Chapter 13
(Zachy)
“Ohh whoa,” Song breathed, squeezing Zachy’s hand as Papa Cooper guided the SUV down a street teeming with cars. “Look how high all the buildings are.”
“Scary big,” Zachy replied, holding on tight. “Coming here is always terrifying.”
The blocks were the longest Zachy had ever seen anywhere.
Though he’d been to New York City a handful of times in the past, it had always been with the cast of the show he worked on, and because of the clause that hadn’t allowed him to spend time with the other performers due to his former role, he’d never been brave enough to go out exploring, since he’d have had to do it alone.
He suddenly found himself gripped by a very real fear, knowing that there were places they intended to visit during their weeklong stint there.
“Daddy,” Zachy said solemnly, “There are so many people everywhere. Please don’t let go of me. I don’t know what to do if I get lost. How would I ever find you again?”
“I have no intention of letting go of you at any point while we’re out and about,” Daddy said.
“But if something happens and we do get separated in a crowd, I want you to stop immediately and stand against the nearest building, pull your phone out, call one of us, and describe everything you see. You aren’t to move from that spot.
That goes for both of you. You aren’t to try and find us; we will use the landmarks you give and the things you see to backtrack and find you.
We will never cross a street without having you by our sides, which means we will always be on the same block, so I need you not to panic if a surge of people does manage to push in between us, okay? ”
“Okay, Daddy, but what happens if we’re at the zoo or the aquarium or a museum?” Zachy asked.
“Then the same rule applies,” Daddy said.
“You stop immediately, move off to the side, and get your phone out if it isn’t already.
I can’t see a scenario where one of us isn’t holding one of your hands unless you’ve got your phone in it to take pictures, so the moment that connection is lost we’ll already be turning around to see what happened.
I know it’s a big, scary place, so we’ll just be careful and stick together, okay? ”
“Okay,” Song and Zachy replied.
Song’s eyes were bright and wide as he tried to take everything in and just looked stunned as they rounded a corner and encountered more cars and people.
The streets were damp and slushy in places, but there wasn’t nearly as much snow as there was back home.
Some of the windows they passed sparkled with frost around the edges, making them shimmer where the sun hit them.
Digging in his backpack, Zachy found his notebook and a pen and started jotting down ideas for Christmas dioramas to resemble some of the storefront windows they drove past.
The fear of getting lost in this towering city was still bright in his mind, along with what Daddy had said about taking pictures.
If he wanted to take a photo of something, he was going to tell his Daddy or his Papa first and not just stop and pull his phone out; that way they’d know and not let go of him while he did it.
That would be so much safer than being impulsive.
“Since it’s such a beautiful day and we have no idea what the rest of the week has in store for us, is it okay if we hook up with Decon and check out the sculpture garden once we all get checked in?” Song asked, twisting in his seat to try and peer behind them. “They’re just a few cars behind us.”
“I think that would be a very wise idea,” Papa said. “He can hop in with us. There will be plenty of room once we get the bags out of the back.”
“I’ll text him and let him know,” Song replied, pulling his phone from his pocket.
Zachy couldn’t wait to see the sculpture garden.
Earlier in the week, when he and Daddy had taken a trip to the arts and crafts store, he’d found the coolest rectangular box with little windows cut into the tops and sides.
He’d purchased it with the intent of making another of the dioramas he loved to create.
While he hadn’t decided what scene he wanted to encapsulate inside of it, he was certain that this trip to the city would be filled with plenty of inspiration.
Parking in the hotel’s multi-story garage was like being on an amusement park ride with all the winding around and driving up they had to do before they found a spot. Going down was going to be like a roller coaster ride.
In no time at all, they’d gotten checked into the suite that Papa Cooper had booked for them, dropped off their things, hooked up with Decon, who was even taller than Daddy Gage and just as fierce-looking, and were off on their first New York City adventure.
“Man, I’m glad we came up early,” Decon declared as they stepped out into a cold, crisp New York morning. “And I’m doubly glad for the nap I took on the ride up. This place is seriously fuckin’ huge!”
Zachy nodded in solemn agreement at the sight of the Museum of Modern Art.
