Unscheduled Attraction

The ride attendant pointed at Nolan, then at the guy behind him, then at the raft. “Singles? You two?”

The guy behind Nolan was tall and unhurried. He wore a faded t-shirt, which hung off his frame suggesting he hadn’t thought about how his clothes fit, and stepped forward with an easy nod. “Works for me.”

Nolan climbed into the raft and pulled the lap bar down. He had planned the time of this ride for exactly 10:15, when the wait times averaged nineteen minutes versus the forty-six it would hit by Noon. He’d built a four-minute buffer into the schedule, just in case of maintenance, or the inevitable slow-loading family of six.

“I’m Ezra,” the guy said, settling in beside him.

“Nolan.”

The raft was pulled up onto the conveyor, and the mechanical climb began - a slow, ratcheting ascent that theme parks had perfected to build suspense of the fall that was to come. Nolan gripped the bar and watched the track ahead. Beside him, Ezra tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

“You’re not seriously falling asleep.”

“Hmm?” Ezra’s voice was already soft around the edges. “No. I’m just resting my eyes.”

The drop was visible now as a sharp, curving plunge into a trough of churning water below. Nolan looked at Ezra. His breathing had slowed. His hands were loose in his lap. He was asleep. He was actually asleep on a moving ride, sixty seconds from a five-story drop, as if the mechanical roar and the screams from the raft ahead of them were a lullaby.

Nolan grabbed his arm.

Ezra’s eyes shot open and locked onto Nolan’s. The raft tipped over the edge. They plunged. Ezra laughed, but the sound was ripped away by the wind and the crash of water. Nolan didn’t let go of his arm.

They staggered off the ride soaked and grinning. Ezra shook water from his hair like a dog and focused his grin on Nolan. Nolan, who had a schedule to keep and who had already lost ninety seconds standing there dripping, said, “You want to hit another one?”

*****

They rode three more rides together before noon. As the project planner, Nolan led.

Ezra just followed with an amused willingness that felt less like passivity and more like a kind of generosity – as if he could tell the planning and time-focused precision mattered to Nolan. Ezra chose not to compete with it. He was observant, catching details Nolan missed because Nolan was always looking ahead. He noticed the mascot, with the head of his costume was on slightly crooked. He noticed the toddler in a stroller eating a turkey leg bigger than her arm. And the teenage couple fighting about whether to ride the Vortex or the Pirate Ship – the girl pushing for the later.

“He’s going to ride it,” Ezra said. “And he’s going to scream louder than she does.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s already lost. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Small touches between Nolan and Ezra accumulated. Ezra steadied Nolan on a moving walkway, his hand warm and brief on the small of Nolan’s back. Nolan pulled Ezra sideways to dodge a battalion of strollers, his fingers closing around Ezra’s wrist before he thought about it. Their shoulders pressed together in a queue, but neither of them created the distance that is customary to men. Nolan’s schedule still existed, but he’d made the adjustments in his head to make Ezra a part of it by recalculating wait times for two. He was pleased that Ezra’s easy pace had made the day more pleasant. What they had together was working, and it was better than the plan Nolan had intended to stick to.

*****

At 12:30, the Iron Goliath rollercoaster went down for maintenance, and Nolan’s backup ride had a seventy-minute wait. Nolan pulled out his phone and started recalculating, his thumbs moving fast, his jaw tight.

“We could just walk around,” Ezra said. “See what’s open.”

“That’s not… there’s a specific sequence we need to follow. If we miss the window for Leviathan, the whole afternoon falls apart.”

Ezra looked at him unable to understand the inability to pivot, but he didn’t argue. However, the warmth that had been building between them cooled by one degree, then one more. He sat on a bench, tipped his head back against the rail, and was asleep within two minutes. Just. Gone. His mouth hung slightly open, breathing deep and slow, completely surrendering to unconsciousness while the park screamed and whirled around him, and Nolan struggled with adapting his plan.

They had a twenty-minute window for Leviathan before the wait time doubled. Nolan nudged Ezra’s shoulder. No response. He said his name, then said it louder. Still, nothing. Ezra slept like a corpse that had no intention of being reanimated.

Nolan sat down on the bench next to Ezra. He checked his phone and checked the Park’s app for updated wait times. Then he put it away. Picked it back up. Put it away. Then looked over at Ezra and lazily draped an arm behind him.

When Ezra awoke, he opened his eyes, stretched, and smiled at Nolan as though they’d been mid-conversation the whole time.

“We missed Leviathan,” Nolan said. “The wait’s ninety minutes now.”

“You’re upset, aren’t you?”

“I’m not upset. I’m…” he shifted his posture to look directly at Ezra. “Do you even care about being here? You’ve slept through a third of the day.”

“I’m having a great time,” Ezra said, placing a hand on Nolan’s thigh. “I’m especially enjoying your company.”

“How would you know?” Nolan shrugged off the gesture. “You’ve been unconscious.”

Ezra studied him for a moment. Whatever he saw, it hadn’t made him flinch or pull away. “You’re right,” he said. “I do that.”

*****

Spelunker’s Cave was Ezra’s idea. Rather, it hadn’t been an idea so much as it was a ride without a line. It was a slow boat ride through black lit caverns and animatronics.

Nolan didn’t argue. His schedule was already in tatters. He climbed into the boat because the alternative was standing in the sun performing for a project plan that was already obsolete.

