Part 3. Ren Faire After Dark

Does your soul change if you staple a $100 bill to the boob of a woman dressed like a medieval queen?

What about a $500 bill you staple to the scrotum of a man in the costume of a king?

You won't know the man, if that matters. He's just a guy at a Renaissance Faire LARPing his best life with punctured nuts.

Would you change?

I didn't think to ask that question at the tail end of Devon's birthday party, when Devon's dad started talking about Ren Faires.

"We could take your boy to a Faire someday. He'd love it, he'd really love it."

My dear spouse and I were the last guests, but only because no other guests came. I was shivering, spent after two hours standing outside and prolonged cooing at a hefty photo album of the family's ferrets.

Devon's dad thumbed his phone, found a shot, and faced it to us. "We go every year."

There they were, a noble tableau of Pater and Mater and children in rayon finery and glasses with anti-reflective lenses, a white wall painted with rough hewn beams behind them.

Devon's mom took the phone and found another shot. She laughed and showed it to Devon's dad and they laughed together. The kids played in quiet circles down the side of the wooded hill.

My spouse lay his warm hand on the back of my neck and squeezed, lightly. I looked at him and widened my eyes. He recognized the gesture.

"Soon," he whispered. "Home."

I nodded. Between his geniality and my reserve, we usually manage to stay at social functions a proper amount of time. As the sole guests here, our instincts meant squat, but they were what we had.

Devon's mom sighed into a half-smile. "Yeah, your boy would love Ren Faires. Bet you'd like to have a weekend away from him too."

My spouse shrugged, his classic, noncommittal shrug. In truth, he sinks into a private, half-lidded bachelorhood of bitter grief and failed redemption when our son is away for too long. We are a sensitive family. We read a lot.

"Sure," he said. He tapped my neck, a second sign. Really soon. "Are you going to fairs this summer?"

Devon's dad slid his hands behind his head. "Yeah, this weekend. But not this weekend, not for the kids. It's adults only."

Devon's mom pointed to him with her sweet round chin. "Just he's going. It's adults only. For 18 and up. You know what they do after 5 pm?"

You know what they do after 5 pm.

We know what they do after 5 pm.

We know what the lords and ladies in sweeping cloaks of Jo-Ann Fabrics poly-blend do.

We know.

We know the flash of a staple gun in a swampy tent. The bare breast. The lifted leg.

We know stupid pain.

We know it makes some of us scared. Some of us hot. Some of us sick. Some of us everything.

We know degraded is better than bored. Better than lonely. Better than nothing.

We know. We've always known.

"The kids do not go to those," said Devon's mom. "But someday, your boy will go to a Faire! He'll love it."

"The kids have so much fun," said Devon's dad.

I believed him. I believed it all.
​

We called to our son that it was time to go. Face flushed, he swung his blue pool noodle three more ferocious times at a patient older boy. Then he threw the noodle at Devon, who was running a birthday-new remote control car under his parents' blue trucks.

"Why? You always make me leave when I'm having fun." He buckled his seat belt in our snub-nosed electric car and whipped his head so his long braid hit the back of the front seat. "I was having fun."

We didn't answer as we rolled through the woods, down the long dirt driveway back to Route 34.

Our boy played Minecraft. My spouse opened the window and let his hand ride the wave of air.

"Let's get pizza," he said.

"Okay."

We passed the horse farm and the big culvert where peepers make a wall of sex sounds in spring.

"You alright?"

He flopped his right hand onto my leg, palm up. I put my hand in his.

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

He steered us into our squat driveway and parked by the weathered Tyvek wall that was once a garage door. We move through our renovations slowly. We shift one thing, dreaming of transcendence, but mostly stay the same, until we aren't, and we look up to see what's changed.

"I can't help wondering."

"Yeah?"

I lifted his hand and kissed it. He watched me, waiting.

"Does the king get to keep the 500 bucks?"

He laughed. I laughed. We agreed:

Birthday parties suck.