’s hands and mouth were busy telling his minions what to do as they passed. When I saw the tour guide direct them to roll up the hallway towards the daylight my heart sank. We had finally tracked them down but now they were on their way out. Another opportunity had passed us by.

“We did what we could,” Vinnie said weakly.

“Yeah, I guess.” I could still hear Van Morrison giving orders.

“Hey, look at all the security around that room.”

“Those guards are the real deal,” I said. “They have guns, not streudel.” The hallway was suddenly filled with the unmistakable roar of an internal combustion engine. A big one. Two headlights eclipsed our view of the guards. It was a monstrous truck and it was heading our way. What in the world is a truck doing down here?

“We’ve got to move!” I told Vinnie, yelling so I could be heard. “That truck is nearly as wide as the hallway! There’s only about six inches to spare on each side!” We ran up the tunnel away from the truck and dove into the doorway of the Empire Shears Salon.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Vinnie said. “I just thought of something. How’s Van Morrison going to get out of the way? That wheel chair’s more than six inches wide. And he sure as hell is, too.” We yanked our dwarf heads off and peeked into the hallway. The truck was only fifteen feet away and bearing down on our position. The Van Morrison party was less than twenty feet ahead of us in the other direction.

“Get your camera out!” I shouted at Vinnie, because he was on the outside. He already had. He reached out into the corridor with it and snapped off picture after picture of Van Morrison running up the hall while two other men struggled to collapse the abandoned wheel chair as the truck rumbled closer and closer. The roar of the engine was deafening in the narrow tunnel.

“I got it!” Vinnie yelled as he withdrew into the doorway just as the truck rolled by. He called the pictures up on the screen of the digital camera where we saw that they were clear as could be. Each shot showed George Van Morrison running up the tunnel away from the truck. Not rolling. Not walking. Running. Joe Gumm was off the hook.

“Did you see what that was?” I asked. “A Brinks truck. That must be what all the security was about. They’re taking money in or out. Probably out. Can you imagine how much dough this place takes in by the hour? I wonder if one truck is enough.”

“Is Van Morrison still out there?”

I peeked out. “He’s walking. Wait, he’s running again.”

“I can’t resist. Let me switch to video,” Vinnie said. “Live action would be even better.”

I cocked my ear. “No, Vinnie,” I said as he grabbed the railing and leaned back out into the hall. “No. Wait. I think he’s running because—“

Too late. The front left quarter panel of another truck slammed into Vinnie’s hand. Not hard enough to do any permanent damage but hard enough to knock the camera from his grip. We heard two sickening crunches as two sets of massive tires rolled over the camera. Vinnie grabbed his hand and slumped backwards to land on top of me. After the second Brinks truck had gone past all that was left on the floor in its wake was a flat pile of rubble that used to be a camera. I pulled out my own camera after shoving Vinnie off my lap but by then Van Morrison and his entourage was gone. All I could see was the brake lights of the Brinks truck as it waited for the doors to open.

“Like I always say,” I told Vinnie as he lay on the concrete with his eyes closed. You just can’t make this stuff up. I think it’s time to wave the white flag.”

Chapter 15

Vinnie held his hand up to examine it as he lay on his back on the concrete. After it passed the eyeball test he opened and closed it several times before letting it fall to his chest. Our dwarf heads were jammed up against the glass salon doors. Neither of us spoke until the sound of the Brinks truck had completely faded away after it had left the tunnel. We were the only ones left. Even the scary gun-wielding guards were nowhere to be seen.

“How’s your hand? Does it hurt?”

“It’s throbbing some. It’s just a bruise. I don’t think anything’s broken, it’s just swollen.” He held his two hands up to show the swelling. His other hand looked just as bloated as the injured one. “The truck wasn’t really moving too fast. I wonder if he even saw me.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to get some ice on it,” I said lazily, as if we had all the time in the world.

“We had him. We had at least six pictures of him running up the tunnel. He would have been blown out of the water, the lying sack. We had him and I blew it again.”

What a dumbass. Van Morrison was nailed. “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Vinnie.” We had him cold. Why did he have to get video? I just can’t keep this guy from shooting himself in the foot. And me. “I’d have done the same thing.”

“I guess we better get back to the others. Eventually somebody’s going to throw us out of here.” We climbed to our feet and brushed ourselves off. Vinnie dug a toe through the dust that had been his camera before scattering the crumbs with a sweeping kick. “Damnit! We had him! What was I thinking?”

I’d run out of words of consolation so I didn’t even try. Vinnie began walking toward the doors the Brinks truck had passed through. “Wait a second, Vinnie. If we go out that door we’re outside the park. I think we need to go back through one of the interior exits.”

“Yeah. Gee, I hope nobody gives us any flak about it.” He grabbed our dwarf heads and handed me mine. “Just in case.”

“I think we should stay as far away as we can from the money room that the trucks came from,” I said. “Those guards looked mean. They’re liable to ask to see our I.D. badges.” We veered right and walked until we came across stairway number four. It looked clear so we ascended the stairs, walked through a few unlocked doors and found ourselves in a dark passage.

“I hear voices. Put your hat on,” Vinnie said. “We could be in for trouble. We don’t even know where the hell we are.”

“I’ll put it on,” I said. “But I’ve had it. Nobody better hassle me after all this.” I pulled on my Grouchy head. “If anybody lays a hand on me I’m shaking it off without stopping. If we stop we’re dead anyway. We have absolutely no right to be where we are. But I don’t care anymore.”

“Same here. I’ve got my game face on now,” he said from behind his Dimwit mask.

We walked defiantly through bunches of bustling workers in stained white clothing who seemed surprised to see us. Since I knew we weren’t in a hospital I realized we must be in a kitchen. I didn’t stop when I heard voices of authority barking at us from behind because I meant what I’d said to Vinnie. Nobody better screw with me right now. The expression on my face said “We might look like a couple of renegades from the diamond mine but you don’t know what you’re getting into if you mess with us.” It seemed like a good idea to forget that I was wearing a giant bearded face that said “I’m an expendable kid that gets paid minimum wage to wear a dwarf suit.”

When we saw a nondescript door topped by an exit sign we headed for it. A manager type with a bad mustache tried to cut us off but we beat him there with room to spare. Before he could catch up we were out into the sun and had dissolved into the crowd as effectively as could be done by two middle-aged men wearing giant dwarf heads.

It didn’t take long to see that we were on the border of Whimsical World and Revolution Square and had just rampaged through the kitchen of the Middle America Meat and Potatoes Inn. Needing a place to hide, we wandered in the direction of the castle, where somehow the crowds were thinner, until we found a shady corner. I pitched my dwarf head over a picket fence and watched it sail into a tributary of the mote. Vinnie jammed his into a weathered barrel. “I’ll call the girls and see where they are,” he said as he plopped his butt on the surface of a picnic table and swung his feet onto the bench. I did the same.

“Nobody’s answering,” he said after a few tries.

“Maybe they’re on a ride.”

“I’ll try again in a minute. You were right, I need some ice for my hand. I think I’ll go see if that guy at the soda cart can help me out.”

I watched him walk over. The soda cart man shook his head vehemently at Vinnie. Even in a good mood Vinnie wasn’t going to take ‘No’ for an answer so I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. I lost my direct line of sight as park visitors crossed back and forth in front of me. When I could see him again he was walking back with what appeared to be a load of ice that he’d wrapped in the bottom of his shirt. Over his shoulder I could see the soda man shouting as he pulled out a walkie talkie or cell phone. Strollers stopped. People stared. I worried that these were vigilantes ready to do whatever it takes to defend anything that was Snodgrass.

“What did you do?” I asked. “That guy’s calling security on you.”

“He told me I couldn’t have any ice. I need ice. I got run over by a Snodgrass truck. The least they can do is give me some ice. So I took it anyway.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “But we better scram. The codger on that scooter looks like he’s about to make a citizen’s arrest. Now’s the perfect time, his view is blocked.”

We crossed a plain wooden bridge that put us on the plaza in front of the castle. “Let’s get lost in Tropic World,” I suggested. While we walked I pulled out my cell phone since Vinnie was icing his hand in his homemade shirt pouch.

“Kind of weird, isn’t it?” he asked. “We were here a half hour ago but we were below ground. The tunnels could be right under where we are right now.” We crossed the humped wooden bridge, so steep that a complacent stroller-pushing dad had to back up and start over after building up some momentum. The beat of African Congo drums filled the air as I dialed Marcie’s number and uttered the most common phrase ever used on a cell phone: “Where are you?”

“We just got fast passes for Tropical Cruise,” she said. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“We’re good,” I told Marcie. “They’re at Tropical Cruise,” I told Vinnie.

“That’s right around the corner,” Vinnie said. “Tell them we’re on our way.”

It turned out that Nancy wanted to attend the Tropical Birds Talkfest show so we met there. Vinnie threw the ice into some tropical flora so he wouldn’t have to explain why he had it, choosing instead to explain why the bottom of his shirt was dripping wet. While we waited in line for the show we explained everything that happened as quickly as we could without embarrassing ourselves too much. I tried to play down Vinnie’s latest mistake but I’m sure they knew.

“So what did you do while we were gone?” Vinnie asked.

“Don’t ask,” Nancy said. “We went in and had a sit down lunch. It took forever.”

“Really slow,” Marcie agreed. “Then she took a really long time to bring the check. It didn’t even matter how much it was, we’re using food plan coupons anyway. When she finally brought it she said she was sorry. There was some confusion in the back of the restaurant and all the checks got scrambled.”

“I heard the worker guys talking,” Kyle said. “Some naked midgets were streaking through the restaurant.”

“Hmm,” I said. “That sounds familiar. Are you sure they call them midgets?”

“Something like that. Dwarfs with no uniforms or something.”

“Let me guess. You ate at Middle America Inn.”

“You’re right! How did you know?” Marcie asked.

