Platforms for Departure

Offerings in a Magical Space — strangely non-fiction, fiction

Specific memories of place continue to haunt my vacuous headspace. I look at them and wonder if they were a place for lost people to leave the planet. Taken by aliens, perhaps, but that never explained what happened there. Was I ten? Maybe eleven.

No, I found myself arguing with that pessimistic child remembering the LP phonograph record of a science-fiction narrative. It had eerie sound effects and a narrator with a straight, almost bland voice when I was five and then again at eight. I remember that faded antique red plastic as much as I recalled the platform — like a boxing ring that floated up into the black sky of night and disappeared with me on board. I was invisible and safe in the dark. I argued with the eight-year-old in me.

The magical platforms were different (the argument). It was a park for arabesque barbecues built by 1950 boneheads in love with concrete, cinder blocks, stones, and bizarre scratchings. I thought they were drawings, maybe attempts. More likely they were made by drunken stonemasons, mistakes — not drawings, I guessed.

It might have been Labor Day weekend in 1960 in the town where we had lived a year or two earlier. But where were my mom and sister? We had always traveled in a pack, not just me and dad. It was an island of magic surrounded by an out-of-focus blur. No memories, no explanation at all. I loved it and felt lost and lonely. But I felt lost and down most of the time back then except for that strange concrete picnic ground. I was with my dad. He was uncharacteristically not himself. Touched by the magic, or touched in the head, either way, he was adrift and giddy. I was infected by his mood after we climbed over the loose chain whose sign read: “No Trespassing. Violators Will BE SHOT”

Of course, it made me stop. My dad stepped over the chain onto the cracked cement.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s okay. Let’s explore this odd place.”

I shrugged, thinking I’d be shot at any moment. But there were these concrete altars about two and a half feet or three feet up, with drooping chimneys and grease encrusted grills, and cement picnic tables with cement benches.

There was no one else there. In fact, the nearby homes seemed empty and devoid of any life. The place itself seemed to smile as if the concrete platforms didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone or anything.

When we left, my dad became a lump of clay with a bland voice. But at least he was no longer possessed by that odd picnic carnival. He was my boring dad that could be relied on.

He drove us back to civilization, where there was traffic and other people.

This story is based on memories that are so vague they are like a wash in a watercolor painting. I am no longer able to tell whether the “memories” are real or wholly embellished.

It is what it is. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading.

Partially inspired by Marcus aka Gregory Maidman