Well, we got to the front of the line of Goliath. We waited in the extra line to get in the first car of this monstrosity with the free-fall drop that had that slight curve at the top that made you feel like there was nothing underneath you. We watched this ride go down and around, again and again, from far underneath its 255-foot first drop.
“I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Yes you can.”
Our talk was more rare as we approached the front of the line. And then there were two couples in front of us, then one, then the empty train stood waiting our turn and the teenagers running the ride were motioning for us to sit down in the car.
Purity took her seat.
Then me.
They locked the safety bar down over our knees and we pushed it down another notch so the padded iron was cutting into our skin. Better safe than sorry.
I held onto the underside of the seat so that just in case the safety bar came loose I would have a fighting chance of holding myself to the car and not coming flying down to my death, separate from any car, separate from any train, just an upside-down body falling head first into the bowels of the park, caught on a million cameras from a million different angles and posted as just one more of thousands of amusement-park accidents.
Clarity saw me holding the underside of the seat and looked at me with a kind of terror.
A buzzer shouted harshly through the train house.
A jolt forward.
Our car was moving. Nothing in front of us but track.
We go around a 180° curve and there it is—the hill—rising steep before us.
Clarity claws her hand into my leg.
I love every minute of it. I hope she leaves marks.
I look over at her to check and make sure she’s really ok and she’s looking straight forward with her mouth open. She doesn’t even look at me when she says:
“I don’t believe you made me come on this fucking thing.”
“You know my sister has this thing she says about time—”
“I don’t want to hear what your fucking sister says about time.”
“O-k. You might hate me now, but in about two and a half minutes we’ll be on solid ground, screaming, saying, ‘I don’t believe we went on that! We did it! And you’ll probably want to go again. But we won’t be able to ‘cause Purity—”
“I won’t want to go again.”
And this is the part where your rollercoaster takes you up, and up..and you see the lights of the entire park and then it takes you up, and up, and you see the highways that lead to this place and then eventually you see the country roads cutting through the desert, with hardly any streetlights, headed for the mountains, off into poor mountain towns where kids don’t even have enough money for a day at Six Flags.
And then you come to the top of your hill, a height it seems no sane person has any business being at.
And there’s nothing on either side.
And the only thing in front is a piece of track that looks like it ends, it goes down so fast on the other side.
And then we, the first car, fall into this little scoop that’s designed to let the rest of the cars catch up before we take that first drop.
And the genius of that little curve at the top of the first hill becomes viscerally apparent as Clarity and I fall, and the curve makes it look like there is no track in front of us, as we’re always curving just at the last instant onto a place where there is track.
And then the fall.
The fall.
It’s straight down.
And it’s fast enough and far enough to make me forget about everything—my dull programmer life, my meth use, my little-kid crush on Clarity. I forget she’s sitting next to me and hope to God that whoever built this thing did a good job, that we’re one of the lucky cars that goes down without incident, not one of the ones captured on the disaster sites falling to the ground.
It’s a long drop—three long counts—and we’re out.
Up and over, through graceful curves and up, and up, and up—through a second, lesser drop—and through some minor drops designed to make you feel you got your money’s worth, and then back into the train house with a CLACK CLACK CLACK—sudden stop.
And Clarity un-plants her arm from my leg and I start to have all these panicky feelings like I should have held her hand and I’m reading all this emotion into this silly little visit from my friend’s roommate’s sister who has a boyfriend and I think You’re crazy. This girl is never going to have anything to do with you. But Clarity puts her hand through my arm as we walk away from the train and another set of freaks locks themselves into the cars to thrill themselves with gravity. And we walk that way, breathing hard, her arm through mine, and at the picture house that arm hold drops into a hand hold, interlocked fingers, and we find ourselves on the screen.
Clarity points.
Everyone else’s picture looks like they’re a couple of movie stars in a still from a film. But Clarity and I, going down that first hill, look terrified. And nothing like dignified. My mouth is open and her eyes are closed and both our hair is flying in ways that makes it hard to even recognize us.
A silent decision is made not to buy the picture.
We walk to a lamp and a bench.
Our hands awkwardly unlock.
Clarity offers me a Parliament—already lit, by her, in her mouth.
She lights one for herself.
There are tear streaks on the sides of her face behind her eyes. I wipe them away with my thumbs.
She’s shivering.
We talk.
And it doesn’t matter what we say. You know what it is, anyway—just the adrenaline chatter of two people who just rode the second-highest rollercoaster in the world, second only to the Japanese. A trillion of these conversations have taken place around the world, most often among kids and young adults where there’s a relationship or a relationship budding. Usually these people have known each other for more than just this one day at the amusement park, but there Clarity and I are the exception.
I was just supposed to be keeping her company while Purity did her thing.
“I wasn’t expecting this—at the beginning of the day—to work out so well,” Clarity says.
“Me either,” I say, but I’m filled with melancholy at the fact that all three girls are going back to Phoenix tomorrow and whatever it is that Clarity developed between us on this one day is going to be that—just one day, frozen, forever.