“Call it a hunch.” I forced a cough to hide my smile. Luckily the line started to move before any more questions were asked.

“I wish we didn’t miss the excitement at lunch,” Vinnie said after we sat down in the dark TBT auditorium. “I’d like to have seen these nude midgets doing their thing. Sounds like it was a real hoot and we could use a laugh right now. Hey, didn’t we come out of the tunnels through a restaurant?”

~~~

After the bird show it was still too early to use our Tropical Cruise fast passes so we killed some time on the Amir’s Fuse ride. As soon as he saw it Kyle wanted to climb through the tree house, which used to be Swiss Family Robinson but was now Tarzan because that movie was newer and more marketable. Apparently committing time to this tree was usually a no-no with Nancy but this time she made no protest. Even Justin and Katie went in. Vinnie appeared with Pineapple Slushy frozen beverages for the adults. All the nearby benches were crowded with twenty-somethings who were all dispensing sunscreen, changing diapers or spooning food into the faces of unseen stroller creatures, so we sat on the ground under a banana tree to enjoy our treats. Vinnie’s hand must have been hurting because I noticed he had it buried in his slushy whenever he wasn’t drinking from it.

“Check out that scooter,” I said as an ECV the size of a Humvee paused briefly to allow three little girls to flee from its path. “Is that a colostomy bag hanging in back? I guess that’s one way to beat the bathroom lines.”

“What are we doing after Tropical Cruise?” Marcie asked.

“We’ll get fast passes for Buccaneers,” Nancy said. “We’ll have to fill in time before we can use them. Maybe Ghostly Acres, Critter Falls or Gold Rush. If we go back to Future World or Whimsical World I like to do it at night. We’ll also probably have to do something about dinner, especially if we stay late.”

Tropical Cruise, a boat tour of the rivers of various jungles around the world, was fun because of the wise-cracking boat driver but mostly because we were in shade and sitting down. I was reciting some of the jokes on the way out when Nancy ruined the magic by telling me that most of the boat drivers use the same jokes. Until then I was sure that we’d been in the presence of the next Jay Leno.

Next we grabbed Buccaneers fast passes. It would be ninety minutes before we could use them so we took our time walking over to Ghostly Acres, which we went through twice. The women knocked twenty more minutes off as they browsed in a tropical gift shop, a pirate gift shop, a cowboy gift shop and then a tropical pirate cowboy gift shop.

Finally it was time for Brutal Yet Fun and Lovable Buccaneers. The line wound through cool, dark stone passageways that were as fun to look at as I expected the ride to be. I worried for the safety of the two empty-headed little boys that kept shooting past us to look at the scenery near us instead of the scenery near them, but by the time Nancy had that look in her eye we’d reached the front of the line.

“So the Cliff Pallitt movies were based on the ride and now the ride is based on the Cliff Pallitt movies, isn’t that right?” I asked. “ARRR.”

“Pretty much,” Nancy agreed.

We filled three rows of our boat. In the front row, just ahead of us, was a boy who looked to be about six years old. His parents sat on either side, and the grandparents occupied the end seats. At first I wasn’t sure why the grandfather was vomiting over the side but I understood after piecing together everything I’d seen that he’d been overcome by the exertion of over-exuberant ARRRing.

“Helicopter parents,” Nancy said. “It’s written all over them. I guarantee that kid never sees a single pirate. He hasn’t got a prayer.”

After nearly a week in Snodgrass World I knew exactly what she was talking about. It started even before the boat pulled away from the loading dock. There was nothing to see except air ducts and cattle chutes full of passengers but that didn’t matter. All four grownups leaned at the boy and assumed the ‘Travolta’ position. The face was as tight with the child’s as possible but turned toward whatever wonder of the world was being showcased. The interior arm was wrapped tightly around the child’s torso and then the exterior arm flew up at the target object with one finger extended, much like John Travolta’s signature dance move in ‘Saturday Night Fever.’ As Nancy had said, the child could never see anything except the heads of the overzealous parents. ARRR.

“Christopher Columbus must have had a set of those on board with him,” I said. “No way he sees the New World without Mom and Dad pointing it out.”

“In 1892 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” Vinnie said. It was nice to see that he was finally cheering up. He mentioned something about the Mayflower but was drowned out by a warning that no flash photography was allowed on the ride.

A jaunty rendition of the “Yo Ho Yo Ho, a Pirate’s Life for Me,” ditty filled the cavern shortly after we shoved off. I knew what song would be in my head until I closed my eyes to go to sleep that night. ARRR. The boat turned a corner and we sailed slowly through a bank of mist. Four heads in the front row lurched towards the center of the boat where the little boy sat. We could see the silhouette of their arms against the grainy image of an octopus sea captain that had been projected in the fog. Ellie whimpered when a ghastly voice warned us that “Dead mean tell no tales,” but only the first nine or ten times we heard it.

After a surprising drop we found ourselves in the middle of a bombardment of a coastal town by – yes – pirates! ARRR! On the shore an advance team of invaders were busy dunking a fat bald man named Juan in a well while his wife cackled and wailed.

Just after we’d passed Juan our boat slowed markedly. We crashed into the boat ahead of us and then were hit by the one behind us. A groan went up. “Must be a handicapped person getting off the boat,” I heard at least seven people say from boats all around us on the open water. “Why is it so important that they get on these rides anyway?” complained more anonymous voices from the dark. Before the caustic spirit of rebellion and anarchy could spread any further the boats separated and we again set sail.

The heads in the front row converged again as we rounded a bend and saw the town, now in peril as it endured a full-scale pirate invasion. A monstrous bolt of lightning flashed across the fake sky just as a handsome pirate wearing more mascara than an eighties hair band appeared out of nowhere. “Wow, great thunderstorm,” I said. “Awesome special effects. I was waiting for a thunder clap.”

“That wasn’t lightning,” Nancy said. “Everybody snapped a picture of Cliff Pallitt when he popped out of that barrel.”

“Oh, is that who that was? I guess that’s why they went nuts in the front row. I think Grandma and Daddy have concussions. They knocked heads when they pulled that last Travolta. ARRR.”

“Yo Ho Yo Ho, a Pirate’s Life for Me!”

Vinnie tugged on my sleeve from behind. “Dave, see that pirate on shore watching the chess match? I think that’s a real person that jumped off a boat! I swear I saw that kid getting on Galaxy Sprint just ahead of us!”

“I think you’re right. I remember Marcie saying that’s an Ed Hardy shirt he’s wearing.”

The last scene showed the town as a flaming ruin. The flapping black plastic bathed in flickering orange light looked remarkably like fire in the windows of burning buildings. ARRR! I thought the ride was over after we passed under a hairy-legged pirate perched on a bridge but there were a few more diorama scenes including a Cliff Pallitt reprisal that probably boosted movie ticket sales by the millions. “You have to give Snodgrass credit,” I said to Vinnie as we rode a narrow escalator back up to ground level. “Pirates are the all-time lowlifes in the history of the world. They couldn’t find enough stuff to steal or people to slaughter and rape. You’d never know it by this ride. Cliff Pallitt’s practically a saint in here. They may as well give him a halo.”

“That’s Hollywood. He’s a regular Mother Anita around here.”

“ARRR.”

~~~

“It’s that time of day,” I said out loud to nobody in particular as we worked our way between swords and muskets in the Brutal Yet Fun and Lovable Buccaneers gift shop on our way back out. “The temperature shoots up to a hundred thirty and it’s wall to wall people.”

“Like Nancy always says, we already got our money’s worth today,” Marcie said as she took pictures of the kids posing in giant sombreros that we had no intention of buying. I made a note to tell Sam and Ellie to shampoo their hair that night.

“It’s nearly three,” Nancy said. “Anything we do is going to have a long line. Do we want to go back to the hotel and hit the pool? I can’t think of anything we haven’t checked off. Except for that lame Lucy and Fitch show they stuck in where Space Off Face Off used to be.”

“That was a sad day,” Vinnie lamented.

“We could always come back later after the crowds die down,” Marcie suggested.

“They never do,” Nancy said. “By the time the day-trippers leave the fireworks and parade crowd start showing up. It’ll be like this until ten-thirty at least.”

“Let’s get out of here, then,” I said. “I mean, the kids look like their wilting.” Except for Kyle, I thought. He doesn’t know enough to wilt. He just passes out and collapses. “The pool sounds perfect.”

“Can we stop for ice cream on the boulevard on the way out?” Marcie asked.

