For hours, Jay and I ran around the Heidelberg Project with his bantam child running wild, leading us through each piece of the exhibit. Her tiny frame is barely big enough to carry the monstrous curiosity she has stored up inside her. Eyes big as dinner plates, hands wide open, she wanted to touch and talk about everything. “Why did someone glue pennies to the car?” she asked as she ran her stubby, little fingers across the rusted doorframe. “Why does that lady look like the Joker?” she inquired, pointing to a poster on the side of a house. “Can I play with those stuffed animals?” she requested as she went running up to the speedboat that overflowed with deflated, childhood fantasies.
Ari, three years old: a lion.
Already, she has the world wrapped around her little finger. Her father is the biggest sucker of them all. There is something so fantastic about the relationship between these two. It’s pure, unconditional love. She crinkles her nose and, as if completely unable to control his actions, Jay does whatever she commands. Her miniature lips wield the power of a queen and she is fully aware.
As we continued down the street we spotted an industrial robot sculpture. Without a second thought, Ari was off and running full tilt towards it. She yelled over her shoulder for me to take her picture. A few feet away from it, she froze. Jay and I watched as her mouth fell open and her cheeks lost their color. This robot was twice her size, covered in rust, barley had a face and was terrifying. When we reached her, she still hadn’t moved. The look of pleasure she carried all day had been replaced with staggering fear.
“What’s wrong, turkey?” Jay asked leaning into her.
Slowly Ari shook her head back and forth.
“You want Natja to take your picture?” he asked.
“No. That’s alright.” she was still unable to remove her eyes from this colossus abomination.
“Oh my. This is sort of awesome, Jay.” I observed. “Let’s see what we can do here.” Squatting down in front of her, looking her in the eyes, I said, “Are you sure you don’t want a picture in front of the robot? Robots are really cool and I bet this one, if it were alive, would be really friendly. Sometimes they just look scary.”
“No, that’s okay.” She answered as her glance reached over my head, refocused on the sculpture.
“It won’t come alive, I promise with all my heart.” I said in the sweetest, Sesame Street voice I could muster.
“Uh-uh.” her head shook back and forth.
“Can you imagine how cool it would be to have a picture of you and the robot? You can stand this far away. Your daddy and I will both be right here to protect you from anything that could possibly happen.”
She weighed her options. She placed her finger quizzically on her chin and thought. She loved being in front of the camera more than she was afraid of the sculpture. “Okay.” she said with a wrinkle in her forehead, “But hurry.” She turned her back to the creation and smiled at me.
Aiming my camera at her, I snapped 3 quick shots and pulled the camera away.
“Come here!” I smiled and gave her a hug, “You’re such an amazingly brave girl!
Her father was quick to chime in, “Come here and give me a hug! That was awesome! I don’t even know if I could have shown so much bravado!” The giggle that came from the depths of her belly was unrelenting and completely infectious.
It was starting to get late in the afternoon, so we decided we would give Ari two options: we could call it a day and go back to the house for dinner, or she could eat the banana in the truck then we could go to Belle Isle where we could race around the fountain, or maybe along the waterfront if it wasn’t too cold. Without hesitation she smiled and said, “Race!” So, we were off.
As soon as we parked the car, she had already liberated herself from her car seat and was trying to open the door. Once out of the vehicle, she made a B-line for the empty pool and scaled the wall as quickly as possible. She was in. Spinning around she looked at us impatiently. It seems we had arrived just in time for her assessment of the situation, she looked up at me, “Can we climb up to the lions?”
“Sure, let me go up first and your daddy will hand you up to me.” Grabbing the ledge I started to climb. Turning around and making sure I was steady, I reached down, grabbed her wrists and pulled her up to me.
Once on her own feet she climbed over and sat on one of the lions. “You can get down now.” She directed me.
“Hilarious! Alright, kid.” I hopped down and grabbed my camera. Aiming up and focusing in, I yelled up to her, “HEY, ARI? ARE YOU GONNA TAKE OVER THE WORLD?!”
That’s when it happened: this tiny piece of the city’s – our city’s future; this curious, beautiful, miniature creature spread her arms as though to take flight. With a brilliant look at her father Ari let loose the most guttural, primal child roar Detroit has ever heard.
Primal Scream
