The following was edited out of A Kiss for Maggie Moore. Seems appropriate now to give Maggie her say.
I never had many toys. I much preferred playing in the mud or shooting marbles. Although, I did have a Barbie and Ken who I considered more my subjects than my dolls.
Barbie traveled the world and visited a couple of planets, too. Fluent in twenty languages, she had been everything from an acrobat to a zoo keeper, overcoming unforeseen disasters and several life threatening diseases. Ken’s life had been less thrilling, but equally brutal. Quite literally, he lost his head.
Barbie’s head was meant to come off; however, removing Ken’s left permanent damage. (A major manufacturing faux pas, in my opinion.) No amount of Elmer’s glue could keep it attached, and holding it atop Ken’s body while choreographing his stunts became a hassle. Like Barbie’s finicky high heels, Ken’s head eventually went bye-bye.
Ken had to be laid to rest. I enlisted Bucky to preside over the funeral. Normally he wouldn’t have anything to do with dolls—the Majors would go to blows at the suggestion of G.I. Joe’s dolldom—but Bucky liked to bury things. He even had a dead bird cemetery behind his garage. I didn’t want Ken with a bunch of birds, so we buried him next to Mom’s lilac bushes. Melinda made a Popsicle-stick cross with the inscription Here Lies Ken and placed it on his grave. Bucky recited “Casey at the Bat,” the only poem he knew by heart. I feigned tears. All in all, it was a beautiful ceremony.
Two days later I dug him up. Barbie needed an escort for the rodeo, and I figured a headless Ken was better than no Ken at all. His remains remain a permanent Barbie accessory.
