Dropping the Ball

I told them that I’d had enough.

I am all done being trapped inside a ball as it plummets to the ground all to celebrate some mindless construction of time. I understand the value of ritual. I get the nature of tradition. My family has been involved in New Year’s Eve since the very first celebration. The Windells are, in some ways, the First Family of New Year’s Eve. We were given the burden of sacrificing a little bit of ourselves every year, because when the calendar as we know it was created, we were the ones who thought to make a big deal out of the transition from one year into the next.

Resolutions? We invented that. Eating pad thai alone and falling asleep by 11pm after promising to stay up?  The Windells.  Going to the gym the first week in January and then quitting sometime around February 3rd?  That was us.

The only reason you’ve never heard about my family is because we have always seen the carrying of the New Year’s banner as a kind of secret history. We made our fortune in other ways, and those are the achievements we’re publicly known for. Respectable things like oil and railroads and pharmaceutical drugs that reduce swelling after cosmetic surgery. Our contribution to the holiday that made texting your ex acceptable has largely gone uncredited.

At some point in the not so distant past, one of my great-great-uncles decided that the ceremonial dropping of the New Year’s Eve ball in Times Square should be more closely tied to the Windells. Great-Great Uncle Aloysius was, admittedly, a bit daft, and ended up in several asylums, but before he was committed, he was committed to the idea of the ball being akin to a virgin dropped into a volcano. The roiling lava that is the upcoming year with all its promise of opportunity and at least two celebrities dying after everyone swore they were already dead.

“If the ball is the virgin,” Uncle Aloysius shouted at his many terrified assistants, “Then a Windell must be attached to that virgin. Holding onto them for dear life!”

It will come as no surprise that before he was thrown into his last padded cell, an expose came out on Uncle Aloysius revealing that he only got a bit too handsy with whatever poor old sod was cast to play Baby New Year at the Windell holiday party. It was usually a man in his late thirties wearing a diaper and holding a rattle, and someone would always have to pay the chap off at the end of the night. I suppose somebody forgot to follow through with the last fellow, and suddenly there were six pages in the Post all about Aloysius.

It was that crackpot who doomed me to a life inside the ball. My great-great uncle convinced whoever was in charge of the festivities in Times Square to let one of the Windells--often the first-born son--into the ball as it dropped.

Now, I should tell you, it’s perfectly safe.

Well, now it is anyway.

Several sons were gravely injured during the first few drops, because humans are not meant to be trapped in falling balls. These days, there’s just some light jostling, but it’s still quite unnerving. For security purposes, I need to be up in the ball by late afternoon, and then I’m just sitting up there waiting for the big moment. It’s cold and uncomfortable. They give me a small pillow to sit on and a copy of the stock report so I can get some work done while I wait, but that’s all I have to occupy my mind while throngs of people underneath me wet themselves in diapers and drink themselves into oblivion.

Once when I was fifteen, I complained about the whole ordeal, and my father reminded me that he had done it until I was born, and that his father had done the same. He lectured me about what a charmed life I had, and if my only inconvenience was to sit hundreds of feet in the air in a ball once a year, was that really the worst thing in the world?

“Besides,” he said, “It’ll give you extra incentive to have a son of your own and carry on the family name. Until you do that, you’re stuck up there, my boy.”

Upon a new first son being born, he has exactly eight years to get used to the idea of all his New Year’s Eves being spent in the sky, and then up he goes. I remember being terrified the first time I was placed in the ball. My parents were there, and my grandparents. My grandmother made sure my bowtie was straight, and my grandfather said if I went up without making a fuss like my father had his first time, he’d buy me an endangered animal I could keep at our summer home. I chose the wild water buffalo, but when it arrived the following June, it smelled funny and was impossible to ride. We ended up setting it loose in the Hamptons, and as far as I know, it’s still there today.

If I thought there was a chance I’d have my own son, it’s possible I’d be open to continuing this tradition, but a few days into my freshman year of college, I realized that I had an unyielding crush on my roommate, a lacrosse player named Philip Quinn. Being gay doesn’t rule out producing an heir, but since I knew my family would be appalled by my new identity anyway, I saw no reason not to go all in and tell them they could find another putz to shove into a glass ball with numbers nailed to the side of it.  My plan was to ride the shock of my outing all the way into the demolition of this inane custom.

The family took the news as expected. My father excommunicated me and my mother asked if she could go take a nap. My younger brother panicked and asked if this meant he’d have to get in the ball on New Year’s Eve, and my father said that even if I was officially removed from the family, blood was blood. Either I got in the ball, or nobody did.

“May I point out,” I said, “That I’ve also just revealed my true nature to you all.”

My father waved that away as those I had merely disclosed to them my favorite kind of burrito or where I planned on vacationing over spring break.

“You’ve just eradicated a beloved family liturgy,” he said, “And you want me to give a damn about whose bed your shoes are under?”

In an effort to smooth things over, I agreed to one last time in the ball. This did little to settle my father’s ire, but he didn’t object since it would buy him time to try and change my mind. On December 31st, I landed in New York and made my way to 43rd Street where I met my usual security detail, a very nice man named Mike Newbound. He led me to the ball, and once I was sitting on my tiny pillow, I tipped him a few hundreds.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said, “I can’t speak for the rest of your family, but you sure are generous.”

That made me smile, and I wished him a Happy New Year.

As the ball was going up, I felt a kind of enjoyment wash over me that had never been present until that very moment. Knowing this would be my last time spending the last night of the year suspended over New York meant that I could actually take in the spectacle of it all. I took my time looking out over the boroughs and the skyscrapers. The river and the bridges. I made a resolution to try and notice the world regardless of whether or not I’d been forced to.

When the clock finally reached its last ten seconds, I closed my eyes and mouthed the numbers silently to myself while down below they were being screamed by thousands of revelers.

“10…9…8…”

The ball began to drop. I gripped the stock report a bit harder. The Windells would no longer be winding down the way we always had. Next year truly would be a new year.

I felt a rush of heat come over me. It was unexpected, but not unpleasant. It might simply have been the volcano welcoming me into its lava.