“No way am I moving one step away from you guys in this place,” Decon declared as they walked towards the building.
Hearing the much bigger man say that made Zachy feel so much better about his own fears, even as he slipped his hand into his daddy’s and clung.
“I think we will be much better off sticking together as a group, taking our time, and keeping an eye on each other so we don’t get separated,” Papa said as Song slipped two fingers through his belt loop. “This is hands down the biggest place I’ve ever been in my life.”
“You can say that again,” Decon said as he walked beside Papa. “I’m super excited though. I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else since we started planning this trip.”
“Are you going to plan more of them?” Zachy asked. “Like an actual tour and stuff?”
“Naa,” Song replied, grabbing Zachy’s other hand. “At least not anytime soon. We’d love to do a few weekends outside of the city from time to time, just to see how other people respond to our music, but I think we’re a long way from trying to take it across the country.”
“What he said,” Decon replied. “I love the idea of making music and sharing it with anyone who wants to listen, but I don’t think I could ever handle living out of a bus and constantly hopping from city to city. I already miss my dogs, and we haven’t even been gone a day.”
“It’s not an easy life,” Daddy said, “and it can seriously shorten the lifespan of a band if all its members aren’t mentally prepared for that kind of commitment.
Seems like you guys are aware of that though, which shows maturity.
I’m impressed. A lot of guys your age would be trying to rush out on the road without thinking through the logistics of being away from family, friends, and your support systems.”
“No shit,” Decon said. “I’m too new to this whole anger management regimen to want to be too far away from my sponsor.
Even this is pushing it a little, to be honest. It’s kinda why I jumped at the chance to spend the downtime with you guys, so I wasn’t out there trying to navigate this insanity alone. ”
“Naa, we’ve just gotta navigate this insanity together,” Zachy said, giggling as Daddy unfolded the map and let out a long, low whistle.
“No bull,” Daddy muttered as he turned the map, studying it from different angles before shaking his head and struggling to fold it back up. “Song, how about you pick a direction, and we’ll start there.”
“Left,” Song declared, leading them in that direction. “I hear water. Maybe it’s a fountain.”
“Left it is,” Daddy declared.
“Ohh, look, it’s a Billy goat with snow all over its back,” Zachy remarked, cocking his head to study it. “It looks so at home out here. We had one on the show once, and it tried to eat Oswald.”
“Oswald the Owl?” Decon asked. “Oh my god, my nephew is in love with that show. If he’s over when it’s on, he drags me to the living room so I can watch it with him. I’ve never seen the goat episode, though; I bet it was hilarious. You work on that show?”
“Yup,” Daddy said, so Zachy didn’t have to. “As part of the sound crew.”
“Oh, that’s badass. I bet you get to see a lot from the booth.”
“There’s never a dull moment, not with all the animal guest stars they bring in,” Daddy replied.
Zachy was grateful for the way he’d phrased it, making it seem like Zachy worked in the sound booth with him, thus sparing him from having to think up a lie when his daddy knew that he wasn’t a very good liar.
“Have any of them ever gotten loose on the set?” Decon asked.
Snickering, Zachy burst into full-on giggles as he was hit with a memory from a very recent episode. The look on his daddy’s face when Gage turned and narrowed his eyes at him just made Zachy laugh even harder.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Decon said.
“Me too,” Song said. “You gotta share with the rest of the class now.”
“Definitely,” Papa said. “Because I’m seeing a lot of scowls coming from a particular direction, and what that’s telling me is that someone had an encounter with the escapee that he’d managed to keep secret from the rest of us.”
“Only because a certain little imp hadn’t gotten around to blurting it out yet,” Daddy grumbled.
“Two of the tarantulas got loose,” Zachy explained in between giggles. “Huge ones too.”
Song gasped, and Zachy could feel his hand quiver. “You had big-ass fuzzy spiders wandering around free in the studio?”
“Yup,” Zachy said.
“How can you laugh about that?” Song asked. “Oh my goddess, I’d have been scrambling up someone’s back screaming my head off and gripping their hair so they couldn’t put me back down again.”
It was a good thing that there were few other people in the space, because Zachy lost it completely, his giggles turning to loud, snorting laughter.
