The Happiest Place to Work
Behind the large walls separating guests from team members, we sit on an iron bench gorging on warm soda and stale fries we suspect are from yesterday. We watch as Betty Boop removes her head to take a drag from a cigarette. A zombie strips down to his underwear, unconcerned that he’s in the cafeteria or that his bloody paint is staining the benches. We gawk at the zombie’s muscle definition, slick from the humidity, and wonder what it’s like to so bold. Our clothes cling to our skin too, but instead of toned figures we are soft, slumped shouldered, with unflattering pleated pants that sinch over the bellybutton.
Entertainment always acts like they’re better than us. Parading around backstage with their wigs, and electrical dresses, and pay incentives. They may have respect and a break room that doesn’t have leaky toilets but damnit, we have heart. And when entertainment finally gives us any attention we tell them so. We tell them about our teamwork when they fuck us behind their break room. We say how we are the true backbone of the company as we return to work wet between the legs. We claim we’re better than they are, as we audition for the new show. We listen to their lies, until we believe they’re just like us.
When we see them in the next parade, they pretend we don’t exist. We watch them as their muscles catch the sun and glitter from body paint. Their long legs kick in time to music, and we pretend we aren’t watching.
All while remembering the way those legs had wrapped around us.
**
Summer is the worst season. The heat claws at our skin until it feels like fire. Bodies cram beside bodies until it becomes an unending sea of sweaty people waddling to get to the next attraction. Our anthem is screaming children and music looped until our speech matches the tempo.
We empty garbage bags that have become a warm soup of turkey legs and butterscotch milk. Old diapers. Beer cans. The sun bakes them until the smell is so potent, we swear it could kill. Packs of teenagers emerge in the afternoons, high on the freedom summer and weed brings; teenagers that refuse to listen when we shout, YOU ARE IN SINGLE RIDER LINE YOU CAN’T SIT TOGETHER.
If we’re lucky sometimes there is vomit, too. This only happens when the projector loosens and blurs, so guests are subjected to five minutes of nauseating hell. We laugh when the first person stumbles from the ride and heaves over-priced food into the trash can. Its less amusing when the seventh person does it.
On special days we get an exorcism by way of puking. A guest who didn’t heed the warnings (May Cause Motion Sickness) somehow propels their vomit, coating all the seats and other guests or – worst of all – the conveyor belt that can only be cleaned by hand because God forbid if we use sawdust on electrical equipment.
The thin plastic gloves do little in protecting our hands from the warm clumps of poorly digested food. We retch with a smile as we clean, so guests think we don’t mind the task.
**
We hear rumors of deaths. Whispers of decapitations or fingers sliced off. One of the oldest coasters is supposedly haunted, but the ghost is only seen after long hours on blurry monitors. Sometimes we joke how we’d love an exciting mauling or the smallest lost limb. Anything to break up the monotony of pushing down lap bars.
A woman tries smuggling something beneath her jacket. A small, lumpy thing zipped into her clothing, as if we wouldn’t notice her stomach undulating as we lower the lap bar.
Is that an animal, we ask. Ma’am you can’t take animals on a roller coaster.
The jacket is unzipped. A chubby face with rooting lips is revealed. The baby’s round eyes accusing, as though we somehow are interrupting this time with the mother. The woman tries hiding the baby. She speaks calmly so we will be pacified by her insistence that the child will “love the ride”.
It’s a wonder how we keep our smiles as we escort the woman and the child off the platform. We eye each other in silent agreement that this woman should not be allowed to bare children.
It’s not the first time, we tell each other. Not the first incident of someone bringing a baby onto a ride. One of us shares the time we witnessed a man put a baby in a locker so he could go on a ride. How he said it was our fault since children couldn’t ride and there was no one else to watch the babe.
Somehow, it is always our fault.
**
During initial training we are taken behind the scenes to see how the vehicles are cabled to the track, where the emergency exits are, and the room with the security cameras. We discuss important radio codes like “ride down” (11-2), “large guest” (11-82), and vomit (vomit). For the trickier codes we use cheats to help us remember. To say, “we’re coming” (51) just remember you have five fingers and only one way to come.
At this point we pretend to masturbate.
We walk the rafters to learn the ride’s layout. Endless metal pathways crisscross above the tracks, coated with layers of dust from years of janitorial neglect. Not that the cleaning staff has access to high-voltage areas forty feet above their jurisdiction, but it feels like a misstep all the same.
