Electric Summer

Janet Parlato on Rocky Point's House of Horrors

Rocky Point is one of those shared memories held by Rhode Islanders, one of those used-to-be places you know even if you don’t remember it yourself. I could swear I have my own fuzzy memories of riding a roller coaster there, going on a rainy day, being disappointed that another ride had broken down. I learned more recently this couldn’t possibly be true—the park shut down in 1995, when I was 4 years old. I asked my parents about it recently and my dad conjured fond memories from his own childhood of riding the flume to cool down, then the roller coaster or Musik Express to dry off. I asked if I’d ever been there, and he said he was pretty sure I hadn’t—by the time I would have been tall enough to ride, he said, the park was well into its decline.

Still, when I read Janet Parlato’s essay on summers of visiting her Quebecois grandparents in Providence and pleading for a day out at Rocky Point, I felt like the park I was picturing was from my own memory, not my imagination of hers. Janet takes us on a journey into the past, complete with with a wild ride on the old House of Horrors. She nimbly captures that genuine childhood curiosity, that longing for adventure, the hoping that something, anything will happen—and then shows us what happens when it does.

If you’ve got your own memories of Rocky Point, please feel free to reminisce in the comments here—we’d all love to hear more about this storied place.

Till next time,

Kassondra Cloos

Editor-in-Chief

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Electric Summer

By Janet Parlato

In the early 1900s, my grandparents left Quebec in order for my grandfather to work in a cloth mill in Rhode Island, where they settled into a two-story house on Leah Street in Providence. They were landlords to an upstairs couple whom I never once caught sight of in the many years we visited. Their name was engraved above a brass doorbell. To pronounce it sounded like, “Many Llamas.” I itched with questions about them; I loved names. As to our family, on the wall over my grandparents’ kitchen table were two Coat of Arms plaques, one bore our name, the other, my grandmother’s maiden name. Once my uncle Joe noticed me staring at these mysteries and offered, “It’s quite a story.” It was tantalizing, but, as with the upstairs tenants, my curiosity about the family history went generally unanswered. 

Once or twice a year in the humid woolen blanket of New England summers, we stayed over at Leah Street, near Olneyville Square. The area in the 1970s was becoming seamy with drugs and prostitution, but I still loved visiting the enclave, which was fenced in and overshaded by a large tree with broad, heart-shaped leaves. A claustrophobic alley ran behind the house, which I dared myself to run through, pretending it was for my very life, a fate which could have easily been realized in traffic outside the gate. I dodged roots that gnarled through the path, and avoided some sort of capped pipe that jutted from between stones. I was biding time until early evening, when we stood a good chance, after the fiery sun reduced to an orange blip, that we could, if the weather held, take a trip to Warwick to an amusement park called Rocky Point. Until then, I would need to make my own fun.

Besides their elusive upstairs neighbors, the contents of my grandparents’ house fascinated me. Against one wall leaned a sonorously out-of-tune player piano, which I delighted in depressing the doomy lowest keys, filling the first floor with fuzzy, funereal tones while my doting grandmother, who spoke a thimble of English, called out, “Very good, Jeanette!”  Heavily carved chairs in blue and a sofa upholstered in maroon velvet dominated the living room, flanked by fussy tables, laden with oddities they gathered through the years. Peaches made with glass beads. Ancient photographs of souls solemnly posed in couture from bygone days. A letter opener shaped like a dagger lounged on a pile of mail. On a stand with a mirrored top sat tiny celluloid wing-tip shoes laced with black sewing thread. I used to fit my fingers into them and tap along the gleaming surface, pretending they were the fantastic feet of Gene Kelly. Behind these was a silver knight-in-armor about the size of a quart of milk and heavy enough to kill a cat. A tab flipped the helmet back, revealing a cigarette lighter I sparked repeatedly which my mom confiscated and returned to its station before I burned Leah Street to the ground.

The upstairs held one compact bedroom for my grandparents and long before, one for their oldest son, uncle Joe, as well as a bathroom with a clawfoot tub. On a shelf out of reach above it was a fancy bottle of bath liquid with a pink rose sunk in it, never to be used. In a family of five males, it was my grandmother’s inviolably “nice” object.

