My classmates laughed, insincerely mumbled “Sorry, Vic,” and moseyed on down Main Street, not a fire care in the world. “Any more sparklers in your possession?” I called to them.
Leticia Johnson turned back my way and handed me a plastic container filled with sparklers. “Here, General Navarro.”
“Thank you. Have fun I guess, but use common sense when it comes to fire safety!”
“Okay, Grandma,” said Leticia, and returned to her group of wobbling friends.
“I give up,” I said to Zeke. “I need a breather from trying to be the boss.” I was inside Happies theme park. Living the dream! I lay down on top of the giant clown face, and Zeke joined me. We stared up at the night sky burning bright and clear with stars. The air smelled like beer and desert wildflowers and excitement as, in the distance, the Happies sang the Happies song, and my classmates joined in. All around were the sounds of people laughing and celebrating. I was terrified, and waiting for the next disaster—but also proud. Inadvertently, I had made this joy possible. If I could just keep the land from going up in flames that would spread across the desert, my own joy would be complete.
“Is it disrespectful that my fat ass is nestled deep down into the clown’s eyelid?” Zeke asked me.
“Your sweet ass is probably the most gentle love that poor clown’s had in years.”
“You really know how to dirty talk a dude.”
“Thank you.”
Zeke was not the dude I wanted to be dirty talking, but he was a surprisingly fun substitute.
I asked Zeke, “Do you ever worry about the tunnels in your ears getting caught on something? Like, you walk by a tall cactus plant and a branch hooks in and pulls your earlobe out?”
Pause. “Now I do.”
I stood up and extended my hand to Zeke. “Just lookin’ out for you, little bro. Next time you think you want to pierce some part of your anatomy, please consult me first.”
Zeke jumped to his feet, practically bumping me with his groin he was so close. “Which part of my anatomy?”
I rolled my eyes. “Every part.”
We started walking down Main Street, and our steps fell in sync with each other’s. Neither the bright stars nor the full moon offered enough light to guide our way, and there was no operational lighting in the park. While the lampposts were still standing, their power sources had been extinguished years ago, the lanterns cracked or broken, with many of the posts covered in graffiti. The Happies had set up intermittent floodlights on the ground, but those only provided so much help with seeing in the dark, so people were using their phones for light, or the flashlights that the Happies bus and biker crews had brought inside with them.
“All these dumbfucks are posting pictures online,” I said, looking at all the lit phones brightening the dark space like disco-ball glitter light bursts. “I can just feel it.”
Zeke said, “They’ve been posting pictures all night. You really can’t be so naive as to think your honor system for staying off social media actually worked?” I stared him down, and Zeke laughed. “Dear, sweet Vic. I’m pretty sure I saw people in the restaurant looking at a page devoted to Amy Beckerman’s stripper dancing while it was happening. You know that most everyone who turned the data mode off their phone to get past you into the restaurant turned that feature back on as soon as they were in line for beer, don’t you?”
I sighed. I knew. “Way to deny my denial.”
“That would make a great band name. Deny My Denial.”
“Or a great name for a Happies mega-dessert. A calorie explosion, like caramel-covered vanilla ice cream on top of a piece of coconut cake, with a piece of RASmatazz pie sandwiched inside the cake layers.”
“WANT!” Zeke held his phone from his face and took a selfie while licking his lips. “So I’ll remember the idea,” he said.
“You were looking at people’s phones during Amy Beckerman’s dance routine to see if they were posting pictures of you, weren’t you?”
“No,” Zeke said weakly. “What I’m saying is: The word is out. Either the cops come, or Thrope comes, or both. It’s gonna happen, so why not just enjoy yourself in the moment?”
The moment! It should have been shared with Fletch and Slick. If I was going to explore the park on its last night in existence, my companions were supposed to be my soul sisters. Where were they, anyway? I took my phone from my pocket to see a ton of messages I’d missed from Fletch and Slick, asking me the same thing: Where ARE you?
“Give me that,” said Zeke. He grabbed it from my hand and slipped it into his back pocket. “There’s a fucking miracle happening here right now. Live it! Don’t text it.”
