The Dogs of Babel

EIGHT

I have heard that sometimes when a person has an operation to transplant someone else’s heart or liver or kidney into his body, his tastes in foods change, or his favorite colors, as if the organ has brought with it some memory of its life before, as if it holds within it a whole past that must find a place within its new host. This is the way I carry Lexy inside me. Since the moment she took up residency within me, she has lent her own color to the way I see and hear and taste, so that by now I can barely distinguish between the world as it seemed before and the way it seems now. I cannot say what air tasted like before I knew her or how the city smelled as I walked its streets at night. I have only one tongue in my head and one pair of eyes, and I stopped being able to trust them a long time ago. There’s nothing new I can say about Disney World, nothing you haven’t already heard or seen for yourself. All I can tell you is that I was there with Lexy.

We pulled into the parking lot of the Magic Kingdom about four-thirty that afternoon. I had suggested we find a hotel before making our way to the park—this was a popular vacation week, and I was a little worried about finding a place that had vacancies—but Lexy insisted.

“This is the best time,” she said. “All the kids who have been here all day are getting cranky and leaving to take naps and have dinner. The lines are much shorter, and it’s starting to get cooler.”

“You’re the expert,” I said.

The closer we got to the park, the more excited she got. She talked in a rush, filling me in on all the unwritten rules she’d learned from a lifetime of Disney entertainment. “But the big rides, like Space Mountain, the ones with the really long lines, we don’t go on those until the Electric Light Parade starts.”

“Don’t we want to see the parade?” I asked.

“Not when there’s no one in line at Space Mountain.”

We parked in the Goofy lot, took the tram to the ticket gate and the monorail from the ticket gate to the park. I have to admit, I was getting excited, too.

“So where to?” I asked when we finally reached the park proper.

“It’s a Small World,” she said. “You’ll love it. It’s naive but well intentioned.”

We walked down Main Street, U.S.A., and through Cinderella’s castle to Fantasyland. Lexy took my hand and led me, half running, to the ride. The sign told us to expect a forty-five-minute wait, but Lexy told me to ignore it.

“They always tell you it’s going to take longer than it actually will. That way, you’re happy when you get there ahead of schedule.”

She was right. About twenty minutes later, we were ushered into a row of our own to wait for the next boat.

“We’re in the last row,” Lexy said. “Very romantic. If you like singing dolls, anyway.”

The boat pulled up. The people in the back row climbed out, and we slid in the other side. But the people in the seat in front of us, a couple with two small girls, stayed put. The man stood and leaned toward the ride operator, a clean-cut teenager in a Venetian gondolier outfit.

“Excuse me,” he said in a serious, man-to-man voice. “I wonder if you could let us go through again. The little girl in front of us was yelling so loud we couldn’t even hear the music.”

The gondolier shook his head and said something I couldn’t hear. In front of us, the woman started to get up and gather her things, but her husband waved her back.

“Please,” he said to the gondolier. It wasn’t a question. “We weren’t able to enjoy the ride. It would mean a lot.”

The guy shrugged. “Yeah, go ahead,” he said.

The man sat down, and the boat pulled slowly into the canal.

“What’d you say, Daddy?” one of the little girls asked delightedly.

“Daddy told a lie,” the man said in a stage whisper. “Daddy was bad.”

His wife was shaking her head and laughing. “Yeah, kids,” she said. “Do as Daddy says, not as Daddy does.”

I looked at Lexy and rolled my eyes. “Great role models,” I whispered.

Lexy’s whole body had turned rigid. “I can’t stand people like that,” she said in a low, furious voice. “What makes them think the rules don’t apply to them?”

I took her hand. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Look, singing dolls. Naive but well intentioned.”

But she just sat still and stared straight ahead. Our boat sailed smoothly through the wide canals. The cool air felt good after the Florida heat. I watched the doll-children go by.

“What country is that supposed to be?” I asked, pointing toward an icy-blue landscape peopled by singing penguins. “Antarctica?”

Lexy shrugged.

The man in front of us turned to his daughters. “Come on, Ashley, Madison,” he said. “You know the words. ‘There is just one moon and one golden sun.’” The girls joined him, singing in loud, high-pitched voices.

“Shall we join in?” I said to Lexy. “Come on, Lexy, you know the words.”

But she didn’t smile. She looked down at her lap.

“‘There’s so much that we share,’” shrieked the girls in front of us, “‘that it’s time we’re aware…’”

Lexy was still seething when we reached the end of the ride.

“Come on,” I said, standing up and climbing out of the boat. “Let’s go get one of those ice creams shaped like Mickey’s head.” But she was looking the other way.

“Excuse me,” she said loudly to the ride operator. The little family group turned to hear what she was going to say. “Can we go through again? The people in front of us were so morally reprehensible that we couldn’t enjoy the ride.” She got out of the boat and started to walk, her body stiff, her arms held tightly at her sides.

“What does that mean, Daddy?” one of the girls asked.

Lexy turned back. “It means your daddy’s an asshole,” she said. And she walked quickly on ahead of me.

She was near tears when I caught up to her. I reached out to touch her arm, but she jerked away from me.

“We were having such a good day, and now I’ve ruined it,” she said.

“You haven’t ruined it,” I said. I’ll admit I had been a bit taken aback by Lexy’s outburst. I was surprised by the intensity of her emotion, the strength of her reaction to people she didn’t even know. But there had been so much that had surprised me in the last twenty-four hours, not least of all my own willingness to follow Lexy’s lead, to turn myself upside down to be with her. In my entire life, I’d never called anyone an asshole—not to their face, anyway—but it occurred to me now that maybe I should have. Maybe if I’d opened my mouth more often, let my own words come to the surface, I wouldn’t have lived my life so alone.

“You were right,” I said. “Daddy was an asshole. Let’s go find him and kick his ass.”

“I don’t know why I get this way,” she said, still not meeting my eyes. “If you want to just leave, that’s okay.”

I took her face in my hands and turned it upward until she was looking at me. I smiled. “I don’t want to leave,” I said.

“You don’t?” she said. Her eyes were bright with tears.

“No. I don’t.”

“You’re not—I don’t know, mad or freaked out or embarrassed to be seen with me? I mean, you hardly know me, and here I am causing scenes with complete strangers.”

“Well, I won’t be cutting in line in front of you, that’s for sure,” I said. Finally, she smiled. “But how could I be mad at you? Look where you’ve brought me.” I spread out my arms to include everything around us, the colors and the music, the rides, the crowds, the Florida sun. “You’ve brought me where I needed to go. Now come show me the rest of it.”