The Meltdown

I'm a nanny for a nine year old named Max. I am also a girlfriend for a twenty-four year old named Max. Is it confusing? Not if you don't mind a little inadvertent pedophilia.

Anyway, I enjoy spending time with both Maxes a great deal. They're both hilarious, except Young Max doesn't always intend to be. I tell stories about him, and one of my stories is about how freaked out he is by global warming. My friend might want to make a movie about it, so I started writing. To wit:

I love the feeling of fear. Young Max does not. A garage door has just opened, suddenly, mechanically and to our right. We are both startled. I look away for a moment and wait for the the rush of adrenaline that I can cultivate for even the most mundane of events. Other people may know it as the nausea that washes over the passengers of the first car on the Coney Island Cyclone. Young Max, for instance, would he consent to ride that roller coaster, would certainly recognize it as such.

Right now, though, we're both calmed by the emerging white Taurus and Max starts talking about Scrat again.

"It was scary when he almost died!"

"Uh, but he didn't, right?"

"NO, he didn't!" Max corrects me with the kind of bellow I sometimes think will burst his larynx. I should have known. We only finished watching "Ice Age 2: the metldown" fifteen minutes ago. "He was in HEAVEN, remember--"

"Oh! With the acorns!"

"He was in HEAVEN," Max's exhilaration makes him talk like a breakless freight train, "and he was getting to the biggest acorn and then he was SNATCHED by Sid! And Sid didn't realize that Scrat didn't want to die. He thought he was HELPing! But then Scrat was so sad." At this point Max decides to breathe. We walk for almost a whole block, past pinkish brownstones and wrought iron gates, until he speaks again.

"Imagine if that HAPPENED."

"What, if a squirrel came back to life after acorn heaven?"

"No! If the Arctic MELTed."

"Well," my eyes light up, mirroring the light in the eyes of Brooklyn parents borough-wide, "well, that is kind of happenning."

Max looks stricken.

"I mean," I have to be fast, "not at this moment. But the world is getting warmer, because of humans, because of the chemicals we use and the oil that we burn, and so the polar ice caps are melting, a little."

"Like in the movie?!"

"No, no, babe. Not like in the movie. I mean, there aren't even mammoths anymore. So, um, more slowly." I'm not making sense. "It's called global warming."

"So will we die?" Cue Max's otherwise roller coaster-induced nausea.

"We will not die. We will not, there will not be one massive flood or anything. But people do need to change how we live. Sea levels will rise, but little by little. Tiny, tiny amounts."

"What about Brooklyn?" The key concern.

"Max, baby, Brooklyn will be fine." I'm not sure if this is true. Regardless, "I promise. But remember how Manhattan is an island?" The look of panic returns. Max's mom works in Manhattan.