Part 60 (1/2)
Sammy hadn't written down these email addresses. He'd committed them to memory.
Death Waits was living the dream. He took people's money and directed them to the ride's entrance, making them feel welcome, talking ride trivia. Some of his pals spotted him at the desk and enviously demanded to know how he came to be sitting on the other side of the wicket, and he told them the incredible story of the fatkins who'd simply handed over the reins.
This, this was how you ran a ride. None of that artificial gloopy sweetness that defined the Disney experience: instead, you got a personal, informal, human-scale experience. Chat people up, find out their hopes and dreams, make admiring noises at the artifacts they'd brought to add to the ride, kibbitz about where they might place them....
Around him, the bark of the vendors. One of them, an old lady in a blinding white sun-dress, came by to ask him if he wanted anything from the coffee-cart.
There had been a time, those first days when they'd rebuilt Fantasyland, when he'd really felt like he was part of the magic. No, The Magic, with capital letters. Something about the shared experience of going to a place with people and having an experience with them, that was special. It must be why people went to church. Not that Disney had been a religion for him, exactly. But when he watched the park he'd grown up attending take on the trappings that adorned his favorite clubs, his favorite movies and games -- man, it had been a piece of magic.
And to be a part of it. To be an altar boy, if not a priest, in that magical cathedral they'd all built together in Orlando!
But it hadn't been real. He could see that now.
At Disney, Death Waits had been a customer, and then an employee (”castmember” -- he corrected himself reflexively). What he wanted, though, was to be a *citizen*. A citizen of The Magic -- which wasn't a Magic Kingdom, since kingdoms didn't have citizens, they had subjects.
He started to worry about whether he was going to get a lunch break by about two, and by three he was starving. Luckily that's when Lester came back. He thanked Death profusely, which was nice, but he didn't ask Death to come back the next day.
”Um, when can I come back and do this some more?”
”You *want* to do this?”
”I told you that this morning -- I love it. I'm good at it, too.”
Lester appeared to think it over. ”I don't know, man. I kind of put you in the hot-seat today, but I don't really have the authority to do it. I could get into trouble --”
Death waved him off. ”Don't sweat it, then,” he said with as much chirp as he could muster, which was precious f.u.c.king little. He felt like his heart was breaking. It was worse than when he'd finally asked out a co-worker who'd worked the Pinocchio Village Haus and she had her looked so horrified that he'd made a joke out of it, worried about a s.e.xual hara.s.sment complaint.
Lester clearly caught some of that, for he thought some more and then waved his hands. ”Screw her anyway. Meet me here at ten tomorrow. You're in.”
Death wasn't sure he'd heard him right. ”You're kidding.”
”No man, you want it, you got it. You're good at it, like you said.”
”Holy -- thanks. Thank you so much. I mean it. Thank you!” He made himself stop blithering. ”Nice to meet you,” he said finally. ”Have a great evening!” Yowch. He was speaking castmemberese. *Nice one, Darren*.
He'd saved enough out of his wages from his first year at Disney to buy a little Sh.e.l.l electric two-seater, and then he'd gone way into debt buying kits to mod it to look like a Big Daddy Roth coffin-dragster. The car sat alone at the edge of the lot. Around him, a slow procession of stall-operators, with their arms full, headed for the freeway and across to the shantytown.
Meanwhile, he nursed his embarra.s.sment and tried to take comfort in the attention that his gleaming, modded car evinced. He loved the decorative spoilers, the huge rear tires, the s.h.i.+ning m.u.f.fler-pipes running alongside the bulging running-boards. He stepped in and gripped the bat-shaped gears.h.i.+ft, adjusted the headstone-shaped headrest, and got rolling. It was a long drive back home to Melbourne, and he was reeling from the day's events. He wished he'd gotten someone to snap a pic of him at the counter. s.h.i.+t.
He pulled off at a filling station after a couple hours. He needed a p.i.s.s and something with guarana if he was going to make it the rest of the way home. It was all shut down, but the automat was still open. He stood before the giant, wall-sized gla.s.sed-in refrigerator and dithered over the energy-drinks. There were chocolate ones, salty ones, colas and cream sodas, but a friend had texted him a picture of a semi-legal yogurt smoothie with taurine and modafinil that sounded really good.
He spotted it and reached to tap on the gla.s.s and order it just as the fat guy came up beside him. Fat guys were rare in the era of fatkins, it was practically a fas.h.i.+on-statement to be chunky, but this guy wasn't fas.h.i.+onable. He had onion-breath that Death could smell even before he opened his mouth, and he was wearing a greasy windbreaker and baggy jeans. He had a comb-over and needed a shave.
”What the h.e.l.l are you supposed to be?”
”I'm not anything,” Death Waits said. He was used to s.h.i.+t-kickers and tourists gawping at his shock of black hair with its viridian green highlights, his white face-paint and eyeliner, his contact lenses that made his whole eyes into zombie-white cue-b.a.l.l.s. You just had to ignore them.
”You don't look like nothing to me. You look like something. Something you'd dress up a six year old as for Halloween. I mean, what the f.u.c.k?” He was talking quietly and without rancor, but he had a vibe like a basher. He must have arrived at the deserted rest-stop while Death Waits was having a p.i.s.s.
Death Waits looked around for a security cam. These rest-stops always had a license-plate cam at the entrance and a couple of anti-stickup cams around the cas.h.i.+er. He spotted the camera. Someone had hung a baseball hat over its lens.