The Cyclone

The old roller coaster arches its back against the sky, its dusty rails and rough, creaking boards towering over a two-mile boardwalk. In the early morning hours, the Cyclone casts its enormous shadow backwards, away from the ocean, where it falls on a sleepy trolley car, an abandoned sepia photo of Myrna Loy, a long-gone sailor in a doorway.

Just after the July dawn, two days before the Fourth, on Revere Beach, Tony arrives. His loose khaki pants, with small tears around the pockets, seem to trail behind as he climbs to his work, settling on a small landing fifty feet above the ground. With a dozen other men, all muscular and thick-skinned from years of labor in harsh New England weather, Tony hammers and scrapes and paints, pounding the giant lattice of beams into shape, polishing its miles of rolling track until they look as shiny as the new slinky he gave Vinnie for his eighth birthday.

Tony bends over a short beam. “You're sure ready for this coat,” he says in his deep, gravely tones. He runs his paint brush across the wood with careful strokes, thinking about his son, and the half-finished Pinocchio on his workbench at home.

Tony’s soft whistle cools his lips and rustles his short mustache, still more black than gray. The tune, something he learned on his trumpet for the Sons of Italy band, rides a light salty breeze up to where a sleek silvery car begins a frantic descent.

Tony steps back on the high, small landing to survey his slatted canvas, paying no attention to the bold, empty cars roaring about his head with the energy of young children. He picks at a small piece of dirt caught under the head of a nail on a crossbeam; he takes off his Red Sox cap and his big ears pop out -- Clark Gable ears, Rose used to call them. Tony blots his forehead with a large handkerchief as Nick the foreman comes up behind him.

“Only a couple of days before the big crowds, Tony. Think we'll make it?” Nick asks, as if Tony is the one who knows.

“She'll be ready," Tony says, patting a web of beams. "She always comes through.”

At 46, Tony is the oldest laborer in the crew. He’s worked on the roller coaster for almost twenty-five years, starting years before his son was born, years before Rose died on that same day, taking Tony’s world with her, leaving him with an infant who was little more than a maze he thought he'd never find his way around. But you can count on the Cyclone, Tony thinks, his watery brown eyes sweeping across the massive curved space. She won’t go away. In Tony’s mind the roller coaster is stronger than the immigrant hands that built her, older than the earth, safer than life.

At noon, Tony and the other men take their black lunch pails and walk to the rhythm of the Angelus from the bells of St. Anthony's Church, around the bend. They sit in the shade of the pavilion across the boulevard and eat their apples and heavy salami sandwiches. They talk about union dues and Ted Williams and what number to play when their bookie shows up during the afternoon break.

“I hope Nick lets us ride the cars today,” says Sal, a young man just over from the old country. Guy, on his right, mumbles yes, he does, too. “How about you, Tony?” Sal asks. “You've been here so many years, I'll bet you're the first one in line.”

Tony looks down to where the salt water has soaked the laces of his work shoes. A cold wave crashes up onto the cement wall where the men are sitting. “Gotta get new laces,” Tony says. “Haven’t changed these in years.” Rose took care of things like this, he thinks.

Tony gets up and leads the daily stroll along the boardwalk. Like official inspectors, the men sniff the sugary air around the cotton candy stand and check the new red paint on the shiny tilt-a-whirl seats; they greet their old friends—Angela, polishing the pizza counter, Johnny oiling the gears at the Ferris wheel. Sal does a clownish dance to the organ music at the carousel. Guy teases the frozen custard lady into samples for all.

Tony imagines the crowds that will soon arrive from the hot inland suburbs, people in cars and on trolleys, families traveling for miles to get relief from the Boston heat. Teenagers will ride the Cyclone and scream; Shriners will toss plastic rings and win stuffed pink poodles and green glass ashtrays; a wrinkled couple will have a swinging anniversary party at the Frolic when Louis Prima opens next week.

