FLASH NONFICTION
Peter Pan, Pyramids, Planetariums, Mashed Purple Sweet Potatoes, Kings of Pop: Yesterday, A Strange and Surreal DayTHE DEEP SOUTH 25 June 2009 |
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My wife and I make a pass through the Adventure Science Museum for a new Planetarium show.
"Let's climb the pyramid first," I tell her, bouncing a bit on my toes.
"Baby it's 4:15, we only have a few minutes."
"We have time!" I say bounding up the first flight of stairs.
The Pyramid is ten or so ascending levels of tubes and rails and ropes to climb. At the apex it's Plexiglas cone juts through the ceiling into the Nashville sky.
There is a break at the mouth of the big blue slide where the passages get progressively smaller and more difficult to maneuver. "All the way to the top!" I exclaim.
"It's 4:20 love. Ugh, it's going to be so hot up there." My wife smiles when she says this because my fists are pumping and I am jumping up and down a little.
The scaling is tight, squeezing in and out holes in the floor, up the steel ladder and through the half moons of plastic to the slim platform that overlooks the city.
I pull myself up through the last veranda and there is a little girl, maybe five years old, in a pink dress and white sneakers sitting in the very top. I wait because there is only room for two up there and I don't want to frighten her.
"No rush sweetie," I say. "Stay there."
She hesitates and I notice tears rolling down her cheeks. "I'm stuck," she sniffles. "I can't get down."
I check for my wife's position, thirty or so seconds behind. I look towards the skyline and act as if I don't hear the kid. It's awkward. I don't want to seem like a predator or a pedophile but I understand that when a fully-grown man with no children romps through the soft play of the science museum there may be concerns.
"Can you help me get down?" The little girl's voice breaks, on the verge of sobbing. My wife is hung up, wrestling her bag from the rungs of a ladder.
"Hey there," I say to the child, in my most kid-friendly former skating rink employee voice. "Don't worry, we'll get you down OK."
I climb up to the crow's nest. She reaches for me and clings tightly as I carry her down. Over the railing I see women watching us from the platform far below, looks of concern on their faces. Sissy pops through the hole into view. I hand the girl off to my wife and she takes her to solid ground. The kid gives thanks and scampers away.
"It's 4:26 love," my spouse says. "We've got four minutes til the show."
"Then we should take the slide," I tell her.
"Oh sure," she replies.
"When you get out of school I am so putting one of these in our house."
"Oh sure," she says, slipping me a quick kiss before she slides down.
The Planetarium is cold and dark, a splendid place to spend a summer afternoon but the show makes me dizzy. Afterward we go to Whole Foods Deli. My wife's favorite place. Chimichuri Chicken Kabobs, Harvest Couscous. Mac and Cheese.
A sprightly septuagenarian in yoga clothes and silver knots of hair on each side of her head stops me as I'm spooning mashed purple sweet potatoes onto my plate.
"Dearest," she says, brushing her hand down my sleeve. "Michael Jackson has passed."
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Related Posts |
Original comment thread below:
James Michael Blaine
I Am the World, I Am the Children: Yesterday, A Surreal & Strange Day
June 26th, 2009
by James Michael Blaine
Comment by Simon Smithson |Edit This
2009-06-26 10:43:06
Slides. God’s way of saying that everything, everything, will be OK.
You found out about Michael Jackson at the Planetarium? It seems like there should be some kind of meaning in that. I don’t know what it is, though.
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Comment by Lenore |Edit This
2009-06-26 11:58:50
i love that you were concerned about appearing to be a pedophile. it also says something about the state of hysteria we live in.
you’re such a nice man.
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Comment by jmblaine |Edit This
2009-06-26 13:46:36
Within the best of us
also lies the worst
Within the worst
also the best.
Judge none
love all
lovelenorelove
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Comment by Marni Grossman |Edit This
2009-06-26 20:30:16
True that. You are a nice man.
And a wonderful writer.
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Comment by jmb |Edit This
2009-06-27 08:43:32
I’m a horse’s ass
masquerading as a
humanitarian.
