(Kathleen's birthday, part two.  )


"Daddy," the little girl has her hands folded and is looking up at her father. "When will it stop? I want to get on."

"Soon, Darling," her father assures her.

"I don't think it'll ever stop." The little girl says.

"Sweetie, it'll stop, the ride always stops." Daddy takes her gently by the hand, gently squeezes. "See it's stopping now."


When the carousel slows down but has not quite stopped, Kathleen steps onto the platform and grabs the brass support pole. The momentum of the machine grabs her with a **** onto the ride and into a white horse with big blue eyes. Dropping her cigarette, she takes hold of the pole that goes through the center of the horse. She struggles to put her foot into the stirrup, finds it, and throws her leg over the horse. The carousel music begins to play. The ride trembles and starts with a jolt.

A man is staring at Kathleen. Sitting on the pony has made her short skirt ride well up on her shapely legs, but she is too drunk to care. When the man comes over, she hands him her ticket.

The ticket man goes over to the little girl and her daddy who are sitting in a gold chariot pulled by two red horses.

The little girl looks at her father, and says, "Ooooh, Daddy, I love this."

The man smiles back and strokes his daughter's hair. "So do I."


The heat makes the dizziness that Kathleen is feeling grow worse and as the ride picks up speed, she begins to see two of everything. There are two rows of pinball machines, eight flashing signs, and too many prize machines. The red , blue, and green lights from the ride signs blend together like when a car drives at night down a rain soaked street. She feels the impulse to *****.

"Can we go on again?" The little girl asks.

"But honey the ride isn't over yet."

Kathleen finds that if she concentrates on other things the dizziness and the nausea become less severe. She tries to perceive the images as a montage like the elements that make up a painting or  a life. When she does this, and as she becomes accustom to the movement of the machine, the floating , spinning objects come together. The circling ride creates a cooling breeze and the blurring of lights becomes a beautiful waterfall.

The horses in front are always becoming the horses in the back and the horses in back are always turning into the horses in front. All horses gallop ahead. Settling back into the saddle, she follows them riding her white pony towards the receding waterfall.

You can lose all sense of the clock and who you are and that is alright with Kathleen. That is the way she feels. She has left something behind her. She does not know what, but whatever it is, the merry-go- round will chase it away.

She leans forward to embrace the ride.

Then just as suddenly as the it started, the ride is stopping, the music stops playing.

Kathleen climbs down off the horse as the Merry-go-round is slowing down. She stumbles off the platform and staggers out the door of the amusement park.

"****, *******," Kathleen yells, still too drunk, careening into the railing and almost falling into Wesley Lake.

She walks a few steps, sits down on the curb, hears the carousel music, and knows the ride is starting again, and all the terrible dreams that people do crawls into her like the sounds of a dying animal from its hidden place.

And it all comes up taking her breath away. There is so much of it so she lays down on the grass facing the street of broken buildings full of broken people. From the empty lot of scattered thoughts the Mockingbird is singing and the images shoot off into the dark landscape, exploding for an illuminating moment, only to grow dimmer, light and warmth fading into cold darkness.