Filling & Seatbelts
I finally got to the dentist again after three years. After having the same dentist for almost 30 years I just didn’t have it in me to find another. When you have ten weeks off of work to get things in order, what you do is wait until the final 72 hours and schedule all of your appointment for the first week back at work.
Walking in I thought I’d be lucky if it was maybe a root canal and no major dental surgery. The cleaning was unremarkable and the x-rays showed that I had two fillings to fix and that was it. I was shocked. I wanted to ask the dentist if he was sure. All the sweet tea and cigarettes I had consumed in the past year alone, no throat cancer or anything? It wasn’t disappointment, it was just, huh, I guess things aren’t that bad. I mean, my family heirlooms were still stolen from my place when it was vandalized and I had to install security cameras, but my health was still above 80%.
It was the usual summer. Hair color. Quick trip. Dentist. ER for food poisoning. Annual physical. Things were going back to normal.
I actually ended my road trip with a trip to Magic Mountain. I wrote extensively on Letterboxd about Winter Light and the absence of a higher power or the belief of one. This was hammered in to me on Dead Drop at Magic Mountain, once my favorite ride in the world. I used to ride it repeatedly as a kid.
I hadn’t been to Magic Mountain in over a decade. The first thing that hit me - what’s with all the fucking walking? I didn’t remember the rides being so far apart and there are stairs on all of them? Why do I not remember stairs before? Dead Drop was great, you wait in a short line and then you get to your seat.
This is when the trouble started. I get buckled in and the ride starts to rise 500 feet. I’m struck at the top with the knowledge that I’m in a chair with a metal bar across my chest and the safety mechanism that is locking this bar in place to keep me alive is a two inch buckle that was, get this, latched by a child making minimum wage. I voluntarily allowed myself to be airlifted 500 feet in the air and nodded when a teenager buckled me in and said, “you’re good”.
The kid next to me says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we fell.” No, asshole, it wouldn’t. In fact, you would hope the heart attack would kill you before the impact. The children operating the ride thought it would be funny to fake like we were dropping a few times. After the second fake, I just closed my eyes. I felt like the bar was made of styrofoam and I pushed myself into my seat hoping the crash would at least not decapitate me since these rides have cameras and I don’t want to be a statistic on YouTube.
Finally the free fall happened. My glasses almost came off with my baseball cap, but I didn’t care. We were on the ground and I did not rush to get in line again. I quickly did the math and realized the ride had been my favorite over twenty years earlier. I think this might be my last trip to Magic Mountain. The only thing worse than the thought of dying an asshole’s death was not being able to find the car in the parking lot. I lit a cigarette in 100+ degree heat and finished my lukewarm slurpee. All that transpired did not impact my dental cleaning because it was just the two fillings that needed to be fixed.
Moral of the summer. A lot of people went to a lot of trouble to try and make me feel some type of way. The problem? In my whole life, I’ve only sat at my own table. Regardless what I do, it’s always been on my own. Everything that was taken from my place, by someone who had once dined at my table. Every rude comment and whisper made about me - by someone that either lived under my roof or benefitted from my roof in some way. The ones that crack jokes? My dad got here in the 60’s and I speak today in 2024 like I was born in Yellowstone. If your dad and grandfather set you up for better, Viliami would say, good for you. I don’t take anything personal, especially from kids that never had braces. Keep the heirlooms, I would have handed them over had I been asked. The most important thing in my place? The mirror. Yeah, I don’t think I’m going back to Magic Mountain.