Damn, now that he was a junior, he thought he could be Mr. Bossy? As someone who was also very bossy, I liked it—to a point. I heard the ding of a new text message coming into my phone, and instinctively I lunged for his pocket, but Zeke pulled the phone out before I could grab it. He held his arm up so I couldn’t reach it. Zeus have mercy, how tall was he now? I used to be able to grab a remote control or video console from him with no problem. I was forced to jump high in an attempt to grab my phone, but Zeke retaliated by tossing it as hard and as far as he could.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” I screeched.
“You can find it in the morning,” Zeke said, nonchalant, like he’d just given me a paper cut and not detached a vital part of my anatomy. My most crucial link to the Cuddle Huddle had been dismantled; now how was I going to find them? And I couldn’t remember a significant event that had happened without live-texting with my sister about it. Nonsignificant events, too. Hell, any events.
“No, you go find it! NOW!” I shrieked at Zeke.
“No,” said Zeke, unconcerned. He took a bandanna out of his other pocket and tied it around a tree branch a few feet away. “Here. Now we know where the phone was tossed from. We’ll look over there once it’s light again.”
Where he’d thrown the phone appeared, from what little light we had, to be a field of weeds taller than me, probably slithering with snakes. “That was my personal property! What if I actually do need to call the cops, if this party gets more out of hand?”
“Won’t need to,” Zeke said. “Have a little faith. There’s a method to my madness.”
“What method is that?”
Zeke opened his chubby arms wide, and gestured around the park. “Here! Now! Be present! You’re fucking welcome!”
That was when we heard the firecrackers.
“We can use my phone if there’s an emergency,” Zeke said between wheezes, as together we ran through Bygone Rancho, past the fake Western-town-building facades, with signs for the Wanderlust Hotel and the Bawdy Saloon, hung a right toward the noise, and found ourselves with a group of Happies bikers setting off firecrackers. This wasn’t how I’d hoped to discover Pinata Village, watching as motorcycle dudes, seated on toppled-over kiddie airplanes and trains and dolphins, dabbled in dangerous, noisy fire hazards. They didn’t seem at all concerned by the nearby overgrown trees, which were littered with tons of sun-faded pieces of papier-mâché and cardboard—relics of former piñatas.
“There’s Mega-Joan. Ask her for help,” said Zeke.
A Responsible Adult Person in Charge! Well, sort of. We ran to her and I begged, “Please, Joan, tell them to have their fun, but not with fire! The land is so dry here and…”
Before I could finish, Joan held up her megaphone and announced, “No firecrackers, please. NO FIRE-MAKING AT ALL, IN FACT!” I’m not too proud to admit it was a huge relief to have a way-more-intimidating-than-me-person putting the bikers on notice, loudly, about how to appropriately celebrate. The bikers immediately ceased setting off firecrackers and returned the unused supplies to the storage trunks on their motorcycles.
Classic Mom deferral. Thanks, Mega-Joan.
I could try to put out fires on the ground, but the fires in the loins? The horny bastards of Rancho Soldado High School were certainly igniting them.
Fine. W
hatever. Enjoy yourselves. That’d be me and Jake later tonight, once I located him.
“There’s a lot of booty-grinding happening in this park tonight,” Zeke observed as we strolled into the old Lovers Lane miniature golf course, where we saw couples, some triples, even a quartet, in full throes of making out, feeling up, truly enjoying themselves.
“So what is feenin’?” I asked Zeke, remembering the song Slick had told me he put on the sexy mix they delivered to Thrope’s neighbors earlier in the day.
Zeke dropped to his knees, clutched his hands to his heart, and serenaded me in ’90s boy-band style. “All the chronic in the world couldn’t even mess with you / You are the ultimate high / You know what I’m saying baby?”
“I don’t,” I said. “That’s why I asked.” His singing voice was surprisingly good: strong, confident, and dare I say it, super sexy. I’d never heard him sing before without the loud, plugged-in musical accompaniment of his basement bandmates. “If you were into girls, I might consider jumping your bones immediately.”