Just before end of shift, Nick calls out, “Step right up, paesani. The Cyclone is yours for an hour!”

“Finalmente!” Sal cries. “The cars are ready to test. Come on Tony. I’m-a waiting for a long time.”

Tony looks down and shakes his head, his thinning hair falling onto his dark eyebrows.

“Not for me today, Sal,” he says. “I promised Joe I’d help him with the new sign on the ticket booth.”

“Maybe tomorrow morning,” Sal says, rubbing his hands together. “I bet we test every day the rest of the summer.”

Tomorrow, Tony thinks, I’ll offer to go into town and pick up the ticket rolls, and the next day I’ll say I haven’t finished cleaning the switches, and next week maybe it’ll rain. We’re bound to get some rain soon.

When his shift is over, Tony leaves work and takes the street car home. As soon as he's off the car, he sees Vinnie playing stickball with his friends.

“Here’s my father,” Vinnie announces proudly. “You know he works on the Cyclone. The best job in town. He spends the whole day fixing it up and riding it to make sure it’s safe for everyone.”

Tony puts down his lunch pail and raises his stubby hand to catch a weak pop fly; the boys cheer. Tony grins and waves his cap in the air toward the bleachers, which are really a concrete stoop in front of his building, and brushes his uniform, which is really his work shirt stained with paint and grease from the roller coaster.

How’s the Cyclone doing, Pa?” Vinnie asks. "How many times did you ride it today? Nine? Ten?"

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony answers in a whisper. “It doesn’t matter.”

The next day, Nick tell his men they're way ahead of schedule so they can ride the cars in the morning. Sal asks Tony to join him. "I've-a rode with everyone but you, Tony. And you're the best, so ... " He throws up his arms and points with both hands, first to Tony, then to the Cyclone. "

Tony shakes his head and walks away.

It’s the night before the Fourth, and Tony gives in to his son's pleas to take him to the boardwalk after supper. Soon the fireworks display will start. At the pizza counter, Angela shows them her new oven and asks Vinnie to help her stack the paper plates and napkins. A few booths down, old Johnny lets Vinnie operate the Ferris wheel gears.

They pass Skeeball and Frankie's Pepper Steaks, each one with new life from soap and water and a dash of paint for the holiday. By the time they reach the bathhouse halfway down the boardwalk, Tony and Vinnie have taste-tested banana frozen custard, molasses taffy, and lop-sided caramel apples that leave them laughing and sticky. Tony gives Vinnie’s shoulders a squeeze.

They approach the Cyclone and together father and son look up at the sweeping track, lined with tall colored lamps, like skinny sentinels stationed every ten yards.

"You did the best job ever this year, Pa," Vinnie says.

Tony looks a dozen yards ahead and sees the men in his crew gathered around the entrance of the coaster, ready to ride the cars one last time before the crowds take over.

Vinnie reaches for Tony’s hand. "It's OK, Pa," he says. "We can go across the boulevard to the sand and they won't see us."

Tony looks down at his son. Vinnie knows? How has he missed this? He already has his mother's wise ways.

Tony wipes his eyes with the crook of his elbow. He puts his hand under Vinnie's chin, lifts his son's face and sees in the twilight the delicate features of his mother, Rose's understanding eyes, and forgiving posture. He sees Rose's last ounce of strength, her legacy to him. He grits his teeth against the sadness that has blinded him to the meaning of Rose's final gift to him.

Tony squints and strains his neck to look up at the topmost beams. His eyes sweep across the Cyclone's massive curved body. He grins at its refurbished bones, at the hundreds of crisp flags, strong and friendly, waving to him in the rich ocean air. The roller coaster’s lights come on.

"Let's ride the Cyclone," Tony says, throwing his shoulders back and smiling at Vinnie.

Vinnie hugs his father's waist. "Really, Pa? Really? Because it's almost the Fourth of July?" he asks. "You always tell me it was Ma's favorite holiday."

"It still is," Tony says.