Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The seaside village in which they had chosen to spend their vacation was replete with what, for lack of a better word, they had been referring to as “jigglers”: little machines taking the form of this or that mode of transportation – a race car, a propeller airplane such as that in which they had arrived, a two-humped (or, for that matter, one- humped) camel – that, once the requisite number of coins had been deposited in the appointed slot by a usually weary or resigned looking parent nearby, during approximately half a minute swayed and bounced and of course jiggled the ostensible pleasure of whatever child happened to have been placed atop them. Initially, the son was interested in these jigglers, usually located in front of ice cream and novelty shops and other establishments likely to appeal to children, exclusively as an object of contemplation, but soon enough he began clamoring to take a ride on one of them himself, a proposition to which the father at once declared his opposition. “Why would you pay to get jiggled when you could just as easily get jiggled for free?” he asked over dinner at one of the more appealing restaurants along the boardwalk, a café decorated on the inside in something of the Parisian style, the father thought (though he had never been to Paris) with an outdoor patio (this being where they had elected to be seated) offering unimpeded views of the beach and the sea beyond. The son, who was only three years old and not yet familiar with the logical structure of the rhetorical question (nor, for that matter, the obligation to subordinate one’s desires to the dictates of financial calculation), did not seem to understand what he meant, and so the father decided to show him, jiggling and jostling him in his arms during the walk back to the rented apartment in which they were spending these days of rest and diversion, all the while whistling and singing in imitation of the old fashioned circus music – galloping melodies played on calliopes or penny whistles backed by cymbal crashes and honking tubas – the jigglers generally seemed to emit while they were in motion, except in those moments when he paused to point out that no one had been obligated to deposit a coin inside of him in exchange for this service. The son, meanwhile, yelped and giggled and clapped his hands, delighting in the little adventure until, less than a block from “home” (at least temporarily), he was as surprised as his father to suddenly find himself regurgitating, in a long arcing stream eventually reduced to a mournful dribble, the glassful of orange juice he had drunk with dinner. His enthusiasm for jigglers was not dampened by this unexpected turn of events, but for the remainder of their vacation, and some time thereafter, he wailed and clung to his mother’s legs desperately whenever his father tried to pick him up.
Eli S. Evans: Regular contributor to N+1 and Berfrois, with work anthologized by both. MFA, MA, PhD (in the order in which they were acquired). Wife, dog, job, kid (also in the order in which they were acquired).