8-year-old tames (wooden) lion in Queens, New York

Maykol Fares has spent years waiting to ride the carousel in Flushing Meadows Park. It’s not for lack of courage, he clarifies. He just wasn’t tall enough– but he’s over 42 inches now– an older, more mature eight-year-old.

“Eight extreme years,” he adds (he uses that word a lot: extreme).

Maykol moved to the U.S. three years ago, from Ecuador. He comes to Flushing Meadows Park, located in the heart of Queens, N.Y., says his mom, Estefania Fares. “But this is his first time on the carousel.”

She tells me Maykol has been bugging her to ride this merry-go-round whenever they come, and today she finally relented.

Standing in line for the merry-go-round, she tells the story of how, three years ago, she and Maykol picked up and left Ecuador. The gang violence there has gotten bad. Maykol was 5 years old when they swam across the Rio Grande to reach the U.S. border.

When they made it to the other side, they turned themselves in, saying they needed asylum. In New York they joined over 180 thousand migrants who’ve arrived in the last few years, and like many others ended up in Queens, one of the most diverse counties in the U.S.

Fares says through all of that, Maykol wasn’t scared. “It was like a walk in the park for him,” she smiles, as her son stares-down one of the animals on the carousel— the one he’s had his eye on for his first ride.

“The lion,” he says, decisively.

That’s right: amidst the 64 fancy ponies that slide up and down, there’s a single grumpy looking old lion, and Maykol wants to ride him– after all, the merry-go-round is a place where reputations are made. And Maykol’s “just extreme like that,” he reminds us.

As soon as the carousel gate opens, he makes a beeline for the infamous lion. He says he isn’t scared. After all, he explains, he’s been training for this with his cousin for an entire year, doing cartwheels and strength training.

And he’s gonna need it- because this merry-go-round gets up to 200 miles an hour (or so he expects).

Mykol holds on tight and sits up straight as the carousel takes off. His mom waves at him, but he’s so focused, he forgets to look for her.

“It feels good!” he says. “Great. It’s a big lion. This is very extreme.”

The ride ends, and Maykol emerges victorious, puffing out his little chest. That lion doesn’t look so ferocious anymore.

Would he do it again?

He smiles. “A thousand times.”