Roller Coasting

     She was 56, her siblings were Disney villains, and the husband she'd waited a lifetime for pronounced her "undiagnosed bipolar" a mere three months into their marriage. The woman he left her for wasn't particularly young, thin, or pretty. No, his new wife, Karla, was infuriatingly easy going, a pediatric social worker who taught yoga on Saturdays.

Mary Jane had nothing but substitute teaching jobs, a great set of anodized cookware, a small, paid-off condo and $35,000 inherited from her beloved mother. Her life was easy to leave, and that's what she would do, for a while. Soon.

For now, life suspended, Mary Jane edits images in Photoshop where she is lord of her world. With deft clicks of her mouse, she can negate gravity, dissolve the space-time continuum, and warp tool 30 pounds off herself in seconds. Drawing on her expertise of the program's features, her facial lines are erased, wild horses walk empty highways, her cat can fly, and Saturn bobs lazily in the tropical sunset.

When her pretend realities exceed her skill set, Mary Jane watches hours of monkey videos on YouTube. An article on capuchins used as service helpers started her obsessive journey. Smitten, Mary Jane now watches footage about primates kept as pets. She knows all the sub species, the macaques, marmosets, spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, white-faced capuchins, cinnamon capuchins, and white-tufted capuchins. She knows the types of toddler clothing the "monk moms" dress them up in, the swings, toys, and foraging devices in their expensively outfitted monkey rooms. 

The monkey owners were mock-worthy fascinating. Many owned four or five. One planned to adopt a baboon (why not cut a hole in the roof and adopt a giraffe Mary Jane snarked to herself. Or empty the swimming pool and install a hippo) The monk moms pledged undying selfless devotion to their surrogate children, while blowing plumes of Marlboro smoke past their faces. They fed their beloved surrogate children cupcakes and Cheetos, then bawled to high heaven when the creatures croaked from diabetes. 

Mary Jane had a morbid fascination with an elderly woman in Texas who owned a Japanese snow macaque with the absurd name Savannah Star. In the midst of watching one of the Monkmom4life's 300 videos, the one where the 74-year-old diapers the primate, snaps her into a onesie, and then wrestles the beast into a ruffled, organza dress, Mary Jane feels a wave of disgust. It intensifies as the crone bends the animal into a stroller and chastises its screeches as "Completely uncalled for!" Mary Jane shudders. "Please don't let that be me. I will not get a baby monkey, I won't. Even though they are so, so adorably like the human babies I never got to have."

Mary Jane challenges herself to watch something else on YouTube. Other baby animals? Baby donkeys, baby goats, baby anything...Then there were always the 70s rock videos she was so passionate about. But ever since her friend James had been killed by a texting teenage driver, no one wanted to hear her speculations on what ELO would have been like if Roy Wood hadn't left, or whether Keith Moon was a more creative drummer than Neil Peart. 

James' untimely departure had left a crater-sized hole in Mary Jane's life. What videos could compensate? What spoke to the excitement she craved? The audacity to leave one's comfort zone to reap big thrills. Before long, Mary Jane was watching roller coaster videos. Dozens of roller coaster videos. Hundreds of roller coaster videos.

Bye bye apes in diapers. Mary Jane was now on a quest to find the scariest, fastest, and steepest. After watching videos of Kinga Ka with its impossible 90 degree hill, she knew she would travel to New Jersey to ride it. Within minutes she added King's Island, Dollywood, and Busch Gardens. Mary Jane was going to ride every damn roller coaster in the United States, because screaming on the inside was no fun at all. 

Chicago's white winterhell wasn't her idea of a good time either. The clear, healing sunshine of California was an easy choice for her first stop. Mary Jane logged into Expedia and booked her trip. 

The following Tuesday, Mary Jane is in a middle seat to LA, unable to make right angles with her elbows. Resigned to her four-hour fate, she fishes the shopping guide out of the seat pocket and gives herself a fantasy budget of $2,000. LED pool fountains, massage chairs, and state of the art cameras compete for space in her imaginary cart. She spends the rest of the flight scarfing down one snack after another, reading a Tom Robbins novel, and rattling the ice in her Diet Coke cup. 

