“Are you afraid of heights?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I’m afraid of falling off of something really high.” He points to the nine-year-old in front of us and says, “It’s a baby ride. Look at her. She’s doing it.” “She doesn’t understand what she’s doing,” I say, biting my lip and maintaining an eye-level stare.
“No,” I say. “I’m afraid of falling off of something really high.” He points to the nine-year-old in front of us and says, “It’s a baby ride. Look at her. She’s doing it.” “She doesn’t understand what she’s doing,” I say, biting my lip and maintaining an eye-level stare.
Above us, pairs of riders swing from suspended links of
chain. They whoop and scream from their basket seats as the anchoring pole
whips them through the hot Texas air like a cowboy and his lasso. “You can do it,” he says. “But if you really don’t want to,
we don’t have to. We can ride something else, instead.” “Nah,” I say. “I can do it.”
The riders are lowered to the ground and released back to
safety. Then, we, the line-occupiers, are ushered through the turnstile by a
teenager in a blue polo with the words Pleasure Pier embroidered over his
heart. His palm rests on a piece of PVC pipe with an orange ring of duct tape
near the top that serves as his measuring stick for upholding the ride’s height
requirement. “Can you take the outside seat, please James?” I ask. “Of course,” he
says. He sits next to me, pulls the metal bar across his lap, and clicks the
buckle between his thighs. I do the same, but my buckle doesn’t click. I panic.
“This fucking thing won’t buckle,” I yelp, prying the buckle into the latch
without any luck. “Fuck,” he says. “Calm down. I have you.” He reaches between
his legs to unrelease his buckle, but it doesn’t click back. “Oh shit. It’s
locked in,” he says. I squeal and bounce my knees up and down, shaking the both
of us. Just then, another boy in a blue polo walks up to us, and upon noticing
my unsecured buckle, reaches under my armpit and pulls out another buckle that
stretches across my chest and into a latch under my other armpit. “This crotch buckle is broken!” I say. “This seat isn’t safe!” “We perform pre-test today,” he says from beneath a
razor-thin mustache in a Pedro Sanchez accent. “You have fun. High-five.”
My eyebrows are so furrowed that my forehead feels like it’s
being crushed. Next to me, James is trying not to laugh, but he’s not doing a
very good job. Defeated, I high-five Pedro and he leaves. “He came to this country on a floating tire,” I
say. “He doesn’t understand American safety.” James smiles and asks me if I
want to hold his hand. I reach for it and the canopy above us jerks. My feet
leave the ground and I’m ascending up into the air. I squeeze my eyes shut and
I grip the metal bars on either side of me. Everyone around me is screaming. I
can feel us being pulled higher. “It’s okay, babe!” James screams. “Just look!”
I open my eyes. Between my feet and the pier is a 200-foot drop, and around me are panoramic views of Galveston. My muscles
feel tight and cold, and the skin on my face is stinging with chilly waves of
fear. The canopy rotates and we’re suddenly spinning out. Everything
above my waist contracts into a tense ball. “I fucking hate this!” I yell.
“This isn’t fun!” James screams back, “It’s not that bad! You’re being very brave!” We are falling horizontally through the sky in revolutions and then we are slowly lowed to the ground where my toes connect with the metal grating and I finally open my eyes.
For the rest of the day, we subject ourselves to jostling by way of carnival rides and bloating by way of beach food. James is a vegetarian, so we don't share anything besides hushpuppies at a restaurant where the waitstaff wear tuxedo shirts. He and I are wearing tanktops, but after walking half a mile along the shore, I pull mine off and twist it around my head into a turban. He looks at me when I speak, and he looks at me when I'm not saying anything. When I look at him, my eyes bounce from the tattoo of Max from Where The Wild Things Are on his right bicep to the clear, blue gauges in his earlobes. I study the tattoo of the mermaid on his left bicep and his eyes, which are wide and brown and wild. We talk about our parents, and our exes, and our shared taste in Fiona Apple and hushpuppies. We talk about the events that led to us here. I confess that our first date followed a blueprint by which all of my first dates are designed: dinner at Tsunami, a detour home for me to "change my shoes," then sex, then off to somewhere loud for drinks. He doesn't care. He tells me I'm handsome. I kiss him in front of a family of Mexicans who are barbecuing three chicken wings on the smallest grill I've ever seen.
"Can we walk down there?" he asks, pointing down Seawall Road. "Are my shoulders red?" I ask, turning my back to him and shimmying. "Kindof," he says. "Then we can drive," I say. "I have some aloe in my bag, but I don't want to blister." "I use aloe when I run out of lube," he says. "I used to do the same thing before I started buying lube," I say. "I don't really venture outside of the lotion section when I'm in a pinch," he says. "I don't use lube when I'm by myself at all, really," I say.
