He waves me over to a set of metal double doors outside a room the size of a cargo container. Here the blasted models receive a clear coat for ultraviolet protection.
“I do repair and maintenance with an emphasis on LEGO,” deadpans Gary as he eyes a butler with a surfboard that needs a new access panel in his foot.
“Would you mind unscrewing that screw?” says Gary, gesturing to a button that has come loose on the butler’s tuxedo. Gary needs both hands to hold the swaying model on top of a wooden pallet.
For literally two seconds, I’m a master model builder.
“You could try to make it perfect, but you have to let it go. That’s a hard thing for AFOLs to adjust to,” says Gary.
His cell phone beeps. It’s Gary’s boss, Tim Petsche, and we’re headed back to the model shop. They are the only two model builders in the LEGOLAND model shop. They maintain the existing models and install new models. The majority of designers work in the development shop off site, which opened in 2007 to design and animate new models as part of the park’s expansion.
An unmarked door off the left side of the model shop leads to the animation room.
About ten feet inside the room, a row of yellow panels features maps that correspond to each Miniland layout. The panels are next to banks of switches that remind me of an airplane control panel. A series of lights flash green and make small clicks like your tongue hitting the roof of your mouth.
“Each time those lights go off, somebody is playing in that part of Miniland or a car is moving,” says Gary.
The cars in Miniland run between a series of charge points. The computer tells the cars when to stop in order to power up and when to continue.
“This is the story of the park,” says Gary.
When we step back into the model shop, Gary is called into a meeting, and I have the park to myself. I wander into Miniland and begin jotting down the proportions of the figures. The feet consist of two 1 × 2 plates and the arms are each two hinges.
I take my calculations over to the Pick A Brick store inside Fun Town, where I’d been only a few hours earlier with Gary. I begin filling a bag with parts. I have a secret plan to build a Miniland version of myself and place him somewhere in Miniland New York, since they haven’t gotten around to building Miniland Kansas City just yet.
I’m sorting bricks on a table, watching American children navigate according to the rules of the driving school, when Kate calls.
“I’ve got my street sweeper on my desk. How’s your day going at LEGOLAND?” she asks, having flown home the previous day.
“Well, I’m talking to you from Fun Town. I’d say pretty good.”
“Is this still your dream job?” asks Kate. I take a moment to consider my answer.
“No, I really don’t think so.”
A minute after we hang up, I’m walking back toward Miniland when I fall into step behind an employee wearing a red LEGOLAND polo shirt. I reconsider what I told Kate.
Well, maybe, I could just work here for a little while,
I think. I pass by the parade floats that roll through the miniaturized French Quarter of New Orleans.
I’m sitting on a bench snapping together the legs of my mini-me model when Gary calls to let me know he’s off work. It’s 4:45 p.m. and the park closes in fifteen minutes.
“Want to hit a few rides?” asks Gary.
I really don’t, but I agree to get on the Dragon. Plus, I’m not sure it really counts; it’s the same coaster I rode in LEGOLAND Billund.
“This is only the third coaster I’ve ridden in my life. You owe me,” I tell Gary. My seat is right behind his, and we’re both strapped in. The ride starts up with a jerk, and I decide to let go. Gary turns back to make sure I’m okay, and I lift my arms with my palms up in the traditional roller coaster posture of one who is happily along for the trip.
After we get off the ride, we check out the kiosk where they show you your picture from the camera set above the coaster. It’s been turned off for the night, but I’d bet I was smiling on the tape.
“We can walk around if you want,” says Gary.
“I was hoping we could spend some more time in Miniland,” I tell him. The race cars stop circling the track at the Daytona Motor Speedway as we approach, since the power has been shut down for the night.
“If the park’s closed, that means we can do this,” says Gary, stepping over the black, wrought iron fence that surrounds the racetrack. I look at him uncertainly.
“C’mon.” We spend a few minutes next to the grandstands. I can barely hear what Gary is saying, because I am
walking around inside Miniland.
