this one time in celebration, florida

it's raining, i'll tell an old story.

a few years ago i went to Celebration, Florida, the town built by Disney. It's a new urbanist style town, with front porches on the houses, a pedestrian-friendly main street, functional alleys and legalized accessory dwelling units... everything, seen and unseen, that's supposed to make a place less sprawl-y and more hometown-y. I went there with my sister and 3-year old nephew because we wanted to see it. Gabi wanted to eat in the 50's style diner. Little Alex was happy just to go for a drive in Gabi's giant SUV.

It was a bright and clear 75 degree day. We tooled the mama truck through Celebration, looking at the lamposts and white picket fences. Lovely place. Children were playing on scooters, older people were walking and talking in golf outfits. There were environmentally sound smart cars scattered throughout town, making it look slightly futuristic even though the architecture was so old fashioned.

We located the diner, then parked in the municipal lot just outside the sparkling town. As we were unloading Alex from the truck some boys drove by on Huffy bikes. They had fishing poles and tackle boxes fixed to the backs of their bikes. They were wearing helmets and elbow pads and knee pads, as is the fashion these days (when i rode my pink huffy in florida as a kid, i wore a bathing suit and no shoes at all). They started to ride on by us, then stopped, as a gang. One little boy pulled off his helmet, revealing a sparkling blonde head. The gang focused just past us, a few car spaces away.

Alex noticed it first. "Birdies!" he said.

There were vultures, black and evil and totally unmoved by our presence, devouring some piece of flesh on the ground. It might have been a raccoon or a possum, something large-ish and once furry. The two vultures picked and pulled, and another landed nearby and hopped over in that unsettling way they have. The bicycle boys were fully engaged. Without losing their silent focus on the goryness, they pulled off their helmets, their knee pads, their elbow pads, their wrist guards, and they grabbed their fishing poles. They walked right past us, leaving a trail of protective gear behind them. Gabi held Alex to her; he would have loved to have joined the gang. The boys went right over the vultures and started poking at them.

We walked into town away from the scene. Soft jazz was piped through the sidewalk planters, so that even outside the sensation was calming and mall-like. Old men buzzed by in their smart cars. We found the diner easily, on main street down near the fake lake. Gabi ordered pancakes and Alex proceeded to be the worst behaved child possible. He threw food, he rolled around on the floor, he shrieked, he bothered strangers. We were so proud of him. We walked back in the sun rather quickly, back to the big truck, back to the scene, Alex howling all the way, the loudest thing ever to come to Main Street. The vultures and the boys were gone of course and only tiny fragments of carcass remained.