by Deb Caletti
“There it is,” Chip Jr. said. So he’d been looking for it too, and he was right—the swirls and loops rose up in the air over a bank of trees and the roofs of off-ramp gas stations.
“There what is?” Harold said.
“The Gold Nugget Amusement Park,” Chip Jr. said. His voice was hushed, awed, as if we’d just passed a historic landmark, the marker of an important but brutal battle, and maybe that’s exactly what we had passed. It seemed to call for a moment of silence.
But it wasn’t silence that we got. Instead a strange thing happened. If I believed in signs and stuff like that, like my father, I would have thought it was one. Because right then there was the deafening sound of a motorcycle gunning its engine, and within a moment, it veered into the lane beside us, sped forward, then swerved in front of us into our lane.
“God in heaven!” Miz June exclaimed.
“Asshole,” Peach said.
I watched it pass. In spite of myself, against all logic, I looked to see that it wasn’t Travis Becker. As far as signs went, this one was a bit shaky. After all, the motorcycle was one of those Harleys with studded leather that you see outside of taverns, and a hefty couple in matching black outfits was riding it. Passing us would not be an odd or unusual act, either—Miz June was driving substantially under the speed limit. Still, my mother must have been making the same connections I was. The Gold Nugget. A motorcycle. Right at that moment. She turned around and gave me a long look, then turned and faced front again.
“I’ve got a crazy idea,” she said.
“Overtake that motorcycle and make a citizen’s arrest?” Miz June said. She was one step away from road rage, if you ask me.
“The amusement park,” Mom said. “We could go. I think we should go.”
Chip Jr. looked at me, and I looked at him. Her desire to go, I knew, came partly because she wanted to demonstrate something important to me—the ability to overcome. But I’d been the paramedic at the accident site of her wrecked heart for too long, and I wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. My brother obviously felt the same way.
“I love amusement parks!” Harold said. “They’re the only place you can get a really good corn dog.” The more I got to know Harold, the more miraculous I found it that he didn’t weigh three hundred pounds.
“It sounds like a lovely idea,” Miz June said. Lillian clapped.
“We won’t make it to Eureka until late,” my mother reminded.
“No reason we can’t have some fun along the way,” Harold said.
“More fun, anyway, than seeing you in your snowflake pajamas!” Peach said. The giddiness factor in the car was rising. Pretty soon they’d be hopping up and down in their seats.
“And I must warn you, this place isn’t exactly cheap,” my mother said.
“Senior discount!” Harold said. The idea of corn dogs had made him bubbly as a pot of boiling water.
“Shit,” Chip Jr. whispered.
“Shit, shit,” I said.
“Shit-shit. A small, fluffy dog breed,” he said.
“Shit-shit with rice. Number twelve on the Japanese menu.”
“We’ve done that one already,” he said.
“Well, pardon me for not being at the top of my game,” I said
“Would you two quit whispering?” Mom said. “If you’re worrying, don’t. Your dad’s not even here today. Thursday is his day off.”
Miz June slowed down and flicked on her turn signal, this time, I swear, a full mile before the next exit. We had a line of cars behind us that would make the dead body in a funeral procession envious. “All in favor,” Miz June said. There was a manic chorus of agreement.
I’m surprised no one got hurt getting out of the car. They shoved and jostled to get out, showing the crazed enthusiasm of shoppers at the half-off table of a Nordstrom sale. We waited in line at the ticket place, built to resemble a small log cabin.
“Stop that, you little beast,” Peach said to a little kid in front of us who was chasing pigeons. Luckily his parents didn’t hear.
We wandered through the gates decorated with fake signs. WARNING! KEEP OUT! EXPLOSIVES! Peach pushed Lillian’s wheelchair. The crowd of people was a mix of visitors in their printed T-shirts and baseball caps, a few teenagers holding hands in a way that reminded me of businessmen hauling around their briefcases, and the park workers in their long period dresses and black jeans and vests, looking rushed and hot, heading off to a break or to their posts. I watched each of the workers pass, thinking for sure that this would be the one Thursday that my father actually would be there. Peach caught my eye and winked at me. Stop worrying, that wink said. Let it go. And she was right, I guess. If you’ve ever had those times where you’ve clutched a pen or something else in your hand for a long time, only to look down and be surprised that you are still holding it long after your need for it has passed, you’ll understand. Sometimes our minds just make us go on clutching something. Sometimes we get so used to holding that we forget to let go.
We separated, the old ladies to find some shade and some ice cream, and Harold and us to try out the rides. Chip Jr. left his camera with the old people for safety. Harold talked Mom, Chip Jr., and me into riding the roller coaster. The rickety all-wood one, the Mine of Terror that clambered and shuddered up high hills and zipped you down with stomach-lurching intensity, only to rocket you back up and onto a side-riding curve. My mother screamed her head off, and so did Chip Jr. and I; my throat was raw with fear and exhilaration when we got off. When I was back on the ground again, my legs shook like Miz June’s hands, and Harold’s hair looked like an electrified porcupine, standing on end and betraying the fear he wouldn’t admit to when we were done.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said, but I hadn’t forgotten his voice screaming right along with Chip Jr.’s in the car behind Mom’s and mine, and he looked a little green. They take your picture as you drop down into the mine, and they post the photos on the wall of the General Store after they’re developed, so we went along afterward to see. Mom bought it, and we went to find the ladies to show them. In the photo, Chip Jr.’s eyes are squinched tight, and Mom and I have open mouths, but Harold looks truly petrified. Later Mom would put it up on the bookcase in the living room, where it still is to this day.