“This is my favorite part of Miniland,” says Gary as we climb the hills of San Francisco. My head swivels, trying to take in all of the details that I couldn’t see when I was forced to stand fifteen feet away behind a fence. There are elements in colors I have never seen, teal and gold. A woman hangs out the back of a building with two minifig heads on her chest that look surprisingly like a filled-out bra.
My feet are the size of the frozen trolleys.
“Do you ever make Godzilla noises?” I ask him somewhere near Coit Tower.
“No, but I’ve thought about it,” says Gary.
He stops me at a brownstone where a man sits on the steps, a bouquet of flowers by his side.
“I love these little scenes because they are reflections of life. We’re making these figures say so much without being able to give them facial expressions,” says Gary.
I’m about to get up when I see what Gary means. A female figure peers out from behind a curtain in a window to the left of the stairs.
“I wonder what she’s thinking,” says Gary.
It’s in New York City that I finally confess my plan to Gary to hide a Miniland version of myself. It’s easier to admit my plan since I’ve abandoned it.
“I was going to do the same thing when I got here, but I never got around to it,” says Gary.
The light begins to fade, and we both take out our cell phones, using the blue glow from the screens to illuminate our way as we talk about the buildings in front of us. Our footsteps are the only sounds in the park, and it’s peaceful. We move through a newly redesigned New England town, walking the short distance between the lake and the farm area in about fifteen steps. Gary talks about how the landscaping was redesigned after all of the old boats were removed from the New England harbor. The very boats that Dan Brown bought at auction and I admired in a classroom in Bellaire, Ohio.
It’s close to eight o’clock when we reach the Inauguration scene in Washington, D.C. Gary was interviewed by nearly every major international news outlet in the several weeks leading up to President Barack Obama’s swearing-in.
“It’s been amazing. I think it was just the idea of possibility that captured people’s imagination,” says Gary.
A flashlight washes over us, freezing Gary against the backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial and me just steps from the presidential motorcade. Gary waves to the security guard, and the beam of the flashlight continues down the path.
My eyes don’t adjust back to the sudden dark, and I hear a small click next to my shoe. I kneel down. In the blue wash of my cell phone, I see I’ve kicked over a woman pushing a baby stroller.
“Don’t worry about that, we’ll fix it in the morning,” says Gary.
“No, I got it.” I set the female Miniland figure and her stroller back upright.
In the year that I’ve spent challenging myself to build, I’ve succeeded. I just didn’t expect to be building a family.
“You ready to head home?” asks Gary.
“I am.”
He snaps his cell phone shut, and the last of the lights go out in Miniland.
Epilogue: August 17, 2009
Kate has gone three days past her due date, and the joy of anticipation has clearly given way to the frustration of waiting. It’s a difficult thing not knowing when your child is going to be born, and yet, it turns out that it might be even harder to adjust to the idea that she will be born at a specified time.
Kate’s doctor had scheduled an afternoon ultrasound to determine the size of the baby. In the small, darkened room, I saw the computer’s prediction for the first time—8 pounds, 15 ounces.
“How’s your fat little baby?” asked Kate’s doctor when he came in to discuss the results. And just like that we were discussing when our child would be born, via caesarean section—two days hence, on the morning of August 19.
The evening of August 18, we tried unsuccessfully to find things to occupy the hours. And then I thought of the one thing left for me to accomplish before we added another person to our family.
“Two words,” I say to Kate.
“And they are... ?”
“MTT Federation,” I reply.
She gives me a puzzled look, until I bring in the briefcase-size box from the dining room. The model of the droid army attack vehicle from the most recent
Star Wars
trilogy is not just a LEGO set—it is
the
LEGO set.
I’ve owned it for over a year. My thirty-first birthday has come and gone. And for too long, this box has sat acquiring dust—a lucky totem and a weighty anchor. It recently migrated to the dining room after the third bedroom in our house was transformed from a brick room into a nursery. This set isn’t going to put itself together.
