In Joyland; Out Joyland

Around 1987, my 2 younger brothers, older step brother and step sister, step aunt, father, step mother and I (aged 12) piled into the family Suburban.  My father popped the hood of the industrial vehicle in the daily ceremony to start the car, spraying ether ritualistically into the intake before our jaunt from Levelland to Lubbock, Texas.  Our almost monthly trips to Joyland, a modest amusement park and carnival-esque food haven for us overeating children, were as customary and necessary as the tedious steps our father took to start the vehicle that could carry his feisty cargo.  If we didn't go, the parents would be subjected to an almost daily barrage of questions as to why we hadn't made our way to the only respite we could get from one another.  The park was small enough that we couldn't get lost, but large enough that we could put some much needed space between ourselves.  It was a family park that lent itself to us being able to deny that we had any family, at all.

As we arrived, everyone split up vowing that we wouldn't encroach on the other's space and style.  If one sibling was in line for a ride, we would walk away to find another, not wanting to disturb the other's good time, and, surely, not wanting to disrupt our own.

I ran directly to the Mad Mouse, a big kid's roller coaster, as I had discovered earlier in the summer that I had reached the required 4 foot height limit to ride alone without having to convince any parental figure to ride it with me multiple times.  I spent much of the day toggling between this seemingly monstrous attraction and the food court, packing in as many carbs and fats as I did time on my favorite ride.

As the night progressed, I checked my Swatch and realized it was time to go.  After a few extra rides on the Mad Mouse, I finally relinquished and strode heavily toward the front gates.  Standing in the shade of night, sun-kissed and worn, my father held my youngest brother (aged 5) to his chest, eagerly awaiting everyone to return.

We anxiously bounced into the Suburban, the remaining siblings still awake and excitable, sharing animated stories full of onomatopoeia about zipping corners, twirling heights and how the oldest step brother met some girls from Smyer, a nearby town.  In the chaos, we, near unanimously, decided to go to get pizza before leaving Lubbock; an unknowing decision that the pizza joint would come to regret.

As we arrived, the youngest of us roused awake, lazily pronouncing "I don't wanna go in."  My father told David we'd put some chairs together so he could get his much needed rest, a service he stayed true to.  Stretched out like a canvas, David was fast asleep again before our drinks arrived in the otherwise empty restaurant.

Just older than him, Jason (aged 7) was the first to spill his drink, part of it leaking on the unshakable sleeping child to his right.  4 drinks reached the floor that night, each one receiving an exponentially less pleasant response from our obviously annoyed waitress.  Still, the worst of the spills would seem humbling in comparison to our finale.

As the pizza arrived, another drink was spilled and a wobbly table took a fall, dumping the contents of a condiment basket toward the young David.  As he awoke, upset, our father sent him to the restroom to clean up a little.  The four year-old shuffled away, miffed, but in surprisingly good spirits about the ordeal.

As was typical of a post Joyland excursion, Laughter, nonsense, stories and tiffs flew about in a sort of bedlam that only the Johnson family could provide.  As we all wound down some 20 minutes later, I finally asked "Where is David?"  My father perked up and said "Oh, shit.  I hope he's still in the bathroom."  As he got up, his wife of only a few years exclaimed "Well, that's what people DO in the bathroom!" eliciting guffaws from her raucous pack.

Our father walked into the restroom as we continued to talk through full mouths.  Finally accepting that we were no longer at Joyland, the conversation had progressed to discussions of what we'd do the next time we were there.  Suddenly, my father appeared from nowhere over my shoulder and whispered harshly "Pack up everything to go, throw everyone in the car...  We have to get the hell out of here."  His sudden arrival and insistence in my ear startled me, causing the fourth and final spill of the evening.

"What's wrong?" asked almost everyone in unison.

My father, in a mix of anxiety, humor and seriousness shakily reported "He shit everywhere.  It's in the sink, on the walls, and...  I don't know how, but it's on the ceiling."  After a short pause, with cartoonist's timing, the laughter hit an unlikely peak as our family shared a rare moment of universal euphoria.  My father backed away, somewhat laughing, but still incredibly serious pleading "Seriously.  Get boxes so we can get the fuck out."

