On the day we run out of TVs to smash in the quarry, and the stinking August heat sits heavy on our shoulders like a plague blanket, and the pond is too swarming with green-headed flies to offer relief, we take our bikes to see God.
The route has been passed from kid to kid for decades: down the railroad a few miles, turn left into the woods at the big pine tree and follow a game trail to the eight-foot-tall fence at the back of the Friedman Funland Amusement Park. Normally we take our time—throw rocks at a train, steal a head of green corn from a field. Play pirates. Today you are full of rage, and the silence makes me antsy. I spend the time deciding on a wish.
The air reeks of cotton candy and popcorn, and from the other side of the moss-green fence we can hear the rhythmic rumbling of a roller coaster, the piercing wail of a toddler. Neither of us have seen the other side.
We ditch our hand-me-down bikes and slither under a thicket. The tunnel is smooth from generations of tweens and teens on pilgrimage. Your top rides up. I helped you cut all of your t-shirts into tank tops this June. In a year we will kiss for the first time, but for now that question sits in my stomach like a wad of gum. Questions are the mortar that binds our days in the summer before high school. A raspberry vine leaves a long shallow scratch down my leg.
The wide ring of brambles holds the typical detritus of youth—beer bottles, soggy magazines, nicotine pouches. At the center is God.
God takes the form of a carousel, an artifact from an Americana dream. Ponies in feathered caps, an elephant rearing on its hind legs, swans and parrots and a wide-eyed camel. The paint is chipped but bright, and all fifty-two spherical light bulbs are intact. I’ve only seen them light up once, when I was nine and attached to my brother for the day. I got so scared when the animals began their languid movement that I closed my eyes tightly and didn’t open them again until my brother dragged me back onto the railroad tracks. Mike’s crybaby sister. I didn’t see what happened to the three teens riding the carousel, but I heard that afterwards Stevie moved through water like an otter and was able to hold his breath for thirty minutes straight. He got recruited to swim at U Missouri. Tina was sent away by her parents to a summer camp for troubled youth, came back months later docile and perpetually in long sleeves. She works at the movie theater now, flinching at the arcade machines. They say that her back teeth are pointy like a cat’s, but I’ve never seen her smile. Jackie just ran off during a storm.
The carousel only wakes up once or twice every generation or so, as far as anyone can tell. Whether it's for those who need it most, or those of the purest heart, or simply random is unknown, although plenty of us have tried to crack the code.
You fling an empty beer bottle at a rock with a motherfucker! It is the first word either of us have spoken in twenty minutes. Most of the time we can’t stop chattering. We are connected by our tumbling brains, our geeky word-vomit, the insufficient label of “tomboy.”
I hurl a bottle. Bastard.
Crash. Lazy old fuck.
Smash. Fascist ass.
We are not afraid today. This carousel is wondrous, unknowable, generous and malevolent, but that is the nature of God. It is a gift to the forgotten children of our town. A secret held by the trailer park kids with faded clothes and crooked teeth, bruised lips and a broken wrist that never healed right. A blessing.
All the bottles are reduced to constellations of glass. You are panting, hands on knees. Ready, Cass?
You’re going to run away at sixteen. You won’t ask me to come with you. I’ll find my own way out, carrying that betrayal like a sore tooth.
I want to go back to the quarry, or play knights, or climb a tree and talk to the depths of our hearts. We haven’t eaten all day, and I’m starting to feel a gravely annoyance in my stomach. But I don’t actually think that this attempt will work, out of all days, so I kick the shattered glass with a whooping let’s do this thing even though I mean let’s get this over with.
This time, you choose a tiger with exposed white fangs in a silent roar. I always take the elk. It is bronze and cool, weighty, with etched details of twisted hair and bumps on its antlers.
Sometimes kids bring offerings. Sometimes kids make promises. We brought nothing. We fled your house that morning empty handed.
Your eyes are closed, forehead against the brass pole. Your knuckles are white. You are mouthing a prayer, but I can’t make out the words. I hate not knowing.
A decade from now, we’ll meet each other’s gaze in a safehouse for those touched by the extra-normal. Somehow, we’ll both survive the investigations, the arrests, the twitching curtains of suspicious neighbors. You’ll smile at my eyes that are too round and too blue. Orange and black feathers will be sprouting from behind your ears, your arms. Fly away, bird.
The bruise on your cheek is purple and green. Is that a trickle of blood from your fist? I turn towards my elk and run my hands down its textured neck. I am so tired of questions. I lean forward to whisper my wish into its ear as the carousel turns beneath us.
Content Warnings: implied physical abuse