“Feel how warm it is?” asked Uncle Henry, his chin pressing into his chest, his shirt flapping over his mouth so that his words came out muffled. “It must be summertime in France. Oh, pain au chocolat! Oh, Champs-Élysées! Parlez-vous, Rupert, parlez-vous.”
Uncle Henry slowly untangled himself from Rupert and crawled out of the box.
“Wait a second,” said Uncle Henry. “This isn’t France. This isn’t a hundred years ago. This looks like the 1970s. Look at the bell-bottoms, look at the swimsuits. Look at all that ghastly paisley. Look at these people. Where the heck did this thing take us? Aw well, some kinks still in the machine, but at least it took us somewhere warm. A day at the beach, Rupert. Perhaps that’s just what we need! The box knows.” Uncle Henry put his finger aside his nose again in his favored gesture of acute mental perception.
Rupert crawled out swiftly and looked around. He was standing looking at a beach along what appeared to be a small lake.
“Where are we?” he asked.
And then he saw a big sign: CONEY ISLAND.
THERE WERE people running around in swimsuits. There were Ferris wheels and a roller coaster and a merry-go-round. Everywhere Rupert looked people were having wonderful sandy fun, watery fun, carnival fun. But Uncle Henry wasn’t fixated on any of this. He started pulling Rupert along by his sleeve.
“Come on, come on,” he entreated urgently.
“Where are we going?” demanded Rupert, who was being dragged almost off his feet when he only wanted to get his bearings for a few minutes.
“To find the boardwalk. Coney Island is the eating capital of North America, of pretty much the world, boy. I haven’t been here since my youth. Where shall we start? Hot dog? Caramel apple? Cotton candy?”
“But where are we? Where is Coney Island?” asked Rupert.
“New York. That waterway down there past the trees? That’s the Atlantic Ocean!”
“I’m seeing the Atlantic Ocean in the distance?” asked Rupert, his jaw dropping, for he could just make out a long line of water past the midway and a line of trees. He stopped to stare but Uncle Henry yanked him forward again. Somehow, thought Rupert, he had always imagined the ocean to be much larger. With waves and seagulls and lighthouses. This looked more like a big green park.
“Mr. Rivers,” said Rupert, panting as they ran along. He wanted hot dogs too, but something had just occurred to him.
“Call me Uncle Henry.”
“Uncle Henry, should we just leave the time machine like that on the walkway? What if it gets wet?”
At that moment a muscular young man came bounding up and said to them, “My girlfriend wants to know if you came here in that box?” He pointed to the time machine where a young woman was bent over peering into it as if hoping to see a dashboard.
“In a box?” squealed Uncle Henry. “Are you mad?”
“Yeah, well, we were coming in the gate when you appeared suddenly in front of us. One minute you weren’t there and the next you were,” said the young man, looking embarrassed but truculent. He scuffed his tennis shoe on the walkway.
“Young man, you have clearly had too much sun,” said Uncle Henry. “But you are correct in pointing out that piece of litter to us. Never litter, Rupert, keep America clean. Fear not, young muscley man, my little friend and I shall remove the offending item. Rupert, chip-chop!”
Rupert and Uncle Henry ran back, and Uncle Henry rudely grabbed one end of the time machine to wrest it out of the girl’s clutches as she turned it this way and that trying to devise its secret.
“Gimme that,” said Uncle Henry. “Don’t you know better than to pick up strange detritus? It might have bedbugs!”
The girl hung on to it. “Finders keepers,” she said. “I saw this box with the two of you in it suddenly appear and I want to know the trick.”
“If a box had suddenly appeared, do you think you’d be the only one interested? Hmmm? Don’t you think it might have drawn a crowd? This is Coney Island, after all.”
“My boyfriend saw it too,” said the girl, stubbornly holding on to her end.
“My dear girl, your muscley young man is clearly suffering from the ill effects of overexercise. I’m a doctor and I should know. I would take him home right now if I were you and feed him a quantity of Jell-O. Good Jell-O, the kind you make yourself. Not that already made stuff.”
