I need you all to understand, this is the chapter I was most hesitant about writing about, because as much as part one and part two were messed up, this is a different kind of messed up. I know you are wondering how this insane trip could get any more insane. At this point, I’ve been forced to take drugs. Been talked to by police for what I think may be some really fucked up shit these other kids did when they bailed on me, and got into a “fingering contest”. What could possibly happen next that would best what has happened so far? Well, honestly, and the whole reason I’ve been hesitant to write this chapter is, someone died. Anytime there is death involved, people who can kill you, or a massive conglomerate who can sue you, it makes things a bit scarier, but fuck it. Here goes. Too late to stop now.
So I will skip some filler and get right to Disney day. We are all set to go to Disney World. This is the very reason I came, and even though I was trying to act all calm and cool for a seventh grader, I was like a little kid, so elated I wanted to piss myself and jump up and down, squealing. Thing is, before we even got to the “magic kingdom”, I knew something was up. The other guys were talking completely between themselves, with me in the front seat, talking to the Dad. When I heard what I heard next, I swear I sunk so low in my seat like it must have looked like I turned to liquid.
So the kid whose Dad was driving said these words and I will never forget it. May sound lame now, but back then, it took the wind out of me.
” Dad, I don’t want to go to Disney this year, Disney is for fucking kids.” And he looked right at me when he said it.
Are you fucking kidding me? I just suffered through the entirety of this trip so I could go to Disney, and suddenly I wasn’t going to Disney? Fuck this, no way. Though I hadn’t said ANYTHING up to this point, I did immediately.
” Listen, I got money for this trip so I could go to Disney, and if I go home saying I didn’t go, I don’t wanna get into trouble or be called a liar. You brought me to go to Disney, and I’m going to Disney.”
That’s all I said. I was scared, but honestly, by that point, fuckit. I was half-broken as it was. The reality was, I wanted to go SOOOO bad. I just wanted to know innocent fun, one last time, as this trip reminded me my childhood was all but over. The Dad agreed with me, surprisingly, and we were on our way. But even before we got there, I knew something was up. I knew these guys were conspiring, and I was actually getting scared. At this point, though, I was thinking, whatever happens happens. I would have welcomed death by this point in this train wreck of a trip.
A visual metaphor for my trip in its entirety.
Fast forward, we get to Disney, we all go in, and I am on sensory overload. The sweet smells wafting through the air. The sounds of laughter and music. The overwhelming imagery, all looking like it was stolen straight from a Disney cartoon. I was in awe. This was perfect. I should have seen the next part coming, but of course, I still had a glimmer of hope and purity left me at this point that was about to be sapped out. The long and the short? The younger kids were splitting away from the older cousins and Dad, and agreed we would all meet around nightfall at the outside the actual castle, and we went on our way. And as I am sure you figured out, it took them about three minutes to split from me.
There I am, in Disney world. The dream I had since I was a kid. The happiest fucking place on Earth, and I was all alone.
Believe me, you may THINK you know the word loneliness, but loneliness is standing being at Disney world and having no one to laugh with. It turned the happiest place on Earth into the ugliest, loneliest place on Earth, and it only took three minutes. Three fucking minutes and years of dreams I have had up to this point were shattered. I wanted to crawl up and die. Imagined meteors, falling from the sky, and leveling the whole place. Imagined rides coming off their tracks and crushing people. I just wanted this fucking trip to end.
Then it hit me.
Wait, I got rid of those assholes. They were actually doing ME a favor. I had all of Disney, until night fall, to explore by myself. Suddenly, it became the happiest place on Earth again. I was waiting alone in lines, but was personable enough to spark up conversations with families and other kids, and just ended up riding the rides with whomever I befriended in the lines of each ride. If the family question got brought up, I would tell them my little brother got sick from too much ice cream and was waiting off to the side with my parents, then I would wave at some random family, and seeing as to how Disney is such a friendly place, they would often wave back, furthering the mirage they were, indeed, my family. Insane, I know, But what part of this trip hasn’t been. I was a smart kid.
