Dreamland Social Club

by Tara Altebrando

  “Well, whatever we do,” Babette said with some annoyance, “I think it should have music. I want people to hear and see us.”

  “Well, sign me up for music,” Leo said. “I’m going to try to get some signatures.”

  Jane watched him walk away, to a table where a few tourist types had just sat down, and she thought of the sound of his saw playing the Dreamland song. How sad it had been.

  “What about some kind of funeral procession?” she said.

  Babette looked like she’d just smelled day-old fish. “A funeral for who?”

  Jane was looking up at the STORE FOR LEASE sign that would be the Anchor’s death knell. “I don’t know,” she said. “For Coney Island?”

  But that wasn’t quite right.

  “No, wait!” She sat forward in her chair. “It’s for a mermaid. It’s a mermaid funeral.”

  She could picture the scene then instantly—more vividly than she could picture even her own mother’s funeral, which had been reduced to a series of flashes: Muddy ground. Hugs from strangers. Big cars. White lilies tossed onto a black coffin.

  “We’ll make a big funeral bier and someone will dress up as a mermaid and we’ll all push it down the parade route.” She was getting excited. “And the music can be like a dirge or some kind of old sad sea shanty or something, and we’ll all wear black.”

  “I don’t know,” Babette said, but her eyes seemed to light up.

  Jane said wryly, “You’re already in costume.”

  Venus said, “It’s not much of a stretch for you either. Some of your clothes are so old they should be dead.” Jane had been visiting vintage and secondhand shops all winter, assembling a wardrobe sort of inspired by Birdie’s old clothes. Today she was wearing a blue-and-white gingham dress with short cap sleeves and a mildy frilly old-fashioned collar.

  “Not nice,” Babette said.

  “I’m kidding,” Venus said, then added brightly, “Gooble gobble!”

  “A mermaid funeral,” Babette said again—trying it on for size—and Rita said, “It’s pretty good.”

  Legs agreed, as did H.T. and Debbie.

  Venus and Minnie just shrugged, but for some reason Jane didn’t even care anymore. It wasn’t like Leo had picked Jane over Venus. It wasn’t as though she’d done anything with Legs but become his friend. And she was a member of the D.S.C. now, so they were just going to have to get over it.

  “I can make the mermaid tail and fin out of some of my grandmother’s old costumes,” she said in an attempt to cinch the deal.

  “Nobody has any better ideas?” Minnie said, sort of desperately, and everyone shook their heads. When Leo walked by their table, Babette said, “Feel like writing a funeral dirge?”

  “Always,” he said, and then he approached another group.

  Petition to save the Anchor.

  Petition to save the Anchor.

  The phrase lodged itself securely on a loop in Jane’s head.

  Jane and Legs—the only two people who were famished—headed over to Nathan’s after the group split up to find that hundreds of other people were also craving hot dogs on opening day. Jane would have been happy to redirect to pizza or anything, really, but Legs was determined to get a hot dog—or four, as the case may be—and so they waited and waited and waited and pushed and shoved and finally ordered five dogs and three orders of fries. When Legs announced the order, it became obvious to Jane that everyone on line was staring at him.

  At them.

  People had, she realized, probably been doing it the whole time, and every other time they’d been out together—as friends, just friends—but Jane hadn’t actually noticed. Now that she had—now that she and H.T. had talked about it, the staring—she couldn’t not notice. She didn’t like it.

  Legs acted like he didn’t notice—trying to make light conversation about the weather—but Jane could tell he did, and that he sensed the change in her. They finally sat down with hot dogs at a table outside and he said, “Does it bother you?”

  “What?”

  “You know.” He looked off to his right, and Jane followed his gaze and saw a bunch of guys in baseball caps avert their eyes and then laugh. “The staring.”

  She suddenly wasn’t interested in her hot dog. “It’s weird,” she said. “I never noticed it before today for some reason.”

  Leo walked by them then, though he didn’t see them, and neither of them called out to him as he stopped people on the street to get signatures.

  “You know, it’s funny.” Legs was already on his second dog; Jane was still spreading mustard on hers, squeezing it out of the small, soft paper cup she’d filled at the condiment pumps. “For a while there I thought you were going to end up with Leo.”

  Jane stared at her dog, covered in off-white kraut and golden-brown mustard. It suddenly looked like horribly fake food, like it would be wrong to eat it. Someone named Nathan got rich because of this? “Why would you think that?” she said steadily.

  “Just a sense I got, and I mean, there’s some history, right?”

  “Right,” Jane said. “Our mothers were friends.”

  As if that explained it all.

  “I heard that. And I thought you were going to go for him, but then I guess the whole Tsunami thing happened.” Legs chewed a bit, moved onto his third dog. “People stare at him, too, but it’s different.”

  “How is it different?” Jane was pretty sure she already knew.

  Legs swallowed, and Jane watched his Adam’s apple—like the size of a baseball—travel down his neck. “They look at me because they’re grateful they’re not me. They look at him because they want to be him.”

  Jane said, “I bet there are people out there who’d want to be you.”

  “Name one good reason why anyone would want to be seven and a half feet tall.” Before she could say anything he added, “And the reason can’t be basketball.”

