Roundabout

    It was that magic hour: an early October sunset had cast a deep periwinkle hue on the cloudless sky that twirled overhead. Below, Julio's little body spun, both calmed and enlivened by the dizzying spin of the playground roundabout. He was nestled safely between his aunt's legs which kept him from sliding off the spinning disk as the bigger boys spun them round faster. The two of them lay in the still middle there together gazing upwards, Julio contently sucking on his pacifier while his aunt giggled in his ear. Time slowed to a near stop. 

    That first turn on the roundabout was followed by many more. Invariably, the child pushing the roundabout would lose interest, run off to chase a friend, or be called home by a parent. Without a pusher, Julio, sensing the ride slowing, would kick his legs signaling he wanted more. His aunt would say, "Hang on, Jules, we'll get started again soon." One time, when the leg flailing failed yet again to elicit more delightful turns, he initiated a new ritual: he tightly shut his eyes and wished hard, imagining the roundabout spinning under that twilight sky. Just then, a child showed up with an inviting sing-song call, "Wanna push?" It was in that singular moment that Julio recognized his superpower. As is the way with so many childhood superstitious associations that tie unrelated causes to outcomes, Julio used his superpower to exert control over his world so often that he could be seen closing his eyes in the store, at school, in front of the TV, and Christmas morning. 

    By the time he was a teenager, that groove became so deep and so well-worn that while he had outgrown the roundabout ride, he retained the notion that if he wished hard enough for something, it would come true. Mind over matter for Julio was a reality. 

    Until it wasn't. One afternoon, after school, he found his mother in the kitchen with a letter in her hand, a foreclosure notice from the bank. "Son, it's about our home," she said despondently, "I mean the house." They wouldn't be able to live there anymore, she explained. They would have to move out and find a new place to live. She took a deep breath and then broke the next piece of news: he would have to live with his father temporarily.

    It couldn't be. It made no sense. His mother and her family had raised him, not his father. He didn't even know his father; couldn't even recall his face. Only one dim memory of him remained from when his father came back hoping to make things right with his mother. They had taken Julio to the playground believing that if they pretended they were a family, they might actually become one. Any plan for reconciliation must have soured because within a matter of minutes, Julio who had just started spinning on the roundabout heard his mother's voice. "Time to go!" She was scowling. He saw her turn away and walk briskly toward the house. His father meandered off to the side heading in a different direction. Julio rolled off the spinning roundabout onto the bouncy playground surface tightly shuting his eyes and wishing his mother to turn around and wait. He stood up, opened them, and shouted, "Wait! I'm coming!" She had waited. And, her face had softened just as he had wished. 

    Now, his mother, 10 years later was sitting at the table with a much older face, telling him it was no use fighting the bank, there was no way out of it, and he'd be living with a stranger, his father. Since her parents had died and her siblings had moved out she hadn't been able to afford the mortgage for months now and was behind on payments. His father had gotten wind of their predicament and had offered to help, hoping to make up for all of it.

    Julio protested, listing every reason he could dream of why the bank couldn't take their home. And then, after watching his mother shake her head too many times, he summoned his magic power. He closed his eyes tight and wished hard, as hard as the baby who wanted the roundabout to keep spinning and as sincere as the little boy who was afraid of being left alone at the playground so long ago. He opened his eyes, hopeful, but this time his mother's face hadn't softened.

    There was nothing left to do but run out the door, across the street, to the playground, towards the roundabout. He sat on one of its three little benches, now too small to support his adolescent frame. The roundabout hadn't moved in years; it had rusted stuck. Just then, a little boy of four rushed up, tapped him on the shoulder, peered into Julio's eyes and said, "Wanna push?" For a moment, Julio felt a familiar sensation, deep inside his body. The twilight sky began to spin and he felt the calm of the centripetal center that came with the predictable motion of the roundabout. 

    He trembled for a moment, then stood up, pointed to the rust on the roundabout, and said to the child, "It don't move no more." The child, with a look of momentary disappointment, considered the fate of the roundabout and tested it by pushing with an audible grunt. When it wouldn't give way, the child shrugged his shoulders and then, smiling as if his disappointment had been picked up and carried effortlessly away by the fall breeze, galloped away.

    Julio walked resolutely back towards the house. Everything felt different. Shuffling along in the fallen leaves, he could sense that there was a new kind of ride, one that was taking a different and unexpected one. Hard wishing with eyes closed tight in earnest was now child's play, a mere fantasy. No matter, he thought. Something within him had settled. The world was now bearing down and crashing in, but the roundabout remained.