In that new picture you look a
little like
Lenore.
Are you Lenore?
(Comments wont nest below this level)
Reply here
Comment by Ducky |Edit This
2009-06-26 13:22:04
In some NY parks, grown-ups without children aren’t even allowed inside the park. A cop threatened to ticket me once in Chelsea. Is it paranoia, or are there really that many pedophiles lurking about? And isn’t this some sort of age discrimination? Shouldn’t adults be allowed the right to swing in public spaces? (Providing we’re fully clothed.)
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Comment by jmblaine |Edit This
2009-06-26 13:51:46
I don’t know man - that’s probably a good rule.
I don’t go without my wife or a niece or nephew.
I think in Chelsea the adults swing
at Rawhide.
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Comment by jmblaine |Edit This
2009-06-26 13:42:58
Back in the debriefing class I took they told us that when celebrities pass, the people need to process the contributions they made to that era.
I never was a Michael Jackson fan.
As a DJ I always thought his beats were a little soft for the dance floor, I started doing parties in eighth grade but most of his good stuff had already passed and gone.
Even in doing 80’s themed parties MJ never really went over well. I recall one awhile back, I slipped in PYT, because I do love the song- though not as much as Dirty Diana, State of Shock, Rockin’ Robin or anything from Off the Wall - and the response was a tepid sort of jokey/irony haha. No one danced, you could tell soon as the beat hit it was soft and echoed the space, the room bristled. One fool in the balcony held his arms over the rail mocking like he was baby dangling. I quickly mixed into “Humpin’ Around’ and the floor filled back up again.
Still, as a lover of the bizarre, there was much to fascinate about this strange creature who morphed into a wounded alien. How strange that someone like him could die. How strange that he lived this long.
In the end though, it makes you consider your own mortality.
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Comment by Becky |Edit This
2009-06-27 04:17:34
Is it strange that I get a weird, self-congratulatory feeling whenever I help a stranger’s child?
I mean, maybe I just hate feeling good, but whenever I do something like that, I get this sort of boy/girl scout sense of self-satisfaction, then I recognize that it IS self-satisfaction, and while I’m happy that I have helped a child, I can’t get past the realization that every time, I immediately become internally smug. Then I’m sort of disappointed in myself.
It’s a very odd feeling.
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Comment by jmb |Edit This
2009-06-27 08:44:34
that’s it
exactly!
what a conflict.
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Comment by Irene Zion |Edit This
2009-06-27 05:08:03
James Michael Blaine,
This is the most beautiful story.
Your afternoon was filled to the brim.
fun
fear
uncertainty
heroism
fun
food
an angel gently touching your back
to let you know something shocking
in a soft
quiet
way
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Comment by jmb |Edit This
2009-06-27 08:47:09
Irene,
you have a knack
for making everything
make better sense.
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Comment by Erika Rae |Edit This
2009-06-28 21:27:09
Many years from now, people will ask, “Where were you when you heard that Michael Jackson had died?” And you will answer, “At the end of a long, pale blue crackly slide.” They will look at you, full of wonder.
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Comment by jmblaine |Edit This
2009-06-29 11:57:06
Thesis: We create our own Neverland.
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Comment by josie |Edit This
2009-06-29 09:03:16
I got a text from someone asking me to check online to see if what he heard on the radio was true…. ….because the internet is far more reliable than the news apparently.
When you guys put in your slide I hope airline tickets are on sale cuz we are so gonna have a TNB party at your place… dirty socks the lot of us.
Michael would have really dug this blog.
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Comment by jmblaine |Edit This
2009-06-29 11:56:03
Hee
hee!
Directors commentary: I really debated posting this to TNB because I had already wrote a story about the big blue slide and my wife and I felt it was - I don’t know- jumping on the bandwagon. Still, the guy was an icon for my generation and we all had to try to find a voice that expressed the strange feelings we had. An old friend reminded me that we were both Peter Pans, trying to cope with the hard-ass reality of growing up. True enough.