Miz June examined the photo. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said to Harold. The three ladies sat in the shade under a tree, Lillian in her wheelchair and Peach and Miz June on a bench. They all had ice cream cones, a napkin wrapped around each cone, and someone had bought a Mylar frog balloon and tied it to the handle of Lillian’s wheelchair. Chip Jr. got his camera back and took a picture of it.
“My life flashed before my eyes,” Mom said. She was flushed, but looked happy.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Harold said again. His color was returning to normal. “Now for Destruction Junction.”
“Let’s go,” Chip Jr. said. He had picked up Harold’s hand and held it.
“I’m sitting this one out,” Mom said.
“Chicken,” Harold said.
“Bawk, bawk,” Peach said. She put her hands under her armpits and flapped.
“Oh, all right,” my mother said. Boy, those Casserole Queens could push her around. We needed them at home.
We rode the Gold Rush and then Destruction Junction. We tried out the bumper boats, and Harold’s slacks got soaked. We rode the White-Water Rapids, getting in a big round boat with a few other people. Sadistic passersby could push a button outside the ride and send a geyser of water up in the air to shoot the folks zipping past in the boat. We all agreed that we were glad Peach hadn’t known of this possibility.
We met back up with the ladies, who were now eating sno-cones.
“We’ve observed something as we’ve been sitting here,” Peach said. “America is the land of the big butts.” Hers wasn’t exactly petite, and she did say this as she slurped the last bit of cherry liquid from her soggy paper triangle.
“I’m glad you have been d
oing some sociological research while you were here, instead of just feeding your faces,” my mother said. Lillian had a red ring around her mouth.
“I think I’ve earned my corn dogs,” Harold said.
“We’ve decided we’d like to ride the train,” Miz June said.
Harold went for food, and the train conductor lifted Lillian and put her in the handicapped spot near the front. It was an open-air coal train that drove as slow as Miz June on the off-ramp. It traveled through a swampy area and then a wide meadow, and the Mylar frog cruised along with permanent cheer. The train platform was right outside the Palace Saloon, where my father usually performed. When we got off the train, you could hear a voice, not my father’s, bound energetically from the open door of the theater, along with the overly enthusiastic strums of a guitar. Harold waited for us on the platform, drinking something from a paper cup with a straw.
“How were the corn dogs?” Chip Jr. said.
“Three,” was all he could say. Jeez, he’d even loosened his belt. You could see the little white line where the buckle usually lay across the leather. “Look what I got you guys at the General Store.” Harold held out a hand to Chip Jr. and me. In each palm was a rock embedded with the fossil of a fern frond. He pulled another one out of his pocket. “I got one for me too. Five hundred and fifty million years old,” he said.
“Well, you share a birthday, then,” Peach said.
We thanked Harold. Chip Jr. studied his. For a moment he was lost in fifty-five-million-year-old thoughts.
“A cool drink looks nice,” Miz June said. She was eyeing the saloon.
“That’s where Dad performs,” Chip Jr. said, stating the obvious.
“So? Your mother can go anywhere she wants,” Peach said.
“Yeah,” Mom said.
“Besides, Lillian needs a drink,” Peach said.
“She looks parched,” Miz June said. Lillian fanned herself.
“I’ve done everything else,” Mom said. “I can go in there.” She was really pleased with herself, you could tell. Chip Jr. looked my way, rolled his eyes heavenward.
Harold pitched his cup into a nearby garbage can. “I’m ready for another.”
The blast of air-conditioning felt good. A man in cowboy garb, Dad’s fill-in, stood on the stage, smiling with wide white teeth and singing “Jubilee.” He had pulled a small girl from the audience, and she was pounding a tambourine with the frozen, feared movements of a hostage at gunpoint. Her parents clapped and snapped pictures, which she’d be sure to hate when she was older. Peach steered the wheelchair to a table in the back, the frog balloon swaying and bumping into things like a drunk in a bar.
We sat down. A waitress, spilling breasts, came to take our drink order. Miz June started to move a bit to the music.
“Is she expecting a big tip because we got to see her knockers?” Peach said loudly, over the music.
Chip Jr. clamped his hands over his ears. “He hates knocker talk,” I said. We got our drinks. Harold had decided to pay the tip, judging by where his eyes were glued. The cowboy singer started in on “This Land Is Your Land.” My father was a much better singer. I was hit with the sudden reminder that we had a baby sister, Chip Jr. and I. I pictured the faux cowboy on the stage with a baby, drooling on his fringe, grabbing hold of his nose with a little hand, patting the round end of the microphone. I shut out the image. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears, same as Chip Jr. and the knockers. The faux cowboy looked my mother’s way. He winked at her, an overdone, lounge-singer wink. Peach elbowed her.
“He sure likes you,” