By Wednesday I’d spent a week working myself into a frenzy over my first trip to Hurricane Harbor, the brand-new water park at Great America. I kept rereading the amusement park’s Web site, which calls Hurricane Harbor “a Caribbean paradise boasting hundreds of wild and wet water activities and hours of fun for all ages.” I like water, I love fun. What could go wrong?
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We gave up and headed for the Superman: Ultimate Flight roller coaster, where they strap you into a device like an upside-down paramedic board. You’re supposed to feel like a superhero, leaping and bounding and zipping through the air, but it feels more like you’re a crazy person plummeting headfirst toward certain death.
Then came Batman: The Ride, where you head through a series of fake sewer tunnels and sit down in what looks like a ski lift, your legs dangling. After a succession of stomach-churning loops I didn’t want to feel like a superhero anymore; when the ride finally stopped I was hallucinating pretty orbs of light. I went to the bathroom and made myself puke. The last time I tripped so hard I was on actual drugs.
Give me three things at a party–sweat, noise, and danger–and I’m happy, which is why I love Buddy so much. So when I found out the space had recently lost its lease and would be gone by the end of the month, I panicked.
Partygoers crawled through the latter, banging up our shins on the sill on the way to the rooftop, where a crumbling ledge was the only thing keeping us from falling into the charred remains of a building next door. Cans of beer were scattered about like so many Easter eggs.
The cops showed up as the band beat the end of “Old Time Rock & Roll” to death. I wasn’t ready to leave, so I clambered back onto the roof, where I hoped I could hide till the heat died down. A sweet-faced girl with platinum blond hair, a pierced septum, and an ape mask on top of her head followed me, yelling, “Party on the roof, dudes!” The kids poured through after her.
