The Best Day in the World Part II
[See below for Part I]
The sun was beginning to dim when we entered the park, blue-gray sky. The park was empty but for us. We swung on swings, we slid down slides, we climbed on monkey bars and jungle gyms, we spun. There was a spinning-ride in the shape of some animal, a skunk, a squirrel, a fish, I don’t remember. Two people would stand on it, directly across from each other, holding on to a bar, the weight of each together spinning the thing round. The thing spun fast, so fast I decided that day that it should be illegal. It was not safe, though I would of course break the law to ride it.
A group of unruly bullies entered the park at about the time I sat in a black swing and swung. The bullies wore black leather and white t-shirts and jeans, red accents. It was an invasion full-on, hoodlums cast in from the ’50s. About this time, Kyle lost his lighter from his pocket while swinging high. We took my lighter to the hunt—it was dark now—in the wet grass behind the swing set. The bullies were getting louder and crossing over. When we found Kyle’s lighter we all decided to leave before the bullies soiled the good times.
When we reached the street we saw a bright, bright white light in the sky. It was brighter than a planet should be. It was too low to be a star, too high to be a streetlight, and too bright to be anything we could name. Was it a UFO? If not, then what? We decided to follow it northward and figure it out, which brought us dead-end into the cemetery at the north edge of town. This was a nice cemetery with wide winding gravel paths. We followed the bright light to the back where the trees made a wall. Gregg and someone else sat on an enormous cube-shaped grave. I was reluctant to, figuring bad karma for myself if I upset the dead, though I circled it many times. Engraved in capital letters on the front was Hutton. We’d made our home base on top of the remains of the Hutton family.
We all faced the bright light, monitoring its movements. It would fade and fade and then blink out. Then come back. It repeated this sequence again and again. We watched and monitored. Soon a helicopter appeared, circling above the cemetery, its spotlight searching the ground, flashing on us, then away, in circles. Each time the light came into the cemetery Gregg dove paranoid flat to the ground. The rest of us hunkered and watched. Were they after us? I didn’t really think so, though my imagination brewed a conspiratorial adventure involving the feds and aliens and us. We watched with impenetrable alertness for an indiscernible timespan.
At some point, Kyle and I walked to the end of the row of stones where there was an enormous cube-shaped grave identical to that of the Huttons. On the front of this cube was engraved in capital letters "Sutton". What were the odds that our friends were down the row at the Huttons’ place? Obviously, the cemetery was organized by rhyme. How novel. Kyle, who hadn’t eaten anything but acid all day, in a snap became the funniest man alive and gave me a quick tour of The Rhyming Cemetery, listing names and pointing to each rhymed section.
Finally we ended the indiscernible timespan in which we watched the bright light be bright and fade and blink out and return and were surveillanced by Big Brother’s helicopter. We let the mystery be and left the cemetery. We walked south back past the Springer house and on to mine and Gregg’s apartment. The acid was winding down in us. Inside, Travis picked up a fetish magazine from the kitchen table, which Gregg had recently bought, and positioned himself into the sofa chair for storytime. In a soothing grandfatherly voice he read to us a piece about a man and his lascivious adventures being pissed on by ladies. We were captivated.
We were also hungry. It was dark and quite late now. Late enough that one of the only places open for take-out was Domino’s Pizza. We do what we must. The five of us filed down the stairs toward my car.
As I said, Gregg and I lived in a second-floor apartment. Indians, as in from India, lived in the apartment below us and in the apartment below us on the other side of the stairs. Their apartments opened to the outside. These people were quiet. Sometimes we felt guilty because some amount of excess occasionally occurred in our apartment, late nights. How rude to disturb quiet neighbors. Weekly around nine in the evening we enjoyed their spices wafting upward.
This best night, however, they were letting loose. My car, an ’89 red Escort, was parked right in front of the building. All five of us squeezed into it and sat facing the apartment building, facing this rare party. The door to the apartment on the left was wide open. A dark-skinned girl dressed for a good 80s time stepped to the doorway and, giggling, reached to the light switch and began turning it off and on, off and on, quickly. Instant strobe. Then two guys began dragging the couch from the living room outside onto the grass.
We sat watching, stunned and speechless, except for Travis. In a rare boisterous voice, he said from the backseat, "Let’s get the couch outside!" This phrase became for me code for Hey let’s do something fun. You know you’re really doing it up when the couch has been dragged outside.
Having seen what we thought was the pinnacle of the party, we drove off to Domino’s. We parked, got out of the car, and walked inside. We decided what we wanted and Gregg told the guy at the counter. We waited inside. After several minutes we were told that because it was after one (or whatever time it was, I don’t remember) we had to go through the drive-thru. What? But we just told you what we wanted, and you agreed to make it. Nope, that was store policy.
The five of us filed back outside, squeezed back into my red ’89 Escort and drove around the side of the building. A guy’s face appeared in the drive-thru window and Gregg (he was driving—I have spatial difficulties without chemicals dancing around in my brain; driving at this time, no) told the guy again what we wanted and we sat in the car until it was ready.
So there it is. We brought the pizza back to the apartment where the couch party had begun to settle and so had we. The story begins and ends with eyebrow-wrinkling fast food scenarios. So why is it the best day in the world? I have tried to write about this day before but could never quite capture it. I don’t think I have here either. Part of magic is in the moments so purely unto themselves they are unable to be put into words at all, places beyond poetry, parapoetic cruces.
It was the best day also because we were unbound and weightless, having recaptured kid-ness. We shifted through a series of rides and games like might be found in an amusement park. We did it, though, in the same physical world that everyone lives in, but on this day we were able to put this world solely in our hands. Also, this is a day that could never happen again in any proximate or remote configuration, inscriptive of itself and something quite close to divine.
