If You Want It Bad Enough You'll Kill It

It was summer. It was summer, and it was night, and it was warm and humid. It was summer, and it was the night of the fair, and I stood in line for the Ferris wheel. Finally.

I was brave enough, now, and Mom said I was big enough. (Dad said he didn't give a damn one way or the other, but he said that about everything except another drink and another woman.) This was a big deal for me, because I was scared of heights--so terribly scared of heights that I cried when my mom took my on the kiddie rollercoaster the previous summer. Now I was old enough, though, and tough enough, like my big brother who did this stuff without even thinking about it. It was a private rite of passage from little kid to big boy.

It was summer, and the night was still warm, and the little carnival smelled heady with buttery popcorn and beer. The ground was littered with wax-lined Pepsi cups and paper hot dog napkins. The Ferris wheel was right in the middle of everything, bright and tall and majestic. A hundred yards to the left, the lights died away, the movable steel barriers just shadowy suggestions, and it was just normal road again, dimming into the neighborhood. To the right was the firehouse and the city playground, transformed by the night into one more alluring dark mystery. The bingo announcer droned in his tent, and some third-rate band banged out something tolerable to the grown-ups who were getting pretty deep in their cups by then. And the Ferris wheel, with its bold height, stood haughtily in the center of it all.

I shifted from foot to foot with nervous excitement, my ticket in hand--the last ticket of the night, Mom said, we can't afford any more. The line moved forward, and I jittered and fidgeted and grinned, looked around and didn't see Mom or Dad and felt a thrill because of it--unsupervised; a big boy. Just one more wave of people now, I thought; when wheel stops, I'll get on and just sit there looking bored and tough, like my brother. I took a deep breath and took a step forward with the big boys…

I looked down at the ticket in my hand, having rubber-necked everyplace else possible. I looked, and I stopped jittering, stopped dreaming. I stopped moving forward with the line. I stared in my hands at a mess of tiny, sweaty pieces of cheap card stock that had been my ticket. As I had jittered and watched and grinned, I fidgeted hands until I had unconsciously torn my ticket up completely. My shoulders slumped, and I stepped out of line as others flowed impatiently around me. I watched my brother and his friends laughing and pushing each other as they got in the little cages, rocking the car until the ride attendant yelled at them. The wheel began to turn, and up they went, my brother and the big boys. I stepped out of the line and watched him from the ground with the rest of the little kids, trying so hard not to cry in the warm summer night.