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I’m an adult. I can do this.
3
Ruslan
For the past sixteen years, I’ve spent late nights posted at secret rendezvous points, pointedly concealed by the unassuming veil of darkness. I always valued the solitude before the events of the night would occur, often closing my eyes and imagining that I was back home, eleven years old, listening to the organs of the church play through the haze of incense.
But tonight, the air is alive with the clatter of roller coasters, the smell of deep-fried food, and far too many people to distract me from my mission.
I’m starting to wish I had negotiated a different drop off point.
I’ve been standing near a cluster of porta-potties for over a half-hour now, glancing at my phone and pretending to look at the sky as clusters of people stumble past me. They’re beginning to notice me, and that kind of visibility is very bad for me under the circumstances.
Even if they’re too busy to realize how weird it is that I’ve been standing here for so long, it speaks to a greater problem – maybe a highly-populated, lively event such as a state fair is the wrong environment to be meeting a business contact.
At this point, it doesn’t matter. I’ve already agreed to meet Johan out here, and he’s very particular about where and when he’ll meet someone he doesn’t know.
He’s been drifting in and out of the area for the last few years, using temporary local events such as fairs and festivals to remain anonymous and hide in plain sight. It’s worked for him thus far, so I trust his intuition, but damn.
I wish I had prepared better, or at least worn something less formal.
I envy a group of younger guys as they shuffle past me, faces red with watering eyes from laughing. They’re watching one of their peers, an impressionable and unassuming nerd, lose his footing every third step as he recovers from a homemade weed brownie.
I only know because they won’t stop talking about it.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize how little I miss being that age, but my experience was also miles and miles away from theirs. I didn’t get to spend my twenties getting high and making an ass of myself in public. I was trying to keep myself from starving.
The nerd eventually throws up near a popcorn stand, and his tormenters begin giggling like a pack of hyenas in active psychosis. It sucks, but it isn’t my place to be that kid’s hero.
As my unease grows, I check my phone to see if I’ve gotten any last-minute updates. Maybe I’ve already been given a new location and I’ve just been distracted.
I check my texts, and I find nothing.
No missed calls, no messages, no voicemails.
And it’sforty minutes past our meeting time.
I was referred to Johan by one of my most trusted colleagues, someone I would trust with my life and entire estate. I know that he wouldn’t be so careless as to send me in the direction of a fraud, so what the hell is going on?
I decide to wait another twenty minutes, just in case something could have inconvenienced Johan and caused him to be late. He has a reputation for being punctual and refusing to engage in petty nonsense, so I’m skeptical that he’s blowing me off on purpose.
It feels wrong to be allowing someone else to dictate what I do with my time. If Johan didn’t have the potential to be such a valuable partner, I would have left after ten minutes of him wasting my time.
At this point, I’m just hoping that I see him at all.
Every few minutes, I’ll hear a collective of screams coming from one of the rides on either side of the fair. The combination of terror and thrill in their voices is unique to me, especially as someone who typically only hears screams of pain or fear.
I’m reminded of the first few years I spent here in the States, arriving in my late teens. I was invited out to and endless variety of haunted houses and other intentionally horrifying experiences for the sake of a cheap thrill.
I could see the appeal in it at first, but as my family back home continued to live in fear, I began to wonder if my brothers and sisters would find it as amusing as I did.
Coming to America has given me a new perspective on the people who live here in ways I couldn’t have imagined if I tried.
Something I find peculiar about them is how tenaciously they seek out the experience of fear. At this point, I’d be curious to find out if they feel the opposite of generational trauma.
Are their people so deprived of adversity that they create it for themselves? Temporary fixes of adrenaline and mortal fear? It seems like a privilege to desire it at all.
The clock strikes nine, and I defeatedly glance around one last time before I decide to leave.
