Life's Golden Ticket

  Henry lowered the bar across my lap, walked off the platform, and stood next to the wizard.

  The wizard lifted his arm, and the ride lurched into motion. I watched his arm move faster, the ride moving with it. He circled faster and faster, and the light from his arm grew brighter and brighter. The ride began to squeal with noise as it spun. Faster. I grabbed hold of the safety bar. Faster. The wind rushed against my face. Faster. The view became blurred. Faster. The ride started to shake and shudder.

  Too fast! Stop!

  Suddenly I felt as if the ride was at normal speed again, but the view around me was still spinning and blurred and muddy, as if everything else were moving at a hundred miles an hour.

  And then images started to appear against the dark, blurred backdrop: scenes from Mary’s life.

  She’s at her brother’s funeral, standing next to her mom and dad. No one is holding her hand.

  She’s in high school now, and a girl screams at her, “Ugly brace-face!”

  She’s sitting at a restaurant table, and her first fiancé says, “I’m seeing someone else.”

  She’s at another dinner table, arguing with me now over a visit to her parents, and I say, “Why should we go? They don’t seem to like you anyway.”

  The backdrop changes to the color of cotton candy.

  Mary is playing with her brother on their front lawn.

  Mary’s mother is teaching her to play the piano.

  Mary’s dad is holding her hand and swinging her up and down as they walk into an ice cream shop.

  Mary finishes a presentation, walks out of a room, and gets a high five from her co-workers.

  Mary lifts her hand to her face, breaks into tears, and says, “Oh, my God, yes, I will!” as I kneel nervously before her.

  Then the Ferris wheel stopped.

  I sat at the top of the ride. The blur was gone. The images were gone.

  I looked down to the wizard and Henry. The wizard started moving his arm in a circular motion again, this time in the opposite direction. The ride shuddered to life. Faster . . . faster . . . faster. The view blurred again. Snapshots appeared against a muddy-colored background: snapshots of my life.

  I’m six years old, huddled on the couch, crying for my father to stop hitting me with his belt.

  I’m twelve and standing at the side of my grandfather’s hospital bed as he gasps for one more breath.

  I’m sixteen, watching my mom beg the school principal not to expel me for punching another student.

  I’m older now, receiving news from a stuffed shirt that I will be laid off in two weeks.

  I’m in the kitchen, watching Mary slam the door behind her.

  The blurred backdrop turns the color of lemonade.

  I’m eight and jumping up and down with Mom on the trampoline in the backyard.

  I’m thirteen and laughing as Grandma and I pet one of her horses.

  I’m crossing the finish line first at a high school track meet.

  I’m older now, shaking hands with a co-worker after leaving my new boss’s office.

  I’m signing the mortgage for my home.

  I’m holding Mary in my arms, breathing a sigh of relief that she has agreed to be my partner for life.

  And then I was back on the ground, standing next to the Ferris wheel.

  Henry greeted me with a smile. “How was the ride?” he asked, his voice warm and soothing.

  I shook my head, not knowing how to respond.

  For a few moments I watched the rhythm of the crowd: parents chasing their children, clowns selling balloons, everyone laughing and walking as if it were a regular Saturday evening at the amusement park.

  “Why did I have to see all that, Henry?” I asked, nodding toward the machine.

  “What did you see?”

  “Scenes from Mary’s life. Scenes from my own.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said as if he had forgotten a well-laid plan, “scenes from both Mary’s and yours. Whatever you saw from Mary’s life you must remember—you’ll need that information later on. Whatever you saw from your own life was a reminder. Too often we forget the most important and meaningful chapters in our life’s story. The scenes you saw were chapters like that. Important. Influential. They were the chapters that not only illustrated a few highs and lows in your life but also epitomized powerful themes that have become woven throughout your story.”

  “What themes?” I asked.

  “Themes present in what you were taught in life, and themes present in how you have lived your life. We have to talk about those themes because, frankly, the themes in your life are a big part of why Mary ended up here . . . and in the hospital.”

  6

  THE PARK’S THEME

  H enry and I sat on a park bench some twenty yards in front of the Ferris wheel. The bright lights of the ride barely reached us. Henry leaned back on the bench, legs crossed and elbows resting on the backrest, just watching people saunter past. He didn’t say a word to me for several minutes.

  Finally, I could contain my frustration no longer: “You said the themes in my life were a big part of why Mary came here. So let’s get on with it—which themes are you talking about?”

  Henry looked at me with patient eyes. “I know you want a lot of answers, and you want them now. But I’m afraid that’s not how this place works. You have to discover the answers for yourself. To know which theme in your life’s story might have caused Mary to come here, you’ve got to discover which themes are woven throughout your story.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “You start with the scenes you saw on the Ferris wheel. Like I said, you saw those scenes for a very specific reason—not just to help you remember the bad times and good times, but also to help you uncover the dominant themes in your life’s story. Patterns of what you have learned and how you have lived your life. Let’s just talk right now about the first few scenes you saw. Then I’ll help you figure out the themes that weave throughout them.” Henry nodded at the Ferris wheel. “What was the first thing you saw up there?”

