CHAPTER 10

Dear Grasshopper,

Napoleon once said there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, though with insight, the ladder often works most profoundly in reverse.

Self-contradiction is generally thought to be an impediment to clear thinking. Yet Whitman got it right when he justified his contradiction by claiming he “contained multitudes.” Contradiction for its own sake is merely an unimaginative inversion of unimaginative thinking, but as a high art it is a rejection of the inert substance of truth for its creating spirit.

Absurdity, too, is regarded with suspicion by most. But such a biological prejudice is only as strong as the imagination is weak. Absurdity is the inspired madness of throwing things at a ceiling and trying to get them to stick—if for a millisecond. It was Emerson who, in poet’s terms, referred to wild and unfettered creation as speaking “with the flower of the mind.” Wittgenstein told us, similarly: “Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness.”

THE DANCING STAR, Part Two

According to Emma, the miniature golf course (originally called Putt-Putt Palace) fell on hard times in the early Eighties. It was almost boarded up, but a last minute bid by a chain of adult-themed motels saved it from demolition. Though a name change was allowed, county officials sold the property under the condition it remained a family attraction. Strictly speaking, the golf course did not reside within the city limits of Stonesthrow but was closer to the neighboring town of Eastfawn. There was an ongoing squabble over which municipality could claim it, and this fueled a longstanding football rivalry between Purcell College and Eastfawn’s State College.

Dusk was soon hard on the couple, although the aura on the eastern horizon made their destination easy to spot. A large billboard emerged in a cornfield to confirm their heading:

PEEK-A-BOO PUTT-PUTT THREE MILES

Floodlights were eventually disentangled from a concealment of trees, whereupon an unassuming motel popped up next to the fenced-off park.

“Here we are!” Emma sang gleefully, yanking down the rearview mirror to freshen her lipstick. “Let me do the talking. I can get us in for free!” With camera bag in hand, the confident dark-haired beauty marched off over asphalt. Michael directly joined her at the front booth, where she was doing a number on the young male ticket-taker. She held up something laminated and purred through deep crimson lips. “I’m a graduate photographer at the college. I have a standing arrangement with the management to come here and take pictures without paying admission.”

Her companion purposefully lagged behind to avoid the dodgy ethics.

She turned back to shove her bag in his arms. “This man is my assistant!”

The two passed through the turnstile with surprising ease, and the first-time visitor took a moment to read the dedication plaque to the park’s designer, Daedalus Monet.

Emma yelled to be heard over cacophonous music. “Monet had a morbid fear of electricity! Wouldn’t even come out on site when they were building this place!”

The cotton candy concoction before them was at once overwhelming. Bent neon tubes of every imaginable color burned overhead, while repeater bulbs, as big as cabbages, blinked up and down gaudily painted arches. Any astronauts circling the Earth likely knew Peek-a-boo Putt-Putt was open for business. Given Michael’s sensitivity to noises and bright lights, he was at least forewarned on this occasion, so was determined to be good-humored. The complex was bigger than it looked from outside the high fence, and contained many courses. Every hole was adorned with mind-boggling obstacles and tiered greens of jarring chartreuse. One hole boasted of submarines that transported twirling golf balls, like lottery balls, to an underwater substation, where the final shot was executed via remote television by robotic peashooters. Other holes played on optical tricks, or gravity defying features like inverted staircases and inclines where balls rolled uphill. One course featured improbable “missing link” obstacles, including a two-headed snake and a sown-together monkey fish.

A scale model replica of the golf park stood on a large table across from the entrance. An inch-thick magnifying glass on a pivot mount marked the center of the display. Michael leaned over to peer through it and was shocked to find thousands of fleas—blown up grotesquely in size—fussing about over exacting reproductions of putt-putt obstacles. Unbelievably, each insect had a tiny hat fastened to its head by means of a single bead of glue. The viewer backed away with a shudder on realizing no Plexiglas covered the exhibit.

He asked the attendant, “How do you keep the fleas from escaping?”

The man replied, “A magnet.”

Incredulous, Michael knelt down to glimpse a dark box bolted to the underside of the table.

The attendant explained, “We’ve got little metal hats glued to their backs. Keeps them from jumping off.”

“How would you know if one was missing?”

The fellow found the question nonsensical.

The leggy companion had seen enough bugs. Latching onto her guest’s arm, her heart was set on one pavilion: The House of Mirrors. She stopped at the tent’s entrance with a ringing endorsement. “This will be fun!”