“ARRR.”

~~~

An hour later we were all poolside. Even Vinnie had skipped his workout for once. “I’ll just swim laps instead,” he promised. I won’t hold my breath.

“How bad does your hand feel?” I asked after everybody else was in the pool. Marcie and Nancy had already said they expected a full report on what had gone on in the tunnels but I thought Vinnie and I should get our stories straight.

“Like I said, it’s just a bruise. Do you think I should have scooped up the camera and poured it into a bag or something?”

“Nah, I don’t think it was savable. Besides, we didn’t have a bag. A vacuum cleaner might have worked.”

“I smashed up a camera when I was a kid but we got the film cartridge out. At least we got those pictures developed. I guess it’s different these days, digital and all.”

“Wait until Stan hears what happened. He’ll probably give up on us. I wonder if he knows already.”

“Yeah, well where was his old ass when we needed him? He said he’d be down there with us.”

“He’s not the reason we went down in flames,” I said. “Even if he was there it would have gone the same way. I mean, we just had some bad luck down there. We couldn’t have done it any better. Van Morrison is the luckiest man in the world.”

“Who cares anyway? What are we, Peter Piper from Spider Man? It would a miracle to get that picture.”

“We nearly pulled it off.”

“Almost. Close but no cigar. We’ve got two days left before we go back home. I say we forget about it and just enjoy the rest of the trip. If we feel like drinking tonight we’ll just come to the bar out here instead of Stan’s place. I just want to forget about the whole thing. I give up.”

“That’s okay by me,” I agreed. “We did all we could do, right? At least we had some adventure on the trip. I can live with that.”

“ARRR.”

Chapter 16

After some down time at the pool, and in Vinnie’s case, the snack bar, everybody except for me felt like they had some unfinished business left to take care of at the Enchanted Empire. We were prepared to scrounge for dinner in the sundries shop if necessary but it turned out they were able to squeeze us in downstairs at the Big West Steak & Ale next to William’s CookHouse. By seven o’clock we were walking up America Boulevard in the Empire, heading for Future World. Nancy was right. The place was still mobbed. If anything, there were more people there than when we left that afternoon. The worst part was that unlike when we’d left, everybody looked fresh and obviously weren’t planning on leaving anytime soon. The hordes were there for the night.

“The problem is that there’s a parade and fireworks tonight,” Nancy explained as we avoided eye contact with a photographer and his assistant long enough to get past them. “People come for that stuff even if they don’t know what it’s all about. If it’s in the brochure they don’t want to miss it.”

“Can you even see anything at a parade at night?” I asked. “It’s getting dark fast in here.”

Nancy smiled. “It’s not the same parade they have during the day. They call it Electric Avenue. Every float’s lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“Lights at night. Very creative. Somebody probably got paid a lot of money to come up with that.”

“See all these people sitting on the curb? They’re waiting for the parade already. All they have to do is stay behind the ropes.”

“For two more hours?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, can you believe it?” Vinnie answered.

“And the tape? What’s going on with that?”

“I always thought that was funny too. They have to stay behind the ropes and the tape. They must go through a thousand rolls of masking tape at every parade.”

I watched as a man in a New England Patriots shirt led his brood through a line of parade waiters that went three deep on the curb in front of a bakery. When they paused for a split-second he was verbally barraged by the curb sitters, who must have thought he was staking a claim on their turf. He spread his arms and snarled right back before moving on. There’s that Snodgrass spirit, I thought.

“Parade watchers are very competitive,” Nancy said as she watched the same scene. “They’re a different breed. I wouldn’t sacrifice two hours for a killer seat at a parade when I can show up five minutes before it starts and just stand in the back, but they don’t have any problem with it. They fall for all the hype. Besides, usually the best time to get on rides is when these sheep are here sitting on the curb sucking on ice cream cones wasting their day. I think they’re underachievers who need to find something easy they can win at.”

“Maybe, but who can blame them for defending their space if they’ve been holding it for two hours?” Marcie said.

Even with the parade draining potential riders away the lines for the prime rides like Galaxy Sprint and Sticky Bear were well over an hour with no more fast passes available for the rest of the night. The payoff just wasn’t there for us, especially since we’d already checked these off our list. We hit a few minor rides, took refuge in open space and tried not to get on the bad side of grumpy parade waiters. Since we had no plans to watch the parade ourselves, and had a front row seat for the fireworks from our own hotel, I wasn’t sure why we’d come back to the park at all. It didn’t add up.

“I’m not sure why we came back to the park at all,” Vinnie grumbled after we exited the Pasty Maiden ride. “Screw the parade. We can watch the fireworks from the hotel. We shouldn’t have even bothered to come back tonight. Does it all add up?”

“Now that you mention it,” I said.

“I’ll work on Nancy,” he said, but Nancy was already issuing commands to the rest of the group. It looked like she’d already come to a decision about the fate of our evening so I leaned in for the proclamation.

“We probably waited too long to bug out,” she was warning them. “I was off by an hour on the fireworks start time. The parade just ended so those people are on their way out. The fireworks people are on their way in. The sooner we move out, the better off we’ll be. We’re in for a long, slow walk.”

“Everybody stay together,” Marcie said as we moved toward the castle. She had the right idea. I dropped to the back of our crawling herd so I could round up any strays. We moved at a snail’s pace through the castle passageway but as we descended along the ramps toward America Boulevard it was even slower. The plaza was in a state of near-gridlock. Nothing but baby steps.

Marcie turned back to make sure I was still bringing up the rear. “Everybody stay together,” she repeated. Fifty feet ahead was a green-capped man in front of a stationary stroller next to a woman carrying a heavy toddler. Their heads swiveled from side to side as they looked for another way out. Those people look scared. It wasn’t a mob yet but people were cross and getting crosser. I made a note of where Green Cap was as another way to monitor our own progress.

Fifteen minutes later, after a lot of body contact and a lot of body odor, we had crossed the plaza and were at the head of the boulevard. From that point there was very little movement. Waves of people coming from at least five different directions were funneling onto the narrow street towards the main entrance, or in our case, exit. “It’s gridlock,” Nancy said. “Just hang in there.”

“They really ought to have another exit or two they can open up when it gets like this,” I fumed. “It’s starting to feel like a Who concert in Cincinnati.”

Then the first whine came. Surprisingly it wasn’t one of the little ones, as I would have expected. “This sucks,” Katie said. “Why did we come back anyway? For stinking Pasty Maiden?”

“Tough it out,” I barked at her. This was no time for coddling. She glared back. Justin glared in empathy. This wasn’t a Kodak moment for our vacation. Instead of snapping at my daughter again I searched the crowd for Green Cap, hoping for a distraction.

The gridlock was getting worse, and quickly. Judging by what little I could see, the problem was that people were coming into the park as fast or faster than they were heading out. If people kept to the right, as they would have if they were in cars, everybody would have gotten where they were going by now. Instead, there was a never-ending succession of standoffs as people tried to go the opposite direction in the same space. Frustration abounded. It was ugly and getting uglier. I didn’t think it would be long before fistfights broke out, and the men around me didn’t look too happy either.

Where’s Green Cap, I wondered as I stood on my tiptoes to look up the street. The answer came after I gave up looking. He was right next to me. We hadn’t moved much in ten minutes but he and his family hadn’t moved at all in thirty. Not an inch. He saw me staring. “I don’t think we’re ever getting out of here,” he said, his voice breaking.

I smiled. “It’s not that bad. You’ll be out before you know it. Slowly but surely.” I paused while trying to think of another appropriate adage since it looked like I’d be stuck talking to this guy for a while.

“For you, maybe. We’re not moving at all. We’ve been in this spot forever,” his wife said as she shifted her load onto the other shoulder. “We can’t even retreat back to where we came from. We just can’t move!” The toddler woke up long enough to inspect me with one eye before settling back in to sleep. I thought about how far ahead of us they had been when I first noticed them. She was absolutely right.

“It’s the stroller,” Green Cap said. “I can’t even get it moving. Every time any space opens up in front of it somebody fills it in. I can’t move at all.” I remembered Nancy explaining when the stroller was useful for clearing space and when it wasn’t. Her analysis had been spot on. “If we didn’t have the kids we’d just find a quiet space and wait it out. Then again, we wouldn’t have the stroller in the first place. We probably wouldn’t be here at all.”

Nancy and Justin, leading our group, began to move. Unlike Green Cap, we were about to inch forward. It played out just as he’d said. The unencumbered guests felt within their rights to squeeze in front of him and the other stroller people whenever a sliver of room opened up. Even if they were just passing through, it blocked Green Cap from moving at all before the next person cut in. His meekness wasn’t helping. I eyed his stroller. It wasn’t of the simple umbrella variety but it looked like it could be folded quickly and hefted out by anybody with free hands. Feeling bad for my new friend and his little family, I had an idea. We couldn’t leave them behind. “Can you carry your son?” I asked.

“My daughter,” Green Cap answered. “Yeah, but I’ve got the stroller to deal with.”

“Pull her out and carry her. I’ll fold the stroller up and carry it.”

He stared at me wide-eyed. “Are you sure?”

I looked ahead at my group, which had begun to move. “Yeah, and the sooner the better so we can all get out of here.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I was once a stroller person. I’ve been in your shoes before and nobody helped me. It’ll be fine. I’ll give it back to you as soon as we get out of the park.”

He explained it all to his wife in a single syllable before he reached in and scooped out a sleeping infant, who he pulled gently to his chest. I squatted down and inspected the stroller. There were two levers on the back. Green Cap was saying something, probably explaining how it worked, but I already knew what to do. A flowery diaper bag and a small cooler bag that was glistening with condensation rested in a bottom compartment. “Vinnie!” I yelled over my shoulder. By the time I had pulled out the two bags he was looking back at me so I passed the bags up to him chain-gang style through my group. “I’ll tell you later!” I yelled at his puzzled face. I snapped the two levers back and collapsed the stroller into a heavy but compact cube of canvas and steel, which I tucked under my arm. When that didn’t feel right I hoisted it onto my shoulder. “Is your wife okay? Vinnie could carry your other son.”

“Daughter,” Green Cap corrected. “She’s a girl too.” Maybe I should have known by the Toothy jacket? “They’re fine. I don’t know why you’re doing this but we really appreciate it, my brother.”

“Like I said, I’ve been there,” I said. “We all have. Let’s roll. I mean, let’s go.”

The stroller was heavier than I expected. After ten minutes, with sweat pouring down my face and out of my armpits, I began alternating it between shoulders, and then working in a shift with it balanced on top of my head. Once in a while I looked back and saw that Green Cap and his family were behind me, but it didn’t really matter anymore. My own group was no longer intact either, although I could see them all ahead of me. All that mattered was that we get out of the park where we could regroup.

The onrushing fireworks crowd was thicker as we moved forward but there was more order as we moved closer to the front of the park. I wondered if somebody was directing traffic as the waves of humanity passed in both directions underneath the railway station at the head of the street. After we finally passed through the turnstiles I was relieved when Nancy turned away from the packed ramp that led to the monorail station. We could walk back to the hotel in the time that it would take to get even a quarter of the way up that ramp.

Then I remembered Green Cap. They were following us away from the park entrance with dazed looks on their faces. “We made it,” I said to him and his wife as I put the stroller down and began to rebuild it.

“Thank you so much,” his wife said.

I was afraid she was going to cry so I changed the subject. “Where are you all headed?”

“We drove here. Our car’s in that huge parking lot on the other side of the Lagoon Sea. I guess we need to take the monorail or the ferry boat,” he said. I spotted the boat landing, which didn’t look much different than the monorail ramp. It would be at least an hour of jostling and elbowing before they got on board. After they got across the Lagoon Sea in the boat or around it on the monorail they would have to fight for a spot on the tram to the parking lot. We were just about home but their journey had just begun.

Vinnie said it but I’d already thought of it. “Why don’t we drive you? We have a car back at the hotel. I bet I can do door to door service.” He bent over and tucked the two bags back under the stroller. “You should just walk back to our hotel with us.”

It was an offer that a young, scared father couldn’t refuse, no matter how proud he was. Now it was his turn to be on the verge of tears. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Pay it forward, that’s all.” I guessed by the quizzical look on his face that he’d never seen that movie.

I was still soaked with sweat when we walked into the hotel. The icy air wave was as remarkable as ever but it felt slimy because I was so wet. “This place is beautiful!” gushed Mrs. Green Cap. “I wish we could stay here sometime.” Vinnie and I led the Green Caps through the lobby and out the back door after sending our own families upstairs on the elevator.

“You’re better off investing that money in the stock market or buying a Mercedes,” I told her as I mopped my forehead with my shirt. “It holds its value better.”

“I don’t know how I could ever make this up to you,” Green Cap said. “I was really scared in there. I actually thought about ditching the stroller. I didn’t see how we’d ever make it out.”

“It’s hard for me to believe it isn’t against fire codes to have only one way in and out of that place,” I said.

“It pays to own the county you build your park in,” Vinnie replied.

We walked past the pool, along the lizard path and into the parking lot. The little Green Caps murmured as they were loaded into the van and strapped down as best we could without waking them. Vinnie was determined to deliver the Green Caps all the way to their own car despite the lack of any safe path directly from point A to point B. He ignored road signs, rolled over orange rubber traffic cones, swore at security guards and broke through imposing lines of traffic until he was in the monstrous parking lot that Merv Snodgrass tried so hard to hide. “We’re in Tinglebell F,” Green Cap said.

The driving was slow once we were in the lot because it was crammed with weary, stone-faced families just like the Green Caps who had managed to escape from the Enchanted Empire. We rode through row after row of white cars with Florida license plates until Mrs. Green Cap spoke up. “That’s us!” she said. Vinnie slammed on the brakes.

“How can you tell?” I asked. “That’s the same model of van we’re riding in right now. They all look the same.”

“I remember who we parked next to,” she explained. I looked at the white rental Taurus on one side and a white rental Malibu on the other and shrugged. Meanwhile, Green Cap confirmed that it was theirs by lighting it up with his key chain remote.

We all got out and transferred everything from van to van. “We’re the Murphys and we’re staying at EconoLodge over in Karopi,” Green Cap said. “I’m Murph Murphy. Really, we’re so grateful for what you did. Is there anything we could do for you?”

“Thank you, thank you,” Mrs. Green Cap added.

“It wasn’t that big a deal,” I said. “I was glad we could help. I’m Dave and this is Vinnie.”

When Murph reached in for the sleeping toddler I noticed for the first time that he wore his hair in a long pony tail. Vinnie noticed too. “Gee, you’re one of those long hairs,” he said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Murph grinned. Until then I’d wondered if he had teeth. “Are you sorry you rescued me?”

“Don’t listen to him,” I said. “He has a blurting problem.” Murph snickered like he knew exactly what I was talking about.

“What line of work are you in?” Vinnie asked. What he was really asking was “What kind of man walks around Snodgrass World in a pony tail with his wife and kids?”

“I work with computers. I’m a web designer, actually.”

“Neat! What’s that?”

“Web sites, Vinnie. He designs web sites.”

“Neat.”

“Thanks again guys,” Murph said after noticing that his family was tucked into their own van and ready to go. “I’ll do what you said, Dave, I’ll pay it forward.” We enjoyed a round of high-fives and then they were gone.

