Summer 2006, Sonoma and Vallejo, California

By Ray Sikorski

Let me tell you something about loneliness. Loneliness is when it’s nearing 5 p.m. at work on a Friday and you’ve got no plans — nada — for the entire weekend. Loneliness is having a co-worker mention that his future in-laws will be arriving in town soon, and you think, “Gee, that sounds kinda fun.” Loneliness is your co-worker reading that look on your face, and with a reluctant mercifulness inviting you to join them for hors d’oeuvres at his house. Loneliness is taking him up on his offer. And enjoying it. And, when it’s over, thinking, “Wow. How am I going to top that?”

That was the state I was in last June. It had been three months since my breakup with Kate, who left me for a fiddle player. As far as I was concerned, I would never get laid again. When being chased by a wolf, the exhausted rabbit eventually realizes his fate, and accepts it in a moment of mortal clarity. That was where I stood.

“Please, Mr. So-and-So, I would love to hear more about your truck. There must be more wine and canapés. There must. Yes, I understand you’re going to dinner now. That you have reservations. For four. It’s okay. I’ll wait here. Holding down the fort, if you will. I’ll be here when you get back. You can tell me more about your truck then.”

But no. I’m set free to the night… although it’s only 6:30 p.m. The weekend has barely started. Two full days and a handful of hours to go, and my social quotient is maxed out. I slink back to the office. This is desperation, when the only place to go is work.

Everyone at work had been given free tickets to Six Flags as part of a promotional package. Two tickets to the amusement park were burning a hole in my wallet. They were good till the end of September. It was now June. I only had a few months to find a date. It didn’t seem promising.

Nevertheless, I felt a strong compulsion. Desperation? Perhaps. But I prefer to think of it as the mortal clarity of the rabbit: I was no longer for this world. I would be going to a better place. I was a sentient being holding material possessions. The tickets were meaningless, much like the
shell that encapsulated my soul. I went to Craig’s List, and I wrote the ad:

Roller coaster ride! (the real kind, not the emotional kind) – 37

My work gave me free tix to Six Flags — wanna go this weekend? I don’t think I would ever go to Six Flags if I didn’t have the tickets, but hey, who doesn’t like roller coasters? And maybe that thing that spins around real fast and sticks you to the wall. But no teacups, okay? Sure, they look
tame, but when I was 12 Tim Schwarzwalder spun the thing so fast that I threw up on the game room floor. Other than that, however, my intestinal fortitude has been formidable. Upside down, inside out, whatever. Oh, and the log flume, too!

I guess I should say something about myself that isn’t related to amusement park rides. Let’s see, 5′9″, 145 lbs., have all my hair, no kids, glasses, kind of dorky but hopefully in a good way, have a real job, am arty but would never be caught indoors on a sunny day.

Had a long-term relationship that ended three months ago, and am now more than ready to ride a roller coaster with my hands in the air.

I was lying, of course. Consumption by canis lupus, who would probably toss my hands aside because they’re nothing but cartilage and bones … that, I was ready for. Riding a roller coaster with my hands in the air? Sure, in the literal sense. Any schmo can do that. But this was not about literal interpretation. In fact, if someone responded understanding only a literal meaning, I would not respond to her.

But that’s not what happened.

Hi,

I LOVE roller coasters. I don’t know what it is about that feeling in your stomach, when going down that first hill, that I find so exhilarating. Lucky for you there are no teacups at Six Flags.

About me … 31, 5′4″, 115 lbs, am a little dorky myself, no kids, wear glasses for distance, easy-going and laid-back, have a real job, am ashamed to admit that I have been indoors on a sunny day.

Got out of a long-term relationship about 4 months ago and would be interested in riding a roller coaster with my hands in the air. However, I am not free this weekend. Would you consider postponing?

Susan

This was the only response I received. Naturally, it chilled my heart. I was much more comfortable being the rabbit awaiting certain death. Now I was a rabbit awaiting … what? It could be anything. It could just be a roller coaster ride.

But she understood metaphor. That was the disturbing part.

We talked on the phone. She had a few hours free on Sunday, so we met for a short mountain bike ride. It was a bad idea. She fell. She bled. Somehow, though, she wasn’t deterred. Despite the cut on her leg, we talked for a long time that day. She told me she had been adopted at age two. Her adoptive parents had been cold and distant and she had felt unloved. Her ex-boyfriend had accused her of the same.

“Maybe he was right,” she confessed. “Maybe I am like that.”

Yet, clearly, she was a rabbit just like me. And, like all rabbits, she needed to be cuddled.

