People Park

by Pasha Malla

  The Pooles arrived too late to check in at Lakeview Campground so they stayed on the mainland at the airport motel, which Kellogg’s guidebook commended for its satellite dish and prime rib, though the pool was closed. From there, said the CityGuide, it would be a just a quick zip over Guardian Bridge in the morning — Back to Mummy’s hometown, enthused Kellogg, which Gip corrected, Do you mean to see Raven? and Kellogg said, You betcha, and Pearl smiled, though her smile seemed pinched and in her eyes flickered something wary.

  After ten grey-pink slabs of prime rib between them the Pooles descended a boardwalk to the Scenic Vista, a platform wedged into the cliffside. Across the Narrows the city was a dome of light plunked down into the night. Guardian Bridge twinkled in parallel undulating lines to the chalky bluffs on the island’s northern shore.

  There it is, said Kellogg, the big city. Where Mummy was a star. How does it feel, Pearly? Is it everything you remembered?

  Well I didn’t often look at it from this side, Kellogg.

  Right. He rubbed a small circle on her lower back, the hand hovered in space, found a home capping Gip’s skull, Gip squirmed away and adjusted his hat. But wow, coming back after so long! Guess Mummy was something else for the — what was it?

  Lady Y’s.

  Lady Y’s. And there’s the arena there! Beside that big round thing! What’s that then?

  The Thunder Wheel. God, I remember one time I went on it, on a date — what was that silly boy’s name? A hairy little guy . . .

  Kellogg shrugged, looked away.

  Anyway he barfed when we got to the top. Sprayed all the way down on everyone.

  Ew, said Kellogg.

  He barfed! roared Gip. On a ride? Someone barfed actual barf?

  He did indeed. Poor kid, he was scared of heights, what was his name . . .

  More like the Chunder Wheel, yucked Kellogg. Anyway I bet my guidebook’s got coupons. See it, Gibbles? To the left — other left! Maybe we’ll get to take a ride!

  The Thunder Wheel was a huge black disc, unlit and unmoving, which rose from the grounds of Island Amusements over the northern fringe of People Park. To its east the orange hump of IFC Stadium glowed like a dinner roll under a heatlamp.

  I have to pee, said Elsie-Anne.

  Pee in your purse, said Gip, Dorkus. You retard.

  I left it inside Harry, Stuppa, retard.

  Hey now, said Kellogg, let’s not call each other names, huh? But hey, anything you guys want to ask your mum? She was famous when she lived here, a real celebrity. Annie, one sec, okay — but think! That arena’s where thousands of people came to see Mummy play. Imagine if she hadn’t done her knee in? You guys might never have even been born!

  Dad? said Gip, looking worried.

  Anyway it’s been a long time! How does it feel, Pearly? To be back?

  Well we’re not back yet, are we. We’re over here.

  Yeah but sure, you know what I mean. And you’ve got plans to see your old pals too, right? I wonder if any fans will recognize you? It must feel —

  It doesn’t feel like anything, okay?

  The air stiffened. Across the river, the city shimmered and hummed.

  Pearl patted her daughter on the cheek. Else, you need the toilet?

  Hand in hand mother and daughter headed back to the motel. Pearl’s knee must have been acting up: she favoured her left side as she walked, stiff-legged and lurching. But as always there was a publicity and performance to her limp, a showy sort of pain. Down the highway a plane was taking off from the airport. Kellogg watched it rise, roaring and blinking, into the night. Look at that, he said, to one in particular.

  Dad? Gip was pulling his father’s hand hair. We should go to bed because we have to get there early. Tomorrow, I mean. Dad? Raven’s choppering in at nine a.m. in the morning and he’s always precisely on time, so we have to get there at eight o’clock at the latest just to make sure, Dad, Gip huffed. To make sure we get a good seat, so we can see everything. Dad?

  Got it, said Kellogg. We’ll be up first thing. Don’t worry, pal.

  Later, back in the motel room, while Gip, who wouldn’t share a bed with dead-to-the-world Dorkus, snored in his cot, and Pearl ground her teeth with the sound of marbles pestled to dust, Kellogg flipped through the satellite’s endless TV channels. In the high 400s he paused: a large man in a red fez was being robed by a sexy assistant. Kellogg thought for a moment to wake his son, but Gip had no interest in magicians other than Raven. The assistant disappeared offstage — and, to a burst of delight from the audience, the performer collapsed, pitched backward, and went still. The screen cut to black. Kellogg shivered. Somehow it was one-thirty.