~~~

“I’m glad we did that,” I said as we drove back to our hotel. “Those people were in big trouble.”

Vinnie looked at me briefly before turning back to the road ahead. “I never would have done that in a million years,” he said. “I’d have blown them off if I even noticed them in the first place. I’m glad you were there. We did something good. We did the right thing. It makes me feel good that we helped those people.”

“I think so,” I agreed.

“That’s how people should treat people. The Golden Rule and all that B.S. That’s how it supposed to be. Treat people right.”

“Right on, Vinnie.”

“Too bad we didn’t get anything for it. I was getting crazy when they said they’d do anything for us. We had them over a barrel and you let them off the hook.”

I laughed. “You’re one of a kind, Vinnie. You are truly one of a kind.”

“Maybe he could give us a web site or something.”

“What do we need with a web site?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying.”

“Yes you are. That’s one thing you’re good at, Vinnie. Saying.”

Chapter 17

“I’ve only been to Realm of Beasts seven or eight times,” Nancy warned us as we walked to the van the next morning. “Nine at the most. I’m not promising anything. I don’t know it like I know the other parks. A lot of people say it’s only worth half a day. Personally, I haven’t made up my mind yet. But if we finish up early or it’s too hot our tickets will get us into any of the water parks.”

“Count my vote now,” I said. “I’m all for a water park.”

“It’s not like sitting around at the pool,” she cautioned. “Tons of people. Lots of lines.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have to wear any clothes,” Vinnie said. “I think Dave’s on to something here. We’re going to be hot, hot, hot. How do we get to Realm of Beasts again, Nance?” Vinnie asked as the remaining Jeviks and Zandanels came aboard. “Same kind of thing?”

“Same as usual but it’s a right exit instead of left, like it is for SEPWAR. And it’s a lot further down.” He started the van and we were off. We pulled between some Snodgrass busses after exiting the Space Age Resort en route to Realm of Beasts.

“I get the feeling there aren’t many rides at this place,” I commented as I watched the exhaust pipe hatch fluttering on the bus ahead of us.

“There’s five or six,” Vinnie replied. “And a lot of shows. Mostly it’s animals and Asia and stuff.”

“That sounds about right,” Marcie said. “I looked at the guidebook last night while you two were driving that poor family home.”

“It’s not as boring as SEPWAR,” Kyle declared. “No learning. I’m going on Kill Man Jar ten times! And the dinosaur ride!”

“Now’s as good a time as any to talk strategy,” Nancy said. “Kilimanjaro is definitely the crown jewel today. Our prime objective. But there are a few other things we don’t want to miss.” With that she launched into a plan. I retained some of it but I couldn’t stop thinking about the Murphys. If we hadn’t helped them the night before they’d probably still be in the Enchanted Empire. I wonder what they’re doing today. Are they even conscious?

“It does look like there’s a lot of shows,” Marcie was saying when I tuned back in.

“Yeah. We’ll work them in, except for the dull ones,” Nancy said without looking up as she scanned a park map into memory. “This place is huge. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. We’ll do a lot more hoofing today than any day yet.”

“Hotter than hell, too,” Vinnie added. “Very realistic. When you’re in the African village you’ll think you’re in the real thing.”

“Have you ever been in an African village?” I asked.

“Hell, no.”

“A lot of people on the internet say it’s hotter there than any other park. They say it’s because of all the jungles and tropical plants that keep the heat in and the humidity up,” Marcie said.

“Yeah, but if there weren’t any plants they’d say the same thing for the opposite reason. They’d say it’s hot because there aren’t enough plants,” I argued.

“I think the heat’s a myth but you’ll see for yourselves today,” Nancy said, effectively ending the discussion.

Everything was a little greener and lusher but aside from that the turnstile plaza was very much like it was at the other parks. The newbies around us got all charged up when the gates opened but I knew we were just heading to a new bottleneck, which turned out to be a rope drop in the shadow of a fifteen-story concrete tree. This had the makings of one of the most intense runs of the week, rivaled only by two-ride Snodgrass Studios. There was really only one primo ride in this park and ninety-nine percent of the people around us were heading for it. I wasn’t sure if it was a saving grace or not that there were two different ways to get there. It wasn’t an issue for me, anyway. As usual, Vinnie would be tasked with that assignment, which was why we all passed him our tickets after entering the park. The rest of us would wait for him in the Route 66 Carnival.

After the rope hit the pavement the entire crowd speed walked to the right. After we were partially around the cement tree Vinnie peeled off towards a bridge into Asia while we crossed under some brontosaurus bones into Jurassic Junction. Even though we weren’t rushing, the walk to the carnival was hectic. Vinnie had gone the other way but we were on one of the main routes to Kilimanjaro Trek and traffic was heavy. Just after we passed an archeological dig I collided with a man who’d stopped cold in the middle of the busy pathway to inspect his map while barking “Isn’t there something about Mt. Kilimanjaro around here?” at his wife. Things settled down some when we reached the carnival and stepped out of the human jet stream.

“Why do they call it Route 66 Carnival?” I asked.

“They don’t. That’s just what I call it.” She pointed at the pavement which was painted up like a battered highway. “I think this is supposed to be Route 66, like out west. That’s why it’s a little oddball in here. This park is just so big. I don’t know a better place to wait for Vinnie without getting too far away.”

The kids rode spinning dinosaurs, rotating reptiles and a mini roller coaster before Vinnie showed up. After that we checked out Jurassic Jaunt, a time machine dinosaur ride, which according to Nancy had been the biggest draw in the park until Kilimanjaro came along and knocked it down a peg. We heard a lot of roaring and screaming while we waited in a short line and endured the pre-show. Ellie was moaning quietly but I caught Nancy’s eye as I turned to console her and knew that nobody was begging off this ride.