Zeke wrapped his arms around the backs of my legs, pressing the side of his face into my knees. Then he pulled back, stretched his arms toward the sky and pressed his hands against his heart as he serenaded me with, “I can’t leave you alone / You got me feenin’.”
“So it’s stalker-speak for love craving?”
“Basically. From, like, a really sucky stalker who smokes too much weed.”
I laughed. “Get up before some feenin’ really happens, please.” Zeke resisted standing up, so I lightly kicked his pompadour pouf, and he stood up. I asked him, “Hey, you know what really sucks?”
“Intermission. That’s what sucks.”
“What?” I asked, laughing harder, forgetting about the rant I’d been about to spew.
“Intermission,” Zeke repeated. “Just finish the fucking show!”
I’d been about to bring up an important topic, and he was concerned about intermission? “Explain yourself.”
Zeke said, “Unless a performance is, like, four hours long, there’s really no need to break up the energy. I won’t see a show if I know there’s an intermission. Swear to God, won’t even buy a ticket.”
“You think you’re so punk. You think every song should be two minutes, and you can kill a show in just an hour’s performance and leave the audience hungering for more before you walk off stage in a very loud blaze of sweaty glory. Am I right?”
“You’re exactly right. Imagine if you’d been at a Ramones show at CBGB during its heyday. You wouldn’t want a break from that madness!”
“Yeah, but that’s a bad example. Like, if I’m watching Titanic with my girls, again, that’s what? Four hours? We need a break halfway through!”
“Because you need some chips ’n’ guac and Doritos pizzas to help alleviate that sinking feeling you’re getting?”
“Very punny.” I shoved him. “Hey, speaking of shows, where are your bandmates? Shouldn’t they be here if you’re going to perform?”
“They’re musicians. They never show up earlier than taco’clock. So they should be here any second. Too bad there’s no real food besides pie, if there’s even any of that left.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me how hungry I am.”
“The Happies should’ve brought a taco truck with them! That’s what really sucks.”
Now I remembered what really sucked. I stopped walking, indignant. Gesturing at no one in particular, I let loose. “No! What really sucks is that when the developer razes all this Happies land, entire ecosystems are going to be wiped out!” My anger was making me hotter on this already scorching night, and I wished I had one of those ice bricks we kept in the restaurant freezer room for the stray cats to rub along my arms. “Like, did you know there are feral cat colonies living in here?”
“I bet the coyotes adore them.”
Ignoring him, I said, “And all these trees. They probably have birds that take cover from the desert sun in them. Birds have nests. All those baby birds, they’ll be wiped out.”
“And cute little squirrels,” Zeke said in a baby voice, mocking me. His overgrown body did a slinky torso dance. “And snakes! Hissss!”
“I’m serious! Nature took back this land after the park closed. Nature deserved it more than we do. But once the developer clears it, the living world inside here will die.”
“New trees and animals will come back after the new buildings come up,” said Zeke. “That’s just the circle of life.”
“Why are you so optimistic all the time? It’s annoying.”
“It’s endearing.”
“Do you know the moonlight is reflecting on your front pouf? Your hair is like a light beacon.”
I reached up to tap the pouf, I don’t know why, maybe for luck, but Zeke ducked out of my hand’s way. From behind us, perhaps in tribute to Zeke’s Prince T-shirt, Jake’s voice sang out, “She’s always in my hair.”
Finally, the guy to light my fire had arrived.
“Where’ve ya been?” Jake asked. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Zeke said, “I’m right here, obviously.”
“Not you, kid,” said Jake. He wiggled his index finger in my direction, and damn, that silly gesture on Jake was sexy. “Her. The cute one.” His words: sexier.
“I’m fucking cute as hell,” said Zeke.
“Yeah, but she has boobs,” said Jake. “Cuter.”
“How flattering and objectifying,” I said.
Zeke said, “Do they have names?”
“Who?” Jake and I both said.
Zeke pointed to his chest, but looked at me. “Your boobs.”
I must have been secondhand high from all the marijuana smoke wafting from the miniature golf course installations, because I admitted, “I do have names for them, actually. Ezra and Esme.”