  I looked toward the ride. A line of happy kids and adults were waiting their turn. Their patience didn’t match the scene I saw in my head.

  “The first thing I saw was an image of my dad. He was . . . angry.”

  “What was he upset about?”

  “Me. I did something I wasn’t supposed to.”

  “What was that?”

  “I ruined the remote control to the television.” Thinking about how trivial the incident was, I almost laughed. “We had a fish tank. I thought the remote would make a good submarine.”

  Henry chuckled. “Did it float?”

  “Not even close. It did what submarines are supposed to do. It sank to the bottom. My arms were too short to reach, so I went to the closet and grabbed a wire coat hanger and tried to fish it out. But I got distracted and tried to fish out a fish. Dad walked in and there I was, holding a fish in my palms, standing on a stool above a tank filled with nervous fish, a coat hanger, and his remote control.”

  Henry laughed again. “So what’d your dad say?”

  “Not much. He screamed at me for being a pest and came storming toward me. I got so scared I dropped the fish. As he got closer I panicked and jumped off the stool to get away from him . . . and landed on the fish. I remember looking up at my father in horror.”

  “You landed on the fish! What was your dad’s reaction?”

  The image of my father’s furious face flashed in my mind.

  “He said, ‘You stupid little shit! Look what you’ve done!’ Then he unbuckled his belt. I tried to get away from him, but he pinned me on the couch and . . . well, anyway, that’s the first image I saw on the Ferris wheel.”

  I stared off into the crowd. Henry let a few moments pass. The kids on the Ferris wheel seemed so happy.

  Finally, Henry said, “I know it’s not easy to talk about that sort of thing—I’ve had some experience with it myself, so I appreciate your telling me about it.
I know that happened a long time ago, but if you could go back and step into your young mind, what did you begin to think about yourself at that time?”

  “Think about myself?” I asked reflectively. “I don’t know. I guess I just thought I was an idiot, a pest.”

  “An idiot and a pest?” Henry asked. “So did you change your behavior after that incident?”

  “Sure. I just stopped being a pest. I kept quiet and stayed out of my dad’s way. That’s what you do with a tough dad.”

  “How’d that work, staying out of the way? Did the abuse stop?”

  “Sort of. I mean, when I was out of his way, there wasn’t a problem.”

  “Were you scared of your father?”

  I laughed. “Who isn’t scared of their father? I think a lot of people grow up like I did—the world isn’t full of rainbows and Ward Cleavers, you know. Listen, do we really need to psychoanalyze this? I know what my dad did was wrong, and I got over it a long time ago. Do we really need to talk about it anymore?”

  “No,” Henry said softly, “not right now. But understand that you saw that scene because it undoubtedly became a theme in your life in some way. Let’s move on. What did you see next?”

  I told Henry about my grandfather’s death. He had suffered for weeks in the hospital, battling liver cancer. My family visited him often, especially in his final days. My dad would work to keep the visits lighthearted, but the second we walked out of the hospital he would curse Grandpa for his years of drinking. The night before Grandpa passed away there was an argument. Dad didn’t come back the next day, because he was so angry. As Grandpa began to die I was the only one in the room; Mom had gone to call Dad and beg him to come. Grandpa’s last words to me were, “You tell your dad I forgive him and that I always loved him.” I stood crying as he wheezed his final breath. A nurse came in when the buzzers went off. She saw me crying but didn’t say anything. She just unplugged Grandpa from the machines, pulled the sheet over his head, and told me to leave the room. Later that night I told my father about Grandpa’s last words. Dad looked at me and teared up. Then he smacked me to the ground and called me a ‘lying little shit.’ He said I had made it all up to make him feel better.”

  “How old were you when that happened?” Henry asked.

  “Twelve.”

  “What stands out to you about that incident?”

  “Just how sad I was when Grandpa died. How uncaring and cold the nurse was. How Dad didn’t believe me.”

  “At the time, why did you think your dad didn’t believe you?”

  “I think I just thought I was a bad kid, a bad communicator. Like I couldn’t even explain what Grandpa had said to me.”

  “Did your relationship with your dad change after that?”

  “Yeah. We grew even further apart. He never mentioned Grandpa again. Neither did I. As a matter of fact, we never mentioned much of anything to each other after that.”

  I looked to Henry for his next question, letting him know I was ready to move on.

  “Okay,” he said, picking up on my signal. “Next scene?”

  “The next scene was from my sophomore year in high school. I was one of the smallest guys on the basketball team. But not the smallest. A kid named Jimmy Smeltz was two inches shorter. We called him ‘Smally.’ He and I took a lot of guff from the older varsity players. We were only redshirts, and they were sure to let us know we were below them. One day I walked into the locker room and found Smally tied up naked to one of the metal posts in the communal shower. He was gagged with a sock and duct tape over his mouth. Tears streaked his face above the tape. I grabbed my pocket knife to cut him loose. As I bent down to cut the rope from his ankles, Clark Jones, our point guard and the most popular kid in school, snapped a picture, capturing me and Smally in an awkward position. Clark said he was going to print the picture and plaster it all over school. I tried to get the camera, and when he wouldn’t give it to me, I broke his nose. An hour later my mother pleaded with the principal not to expel me. I received six weeks of in-school suspension and was kicked off the team. Clark Jones went unpunished and won us a championship. My mom took my side and told me never to blindly trust a person of authority again. Dad just ignored me and called me a troublemaker from then on.”