We hang in the darkness where guests can’t spot us lurking. Secretly, we hope someone will look up – just once – to see us staring back right as we expel all the spit we can. Just once, we want to land a wet bomb square on their unsuspecting faces. It never happens.
So we have to take pleasure in watching guests puke on the ride through the cameras.
**
Sometimes we find blood in our shoes. Mostly it’s swollen joints and blisters formed and burst within our shift. We sit on the bench in the changing room, peeling away layers of costume marred with sweat. Few of us have energy to speak. Those who do whisper with heads bent.
What a rough day, we say.
But it is exactly like every other day of crying children, and that creeping ache that starts at the base of the spine and pulses in our necks.
We hear that new coaster was stuck on the lift. Stuck for hours.
We shake our heads in disbelief, because that meant some of us had hours free from loading bodies or smiling until our cheeks burned. They were the lucky ones.
Are the guests okay? We don’t ask.
There will always be more, regardless of these guests who were stuck at the peak of the coaster, blood rushing to their heads with no way of knowing when they’d get down. There will always be more. When the greenest of us show concern, we throw our socks at them for daring to have a semblance of humanity left.
**
Winter is the worst season. The threadbare robes that suffocated us in summer heat do little to stave off the cold. We arrive hours before sunrise, before Entertainment, before the music and lamps are on. In the darkness we extend the queues for the holiday rush.
No one speaks. Our moment of calm is only interrupted by the sound of iron chains dragged across the cement. We say nothing, as though the thought of speech will incite the very people we hate.
It is almost peaceful.
When the sun finally creeps into view our serenity is broken by thousands of bodies armed with souvenir bags, strollers, sometimes even suitcases. Large family groups twenty deep yell at us about wait times or height restrictions.
We smile as we explain that, yes ma’am your infant can’t ride this roller coaster, no sir you can’t put them in your lap. We smile as we watch a family jump the queue to get on the ride with their child and then act surprised when we have the power to stop the vehicle. Our muscles scream for relief as the fifth hour standing rolls into the next.
Of course we don’t mind losing our lunch break, we lie to Management. We want to make sure the guests are happy, too.
Another adult accuses us of ruining their vacation. They might be right, though. We take immense pleasure from the tears of grown men.
Sometimes we instigate when families appear too happy. How many? Family of five? The ride only seats four so pick who ever you like the least, they must sit on their own.
And without fail fingers will point at the same person. Smiles turn ugly. We grin at the chaos as we laughingly tell them it was a joke, they can all sit together. The family disappears down the track, still in shock at how quickly they agreed who to exile.
**
In the lulls at lunchtime and odd weekdays, we scrutinize each other through our lashes. We lean closer as we talk, and sometimes find reasons to touch each other on the arms. We whisper about who likes who. We deny anything is happening, then after work collide with heady passion thinking no one will know. No one will know as we kiss between shifts in the stairwell or hidden away in the locker room. We wish guests a magical day and give children hugs with hands used for pleasure moments before. It is widely known which costumes provide easiest access.
We are like a bag of magnets, repelling and attracting all at the same time until eventually one of us ricochets against a wall. Fissures form. One of us mutters something under our breath and our practiced smiles break. The guests stare as we scream. They repel from our true emotions, covering their children’s ears while we accuse each other of the worst crimes. Infidelity. Lying. Breaks longer than permitted.
In the aftermath we sit in the break room, watching a presentation on relationships in the workplace. We nod and take notes about being appropriate, while our hands are in each other’s pants.
**
A man is too large for the ride. We jam the bar down so hard his breath rattles. He claims he left bruised, and we celebrate. A young woman professes her fear of roller coasters as she takes a seat in the vehicle. We tell her gently that it will be fine. Once she’s locked in, we pretend to notice something is wrong with the vehicle and mutter aloud how this vehicle isn’t the broken one… probably. She disappears with a scream as though her soul is trying to escape. A teen wriggles out of his harness as a dare and slips to his death. It is agreed that’s what happens when rules aren’t followed.
We watch behind the growing crowd as the body is carried away. Spectators weep. Management scrambles to regain control. Entertainment recoils from the suffering. Popcorn tins and ice cream bars are abandoned. Crowded walkways dissolve into paths vacant, except for discarded souvenirs clogging the gutters.
Our forced smiles shift into hungry grins.
The season changes and the new hires arrive, bright eyed and fresh. We scrutinize the stock. Too old or greasy. Too this or that. Until we find the gem of the group, and it is collectively decided that this is the one we will fight for. At parties we fuck in the closets or spare bedrooms, pretending no one will hear even though the door is ajar for people to watch.