  AT THE FIRST SHUDDER of light through the curtains Gip was up, shaking his parents awake and whipping the covers off his sister. Come on, come on, we have to get across to the island, Raven arrives today! As his family showered he danced around the room — Hurry Dorkus, hurry Dad, hurry Mummy, hurry!

  Kellogg waited for Pearl to dress, then while she administered Gip’s meds coordinated his outfit with hers: pale bluejeans, grey crewneck, ballcap. Emerging from the bathroom he announced, Matchy matchy! and Pearl covered her face in her hands. Come on, Kellogg laughed, we’re on vacation, it’s fun.

  At breakfast Kellogg was loudly good with his kids, everyone’s plates heavy with sausages tonged in pairs from the buffet — except Pearl’s, she had yoghurt and fruit. All the other diners would surely look over at their table and think, What a nice normal family on a nice normal family vacation, holy.

  How healthy his marriage had become again, Kellogg thought, like an amputee striding about on fresh prosthetics. He and Pearl talked things out, they were communicative and open, infidelity was inconceivable, Dr. Castel would be proud. And here they were, taking a holiday. They’d see some magic and camp and visit all Pearl’s old haunts. On the south shore of the island was a beautiful beach, said the CityGuide, Elsie-Anne loved swimming so much, the little fish. And Kellogg would just be happy to make it happen, to make his family happy.

  After breakfast, packed up and ready to go, in the parking lot Kellogg took Pearl’s hands and said, Hey, we okay? Just kidding around, I can put on a different shirt if you want. Pearl said, Kellogg, hey, no, I know. Just feeling a little stressed, a little weird is all. Coming back is weird. With Harry’s door ajar and dinging, Kellogg corralled his wife into his arms. I love you, he whispered into her neck. I know, said Pearl. I know.

  Come on, screamed Gip from inside the minivan, it’s past seven o’clock!

  Elsie-Anne had wandered off down the boardwalk. Kellogg found her leaning over the railing at the Scenic Vista. A drainpipe jutted from the cliffs twenty feet down, she claimed an eel lived in its depths, she’d named him Familiar. Gently Kellogg pried her away, and as he folded her into Harry’s backseat she whimpered, But I loved Familiar and he loved me.

  Kellogg followed the ISLAND signs down to the water, where they hit a jumble of cars queued at the Guardian Bridge onramp. Pearl’s allergies were acting up, she blew her nose, discarded the tissue on the dashboard, punched an antihistamine tablet from a blisterpack, swallowed it dry.

  Just a little traffic, folks, no big deal, said Kellogg, grinning into the backseat.

  Dorkus is talking to her purse, said Gip. It’s weird.

  Gip, why not try a trick from your book? suggested Pearl. Else, hey, wouldn’t you like to see your brother do some magic?

  While Pearl readied their documents Gip leafed through Raven’s Illustrations: A Grammar. Tapping a page, he announced, Situation Thirteen, in which Dorkus picks a card, any card. Cunningly he fanned a deck on the backseat. Kellogg smiled at Pearl: how sweetly their kids played together, what lucky parents they were, and he reached over and squeezed his wife’s arm as though testing a fruit. She regarded him with confusion — a look that suggested she didn’t, for a moment, know who he was.r />
  Hi, it’s me, Kellogg — is that who I am, according to those things?

  You’re fine. It’s the kids: Gib Bode, and his lovely sister L.C.N. Goode.

  But you have proof you’re from here, which gets us in — right?

  Let’s hope, said Pearl.

  After a rambling, theatrical process that required Gip to consult Raven’s Grammar four times, Elsie-Anne refused to admit, with a shake of her braids, that she’d chosen the nine of clubs. What? Gip said, brandishing it at her. This is your card, Dorkus. No it isn’t, Stuppa, said Elsie-Anne, mine was jack. Impossible! her brother screamed, and swept the rest of the deck onto the floormats.

  Gip, barked Pearl — but Gip only gazed out the window, while the minivan crawled onto the lip of the bridge.

  Why are we going so slow, he said. We’ve barely moved at all.

  Just a little backup, said Kellogg. Got lots of people heading over probably just as excited as you, pal. We’ll get there, don’t you fret.

