Luc shoots me a look. “You reckon that’s a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Hell if I know.” I shrug.
Maggie laughs. “Come on, boys. Let’s go exploring.”
Hurricane Katrina’s wrath blew through Jazzland like a banshee. What the winds didn’t destroy, the water did. Since the amusement park was already in the red, the Six Flags corporation decided not to rebuild.
Now, with the water long receded, the whole place looks like a post-apocalyptic dreamland. Or maybenightmareland is a better description.
Empty roller coasters, a dilapidated Ferris wheel, and rotting bumper cars sit frozen and silent. A large pool that, according to the sign, was once home to the Spillway Splashout is filled with…one, two, three,fouralligators. Real ones.Liveones. And mud-covered figurines of clowns and Mardi Gras models lay strewn about, their wide smiles made macabre by the desolation and disenchantment that permeates the air of this theme-park-turned-ghost-town.
“Damn,” I whisper after we’ve gone about a hundred yards, picking our way through weeds and dirt, debris and the remains of the Crescent City’s broken dreams.
Besides the chill of the wind blowing around me, I’m hit with a sense of forsakenness. The world has abandoned this place, cast it aside as if it never existed.
“It’s just so…” I search for the right word, but the only thing I can come up with is, “Sad.Why did that guy who came into your bar think you should come here?”
“For the memories, I think.” Maggie stops in front of a gate that leads to a roller coaster called the Zydeco Scream. “Most of us city kids came here during the summers. The lucky ones had season passes. You probably look around and see nothing but devastation, but I look at it and remember that the summer before the hurricane hit was the first time I was tall enough to ride this thing.” She points to the rusting tracks overhead. They swoop and loop through trees that are threatening to overgrow them. “My dad went on it with me once. And then Vee rode it with me three more times after that. I can still hear Vee screaming and giggling. Still taste the cotton candy. Still smell the popcorn.”
All I smell is rusting metal, dry grease, and bayou dirt.
“Violet knows how to giggle?” I lift an eyebrow. “Color me skeptical.”
“Itoldyou she was different when Momma and Daddy were alive,” Maggie insists. “She looked out for me and let me tag along with her anytime I asked. And then after…” She swallows. “She was so closed off. She hardly spoke a word for a year.”
When I harrumph, she slaps me on the shoulder.
“Dammit, woman! First the elbow, now the slapping? Keep it up and I’ll be black and blue before the sun sets.”
“Just like old times,” she jokes.
I fake an ornery smile before looking away. I’m not proud of how I handled myself back then. I picked some of the fights because of shame and the need to hide what was happening in my life. But I picked most of the fights because fighting was the only thing I knew, and it was certainly the only thing I was any good at.
Well, that and loving Maggie.
I was pretty good at that too.
“I only came here once as a kid,” Luc muses, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. A lone crow is sitting on the tracks overhead, eyeing us coldly and scolding us for intruding on its territory.
“When Dad was alive, he always said we could find all the fun and excitement we needed in the swamp. But after he was gone, Mom was determined we should come see the place. She musta sewed about a hundred quilts that first year. Sewed until her fingers bled. Sold ’em to the ladies in town in order to save up enough to come here. She wore her green sundress and her best sandals.” He shakes his head. “Like we were going to church or something.”
Maggie grabs his hand and lays her head on his shoulder. I watch them standing side by side and feel a familiar longing. They’ve always been connected to each other in a way they’ll never be connected to me. They areofthis place. They share a culture, experiences, a collective set of memories.
They both lived through the storm.
“Need to take a piss,” I say, making my way around the side of a nearby booth. Once upon a time, it sold cheese fries and corn dogs. Now the roof is falling in, and the shelves on the back walls are dangling by corroded nails.
Out of sight, I take my flask from my back pocket. My headache has ratcheted down to a low hum, thanks to that triple shot I downed at Port of Call. I’d like to keep it that way. But my real reason for coming back here isn’t to take a nipora piss, it’s to give them privacy.
Maggie’s right. I don’t see what they see. They look at this place through rose-colored glasses. I look at it through no glasses at all. Or maybe I look at it through mud-covered glasses. Glancing down at the mounds of dirt piled up against the back of the booth, I decide that’s probably a more accurate description.
Waiting a good amount of time—and after one more pull on the flask—I recap and make my way back to them. Except, they’re not there. When I round the corner of the booth, I see nothing but decay, overgrown vegetation, and that dastardly crow.
If I thought this place was creepy before, it’s downrightdisturbingnow that I’m alone. I turn to retrace my steps and run smack into Maggie. She’s leaning against the front of the booth.
“Sonofa—” I grab my chest. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
She grins that sparkly, shiny grin that shows off the tiny gap between her two front teeth. “You don’t like this place much, do you?”
