42
Drop Tower, Post Office, Greek Taverna
The Drop Tower, like the steering wheel or the electric chair, is an open book in terms of its capability. It’s not subtle, three-dimensional, or even attractive—no loops, no spinning, no surprises; it’s more like a gangly fourth grade bully of a ride: “The Drop Tower misspelled ‘can’ at the spelling bee has a giant huge zit, but No one make fun of The Drop Tower’s huge pimple or else he’ll pick you up and drop you from way up a great height!”
It’s not subtle or very attractive. It travels along one axis: the Y. axis. It is decorated striped two alternating shades of yellow: regular dandelion and ghastly. slightly dark yellow. Of all amusement park rides, it is one of the more unrefined and sadistic and base—a gangly middle school bully to pointlessly pick you up and toss you down. of a trip. So I strapped myself in without a second thought. I was strapped in next to boys who kicked off their Nike slides before liftoff.
But Strapped in, feet dangling a thousand feet up,
Riding up and up, feet dangling way above the cement, looking out at the green flat tops of forests in Doswell, Virginia, there’s time to ask why I subjected myself to this. But there isn’t much time. The mechanism unlocks, and we sail—are pulled, accelerating—toward the ground. Hair pushed up to the sky, fingers gripping the seat, yelling like a squirrel’s heart beats. madman waking up from a nightmare Then, the brakes engage. Immediately the yelling stops, and we descend a slow descent. The trick—the simplest story arc—retires is replaced with queasy, shaky legs. I wonder why I’m voluntarily subjecting myself to The Drop Tower. It’s artless but maybe the simplest story arc period in existence. Brief, almost unnecessary exposition, literal rising action which is undone by an intense climax (falling and stopping just shy of the ground), the falling action and conclusion of being released.
Partial beauty of the post office: The man parking his new Lucid Air around parking lot potholes has will have to wait just as long as me for help mailing a package.
Looking out Outside the front window of the Greek Taverna, I see three men smoking and gesticulating at each other. One of them, heavyset and bald with a 7 o’clock shadow, seems Greeker than the others. Pinching it between his thumb and index finger, he points the cigarette to the sky and gestures at it with his other hand as if to say like it’s an equal participant in the conversation a delicate peculiar figurine of a Greek man boy with an equal stake no less of a stake in the conversation.
The window between us has a neon sign of the triangular outline of a cocktail glass followed by BAR. From my side—backwards—it looks like it could says BABY. Or better yet, RABY—as in E. Raby, a boy from high school I can only remember for his very serious relationship and who hardly laughed and left a lot of earwax on my friend’s earbuds.