Funhouse mirrors lined the interior walls of the attraction, but there were no greens as such. Each hole resembled a lava lamp, where struck balls rippled down long glass chambers filled with mercury-looking stuff, which required a Herculean feat of optical compensation to correct for the distortion. Additional unintended obstacles littered the thoroughfare as well: cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and abandoned balls in mirage-like gullies. The graduate student seemed an old hat at it, dropping one hole after another with admirable single-mindedness, although the churning topology of flesh in the mirrors was of greater interest to the painter than watching himself get skunked. His feeling was one of being surrounded on all sides by Picasso’s abstract brothel, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Emma loomed over him in the black and white dress with awning bosom and panoramic hips, which added to her intimidation.

Having handily beaten her competition, the photographer was soon tugging him back down the boardwalk. Amusement park rides were interspersed among the courses, and the sight of them (even the kiddy ones) made Michael tremble. The Ferris wheel was the tallest attraction, and the spirited girl, scrounging in her purse for money, was gravitating toward it. The companion wanted to stop her—not out of gallantry to pay but to spare him further humiliation. It was too late. The ride attendant strapped them into a cage. Michael resolved not to make a show of his fright, but on lifting off the ground the park was instantly a bubbling cauldron beneath him.

Emma only noticed his white-knuckled state when the creaking cage reached its highest point. “Are you alright?”

He stuttered. “I… I have a thing about heights.”

She clutched his cold, rigid hand. “Why didn’t you say something?”

He was too far-gone to reply.

The woman could do little beyond sympathetically endure his torture. Once safely back on earth, he felt more than foolish—he felt emasculated. This was not merely a result of the ride, but from the park itself. The noisy environment deprived him of all the subtle talents he employed successfully back at the pub. His wit and charm were useless here. This was the realm of the body; and Michael’s relationship to his body was anything but felicitous. Any physical context he was likely to be thrust into in the name of recreation would either induce phobic attack, profound embarrassment, or injury. He could no more horseback ride than he could canoe or dance. A distraught Emma insisted they rest on a bench, although the tarnished knight did not want to be mollycoddled. As their repose stretched into minutes, their respective gazes drifted out over the park’s hazy glare in different directions. Many couples walked arm-in-arm along the boardwalk, while others were amorously occupied between pavilions. The girl was blank under her smokescreen-of-a-smile while she watched them all, and the man could scarcely understand how such a vivacious creature should be content with his sedentary company. The photographer sensed his stare and, desiring a change of mood, leapt up to snap several pictures of him. Michael did not want his photo taken, but his effort to dissuade her only egged her on.

Prodded back to his feet, the two were swimming upstream once more. They passed one course under a poppy red big top. Sawdust was scattered between the greens while the smell of piped-in cotton candy and simulated elephant dung lent authenticity to the circus experience. Inflatable clowns were among the obstacles, and roared with the glow of blowtorches as they snapped against the canvas tent. Despite their heavenly trajectory, they remained anchored to the ground where they were obliged to terrorize shrieking children on the way to the carousel horses. Emma had a more sedate course in her crosshairs, one unfortunately themed on a Las Vegas-style wedding chapel. No matter how many distractions surrounded them, Michael did not relish being judged against the backdrop of valentines with a woman thirteen years his junior. Regardless, the pair worked their way down a set of holes based on oddly shaped wedding cakes. There were mercifully only eight holes by which to measure his humiliation this time, though both players were slow in picking up on the next to the last obstacle.

It was Jacques Creiter dressed as a stone Cupid, complete with bow and arrow and adult diapers. He already spotted the two, and his frozen look was one of being cornered. A child then struck a ball that rolled to within inches of one of his feet. He broke his stance to snatch it when it passed. The little boy, not anticipating this, screamed before laughing at his scare, whereupon Jacques resumed his pose. Emma said nothing, but stepped around the little man’s plot of turf to the final hole. Squaring herself with the tee, she made a hole-in-one with characteristic steeliness; a robotic priest (resembling a one-armed bandit) piped up with a canned rendition of Wagner’s wedding march; two plastic wedding rings popped out of a change slot. She was wandering back to the boardwalk before the refrain finished, though sentimental Michael tarried to grab the two rings and hurried to catch up.

When they were a little further along, Emma dimmed with a confession. “Jacques had a crush on me for a while. He even posed in my yard.”

More pieces fell into place.