The day that picture was taken my father took us to an amusement park in Long Island, something called Adventure Land, or some other clichéd amusement park name. My father,being the greatest dad in the universe, handed us ten (ten!) twenty-dollar bills and sat on one of the benches at the front of the park and told us to have a blast. He said to meet him back there in four hours and shooed us away with his hands.
Four hours and two hundred dollars to three ten-year-olds was the same as hitting the lottery. We started at the rollercoaster and went on every ride—twice. We ate popcorn, corndogs, funnel cakes, cotton candy, and went back on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Joey puked. A lot. Then, we climbed up under the bottom of the Gravitron, and Jase pulled out a pack of cigarettes that he stole from his father and taught us how to smoke. Poor Joey puked again, but he didn’t care. He put the cigarette to his mouth once more.
“You’re an idiot! Stop smoking it if you’re going to barf all over,” I laughed.
Joey tried to blow smoke rings like Jase had taught him, but he was laughing too hard. Laughingandspitting up.
God, sometimes boys were so gross.
“Hey, Charlie,” Jase called to me as he expertly flicked his cigarette between his thumb and middle finger, “you don’t ever curse.”
“Yeah, well my father would kill me if he heard me curse,” I said, pulling a tiny drag from my cigarette. My head started to spin.
“Well, then don’t curse in front of him! Sayshit,” Jase chuckled.
“No way,” I shook my head.
“Sayasshole,” Joey giggled along with him.
“Nuh uh.”
“Sayfuck,” Jase said, stalking toward me and pouncing, grasping me on my sides. “Come on, Joe, tickle her!”
Laughing and screaming, I ran away from them. “Shit-asshole-nuts-stupid-fuck-shitpie-asshand-crapstack!”
Joey froze in mid-run, laughing, “Asshand and shitpie? Coming from your mouth, Charlie, you make cursing all girly and pretty,”
It was the first time I remember anyone ever putting the words ‘pretty’ and ‘Charlie’ in a sentence together, and I felt my face get all hot and sweaty.
I immediately pretended it didn’t happen. Strangely, I wanted to hear thatIwas pretty and not just the words I said. I blinked away that awkward feeling.
After almost three hours, a whole pack of cigarettes, winning a seven-foot tall giant, blue, stuffedgiraffe, and a sudden thunderstorm, we ran to find my father at the front gates. We all fought over who would keep the monstrous giraffe; neither boy wanted to be seen carrying it, and personally I was glad, because I absolutely loved the ugly thing.
At first my dad wasn’t where we left him, but within two minutes, he came walking from the parking lot and through the front gates. “Hey, did you guys have fun?” he asked, out of breath.
“Yeah, but we wanted to ride the big coaster again before we left; it stinks that it’s raining,” I pouted.
My father smirked and started walking toward the rollercoaster like he owned the park. We followed him wordlessly. He rapped his knuckles against the entrance of the rollercoaster line to get the attendant’s attention. “Excuse me, my daughter and her friends want one more ride, is that okay?” he called to the older man through the pouring rain.
“Sorry, sir. We have to stop the rides during electrical storms.”
We watched my dad reach into his side pants pocket and pull out his wallet. He handed the guy two fifty-dollar bills, “How about just one small, quick ride?”
The rollercoaster man smiled, winked at me, and looked up at the sky. “Looks like it’s letting up a little anyway. It’s probably just a passing shower.”
I tried to hand the giant giraffe to my dad, but he told me to take it on the ride. So I did. Joey and Jase sat behind me, while I sat next to my gargantuan blue stuffed giraffe in the first car of the rollercoaster while lightning lit up the sky.
“Your dad is the coolest,” Joey screamed from behind me as we plunged into the first loop, screaming.Yeah, he was.
My dad took us home after that; the entire ride was spent with him listening to us talk over each other about all the fun we had.
He dropped Joey off at his house and then drove down the block and pulled his car into our driveway. Jase hopped out, thanked my father, and high-fived me across the hood of the car.
“Charlotte, you feel like ordering a pizza with me?” my dad asked, unlocking the front door.
My hand clenched the load of amusement park bricks swimming around in my belly, “Ugh. No thanks, Dad. I think I ate way too much at the park. I’m just gonna go out back and sketch some of the things I remember seeing today.”
He smiled at me with what looked like pride and nodded his head. “Okay, but if you decide to sleep out there, remember to shut the window. I’m not running out there at six o’clock in the morning to kill another spider,” he chuckled.
