parenthetical

By Dizzy Turek
“Story went like: Grandma Gloria gets out of the Camry. We are at Geauga Lake (that place is closed now so in my mind, it has an eerie sense of decay like a Scooby-Doo ghost town but we are obviously seeing it as it was in the story. It’s just suggested that it’s on a course for rot. It’s a theme park heading to hell.).

Grandma Gloria gets out of the Camry. She has a little flag for the Cleveland Browns so she can find her car later when all the fun is done (that detail adds some more decay and rot and loserdom to the story. This is called foreboding.).

Grandma Gloria gets out of the Camry. Then me and Maggie. (we are young but so young that we are basically the same age.).

I have goofy shorts and a shirt on, goofy stuff kids wear, same with Maggie (in fact, we might just be the same person born at different times (like a year apart) and because we are born at different times we came out different, but everyone knows our souls are carved from the same fabric. They can tell that by looking at our clothes and demeanor.).

Grandma Gloria gets out of the Camry. Then Maggie and me. Papa Joe’s not there (he likes sweets so he gets a bunch of peaches at random times in the day and eats them at home when no one else is around. He doesn’t like hanging out with us sometimes. Other times, he likes to play pranks and joke around and all the typical grandpa stuff. I’m pretty sure he likes me or likes me being around sometimes.).

Grandma Gloria gets out of the Camry. Then me and Maggie. Papa Joe isn't there. We walk into Geauga Lake (in my mind, it’s empty because when you go to an amusement park, you are focused on amusement so the vast crowds are all negligible. They are automatically x-ed out in my mind.).

We walk into Geauga Lake and there’s basically no one there. We get our tickets which Grandma Gloria buys with Papa Joe’s money (or their money) and we enter and we ride rides (as a child, you are really vomity so the whole thing is exhilarating and you feel sick the whole time. All the food is well advertised though so you get off the ride feeling nauseous and like you never want to look at a meal again and then you see the corn dog stand or the burgers or something and all of a sudden you need to eat like then. Like NOW. You beg your grandma and she’s cranky because she doesn’t like amusement parks. She doesn’t ride any of the rides. She just leads you to the top and demurely passes on getting in the seat and then waits at the end of the ride for you to come back, nauseous and complaining. You finally convince her to get food though, you eat and then get back on rides. Then you get off rides, lean over the wood railing and puke into a rock ravine in full view of all the people standing in line waiting for their amusement. They are negligible except in this moment when you realize you’ve only ever thrown up and cried in a toilet. It’s so terrifying to throw up as a child, you feel like you will die or you are possessed. You feel helpless and embarrassed and now, puking in front of everyone, the drops of stomach-acid-crusted corn dog plummeting onto decorative rocks, you are on display in a way you never thought possible. You are cursing them all, you are worried this will spread the nauseous disease, ruin everyone’s amusement. You leave the ride. You see the corn dog sign and you are hungry again (this isn’t really the point though. This is all set dressing, extra context for the real event: leaving the park. This is before cell phones so we don’t have time constraints. Nobody is urgently asking where we are, no one even knows what we are doing in the amusement park moment by moment. We are alone among thousands of people, us and my grandma, just us two (me and Maggie being the same person and all).).).

Grandma Gloria gets out of the Camry. Then me and Maggie. Papa Joe isn't there. We walk into Geauga Lake and there’s basically no one there. We get our tickets which Grandma Gloria buys with Papa Joe’s money (or their money) and we enter and we ride rides. As we leave the park at the end of the day, I beg and beg Grandma Gloria for ice cream (it would be so perfect to end the day. Decadence, that’s what you do at an amusement park. You splurge on games, on food, on extra rides, on merch.).

As we leave the park at the end of the day, I beg and beg Grandma Gloria for ice cream. Grandma Gloria is cranky; she’s not made of money, Papa Joe’s not made of money. I beg and I whine. I sound awful. I’m pouting, I’m making a scene. I’m being a brat. People are looking at me and my grandma feels like she is a bad person. She feels like all the people that weren’t there are now there and think she’s stingy, hates her grandchildren, brought them to a feast of fun and joy and told them they can have one bite, no more. I scream and act like a demon. I’m mad, I’m disappointed, I’m spewing lies, I’m saying hurtful stuff. I’m hitting my grandma. Maggie is stunned. She doesn’t know why the fabric her soul is made from would ever behave like that. Grandma Gloria glances around at glances at her. Finally, she gives in. We get ice cream. The sun is setting and the square is so beautiful (the fireworks are going to go off as we drive away and with ice cream in our mouths, we’ll get home and see Papa Joe and he’ll be so glad to see me after hours away from us. He’ll be fully recharged and maybe we’ll take a walk or he’ll watch the first hour of a Disney Channel original movie before getting bored and leaving. Driving home, I’ll thank Grandma Gloria and apologize. I shouldn’t have acted like that and she’s the nicest grandma to ever live for giving me this ice cream.).

We get the ice cream. The sun is setting and the square is so beautiful. We are searching for the Cleveland Browns flag. We are walking to the Camry to go home. Everyone is leaving to go home (it’ll take awhile to get out of the parking lot but everyone will be smiling, finally taking in every other person and smiling a sunburnt smile, pleased to be moving slow in hot cars.).

We get the ice cream. The sun is setting and the square is so beautiful. We are searching for the Cleveland Browns flag. We are walking to the Camry to go home. Everyone is leaving to go home. A kid runs past and bumps me. My ice cream falls off the cone and hits the ground. It melts on the concrete, it grows watery, then burbles, then it loses all color and becomes the concrete. Grandma Gloria rushes me crying to the Camry. The trip home is miserable and silent and sticky. I have the worst day of my life. Maggie can’t look at me, doesn’t know how to console me. My life is ruined. I start to have suicidal thoughts. I am depressed in my twenties. I am alone for my thirties. I die at the end of a strained life. That’s the story.”

“Is that how it happened? I feel like that’s not how it happened.”