My father and his other two brothers shared rooms in the basement, though to be honest, one of the rooms was just a hallway with a bed in it. The farthest room, which belonged to their son Marcel, or as we called him, Uncle Muscle—who had contracted polio and lived ever since with my grandparents—held a portal to a beguiling world. I can still remember the smell of oil from the boiler tank, which quietly rumbled in the dark outside his room like a contented giant. I recall the thrill it brought when I flung open his door and voila! A large red drum kit sat elevated at the back wall, as well as maracas, bongo drums, castanets, banjo, accordion and mandolin, and a large reel-to-reel projector and boxes of records. Every shelf, bench, and dresser held gewgaws and treasures from tourist places. A fly swatter from Cape Cod, pennants from Dartmouth College, a calendar from Florida’s Weeki Watchee Water Ballet, Home of the Weeki Watchee Mermaids. A globe that sparkled around the words, “Hello from Howe Caverns.” I sat on his bed, which was sort of like a berth in a railway car that swayed slightly head to toe, played bongo drums on my knees, poked at rocks labeled “Cape Ann, 1954,” or “Expo 67—Montreal.” He never bothered me, never checked to see if I had disturbed or broken anything. It was always cool and peaceful there, even in the height of muggy summer. A haven to hide in until dusk when the heat broke.

A Rocky Point postcard from 1912

Rocky Point, which opened in 1847 and closed in the early 1990s, was located on Narragansett Bay. Its famous restaurant, The Shore Dinner Hall, or as my dad called it, The Chowder Hall, overlooked Rocky Point. As a child, my ears enlarged at the words “Chowder Hall” the way a dog might tilt its head for the words, “Car” or “Treat.” If the Chowder Hall was our dinner destination, the merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, haunted house, and games were our thrilling desserts. 

The interior of the restaurant was like a spacious picnic pavilion, with rows upon rows of long white-papered tables and wooden chairs, to which would be delivered clam chowder and oyster crackers, followed by heaps of little neck clams steamed open, pyramids of corn on the cob, baskets of savory deep-fried clam fritters, as well as all the butter for permanent clothing stains you could wish on yourself. And watermelon! Visited by a ghost of a sea breeze, the hall, like the rest of New England, was not yet air-conditioned. Therefore, it was prudent not to eat too much before riding the attractions, but drinking lots of water and ginger ale was advised.

Sometimes Uncle Muscle would take us to Rocky Point and he and I would ride the Flume, a roller coaster with cars shaped like logs that dropped from a great height but slowed to a cushioned, drenching stop. My poor dad would get sick on spinning rides but had fun in the Midway. It was important to get as deep into the park after dinner as possible before last rides were called. One year, my little grandmother tottered along and somehow pegged a balloon with a dart and won the coveted, “Choice of Stand.” I’ll never forget how she struggled toward me underneath the massive stuffed St. Bernard toy, rescue keg around its neck, and pressed it to me triumphantly, and how, later at home in a jealous fit, my brother Jerry kicked its eye off, then knelt beside me, contritely gluing it back on.

1940s Postcard of Rocky Point, Public Domain

One particular visit to Rocky Point when I was eight was not so typical. In the afternoon, my father and uncle came back with food from an Italian place called Mainelli’s that we usually ordered from in the winter. A place with such a delicious meatball recipe, it has been a life’s work to identify the elusive flavor. Caraway, maybe? It was tasty, but hardly our summer tradition. While my brothers and I wolfed down our food, our father talked quietly with my grandparents in French, occasionally passing something on to my mom as she sipped her coffee. What was to be done, about the weather? It seemed the consensus was rain. If it rained, the amusement park might close some rides early. My grandmother eyed me and spoke quickly. She thought if we went right away, we could enjoy ourselves for a little while, and she and my grandfather would stay home. My uncle as well. They would only slow us down. I would like to say I appreciated their sacrifice for a moment, but my greediness for the pleasures of the amusement park eclipsed any family loyalty. Yes, stay, I thought, let’s get going! 

