It used to be on postcards: the carousel at the end of the Cape Maggie Pier. It was called the Wild Wheel, and it ran fast—not
as fast as a roller coaster but quite a bit faster than the usual carousel for kiddies. The Wheel looked like an immense cupcake,
its cupola roof striped in black and green with royal gold trim. After dark it was a jewel box awash in an infernal red glow,
like the light inside an oven. Wurlitzer music floated up and down the beach, discordant strains that sounded like a Romanian
waltz, something for a nineteenth-century ball attended by Dracula and his icy white brides.
It was the most striking feature of Cape Maggie’s run-down, seedy harbor walk. The harbor walk had been run-down and seedy
since my grandparents were kids. The air was redolent with the cloying perfume of cotton candy, an odor that doesn’t exist
in nature and can only be described as “pink” smell. There was always a puddle of vomit on the boardwalk that had to be avoided.
There were always soggy bits of popcorn floating in the puke. There were a dozen sit-down restaurants where you could pay
too much for fried clams and wait too long to get them. There were always harassed-looking, sunburned grown-ups carrying shrieking,
sunburned children, the whole family out for a seaside lark.
