EDDIE'S JOB WAS "maintaining" the rides, which really meant
keeping them safe. Every afternoon, he walked the park, checking on
each attraction, from the Tilt-A-Whirl to the Pipeline Plunge. He looked
for broken boards, loose bolts, worn-out steel. Sometimes he would
stop, his eyes glazing over, and people walking past thought something
was wrong. But he was listening, that's all. After all these years he could
hear trouble, he said, in the spits and stutters and thrumming of the
equipment.