Demon Box

“During the initial weeks of the project,” the voice of the narrator told us, “the hippos made repeated charges against the compound’s fences, often breaking through, more often injuring themselves. We were eventually able to quell these assaults by introducing into their drinking water a formula especially designed by our laboratories—making them, comparatively, much happier hippos.”

“Compared with what?” I heard Joe’s one-liner from the dark. “Each other?”

The shadows were long when we emerged from the film, the sun sinking between the spires of Cinderella’s Castle. I had pretty much lost interest in the convention, but Joe felt he should make an appearance. Besides, now his reserves were completely exhausted. So we took the old-fashioned choo-choo around to the gate, where we boarded its modern monorail counterpart.

We had to wait while our engineer had a cigarette outside on the landing. A restless musing filled the car while we waited. Hidden machinery hummed. People slumped in the chrome-and-plastic seats. Out the open doors of the car, the Florida sky was airbrushed full of crimson clouds, just like Uncle Walt had ordered, and the indistinct sounds and voices of the park waved softly in and out on the evening breezes. Annette Funicello’s recorded greeting at the entrance gate could be heard clearest: “Hey there hi there ho there,” she chanted like a cheerleader. “We’re as happy as can be, to have you here today… hip hip hoo-ray!”

None of the waiting passengers seemed inclined to be led into the cheer. In the seat in front of us a family rode, six of them. The husband sat alone, his back to us, his muscled arms spread over the red plastic seatback. Across from him, facing us, his family fussed and stewed. His wife had dark circles under her eyes and at her Rayon armpits. In her lap his toddler whimpered. On one side of her his first-grader whined and on the other side his sixth-grader sucked her thumb. Across the aisle his teenager slouched and bitched.

“The kids at school will not believe we never went on Pirates of the Caribbean!”

“Hush, honey,” the mother said wearily. “We were out of tickets. You know that.”

“We could have bought more,” the teenager maintained. The other kids wailed agreement. “Yeah! we could have bought more!”

“We were also out of money,” the mother said.

“We didn’t even get to see the Enchanted Tiki Birds. The kids at school simply will not believe it!”

“That we were out of money? Well, the kids at school had better believe it. And you better give it a rest if you know what’s good for you—all of you!”

And all the while the father sat without comment, not moving, just the muscles in his forearms and his big workadaddy hands, gripping the back of the seat. I noticed he’d been able to get his wrists and knuckles clean for this occasion, but there was still carbon under the fingernails, the indelible tattoo left by the other fifty-one weeks of his year working a lathe in Detroit, or changing tires in Muncie, or scrabbling coal in Monongahela.

“In a recent worldwide survey,” Annette’s voice continued in a more serious vein, “it was found that twice as many people desire to go to Disney World than to any other attraction on earth. That’s pretty impressive, don’t you all agree?”

Nobody nodded agreement, not even the kids. Before we could hear more our driver returned to his controls; the doors hissed shut and the big tube hummed away toward the hotel. The hands continued their gripping and ungripping of the seatback, trying not to let it show how hard it was getting to be, this business of keeping a grip—Joe and I exchanged looks. The poor guy. Hadn’t he done everything you’re supposed to? Labored hard? made a home? raised a family? even saved enough for this most desired of all vacations? But it wasn’t working. Something was wrong somewhere, and hanging on was getting harder all the time.

We never saw his face. They filed off forward of us at the hotel. As they left Joe shook his head:

“Just the tip of an enormous iceberg,” he said, “heading toward a titanic industry.”

I had no idea just how titanic until I saw the exhibits. While Joe rushed off to make his appearance at industry parties, I roamed the crowded exhibition hall, amazed at all the latest devices and potions designed to care for and control the upcoming hordes unable to care for or control themselves. Teenagers rented from the local high school were our guides through a vast maze of displays. They demonstrated long-snouted pitchers that could get nourishment down the most intractable throat. They showed us how new Velcro straps could strap down a big strapping lad as well as the bulky old buckle cuffs. They invited us to test the comfort of urine-proof mattresses, pointing out the slotless screwheads that held the bed-frame together: “to keep them nuts from eating the screws.”