We were leaving the fair. We had done everything, the rides, the sheep, the pig races, the ice cream, the sore feet, the fun houses, the corn. We get right through the gate and Nathan is pulling the wagon and says hey where's your vest
My little vest. My outer sheath. The one thing I have that is like my friend. No one would want this vest. It has fake fur on the hood. It's navy blue. I like it because it has zipper pockets so my phone won't fall out in the creek. I like it because it's made by GAP and they make comfy things. I like it cause it has snaps you can close just one, if you're not ready to commit to a full zip up. It's not too loose, not too tight. Vests aren't made to be warm, they're just a shell for pockets and a thin modern nylon armor shield against the rest of the world. The world that is out there closing in on me. Waiting to catch me without my vest.
Knights in the 1100's dreamt of having my vest. Its false confidence. A secret defense.
And now me, 2024, LA County Fair, just walked for hundreds of miles, we were at the victory walk to the parking lot, and now
I had to go back
I couldn't leave my vest in there on some floor
How could it have fallen OUT
Stupid Bess she won that huge stuffed tiger with the staring eyes even though she did make two incredible free throws at a basketball booth to win the fucker, but he took up all the space in the wagon, I had in fact wrapped my vest AROUND the tiger to ward off artful dodger stealers who would want to take her prize and now my prize
wrapped around someone's ankles somewhere
On the fairway, alone and shaking
wondering where I am
My feet throbbed. I had to go back. You're so stupid Rose I hear the Titanic in my head. I tell the kids not to worry, I'll just run back
I trace our steps all the way back. Through the candy maze, the car exhibit, the smoky corn and barbecue vendors. The slide where we stopped to ride it and the balloon popping game where we popped three balloons yet won nothing substantial. All the places we were before we knew this tragedy, empty of us. Empty of my vest. My vest friend.
The lost and found is like if you're standing here, and you then have to walk to the front door of the Andromeda Galaxy. It is just a little farther than the closest black hole. I don't think I should lap the entire fair to look for my fair friend.
But I'm here. My little buddy is here, it can't have dropped out very long ago.
I jog on broken feet all the way back past the pig races, past the petting zoo, past the clydesdales where we dawdled eating corn. Why is there nothing on the ground? There is nothing, not just my thing, nobody has dropped anything, the fair looks vacuumed. I get to the building marked nothing, a beige building behind the fun house we tackled earlier with the glittery New York New York sign that had no trace of New York except for a plastic statue of liberty. I only knew where this lost and found was because a few years before Nathan had dropped his sweater off the highskies and somehow it got back there. And Nathan lost his GoPro on Space Mountain at Disneyland and someone it was found. We had pretty good luck. With finding.
I get to lost and found behind the dumpster in the witness protection area of the fair that has no decorations anywhere and has the flair of a burned down social security office. I tap on the window.
A librarian lady looks up from her sad phone and comes to window. She's probably so happy someone remembered to lose something. She sits in this box all day, no visitors. Except the occasional desperate housewife. Comme moi.
Do you have a blue vest with a hood, I say sort of breathlessly. I think I just lost it.
She turns slightly and waves a display hand at the sad rack of four sweaters, none of them mine. I keep looking hoping mine will suddenly appear. My chest deflates.
We have an excellent talk about how sometimes things show up at the end of the fair and she hands me a little green slip of paper that says We want to help you! and there are some numbers on there and Fair Police that promise shreds of hope. No one would want that vest. It's not valuable.
Only to me.
I walk back the long length of the fair. I was wishing the lady in the window would hold my hand and turn my palm over and write her home number and look me devotedly in the eye and say call me day or night. We're gonna find it, soldier
I only have this green slip of paper. Maybe in three days she says, when the fair closes, all the vendors bring junk they found or don't need and dump it here before they leave.
My vest my shell of defense just thrown with some ladies' bags and a stuffed animal and someone's phone charger.
I walk back past the bees where Nathan and Patrick joked about the city of LA as the hive and where Shadow Hills was located far off in the corner of the hive.
I walked past a lady who looked like she had no pants on like literally her huge white ass was hanging out from under her dress and it was so eyepopping I had to take a video which we watched later at McDonald's where I sat, as we did as a tradition after every fair, this time without my vest. We sit with our feet pounding sore, our skin stretched from barbecue smoke and harsh fairgrounds exposure, we watched the video of the hairy white butt lady and realized our fair day was so much fun.
Nathan kept showing me new similar vests on ebay. How bout this one, he says.
When I ran back to look for my vest, in the sun setting fair which gets weirder at night, everything looked scary because I was alone and all the places that were good were just empty now, full of night people just coming in but empty because my people were not here. They were near the gate, retracing our steps over there. The fair is only fun because of my babies, these 24 years of bringing my babies, once a year, busting them out of school because you should get at least one free day a year where you pet soft sheep and have your skirt blown up at the fun house. Pay games, slide down stuff, win something, lose something.
I cried when I got home and B had watched my mom so I could go, and he had kept her alive, but she was hiding a potluck surprise of diarrhea pants when I went to change her. All cleaned up, I went to muck the horses and that's where I finally cried because life is hard, going away to do something else from your regular life is hard, the kids are getting bigger and do I know them enough, how can I be better so they don't slip off unknown to denver or ventura. I wasn't sad, I was just feeling life's washing machine, now you're clean now you're dirty how ya like that chug chug chug
I wanted to come back whole from the fair but I came back ragged and less and that vest was exactly right, just like me, easy, stupid, unfashionable, comfortable, functional, navy, snappy, zippery, unburdensome, just a layer to help me. I felt like I lost all my tools off the ship in the sea.
I like getting attached to things.
Bess patted my back at McDonald's. She said it's okay. It's gonna show up. There's no way, I was thinking, bewildered, but I like when she says things that seem impossible. And Patrick instead of saying nothing, said what did you like about it
Everything, I said, happily. So happy someone asked, like it was important. Doesn't it feel good to talk about something that you love, no matter how small. Because your heart has picked it up and carries it, carries you to the next thing, coated in the things you love
that support you
I went to bed hoping my vest wasn't trembling. In a box trashcan covered in jalapenos. I hope it's resting gently in the corner of the corn palace, patiently waiting three days for the alcoholics to remember it, haul it over to the lost and found librarian and maybe then
maybe
I won't miss it anymore.