In last month's Birchbox, I received a pair of foldable shades that I've been wearing every day since. They broke in my hand while we were departing Pirate's Plunge, so James gave me his sunglasses and bought another pair for himself at a gift shop that mostly sold hermit crabs and t-shirts with Galveston written across the chest in Papyrus or Brush Script. "You don't have to do that," I say. "Keep them," he says, handing me his wayfarers. "I have new sunglasses now." He smiles and winks, and I suddenly have the compulsion to grab him by his big, tanned shoulders and screaming, "You're fantastic! Let's go on a hundred more dates!" But instead, I wink back and say, "Thanks, stud."
We have to take the ferry back to Crystal Beach and that's just the first part of our long ride home. We're salty, and sticky, and sunkissed, and tired, but I don't want to leave him, just yet. He plays Iggy Azalea's mixtape and then a best-of Aretha Frank album. "Come here," he says, and I unbuckle my seatbelt and lay my head in his lap. The bottle of Vitamin Water in the cupholder jabs me in the ribs, so I toss it into the back-back and curse at it before resttling. "This was one of the best dates ever," I say. He looks down at me from behind his cheap, but valiantly acquired gift shop sunglasses and says, "Yep."
"I'm going to write about this," I say. "Oh yeah?" he says. "What about?" "The high points," I say, dreamily. "I'll let you read it first, though." He looks at the road and pats my head. "So where does the story begin?" he asks. I look up at him and he meets my gaze halfway.
"The high point," I say.
For the rest of the day, we subject ourselves to jostling by way of carnival rides and bloating by way of beach food. James is a vegetarian, so we don't share anything besides hushpuppies at a restaurant where the waitstaff wear tuxedo shirts. He and I are wearing tanktops, but after walking half a mile along the shore, I pull mine off and twist it around my head into a turban. He looks at me when I speak, and he looks at me when I'm not saying anything. When I look at him, my eyes bounce from the tattoo of Max from Where The Wild Things Are on his right bicep to the clear, blue gauges in his earlobes. I study the tattoo of the mermaid on his left bicep and his eyes, which are wide and brown and wild. We talk about our parents, and our exes, and our shared taste in Fiona Apple and hushpuppies. We talk about the events that led to us here. I confess that our first date followed a blueprint by which all of my first dates are designed: dinner at Tsunami, a detour home for me to "change my shoes," then sex, then off to somewhere loud for drinks. He doesn't care. He tells me I'm handsome. I kiss him in front of a family of Mexicans who are barbecuing three chicken wings on the smallest grill I've ever seen.
"Can we walk down there?" he asks, pointing down Seawall Road. "Are my shoulders red?" I ask, turning my back to him and shimmying. "Kindof," he says. "Then we can drive," I say. "I have some aloe in my bag, but I don't want to blister." "I use aloe when I run out of lube," he says. "I used to do the same thing before I started buying lube," I say. "I don't really venture outside of the lotion section when I'm in a pinch," he says. "I don't use lube when I'm by myself at all, really," I say.
In last month's Birchbox, I received a pair of foldable shades that I've been wearing every day since. They broke in my hand while we were departing Pirate's Plunge, so James gave me his sunglasses and bought another pair for himself at a gift shop that mostly sold hermit crabs and t-shirts with Galveston written across the chest in Papyrus or Brush Script. "You don't have to do that," I say. "Keep them," he says, handing me his wayfarers. "I have new sunglasses now." He smiles and winks, and I suddenly have the compulsion to grab him by his big, tanned shoulders and screaming, "You're fantastic! Let's go on a hundred more dates!" But instead, I wink back and say, "Thanks, stud."
We have to take the ferry back to Crystal Beach and that's just the first part of our long ride home. We're salty, and sticky, and sunkissed, and tired, but I don't want to leave him, just yet. He plays Iggy Azalea's mixtape and then a best-of Aretha Frank album. "Come here," he says, and I unbuckle my seatbelt and lay my head in his lap. The bottle of Vitamin Water in the cupholder jabs me in the ribs, so I toss it into the back-back and curse at it before resttling. "This was one of the best dates ever," I say. He looks down at me from behind his cheap, but valiantly acquired gift shop sunglasses and says, "Yep."
"I'm going to write about this," I say. "Oh yeah?" he says. "What about?" "The high points," I say, dreamily. "I'll let you read it first, though." He looks at the road and pats my head. "So where does the story begin?" he asks. I look up at him and he meets my gaze halfway.
"The high point," I say.
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