He wasted no time with pleasantries or formalities. “Here are the assignments,” he said. “Steve and Mary, Bill and Paul, Junior and Tim, ‘Tommy and Buster, Don and James, Pete and John, Bob and me. Here are the cars we’re going to take, and the routes, and the rides we’re going to go on….”
He described in detail the plan, then made each of us repeat our part aloud. I was to accompany Philipe in the Mercedes. We were to arrive at noon, then walk in through the reentry gate, me carrying the explosive pack, Philipe the detonator. We were to hang around for two hours, going on rides, going in shops, pretending to be normal tourists, then at precisely two-fifteen we were to get on Mr. Badger’s Crazy Journey. Near the end of the ride, while the car was maneuvering through hell, I was to jump quickly out of the car, place the explosives behind one of the little devil figures, then hop back in. We would finish the ride, walk to the train station near the roller coaster, and get on the train. We would stay on the train, circling the park, until all of the terrorists were on board. Then Philipe would detonate our explosives, the others assigned detonators would set off theirs, and we would get off the train at Old Town and leave the park.
I watched Philipe as he talked, as he made the others repeat the time sequences of their portions of the plan, and I wondered why he had chosen me to be his partner. Not because I was his right-hand man, that was for sure.
Probably to keep an eye on me because he didn’t trust me anymore.
After the meeting, as we were getting up and leaving, he called my name, asked me to stay. I waited around while the others walked across the cul-de-sac to their respective homes.
Philipe pulled the red pins from his map, picked up the map from the table, folded it. “I know your opinion of this,” he said. “But I want you with us.”
He spoke as he was folding the map, not looking up at me, and I realized that, in his own way, he was trying to make up with me. He was trying to apologize. I leaned against the wall near the door, not knowing what to say.
He stared down at the pins in his hand, jiggled them. “It’s not easy being who we are,” he said. “What we are. There are no rules, no traditions. We’re making them up as we go along. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we can’t tell they’re mistakes until after the fact.” He looked up at me. “That’s all I had to say.”
I nodded. I was not sure what he wanted from me. I was not even sure what he’d said.
We stared at each other for a moment.
Then I walked out of the office, back to my house.
We drove to Familyland in silence, and the silence was tense. Philipe turned on the radio. A station I didn’t like. But I left it on because it was better than the quiet.
We parked near a light post with an “H” hanging from the pole and walked across the lot to the entrance.
The second we walked into the amusement park, I was struck by the enormity of what we planned to do, and I had to stop for a moment and close my eyes and catch my breath. I felt a little dizzy. I opened my eyes again, and saw hordes of people walking down Old Town, past the magic shop, past the Hall of History. A trolley passed by, pulled by a horse, its bell dinging. In front of me, at the end of the street, I could see the graceful fairy-tale spires of the Castle.
A family passed by us, the boy asking his father if he could have some ice cream.
This was serious. This was the real thing. I had not bargained for anything like this. I don’t think any of us had. Except maybe Philipe.
I had killed before, but that was different. It was personal. This would be the cold-blooded murder of innocent strangers. Mothers. Families. Kids.
I did not want to be a Terrorist for the Common Man, I realized. Maybe Prankster for the Common Man. Monkey-wrencher for the Common Man. But that was as far as I was willing to go.
“I can’t do it,” I told Philipe.
“You can and you will.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll kill you. I’ll set off this detonator, and the explosives you’re carrying will blow your ass to hell.”
“You’d do that?”
“Try me.”
I shook my head. “I can’t kill innocent people.”
“No one’s innocent.”
“Can’t we just set these off somewhere where they won’t really hurt anyone? We’d still be making a statement, we’d still get the attention we want, but we wouldn’t have to kill anybody.”
“They’ll take us a lot more seriously if we do kill someone.”
“You sent letters off, didn’t you?”
“And our cards. Yesterday. To the park’s headquarters, to the Anaheim police, and to all the local newspapers, and TV stations.”
“That should be good enough. They’ll get the letters; we’ll plant the explosives; they’ll search for them and find them; we won’t have to blow up anything. We’ll still get the attention for our cause — ”
“Why are you like this?” Philipe asked.
“Like what?”
“Why do you care so much about these people? Have they ever cared about you? Have they ever noticed you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But they haven’t done anything to hurt me either.”
“It has to be personal with you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I really hate that about you,” he said. He looked down Main Street. He took a deep breath, sighed. “But sometimes I wish I was that way too.”
“Do you really want to go through with it?” I gestured around us. “I mean this is Familyland. Do you really want to do anything to hurt Familyland?”
He was about to reply, about to say something, when he stiffened, looking furtively around.
“What is it?”
“Something’s changed. Don’t you feel it?”
I shook my head.
“They know. They’re looking for us.”
“What —?”
“The letters must have gotten there early. Fucking post office.” He stared up the street, scanning the crowd. “Shit. I see them.”
Panic welled within me. “What are we going to do?”
“Get the others and get the hell out of here.”
I looked around, saw a lot of short-haired, gray-suited men on the sidewalks and in the street. Some of them seemed to be wearing walkie-talkies on their belts, speaking into transistor headsets. They’d infiltrated the crowd without me even noticing.
We hurried through Old Town toward Futureland, where Bill and Paul were supposed to be planting explosives under a seat in the Journey to Jupiter ride. “Who are those guys?” I asked.
Philipe shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I didn’t see them until you said something. They’re almost as hard to notice as we are.”
“That’s what scares me.”
We found Bill and Paul waiting in line for Jupiter. We told them what was happening and the four of us hurried over to the Submarine ride to find Steve and Mary.
The gray-suited men were all around.
“Do they work for Familyland?” Bill asked. “Or are they cops?”
“I don’t know,” Philipe repeated. He sounded tense.
The men were everywhere, but they didn’t notice us. I was not even sure that they knew who or what they were looking for. We rounded up Steve and Mary and were about to head over to the Enchanted Mountain when, from hidden loudspeakers all over the park, a calm and reassuring, serious yet friendly voice announced: “Due to unforeseen circumstances, Familyland will be closing in five minutes. Please proceed to the main gate.”
Around us, rides were shutting down. People were being quickly and efficiently herded by cheerful young red-coated men and women toward the park entrance.