Who’d ever heard of that ride? Besides, it looked so fishy, tacked up over the real ride. And no one was waiting in line. Usually, at least half of the clever zigzags, designed to give the impression that you were constantly on the verge of entry, were filled. And, for that matter, none of the pretty teenagers with color-coordinated Swiss outfits (which were actually supposed to look German, but I was too young to understand why) were standing at the entrance to the ride, grinning and helping people on and off the boats. And there weren’t even boats. There was only one long, narrow black canoe. The single attendant was a slender man dressed in a clam-colored suit, with eyes the color of ice and skin like pecans.
How long had he been standing there?
But I wanted my strawberry drink, and the submarines. I glanced at the large wristwatch of the white-haired woman who had just sat down on the bench. Ten-fifteen. Plenty of time.
I walked toward Adventureland, wanting to vanish in the crowd, thick and inevitable as a river, colorful as the flowers themselves.
Was that elegant attendant Sammy? I about-faced, until I could see him again. He waited so calmly, unimpressed by either the crowd or the crowd’s neglect of his ride. It looked scary, the unpopularity, the lone man. Next door was the Mad Hatter music and the wild caterpillars of Alice in Wonderland: you could see the bright worms careening crazily on the huge leaves out front, the end of the ride, which put the riders on display—not a usual Disney feature—but was actually a play for time, my idea, to get you used to the real world again after all that wonderful stuff inside. Like being a spy and getting deprogrammed.
Come to Sammy’s Snowland!
The voice was thin and eerie, like those fugues they played in Music Appreciation.
I was attracted by the same strangeness that was repelling me. And who had spoken? The impeccable gentleman was stiff and aloof, and patient.
I hesitated, listening to the wild laughter and promises of the ever-optimistic Mad Hatter.
But the mysterious lure of Snowland was too much. As though fate itself were pulling me by a steel cable tied to my heart, I marched over and sat in the canoe. Nothing really bad could happen at Disneyland. The elegant man did not offer assistance, nor would he take my coupon. With one gray-gloved hand, he gestured to another tacked-up sign:
The canoe sailed into the dark mouth of the whale.
Chapter Four
I sat in the slim black boat and felt as still and calm as a rain puddle the next clear morning. Strange: the feeling of having both everything and nothing to lose. The tunnel was dark gray, almost but not quite black. The passageway curved dramatically, as if we weren’t going directly through the mouth of the whale, but down into someplace else.
In fact, the canoe whizzed through a chained-off area that said STAY OUT, CERTIFIED PERSONNEL ONLY. However, that could be part of the ambience, like the danger, keep away signs on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
It was damp, though, and the smell wasn’t too great. This was probably a mistake. If only June were here.
Actually, the worst part was the lack of music or any sound at all, save the swishing of the prow through the water. In the beginning of some of the rides—Snow White, for example—it was very dark, but people kept warning you about what was going to happen, the story being narrated in this scary way so that when they told you, “The Poison Apple!” and the witch extended her hand, practically right on top of you—well, it was very effective.
Then, just when I began a little prayer in my head, I heard:
Half of the earth’s surface
is covered with snow.
The tunnel began to lighten, as if dawn were breaking. Oh darn, I thought, both relieved and disappointed. It’s going to be educational, like the Wamsutta Panorama over in Tomorrowland. The voice, though, was cold, indifferent, and vaguely British, not the jolly and paternal voice you associated with Disneyland, movies at school, and television commercials, the ones that told you how various products were good for you.
We are like the earth.
Snow covers us over.
We are only half-alive.
The tunnel turned very bright, the source of illumination the walls themselves, which seemed to shimmer and swell.
Any minute now, something was going to happen.
The canoe began a long, careful curve (oddly, it didn’t seem to be controlled by underwater cables, like the boats on the other rides) inside the pearly walls, and then rounded a bend. And here was Storybookland! A miniature countryside was laid out before me, a whole vista: houses, roads, stores, freight train, and lush groves, just like the ones we owned: lemon, orange, avocado. And there was this house—such an interesting coincidence—which looked exactly like our house, with the stables and the pepper tree and everything, cats lounging in the backyard and Ace nickering in his stable. In fact, the entire town looked precisely like ours… but weren’t all small towns in Southern California pretty much alike? The ocean glimmered in the distance, beyond the rounded brown hills.
Disneyland was such an amazing place! How did they make a tiny ocean like that? You could see the waves and the sand and the minute seashells, the lank hanks of diminutive seaweed, like mermaid hair, washed up on the shore.
This is what most people see.
Well, fine. It was adorable.
And this is what could be seen.
This is what is also present.
The canoe rounded another bend, and then you couldn’t tell if you were coming on the same scene transformed or a new scene that was supposed to represent the original scene transformed. (Several years later, Disneyland imitated Sammy’s ride in It’s a Small World, but he alone can be credited with the effect of never knowing what you are seeing. In IASW, you realize that each vision is a new scene, a partial replication of the previous one. You end up marveling not at the sheer majesty but at the expense.) The transformation was stunning! The town with distant ocean was precisely as it had been before, except that now there was a new dimension, projecting out from each object and animal—was this the fourth dimension? It was like those lapsed-time photographs of cars in big cities, and you see, besides the car, the trail that its passage made through space. No, wait, this was better than that: where the ocean had been—still was, I mean—there was now this sea of structure, like some kind of endlessly complicated illuminated molecule model, set in motion. Or it was like the surface of things had been rendered transparent, those educational toys of plastic people: Invisible Woman. The inner organs were revealed through the vanishing exterior of her skin.
But really, when you were looking, you didn’t think any of these things. You just thought wonder.
I repeat: This is what is also present.
Three-D glasses! Linwood wouldn’t let me go to any of those movies because they were about monsters and so forth, but I bet that’s what they were like. Only, obviously, one dimension better.
The canoe rounded the bend again, and I craned my neck for one more glimpse of the lit-up, molecular village. Was that the end of the ride? After all, it was free.
Again with the slate-gray tunnel, the depressing silence. I thought about that part in the Greek myths where they row you over to Hades. Were we underground? But, as if June had been sitting next to me, I heard: No, stupid, water can’t travel uphill!