The boat drifted beyond the entrance, leaving the noise of crowds and the heat of the day behind. They rode past glowing plastic sea creatures and fiber-optic stars. The campiness of the scenery made the silence between them feel safe rather than hostile.

“I got laid off three months ago,” Nolan said, keeping his eyes forward. “I haven’t told anyone. I bought this ticket the same day it happened, because it was the only thing on my calendar I could still control.”

The boat turned a slow corner, and blue light moved across Ezra’s face.

“I taught myself to sleep like that,” Ezra said. “In college I had a bad stretch. It was so bad that I was so fatigued, I had to figure out how to switch off so nothing could reach me.” He paused. “It worked. But…” Ezra turned to face Nolan, “I think I switched off some things I actually needed.”

As they passed the neon jellyfish dancing in the darkness, Nolan reached behind Ezra’s head and pulled him in for a kiss.

*****

They emerged from the ride to find night was falling. The crowds had thinned and the demographics had changed. Without discussing it, they still held hands as they maneuvered to the next attraction.

Ezra picked another ride at random with no wait-time. It was a rickety wooden coaster, more appealing for its charm than its comfort.

Nolan stopped checking the app and simply followed Ezra. Halfway through the ride, he looked over at Ezra and smiled contently, choosing to be present in the moment rather than in his plan. 

Afterwards, they walked to one of the food vendors, still holding hands. Ezra leaned his head onto Nolan’s shoulder as they waited in line to order a funnel cake, which they shared with a 32-ounce sweet tea on one of the benches.

A voice echoed through the park’s loudspeaker system announcing the impending closure for the evening. Nolan reached for his phone. "I need to sit down for a moment," he said.

The bench sat under a tree strung with white lights, in a pocket of quiet between the carousel and the games row. The evening had gone soft and warm. Nolan had been on his feet since 9:40. He had waited in queues, had been plunged and looped and spun and drenched, had said aloud a fact he had not said to anyone, had kissed a stranger in a plastic cave. The whole day arrived in his body at once. He tipped his head back against the rail.

"Just resting my eyes," he said. "For a second."

Ezra made a small, amused sound. Nolan meant to answer it, but nothing came. The carousel music went around once more, and then it was gone.

*****

"Gentlemen." A man in a reflective vest stood a polite distance off, the beam of his flashlight pointed at the pavement between them. "Park's been closed a while now. I'm going to have to ask you to head out."

Nolan's neck ached. His mouth was dry. The white lights in the tree had gone dark. The carousel stood still, its horses frozen mid-leap. The games row was shuttered. Far off, one work light burned at the base of the Iron Goliath, and the coaster's lift chain clanked once, twice, and stopped. A test run in the dark. Everything else was dark and still.

Ezra's head was in Nolan's lap as Nolan's hand rested against Ezra's hair, but he had no memory of putting it there. Ezra breathed deep and slow, mouth slightly open, dead to both the world and to the flashlight.

"What time is it?" Nolan asked.

"Eleven-forty." The man's name tag said Luis. "Gates shut at ten. I've been around this loop twice. First time through, I figured you'd wake up on your own."

Nolan did the math. It had been nearly two hours. He had slept through the last coaster train emptying, through the crews closing down attractions, shuttering the games, and killing the lights ride by ride. He had slept through all of it, on a bench, in public, with a stranger's head in his lap.

He nudged Ezra's shoulder. Nothing. He said his name. Still nothing. Nolan laughed as he shook Ezra gently.

"Ezra, sweetheart, wake up."

Ezra opened his eyes, looked up at him from his lap, and smiled as though they had been mid-conversation the whole time.

"You fell asleep," Ezra said.

"I just rested my eyes."

"For two hours?" Ezra sat up, unhurried, and nodded to Luis as if the man had been expected. "Hi."

"Hi. Park's closed."

"I gathered."

Luis shook his head and jerked a thumb at the maintenance cart idling behind him. "Where'd you park? I'll run you out. It's a long walk in the dark."

The cart smelled of grease and sun-baked vinyl. Luis drove them down the main concourse with the headlights cutting a tunnel through the dark. The rides went past on either side, enormous and unlit.

Ezra's shoulder pressed against Nolan's on the narrow seat. Neither of them opened the distance.

"You fell asleep," Ezra teased, low, under the whine of the motor.

"I know."

"I didn't. Not for a while. I watched them turn the lights off." He tipped his head against Nolan's. "Then I fell asleep too."

Luis let them out at the gate. Beyond it, the high lamps lit a few dozen cars scattered across acres of empty asphalt. Nolan's car sat under a lamp at the end of row F, exactly where he had planned it that morning so he could find it in the dark. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

11:47pm

“I’m free next Saturday,” Ezra said.

Nolan stopped looking at his phone and focused on Ezra. His first instinct was to calculate and plan. When. Where. What? But he abandoned his need to plan and schedule. It didn’t matter. He had just been invited to spend more time with a man who had seen the worst version of Nolan’s need for control. But there he was anyway, still by his side, and asking to make plans.

“I promise I’ll stay awake,” Ezra said.

Nolan laughed. “What time?” he asked.

“Pick me up at 8:00?”

Nolan put his phone in his pocket and left it there. Beyond the gate, high lamp lights illuminated the parking lot for families straggling towards their cars with tired children draped over their shoulders. Behind them the park was turning off the lights ride by ride.

“Okay,” Nolan said, wrapping his arms around Ezra and kissing him one last time for the evening. “Saturday it is, then.”