Next Saturday. Six Flags. It was on. This was it.

Though we had spoken on the phone a few more times since that initial encounter, she remained a mystery. She was little more than a voice on the phone who I had made bleed. I thought I had a sense of some vulnerability there. She wasn’t so tough. But I learned very quickly that I didn’t know her at all.

Example A: Kong. I don’t know what they’ve done to roller coasters since I was a kid; gave them steroids or something. The padding on the side of the contraption is not designed for heads to repeatedly pound against, is it? Kong abused me. I wanted to vomit, and it was only the first ride. An automated camera took our picture. She’s screaming with delight. I’m terrified and green.

I wanted to go home. Susan wanted to hop from one coaster to the next. There were a lot of them. Big ones. She wanted to ride them over and over. Kill me now, ye of big eyes and teeth.

Just listening to her made me want to take a Dramamine, but I figured a nice long line on the next ride would be enough to ease my sour stomach.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a long line on the next ride. Within five minutes we locked down into Medusa, which not only looped and careened as forcefully as Kong, but also boasted the added unattraction of hovering hundreds of feet over the parking lot before swooping straight towards the pavement. I couldn’t keep track of when we were up and when we were down, but upside down at a low point I spotted flip-flops, sunglasses and loose change — probably silver and gold fillings, too, jarred loose by the ride’s unforgiving jolts.

The one-two Kong-Medusa punch made my knees wobble, but I didn’t want to show signs of weakness. I didn’t want to vomit, either. She led me from ride to ride, as I tried to divert her attention to the park’s other attractions: zoo animals, sea creatures, butterflies. But she had a plan, and it was not all roller coasters.

It was even more diabolical, for her plan included Monkey Business, a ride that even the untrained eye could see for what it clearly was: the teacup ride.

“No,” I said. “That was the deal. No teacups.”

She explained that they were technically not teacups, they were more like hot chocolate mugs, which somehow incorporated a monkey theme.

So this is how it would end. I would die, a marshmallow slowly melting in the churning mug of hot deliciousness. Do not weep for me, oh Susan, for I am happy to go. Anything to keep me off another roller coaster.

But no. I survived, my lunch intact. Rats.

What is it about stomachs, anyway? Susan clearly had a system made of titanium, while mine was held together with lumps of cottage cheese. I looked on enviously as we passed the children’s boat ride, the little cherubs happily bobbing along. That’s what I envisioned for us. It was not what I would get.

Instead there was the Boomerang, Roar, and Vertical Velocity, the last of which was accompanied by stereophonic screams of terror to supplement the real ones, to somehow aid those waiting on line. Suffice it to say that the supplemental screams were utterly unnecessary, as hurtling straight towards pavement at Mach 5 while in a corkscrew pattern doesn’t really need any supplementation.

The sun was setting, and Susan was getting anxious. She craved more coasters. It wouldn’t be much longer before the park closed. I had a new lease on life.

We approached Kong. The big ape had knocked me senseless on the first ride of the day, but now I was a new man. I had faced down death and lived to tell about it.

Unfortunately, I had eaten half a tri-tip sandwich right before the ride. Big mistake.

I turned green at the first drop. By the time it turned upside down I was just praying for a miracle. When we came to the side-to-side whiplash sashay, I felt my life force slipping from my body. That’s when I noticed the photo flash.

Off the ride, at last. I could barely walk. But despite suddenly becoming aware of the placement of Six Flags garbage cans, my tri-tip sandwich stayed exactly where it was supposed to stay. I did not throw up.

The photo. Well, Susan sure looked happy. Mouth open, screaming with delight; she should be in a commercial for Six Flags. Then there’s me, white as a sheet, preparing myself for the afterworld.

Susan and I left the park, with me feeling wobbly yet triumphant. Somehow we found my car in the parking lot.

This had been a strange date. After all the head-banging, near vomit, and thrills, I felt I barely knew Susan more than I had the day I met her. Well, I learned that she was a roller coaster maniac, but besides that, not much.

We sat in the front seat, watching families search for the cars in the darkened parking lot. We kissed. I suggested we venture to the back seat, where we wouldn’t have to deal with the problematic center console. She agreed.

And at once we were rabbits frozen in each others’ mortal clarity.

Or something like that.

I cuddled her like a rabbit. She squeezed me like a marshmallow, and I melted in her churning mug of hot deliciousness.

We’ve been together ever since.

The only roller coaster Ray Sikorski has ridden since this incident has been the one called “Try Your Hand at Freelance Writing.” He remains vomit-free, but barely.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 | Email This Post

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