by Tim Federle
CHAPTER ELEVEN
My three newest-looking T-shirts are spread out on my bed as if they’re the finalists in a very low-stakes fashion competition. To give you a sense of my definition of “newest”: One of them has a hole in it in the shape of Florida. Regardless: New day, new me, ta-da.
“Not to be a mom,” Mom says, “but please be careful on the wooden roller coasters today. I don’t trust them at all.”
Now I’m in the kitchen, downing a glass of water. A root beer would be so delicious right now, but this is not the day to be a burp monster.
“Of course, Mom. I’ll avoid the wooden coasters entirely.”
Bald-faced lie. I chose Kennywood for my first group date with Amir so that if it goes terribly, I’ll at least have the chance of making the news: YOUNGER BROTHER OF GIFTED GIRL THROWN FROM BACKSEAT OF JACK RABBIT. CLICK FOR VIDEO.
“I’m gonna wait outside, Ma.”
She rocks herself up from the wicker lounger. “Give Geoffrey my best.”
“Will do, Ma! And guess what?”—I’m already halfway out the door—“He shaved off the mustache, just for you!”
Slam.
It’s a pitiful kind of poverty when, in the middle of a June heat wave, the pavement outside your house is cooler than your mattress is upstairs. We really have to get that AC installed. And maybe I really should get a job. I walk the square lines of cement, toe to heel, creating a dumb little game with childish rules (walk three steps, hop once) that may as well be called: “How to avoid thinking about making conversation with a guy who’s in college.”
Well, there you go. I picture Amir Turani on the big screen of my brain and here goes my imagination.
EXT. PAVEMENT OUTSIDE QUINN’S HOUSE – DAY
Quinn, looking casually stylish in a solid red T-shirt layered on top of a faded black one with a hole in the shape of Florida, leans against his mom’s mailbox.
At the top of the big hill leading down to his small house, a pair of headlights cut through the broiling waves rising off summer asphalt. Quinn perks up but plays it cool.
So cool his upper lip isn’t even sweating.
A BLUE MINIVAN pulls up. It’s blasting the song of the summer. Perfect. Quinn knows this one.
Geoff rolls down the window from the front passenger seat; CARLY is driving.
GEOFF
Hop in!
Quinn opens the sliding minivan door. His eyebrows crinkle: Where’s Amir? And then, as if he’s reading Quinn’s mind:
AMIR
Back here.
Quinn cranes his neck to spy into the van’s backseat. Smile.
GEOFF
Let’s go! There’s a corn dog with your name on it waiting for you at the greatest amusement park in Western Pennsylvania.
Quinn rolls his eyes at Amir, and the two share a laugh the way a young couple might have shared a milk shake in the fifties.
As Quinn gets in, the song switches over to something he doesn’t recognize -- we see him get a bit panicked -- but Amir covers for him.
AMIR
So, you’ve been to Kennyland before?
Quinn giggles, but in a way that’s sweet and also masculine.
QUINN
Kennywood, yes. I practically grew up there. I know all the best rides, all the cleanest bathrooms, all the least-gross foods. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.
AMIR
I’m into that sort of thing. Though I get a little scared on roller coasters.
QUINN
Good to know.
Carly pulls onto the parkway, cranking up the music.
AMIR
So, like, you’ll protect me?
QUINN
Duh.
CUT TO:
EXT. KENNYWOOD AMUSEMENT PARK – LATER
Quinn stumbles off a roller coaster, his face green, his eyes crossed. Amir couldn’t be having a better time, but Quinn can barely handle the intensity of these rides. He’s not a kid anymore. He looks like he’s gonna hurl.
Carly and Geoff pop into respective bathrooms, leaving Quinn and Amir alone by a cotton candy vendor.
AMIR
Should we take a break?
QUINN
Nah. That’s okay.
Amir takes Quinn’s hand. A first.
AMIR
You sure?
QUINN
Uh . . . I could be persuaded to find a bench and have a Coke. . . .
Amir smiles and pulls Quinn under the awning of a corn dog hut. They look up at a menu.
AMIR
Pepsi okay?
