[Read] Hot Desk Extract: Chris Ames - I Made This Just for You

As part of The Wheeler Centre's Hot Desk Fellowship program, Chris Ames worked on his manuscript of short stories, I Made This Just for You.

In this piece, 'Balloonfest '86', we see a fictional take on the dystopian fundraising event in America that released over a million balloons in an attempt to shift perception of a floundering city. The mix of formal experimentation, absurdism, climate panic, and rueful laughter in the face of self-destruction all are themes explored in the wider collection.

Balloonfest ‘86

Ethan and Leo and the opaque tide between them. See the aluminium boat sloshing there, a pair of fluorescent life jackets still glowing in it. Motor gone. Sides battered from pummelling the breakwall along Edgewater Park. That’s where the Coast Guard found it, around 8:30 a.m. As a couple of dots on Lake Erie, hypothetically, the men remain, and the search continues.

After tying a bouquet of balloons around its golden band, Mary Allen’s watch became unlatched and airborne, carried by a Northerly wind, sending the heirloom glinting somewhere over Ontario.

The river that feeds the lake is abysmal. General knowledge being: if you fall in, head to the hospital. The rainbow sheen of an oil slick bubbles like a stew. Rats float by, their corpses so bloated, they pass for dogs. Often, the whole thing catches fire. But pollution means industry is thriving, the economy is booming, and everyone has jobs. So, fundamentally, a river of flame is a sign of success.

Ethan likes Leo. He is a good employee and man. Leo is not so sure. About Ethan, the new job, or himself.

If things keep going the way they have been, I could see you running this whole place one day, Ethan says, baiting the hook.

Treb Heining, balloon artist, can inflate one in three seconds. Been doing it since he was 15. The 2,500 volunteers, on the other hand, mostly kids and students, average two-to-three a minute. To prevent sores and blisters, they wrap the tips of their fingers in blue tape.

Best job you’ve ever had? Ethan asks, casting his line. Besides working for me.

Used to operate a crane everyone called Big Carl, Leo says. I’d eat lunch in my car and fantasise about organising the whole city into pleasing stacks.

We do that with spreadsheets, Ethan says. Put everything in order.

Been in the planning stages since March. Endless permits. Waiting for good weather. People said: Cleveland, it’s your time. A city on the move. People said: my wife and I even talked of moving here. Our friends in LA think we’re nuts. But it’s a wonderful place. If I had money to invest, this is where I’d put it.

It was Ethan’s daughter, Yvette, who convinced Leo to apply for the open systems analyst role.

I don’t know shit about computers, Leo said, pulling Yvette’s panties down with his teeth. Plus, you really want me working for your father?

It’s good money, she said, sliding a pillow behind her head.

All money is good money, Leo said, getting to work, his fingers stained with mud from the site.

They’re predicting a 70% chance of rain on the day.

Ethan and Leo catch bigmouth buffalo, northern pike, steelhead. They drink beer, talk about sports.

He’s innovating the whole game, Ethan says. It’s like, one plus one equals three, you know what I mean by that?

No, Leo says, reeling.

When things work together, they make something greater than the sum of their parts, Ethan says. There’s more than what we started with.

So, I’m a man. And, you’re a man, Leo says.

But together, we’re men, Ethan says. That’s a bond called synergy.

The tethered balloons, filled throughout the morning inside a mesh net the size of a city block, look fantastic, alien, a prismatic confectionery of helium and latex. You wanna touch it. You wanna eat it. You wanna run toward, and also, away, from its undulating presence.

You want kids? Ethan asks. I don’t necessarily mean with Yvette. Just, in general.

You know the grey water that collects inside a toilet brush stand? Leo asks. The other day, while visiting my sister, I caught my little nephew drinking it, like a cursed goblet.

So, that’s a no? Ethan asks.

Kids are grimy, Leo laughs. That’s what makes ‘em great. Wouldn’t want ‘em if they were squeaky clean.

Officials are confident the launch will break a world record held by Anaheim, California, where 1.1 million balloons were sent aloft last December for the 30th anniversary of the Happiest Place on Earth.

An approaching high pressure system stirs the lake.

Maybe we should head back, Leo says.

Classic construction, Ethan says. Bad weather? Shut it down, guys! The sky is falling! Everyone makes fun of white collars, but software never sleeps, rain or shine.

You really think you work harder? Leo asks.

Just ask my ulcer, Ethan says.

15 minutes ahead of schedule, to beat the impending storm, a countdown from ten. Lift off. 1,429,643 balloons, the largest ever mass release. 100,000 cheering spectators. 15 million raised for charity. People said: ladies and gentlemen, there is no Mistake on the Lake anymore. The way the murmuration swarmed Terminal Tower, like a virus. All of this, in Cleveland, Ohio: the all-American city.

Do you believe in God? Ethan asks.

I don’t pray, Leo says, tossing the day’s catch overboard. But I find myself looking at the clouds whenever I need an answer.

Leo wonders how he must appear to the released fish: a floating hand, rippled by the firmament between water and sky, returning that which was taken, for no reason at all.

Instead of flying up, the cool air and hard rain pushes the balloons down, still inflated, where they clog the land and waterways. A 30-minute closure of Burke Lakefront Airport. 16 high school football games cancelled or cut short. A local woman’s prized Arabian horses spooked. On the lake, winds reach upwards of 50 miles per hour, where 60% of the balloons, instead of the planned 10%, descend.

Capsized, freezing, windswept, the men thrash to stay afloat.

Up, up, up, Ethan sputters. We have to stay seen.

The bottom of the lake, Leo wonders privately. Thick with run-off and fertilised muck. Maybe that’s where we belong. In the black pool.

Incorporating the men, an asteroid field of colourful orbs litter the lake, landing as gently as death.