  Gip leaned into the frontseat. But gosh, it’s nearly seven-forty a.m. in the morning, Raven’s arriving at nine o’clock sharp, and what if we don’t make it for eight, which is when I said we needed to get there, if you remember. Don’t you even listen to me?

  Oh hush up, said Pearl. We’ve got plenty of time.

  We’ll get there, said Kellogg. Everyone’s going the same place, traffic’s got to go somewhere. Just likely making sure everyone’s got their tickets and permits in order, and Mummy’s from here so we’ll just whip on through. Okay?

  No response.

  One spot ahead of Harry was a maroon pickup truck with a bashed-in taillight. Its driver, a wild-looking man in a dirty blond ponytail and prospector’s beard, leaned out the window to spit. The spit, even from this distance, was goopy and brown.

  Disgusting, said Pearl, and sneezed.

  Ten minutes passed, traffic barely budged, the pickup driver spat four more times. Gip ignored his dad’s suggestion to try the trick again. Instead he began humming, a sound somewhere between the whine of a cicada and the bleating of a distant car alarm. Kellogg and Pearl exchanged a look. The driver of the pickup hawked out the window again, pulled forward eight inches. Harry followed, stopped, and Gip kept humming.

  You guys excited about, Kellogg began, couldn’t think what to say, turned on the radio: static. No signal out here I guess, he said. Weird.

  Pearl turned the radio off.

  Gip is humming, Elsie-Anne said. Mummy, Stuppa’s humming.

  Stop it, said Pearl.

  The humming continued. Pearl cracked her window.

  Little cold out for that yet, said Kellogg. And what about your allergies?

  Pearl looked at him. He winked. She rolled up the window.

  And Gip hummed.

  Elsie-Anne covered her ears with both hands. The traffic jam stretched ahead, a steel-scaled python slumped over the bridge. The guy in the pickup truck stuck his head out the window, made eye contact with Kellogg, spat, and retreated back inside the cab. Nothing moved. Pearl pointed at the vacant opposite lane. Just go there.

  I can’t — sheesh, Pearly, here’s a lane just for the Pooles I guess? He checked Gip in the rearview, who hummed back. When Kellogg spoke again his voice was oddly boisterous, infused with the forced mirth of a waiter singing Happy Birthday to a table of businessmen. Hear that, buddy? Get us arrested why don’t you! We’ll get there, guys. Look, see, cars are starting to come the other way. And hey-ho! We’re off now too.

  But something was wrong: traffic was being routed back to the mainland.

  A car swished past, the faces of the driver and passengers resigned. Gip’s humming stopped. The clock on the dash ticked over to 8:00. Gip unleashed a scream like a bottle hurled against a wall. No no no no no no no no no, he sobbed, kicking the back of his mother’s chair.

  Kellogg cried, Wait! — but Pearl was already diving into the backseat to tackle her son. Kellogg’s technique would have been soothing, soft words and a gentle hand on his knee. Discipline was useless, he thought, watching Gip jolt and squirm in Pearl’s arms. Episodes weren’t his fault, you had to be patient — you subdued him with kindness, not force. Why didn’t the boy’s own mother understand that?

  The pickup wheeled into a three-point turn and the shaggy guy absconded, spitting. In the rearview Kellogg watched Pearl cuff her son’s wrists in one hand and clamp his mouth with the other while Gip thrashed and moaned. Hesitantly Kellogg put the minivan in gear, pulled forward, said, Look, champ, here we go.

  Gip went still. Blinked. Inhaled a trail of snot.

  That’s it, coaxed Kellogg, we’re at the checkpoint, we’ll see Raven soon, don’t worry.

  In the middle lane sat a man in khaki at a child’s schooldesk. Kellogg was summoned from the minivan with curling fingers.

  Take Elsie-Anne, Pearl told him, still restraining Gip. Show him our permits.

  Kellogg wanted to see something beyond resignation on his wife’s face — love! Instead in her eyes was the beleaguered look of someone suffering a chore. Go, she said.

  Annie, come with Dad, said Kellogg, and together they approached the guy at the desk — Bean, said his nametag.

  Bean nodded at Harry’s plates. You have a resident in the car?

  Former resident, my wife. She used to star for the Y’s?

  Leafing through the papers, Bean eyed Elsie-Annie. Who’s this?

  That’s Elsie-Anne — L.C.N., see? Someone must have —

  Bean held up a hand. And Gib?

  With my wife. He’s . . . sick.