  She was stumped for a second, but then she said, “I think some of the, you know, little people. Minnie. Babette. I think they sometimes wish they were you.”

  “They wish they were taller,” he said. “Not this tall.”

  “Well, there are good things about it, right? I mean, you can always see if you go to a concert.”

  Legs let out a loud “Ha” before continuing. “I have to stand in the very last row or at the back edge of a crowd or I piss people off.”

  She felt her own pout.

  “You’re sweet.” Legs started to gather his trash. “And it’s not the worst thing in the world, no. But it’s not that great either.”

  “Dude,” someone said as Legs stood up. “You play basketball?”

  “No,” Jane snapped. “He doesn’t.”

  She was angry—had been angry the whole time, she realized—and finally felt the need to ask Legs, “Why didn’t you sign the petition?”

  “I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

  “What did you want to do?” Her whole body seemed to tighten.

  “I don’t think it’s a big deal either way.” Legs threw his trash into a large bin. “It’s not like a stupid petition is going to change anything.”

  He was right. But Jane wanted to smack him anyway.

  Peach Fuzz had a new Mets shirt but the same tire belly and the same old lines. “Check-check-check it out,” he said into the mike. “Shoot the Freak in the freakin’ head.”

  Jane had half a mind to slap down ten bucks and let rip. She’d pretend the Freak was Leo again and she’d nail him.

  He deserved it.

  Not for trying to save his father’s bar or trying to stop Loki from building a shopping mall, but for just not getting it. Not getting that none of it—Loki, the Anchor, the Tsunami, nothing—had anything to do with them, not really. For not getting that they had had something that was worth pursuing that fall and that they owed it to themselves to follow through and see what it really was.

  The more time that had passed, the more knishes they’d shared during their truce, the mo
re sure Jane had become that he’d wanted to kiss her that night on the roof of the bumper car building, when they’d gone to Luna Park and the Elephant Hotel in their minds.

  The more time that had passed the surer she was that she was the one who’d screwed it up, by not realizing she’d agreed to a date with Legs, by not telling Leo about the Tsunami sooner.

  But he hadn’t helped.

  She watched as a few shooters splattered orange and green paint on the trash can the Freak had ducked behind and then found herself, once more, staring at the Mad Hatter and his teapot. She was suddenly very, very thirsty, like there was a webby moths’ nest in her throat. And when she walked by the carousel house and saw the sign that said that the ride had been removed, to be restored, and would be back next year, she knew what she had to do.

  CHAPTER four

  I THINK WE SHOULD GIVE THE HORSE BACK,” she said at dinner that night. The three of them were eating sausage-and-pepper sandwiches made with sausages Marcus had cooked out back on the grill, and from her seat at the table Jane could see the horse, frozen in its gallop to nowhere. She was surer than ever of what was right.

  “What?” Marcus said, chewing. “No way. Why?”

  “I thought you said you didn’t care.” Jane took another bite.

  Marcus wiped his mouth and put his sandwich down. “I thought you said Birdie was on it the first time Preemie met her.”

  “She was?” their dad said, and Jane nodded, then turned to Marcus. “I repeat,” she said. “I thought you didn’t care.”

  “Children,” their father said. He had already devoured his own sandwich and was picking at a salad Jane had made.

  “Harvey gave me a black eye,” Marcus said, then he popped the last bit of his bread into his mouth.

  “You neighed at him,” Jane said between bites.

  “Have they been bothering you again, Jane?” her father asked. “Is that what’s going on?”

  “No, actually.” They’d stopped—right after she talked to their father and grandfather. She almost hadn’t realized it at the time. “But I’ve been thinking.” She glanced into the living room again. “It just doesn’t belong here.”

  “But it was beloved by your beloved grandparents,” Marcus said with a hand to his heart for drama.

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “And they’re gone.”

  “Keep talking,” her father said.

  Jane wiped her own mouth and hands with a napkin. “Well, I mean it had sentimental value to them but now they’re not here anymore, and it has sentimental value to me but I’m not sure the value I have trumps the value that Grandpa Claverack has.”

  “But he’s going to sell it,” her brother said.

  “And that’s his prerogative.”

  “But that means it has no sentimental value to him, so none is less than whatever you have,” Marcus said.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know. Maybe he’ll be sentimental once he has it. Maybe he’ll get it and then realize he doesn’t even want to sell it. Anyway, it’s just dumb for us to keep it.” She was about to say, “We’re mothballing,” but instead she just looked at her father and said, “We have no good reason to keep it is all.”

  “This seems like an unexpected change of opinion.”

  “I don’t know,” Jane said. “Maybe I’m just sick of looking at it there, sick of thinking about it. Call it, I don’t know”—a cool breeze tickled the kitchen curtains—“Call it spring cleaning. You said we had to clean out the house, Dad, and we haven’t even really started.”

  “Well, now that you’ve brought it up”—he put his plate in the sink, then came back to the table—“I think we should talk about what my job means for us, for the house. Because if all goes well this week with the presentation, the Tsunami will be built. Which means I’d want to be here. I’d need to be here. I just wanted to see how you felt about that.”