Instead of asking for boxes, my step mother went to pay while us kids stacked a few slices and moved our dinner to the car.  As we walked away, the final drops of my soda were finding their way onto the floor.  We clamored in, my step mother in tow with things she had gathered from the table laughing mercilessly in a mix of embarrassment and perverse glee.

Finally, our father comes out of the restaurant, gagging and holding my brownish-green stained baby brother much farther away than I had seen him coddling the young one earlier, as though he were a bag full of rotten apples swarmed by angry bees, screaming "Open the back! Open the back!"  David was quickly dispatched of and shuttered into the Suburban's small trunk-ish area.  The smell quickly pervaded the interior as we all started to well up with vomit screaming for the windows to be open, an urgency that can't be overstated.  The half-hour drive sweltered with the putrid olfactory offending feeling of a full day in a cow pasture.

When we pulled up to the house, everyone eagerly pummeled one another in a desperate attempt to be the first away from the horror.  The poo-covered pariah lay, crying coolly, in the back; abandoned and unwanted.  He slowly slithered through the back window and was escorted to the bathroom leaving my step aunt with the task of cleaning the back of the suburban.  Our step mother, still snickering, guided him carefully to the tub where she hosed him off and allowed him to regale her with the sordid series of events that led to the sickening mess our father had witnessed.

Here is what happened...

One would be tempted to state that David was a rather large child, but that would be untrue.  For the sake of saving him from any further embarrassment, let us state this in as kind a manner as can be allowed...

As David arrived into the restroom to clean himself of the bits of cheese and red pepper flakes, he found he also had another problem.  To be blunt; David had diarrhea.  He turned his attention toward the stall only to find that a child before him had locked the door then crawled out underneath the door.  Not being able to squeeze himself through the bottom side of the door, and running out of time, he went with his only immediate option and sat in the urinal.  Once his deed was done, he made the mistake of trying to flush the contents, causing the receptacle to overflow onto the floor.  Knowing that he had to get rid of the evidence, he began to take handfuls of his amusement park sauce and throw it into the sink.  Now, filthy to the elbows, he turned the sink on with his dirty little hands only to have the same problem as before, a sink that wouldn't drain.  Ever so resourceful, he decided in all of his Kindergarten wisdom that he had to get his Lady MacBeth sized mess cleaned, properly.  In his panicked logic he decided he needed to get the poo into the stall toilet where it belonged.  He quickly started grabbing handfuls and tossing them over the stall door in the hopes that he would somehow be lucky enough to get most of it into his unseen target.  After a bit of time, he began to retrieve paper towels (making a mess of the dispenser) and wiping up what he could and throwing the contents into the trash.  Only then did he realize that he should have started the whole ordeal by just going directly in the trashcan.

Our father entered with an urgent flair, worried that he would open the doors to find that David had wandered outside and had been taken away.  His relief to find his youngest standing wide-eyed in the bathroom returned to worry just as swallows return to Capistrano, flitting in gently until fully amassed.  He slowly took in the caliber of the disaster, still standing stiff just inside the door.  Softly, with a quizzical look on his face he whispered to the frozen-faced feces covered child "Was it the hot dog that we shared?..."

Poor Old Michael Finnegan

At the risk of beginning a blog that could have no end, I must admit that there are a finite number of childhood events that I can recall.  Luckily, for you, those moments are numerous.  That which I am able to summon from the syntax woven into this warbled brain of mine shall be shared out; warts and all.  I make no apologies for the extreme mistreatment that my brothers and I (and the villainous father figure), along with our numerous cousins, inflicted on one another.  We were horrible children.  This blog is meant to explain our behavior, not to excuse it.  These tales of horror and humor are meant to be enjoyed, thought about and shared; not to be emulated.  That said...

There once was a boy named Randall Johnson...