Georgia at the PNE

I wrote this story last year so it needed a bit less editing but still quite a bit really.  Anyway, we met Rick in the yoga story.  By the time of this story, Rick and Georgia have dated and broken up.  Not much more explanation needed although this is where we get the history of Georgia's relationship with David,who will later be revealed to be a gay ex-Mormon midwife. He becomes one of Georgia's roommates at the time when her twin sister and mother live there as well.

Georgia at the PNE

Georgia is ambivalent about the PNE.

Rick loves the PNE.

 “I haven’t been in years,” Georgia said as Rick pulled into a parking spot.

“You’re going to just love it,” Rick said.

“I cannot wait,” Georgia said, putting on her sun visor.

“We’ll start at the cows,” Rick said, “And we’ll finish with the rollercoaster.”

It was the rollercoaster that nearly finished Georgia.  After hours of schlepping near cow and sheep dung, of watching sales shticks about fry pans and massage chairs, of cheering on ducks at duck races and eating cotton candy, deep fried Oreo cookies, a hamburger and a beaver tail, it was the rollercoaster that very nearly pushed her over the edge.

As their car on the coaster rolled languidly to the top of the first hill, Rick turned to her and said, “This is nowhere near the longest rollercoaster or the one with the steepest drops.”

“Phew,” said Georgia, “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been on it.”

“But the amazing thing about it,” continued Rick, “Is that it may only reach top speeds of 90 kilometres per hour but it is going to feel like the most unsafe ride you have ever ever been on.” 

He flashed her a wide smile.  “Oh, sure, other coasters go faster, harder, but this one makes you feel like you could go careening off at any minute.” 

Georgia and Rick had non-dated dated for over a year, then dated dated for three months and now were non-dating dating again, Georgia’s ambivalence over the relationship kept up its yo yo-ing nature.  Rick had no such ambivalence – he wanted to be with her.  Georgia didn’t know what she wanted – she loved Rick most of the time but something gnawed at her – and so here she was at the amusement park with him trying to figure it out.

 A day at the PNE with Rick sounded infinitely more inviting to her than a day at home with her octogenarian mother and black licorice eating sister.  “Keeps me regular,’’ Heather told her. “I go like clockwork every morning at 8 and every evening at 7.”

And Georgia, despite all of her protest marching and letter writing campaigns against Stephen Harper, her raging at the photocopier at work when she jammed and melted transparencies week after week, was actually quite passive when it came to mentioning her needs in a relationship.  Loneliness drove her as well as a need to be liked and a desire to be nice to the nice even when she didn’t feel nice.

It was only later that her anger simmered.

Rick hopped off the ride while Georgia staggered after him.

“Was that not incredible?” asked Rick.  “It was so funny when you shouted out for your mommy.”

“Yeah, that was fun,” said Georgia, “Although I seem to have a little vertigo now.”

A little vertigo was an understatement.  The whole world was spinning faster and faster.  “I think I should sit down.”

“Oh, let’s just go over to this bench,” said Rick.

“No, no, right here is fine,” said Georgia, stumbling as she plopped herself on the ground.

“You can’t sit there!” shouted the ticket checker.  “You’re right in the way of people trying to get on.”

“But I’m just a little vertigo ess,” said Georgia, “I just need maybe to lie down.”

She lay face down onto the dirt.

“I’m just going to lie here face down on the dirt for a few minutes.”

“Move, lady,” people in line began to shout.

“Georgia,” said Rick, who sat down beside her.  “Leave her alone!  She’s just a little overwhelmed!” 

“Here, put your head on my lap.” 

“Huh,” said Georgia.

Rick gently positioned Georgia’s head in his lap.  Her mouth was right at his crotch.  She began to feel a bit better but kept her eyes closed when her lips began to feel a certain familiar hardness, a small hardness.

She sat up quickly.

“I’m okay,’ she said woozily.

“Jesus, lady, move,” shouted a man behind her.

“Should we call an ambulance?” asked the ticket clerk.

“No, no, no, no, no, no.  I’ll get up now.”

Rick took her arm and helped her upright.  They sat down on a nearby bench.  Rick rubbed her back which was now drenched with sweat.

“Here,” he said, “Have some of my water.”

Georgia gulped it down.

“I think I’m okay now.”

“Take your time, Georgia.  When you’re ready we can go.”

Relief swept through Georgia.  “Are you sure?  We’ve only been here for 6 hours. And you so wanted to see the Super Dogs.”

“No problem,” said Rick, taking her pulse.  “We’ll come back again.  Besides, the rollercoaster is much more fun the second time around.”

Ten minutes later they were almost at the exit, something that to Georgia was akin to the feeling one might have upon a successful escape from Alcatraz.