  Marcus said, “Whatever you want, Dad.”

  “Well, that’s easy for you to say,” he replied. “You’re going away to college.”

  Marcus had just that week started obsessively checking the mailbox hanging on the porch. Letters of acceptance—and Jane was sure they’d mostly be acceptances—were due to start arriving any day.

  Their father said, “Jane, what about you?”

  “When is the house officially mine and Marcus’s?” she asked, surprising herself. But all the talk of real estate this year made her realize that stuff like this was important. They hadn’t actually spoken in months about the fact that the fate of the house was really up to Jane and her brother, not their dad.

  He rubbed his eyes and then looked at her. “The easiest thing would be to stay here until you’re both eighteen and entitled to proceeds. And then sell it and divide the money down the middle. Earlier than that and the money will go into a trust.”

  “You want to stay until I’m eighteen?” Jane asked. In July she was going to be seventeen. That meant staying another year and a half or more. It meant graduating.

  Her father shrugged. “Well, it depends on what happens with this vote.”

  “I think I’m okay with that,” she said, though she wished this moment could have ended up being more joyful. The idea of spending more than one year somewhere—anywhere—was enough to make her want to cry with happiness, but things with Leo were complicated enough now that fleeing had its appeal, too. But it was better to be here on the wrong side of things than to be right but be gone. Wasn’t it?

  Her father went to look for an ax, claiming he thought he’d seen one in the back of a closet on the second-floor hall. They were going to try to bust the horse free. Jane went into the living room and approached the horse and petted it the same way Leo had the night he’d come over. She wanted to ask her father whether he had known about the FOR LEASE signs, about the closings of the Anchor and Wonderland, but she almost didn’t want to know the answer. “I was thinking,” she said when he came in with the ax, “about the Tsunami.”

  “What about it?” He knelt and surveyed the radiator, the chain.

  “I was just thinking about how when they built this other roller coaster, the Thunderbolt, they ran the beams and stuff through the hotel that was in the way, so that they didn’t have to close it down.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “Honey, I know it’s your friend’s father’s place, but you don’t know the whole story.”

  “Well then, tell me.” She turned away from the horse.

  “Okay,” he said. “Apparently, your friend’s father owes thousands of dollars in back rent because one day he just decided to stop paying.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jane said, but her father just kept talking.

  “They’ve been cited for violations of a few safety and fire regulations, which they’ve done nothing to fix, and they have a ton of open health code violations. There are rats, mice, roaches, you name it.”

  “Loki made those up. Leo told me.”

  “There’s video of the rats, honey. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you,” he said. “But it’s really easy to romanticize a place like that if you get to thinking that way. It’s just not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s just not worth saving.”

  “What is, then?” Jane grew suddenly angry, remembering the trash bags on the porch. “What does someone like you think is worth saving?”

  Her father got up, almost sadly, and walked out of the room, and then he came back with a small wooden box in his hands. He put it down on the coffee table and opened it and pulled out a bunch of items: a ticket stub “from my first date with your mother,” a program from a play “from my second date with your mother,” a penny that had been stretched long like a funhouse mirror “from my third date with your mother.” He didn’t stop until the box was emptied of letters and trinkets and notes, leaving only a few pieces of jewelry and a photo.

  “My favorite picture of her,” he said, and he handed it over. Jane saw her mom sitting on a beach chair, a bandanna on her head, drinking a cocktail out of a pineapp
le with a straw.

  “I was saving this for you,” he said. “Her wedding band. For when you were older.”

  Jane thought she was going to cry when he held out the ring toward her and said, “I guess I might as well give it to you now, though this isn’t exactly the scene I was picturing.”

  “No,” she said, pushing it back. “When I’m older, whenever you think is right.”

  He was still looking at the trinkets and tickets.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Jane said, and he sighed.

  “I don’t want you to be sorry, honey. I want to be able to talk about stuff like this and disagree and have that be all right. And sometimes I want you to trust that I’m right.”

  “But you’re not right about this.” She shook her head. “You can’t be.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself, then.” He started to put his mementos away. “In the meantime, come with me on Thursday, will you? To the presentation? So you can see the whole of the plan and judge for yourself. I have four tickets for VIP seating. Marcus is coming. And you can bring a friend.”

  Jane nodded. “Sure, Dad. Of course.”

  “Okay,” he said when Marcus came into the room. “Here goes nothing.” He lifted the lock and chain so that it rested on a block of wood he’d found and then pulled it as far away from the horse as it would go. “You’d better stand back,” he said to Jane, and she stroked the horse’s mane before she did.

  “Should I pre-dial 911 right now?” Marcus asked from the couch.

  The ax missed the chain entirely on their father’s first try. He swung again, and this time the sound was hot and hard but still, the chain remained strong.

  After a few more useless hacks, he put the ax down and rested his hands on his hips. “Tell them if they want it they have to come get it.”

  It had been a long time since Jane had climbed the stairs to the attic, pulled the tiny metal beads of the bare bulb’s pull-string, breathed in all that dusty air. It was less dusty than it had been when they’d first arrived so many months ago, but it still felt heavy, old.