We started toward Warwick optimistically. Glints of sun flickered through the cloud deck and the heat was quieting down. Certainly, we could make it to the park and maybe stop for ice cream before a shower or two passed. As we pulled into the lot, the gray clouds took on a bulge that deepened and expanded. We were just passing into the park when rain started splotching the ground. After we purchased tickets, droplets blended to light rain, and my parents decided to split us up. My dad would take the boys and go on a few rides, and my mom would take me on the ride that thrilled me the most but she never cared for: the gruesome House of Horrors, a hybrid sandcastle and butcher shop. 

You may know about lightning at the sea, about the strange charge in the air, and how it has a tang to it, and besides this, a variable feeling like you are slowing down and speeding up at the same time. In our basement back in Connecticut, high on a dusty shelf, was my parents’ wedding present, a model clipper ship with metal sails that had gotten struck by a ball of lightning years before, which rushed past them through an open window, stopping the clock embedded in its hull dead at 2:01. And once, when my mom was a girl on their family farm in Michigan, she was sent to herd turkeys back in the barn--turkeys had a habit of staring straight up at rain with their beaks open and drowning—and as she reached the farthest point in the field, a bolt of lightning struck her. She said she was in bed, insensible, for several days. Later, she and her sister arrived in Connecticut on a twin-engine plane that flew through an electrical storm that pitched and bucked their craft for hours and nearly downed them over Pennsylvania.

Considering her experiences, she admirably kept her composure as it began to thunder outside the House of Horrors. Our car rose on thin metal rails and swung abruptly in and out of scenes of faux savagery, audio of screams and maniacal laughter piped in. We could see and feel the peals and flashes through the castle windows, forked, searing and angry. I worried that the metal rails, like the sails of the clipper ship clock, might get electrified, but I kept my fears to myself. “Are you scared?” I asked my mom. “Nah!” she said dismissively, implying I shouldn’t be, either. Our car clicked up and down little pre-planned hills, and to my relief, pointed down the last rise before the final lengths of track led outside, when a tremendous boom shook the House of Horrors and we were plunged into utter silence and darkness. Our car was stopped at an awkward angle, like a metal shoe on display at a department store, my mom and I stuffed upright into its toe like human-width spreaders. In the eerie, electrical air, which smelled sharply like liver and nickels, there was a terrifying specter of abandonment. Perhaps in the outage, workers did not know there was one last car. Nobody called to tell us to hang on, no generators hummed to life. We were forgotten. 

While I yelled for help, my mother said, “They can’t hear us. Let’s get out of here!” and without hesitating, pushed the lap rail up and hopped out of the car. I balked, but she said we had no choice. She began to walk. I stepped down into the blackness and felt for the wall, stumbling over pipes and wood blocks. Eventually, after several terrifying minutes of moving along like cat burglars, we felt the coolness of the rain in the doorway, and a wincing burst of lights from the concessions assailed our eyes. My father and brothers casually rejoined us to tell us Rocky Point was closing early for the night. 

Counting the twin-engine plane, clipper clock, turkey herding and House of Horrors, my mom had been zapped or nearly zapped by lightning four times. I counted them as I lay  on the daybed in my grandparents’ basement. The storm that pummeled the coast spared Providence, but through the window, heat lightning cast spotlights on the tree outside, illuminating elastic shapes overhead. I wondered if their upstairs tenants were able to sleep, living above the treeline like so many llamas in Peru.

Janet Parlato is a writer and artist who lives in Connecticut with her husband, Steve, and their kids, Ben and Jillian. Her work can be found in Freshwater Poetry Journal, Common Ground Review, Silas Bronson Playreaders Theater, Paper Nautilus, Cathexis Northwest Press, Brides Magazine, Prometheus Dreaming, the 20th Anniversary Anthology of the Guilford Poets Guild, Parhelion Literary Magazine, Kaleidoscope WoJo’s Anthology: “In My Shoes” and in an upcoming issue of Beyond Words Literary Magazine.