Coney Island, 1999

by A. Griffin

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I remember this one time in the summer of 1999 when Mom took took me to Coney Island. A short drive by car, but we didn’t have one, so it meant a long train ride, which I didn’t mind at all. To ward off boredom, though I would have been amused enough by the train itself, Mom got me one of those beginner books on shape-shifting magic to keep me occupied on the long subway journey between my home on Beach 57th Street and Stillwell Avenue.

When the train was high on the elevated line over Gowanus Canal, I thought of what it would be like to turn into a seal and jump out the window, making an epic sploosh into the canal, which in my childhood ignorance I had no idea was hideously polluted back then.

I read the book nearly cover to cover before the ride was over, and after putting on the magic amulet that was included with the book, I took to messing around giving myself goofy, temporary alterations like elephant ears, a toucan beak, each changed feature lasting only moments before reverting to its ordinary shape, all while the adults on board the train rolled their eyes or simply ignored me and resumed reading their newspapers.

As the train pulled into Stillwell terminal, Mom gave me the idea of turning into a fish once we got to the beach, and swimming in the waters beyond Coney Island like Don Knotts in “The Incredible Mr. Limpet”, minus the Nazi submarines.

But being a nerdy little kid at the height of Pokemania, I took up my Mom’s idea to turn into a sea creature, but rather than become a fish, or the seal I had considered earlier, I decided that I’d explore the coastline in the form of my favorite water-type Pokemon, Vaporeon, a Pokemon creature which could be best described to the unfamiliar as cross between a dog and a fish.

So as was tradition when vising Coney Island, me and Mom got some hot dogs and fries from Nathan’s and brought them out on the beach and had a picnic lunch by the water. Of course Mom lectured me about not using shapeshifting for anything dangerous or stupid, similar to the first time she let me ride my bike past my own front yard.

After we finished eating, I got out the book again, and spent a good while re-reading the first few chapters to get down the basics, and started experimenting and practicing until I was able to get some blue fur to sprout, and actually remain in place.

Once I got the fur to start growing in, elongating my feet and putting squishy pads on my toes to give myself a pair of hind-paws and shifting my legs to an animal like shape was as simple as imagining it, and soon I was pretty much a Vaporeon from the waist down.

I messed up and accidentally tore a hole in my swim trunks when I gave myself the tail. Mom wasn’t very happy about that, but luckily she brought some blue jean shorts for me to change into once I finished swimming anyway, so at least I wasn’t wearing torn pants the rest of the day.

As different as it all was being half fish-dog, the tail was a source of particular wonder, being something entirely new my normal form had no analogous structure to. I was so amused merely by combing my fingers through its soft blue fur, swinging it around, and slapping it against the sand that I’d nearly forgotten I hadn’t even begun to shift my upper body yet.

So I got back to the task at hand (ironically) and had just started working on turning my right hand into a forepaw when Mom got out her Polaroid and snapped a photograph.

The hardest part was changing my head and face, as I couldn’t see them well, but Mom took out a little mirror from her purse and held it so I could watch in the mirror and make sure I did an okay job giving myself a muzzle and making my ears look convincingly fin-like.

I didn’t consider until I had done it how profoundly changing the shape of my ears would impact the way sound reached my senses, and different every breath would feel, traveling through my elongated snout, even my my hearing or sense of smell weren’t actually improved much.

If I had my holographic Vaporeon trading card I liked to carry as a good luck charm I would have been able to make sure my self-created Vaporeon form looked like the official artwork, but Mom just kept assuring me that all that mattered was that I was having fun and that the gill slits hidden beneath my fur worked properly once I was in the water.

Once I finished transforming, Mom gave me another talk about being careful in the water and staying in sight of the life guards, and warning me to stay away from Steeplechase Pier where all the fishermen cast their lines, lest I get tangled in them or accidentally get hooked.

Walking on four legs took a moment to get used to, but soon I was bounding through the sand toward the ocean and having all the fun in the world, swimming circles around the people in the water, diving beneath the surface, playing with the fish and poking my snout around at the shellfish down in the sand.

And yes, I did go around swimming under Steeplechase Pier pretending I was Mr. Limpet, though with adult hindsight, I am horrified that I did so and am glad I didn't get hooked on any one of the dozens of fishing lines.

But shape-shifting was tiring, let alone all the swimming I’d been doing. I grew exhausted within an hour or so, and swam back to the beach. After Mom dried me off and I told her about what I’d been up to, I took a nap on the sand next to Mom, still as a Vaporeon, curled up like a big blue dog, dozing in the sun, fidgeting lazily by sweeping my tail back and forth across the sand.

It was still early into the afternoon when I woke up, and after transforming back into myself, and putting on the shorts Mom brought me to change into after swimming, we packed up the blankets, and picked up some old NES games from the flea markets on the north side of Surf Avenue, back when NES cartridges were considered obsolete garbage and could be picked up with a little kid’s pocket money, and then it was time to go home.

I’ll never forget that day by the seaside I spent as a Vaporeon. I know a lot of kids get over that phase where they goof around turning themselves into animals or other creatures purely for the amusement of it, but I’ve always found the feelings and visuals of transformation to be enormously comforting, and that occasionally spending a certain amount of time in a different body has been a very relaxing form of recreation, and certainly better for my health and less expensive than smoking or drinking.

I’m just glad Mom had the foresight to take a picture of me in the middle of me changing for the first time.

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Based on actual daydreams.

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