Ellie was moaning less quietly once the ride was over. It had been a dark, bone-jarring trip through comets, a lot of ferns and humongous teeth. After passing through the Jurassic Jaunt gift shop we wandered through a mix of dinosaur fossil excavations and Durwood Duck exhibits until we reached a steel bridge, over which Mt. Kilimanjaro loomed. We were almost there.

The fast pass line for Kilimanjaro was unusually short and we had minimum face to face contact with the resentful souls in the regular line. It turned out to be one of the best coaster rides I’d ever experienced. There were some nasty drops and turns but even wimpy kids and old people walked away with smiles on their faces. On our way out through the Kilimanjaro Trek gift shop I thought I heard Sam and Ellie discussing the idea of riding it again while Kyle hammed it up in a yeti mask.

The line for Kilimanjaro was long and getting longer. In fact, it was growing so fast that nobody was even sure who was in it and who wasn’t. I knew Sam and Ellie weren’t going to get their wish anytime soon, if at all. “What’s next, Nancy?” Marcie asked.

“Congo River Whitewater Journey,” she said. “We’ll walk back towards the center of the park and it’ll be on the right.”

“Whitewater?” Katie asked. “Do we get wet?”

“You’ll either be bone dry or soaking wet. One or the other and you don’t get to pick.”

“Maybe we should wait until it’s hotter,” I suggested.

“It’s already hot. Besides, that’s what every sap in the park is thinking.” Thanks, Nancy. “The last thing we want to do is wait for the softies so it takes three times as long. If we go now there won’t be much of a line.”

As always, I knew there was no point in arguing. We moved through the line as quickly as Nancy had predicted. Somehow the fast pass line was longer than the regular line. She was also right about getting wet. She, Vinnie and Kyle didn’t see a drop of water as we drifted down the river under the blazing sun. The rest of us spent the first ten minutes wringing our clothes out after the ride was over, much to the horror of the people waiting in line to get on board. At least twenty people changed their minds and high-tailed it after seeing our condition. Immediately after getting off the river we shivered in a shady auditorium as we watched a bird show which also featured rodents and a chicken.

“I’ve got to get into the sun,” I said when that show was over. “It’s a hundred degrees and I’m freezing.”

“Trust me. A few minutes in the African village ought to take care of that,” Vinnie said. That’s where we were heading, and it turned out he was right. I was dry almost immediately except for the crotch of my shorts, which I knew was going to stay clammy for the duration. I understood what Vinnie meant about the village. Somehow it seems so real, I thought as I looked around for the machines that had to be somewhere behind a bush spewing grit and dust into the air.

We snaked slowly through the woods in the line for the Safari excursion. Apparently the man behind us was one of the world’s great naturalists. His lecture on African flora and fauna lasted the entire twenty minutes we spent in line. I figured he was talking to his two sons until I noticed that they both had their iPods cranked.

“This is boring,” Kyle complained after the safari ride. “I hate animals. I want to ride Kill Man Jar again.”

“I’m tired,” Sam announced.

“Can’t we just go back to the hotel?” Katie demanded.

“I don’t blame them,” Vinnie said with a shrug. “This park just doesn’t measure up to the others. We should always remember to do this one first from now on so there’s nothing to compare it to. That way they’ll never know how much it blows.”

“How about if we do the New Jungle Revue and then take off?” Nancy said. “We can either go to one of the water parks or go back to the hotel. But I don’t want to blow this show off.”

“We don’t have our bathing suits,” Marcie pointed out.

“True. I guess we’ll have to go back to the hotel and come up with a plan.” She examined her map pamphlet and looked at her watch. “There’s another show starting in twenty-three minutes. You’ll love it.” With that she turned and led us on a long hike out of Africa, past the concrete tree and to another bridge. She stopped and waited for us after we were across. “This show is big on audience participation. If we get there early enough we can volunteer the kids to be in the show. I think they take fourteen or fifteen.”

“Do you want to be in the show?” Marcie asked the kids when we reached a massive barn-like pavilion with a grassy roof. Kyle and Ellie immediately raised their hands. Sam’s went up reluctantly.

“We have to tell the attendant at the stage entrance,” Nancy said, pointing down a hill at a woman holding a clipboard. “It looks like they still need volunteers or she wouldn’t be there anymore.”

“I’ll walk them there,” I offered. Kyle was already careening down the hill so I grabbed my own kids’ hands and we headed over. “Kyle! Wait up!”

Kyle turned but he was looking behind me, not at me. I heard the all too familiar electric whirring sound. Oh no. It can’t be, I thought as I looked back. The crowd scattered before my eyes as four scooters broke through and cut in front of us as they sped toward the stage door. Kyle knew what was happening before I did and he courageously held his ground with his arms extended, but the scooters blew past him on both sides without even slowing down. They screeched to a halt at a wooden barrier at the bottom of the hill. Several of the drivers carried passengers who had somehow avoided being thrown off along the way.

Each member of the squadron hopped off their scooters and danced through the barriers before turning and coaxing the dumbfounded toddler passengers to follow. Kyle had recovered by then and managed to get through the barrier. Maybe all was not lost.

But it was. An acrobatic driver negated Kyle’s stealthy progress by deftly reaching over the barrier to pluck a tiny girl from oblivion and plop her into line ahead of him. After a brief conversation with the clipboard wielder the scooter drivers and toddlers disappeared behind the slamming stage door. I put my arm around Kyle’s fat shoulders after he trudged back with his hands in his pockets. “Sorry, kids. Sometimes life isn’t fair.” I scanned the lines of people entering the pavilion at one of the main doors but our group had already gone inside.

~~~

“There’s a jungle walk over here,” Marcie said pointing at her map after we had left the New Jungle Revue. “Anybody want to go?”

“Nah,” Kyle said. “Who wants to see a bunch of dumb animals sitting around? I want to ride Kill Man Jar again.”

“I think there’s some kind of aquarium in the center of the park,” I suggested.

“Nah,” Kyle said. “Who wants to see a bunch of dumb fish sitting around? I want to ride Kill Man Jar again.”

By then we were crossing a narrow river on a bridge to Discovery Island. “How about lunch?” Vinnie said. “There’s a pizza place right there.” I gritted my teeth and waited for Kyle to denounce dumb pizza that was sitting around but he never did.

“Good idea,” Marcie agreed. “We can finish off our meal plan coupons.”

We reached a consensus while eating lunch that somehow it really was hotter in this park than the others. Everybody except Kyle decided they were ready to leave. We’d done all the rides and seen enough shows. We left without even bothering to have our hands stamped for return and tramped through the sea of asphalt until we found our van. By one o’clock we were back in the main lobby at the hotel sweating all over the furniture as we camped out in a lounge near the front desk.

“We can go to a water park or just stay here,” Nancy said. Nobody said anything. Everybody was worn out and the air conditioning felt too good to talk. Even Kyle was quiet, until he jumped from his chair to play a game of up the down escalator.

“I was thinking,” Marcie finally said. “That poor family from last night had never seen this place before. They were drooling. If we don’t go anywhere maybe we could invite them over. We could go to the pool and maybe have dinner. They could even stay for the fireworks they missed last night. They seemed nice.”

“Marcie, are you sure?” I asked. “We’d be taking a real chance inviting strangers to hang out with us. I mean, the guy calls himself Murph Murphy. We should give this some serious thought.”

“And he’s got hair down to his butt crack,” Vinnie added. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“What about the water park?” Nancy repeated. “We could do Snowy Shores or Port Hurricane.”

“I don’t really care about it,” I said. “If the kids want to, that’s fine. I’ll go. But I think they just want to get wet. They don’t care if it’s here or Snowy Hurricane or whatever.” She shrugged and walked away. Our leader was pissed but I didn’t care. For the one of the only times all week she didn’t get her way. She’d get over it.

“So we’re just staying here?” Vinnie asked. “That means I can get my workout. No pain, no gain.”

“Will you call that family?” Marcie asked me. “You know them best. They can sit out by the pool with us.”

“Gee, I don’t know. They’ve got a little baby. Can they really sit by a pool?”

“He’s a baby,” she said.

“She.”

“Babies are indestructible. We used to have a few ourselves, remember?”

“They’re probably out at a park right now anyway.”

“It won’t hurt to try.”

“I don’t even know their number.”

“Just call their hotel and have them connect you to the room.”

‘I’ll do it,” Vinnie volunteered. “I really bonded with the guy. What’s his name again?” He stood up long enough to pull his phone out of his pocket. “The EconoLodge is in Karopi, right?”

“Beats me. And don’t say anything about his hair anymore, alright?”

Vinnie stood back up and walked around the lobby while he worked the phone. A few minutes later I could see by his face that he’d somehow gotten in touch with Murph Murphy. It was going to be a weird afternoon of killing time by the pool with a family we didn’t even know. Vacation had become work. I couldn’t understand why Marcie was so determined to do it.

“So anyway,” Vinnie said into his phone as he rejoined us. “Just call us when you roll in.”

“Sounds like they hooked up after all,” I told Marcie, who was busy with the kids.

“Alright Murph,” I heard Vinnie say. “By the way, do you need to wear some kind of bathing cap with all that hair?” Vinnie asked. I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got a lot of it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Why was Murph voluntarily subjecting himself to an afternoon of Vinnie?

“Done,” Vinnie told us as he stuffed the phone back into a pocket. “But they can’t get here until around four. They’re taking the monorail. They’ll call me as soon as they’re here.”

“Great!” Marcie said. “I can’t wait to show them around!”

~~~

“So what did you do today?” I asked Murph when we were sitting around a table near the pool a few hours later. “Back into the Enchanted Empire?”

“Oh no,” he said. “We needed a day to decompress after last night. I don’t know if I ever want to see the inside of that place again. To be honest, we were mostly just sitting around the pool at our hotel when you called. Motel, actually. It’s nothing like this, believe me.”

“You should have come earlier.”

“We didn’t want to be a burden. We’ve caused enough trouble.”