  “You must’ve thought the world was pretty unfair after that,” Henry said.

  “I think I knew long before that.”

  “So what stands out to you about this one?”

  “Just how damn mean people were. To tie Jimmy up like that. How bad was that for him? Man. And then for the principal to punish me and not Clark? That was ridiculous. Goes to show that if you stick your head out to protect yourself or others, you’re going to get whacked.”

  “Did you do what your mom told you?” Henry asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Not trust authority figures again?”

  “In a way. I definitely made people earn my trust.”

  “Did many people ever earn it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  The next scene popped into my mind. “Because you can never really trust anyone. Wait till you hear my next story.”

  The fourth scene I saw atop the Ferris wheel had taken place in a white, cold office. A consultant was sitting in front of me, thanking me for my eight years of hard work. Unfortunately, he said, my salary was too big a burden on the company, and I had to be let go. I was being replaced, he said, by a cheaper resource. I asked who would take my place, thinking that Benny, one of my senior managers for the past five years and now a new dad, was ready and deserving. Instead, the consultant coolly told me my job was being outsourced to a twenty-one-year-old in India. “Don’t worry, though,” he said. “We’re offering a very nice severance package for people who gave so much to this company.” I got six weeks’ pay. Two days later Benny was laid off too.

  “How’s that grab you for fairness and trust?” I asked Henry. “I gave them eight years of my life, and they gave me six weeks and a slap in the face. Goes to show, you never know what’s going to happen.”

  “You think it was unfair—a slap in the face—to be laid off?”

  “You better believe it. I was so pissed off. It was like I wasn’t valuable enough for them to pay me, or even have the decency to offer a pay cut. They just replaced me with some kid. How unlucky can you get?”

  “Sounds like you’re still upset about it.”

  “I am,” I said peevishly. The more I thought about it, the more my blood boiled.

  “Okay. So let’s not get stuck there. What did you see next?”

  The scene that played next in my mind cooled me down instantly, flooding my senses with sadness.

  “I saw Mary slamming the door behind her,” I said, feeling a lump growing in my throat. “I couldn’t believe she had left. I just stood there. I didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. I knew she was unhappy, but I didn’t know just how unhappy. I knew she felt like we weren’t heading anywhere. I think she always thought she’d marry someone who made her feel better. A few months after we got engaged I think she came to the realization that I might not be that person. I wasn’t good enough for her. And in the last few months it was like she really got intent on changing me. When I didn’t get with the program, she became more and more upset. And then she slammed that door and disappeared.”

  “Do you really believe you weren’t good enough for her?” Henry asked.

  “Yes. No doubt. Mary was always an angel to me. I just . . . I wasn’t an angel back.”

  “What did you think when she didn’t return, when she disappeared?”

  “I immediately thought something was wrong. I was always bad luck for people. All I could think of was all the terrible things that could’ve happened to her, all because I pushed her away. And something terrible did happen. She . . .”

  I stopped and looked Henry in the eyes, remembering suddenly why we were talking about all this. “You said this all has something to do with the
themes in my life—so what themes do you see?”

  “You want to know?” Henry asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Let me reflect back to you what I’ve heard, and let’s see if we can figure it out. I think there are some powerful patterns weaving through the scenes you just described to me. Let me give you my take. First, there might be a theme to what you’ve been taught about the world. I think you’ve learned that the world is a pretty dark place. As you said when talking about your dad, ‘The world isn’t full of rainbows and Ward Cleavers.’ Your father’s abuse taught you that the world was a dangerous place; your grandfather’s passing taught you that the world was a sad place; you learned that the world was unfair from your high school principal—that if you stuck your neck out, you’d get whacked; your layoff taught you that the world was unappreciative and uncertain; when Mary disappeared, you learned the world was out to get you—after all, you were ‘always bad luck for people.’ Am I on track so far?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, I think there’s another theme, this one concerning what you learned about other people. Your interactions with your dad taught you that other people were unkind, hurtful—that there weren’t a lot of dads like you see on TV. Your grandfather’s nurse taught you that people were cold and uncaring. Your basketball teammates taught you that people were cruel; your principal taught you that they were unfair. The consultant who laid you off showed you that people were generally cool, even uncaring, about other people’s circumstances. Mary may have taught you that people who love you might leave you if you’re not good enough. Am I making sense?”

  Another nod.

  “Finally, I think there’s a theme to what you learned about yourself. You came to believe you were an idiot and a pest because of your father. You thought you were a bad communicator after delivering your grandfather’s message and getting smacked for it. You learned you were a problem child after standing up for yourself. Losing your job taught you that you were not valuable, and your relationship with Mary taught you that you were not good enough and that you were a lightning rod of bad luck for others. Is that about right?”