Day at the Coney Roller Coaster

     New York City’s Coney Island was a place which we as a family often visited several times each summer. It was a sort of magical place away from the city where one could forget worries and cares. It had a beach, a boardwalk, and many confectionary stands selling all kinds of goodies such as cotton candy, pretzels, hot dogs and hamburgers. Also, next to that beach were rides. One of the rides that we had never gone on was the roller coaster, or La Montaña Rusa, as we called it in Spanish. Instead, of boldly going where others confidently went, we just stood there watching in awe as the cars shot by above us at a rail-rattling, ear-shattering, breakneck speed, while taking a hairpin-passenger-screaming curves.

     Well, for some inexplicable reason it suddenly occurred to my mom that we should join what she considered to be fun and ride it.

     “Do you think I’m crazy?” my father responded with a frown:

     "What guarantee do you have that thing isn't going to go flying off the rails on one of those tight turns? Eh? Do you know how far you are going to fly if that thing goes off the rails at that speed? You might wind up over there on the beach-sand, or maybe three or four hundred feet into the city over there in the middle of traffic."

    “Everyone else is riding it, so why not us?” she responded, after giving him the up-and-down, negative- evaluation-look she always deployed during serious disagreements

     “So just because other people are stupid enough to jump head-first off a high cliff, does that mean that I should also? Huh?” he responded.

     “Look at all the fun they are having while we are just standing here like bobos and looking.”

     “Fun? Ha! Ha! Ha!" he said pursing his lips tightly and shaking his head. "All I hear is them screaming in fear every time that apparatus makes one of those crazy sharp turns!”

     “They are screaming because they are excited. That’s why they are screaming!”

     After once again shaking his head several times in disagreement, my father continued.

     “As I said, what guarantee do you have that that thing isn’t going to fly off the tracks in one of those turns huh?” he repeated.

     “Chico, the world belongs to the risk-takers. What are we here for anyway, eh? To look at others? Life is made to be lived! The dead to the hoyo [grave] and the living to the pimpollo!”

     “Well, that might be your philosophy, but you can be sure of one thing."

    "And what thing is that exactly Hipolito?"

     "That I’m not getting on!”

    “Nelson, do you want to get on the roller coaster mijo?”[my son] she suddenly asks me. I was five years old at the time, and really had no sense of fear. To me it just looked like a regular ride. Besides, what could possibly happen to me with my almighty, all-wise and protective mother sitting right by my side? Surly she knew what she was doing, so I said yes.

     “You are going to take that angelito [little angel] on that ride?” It was the only time in his entire life that my father ever referred to me in that way, so he must have really been worried.

     “Yes! I am! We aren’t here just to watch others timidly. We came here to have fun.”

     “You call getting killed having fun?”

     “Chico! Do you see anyone here getting killed? Look at how happy they look after they finish the ride! They are smiling and chatting.”

     “Well, you can’t say I didn’t tell you. I told you! Right?”

     “OK! You told us, and ya! We are going to ride the roller-coaster, and that is it!”

     “Yo los encomiendo a Dios! I am placing you in the hands of God."  Which meant that he believed only God could save us now if something were to go wrong.

    Well, hoist on her own petard, my mom confidently bought the tickets, and chose to sit in the last seat on the coaster. Curiously, the fellow who was placed in charge of  making sure everyone was strapped in properly, totally ignored us. So when the coaster started moving, the holding-on bars were not in the forward position for us. Since we were both totally unfamiliar with the ride, we just sat there facing certain death without knowing it.

    She probably had assumed that everyone else was in that same situation, and that we were safe. After all, no one had flown off that coaster. So why would we? Strange, since common sense should have indicated that we would definitely go flying off unless we were anchored to something. I guess the way we had been allowed to proceed contributed to her confidence.

    Well, as the coaster began its slow preparatory climb before letting gravity take over, she says to me:

     “Look Nelson, look at how pretty the ocean and the beach look from up here! Isn’t it beautiful?” That was approx. ten feet from the summit.

     Fortunately, the man in front of us glanced back and noticed that we were not holding on to anything, and that the hold-on-bar was still in its retracted position. This meant that in a few seconds, we were going to be hurled to our death below.

    “Hey lady,” he said nervously, a few feet before we reached the top, “You better pull that bar towards you and hold on!”

    “Oh Ok,"" she responded calmly as if no haste had been necessary.   "Here Nelson hold on to this," she said calmly as she slowly pulling the holding-on-bar towards us.

    That’s when the coaster suddenly went into a 90-degree plunge straight down, and immediately took a body-wrenching, sharp turn that demanded all the strength that my little hands could muster to keep me in my seat. No sooner had we tilted right than we were savagely yanked left and then right again. It was as if the coaster were trying to unseat us and hurl us sideways towards the pavement below. All this time my mother was groaning and grunting in agony and muttering:

     “Never again! I promise you! Never again! It is all my fault! You are totally innocent! I am the one to blame for all this because I am an adult and should know better!”

     All this she uttered in a grunting, agonized voice, as if she had been undergoing major surgery or having a tooth drilled without the benefit of anesthesia. I could barely hear her above the deafening rattle of the metal wheels on metal tracks and constant screams of the other riders. It only served to terrify me even more because now I knew that she was as scared as I was, and that she needed as much help as I did. In short, we were both in the same nightmare that didn’t seem to have an end.

     After what seemed like a hellish eternity of gravity-induced agony, the so-called ride, finally came to a merciful end.  We got off tottering on unsteady feet feeling as if we had just stared the Grim Reaper in his hideous face and had narrowly evaded one of his sickle-swipes. Actually, we probably had, since only that man’s warning saved us from flying off in a parabolic trajectory towards the hard pavement below.

     “You two don’t look too well!” my father said after seeing us tottering his way on unsteady legs.

     “Que pasó? [What happened?]”

     After hearing my mother describe the ordeal we had just undergone in a horrified tone of voice, and expressing her regrets for not having taken his good advice, my father responded with:

     “I told you so. Didn’t I tell you so? Whoever gets on that ride places his life on a thin thread. I was watching from below as both of you went by during a sharp turn, and the hair on my forearms stood on edge, and I said: “May God protect them both! They are going to need it."

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Addendum

The Spanish j is pronounced as an h.

Mijo is pronounced as Me-ho



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