QUINN
(sweetly)
Never.
Quinn leans in to kiss—
Honk. Honnnk.
For some reason, I’ve got the neck band of one of my T-shirts in my mouth, and this is the moment—with a wet collar and stubbly hair that is probably already shiny with unconfident summer sweat—that a car pulls up to my mom’s mailbox. Not a blue minivan, though—there never was a blue minivan in my world to begin with, only in my screenplay vision of this moment—but rather a beat-up silver Saturn. It looks like it hasn’t been washed since, oh, the Gold Rush.
“Get in,” Geoff says from the front passenger seat. I squint. Carly isn’t driving; Amir is. Carly’s in the backseat. Why is Carly in the backseat?
Annabeth would know how to storyboard this sequence.
“Well, get in, babe,” I hear. Mom’s behind us on our front stoop, making a rare appearance outside. “Geoffrey’s been laying on the horn for twenty seconds!”
I reach for the hot-hot handle of Amir’s Saturn, and when it won’t budge, he calls out the window: “Oh, sorry, that door is busted. Get in on Carly’s side.”
Okay, then. “Not a problem!” I say, way too agreeably, as if anyone would have a problem with this. Idiot.
“See you later, Mrs. R.!” Geoff shouts, and I slide onto Carly’s side into a car that’s whirring with air-conditioning, and something that sounds different from the song of the summer: the sound of anticipation.
Carly hands me a pair of eyeglasses: thick-rimmed, 1960s spectacles that look like something Gary Busey would have worn in The Buddy Holly Story. (1978 semiclassic. You can skip it.)
I give Carly a “What the hell?” look, but she just stares unblinkingly at me until I slide them on. They don’t have a prescription. They are fashion glasses. Carly is decorating me for my date.
“Buckle up,” she goes.
“Roller coasters, here we come,” I say back, and then nobody else adds much of anything for the rest of the ride. But the song of the summer comes on twice—that happens—and at least I recognize it, almost like I’m a first-tier boy who knows what’s what.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kennywood amusement park is one of only two in the country that are registered as National Historic Landmarks, which is to say: These rides are old as fuck. And made out of wood. When was the last time anything wooden lasted a long time, other than trees? Wood breaks and splinters in the weather. And Pittsburgh has a lot of weather.
That makes the Jack Rabbit especially dangerous, because it’s not just a wooden roller coaster but also one that has a famous double dip that nearly throws people from the last row. Mom never let us ride in the last row.
“Remember the rumor in third grade that a student from West Mifflin was thrown from the last row?” Geoff says when he and I pull down the safety bar—in the last row. Amir and Carly are riding in front of us, which is good by me. Can’t come on too strong too early. Also, I caught Amir checking out my butt in the ticket line, so my confidence is good for at least twenty minutes, ha.
“Have you ever been on a wooden roller coaster?” I try to shout up to him, but the wind and the general clanking kind of drown out my voice, and I’m immediately glad for this, because what kind of an idiot tries to flirt on a roller coaster with somebody in a different row. (ANSWER: the last American virgin, that kind of idiot.)
We hit the one stride of smooth coasting on the Rabbit,
and Geoff points to where glasses would sit on his face, if he wore them.
“Looks good,” he mouths, just as we hit the infamous double dip and both of us throw our arms in the air. Laughter. But also fear. I grab the bar with a psycho grip. A first. My eyes are squeezed closed now. I wish I had my new helmet on.
“Jeez, Louise,” Geoff says, which he always says when I act like a big girl. (I’m a feminist, by the way, so no offense!)
We pull back into the station and Amir whips his head around and goes: “Well, that was something.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I say, convincingly enough, and we all lift our lap bars and try to walk in a straight line out of the station—but the thing about wooden coasters is: They will screw up your equilibrium and make you all unsure on your feet, which is (theory alert) secretly why we love them so much; there’s nothing better than not quite feeling like yourself. I mean, at least if you’re me.
“Potato Patch?” Carly says, and Geoff flicks her arm and goes, “Calm down, carb hoarder. It’s like eleven a.m.”
“Okay,” I say, “we’re going on the Racer, next, now.”