But wait, it gets WAY weirder, very soon.
So the pinnacle of all this for me was Space Mountain. Since the earliest days of my youth, I knew I NEEDED to ride Space Mountain. And finally that moment had come. Except this time, I didn’t really talk to anyone. Just kind of sat there, in line, pumping myself up. In hindsight, there was a very strange energy in the air at this point, but I didn’t know that, and just figured everyone was as pumped as me. I got closer and closer to the front, and they told us all the rules about how it is dark and how we can’t, no matter what, stand up or even really wave our arms. I got nervous at how much this seemed to be reinforced and reminded to us, but just got excited, and got on the ride.
And ofcourse, just a few carts down from me, someone died. Or was killed.
Yup. That happened.
All I remember was hearing screams, a thud, and then more screams. The whole thing was too dark for me to see much, and the screams were not the kind of screams someone screams when they are scared, yet having fun. This is the kind of scream you scream when you see someone get gutted or run over. And wouldn’t you know, something was wrong. This is when shit got weird. Some emergency protocol type of stuff. Staff flooded Space Mountain, and they were each assigned, once the ride stopped, to usher us all forward, not even allowing us to turn back around. I know that sounds insane, and it is, but in this type of situation, you just kind of do what is told to you, especially if you are a kid, like I was back then. I could still hear screaming, and they walked us forward and out of the ride, and then they closed the it for the day.
Being of morbid curiosity even back then, I can tell you I stayed outside Space Mountain for a few hours, and they did bring someone out on a stretcher, covered head to toe. And the worst part for me was that I had NO ONE to talk about it to. I was (and still am) convinced someone died while on Space Mountain with me, and I was on the fucking ride alone. Think about the odds of that happening. Other people who hovered around Space Mountain when they got off began speculating, and I heard many things. A man stood up and was beheaded. An older man started having seizures and died. Some kid got his hands chopped off from holding them too high. I would love to tell you which one of those are urban legends is the one that really happened, but truth is, all I know is someone died on Space Mountain with me, and I never spoke of it ever again.
Yeah, it was kinda like that. And still is, actually.
It horrified me.
How professionally everyone swooped in after the accident to cover it up horrified me.
The fact that my friends bailed on me before and would NEVER believe me if I told them this story horrified me.
Those sickening screams of that female behind me horrified me.
The way they closed the ride, and it was not on the news at all, anywhere, ever horrified me.
It felt like the final, nine-inch-nailed driven into the pallid wrists of my innocence and purity, and honestly, I never recovered from that trip. Did I meet back up with them all at night fall? Yes. And when we all met back up, those pricks were laughing, like they did or saw something cool and wanted me to ask what it was. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t give a fuck. Something in me shifted that day. I could feel it, they could see it. That proverbial child in me died many times over on that trip, and they could all finally see it. And the irony is, the whole way home, while I sat slumped in the same seat listening to Metallica, staring out the window, they kept asking me what was up and what happened that day at Disney, and I ignored them and just grinned the grin. Not so much happy, as just excited I finally had the upper hand. Excited they could see they didn’t break me. They just helped the process along. But even more excited that I didn’t mind being broken.
We all have our breaking points.
It takes extreme things to shift a boy to a man, and on that trip, I had about twelve experiences that shifted it even faster and further than anyone should have to experience. But if I needed to endure all that to be able to finally tell this story, and if that experience helped me become who I am, right now, so be it. Life is fucked up like that. You need to learn to roll with the punches.
So I got home at about midnight on a Thursday, and I remember my sister and Mom waking up and asking me how my trip was, all excited. I looked at them with no smile on my face, said “fine”, and then went and slept for a day and a half, never talking about the trip again.
Until now.
You’re welcome. And also, thanks for listening. Been holding that shit in for a while.
The post My Disney Trip From Hell Part 3: The Loneliest Place on Earth (or) Beheadings appeared first on Remy Carreiro.