I only later found out that my dad was as serious an alcoholic as they came. He needed to go to detox several times when we were children. To his credit, he was clever with his addiction. He only drank when he traveled or when we slept, so … all the time and every night. The only thing that slowed down his drinking was multiple sclerosis.
He was diagnosed when I was about ten and was soon in the hospital for a while since the disease hit like a tidal wave. It started with a tingle in his feet and fingers and grew to complete numbness and pain in his legs. When he finally got out of the hospital, he kind of went back to normal. I didn’t think about his illness and no one brought it up again. I loved my dad, but like any self-obsessed teen, I wasn’t worried with his mortality. Even though I saw him lying in the hospital bed in pain, I still thought of him as invincible. The morning he picked us up to go to Adventureland, I had pirate ship rides on the brain and can’t say I was too concerned about his health.
When we pulled up to the gates of the park, we ran to the high-flying swings and got in line. It was a little chilly, so it wasn’t too busy, which meant that we got to go on the ride two or three times in a row before moving on. I loved those swings because I could pretend I was fearless and twist my chair around and around before they shot up in the air to begin the ride, spinning me high in the sky.
I wanted to beeline to the pirate ship, but Kim wanted to go on the big scary roller coaster. We had all day, so I said fine, even though roller coasters brought me zero joy. Being jolted around and the yelling and the possibility of dying didn’t – and still doesn’t – do it for me. I hated creeping up the hill at a painfully slow pace only to shoot down and hear the screams of all the people filled with regret for coming aboard. But Kim liked them. And I liked Kim. And since I was the big sister, I wanted her to always think I was brave, so I pretended it was no big deal and got in line.
But to be honest, I also wanted to wow my dad. He knew I was a complete chickenshit, and I thought he might notice and say something like “Hey, Amy … you going on that ride was very cool and interesting.” He loved things like skydiving, which I eventually did when I was older, also to try to impress him, even though I hated every single second of it. So there we stood in a long line that felt like it was moving too fast. I hunched over a bit, hoping I wouldn’t meet the height requirement for the ride, but no such luck. I continued to hope that the roller coaster would close down for the day right before we got up to the front, or that there would be a lockdown on the park for a missing kid. There were thousands of kids there. Couldn’t just one of them get lost? But alas, no, we were next.
“Do you want to sit in the front car?” the six-year-old-looking kid operating the ride asked us.
“YES!” Kim yelled.
I looked at my dad, who was giving me a most-likely-sarcastic thumbs-up. “Yeah,” I added, even though Kim had already hopped in the front.
“I’ll be watching you girls!” he said ecstatically.
We waved to my dad as we started creeping up Suicide Mountain, or whatever the roller coaster was called.
I don’t remember much of the next two minutes, but finally the car stopped and I opened my eyes. The only silver lining was that I didn’t get physically hurt, and it was a great way to practice dissociating – something my siblings and I all perfected by our early teen years. We climbed off, and Kim was thrilled. She’d had the time of her life.
I can’t speak for the other maniacs on that ride, but for me, the roller coaster was traumatic. When I walked down that ramp I felt as though the president should have been at the bottom waiting to give me a medal for valor. But there was no medal; just my dad, smiling at us.
“There’s no line!” Kim shouted. “Let’s go again!”
And so we went, and we went and we went. Each time my dad cheered us on from the bottom. We must have ridden that thing five times when we reached the end of the ride and he wasn’t there.
“Where’s Dad?” Kim asked.
I told her, “He’s probably getting us candy or something.”
While we waited for him, we rode the ride again and again and again. After the twelfth go I was feeling real ready to get on that pirate ship, which was the main adventure I wanted to have in this land. Kim was raring to go again, but I had to stop. I thought it might be nice to take a break and maybe have kids someday, and I was sure Dad would meet us when he was done doing … What was he doing?
At that point in time, I hadn’t yet realized how funny my dad is. Most of the things he did or said flew right over my head, and everyone else’s for that matter. His sense of humor was so dry that days would pass before people realized he’d insulted them. He threw out perfect one-liners under his breath while talking to waiters or bankers or my mom – and no one heard them but me. Once my grandma was talking to him, and she said, “If I die …,” and he corrected her slyly: “When …” He was even dark with us as children. I remember walking into the kitchen one time and seeing him pretending that I had just caught him in the act of putting our dog, Muffin, in the microwave. He had a way about him that made it seem like nothing could ruffle his feathers or surprise him.
So that day while Kim and I sat on a bench and waited for my father, I saw a new side of him. We waited and waited. I put stupid braids in Kim’s hair and made her give me a hand massage until he finally reappeared. When he walked up to us, the first thing I noticed was his expression; he was panicked and defeated at the same time. The second thing I noticed was that he didn’t have pants on.
Kim didn’t observe any of this because she immediately asked, “Can we get fudge?!”
“Sure,” my dad answered.
He and I looked at each other. I was speechless. His T-shirt, which was soaking wet along the bottom half, was long enough to cover his underwear, but his pants were long gone.
“We need to go, Aim,” he told me very calmly.
I thought about asking something reasonable, like “Where are your pants, Dad?” But he looked in my eyes and communicated that I shouldn’t ask any questions. I went into the country-store-themed shop and got Kim her fudge, and then we all walked briskly to the car. I didn’t look to see if anyone was staring. I only watched ten-year-old Kim, who was fully enthralled by every bite of her treat. Does she really not see that he’s pantsless? I know it’s called Adventureland but I don’t think those adventures involve men over forty dressing like Winnie the Pooh after a wet T-shirt contest.
We’d just gotten very close to the car when a breeze hit and sent the smell my way. It was shit. Human shit.
It was then I realized, Oh, my dad shit his pants. Okay. I quickly leveraged this opportunity to look like a selfless and charitable sister. “You can get shotgun this time, Kimmy!” I was quick on my feet.
“Really?!” she answered. She was so excited to get this privilege that it kind of broke my heart. Amusement park fudge AND shotgun? She couldn’t believe her luck. Little did she know she wouldn’t be able to enjoy eating that fudge for much longer, or possibly ever again.
We climbed in the car, me in the back, Kim up front with my dad. As he put down the top, I looked in the side mirror and saw Kim’s nostrils start to flare. She’d picked up the scent. The most silent car ride of my life began. The fudge sat in Kim’s lap for the rest of the ride and her head slowly crept further and further in the direction away from my dad. The entire top was down on the car, but she still felt the need to hang her little head out the side. She looked like a golden retriever by the time my dad pulled up to our house to drop us off.
I was so impressed with her for not saying anything. What a good girl, I thought. She kissed my