“Dude,” Decon said. “You could climb me and cling to me all you wanted, ‘cause my big ass would be screaming too and looking for someone even bigger to climb.”
“I don’t even like little spiders,” Song declared while Zachy struggled to catch his breath.
“If I see one in the room, the room is theirs forever, especially if they disappear behind something. That’s a huge nope for me.
Like, hella nope, no way, you gotta find it and get it out of there with proof of disposal before I’ll even think about going back in there again. ”
“And even then, that’s iffy,” Decon added. “’cause where there’s one, there are probably more of them, and I don’t wanna meet one bigger and cringier than the previous one.”
“I love spiders,” Zachy remarked when he could finally suck in enough air. “I’ll catch them and put them outside for you the way I helped catch the tarantulas.”
Song’s eyes went wide when he stared at Zachy, his voice a high-pitched squeal when he spoke. “You touched them?”
“Uh-huh,” Zachy replied.
“Not only did he touch them, but he rescued me from those fuzzy, eight-legged menaces after one climbed up the glass on the sound booth.”
“Where did you find the second one?” Song asked, prompting another round of giggles from Zachy.
Daddy just groaned and slapped a hand over his eyes.
“You know how you said you’d climb someone to get away from the spiders?” Zachy asked in between giggles. “Well, the spider had the same idea and was climbing Daddy.”
Papa sputtered, while Song and Decon just looked horrified at the revelation. Song pulled away from Papa and Zachy so he could hug Daddy, who stroked his hair and cuddled him.
“I’d have died,” Song moaned as he clung to their Daddy. “I’d have passed out on the floor, and the spiders would have just eaten me or burrowed into my body to lay their eggs.”
“Ewwww,” Decon hissed, shuddering as they rounded the corner to see a huge, towering spider sculpture looming on the edge of the fountain Song had been drawn to.
He stopped so fast, Zachy almost ran into him, only to have Decon smash into him and nearly knock him down while backpedaling away from the sculpture.
Its legs were long and thin beneath a bulbous body, its head pointing downward towards the water, fangs on display as Zachy inched beneath it, tugging his Daddy and Song along so he could get a better look.
“So cool!” Zachy declared, fumbling to fish his phone out of his pocket with his free hand since he still didn’t want to turn his Daddy loose.
“Go ahead and get your pictures,” Daddy said, letting go of Zachy’s hand but not moving away. “We’re not going anywhere; we’ll stand right here trying to pretend that irony isn’t kicking our asses right now.”
“I-I’m just gonna stand over there and pretend this isn’t happening,” Decon declared as Papa pulled his phone out and started taking pictures of Zachy, Song, and Daddy beneath the statue while Zachy got plenty of photos of it and the fountain too.
The lens revealed tiny spiders crawling up the sides of the fountain; one of them posed over the mouth of it, the water trickling through its long, spindly legs.
Each one was a mini replica of the big one and so super cool to look at that Zachy suddenly had ideas for yet another diorama, this one for Halloween, even if it was ten months away.
With polymer clay he could craft a fountain, and there were always cool plastic spiders he could use for the small ones and clay he could use to make a big one; only maybe he’d pose his standing over the whole pool, with little spiders on its back and climbing up its legs as well as around the fountain’s edge.
Ohh, and he could craft lily pads; only instead of frogs on them, he could place little jack-o'-lanterns on them, using pumpkin fairy lights and resin to make the water. That would hold the wires in place too and hide them.
“Is it okay if we sit for a moment?” Song asked, notebook in his hands as he stared up at their Daddy.
His words startled Zachy out of his thoughts and reminded him of his need to record them before the next cool thing caught his attention.
“Of course, take all the time that you need,” Daddy said.
“Thanks, Daddy,” Song said and headed for the bench beside the fountain, Zachy following, digging his notebook from his backpack the moment he sat down.
Side by side they sat, the bubbling of the fountain and a few cooing pigeons the only noise in the courtyard.
It didn’t matter that they were working on different things; they were together in this beautiful space, creating without worrying about being rushed.
As Zachy started making a materials list, all he could think about was how exciting it would be to have so many dioramas inspired by this amazing trip and the memories that would last a lifetime.