“Whoa-ho-ho, pulling out all the big guns,” Geoff goes. He’s right. The Racer is in my top three rides at Kennywood.
“So, le next roller coaster, s’il vous plaît?” Amir says in this goofy French accent, and I lead the way with what can only be described as a bounce in my step. LIFE HACK: Memorize anything, from amusement park shortcuts to how to make a decent plate of spaghetti, and you, too, can appear to be an expert about something for a good four hours. It’s always the fifth hour when things get tricky.
“Get ready to have your ass whooped,” Geoff says to Amir, pausing as our group parts around some pretty adorable toddlers all tied together by their wrists and drooling en masse.
“Um,” Amir says.
“Geoff sucks at context and setup,” I say, jumping in as we pass a frozen lemonade stand, and getting an odd boner. “What he means to say is: The Racer is another wooden coaster, but there’s two tracks on this one, side by side. And one group is in one train and the other is in the, like, other, and it’s totally random which train is going to win.” I pause. “And my car has never lost, like, ever.”
Keep it shorter, Quinn. Nail the punch lines today and let Geoff do the speeches.
“Two roller-coaster cars race each other,” Carly says to Amir, as if this clarifies anything. She’s wearing these extremely uncomfortable-looking gladiator boot-sandals.
“I think I get the concept,” Amir says. “I had this stepuncle who raced cars.”
“Oh, no way,” I say, as if this is a clever catchphrase, which it’s not.
“Way,” he goes.
His outfit today, by the way: Literally who cares. You should see his hair. It is a little too long and it is so moppy and cute.
We get in the back of the Racer line, and suddenly the fact that we’re not walking makes me antsy. I’m pretty good at making nervous conversation when there are other senses being occupied, but standing and talking while making eye contact always feels so formal to me, like we’re parents on the edge of a playground when the truth is we’re still kids ourselves.
“So, where are you from, Amir?” Geoff finally goes.
“Dallas,” Amir says. “But I’m not actually from there. I grew up all over. Basically anywhere that an Iranian-American gay kid wouldn’t feel comfortable.”
Silence. Geoff’s looking at me and goes, “Like, where else?”
Always dangerous when a straight boy has to feed you the dialogue. But see, what I’m wanting to do is just list every movie ever shot in Dallas. There are some classics. . . .
“Maryland . . . Virginia,” Amir says, “a bunch of one-traffic-light towns.”
“Cool,” Geoff goes.
“Trivia,” I say, suddenly and with finality. This is a game I play with Geoff in which I say “Trivia” and he groans because he never knows a-n-y of my trivia.
We move up in line.
“Trivia?” Amir goes. Geoff is groaning. Called it.
“Name a film that was primarily shot in both Dallas and Pittsburgh,” I say.
Carly is giving me the exact look she gave me after I told her I wet one of her sleeping bags (when I was seven, relax).
“Okay,” Amir goes, playing along because he’s wonderful, “is it a movie that obviously takes place in either Dallas or Pittsburgh?”
“Good question,” I’m starting to say, when Geoff jumps in and goes, “Wrong, you’re not allowed to ask questions in Trivia.” I could kill him. Carly whaps him upside the head and goes, “Don’t act like yourself today, G-force.”
“I’m breaking all the rules,” Amir says, pinching the fabric of his salmon-pink shorts. “Parking on the wrong side of the lot, asking questions during Quinn’s famous games. . . .”
Is this flirting? If this isn’t flirting, this is what flirting should be redefined as. What could this master flirter even see in me?
“No,” I say, “this film does not take place in either Dallas or Pittsburgh.” I look at Geoff. “Excellent question. New rule: You’re allowed to ask questions during Trivia as long as they’re intelligible. Geoff, this rules you out.”
Carly giggles but Amir doesn’t, and I picture how sweet he was during Celebrity and suddenly wonder if I’m too big of a jagoff for him. Isn’t everybody from Texas warm spirited and polite? You have to work really hard to be polite when you’re me—the son of a categorically large woman—because the glares that people used to give her, when she’d leave our house, would turn even the biggest saint in Pittsburgh ice hearted. Even in this heat.
