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“Hiya girls,” Andy said and smiled his famous smile.
“Hiya,” the girls replied as they snuggled into the car
ready of for the ‘ride of their lives’. Well that’s what the advert for the
Super Waltzers said, and with Andy as their spinner, they were going to get
special treatment.
“You gonna show us a good time?” they said in their Birmingham
accents. Andy loved Brummies.
“Hold tight!” Andy winked. “Time for the earth to move?”
The girls giggled. They were dressed in their best Madonna
imitation garb, orange high heels, pink leggings, ra-ra skirts and about five or
six tops. Their hair was perfectly backcombed, with luminous hairbands, and
about a million bangles on each wrist. The ride started up, Andy gave the other
cars a quick spin before focussing his attention on the two Brummies.
So far this had been the summer of Andy’s young life. He’d
always dreamt of working on the Waltzers and, after working the log flume and
pirate ship last year, this year he got the hot gig. He rode the platform like
a surfer riding the waves and got the first choice of all the girls on the
fairground. Andy could spot potential from a mile off. No Barry girls was his
number one rule. Not that there weren’t plenty to choose from, but a Barry girl
might want something more serious than a snog and a fumble over Lover’s Point
and this was his summer of freedom. So Andy was always on the look out for
accents; Valley, Brummie, London, anything that wasn’t Barry. Once he’d
identified, it was easy. Flash the famous smile, offer a free ride, explain
he’d be over the Acropolis, the late night bar, when the fair shut and no doubt
they’d be there waiting for him and Adam, his trusty sidekick.
Lights flashed, Sister Sledge’s Frankie screamed from the speakers and the world spun for the two
girls sitting in car number seven. Laughter filled the air and each time the
car spun the girls caught a flash of Andy’s famous smile.
“Wanna another ride later girls? Just come and see me.”
The girls laughed together a bit unsteady on their feet.
“See you later then,” they said. Andy smiled and gave Adam the thumbs up.
Go West’s Call Me
was blaring out when the girls came back. Andy welcomed them like royalty and
sat them in car five, promising that this was the fastest one. When they
offered the tickets to pay for the ride, he checked his manager wasn’t around
and then shook his head. The girls giggled and Andy moved away as the ride
slowly cranked up. He walked backwards around the platform in rhythm to the
music making sure the girls could see him. He span some cars flamboyantly and
then surfed over to car five. He span them once.
“Faster?” he yelled.
“Yes,” they screamed. He span them again.
“Again?” he said.
They nodded; their laughter was nearly drowning out the
music.
As he went to catch
the car for the third spin, he missed and lost balance. As Five Star sang All Fall Down, Andy took it literally
falling mouth first onto the steel edge of the car. He had been hoping to share
bodily fluids with the girls later but he hadn’t counted on it being blood. His
mouth was like a volcano shooting bloody lava across the girls who joined Andy
in screaming the ride to a standstill.
Andy never worked the Waltzers again. It wasn’t that he
couldn’t do it; it was more that he couldn’t face it. What was the point? It
wasn’t like he could flash his famous smile at the girls any more. After all
what good is a smile with its two front teeth missing?
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