The Rotunda

It was saturday night and the boardwalk was crowded. Waves of teenagers and families weaved between each other under the lamp light and flashing strobes from the novelty shops. The smell of hot dogs and grease perfumed the salty air. The sound of the sighing waves was barely heard above the din of carnival music and various catcalls from teenage boys. It was their last day of vacation and they planned on drinking heavily to celebrate. It was their first family vacation. It was Ray's first vacation in the states.

Ray is a very short man. He wears his long, black hair in a pony tail and walks with a lunging, nearly exaggerated gait. His wife, Bethany, is a tall Irish woman and it goes without saying they're a very peculiar couple to look at. They strolled down the boardwalk, Ray's arm around her waist, his head at her shoulders. The two children, Edwardo and Cleo, were following close behind and Ray often turned to check on them. Cleo was working her way to the center of a bundle of cotton candy and Edwardo looked around him at all of the faces and his face became one of astonishment.

They walked in silence smiling at one another and after a while they stopped to buy a liter of coke. Ray disappeared walked down the stairs to the beach and poured a flask of whiskey into the plastic liter of coke and returned smiling. He handed it to Bethany and they continued walking, passing the whiskey and coke between them. Edwardo would often pull at his fathers shirt and Ray would turn and Edwardo would point at something and Ray would smile and nod and gaze up at the object with less amazement.

Bethany worked for a cleaning company and she worked long hours. She would leave the house at eight and not return until nine at night. Ray worked at a restaurant but didn't make much. Bethany was thinking as she was walking with her husband of how unplanned her life had been. She had set things up. She had wanted to be a singer. And she had a beautiful voice. But karaoke was as far as she had gotten. And she had married once and divorced. And when she met Ray she knew she loved him and so the kids came and they needed to be cared for. So here she was, tired but content, happy to be drinking the whiskey and coke and strolling amongst the crowds and lights and smells. And when she turned to look at her children she felt a completeness, a cool breeze that passed through her mind and eased her troubles and eased her anxieties about the envelopes that piled on the kitchen table.

Edwardo pulled on his father's shirt again and Ray turned around and little Edwardo was pointing to a glistening rotunda that spun a circle of swings round at an angle. Mirrors on the frame of the rotunda shown bright in the night and sparkled and beckoned little Edwardo and as he yanked on his father's shirt he slowly pulled him toward the swings. When the mirrored structure caught Cleo's eye she jumped up and squealed and clapped her hands and she begged to ride it.

Please mommy, please let us ride it.

Bethany looked at Ray and he fished out his wallet and he opened it and there were a few folds of bills and he pulled out a ten dollar bill and Bethany smiled and they walked toward the spinning swings and as they neared the screams of children echoed and disappeared as they approached and swung back toward the night sky.

They bought two tokens and handed them to Edwardo and Cleo whose little palms grasped the pyrite coins with three balloons engraved. The children waited in line and followed the riders on each trip around the rotunda. They were mesmerized and thoughtless in a way that Bethany and Ray could never be and one day they too would lose this magic. Ray thought of the five dollars he had spent and how they might not have enough gas to make it back home and navigated in his mind the most efficient route.

A man in a striped suit rang a bell and a wave of children unfastened themselves and ran off the platform with searching eyes, looking for their parents. Another bell rang and Edwardo and Cleo ran onto the platform and sat at adjacent swings. They gripped the chrome handles and felt the sweat of the previous riders and then were fastened with a leather strap by the man in the suit. The swings raised and it was as if the floor had dropped out from under them and Cleo looked at Edwardo who appeared nervous and maybe as if he were about to cry. But soon the swings began to pick up momentum and as they spun their weight tilted them a bit and they smiled and looked at one another and then out at the turning world.

The night was split into two worlds, the ocean and the lights. And as they turned to the ocean the stars shown bright and they could make out the crests of the waves as the rolled sideways upon the shore. Then the lights and the crowds appeared and they attempted to make out their parents but they could not. They swung and thought of nothing but the swinging and turning and the night sky and the lights.

Ray stood and absently stared at the spinning rotunda and thought of his money. When he'd left Pittsburgh his wallet was thick with two weeks worth of pay and he slowly peeled each bill out and with each bill his anxieties strengthened. And now with the whiskey in his blood the world seemed to tilt and he became angry. He looked at his wife and felt nothing but disdain. He accused her of spending the money.

