Hello there. Want to know something? Those sparing few who get close enough to know the truth of my upbringing often have many questions. All of them about cotton candy. That's the way it is when you were raised in an amusement park.
I sort of remember my parents. I remember my dad always had a pipe and my mom always had a cigarette; both tobacco related items placed snugly in their lips. I think that was so they would have an excuse to never talk to each other. I remember when they wanted to talk to each other they would talk through me. Actually, they'd really talk at me loud enough for the other parental unit to hear. Things like when my mother said, "Really, James," (that's me, James, your narrator) "take your elbows off the table. Your father is always doing that so it's no wonder where you picked up that habit." And my father in way of response would just puff a plume of smoke towards the ceiling and remove his elbows from the table. Or when my dad sat me on his lap in the TV room while everyone was watching The Ed Sullivan Show and said, "James, when you grow up, I want you to make sure of one thing. Don't ever sleep with the milkman and be stupid enough to leave his boxers in the bedroom when the boxers are so obviously not your husband's brand nor level of fabric quality."
The sun was bright and shiny when we went to the amusement park that fateful day. And I remember when it all happened. I wanted my dad to join me on the rollercoaster but he was off hitting on some cheerleaders from the local university. He took the pipe out of his mouth to talk to them. I went over to the bench where my mother was sitting and asked if she would go with me. She told me to not be so silly, that it isn’t proper for womenfolk to ride the rides. I sat down next to her on the bench and she then went to get a corndog and told me to stay put. I looked around for my dad but couldn’t find him. So I decided to just go on the rollercoaster myself, anyway.
The wind rushing through my shaggy hair exhilarated me and I was smiling ear to ear around the sharp curves and steep hills of the clacking wooden rollercoaster. I got too into it and nearly stood up. I cracked my head off a support beam and I was knocked unconscious.
I came to three weeks later in the shed behind the children’s theatre sleeping on some old costumes. A man came in and was happy to see that I was finally awake. He explained to me that he was a caretaker for the park and how he found me under the rollercoaster. He said he looked for my parents but he couldn’t find them and there were no reports of missing children so he just kept me in the shed here.
I began my life there at the amusement park. I did various little odd jobs around the park and I slept in the haunted house in the coffin where the rubber vampire usually was. And to this day I work there and here I am at the ripe old age of 52.
Just the other week I noticed a very familiar smell. It was the smell of my father’s tobacco and I turned around to find the old man with the same pipe I remember so well. My mother was there, too; cigarette in trachea hole. They had a man with them who was about the same age as me and he was carrying his little kid with them. Part of me wanted to run up and yell at them that they forgot their little kid and where the hell where they all these years. Part of me wanted to hit them both squarely in their faces. It was then that another familiar smell wafted through the air towards me; cotton candy. All the anger melted away and I smiled the same wide grin I had on the rollercoaster those years before.
So what’s that then? Oh yeah, here you go. Here’s your corndog. That’s $5.25. Thanks and make sure you have a funlicious day here at Knobels’ Grove.
I worked at Knoebel's for seven summers (three as a game operator and four at the Steak House restaurant) and I can confirm that your depiction of both patrons and employees is correct. Oh, the stories I could tell.
The line about the milkman and the boxers is very funny.
If you ever decide to compile a compendium of your stories, I think the title of it should have something to do with chew tobacco as it seems to appear in many of your stories. I was going to phrase all of this in a wittier fashion, but it's too early.
I'll be the first to admit that while I've never tried it myself, I'm rather confounded by and ponder chewing tobacco. Just a big heaping lipfull of stringy black stuff that sort of smells minty. I'm constantly trying to figure out the appeal to it and especially around the coal region. It's something like standard issue. You get a can of Skoal and a carton of Guers Ice Tea so when you finish drinking the ice tea you can spit your nasty brown spit into that glorious yellow and orange cardboard carton.
Nice story. I like the implication that the parents actually went home with a different kid the same age that fateful day.
Wow, I really liked this. Just a couple things, a three week coma in which a hospital isn't involved warrants a bit more of an explanation and "parental unit" doesn't feel like the right word choice. Gosh, otherwise it is so well written. I especially appreciated the note that the father removes his pipe for the cheerleaders. It is an important symbol of the emotional rift between he and his wife. I also like that the story doesn't end in divorce for the two of them, but rather in comfortable resignation to the way that they chose to live. Kudos sir!