WHAT GREW INSIDE HIM

Decapitator 2.0

"Max stared up at the rollercoaster and reminisced of childhood. He thought about his grandfather and he thought about the exploding fat man..."

Carrie and Carl, both young park employees, stood on either side of the loading platform of the Red Rooster, an old wooden rollercoaster. They lowered a safety bar over a large man until it stopped on his belly.

"Why do we even bother?" Carrie sat her hundred-and-twenty pounds on the bar listening for its latch to click. "The way this fat boy is jammed in here," she grunted as she bounced up a few inches and landed on the bar, "he ain't going anywhere."

"Management sent us a memo." Carl stepped from the platform and stood on the safety bar. The man grimaced as a roll of his belly pinched between the bar and his knees. "We'll be written up if we don't lock 'em in." Carl squatted, jumped, and landed his hundred-and-eighty pounds on the bar. The bar clanked as it locked into place and the large man yelped.

"Shut-up old man." Carl hopped back to the platform. "A dollar more than minimum wage means I don't have to listen to you whine."

The large man held his squashed fat with one hand and clawed at the center of his chest with his other. He sweated, thrashed, and groaned.

Carrie tugged on his left cheek. "Kinda wishing you hadn't spent a life eating fried chicken," Carrie tapped his face, "aren't you, pumpkin?"

"You need to work on your technique." Carl looked at Carrie. "Remember, this coaster was built before people started getting so big,"

"I know, I know." Carrie went to one knee, leaned over, and tied her shoe. "Did they say if they could do anything about the smell?"

"What could they do?"

A middle-aged woman seated near the front of the coaster lit a cigarette. The flash of her lighter caught Carl's eye. Carl turned and jogged up the platform toward the middle-aged woman. "Lady! No smoking on this ride."

The middle-aged woman puckered her lips around her cigarette, turned to face Carl, and winked. The tip of her addiction glowed bright red for several seconds. She held in the smoke and flicked her half-burnt butt to the platform.

"Didn't you see the signs?" Carl leaned into the car and checked that her safety bar was secure.

The woman blew her smoke into Carl's face. "I saw 'em." She turned and faced forward. "Hell, I even read 'em."

A young, redheaded woman in the coaster's control room shifted her hips to match the slow beat of a tune pumping through her earphones. Her cleavage was motionless as her lower body glided to one side, eased to a stop, and slid back to the other side. Carl looked at her and gave her a thumbs-up. When she pressed the only button on the control panel, a horn blew, hydraulic brakes released, and the train eased out of the pavilion. When the big hill's lift-chain engaged, the passengers' heads jolted back. On the clanking ride up the incline, some guests shook, some prayed, some writhed in pain, and some held their arms straight up and grinned.

Seconds after the coaster cleared the pavilion, another identical train, yet empty and dripping wet, rolled into the station, and squeaked to a stop.

---

Seven-year-old Max and his grandfather stood at The Red Rooster's entrance. Max backed up to a painting of a much oversized rooster. The top of the child's head was more than an inch below the chicken's outstretched wing.

"Not quite tall enough," Grandpa said.

"I've seen kids younger than me on it."

"As long as this line is, you may be tall enough by the time I get to go." Grandpa reached for the boy's hand. "There're other rides."