The Magic Kingdom by Stanley Elkin

Author:Stanley Elkin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Psychological, Death, Psychological fiction, Children - Death, Walt Disney World (Fla.), General, Literary, Fantasy, Humorous stories, Fiction, Children, Terminally ill children
ISBN: 9781564782595
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: 2000-04-14T10:00:00+00:00

III

1

the end of the third day they’d been to all six of the lands in the Magic Kingdom. They’d been to Main Street, U.S.A. They’d been to Liberty Square, Adventureland, and Fantasyland. They’d been to Tomorrowland and to Frontierland and by now were tired of Benny’s dark joke. “‘From whose bourne no traveler returns,’” he would say whenever the last two sections of the theme park were mentioned.By

Moorhead permitted them to go on the tame rides only—the aerial tram, the little one-eighth-scale railroad, the trolleys, jitneys, and double-deck buses, the Jungle Cruise and Cinderella’s Carousel, the paddle-wheelers and WEDway People- Mover. The Grand Prix Raceway, Big Thunder Mountain, Starjets, and Space Mountain were off-limits to them. So were the Mad Tea Party, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Mission to Mars, and Peter Pan’s Flight. “Thrills and chills,” Benny would warn the others, sizing up a ride from its description in his guidebook and shaking his head, anticipating Moorhead’s decision. Thus a good part of their days was taken up in being shuttled from one part of the park to the other, simple sightseers. Even at that, four of the children—Lydia, Charles, and Tony Word were exceptions—had balked at riding the double-deckers. Again, Maxine had been their spokesman. “We’re Brits,” he called up to the driver and argued with Bale, “and didn’t cross the sea to the New World to ride no double-deck bus, which besides what it ain’t authentic in the first place it don’t even have no wog for a conductor in the second!”

They spent a lot of their time watching shows and riding in cars that ran along tracks past special effects of one sort or another. It was all rather like being in a kind of passive museum. Only Colin still seemed fascinated by the audio- animatronics, and when some of the children (by this time a little embarrassed at being always moved to the head of the line—as a precaution Moorhead had ordered Tony Word and Janet Order into wheelchairs—but unable to stand for more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time) objected to the queues, it was Bible who volunteered to stand in for them. Mudd-Gaddis, Lydia Conscience, and Noah waited on benches or on chairs under awnings at outdoor cafés—usually at these times Moorhead went off to scout other attractions for them while Eddy Bale and Mary Cottle pushed Tony and Janet in the wheelchairs and Benny and Rena, still eager to take advantage of their invalid status, accompanied them—and Nedra Carp shuffled back and forth between Colin and the children, alerting them to the status of the queue.

“How was it, Benny?” Noah asked when Maxine and the others came out of It’s A Small World.

“Thrills and chills,” Benny Maxine said.

“Was it, Benny? Was it?”

“Nah,” Benny said. “I guess it were all right, mate. There was all these little dolls from the U.N. singin’ an’ dancin’.”

“Fascinating,” Colin said.

“Cor,” Benny said, pointing to Janet and Tony in their chairs. “If we got to keep looking at this stuff it won’t be wheelchairs we’ll need, it’ll be glasses.

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