“Are you really a doctor?” asked the girl, still gripping the box.
“Would I say I was if I wasn’t?” asked Uncle Henry.
The girl said nothing, so Uncle Henry was forced to haul out the big guns.
“SPIDER!” he yelled. “Inside the box!!!”
The girl dropped her end immediately.
“Run, Rupert!” said Uncle Henry, and off they sped toward the water carrying the box. They ran until they were out of breath, hot and sweaty, and only then did they turn to see that the girl was leading her boyfriend to the parking lot.
Upon seeing this, Uncle Henry turned around and led Rupert back to the entrance of the park to get the lay of the land. There was a large midway to the left of the walkway. To the right was what appeared to be a small swimming lake with people splashing about. At the very end of the lengthy walkway beyond the trees they could make out a beach and a long strip of water. Sprinkled throughout were food stands.
“This is not the way I remember Coney Island, but then I was a young man when I was last here. By the time you are my age you will have forgotten all this too,” said Uncle Henry cheerily.
“Oh, I doubt it,” said Rupert, looking around in wonder.
“Anyhow, I am happy to see that that couple heeded my sound advice. A good bowl of Jell-O now and then will do more for them than all the push-ups in the world. Jell-O is fun. Now, Rupert, where to put this thing where it will be safe and waiting for us later? We don’t want to spend the day carting it around. We want to go on rides after we eat.”
“Oh,” said Rupert in delight. “Do we really get to go on some of those rides, Uncle Henry?”
“Well, of course, what else do you propose we do here? Ah, just what we need!”
Uncle Henry charged over to the first hot dog stand they saw, where a man was carrying a pile of flattened out empty cartons that read BIEDERMEYERS HOT DOGS. He placed them behind a shed.
“Excellent,” said Uncle Henry when the man had left. “We’ll fold the time machine up and put it under this pile of hot dog cartons. We’ll know it immediately, as it will be the only carton that doesn’t say Biedermeyers Hot Dogs. Perfect. I’m a genius.”
Rupert began to wonder if Uncle Henry called everyone a genius. “What if the garbagemen come and take away all the cartons?”
“I’m sure they don’t come during the day,” said Uncle Henry. “You’d never get a big garbage truck through this throng of people. They must collect it at night after the park closes. The time machine will be perfectly safe here.”
Uncle Henry folded the time machine so that it was flat, lifted up the pile of collapsed Biedermeyer cartons, and slipped it underneath.
“Now!” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “What to eat? I suggest we be methodical about this. Let’s go up and down the boardwalk and decide what we absolutely have to eat, what we want to eat, and what we will eat if we still have time. Then, with those choices in order, we eat three things, go for a ride, eat three things, go for a ride…Come, Rupert, don’t dilly and don’t dally. Let’s find the boardwalk.”
But although Rupert and Uncle Henry walked from one end of the park to the other, the boardwalk remained elusive.
“That’s odd,” said Uncle Henry. “When I was a lad and went to Coney Island, the boardwalk was the thing. Have they gotten rid of it? Well, time changes everything, Rupert. We mustn’t yearn for the good old days like a couple of old coots. The plan still applies. We investigate all available scrumptious terribly-bad-probably-going-to-kill-you food before making our first choice.”
Rupert nodded. He didn’t care much for the method
part of the plan. His idea was to hit the first amazing-smelling place they came to, order whatever it offered, and go on from there. He was so hungry that he was sure mud would taste delicious. Besides, it all smelled fantastic, it all smelled wonderfully of hot fat and burning sugar and fried meats. How could one choose? It was a hungry boy’s paradise and apparently Uncle Henry’s as well. He had the glazed look of a mad dog descending on the kill.
“Okay, okay,” said Uncle Henry as they walked swiftly and purposefully about, checking out the food stands, looking at posted menus and at people sucking down giant ice cream cones and corn dogs.
“We mustn’t be greedy! We mustn’t be precipitate! OOOOO, I want one of THOSE! What the blazes is that?” asked Uncle Henry, rushing up to a man carrying a confection in a paper bowl and spooning it in as fast as he could.