  Sir, you realize no one in your quote-unquote family has the same last name?

  That’s maybe not our fault though?

  You’re suggesting it’s ours.

  No! Just a miscommunication maybe? It happens . . .

  Bean swivelled, spoke into a walkie-talkie. Took a puff from an inhaler. Eyed Kellogg with the ambivalence of a bored shopper sizing up a lettuce.

  Kellogg gazed down the bridge. Along the island’s shore was more gridlock, a call-and-response of horns, long blasts echoed by long blasts, all of it useless, nothing moving.

  Mr. Poole, we’re going to need you to get processed once you’re islandside. Your wife is fine — Bean stamped her permit forcefully, handed the others over — but the rest of you need special permission before you can join the Jubilee celebrations.

  But! No, we can’t do that — my son, he’s . . . We’ll miss Raven’s arrival!

  Bean checked his watch. Not much chance of you making that anyway. NFLM on Topside Drive are expecting you, they’ll direct you to Residents’ Control — that’s the Galleria foodcourt, five minutes from the bridge. Good lookin out!

  Thanks, said Kellogg, and headed back to the minivan wondering what he’d thanked him for.

  Elsie-Anne raced ahead to the bridge’s railing, hopped up, leaned over. And went rigid. Dad, she called, pointing below. Look.

  A naked woman was walking — precariously, slowly — out onto one of the iron trestles that extended from the structure’s underside. Two hundred feet below lay the river, a ruffle of black silk spangled silver, and as the woman stepped, one foot then the next, the wind tousled her hair like the hand of some benignly drunk uncle. Pigeons burbled somewhere, but Kellogg couldn’t see any pigeons.

  The woman seemed oblivious to everything: to the traffic, to Bean and his flares, to Kellogg and Elsie-Anne, to the world and all that was in it. Her back was hunched, her buttocks alabaster. At the end of the trestle she stopped, arms extended for balance. If she were to jump it seemed she would be leaping not down, but outward, into open space.

  Oh my god, said Kellogg. Elsie-Anne, get in the car.

  Dad?

  Kellogg snatched her by the chin. You listen, if that person jumps and we’re the only witnesses, it will ruin our vacation. You won’t get t
o swim, Gip won’t get to see his magician — we’ll be at the morgue, answering questions. They might even blame us! So forget you saw anything. Get in the car. Say nothing to your mother. Hear me? Nothing.

  Elsie-Anne nodded.

  Good girl, said Kellogg, knuckled her cheek, slid open Harry’s door, ushered her inside, slammed it closed — and looked over the railing. The woman hadn’t moved: a porcelain, otherworldly figure who seemed to float in the brisk morning air.

  Kellogg opened his mouth to call to her, to tell her — what? But it was too late: a great tumble of hair, and the trestle was empty.

  Trembling, Kellogg rushed to catch the body’s splash or see it swept away in the current. But Bean was calling him: Sir, sir, in your car, please, sir. So Kellogg stopped, apologized, returned to the minivan. In the backseat Pearl, sniffling, stroked Gip’s hair. Elsie-Anne stared vacantly into her purse. Okay, said Kellogg, moving his foot from brake to gas. The engine vroomed, he pressed harder, Harry went nowhere.

  You’re in Park, said Pearl.

  Oh, said Kellogg, shifted to Drive, and lurched another ten feet closer to the island.

  III

  Y TEN-THIRTY it was all over. Raven stepped into his trunk, waved a brochure from the Grand Saloon, said, I believe this is where I’m staying, and closed the lid on himself. A moment later the helicopter seemed to come alive of its own accord, lifted up from the common, looped over Crocker Pond, and landed atop the hotel. The doors to the penthouse suite opened and Raven stepped onto the balcony, blew six kisses at the crowd, bowed, and ducked away.

  The trunk sat innocuously in the middle of the stage.

  There was nothing else to look at.

  And so with a collective sigh people began to shuffle back to their lives.

  From the top of the northern hillock the protestors withdrew, trashed their placards out back of Street’s Milk & Things. Today Debbie, Pop and the two Island Institute students whose names Debbie kept failing to learn were joined by the most militant members of the Lakeview Homes Restribution Movement: a man called Tragedy — walleyed, squat, and gnomish, smelling of salsa — and his lean, lisping, wispily bearded friend, Havoc. They’d shown up to their first meeting only two weeks prior and pulsed with something weird and feral that might euphemistically be described as energy.