The sun was beginning to dim when we entered the park, blue-gray sky. The park was empty but for us. We swung on swings, we slid down slides, we climbed on monkey bars and jungle gyms, we spun. There was a spinning-ride in the shape of some animal, a skunk, a squirrel, a fish, I don’t remember. Two people would stand on it, directly across from each other, holding on to a bar, the weight of each together spinning the thing round. The thing spun fast, so fast I decided that day that it should be illegal. It was not safe, though I would of course break the law to ride it.
A group of unruly bullies entered the park at about the time I sat in a black swing and swung. The bullies wore black leather and white t-shirts and jeans, red accents. It was an invasion full-on, hoodlums cast in from the ’50s. About this time, Kyle lost his lighter from his pocket while swinging high. We took my lighter to the hunt—it was dark now—in the wet grass behind the swing set. The bullies were getting louder and crossing over. When we found Kyle’s lighter we all decided to leave before the bullies soiled the good times.
When we reached the street we saw a bright, bright white light in the sky. It was brighter than a planet should be. It was too low to be a star, too high to be a streetlight, and too bright to be anything we could name. Was it a UFO? If not, then what? We decided to follow it northward and figure it out, which brought us dead-end into the cemetery at the north edge of town. This was a nice cemetery with wide winding gravel paths. We followed the bright light to the back where the trees made a wall. Gregg and someone else sat on an enormous cube-shaped grave. I was reluctant to, figuring bad karma for myself if I upset the dead, though I circled it many times. Engraved in capital letters on the front was Hutton. We’d made our home base on top of the remains of the Hutton family.
We all faced the bright light, monitoring its movements. It would fade and fade and then blink out. Then come back. It repeated this sequence again and again. We watched and monitored. Soon a helicopter appeared, circling above the cemetery, its spotlight searching the ground, flashing on us, then away, in circles. Each time the light came into the cemetery Gregg dove paranoid flat to the ground. The rest of us hunkered and watched. Were they after us? I didn’t really think so, though my imagination brewed a conspiratorial adventure involving the feds and aliens and us. We watched with impenetrable alertness for an indiscernible timespan.
At some point, Kyle and I walked to the end of the row of stones where there was an enormous cube-shaped grave identical to that of the Huttons. On the front of this cube was engraved in capital letters "Sutton". What were the odds that our friends were down the row at the Huttons’ place? Obviously, the cemetery was organized by rhyme. How novel. Kyle, who hadn’t eaten anything but acid all day, in a snap became the funniest man alive and gave me a quick tour of The Rhyming Cemetery, listing names and pointing to each rhymed section.
Finally we ended the indiscernible timespan in which we watched the bright light be bright and fade and blink out and return and were surveillanced by Big Brother’s helicopter. We let the mystery be and left the cemetery. We walked south back past the Springer house and on to mine and Gregg’s apartment. The acid was winding down in us. Inside, Travis picked up a fetish magazine from the kitchen table, which Gregg had recently bought, and positioned himself into the sofa chair for storytime. In a soothing grandfatherly voice he read to us a piece about a man and his lascivious adventures being pissed on by ladies. We were captivated.
We were also hungry. It was dark and quite late now. Late enough that one of the only places open for take-out was Domino’s Pizza. We do what we must. The five of us filed down the stairs toward my car.
As I said, Gregg and I lived in a second-floor apartment. Indians, as in from India, lived in the apartment below us and in the apartment below us on the other side of the stairs. Their apartments opened to the outside. These people were quiet. Sometimes we felt guilty because some amount of excess occasionally occurred in our apartment, late nights. How rude to disturb quiet neighbors. Weekly around nine in the evening we enjoyed their spices wafting upward.
This best night, however, they were letting loose. My car, an ’89 red Escort, was parked right in front of the building. All five of us squeezed into it and sat facing the apartment building, facing this rare party. The door to the apartment on the left was wide open. A dark-skinned girl dressed for a good 80s time stepped to the doorway and, giggling, reached to the light switch and began turning it off and on, off and on, quickly. Instant strobe. Then two guys began dragging the couch from the living room outside onto the grass.
We sat watching, stunned and speechless, except for Travis. In a rare boisterous voice, he said from the backseat, "Let’s get the couch outside!" This phrase became for me code for Hey let’s do something fun. You know you’re really doing it up when the couch has been dragged outside.
Having seen what we thought was the pinnacle of the party, we drove off to Domino’s. We parked, got out of the car, and walked inside. We decided what we wanted and Gregg told the guy at the counter. We waited inside. After several minutes we were told that because it was after one (or whatever time it was, I don’t remember) we had to go through the drive-thru. What? But we just told you what we wanted, and you agreed to make it. Nope, that was store policy.
The five of us filed back outside, squeezed back into my red ’89 Escort and drove around the side of the building. A guy’s face appeared in the drive-thru window and Gregg (he was driving—I have spatial difficulties without chemicals dancing around in my brain; driving at this time, no) told the guy again what we wanted and we sat in the car until it was ready.
So there it is. We brought the pizza back to the apartment where the couch party had begun to settle and so had we. The story begins and ends with eyebrow-wrinkling fast food scenarios. So why is it the best day in the world? I have tried to write about this day before but could never quite capture it. I don’t think I have here either. Part of magic is in the moments so purely unto themselves they are unable to be put into words at all, places beyond poetry, parapoetic cruces.
It was the best day also because we were unbound and weightless, having recaptured kid-ness. We shifted through a series of rides and games like might be found in an amusement park. We did it, though, in the same physical world that everyone lives in, but on this day we were able to put this world solely in our hands. Also, this is a day that could never happen again in any proximate or remote configuration, inscriptive of itself and something quite close to divine.
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