“So where are you from, Murph?” Vinnie asked. “Let me guess. California. It’s got to be California with that hair.”

“No, not even close. Nashville, Tennesee. I wasn’t born there though, if you’re wondering about the accent. I’m originally from Ohio.”

“Hmm,” Vinnie said. “I had you pegged for California or somewhere on the left coast with the long hair and all.” Get off it, Vinnie.

We watched Marcie and Nancy lead Murph’s wife and all the kids toward the building. I looked away after seeing Kyle crash face first into the glass revolving door and ricochet onto a bellhop’s cart.

“That’s all of them,” Vinnie said. “Wait, except for Justin and your Katie. What do you think they’re doing, Dave? Seen them lately?” He asked, winking at Murph. “My son and his daughter,” he explained. “Couple of love birds.”

“Don’t start,” I warned.

“If we ever come back to Snodgrass World I don’t think Jen’s going to want to stay anywhere but here,” Murph said. “It’s all she’s talked about since last night.”

“Can’t beat it,” Vinnie agreed.

“I’m sure any Snodgrass hotel is nice,” I said. “Or any place that charges these rates, for that matter.”

“I heard the Splendid Majestic is really nice,” Murph offered. “Sure looks good when we pass through on the monorail.”

“Nobody stays there anymore,” Vinnie assured him. “It’s too crowded.” He looked around the pool. So did I. We were all thinking the same thing. Our families weren’t there and it was a good bet they’d be inside for a while on the grand tour.

“Say, everybody’s busy,” Vinnie finally said. “Maybe we should order ourselves up a few cold ones. There’s a bar right over there. You drink beer, right Murph?”

“Damn straight I do,” he said. “Especially after last night. As a matter of fact I’ll go get the first round. Right there in the middle?”

“Next door to the towel center,” I said. “I’d send Vinnie except he’d come back with a stack of eighty towels.”

He pushed his chair back and stood. “Be right back.”

“I wonder if he’ll get carded with that long hair,” Vinnie said.

“He should be so lucky.”

“I like the guy. Anybody who buys the first round is doing pretty good in my book.”

“That was fast. Here he comes. How’d he do that?”

The beer was ice cold and went down quick. I was able to keep myself from laughing at Vinnie’s foam mustache until I saw Murph losing control. “What?” Vinnie demanded as we broke up with laughter. “What’s so funny?”

“You guys are alright,” Murph said. “This is the best time I’ve had all week.” Our cups were empty quickly and there was no sign of our families so I walked over and bought another round. After those were empty we all stared at our cups until Vinnie eventually gave in and went for another three. Murph was right. It was shaping up to be a man’s paradise.

“Hey, did I tell you that Kyle’s playing soccer this year?”

“He’ll be good, the little bastard,” I said. “He can just run and run and run. It’s the perfect sport for him.”

“It’s a co-ed league. Both your kids could play. Did I tell you that I’m looking for an assistant coach?”

I coughed into my beer. “No. Don’t tell me you’re the coach. You hate kids! Have you ever coached soccer? Have you ever even played soccer? Have you ever even seen soccer?”

“When we get home I’ll buy a book or a video. Are you in?”

“Let me think about it,” I said. “It doesn’t seem fair to the kids. They’re expecting a real coach.”

“How hard could it be? Run, stop, kick a ball into a goal. Hey, after another round maybe we should down a few at the bar inside,” Vinnie suggested. “Murph should get a look at the inside of this place.”

“Not a bad idea,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind catching up with Stan anyway. Have we given up on tracking down Van Morrison?”

“Van Morrison? Cool,” Murph said. “He’s here?”

“Not that Van Morrison,” I told him. Vinnie and I told him the story, from the sidewalk fall in Ketcham all the way to our adventure in the tunnel. I was surprised at how often I laughed while the story was told. Murph, on the other hand, never laughed once.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “There are tunnels under there? And you guys were running around in them? That’s intense. I had no idea about any of that.”

“Yeah, I had no idea either until a few days ago,” I said, hoping Vinnie wasn’t about to go into a long explanation about how they’re not actually tunnels.

“They’re not actually tunnels.”

“Too bad they didn’t open them up last night to let us out of the park,” Murph said.

“I don’t think they want to give away the secret,” I said.

“Well I know one thing. That Van Morrison sucker needs to go down!” he said after gulping the last of his beer. “I’m on board. Let me know how I can help.” He pulled off his baseball cap and shook his head until his long dark hair was flying free.

“Did anybody ever tell you that you look like Ted Nugent?” I asked.

“Happens all the time.”

“Doesn’t it scare your kids?” Vinnie asked. Before he could answer my phone rang. I tore through the heap of plastic cups and napkins on the table and squinted at the display after digging the phone up. “Holy cow! I can’t believe it! It’s Stan calling from inside!”

“Stan is the inside man you were talking about?” Murph asked. “The guy who got you into the tunnels?”

“Yeah,” Vinnie told him. “Come on!” he snapped at me. “What are you waiting for! Pick it up!”

“Hello, Stan?” I said after I pushed the button.

“It’s your lucky day,” he said. “Remember the jet ski trip that your boy cancelled? Well it’s back on schedule. He’s leavin’ in about two minutes. Where are you?”

“Right now? We’re out at the pool.”

“At the pool? Perfect. You should be able to see him. Do you see him?”

I stood up and looked around. “No, I don’t see him anywhere. Are you sure?” I sat back down after nearly losing my balance. The three beers had gone straight to my head. Vinnie and Murph were wild with curiosity and were gaping at me. When they started to ask questions I held my hand up to shush them.

“It’s all set up just like last time. Tell the kid you’re the two guys I sent. But you better go now!”

“The jet-ski tour is back on,” I said after hanging up. “Van Morrison and his boys are leaving now. Stan’s got ours waiting for us at the dock just like before.”

“Let’s go!” Vinnie said. “I screwed up in the tunnel and I’m not blowing this chance.”

“Okay, but we have to be careful. He’ll know you as soon as he sees you. He might remember me too.”

Vinnie threw a towel over each of our heads. “There. We have disguises. Now let’s go,” he repeated.

“Need any help?” Murph asked. “Can I tag along?”

“They might not have enough jet skis for all of us,” Vinnie said. “We can always try.”

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” I said as the three of us walked to the water sports center on the dock. “I’m pretty buzzed. Can you drive a boat right now? I don’t think I can.”

“No problem,” Vinnie answered. “I can drive a jet-ski in my sleep.” He watched as I sealed my camera into the Ziploc bag that I’d brought down to keep it dry while we were poolside. “It’s a good thing you already had your camera with you. We don’t have time to go up to the room. We’re good to go and that’s bad news for Van Morrison.”

“I haven’t taken any poolside pictures yet so I brought it down. By the way, what do we tell everybody if they’re back at the pool?” I asked.

“They won’t be. But if they are, we don’t have time to talk. This is definitely our last chance. We have to get out onto the water before it’s too late.”

Chapter 18

“We’re the guys that Stan hooked up for the jet-ski,” Vinnie told the kid behind the counter, whose name was ZNate according to his nametag.

“Just a couple minutes late,” ZNate said. “Your friend Mr. Van Morrison just hauled ass.”

“Out of curiosity, ZNate,” I asked, trying not to laugh at his name, “Wasn’t Mr. Van Morrison in a wheel chair? How can he drive a jet-ski?”

“I never actually saw the dude until he was about to split.”

“What’s he wearing? So we can spot him.”

“Yellow life vest, same as you’ll be wearing. There’ll only be seven of ‘em out there besides yours. You’ll find him.”

“So where’s our ride?” Vinnie asked. “Times a wasting!”

ZNate shoved some forms at us. “By the way, we call it a ‘PWC’ in the paperwork. Personal water craft. ‘Jet-ski’ is a brand name.” He stopped and stared. “Three dudes. One PWC. Stan said only two dudes were coming.”

“We can’t all ride?” I asked.

“I don’t care. It’ll be a tight fit, especially if he goes,” he said, pointing at Vinnie. “You’re not getting charged for it anyway so it doesn’t matter to me. As long as you make sure you sign the medical release forms.”

“We’ll all go then,” Vinnie said without looking up from his dossier.

“Cool!” Murph said. ZNate rustled up another pile of paper which he passed to Murph.

I heard Vinnie’s pen scratching on paper as I perused the first page. He read all this stuff already? No way. I was halfway done when I saw him shove the entire stack back at ZNate. “Just sign them!” Vinnie said when he saw me flipping to page two. “We don’t have time.” Sixty seconds later we had vests strapped on and ZNate was walking us down a metal dock where a gleaming silver PWC bobbed in the water.

“I wish we hadn’t had that third beer,” I whispered to Vinnie.

“Wasn’t it four beers we had?” he bellowed.

“You old dudes are radical,” ZNate said without turning around. “You did sign the release forms, right? So, like, I’m supposed to give you instructions. This is the dead-man’s clip,” he said, holding out a plastic square attached to a cord with a spring-loaded fastener on the other end. “It goes into the little slot next to the on-switch. I’ll tell you about that in a sec. Who’s driving?”

“I am,” Vinnie said. “We’ll figure it all out. Flip the switch and it starts?”

“Yeah. You dudes are worrying me. Are you sure you’ve done this before?” He clipped the key cord onto Vinnie’s vest. “You signed the release forms, right?”

“I rode a motorcycle a long time ago,” I said. “Maybe that’ll help.”

“We’re fine,” Vinnie said. “I’ll climb on first,” he told me, “Then you get behind me.”

“You need to have this back here by eight o’clock,” ZNate warned as he watched Vinnie studying the handlebars. “You know to accelerate by twisting the throttle with your right hand, right?”

“I do now. I mean, of course I knew,” Vinnie told him. “I’m a great driver. This’ll come natural.”