Jake said, “Ezra’s a guy’s name.”
“Ezra’s the more androgynous one,” I said. Shut up about Ezra and Esme, Vic! I asked Jake, “Where’ve you been?”
“I shut down the Chug Bug when the bikers broke down the fence. Decided to follow ’em into the park. I’ve been trying to text you, but no answer.”
My eyes narrowed accusingly at Zeke, who shrugged like, No big deal. For a split second, I wondered if he threw my phone specifically so I’d have a harder time finding Jake and my Cuddle Huddle girls. We were having a good time, but Zeke was a friendly dude, and there were plenty of other people in the park whose attention he could monopolize.
We heard the loud, pointed gasp of a lady reaching her apex of pleasure from inside the miniature castle on Lovers Lane. Jake smiled at me. “I told you that place was magic.”
“Probably not so sterile, though,” said Zeke, suddenly surly.
“Says the boy with the tunneled ears,” I said. How quickly could I shake the junior now, and take up residence with Jake in one of these miniature golf coves? Everyone else was doing it. I was tired of being the party monitor. I was ready to be a party fornicator.
“Don’t you have your band to set up or something?” said Jake to Zeke. Jake and I were so in sync, eager to get rid of the kid. “Vic and I have some money to count.”
BOOM! Another loud sound, but this one didn’t belong to the throes-of-ecstasy crowd cavorting in the weeded-over miniature golf course. It came from the liftoff of a fireball into the sky, which exploded, and descended down into Main Street, setting a crumbling building facade on fire.
Mega-Joan wielded a mighty fire extinguisher. “Got it before Bygone Rancho was really bygone. The Wanderlust Hotel is no longer with us. But no good ever came out of that brothel anyway.”
She set down the extinguisher and picked up her megaphone again. “DON’T MAKE ME HAVE TO SLAP Y’ALL BACK INTO CLOWN TOWN! WHEN I SAID NO FIRES, I MEANT NO FIRES!”
She nodded to me. Out of breath from running full speed to Main Street from Lovers Lane, I gasped, “Thanks, Joan.”
“Who was responsible for this?” Joan asked the partygoers assem
bled in Bygone Rancho.
A beautiful blond biker chick approached, with another unused fire rocket nestled on her shoulder, wearing shorts so short they barely covered her crotch, cowboy boots, and a tight, vintage, kids’ Happies plaid pajama top. She said, “That was me. I couldn’t resist. Promise I won’t fire any more, Joan.” She looked appropriately contrite, and Joan went over and patted her on the shoulder comfortingly.
“I won’t throw ya into UnHappies Jail,” said Joan. “So long as you keep your promise. Who are ya, darlin’? I don’t recognize you.”
“Bandita!” said the blond babe, like Mega-Joan should have known.
Mega-Joan said, “Bandita? I haven’t seen you since you were a Little Miss Happies at the Tulsa off-road convention, what, ten years ago? You sure grew up, Little Missy! How old are you now? Eighteen?”
Mega-Joan placed a kiss on Bandita’s cheek, and then buttoned the top button on Bandita’s top.
“Twenty-one,” Bandita told Mega-Joan.
The air smelled of smoke and tasted like fire, beer, and danger. On the other side of the now burned-down Wanderlust Hotel facade was the UnHappies Jail. I noticed Jake appraising Bandita head to toe with a leering grin, and I wanted to lock the girl into one of the jail cells and throw away the key. Bandita’s girls had Ezra and Esme beat. By a lot.
Delroy Cowpoke spoke up next. “My little girl’s all grown up, eh, Joan?” The biker dude let out a jolly chortle, like he was a regular Hells Angels Santa Claus.
Zeke stood close to the jail, perhaps intuiting my desire to banish someone into it. Zeke said, “My dad used to tell me about this place. He said it was where people got sent before they were ejected from the park for bad behavior. I always thought he was making it up!”
Delroy said, “Nope, it was for real. Folks got too liquored up—“
“No alcohol was sold on the premises, of course,” Mega-Joan interrupted. “Mary Happie never would have allowed that.”