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06 February 2007
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It was on our family vacation to Disney World, a few years back, when I saw him. I had just come from Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and was heading toward the spinning teacups when a guy dressed as Pluto waved to a group of little kids. It must have been a field trip, kindergarteners or first graders or something, because they were all wearing blue shirts with big red eagles on them.
The reason I knew it was a guy was because after having taken a picture with the group, he ducked around the corner of a gift shop selling Mickey Mouse gear, pulled off the Pluto head and paws and lit a cigarette. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, like he was savoring the tar and nicotine that was seeping into his lungs, savoring the short break before returning to the world of screaming little kids and tired parents wearing fanny packs and Mickey Mouse ears.
Cigarette hanging from his lips, he brought his hands up to his head and started massaging his temples, eyes still closed. He rubbed for several seconds, then took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew a gray snake into the sky. When he opened his eyes, he saw me staring at him and smiled. I must have had a peculiar look on my face, staring at this half-man, half-Pluto, because he said, "Still shocks ya, doesn’t it? Grownups, we know there’s a man or a woman inside the costume, but the kid in us still believes it’s the actual cartoon. And when we see the person inside, that kid dies." He sucked on the cigarette.
I was surprised at the wisdom of the statement, at the fact that someone dressed as Pluto smoking a pack of cigs could come up with a statement that profound, but all I said was, "I guess."
"Wanna a cigarette?"
"I always keep these babies close at hand," he said, then laughed, deep and raspy. "Get it? Hand?" He laughed again.
I smiled, pulled out a cigarette and lit it. I handed the pack and the lighter back to him.
"Don’t you ever get tired of carrying that around?" I asked.
He shook his head and blew out a smoke ring. He watched it float then dissipate. "Naw. It comforts me knowing that they’re there. It’s what gets me through the day."
We smoked in silence for several minutes, he blowing out smoke rings and snakes, me blowing out clouds. I studied his features. He was rather an ugly man. Thick, greasy brown hair that dipped over his left eye set atop a perfectly round head. The man’s forehead and ears were pink, but his cheeks and chin were brown with a five o’ clock shadow that he failed to shave. His complexion was ruddy, acne scars carving deep craters in his face. His nose was slightly gray from the blackheads sprinkled all over it.
The man snorted then coughed. "Goddamn kids."
I wondered what drove a man his age to become a character at Disney World. He looked to be in his early forties—shouldn’t he be working in a skyscraper with an office overlooking a park, typing on a top of the line computer, talking on a multi-line phone to a secretary named Janice? Shouldn’t he have a career where he went to work at nine and came home at five? Was it a lifelong dream to be Pluto?
To the left, a little boy was throwing a tantrum because his mother wouldn’t buy him a Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream pop. "Jesus, just buy him the damn ice cream cone!" the man said, rubbing his forehead. "I’m telling you, I’m getting too old for this job. Look here," he said, pointing to a discolored patch of costume fabric in the crook of his right arm. It was slightly lighter than the rest of the costume. "Where some kid pissed on me. Picked her up so’s her parents could take a picture and felt something warm. When I put her down, the back of her pants was all wet. And you know what her mother said? She laughed and said, ‘I see her apple juice kicked in.’ Took me forever to get the piss out.
I nearly choked on my cigarette trying not to laugh. The man’s face was red as he recalled the memory. He finished smoking the rest of his Marlboro then flicked the stub on the ground, stamping out the smoldering end with his right foot, still in the costume. He shoved the cigarettes and lighter into his paw, put the paws on his hands and picked up the head.
"Back to hell," he said. "Take ‘er easy." He put on Pluto’s head then walked around the corner of the gift shop into the sea of tourists, where he was immediately attacked by a hyperactive six year-old.
I stamped out my cigarette and took comfort in the fact that although I had no idea which direction my life was going, it would not head toward Disney World, to a tired-looking Pluto costume, discolored in the crook of the right arm.
Doc Wright/Tramp Journalist
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