“If you end up in the water and it’s still running, don’t freak. There’s no propeller. It runs on a water jet stream. But that shouldn’t happen if you use the dead-man’s clip. You dig how it works, right?”

“We’ll be okay,” I assured him.

“Happy riding to you dudes, then. You won’t have any problems. No worries.” He looked Vinnie who was revving an imaginary throttle as he looked across the bay. “As long as you signed the medical release forms,” he added as he turned and headed back to his post.

Vinnie stepped on first since he was the self-appointed driver. After I was on board behind Vinnie I couldn’t find anything to hold onto. Murph had the same problem when he was behind me. We weren’t even moving yet and it was already clear as the boat bobbed and leaned that hands free riding was not an option. I reluctantly grabbed Vinnie’s vest, carefully avoiding any hand to body contact. Murph didn’t have any such inhibitions as he put his hands directly on my hips. I hoped it was an accident when his cold fingers slipped under my vest. Vinnie inserted the chip into a dashboard slot as I watched over his shoulder. I heard the click of a switch and then the PWC motor sputtered and came alive. “All set?” Vinnie yelled.

“Shouldn’t we be wearing helmets or something?”

“Why? We’re not going to crash.” He unclipped the cord that attached the dead-man clip to his vest and let it dangle from the dashboard. “I guess he thought I’d lose it.”

Before I could tell him otherwise I was breathing water vapor and rocketing forward so fast that I had trouble keeping my head from snapping back. All I could see was the yellow of Vinnie’s vest and then blue sky. Murph’s fingernails dug into my waist like daggers. I tried to scream but nothing came out. Then the buzzing roar stopped and my body flew sideways into the bay. As I clawed my way to the surface I wondered if I’d remembered to close the Ziploc bag that held my camera.

Murph’s head popped out of the water next to me. “Whew!” he whooped as he flung his hair out of his face with a wrenching neck whip. “I’m definitely buzzing now, my brothers!” The PWC was on its side, drifting silently in my direction. It’s engine was still gurgling but it was moving slowly enough that I was able to grab it by the seat as it passed. From there I pulled myself across its prone body to where I could pull the chip out and cut the engine.

“Climb off,” Vinnie sputtered. After I was back in the water he grabbed the back end and flipped it back upright. “Oh yeah!” he yelled. “We’re on vacation!” I looked back and saw that a crowd had gathered on the dock to watch us. Nobody was laughing harder than ZNate. We’d only made it thirty feet before capsizing.

“Now do you understand why the chip was clipped onto you?” I asked. “The engine would have cut off when you fell into the water. Your body would have yanked it out.”

“Chip, clip, schmip. That’s for wusses.”

“I guess this thing wasn’t meant for three, even if they’re sober,” Murph said.

“Too late now, we’re out on open water,” Vinnie said as the spectators on the dock continued to laugh. “You can’t turn back now.”

I don’t know what my shoulder hit but it was stinging badly. I’d already had enough, especially if this maniac was in command. “Vinnie, how about if I drive? Otherwise I’m swimming back to the dock. The two of you can handle it.”

“Okay, relax. You drive, I’ll take the picture. I’m a natural photographer anyway. I’ll get a better shot.”

“What happened back there?” I asked as I climbed on from the back and crawled past Vinnie to the driver’s seat. The water craft bounced and leaned as Murph struggled aboard and took his place in the back.

“I opened it up all the way right off the bat,” he explained. “You’ve got to see what it can do, you know? Man and his machine. Now we know what we’ve got between our legs. That’s important. Driving should be easy for you now. I did ninety percent of the work.”

I tucked my feet into the wells and waited for Vinnie to stop rocking from side to side. He passed up the dead man’s clip and I pinned the cord to my vest and then inserted the chip into the slot. “Ready?” I said over my shoulder. Without waiting for a reply I flipped the start switch. The engine coughed out some bay water before rumbling to life. Blue smoke wafted past us and then the air was clear. This is where he screwed up, I thought as I wrapped my right hand around the handlebar throttle. Easy does it. I twisted it back gently and was relieved when the PWC glided forward. Next I would practice a turn and then we would be on our way.

“Where’d you learn to drive like this?” Vinnie said from behind before I turned. “You’re like an old biddy! Punch it like a man!” At least we’re upright, I thought as I accelerated gently and pushed the handlebars to the left to see what would happen.

“I think I’m ready,” I called back. “Except for one thing. Where are the brakes?”

“There are no brakes. I heard somebody say that up on the dock. He said you just have to plan ahead.”

“I see a couple jet-skis over there by the island,” I yelled. “The others must be over in the Lagoon Sea.”

“Let’s check them out,” Vinnie yelled back. “I’m kind of glad we don’t have to wear helmets. It’ll make Chrome Dome easier to spot.”

“Is Murph still back there?”

“Ten-four good buddy.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

As we cruised toward the island I twisted the throttle steadily back, increasing our speed. “Go, man, go!” Vinnie shouted from behind. By the time we were in the middle of the bay we were flying along at a pretty good pace. Evidently we were making a threatening noise because the drivers of both PWCs by the island turned and stared. “That’s not him!” Vinnie yelled. “Negatory!”

He was right. Both of these men had hair. I pushed to the right but not so far that we couldn’t get a good look. Our course took us close enough that we recognized them as Van Morrison cronies from the hotel lobby. Would they remember us? Did it matter anyway?

“What’s that over there?” I said over my shoulder as we headed towards a white sand beach at the edge of the thickly wooded shore. “I think I see humans.”

“That’s the campground. Frontier Budget Outpost. That’s where you go if you want to camp on Snodgrass property. They can ride Snodgrass boats across the bay and then they’re in good shape for going to the parks. I guess.”

“If you don’t mind camping it looks like a good way to save some money.” Now that we were closer I saw a lot of people throwing horseshoes, playing volleyball and slapping mosquitoes.

“Not really,” he answered. “I mean, it’s cheaper than where we are. But you can get a room at the Econo-Lodge like Murph did for less than a campsite. I checked it out one year. I’d rather drive a little every morning than sweat in a tent all night.”

There weren’t any other watercraft on the bay so I headed towards the Lagoon Sea. Vinnie pointed to the corner of the bay. “You can go through there.”

“My camera’s still in my pocket,” I told him. “Can you fish it out?”

“It looks dry,” he reported a moment later. “Cool. It’s the same as mine.”

The bay narrowed into a man-made neck that crossed over a road to connect the two bodies of water. A canopied boat full of passengers was coming across the other way through this water bridge so I laid off the throttle. “Did you see the long faces on there?” Vinnie asked. “Ten bucks says they’re heading for the campground.”

We passed through the narrow channel and into the Lagoon Sea, the engine throbbing as we cruised at low speed. “Another island?” I said over my shoulder as I eased back on the throttle. “I thought a lagoon was supposed to be smaller than a bay. Which way?”

“I think there are three or four islands over here,” Vinnie yelled back. “Just go around.”

“How long before William puts a giant acorn on each one?” I eased to the right of the first one and we started moving again.

“Jet-skis at seven o’clock! No wait, two-fifteen! Are you supposed to do military time?”

“Just show me!”

He pointed to our right. “They’re checking out the Enchanted Empire. It could be him.”

Sundown wasn’t far off and shade was already beginning to engulf the Empire. Only the castle spires, Galaxy Sprint and the peaks of Gold Rush off in the distance were still in sunlight. The lights of night were coming alive everywhere else inside the gates. I could understand why our evening ride was going to be so short. ZNate wanted us back because both lakes would soon be dark. I looked at my non-water-resistant watch, which by some miracle was still ticking. “We’ve only got thirty more minutes, we better get moving.”

We zoomed between two islands and back out onto open water but a ferry boat full of people leaving the parks popped out from behind the larger island and steamed into our path just after I’d opened the throttle. “Hit the brakes!” Vinnie yelled. “Oh, wait!”

It was going to be tight but I thought we had room to turn away if I kept my speed high enough to allow for a sharp turn. The only alternative was to coast until we hit the ferry head on. “Don’t let go!” I yelled as I rolled the throttle back even more and steered to the right. Every passenger on our side of the packed ferry was watching us. Some backed away as we approached but most stood open-mouthed as the PWC. engine whined to a higher and higher pitch.

I could have turned even more sharply but my experience on a motorcycle from my teenage years told me to feather it some or we’d go down, especially with two people riding behind me. We cut an arc and passed within five feet of the ferry but I knew we wouldn’t hit it. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the wall of Lagoon Sea water we raised as we turned. After we were away I looked back soon enough to watch the ferry passengers get hosed down by our wake. There was a little screaming and lot of yelling. As we hooked around the rear of the ferry I saw a young father in a bushy squirrel tail hat with his son on his shoulders raising his dripping middle finger at us as the red-faced toddler cursed.

I’d driven well up to that point, but my eye lingered on the soaked boat passengers for an instant too long. Even before I turned forward I could feel that we’d lost our balance and weren’t going to regain it. I tried anyway but when I flicked the handlebars against our skid the nose was driven into the water and all three of us were thrown. Thanks to the dead man’s clip the engine had stopped when we all resurfaced. Murph was talking but I couldn’t hear him over the foul-mouthed din coming from the ferry.

Again it was Vinnie who righted the PWC. “Let me drive,” I heard Murph tell him. “I’ve been driving these things for years.” Why didn’t you say so? I was happy to hand over the dead man’s clip and take my place behind Murph.

“Better get out of here fast,” Vinnie said from behind me. “Those people are hopping mad. Maybe it’s too dark for anybody to I.D. us.”

Murph turned out to be a much better boat driver than either Vinnie or I. We sped toward the PWCs on the coast by the Empire but quickly determined that the two women driving them weren’t Van Morrison. “Swing along the shore back towards the Splendid Majestic,” Vinnie suggested. “We won’t stand out so much if we stay near shore, just in case the Snodgrass Coast Guard is out looking for us.” We passed a narrow inlet to our right just below the empty monorail track. Murph slowed down long enough to peer up the canal. I recognized the light boats from the water parade that we saw on the bay every night. We continued moving along the shore, slowing only long enough to allow a sailboat heading for the Splendid to pass in front of us.

