|
|
Leah Felicity Budin
Session 2 CTY: Fiction
7-21-zero
Nathaniel received a free “one
day in Disney World all-park pass” in the mail. His grandmother had run into
the room, giggling and bouncing and waving around an envelope of Disney stationery.
“Look at this! It’s from
Disney!” she shrieked. “It’s probably Nerissa! Open it! I want to know what’s
inside!”
Ma personally didn’t like
Nerissa. She thought that Nerissa was loud, boisterous, ignorant of manners,
and looked “like a somewhat wishy-washy horse, but don’t tell her I told you
so.” However, she found it amusing that Nathaniel had so many troubles getting
rid of her, and whenever something happened in relation to the infamous
Nerissa, she was always there to enjoy the gossip.
“Why don’t you open it for me,
Ma?” Nathaniel asked pointedly, looking up from a book of Marxist theories. He
wasn’t into Communism; he was an Anarchist, but he had to know enemies of any
sort when he saw them. After all, he had read the Constitution, hadn’t he?
Ma gasped and gave a little
bounce. He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen you quite
this excited.”
“You… dumped her, didn’t you?”
“Sure. And she’s asking for
forgiveness. AGAIN. Read it for yourself. She should know better than to use
that damned capitalist stationery, though.” His eyebrow dropped as he went back
to his reading. Ma looked upon the boy she had been raising for the last 11
years and smiled when she realized that, for once in his life, his white
Birkenstocks weren’t on his feet. They were situated on the floor next to
Slippers’ pile of dirty T-shirts (he preferred dirty laundry to anything
clean).
Ma was practically on a high as
she whipped out a flamingo-shaped silver letter-opener from her crisp white
apron (which did go along with the
kitchen) and tore open the letter. She pulled out a letter on Disney stationery
with perfect handwriting (Nerissa’s) and the pass.
Meet me in the Magic Kingdom’s “Character
Land.” I’m Minnie.
Boy, did Ma relish reading that one
out loud.
It was a cool and windy day
considering it was Hell, AKA Orlando, Florida. It looked like it was about to
pour, and Nathaniel found that terribly appropriate for a day in the most
miserable place on earth… er… Disney World.
He climbed out of Pa’s pickup
truck, painted dark red, and locked the door behind him. His green hair was
tied in a ponytail and his outfit was pure black, including a Manson shirt he’d
donned in hopes of perhaps frightening the gatekeepers out of letting him in.
Young children, followed by overweight and overwhelmed parents in mismatched
outfits, looped around each other like drunken dragonflies having a maypole
dance. He paused to glare at a few of them, but they fearlessly smiled right
back, since they’d seen far worse in
the mysterious Haunted Mansion.
I’m such a loser, he thought
darkly. I’m going to Disney World to see my ex-girlfriend in a Minnie costume.
He walked up to the gate and
reluctantly handed over the pass to a pimply brown-haired boy with a buzzed haircut
that didn’t suit his face. The kid looked up at him and snickered.
“What the hell – I mean heck –
are you doing here?”
“I like to molest young
children,” Nathaniel said in the most deadpan voice he could muster, attempting
one last time to get out of entering the park. This was the “point of no
return” and all he really wanted to do was return.
The boy looked at him carefully,
and Nathaniel did his best to contain himself. He felt like he was going to
come apart at the seams, that he would surely explode though his fingertips or
something if he didn’t get away and have a good laugh, on either side of
the park.
“I’m not supposed to let people
like you in.”
“Of course… not…” Nathaniel
started to snicker.
The boy was looking pissed off.
“Fuck you. I mean… SHUCKS. … DARN it. Go right ahead, sir.” He blushed at an
astonished-looking mother with her hands over her twin daughters’ ears. Her
face was red all the way to her somewhat-pointy ears and her hair was pulled in
a tight bun. The daughters didn’t exactly look overwhelmed. It wasn’t Britney
Spears language, but that didn’t mean it was new, Nathaniel figured.
Nathaniel shrugged and walked
into the park. No going back now, he figured. Now was the time to get down with
his inner Mickey. Now was the time to have fun, enough fun, perhaps, to get
thrown out of the park. He was in Capitalist Central; he would most certainly
have to push the limits a little further than usual. This was going to have to
go beyond petty flamingoes.
He was on “Main Street.” This
was the road that the people and their children had to traverse in order to get
to the rest of the park. Not surprisingly, this street was comprised entirely
of stores. Just another way of giving one’s money to “Squeaky the Rat.”
“’Remember the magic’ my ASS,”
Nathaniel retorted to a mime who was pretending to hand him a balloon. The
mime’s eyes widened and it put its hand to its mouth.
“Unlike YOU, I like to state my opinions.
