‘Whirly Gig’
Whirly Gig
“Wanna share a…” she pointed up at the ride, but couldn’t find the word.
“Car?” I never talked to girls, so I just looked up where she was pointing, without looking at her.
“Car?” she said, “that’s not what they call ‘em?” She slurred a bit.
“Maybe. I dunno.”
“You dunno what?”
She made me gasp. Embarrassing. The Platters sang ‘Only You’ from a crappy PA speaker just above our heads.
“I dunno what they’re called.”
“But you just said they’re called ‘cars’…I heard you.” She looked like a prettier version of the lady that taught me swimming when I was little, but with a meaner mouth. She leaned in closer, and I got a good whiff of booze.
“We could get a ‘car’ all to ourselves.” She said it like I’d be a goddam idiot to miss the chance. Like there was more to it. The flesh around my cheeks and eyes started to burn, like some kind of very specific fever.
“That’d be…,”
“That’d be what?” I could smell cigarettes too, now, she was that close.
“Good.”
“Good, yes, good answer, cowboy,” she said, then pulled out of the queue and swayed off into the crowd, till she was just a bob of red hair getting smaller, harder to see, then she was gone.
I’d noticed a skinny kid with clusters of bright red pimples and an Astro Boy t-shirt standing nearby. He couldn’t stop staring.
“Can I go with … you?” he asked pointing quickly at the ‘You Can’t Ride Alone Unless You’re This Tall’ sign, then looking away, then back again. He was clearly not comfortable with having ask.
I sighed and looked down at the concrete. A cigarette butt had been stamped out where she’s been standing, a skerrick of lipstick smudged and dirty and flattened out with the rest of the filter.
I looked up and over to where she’d gone, like maybe she’s changed her mind.
As if.
“Yeah, ok,” I said, looking back to the kid, but he was already at the gate, staring at me with such desperation, overtaken by the fear of maybe missing our turn on the ride.
“Quick we gotta get the next …” he said nervously, pointing up.
“Car,” I said, “they’re called cars.”