“Man, it’s hot,” Carly says. We’re almost at the front of the line. A nearby rando has just won a dirty-looking teddy bear, and the guy’s girlfriend is toting the thing around with a degree of pride non-Pittsburghers would typically reserve for finishing a medical degree a year early.
“Can you give us another clue?” Amir says.
“Okay,” I say, looking away because his eyes are so pretty, “the main special effect that the film is known for was created by the same guy who masterminded John Carpenter’s The Thing.”
You can practically hear the three of them blinking, but still, Amir smiles. I’ll describe his smile to you: perfect.
“Wow,” he goes, “okay. . . .”
Dammit, I’m losing him.
“Oh!” I say, thumping my hand on a garbage can lid that is so immediately scalding that I pull it away but act as if nothing has happened. “The film was originally rated X.”
“X?” Geoff says.
“That’s, like, vintage NC-17,” Amir says, which is nice. We’re finally up to the front, one ride away from racing. “Usually for graphic sex.”
The phrase graphic sex should give me another boner, but it doesn’t, not at all. The phrase graphic sex just reminds me I don’t yet know how to have even ungraphic sex. There isn’t a scene from the screenplay of my life so far that would even get flagged as PG-13.
We’re up. Thank God.
“Okay, pick your cars,” says the kid manning the Racer. When we were little, the employees here seemed so old. . . .
“Go with Quinny, Amir,” Carly says. “His car always wins.”
Bless her.
And so we climb in, and just as the train is pulling out of the station, Amir goes:
“Okay, one more clue and then I give up.”
“It was shot in the eighties,” I say, “it’s about robots and, like, crime; it won the Oscar for sound. . . . I mean, if I give you any more clues, I’m just going to have to say—”
The Racer rings its signature starting bell, its brakes hiss off, and Amir and I lock eyes and go, “RoboCop,” with identical intonations and delivery and timing, and we bust into howls as our red car cranks around the first bend and click-click-clicks up the first mini-incline. Here we go.
“Yes,” I say, “RoboCop for the gold.” As if I’ve ever given out medals during Trivia. All
new rules today.
Geoff and I catch sight of each other from across the tracks, something we’ve done on this ride for more than a decade, and I wait for him to do the mock-competitive fist-punch he always does, but instead he does this big cheesy smile like I’ve come back from the dead for one night only.
“Oh, gosh,” I hear Amir say, not in a way that’s cinematic at all but rather small and novelistic. That’s when I realize he’s pressing the full weight of his knee into mine, and that I can feel his soft leg hair Velcro-ing into mine. That he really is freaked out by roller coasters, just like in my screenplay version of this day.
“Close your eyes,” I yell. “It’ll go faster.”
In fact, it’s the fastest version of this ride I’ve ever been on. I spend the whole time watching Amir, his head rigid and locked, his eyes squinted into dots, Pittsburgh whirring by behind him like a blender that’s full of something brown and green and occasionally blinking with tiny lights. It hurts my neck to look at him this way, and I don’t even care. Frankly, I appreciate it. To be feeling anything again means I might still have a pulse. I missed my annual physical recently, so it’s a legitimate question.
We whiz around the final bend. We pull back into the station. The Racer bell rings again, and I glance across the platform and watch as Geoff and Carly’s car zooms ahead of ours at the very last moment, pulling into the station first, as it never has before in all my years of coming to Kennywood. My luck changed, or rearranged.
Their car is a fit of celebratory shouts.
“Suckers!” Geoff’s saying, pulling up his lap bar.
“Come on,” I say, tapping Amir’s shoulder. “We’re here. You survived.”
“Did we win?” he says. He stands up. He opens his eyes and looks either hopeful or dazed. I’m going to say hopeful.
“Definitely,” I say.
• • •
Five hours in and Geoff and Carly are off “scouting for corn dogs.” But they’re not scouting for corn dogs, not really, because Carly is a devout vegetarian. They’re leaving me and Amir to find lunch on our own. This makes me nervous.
“So what’s good here?” Amir says. We’ve been standing, silent, in a kind of epic outdoor food court line.