“There’s a jet-ski up there!” Vinnie shrieked, nearly capsizing our watercraft as he pointed. “It’s heading for the Tahitian! Straight ahead!” Murph opened the throttle as wide as it went because the PWC Vinnie sighted was closing in on the mass of brown that was apparently the Tahitian Resort on the shore ahead. There was a lot of open water between us and them.

We passed a small white church-like building that jutted out into the sea. “A lot of people come here and get married right in there!” Vinnie yelled in my ear. “That must cost a bundle!”

“Get the camera out in case it’s him!” I said. “Do you know how to work it?”

“It’s just like mine. Let me eighty-six the plastic bag.” I was about to tell him to stuff it into my pocket when I saw it fly out of his hand, destined for the throat of the nearest endangered manatee. “The camera still works!”

The PWC ahead was slowing as it approached a pier that protruded from a white beach near the Tahitian. “Good work Murph! We’re gaining on him!” Vinnie yelled. “But where the hell’s he going?”

“We don’t even know if it’s him,” I cautioned. But a moment later we’d made up enough ground that we could see his distinct scalp and raised chin. We’d found him. Mr. crippled-on- the-sidewalk-outside-of-the-restaurant-back-in-Indiana was flying around the Lagoon Sea on a jet ski! A PWC, I corrected myself. You can’t make this stuff up! “Start taking pictures,” I told Vinnie over my shoulder as we closed in. “I’m pretty sure that’s our guy. Cruising on a jet-ski is just as good as running through the tunnels under Snodgrass World, even if he isn’t exactly walking.”

We were still thirty yards out when Van Morrison expertly drifted to the dock after cutting the engine, where he was met by three eager sycophants. Without even bothering to look around he climbed off the PWC and stepped effortlessly onto the pier. Holy Moly. “You’re getting this, right?” I asked Vinnie.

“Damn right!” Van Morrison pushed past his greeters after discarding a used towel and led them up the pier towards the resort. Murph slowed down, probably so we’d make less noise.

“Should we tie up and follow him wherever he’s going?” Vinnie asked. “This is gold! I can’t wait to call Joe and tell him what we’ve got!”

We don’t have it yet, I thought. We’ve been this far before, big fellow.

“I don’t think I can park it like he did,” Murph said. “I’m not that good. It’ll take too long. Let’s just run it up on the beach.” We ran aground gently and tied up to a post at the base of the pier, ignoring the stares of sunbathers who until we’d arrived had been enjoying a quiet sunset.

“Come on,” Vinnie urged as he splashed ahead onto the white sand like MacArthur coming ashore in the Philippines. I could see Van Morrison ahead, still walking with his entourage on a path along the shore. Walking! Vinnie took a knee in the sand and took more pictures. “These are great shots! I can’t believe he hasn’t even turned around!”

“I wish he would,” Murph said. “It would be even more solid if we had his face.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Let’s follow him and try to get his attention.”

“Hey!” Murph yelled ahead. “What’s his name again?” he asked us.

“Hey Morrison!” Vinnie yelled. He was coated with sand from the knees down as we scrambled along the path. “Yo!” Van Morrison never turned around. Maybe the sidewalk fall had affected his ears.

I heard the growing sound of beating drums ahead as we followed along the path into a carefully manicured tropical grove. When we approached a group of low brown buildings I realized that we were stumbling onto a show of some sorts. “Oh Yeah!” Vinnie said from behind my camera. “I remember now. This is the luau show. He’s going to the freaking luau.” As we got closer I saw a brown-skinned man on a brown stage waving a flaming brown baton around as an auditorium full of people stuffed their faces with orange and brown food. Refugees from the label of a Hawaiian Punch bottle were everywhere. Van Morrison walked to a table in the front row and eased himself into a pre-placed wheel chair as another minion held it in place. I looked at Vinnie anxiously.

“Yup. Got it. Got the whole thing,” he said with a grin. “This bald bastard made his first mistake.”

“Excuse me,” interrupted a smiling teenaged girl in a grass skirt and a pair of Nikes, her name tag pinned to her bikini top. “The next show doesn’t start until nine,” she told us as she kicked away a doorstop and allowed the door to swing shut. “May I direct you to the resort?” she asked as she perched a box of tropical island props on her hip.

“No thanks, we’re heading back to the beach,” I told her. “Sorry. I guess we’re lost.”

“Wrong turn,” Murph assured her.

“Can we see your coconuts?” asked Vinnie. She smiled and retreated in the direction of the show.

“I can’t believe we finally nailed that lying sack!” Vinnie bellowed after she was gone. “Oh yeah! We’re on vacation!” The skirted, Niked teenager with the coconuts looked back at us, the smile finally gone.

I looked at my watch. “Hey, we have to get the boat back to the hotel! In five minutes! The boat’s due at eight!”

“Relax. What, it’s going to turn into a pumpkin?”

“It’s getting dark,” I said. “I don’t want to be driving around in the dark. Come on. Besides, everybody’s probably wondering what happened to us. They’re probably dragging the bay by now.”

The door to the auditorium burst open and one of the sycophants popped out. “They’re still here!” he yelled to somebody inside. “Come on!”

“Alright, now I’m hurrying,” Vinnie said. “Let’s bolt.” We ran back the same way we came up the path until we reached the beach. The PWC was still tied up right where we left it. “Should we sabotage their boat?” Vinnie asked.

“Nah, I don’t think this is worth going to jail over.” We struggled with it on the beach before we figured out that we should push it into deeper water before boarding. We heard Van Morrison’s flunkies’ feet pounding on the dock as Murph inserted the clip and started the engine. This time I rode in the back since I was last to get on board. I waited to hear another PWC engine start but never did.

“Where are they?” Vinnie asked over his shoulder.

“Van Morrison probably still has the key,” I yelled back. “Or the clip, or whatever you call it.” By then we were away from the pier with the engine whining and the wind whipping at our faces.

“Don’t forget, we have to keep a low profile,” Vinnie reminded us. “They probably got a boatload of complaints about you by now. Get it? Boatload?”

Murph slowed down until we were past the shore in front of the Tahitian Resort, where he yanked on the throttle and sped toward the slot. I turned around constantly until I was convinced that nobody was following. Life was good again. Not even Murph’s hair lashing Vinnie’s face as it blew in the wind could dampen the mood because we knew we’d won, as long as Vinnie didn’t drop the camera into the bay.

The narrow passage back into Lake Bay was empty so we quickly passed through, catching a good view of the Space Age. Two minutes later Murph cut the engine and we drifted close enough to the pier for Znate to snag us and pull us in.

“You dudes cut it kind of close,” he said. “Cool.”

“Sorry. We lost track of the time,” I admitted, wondering if he knew more than he was saying. Did the Snodgrass police put out an A.P.B.?

“No worries,” he said. “It’s back, you’re back, we’re cool.”

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘cool’ yet,” I said under my breath as we walked up the pier to dry land. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Snodgrass S.W.A.T. team up ahead. Besides, Van Morrison definitely knew something was up. His guys were flying out the door. Does he know how to find us?”

“I don’t see how he could possibly know who we are,” Vinnie said. “No way. Besides, he’s a pansy. I’m not afraid of him. What’s he going to do, have us arrested for taking his picture?”

The pool was still crowded but we didn’t see our families there. I thought about checking the other pool for Katie and Justin but wasn’t sure if I even wanted to find them. Instead we went inside to tell everybody the good news.

“Can I keep this for now?” Vinnie asked, holding up the camera as we waited for an elevator. “I’ll upload the pictures to Snapfish in our room and then e-mail them to Joe. He’s gonna’ flip, man. This is golden.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s a good idea. By the time Van Morrison’s goons track us down the pictures will be out on the net.”

“You worry too much.”

“Oh, and Vinnie?” Murph asked.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t drop the camera this time,” he said with a smile.

“Two hands, Murph, two hands,” Vinnie told him. We walked all the way to the revolving door, took one last look around, and slipped inside with the evidence.

~~~

~~~

Neither Van Morrison nor any of his associates showed up, that night or any other night. As expected, Joe Gumm was elated when he saw the sharp, clear pictures of a healthy bald man cruising on a PWC and walking around at a luau. His lawyer, with the pictures in hand, was in touch with Van Morrison’s before the Jeviks and the Zandanels had set foot on the plane for the flight back to Indiana. Not surprisingly, the lawsuit was withdrawn immediately and quietly. Even more sudden was an anonymous investment in the bistro which paid for a new sushi bar and a karaoke wing.

Kyle convinced Sam and Ellie to sign up for Vinnie’s soccer team even before the families changed planes in Atlanta. Dave was appalled when he heard the news somewhere over North Carolina, knowing that it would now be nearly impossible to defy Vinnie’s request to join the team as assistant coach. Until he’d stepped on the plane he’d thought of the flight home as a liberation, but now it was looking like it merely marked the beginning of a new collaboration with a loud, obnoxious buffoon.

As he replayed his adventures with Vinnie in his mind, though, he couldn’t wipe the goofy smile from his face. Spending time with him could be a lot of work, and there was a lot to put up with, but that was true about anybody, Dave reminded himself. Despite what he’d anticipated, the trip to Snodgrass had been a success in more ways than one. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe, he thought, it was possible to be friends with the man without risking insanity.

“It was a good trip, wasn’t it?” Vinnie asked Dave as they waited for their luggage in Indianapolis. “Are you guys up for another one next summer?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Dave answered. “But I think I’m okay with that. Pencil me in. What’s the worst that could happen?”

THE END

Contact Dave Conifer by email: daveconifer@rocketmail.com

Dave Conifer’s blog: http://daveconifer.blogspot.com

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Snodgrass Vacation