“Yes,” says Kate, excitedly. “I was like, I know what that is, but I just can’t place it.”
The standard relationship patter suggests that men have difficulty envisioning the future or thinking ahead, and I’ve been having trouble picturing what it will be like when our baby is born. I understand objectively what will happen, but I can’t see the moment. What I have pictured is this night when we conquer this set together.
We approach the Trade Federation MTT like a surgical team. Kate grabs some storage containers and I grab two green cereal bowls—one for each of us to have parts handy. I cut the tape on the side of the box carefully, taking a deep breath.
Kate lays twenty-two bags of LEGO pieces out on the ottoman, while I begin to flip through the instruction manual to see what’s in store. I quickly pass it to her, once she’s done.
“We’re not building on grass, so we’re okay,” says Kate, opening the second page of the first instruction booklet. It’s an old joke, but a good one, especially coming from my wife. AFOLs like to poke fun at the first step of every kit, which informs new set owners to not mix the contents of the bags and to avoid putting the set together in the grass.
“This is not going to be good for color-blind you,” says Kate as she looks at the various shades of brown, gray, and black in nearly every combination of brick, tile, and plate. I have a mild form of color-blindness, but while Kate makes sure my ties and socks match, she likely won’t need to give a lot of help with this set.
For a long while, there are just the happy sounds of LEGO bricks being shuffled around in cereal bowls. We don’t need conversation. I don’t know if you can grow old together playing LEGO, but right now that sounds pretty great.
As Kate works on the main body of the droid ship, I begin to snap the droids themselves together. I outfit them with laser guns, which makes them topple, and I try hard not to dance them around the coffee table.
“It’s like the game of memory—I know I’ve seen a piece, I just can’t find it,” says Kate, beginning to show frustration that the ship is taking so long to come together.
I imagine that some of that frustration stems from her inability to bend particularly far, her belly pushing out her T-shirt.
Mad Men
plays in the background, adding a soundtrack and style to our living room. I pay attention only when the conversation at the fictional advertising agency focuses on the pregnant wife of one of the characters.
“I’ve done my part. Now it’s just up to her,” says media buyer Harry Crane.
“Don’t pay any attention to that due date. It will just drive you crazy,” replies a coworker.
Amen to that,
I say to myself.
Right about then, Kate finishes Step 2 and announces she’s done. We’re not even halfway through the first of two instruction books. It should feel as if we’re quitting, but instead it feels just right. We spent our last evening as a childless couple happily playing with LEGO bricks.
Now all I want is for us to try to get some sleep before we have to leave for the hospital. Kate’s C-section is scheduled for eight tomorrow morning.
The sun has started to come up as I clean the car and put in the hospital bag. I sweep LEGO bricks from beneath the floor in the backseat and put them away in the Creator mini train set box stuck in the back pocket of the driver’s seat. Between that and the car seat, it looks like we already have started our family.
Everything runs smoothly until it’s time to change into my scrubs. I hold up the package, an extra-large.
“Ma’am, I’m not sure these are going to work,” I tell the nurse. She gives me a quick look, one that says I’ll be her second priority all morning.
“Yeah ... ”—she pauses—“probably not.... I’ll go get you a large.” Her efficient nurse walk carries her out of the room before I can ask if they have a medium or, ideally, a small.
Kate laughs at the idea that I’ll be wearing a large, and I’m glad for the break in the tension that exists in hospital rooms. But I’m not laughing when the nurse hands me the large scrubs and I step into the bathroom to change.
The top is a V-neck that hangs closer to my knees than my waist, while the pants pool around my sneakers, even after I’ve cinched them as tight as I can.
“How’s this?” I ask proudly, stepping out of the bathroom and showing Kate and the nurse entirely too much chest hair. Kate laughs; the nurse does not.
“Do you have a T-shirt?” the nurse asks, with not a little concern in her voice.
“Yes. I wasn’t sure if I should wear anything under it,” I reply, not wanting to disobey any sort of hospital protocol regarding operating room attire.