“Thanks, I guess. Always nice to be thought of as ‘cool’.” I didn’t know what he meant but it sounded like a compliment and my face flustered anyway. “So, I’ve been wondering, why did you think my name was Dorothy?”
He stopped to pick up a large branch on the ground. “‘Cause you remind me of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz except you almost got swept away by an icy lake instead of a tornado. Then you ran off from my place because you were in a hurry to go home.”
I stooped to pick up my own branch but it was smaller than Hunter’s because my hands were smaller. “What can I say? There’s no place like ‘Floyd Hall’.”
He chuckled as he idly tapped the leaves and bushes with his branch as we walked. “I suppose that makes me the cowardly lion?”
I smiled despite myself. “From what I saw tonight, you definitely found your courage.”
He chuckled again.
“So what’s it like being a fighter?” I asked.
“Not bad. I like the competition.”
“Aren’t you scared of getting hurt?”
He paused. “Nobody likes to get hurt. That’s where training and preparation come in. You keep your head on straight, and the worst you come out with are some cuts and bruises most of the time.”
“I think ‘Mr. Hyde’ would have to disagree with you—you forgot concussions.”
“Sometimes it happens. It’s not like I intended to give him a concussion. Besides, Mr. Hyde’s a big boy. He would’ve done the same to me if he had the chance.”
“Not nice, but not mean right?”
“However you want to put it.” He smirked. Suddenly, he swatted at my face. I was frightened for a moment but quickly realized he had saved me from a nose-diving mosquito. Damn thing must’ve been resistant to the cold. “So Lorrie, how about you? I know you’re not a good swimmer; I know you don’t like my apartment; now I know your name. What else can you tell me? Or do I have to figure it out?”
“By the way, I am a decent swimmer,” I corrected him. “It’s just different when you’re trying to swim in heavy clothes and freezing cold water. But other than that, there’s not much to know. Nothing of importance anyway. I’m just your average college girl.”
“Normal right?” he teased.
“Exactly.”
“Any major?”
“Ugh, I wish. I’m ‘undecided’.”
“‘Undecided’ is legit. It’s certainly honest. I think most people are in that major whether they want to admit it or not.”
“I guess . . . How about you?”
“Physics.”
I raised my brows. “Physics? Wow, that’s quite a brainy major. Physicist by day, brawler by night?”
He chuckled. “The matches help pay for the tuition. But physics isn’t all that bad. Most of it is just memorizing a lot of formulas. Once you realize that, it’s a lot less intimidating.”
“Do you have a particular interest in being a physicist?”
“Eh, not really. I was just kinda interested in planes and stuff when I was growing up and thought learning physics would be cool. I’m kinda less interested in it now.”
Hunter’s expression seemed to turn unusually despondent and I decided not to pursue the topic. “I see.”
We came to a clearing and found ourselves in front of what looked like an abandoned amusement park. There was a beat up sign over the entranceway that said “Neverland”.
“Are we walking in there?” I asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“It looks sketchy. What if it’s dangerous?”
He smiled. “You’re walking with me. If anybody tries something on us, they’ll be sorry. Trust me. I saved you once already, remember?”
“Okay,” I said tentatively. I was intrigued by the idea of exploring an abandoned amusement park. What would a place for fun and laughs be like when it died?
We carried our sticks with us as we hopped over a broken turnstile and entered the park. There were yellow and red flags, tents, game booths, a ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, and a bunch of other fascinating things. Everything was covered in dirt and rust. Small crevices were filled with iced water. I’d have thought some of this stuff would’ve been salvaged but it was as if one day people decided to abandon everything.
“This is pretty crazy. They just left all this stuff here,” I said admiring the surroundings. “Do you walk around here often?”
He prodded a broken styrofoam cup on the ground. “I like to walk around this place whenever I’ve got a match here. Kind of always had a thing for amusement parks since I was a kid. There was a fire at this place a few decades back. You can see some burn marks on the carousel over there.” He pointed with his stick.
I looked at the carousel and saw half the horses blackened by ash. The other half were shades of gray and white. It seemed like all of them were supposed to be white.
“That’s terrible. What happened?”
He shrugged. “Nobody knows how it started. But it happened at night when almost no one was around. I think it took one or two people’s lives. Not enough to be a huge tragedy but I’m sure it affected the family members of those that died—if they had any. I think the owners got a bunch of insurance money and started another park somewhere else. It must’ve been a big a deal when it happened but people kind of forgot about this place over time.”
The story sounded horrible and hit a little too close to my own personal tragedy. I wanted to change the topic. “Did you go to a lot of places like this when you were young?” I asked.
“That’s the thing. I didn’t go to any amusement parks when I was a kid. I wanted to but my parents never took me. All the other kids in grade school would talk about how awesome Disneyland was. Or Six Flags, or Sea World.”
“What kind of parents don’t take their kid to an amusement park?” I said jokingly. “That’s like the stuff childhoods are made of.”
“Deadbeat ones.” He paused, his mouth a thin line. “They were druggies. Real ass**les. Cared more about their drugs than taking care of me. That’s why I got away from California and came here.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” I suddenly felt bad for asking him about his parents.
We were both silent for a moment. I contemplated what Hunter had told me about his parents. Was fighting a way for him to cope with his troubled past like I used drawing to cope with mine? I didn’t know, but it sounded like he and I might not have been as different as I initially thought.
Hunter ended up throwing his branch into a pile of debris near one of the game booths. It fit right in with the other junk.
“How about your parents?” he asked.
I was surprised he didn’t know about me after learning my name. I would’ve thought he heard about me from rumors around campus. Or seen my picture in the paper. It was certainly big news across Illinois.
I could feel the numbness settling in once again. “They’re not together.”
“Divorced?”
Without skipping a beat, I answered. “And dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”