“HEY, GET YOUR OWN!” shouted the man as Uncle Henry stuck his finger into the side of the man’s bowl, scooped up some chocolate sauce, and tasted it.
“He’s eating a funnel cake,” said the man’s wife with bewildered good manners. “And I’m eating a giant sausage sandwich. With mustard.”
“Yes, yes,” said Uncle Henry impatiently. “I know a giant sausage sandwich when I see it. It was the funnel cake I was interested in.”
“You can get them over there,” said the woman, pointing helpfully to a booth at the end of the park.
Uncle Henry took off like a shot with Rupert running behind.
“Is this okay, Rupert?” Uncle Henry asked, his voice shaking with excitement. “I mean, I know I’ve blown the method. Simply jumped ship. There are dozens of food stands to check out still. But after I get one of those funnel cakes we can go back to the plan as previously laid out. Then we can make our next selection out of a well-ordered, numbered, and prioritized…”
“JUST GET ME SOME FOOD!” shouted Rupert, unable to contain himself as they once more traversed the park over the hot sand. “I’m starving to death and the smell of the food is making me CRAZY!”
“Right,” said Uncle Henry, getting in line at the funnel cake stand. “You certainly are coming alive here. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard you string so many words together, but no need to shout.”
Rupert and Uncle Henry inched forward slowly in the line. It was a perfect day for the beach and it seemed all of New York, all of America, all of the world was at Coney Island and half of them were at the concession stands. But, finally, when Rupert thought he might faint from hunger and anticipation, they were at the head of the line. Rupert could hardly believe it. He wasn’t only going to eat. He was going to eat one of those incredible confections. He hadn’t eaten stomach-filling food like this since Christmas. He wondered if Uncle Henry would let him keep eating until he was as full as he had been then.
“Two funnel cakes please,” said Uncle Henry, chuckling with glee. “And two— What would you like to drink, Rupert?”
“Coke,” said Rupert. He remembered it fondly from the bar at Zefferelli’s. And he saw many people with icy sweating bottles of it drifting about.
“Right. Good choice, that will pair beautifully. And two Cokes, please,” said Uncle Henry. “Ah, Rupert. This is going to be a treat. I’ve never had a funnel cake, but it looks wonderful.”
“What do you want on it?” asked the concessionaire.
“EVERYTHING!” said Uncle Henry. “I want the works! And you, Rupert?”
Rupert didn’t know what the works was but it sounded about right to him. “The works for me too!” he exclaimed joyfully.
Oh, he was warm and he would soon be fed! This time machine was the greatest thing ever. It was better than going to Zefferelli’s! It was better than floating tables! What a day they were going to have. And then for a second he felt guilty because, really, Mrs. Rivers and the floating tables had been wonderful too. He didn’t want to take anything away from that. But this was very very good and the food was more plentiful.
The concessionaire brought two paper bowls to the edge of the counter. The funnel cakes were covered in ice cream and every imaginable sauce—caramel and chocolate and hot fudge and marshmallow with nuts and sprinkles and candied cherries.
“Work of art if I do say so myself,” said the concessionaire. “That’ll be six bucks.”
“Six dollars! That’s outrageous!” said Uncle Henry. “This is the nineteen seventies. I’m positive these fair treats were much cheaper way back then.”
“What are you talking about?” barked the concessionaire. “Way back when? Are you crazy?”
“Still,” said Uncle Henry, ignoring him, “I suppose you only live once, eh, Rupert?”
He reached around to his back pants pocket for his wallet. Uncle Henry was frozen for a second, staring into space in consternation. Then he patted both back pockets, his front pockets, and, in desperation, his shirt pocket.
“Uh-oh,” he said. He leaned down and whispered to Rupert, “No money.” Then he straightened up and said, “Sir, we refuse to pay these prices! We are taking a stand. But if you’ll just hand over the cakes, we’ll leave without making a fuss.”
“Get OUTTA here, freeloaders!” said the concessionaire. “You’re lucky I don’t call the cops! Who wants a couple of funnel cakes with the works?” he called down the line to the crowd.