The bracing California sunlight straight out of the terminal feels promising. Mary Jane boards a free shuttle to a Disney-area Travelodge, sets down her suitcase in the just-good-enough room, and gathers her bright orange hair into a high ponytail. She waits for the shuttle to California Adventure, then makes a beeline for California Screamin', a four-minute mile of twisting, plummeting steel coaster cruelty.

For Mary Jane and her "undiagnosed bipolar" and suspected ADHD, four minutes of rushing noise, fear, screaming, and laughter is four minutes of zen. She disembarks centered and happy, hoping that feeling will last, and for several minutes it does. It was the ice cream cart that set her off, or rather, stepping outside herself, and seeing a menopausal, size 14 woman, at an amusement park completely alone, seeking a sugary snack she didn't need, but desperately wanted. Was this as good as life was going to get? If so, Mary Jane mused that this woman, herself, needed to be euthanized. Put out of her misery. Soon.

Four more coasters in this park alone. Time to get back to work. Every one of the twisting, turning rides had an exit, and therein lay its beauty. Mary Jane enters the line for El Toro, a wooden behemoth featuring a 76-degree drop. She plucks Kleenex from her skull and crossbones bag, a steal for $18 at Ross. Once on the ride she'll stop crying. Once on the track, reality will recede in a blur. Once the high speed kicks in, her fear will be apt, the gut-wrenching peaks and valleys chosen. 

As the line inches forward, a boy around eight exits the ride, crying, clearly traumatized. His father barks angrily of how he loved coasters as a kid. He booms that when he was a kid, he wasn't afraid at all!

Mary Jane feels the tension of those near her in line, but they quickly shake it off with eye rolls, and quiet mutterings of "What a jerk. The unpleasant interaction cut deeper into Mary Jane, triggering a host of unwanted emotion. She's not going to be able to ride, not now. She's on the verge of an emotional tsunami. 

She turns the other way, the wrong way, excusing herself past the others she's been in line with the past fifteen minutes. Eyes downcast, she sees a variety of sneakers, sandals, painted toenails. She looks up as a man in his thirties bellows "No guts no glory!" at her. His green, ill-fitting t-shirt reads 'Hand over the fruitcake and no one gets hurt.' He and his equally sartorially challenged buddy are looking at her and laughing. Mary Jane mutters fuck off and quickens her pace.

Was this trip a stupid idea? Should she go back to the motel, change into her heavily ruched Slimsuit, and try to enjoy the sun at the small pool? Maybe she could pick up some earplugs to drown out the sound of happy children. 

Too many decisions. Mary Jane rummages in her purse until she feels her hot pink glitter encased cell phone. She brightens, realizing exactly who she wants to call: her long-ago college roommate. 

Her decisions is confirmed as genius when instead of a Hello, Celia, a Spanish minor who lived in Barcelona for two years, greets her with the Hispanic version of Mary Jane:

"Marijuana! How are you?"

"Well, it's more like where am I."

"Okay, where are you?"

The background noise in Celia's house always seems the same: exclamations from her two happy girls, now nearing college age, The husband she'd met in law school asking for something, Single barks from Wafer, their golden retriever. 

"I'm at California Adventure. I know this sounds stupid, but I'm going to travel around to amusement parks and ride as many roller coasters as I can."

"Nah, that's not stupid. That's.you being you. I think it's great."

They talk for half an hour. Celia pretends to lament the "boring" structured, successful life Mary Jane knows she loves. Celia asks questions, genuinely fascinated by the eccentric path her friend is taking to find herself. The call ends with Celia promising to join Mary Jane on the final coaster ride of her journey. 

At peace, Mary Jane decides to forego roller coasters for a while. Instead, she'll spend the afternoon photographing children's rides, which later she'll photo edit into the most achingly beautiful of dream worlds.