ABOUT LAST WEEKEND EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CYCLONE

(Before getting started, I should point out that this may be my last post in a while, since K. and I are taking a road trip to California on Saturday.

Until I return, feel free to browse my other site, reellifeallaboutmymovies.blogspot.com/, where my thoughts on Sin City are posted. Happy Passover! I promise to write about the trip when I get back.

Coming soon: ABOUT LAST WEEKEND EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE ROADSIDE DINER FOOD!)

Sometimes, I think my life is pretty mundane. It’s times like these where I’m fortunate to have someone as cool as K. to share my existence with.

Granted, K. didn’t actually force me to go with her on The Cyclone, a.k.a. the Thrill Ride With More Plunges Than a Survey of Necklines on the Oscar Night Red Carpet. But what can I say? When you’re with someone like K., who makes fun look like so much… fun, you inevitably find yourself in situations like the Rickety Wooden Roller Coaster from Hell. Something of an r. c. aficionado, K. seemed genuinely impressed by Coney Island’s non-hot dog-related claim to notoriety. Me, I’m just proud I managed to endure nose-dives at freight train speed without wetting myself or injuring my vocal folds screaming like a little girl.

I didn’t expect death-defying thrills when I got out of bed that morning. Had a weekend gig sorting paper at a law firm in Rockefeller Center. It was supposed to keep me occupied until late into the night, which meant I wouldn’t be able to hang with K. She, meanwhile, wanted to use her sister’s car, which we borrowed last time we were in Maryland. A black Toyota Corolla, it sat parked in the driveway of the "X" family estate.

So K., her roommate C., and her roommate’s pal S., took a bus into the bowels of Brooklyn to fetch said vehicle. Around this time, I was returning from a mid-day break, ready to continue sorting paper, when the attorney informed us that he was fatigued and would be going home. He suggested we do the same. Before I knew what had happened, my feet were hitting pavement. I called K. to let her know.

Who can predict the dramatic ramifications of a moment’s action? How was I to know that, by telling K. I was getting out of work early, I unknowingly set the gears turning for the machinery of my own kidnapping? I got out of the subway at Avenue U, and was minding my own business, when from out of nowhere came the black Toyota Corolla, affectionate girlfriend behind the wheel. Next thing I knew, the brisk Coney Island Avenue wind was whipping through my hair as I sat seatbelted in the back. I resigned myself to my fate, and simply "went along for the ride," as the saying goes.

After eating famous Nathan’s hot dogs on the Coney Island boardwalk, K. sought out the much-reputed Cyclone. She did not seem the least put-off by the constant screaming that reverbated from passengers already engaged in the ups-and-downs of the aforementioned amusement ride. C. and S. were likewise interested. As for me, I continued an already-established pattern of behavior and "went along for the ride." Next thing I knew, I was ascending a steep wooden track inside a coffin-shaped wooden toboggan. From the highest point of the summit, I could see my house in the distance. Before I could mention it, however, the car seemed to drop out from under me with all the force of an elevator car suddenly snapped from its hooks. For the next few minutes, I found myself the wide-eyed, clench-jawed, white-knuckled prisoner of the Cyclone. Oh, that cruel mistress!

The experience was harrowing. It was terrifying. I prayed for God to smite me rather than endure another precipitous dip, or another hairpin turn on what I feared were unstable tracks. The ride went on forever. When it was finally over, of course, my immediate instinct was to turn to K., who had been seated beside me all along, and ask, "You wanna go again?"

Must be Stockholm Syndrome. Or maybe all the fun K. was having simply got to me. She's contagious, after all, so situations like these are inevitable.

* * *
So we left Coney Island, and took a drive to a nearby abandoned airfield. I won’t mention the airfield by name. Anyone with a Brooklyn map, however, can probably figure out which one it is.
Now, the airfield isn’t exactly open to the public, so K., C., S., and I walked around the wooden fence that had been erected outside the site, looking for a way in. Eventually, we found loose boards at different spots and took turns sneaking inside. Imagine having a recently, though not vigorously, bombed-out city for a playground! That’s what it was like cavorting in and about the discarded hangars.

We ran through large, vacant rooms that once housed airplances. There were deep fissures in the concrete ground, and rusty skeletons of staircases to ascend. We trollied about on the clean, flat floor of one hangar on a cart that had been left behind. We hurled bricks at windows. The windows broke, dribbling bits of glass through wire mesh. C. and S. found rolls of left behind caution tape, and took them home as souvenirs. K. and I took home metal signs from the south side of the hangar, a room with giant pipes and huge caps that might have weighed thirty pounds or more each. The signs hung from wire. K. undid the knots with her most dexterous fingers.

The only tense moment, for me anyway, was watching K. climb a ladder that ran two stories up to the roof of the hangar’s east side. By the time she reached the top of the ladder, she looked so small against the roof’s metal sheeting. I watched the shadows of her shoes through cracks of light in the ceiling, and felt fixed to the spot with worry until K. climbed down again.

Running back across the airfield from the north to the south side, we found some heavy nuts on the ground. A single nut left an impressive mark in the windows. We could have spent another hour just hurling those bits of metal at the windows. But I saw a white truck with lights on its roof through a part of the fence made of wire mesh. The truck had lights on its roof, which gave its inhabitants an air of officialdom. We ran to the nearest hole in the fence and escaped. Rather than sneak back in to the airfield after the truck drove away, we ran to the adjacent field, and tormented geese. Soon after, it became dark, so we went home. Thus ended one of the most fun afternoons in recent memory.