Uncle Henry turned and walked away with as much dignity as he could muster. Rupert tripped along behind him as he headed toward the long strip of water past the trees.
As soon as they found an empty bench Uncle Henry pulled Rupert, who was still reeling from this turn of events, down to sit beside him.
“Bad news, boy,” he said. “Left my wallet at home.”
“YOU LEFT YOUR WALLET AT HOME?” Rupert could not help wailing in disappointment and, it must be admitted, a certain amount of exasperation.
“Hush. Well, I don’t carry it around with me in the house. I put it in my pocket when I’m about to go out the front door, but we didn’t go out the front door, did we, boy?”
Rupert shook his head miserably.
“No good crying over spilt milk. The question is, what can we do that doesn’t require money? Hmmm. Let’s see now. Can’t go on rides, can’t eat anything, not really dressed for the beach…”
Uncle Henry’s face was all screwed up with concentration while Rupert sat, his stomach rumbling, and peeled off his sweatshirt and two of his shirts, tying them around his waist, for it was blazing hot on the bench in the sun. He really didn’t care what they did until he had something in his stomach, for he was so hungry now he could hardly think straight.
“You know,” Rupert mused out loud as they watched the swimmers going in and out of the water, “I always thought the ocean would be bigger, somehow. I always thought it would have big waves and that you wouldn’t be able to see the opposite shore.”
“What do you mean? Of course it has big waves. Of course you can’t see the opposite shore. That would be, oh, France or England or someplace,” said Uncle Henry. “And it’s not as if you can swim to those places from here.” Then he looked more attentively at the beach and the water. “You’re right, boy. You’re on to something. Why, that’s not the ocean at all.”
“And what’s that big ship thing with the wheel?” asked Rupert.
“That’s…why that’s a paddle wheeler. A riverboat,” said Uncle Henry. “I don’t believe we are where we thought we were. But we must be. The sign said CONEY ISLAND. There’s food. There’s a roller coaster. There’s a beach. This is most vexing.”
Uncle Henry leapt to his feet and put his hand on the arm of a young man who was walking by with his girlfriend. She was draped over his arm and staring at him in utter adoration.
“Listen, folks,” said Uncle Henry. “Hate to intrude, but where are we exactly?”
The couple stopped and the young man looked at him as if he wasn’t sure if Uncle Henry was kidding or not.
“What? You making fun of me or something?” he asked.
“No indeed, last thing I would do,”
said Uncle Henry, eyeing the young man’s angry face and backing up a few feet.
“Well, then, are you stupid or something?” asked the young man.
“Yes, let’s go with that,” said Uncle Henry. “The thing is, that just doesn’t look like the ocean to us.” He pointed at the water. “Even if we squint.”
“You are stupid,” said the young man. “There’s no ocean in Ohio.”
“Everyone knows that,” said the woman, squeezing the man’s arm in admiration and batting her eyes.
“Ohio?” said Uncle Henry. “But Coney Island’s in New York. On the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Not this one, buddy. Hey,” the man said, looking down at his girlfriend and smiling, “this idiot doesn’t even know what state he’s in.”
“This is Coney Island park in Cincinnati,” said the woman. “You know, Ohio?”
“Oh yes,” said Uncle Henry, feigning comprehension. “That Coney Island. Well, lovely park. We plan to come here a lot in the future, eh, Rupert?”
But Rupert just stood with his mouth hanging open.
“But you can’t,” said the woman.
“Jeez, these guys really are clueless,” said the young man in delight. “It’s the park’s last day. It closes after tonight.”
“Yeah, it’s a big deal,” said the woman. “There’s going to be fireworks and everything tonight.”
“I see,” said Uncle Henry, who had had enough of this know-it-all pair. “Well, yes, now that you mention it, I do remember reading about this park and how it was on Lake…”
“Jeez, I never met someone so stupid,” said the young man wonderingly. “It’s on the banks of the Ohio River, bud. Come on, babe, let’s get out of here. This guy’s loony tunes.”
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