Brix Smith Start - The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise

Me and Lisa at Bennington in our Banda Dratsing days

My face stung as my long hair whipped it repeatedly. The top was down on my grandmothers sporty convertible Mustang. Her tiny size 3 foot slammed the pedal to the metal as we bombed down the San Diego Freeway heading south. The metallic-green car was a slice of Americana and my grandmother loved it. It made her feel young again and sassy. It was just another textbook LA day. Grandmother and granddaughter breezing along on an adventure. The age gap between us evaporated. The temperature outside, a perfect 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Our lungs expanding like bellows, sucking in California smog, orange blossom and exhaust.

My grandmother rarely called me by my birth name, Laura. She called me Dolly. I often wondered why. I guessed it was because she loved to dress me up.

Every weekend she would take me shopping to Saks or Neiman Marcus and buy me adorable outfits. Sometimes wed get matching tops. This seemed to give her great pleasure, as it did me. My grandmother loved groovy clothes. Her favourite sweater was emblazoned with the words Rich Bitch written across the front. Her own children had been boys. Three of them. Steve, the eldest, was my father. Then came his brothers, Gary and Fred. I suspect my grandmother longed for a little girl. When her first grandchild was born me, a girl she was thrilled. I was doted on and spoiled by both my wealthy Jewish grandparents, living the dream in the opulent splendour of Beverly Hills. I feel now, they spoiled me as a reaction to the guilt they felt about my father.

Steve Salenger had always been a difficult child and had now become a problematic, troubled adult. I was foisted on my dotinggrandparents weekend after weekend, as my father shirked his divorced-dad duties. The fact that he was eccentric, explosively angry and undependable did not go unnoticed by his parents. In old childhood photographs of me, I have a sad, haunted look.

My grandparents forever thought of excursions and ways to take me out of my obvious misery. I depended on them for everything emotional and, though I wasnt yet aware of it, they were also supporting me financially.

We turned off the freeway at Harbor Boulevard and took the side roads, passed seedy motor lodges and bad Mexican restaurants. Then we saw it. The Gateway to Happiness Disneyland. My heart soared as it always did, beating a little faster with anticipation. We drove through the entry gates and, as we did so, I saw the teenage parking attendant with bad acne waving his arms frantically.

Grandma, I think he wants you to park over there, I said.

She ignored me and kept driving. I guess she knew where she wanted to park.

On we drove through the vast parking lot. Slower now, 5 or 10 mph, meandering deftly around pedestrians. She drove directly towards the front entrance. This wasnt our usual route into Disneyland. We had a routine. We either parked under a letter/character sign, like D for Dopey or P for Pinocchio, in the main parking lot, then walked to the tram, which circled the lot and deposited us at the main entrance. Or sometimes we employed my grandfathers tactic of parking at the Disneyland Hotel and taking the monorail straight into the park, bypassing the lines of tourists. We never needed to buy tickets anyway. My grandparents seemed to have bags and bags of them. I used to reach in and pull out fistfuls. Every one of them was an E ticket. As many as I wanted. I never had to slum it on A or B rides such as the Main Street Trolley or the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. It seemed to me then, metaphorically, my whole life was an E ticket ride.

On this day, my grandmother had a strangely determined look on her face. A look I had never seen before. She looked hard, almost angry. This was out of character. She was normally so placid and easy-going. She never ever raised her voice at me like my father did. She was the only grown-up I could truly count on. Grandma was my safe haven, my one constant amidst the acutely neurotic behaviour of both my parents.

But, even as a small child, I knew that some of Grandmas actions were off. I became uneasy. Her eyes were focused straight ahead, her hands white-knuckled the steering wheel.

A mini-wave of anxiety coursed through my body. My stomach tightened. Grandma, what are you doing? Youve missed all the parking spaces. My voice was higher in pitch than usual. My larynx was beginning to constrict with fear.

She drove right up to the entrance, and through it. Fear swept over me.

Grandma continued on her course. She drove past the topiary hedges painstakingly clipped into Disney cartoon characters and past the giant circular flower bed where the flowers were groomed to create the shape of Mickey Mouses head. She drove through the tunnel under the Disneyland railroad. My hands gripped the dashboard. We passed the Disneyland fire station where Walt Disney had his private apartment. The private residence was decorated like a garish brothel. It was from this vantage point that Walt Disney would stand and oversee the kingdom hed created on the nights he stayed over.

We passed the town hall, where the Disneyland jail was located. The jail cells were discreetly hidden from public view, housing all manner of riff-raff including hippies, troublemakers, bad eggs and unhappy campers who misbehaved and broke the law of the mouse. We passed Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, where an audio-animatronic Abraham Lincoln would rise in his herky-jerky waxwork glory to recite the Gettysburg Address. (That was my grandfathers favourite.) We carried on driving, careening down Main Street, USA.

At this point I started to scream. GRANDMA WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You cant drive down Main Street! You are breaking the rules! Turn around! YOU ARE SCARING ME!

People scattered on both sides of us. Children dropped bags of candy, which rolled into the gutters as mothers hurled their toddlers to the safety of the kerb. Baby strollers, pushed at lightning speed, were rammed up the side of the sidewalk, out of harms way. Shocked little fists un-clutched helium balloons. I watched them rise up on the Anaheim jet streams, escaping the chaos below. Mickey Mouse ear-hats littered the cobbles. Tourists stared open-mouthed as angry fathers shook their fists at us. I watched all of this unfold in slow motion. Embarrassment turned to panic as she drove on.

Maybe Grandma got a special pass? I prayed to myself. After all, she knew the Disneys personally. My father dated one of their daughters. I used to imagine what would have happened if they had gotten married, Sharon Disney and my father. We passed the Candy Palace and left behind the jolly strains of music coming from the Dixieland jazz band. Tomorrowland blurred on the right while Adventureland disappeared on the left. Now we were on a collision course with Sleeping Beautys castle. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. We circumnavigated the landmark hub of Sleeping Beautys castle. I only just caught the briefest glimpse of the moat and drawbridge at the foot of the castle. I could barely glance up at the iconic spire, the one Tinker Bell flies from.