She was much better now, the colour returned to her cheeks and her mind cleared. Most of the gravel was out of her mouth too.  The thought of a hot dog with all of the fixings passed through her head.

“I’d love a hot dog with all of the fixings,’’ she said.

“Really?” said Rick.  “I thought you’d maybe be feeling kind of sick.”

“Oh, no, I find that in times of stress I need a hotdog with all of the fixings.”

At the fast food stand near the parking lot, Georgia was heaping on the sauerkraut when she heard her name.

“Georgia?”

Georgia looked up.

“Georgia! It is you.”

She raced through the memory files in her mind to try and place the tall and extremely handsome clean cut young man in front of her.  His teeth were a dazzling white and appeared uncorrupted by smoking or grinding. 

“Oh, hi,” said Georgia.

“Fancy meeting you here,” said the man.

``I can’t believe it either, `` said Georgia, who was running out of places to look in her memory.

God, this guy is handsome, thought Georgia.  Was there any chance on the green earth of god that she had had some kind of an alcohol fuelled blackout one night stand with him?  In the six months that her mother and sister had been staying with her, Georgia had spent six nights getting shit-faced at a bar near her basement suite.  She had never completely blacked out though, she thought now.  And the most extreme thing that had happened was she’d woken up one morning to find her hair covered in chewing gum and her right sock missing.

Wait, she thought, why would this sexy and charming boy in front of her want to have a one night stand with someone clearly nearly forty years his senior?

 “Hi, I’m Rick,” said Rick, shaking the handsome man’s hand.

“Hi, Rick.  I’m David.”

It hit Georgia like a rocket launcher.

David Kemunchuk-Pearson-Smith.  Elder Kemunchuk-Pearson-Smith.

Four years ago, Georgia, in a pique of unemployment, boredom and isolation, had for reasons she could still not analyze thoroughly, called up the local ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  For three months, Elder Kemunchuk-Pearson-Smith and Elder Dollarton had visited her in her basement suite and they had discussed the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ’s visit to America.  Georgia believed none of it.

 It’s inexplicable, she thought, that week after week I am listening to two boys who believe that women will for eternity produce spirit babies to populate the earth and that marriages will last forever. Most offensive, she thought, was the Mormon Church’s belief that until 1978 African Americans were cursed.

“And what about when Mormons were baptizing dead Jews by proxy?” she asked one evening, “That’s crazy wrong, don’t you think?”

Kemunchuk-Pearson-Smith and Dollarton had just looked at her and then said, “We don’t do that anymore.  They asked us to stop and we did.”

“Yeah, but,” said Georgia, who did enjoy debating about ridiculous things.

But she had learned that if she argued too much, the pair would leave.

“Yeah, but,” she said, “Uh, let’s talk about the three levels of heaven again.”

The boys brought donuts with them and she gave them water from the tap.  They would stay for an hour or two and each time they asked Georgia if she were ready to believe that Joseph Smith was the true prophet and that the Book of Mormon was true.

“Not this time,” she would say, “But come on back next week.”

 Her roommate was usually out when they came by but the one time he was home, he merely gave her a look, grabbed a donut and went to his room.  It wouldn’t have been right, he said later, to rain on her Mormon parade.

“I am not Mormon in any way, shape or form and never ever will be,” she told him.

“Okay,” he said, “Then you just like having Mormons in the house, eh?”
“They prefer to be called Latter Day Saints,” she corrected him.

It was the sound of their deep timbered voices that comforted her, their innocent presence in her home.  She decided she didn’t care how odd it was that she, an avowed atheist, enjoyed listening to the fairy tales of two boys from the American South.  Their accents reminded her of her youth although the boys from her youth were nothing like the men sitting across her kitchen table. 

The visits only stopped because Kemunchuk-Pearson-Smith and Dollarton were at the end of their missions and Georgia hadn’t wanted to break in a new duo of boys.

Georgia looked back at those six months with embarrassment and shame, particularly after it came out that the Mormon Church had been one of the biggest contributors to an anti-gay marriage proposition in California.  No one other than her roommate knew of these visits and due to his almost obsessive pot use of late, she was pretty certain that he had forgotten.

Georgia looked at Rick and then at David, then at Rick and again, at David.

She took a huge bite of her hotdog and ketchup rained down her face.

“How do you two know each other?” Rick asked.

“We worked together,” Georgia spat out and then inhaled too quickly, causing a bit of wiener to rush to down her throat. 

Her coughing spasm ended without her losing consciousness but it left her feeling nearly as depleted as when she had lain in the dirt a few minutes earlier.

“We should go,” she choked out, “Good seeing you,” she said to David.