sparked the roof and walls of Spunky's Dodge 'Em, the carousel
spun wildly to the rise and fall of horses and lions, and the steady
beat of its repeating tune echoed throughout the park. A man
balancing his screaming son in one hand, ice cream cones in the
other, little kids with cotton candy racing to see who's first to get
on Sandee's Spinning Sombrero, and in the midst of all the
peaceful confusion, Randy Stayner performing a one-time solo
swan dive 100 feet into the solid steel tracks of the SkyCoaster.
For a while, I wasn't all too sure the people around me weren't
thinking it was just an act - a Saturday afternoon performance by a
skilled diver. When blood and bone hit, however, it was clear the
act was over. And then, as if to clear the whole thing up with a
final attempt to achieve his original goal, he rolled lazily over the
bottom rails of the SkyCoaster into the brown murky water of
Skybar Pond, swirls of red and grey following him.
The SkyCoaster was shut down the day of Randy's dive, and
despite weeks of dragging the pond's bottom, his body was never
found. Authorities concluded that his remains had drifted under a
sandbar or some unmarked passageway, and all search ceased after
four weeks.
Skybar lost a lot of customers after that. Most people were afraid
to go there, and other businesses in the town began to boom
because of it. In fact, Starboard Cinema, which showed horror
movies to an audience of four or five during the parks better days
now showed repeats of 'I was a Teen Age Werewolf' to sell-out
crowds. More and more, people drifted away from Skybar until it
was shut down for good.
It was during those last few weeks that the worst accidents started
happening. A morning worker, reaching under a car on the Whip
for a paper cup, caught his arm on the supporting bar between two
clamps just as a faulty circuit started the machine. He was crushed
between two cars. Another worker was fixing a bottom rail on the
Ferris wheel when a 500 pound car dropped off the top and
smeared him onto the asphalt below. These and several other rides
were shut down, and when the only thing left open was Pop
Dupree's .22 gallery and the Adults Only freak tent, the spark ran
out of Skybar's amusement, and it was forced to shut down after its
third year in operation.
It had only been closed for two months when Brant Callahan came
up with his plan that night. We were in a group of five camping in
back of John Wilkenson's dad's workshop, in a single five-man
Sportsman pup tent illuminated by four flashlights shining on back
issues of Famous Detective Stories, when he stood up (or rather
scufffled on his knees, due to the height of the tent) and proposed
we all do something to separate the pussies from the men.
I tossed aside my Mystery of the Haunted Hearse, leaned teach in
the glow of Dewey Howardson's light, and squinted halfway at the
hulking shadow crouching by the double-flap zipper door. No one
else appeared to pay any attention to him.