I spent the money, she said. We spent it.

I wouldn't have spent it, he said, but you kept pressing me.

Ray, this is our first vacation. Why don't we try and make it a memorable one. Let's not worry about money. We'll worry about money when we're back home.

Look at this, he said. He pulled out his wallet and pinched it open for her to look inside.  This was full when we left and now we have almost nothing. Nada.

I don't know what you want me to say, she said.

Don't say anything, just keep you little mouth shut.

Bethany shuttered at this and she had seen Ray drunk and angry before but he was never angry with her. He was angry with work, he was angry with his family back home. He was angry with himself, and sometimes with the children. But never her. He cherished her in the way a tender idol is cherished.

The bell rang and the children ran off the platform and Edwardo and Cleo came running toward their parents. Edwardo looked a little sick but he was still smiling and Cleo was yelling to her parents, once more, once more.

But Ray decided they were going back to the hotel. Bethany didn't argue. Edwardo begged to stay but Ray shot him a glance and Edwardo knew immediately what it entailed and he closed his mouth and looked straight ahead.

The hotel was small and had a musty smell and there were a number of dead insects in the lobby that laid on their backs as if their death's were painful and slow. There were two beds and the children shared one. Ray put the television on the entertain them. Bethany was in the bathroom and Ray sat on the bed and poured the remaining whiskey into a plastic cup and stared at the television absently. A cartoon train smiled and seemed to taunt him. Ray cursed the train.

The children fell asleep quickly and Ray became very drunk and his cheeks were red and sweat accumulated on his forehead. Bethany walked into the bedroom and looked at him neutrally, knowingly. She wore a pink dress that fell upon her freckled breasts and Ray looked at her and grabbed at her arm. She turned to him and delivered a look that told him no. He pulled harder. She resisted and stumbled backward against the wall. Edwardo woke and cried out and Ray quickly stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Outside a few cars rolled down a flat stretch of pavement and shown their headlights on the abandoned buildings and cheap motels that populated the district. His poverty seemed to him boundless, as if he were clouded by a mist of poverty that stretched out and faded around him. He felt his nearly empty wallet. He smelled the night and it was rancid. A haughty girl in a halter top grazed the parking lot with her hands on her hips. She shook her hips and Ray followed her motions and knew he couldn't have her for his poverty. But he wanted her. He wanted wealth and he wanted his children to go to school but he could promise them nothing. All he had was his wife and his children and his family back home who had probably disowned him. The night was lifeless and raw and the stars had a bite to them and he felt a mean emptiness wringing in his blood and he turned to reenter the room.

When he walked inside the lights were out and the children and his wife were sleeping. He stood over his children and admired their peacefulness. Their skin was soft and he wished to stroke it but he did not. He turned to his wife whom he detested in a way he hadn't known. He stood before her and he felt her the source of all of his troubles. He thought maybe she'd been stealing his money. And that maybe she was planning on leaving him with the children. And he imagined himself alone and without his Cleo and without his Edwardo and his blood boiled and as she slept he lunged forward and grasped at her neck and he slapped her. She awoke and he wrapped his muscular hands around her neck and she tried to scream but no sound came. She grabbed at his wrist but his grip was tight and she could feel her breath stopped.

She began to cry and he saw a tear run down her cheek and he suddenly came to and he knew then what he had done and he backed away. He stepped outside and her heard her on the phone. He hurried inside and told her if the cops came she'd never see him again because they'd have him sent back home to Mexico. She fumbled with the phone and she realized that he was not wrong and suddenly they were together again. She told him that he had to leave. He said he could not, that he should be punished for what he had done. She felt the warmth on her neck. But she sent him out of the room and he fled with nothing but his clothes and he ran down the long stretch of road that stunk with poverty and his slender, dark figure disappeared into the dark woods that silently lined the road.

This week's Indie Ink Challenge came from Carrie, who gave me this prompt: He thought it was love. That thinking was clearly flawed. I challenged Carrie with the prompt: Write a story about a teenage boy who is struggling with the possibility of being gay. .