This country, though shitty, yields such things as ‘free speech’ and you should
take advantage. People, especially the government, like to keep our mouths shut
so we can conform but I don’t WANT to be like you. I don’t want to be another
quiet pawn of society. Get your sorry leotard-wearing ass out of my FACE.”
Nathaniel was working his way
into a properly good mood. He scowled at the shocked and confused mime and
worked his way through the throng of people towards “Character Land” or
whatever the hell it was called.
This was definitely where the
youngest kids congregated, standing in little circles with pastel “My Week At
Disney” autograph books like some kind of a cult. Momentarily, Nathaniel
thought of the Nazis, how they grouped them into Nazi Youth Groups. Either way,
what a gross display of humanity, Nathaniel thought sullenly.
Giant pastel, plastic houses
housed the characters. Inside were obscenely large furniture pieces, likewise
done in plastic, and the essential: the character, ready to a) hug children, b)
sign autographs, and/or c) giggle. He grinned at the thought of taking over one
of those houses and having raves in it. Anarchist meetings in it. Manson
concerts in it.
He walked into the Donald Duck
house first, for kicks. After all, he had to “check out his competition.”
Donald was settled on a big blue (pastel) (plastic) sofa. No parents were
present, but a set of four brothers, all with dark brown hair and huge freckles
and under ten, were talking to him about their farm back home in Idaho.
Nathaniel finally got that
exploding laughter he was considering earlier. He began to laugh, to giggle, to
belly-shriek with diaphragm vibrations of the soul. The four boys all stared at
him, as was perhaps the person inside Donald’s ridiculous costume. Raising one
shaking arm, Nathaniel flipped them all off. (It wasn’t their fault they were
raised by such a corrupt society but the damage was done and perhaps this would
disillusion them if they thought about it later.)
The Donald mascot then stood up and leaped
onto Nathaniel. “I’ll kick your fucking ass!”
These boys, unlike the twins, gasped. The
oldest one got a dark-looking frown as he put his arms out from his body and
pushed the other three away from the mascot.
Nathaniel laughed, and shoved
the mascot off of him, or tried to, but the mascot was strong. The two of them
wrestled on the ground, shoving and punching.
I’m really weak, Nathaniel
realized. I’m not as strong as Donald
Duck is. I might have to work out. He bit his lip and threw his leg up,
right between the Duck’s legs. The mascot curled in a ball in the floor. The
four boys began to hop up and down on him. Not particularly wanting to be left
red-handed on the scene of the crime, he darted out of the plastic house and
headed straight to Minnie’s House.
Minnie, like Donald, enjoyed the
company of young children. As opposed to Donald, her young children were all
little girls in pigtails wearing pink and Pooh. They all looked rather scared
when Nathaniel barged in, his face flushed and his braids trembling with his
body.
Sweaty mothers’ brows furrowed
as they stood in a clump near the back of the room, huddling and whispering.
They were trying to decide what to do about this strange-looking boy in the
shirt of “that man who represented Lucifer” (as Ma called Manson).
“All right, Nerissa, what is it
you wanted?” Nathaniel snapped, reaching the very end of his rope. The damned
thing was slippery enough as it was, and being in Walt Disney World made it all
the slimier and easier to glide down upon.
Minnie Mouse took off its helmet (or
whatever you call the headpiece) to reveal someone who wasn’t Nerissa. It was a
boy who looked like he could be a linebacker. His neck alone is the size of one
of my thighs, Nathaniel observed to himself. Maybe bigger.
“I’m Nerissa’s new boyfriend and I’m going to kick the shit out of
you,” the guy growled. The mothers collectively gasped, and the daughters
collectively giggled. All took a step backwards.
“Well, you wouldn’t do that in
front of all these children, now would you?” Nathaniel asked, wishing he could
just be back in college away from this damned capitalist meathead in a Minnie
Mouse outfit.
“Yes,” the guy growled. Behind
him, in the doorway, a group of black-clad men with “Disney Security” written
on their chests in light blue lettering collected. They looked like future
versions of Meaty Mouse.
“Even… with security on your
ass?”
“I won’t fall for that shit, you
stupid bastard. You’re going to die.”
Half of security took Beef Jerky
and the other half collected Nathaniel. Unfortunately, Strapping refused to
comply, even with two Big Bulkies pulling him along, so Nathaniel said to his
own Bulkies, “Listen, I can find my way out. I’m not incompetent.”
“Even with that hair?” the one
snapped.
“It’s better than yours, you
stupid conformist. Swim in the other direction for once in your life. Anyhow, I
can find my own way out. I’ve had enough white trash capitalists for today.
Trust me.” With that, Nathaniel departed from the Minnie Mouse House and went
back towards the front entrance.
All of the guards then turned
their attention back to Fleshy.
As he climbed back into the red
pickup truck, complete with an invisible hand-stamp “in case you want to come
back,” Nathaniel thought: Job well done, young man. Job well done… Wait ’til Ma
hears about this.
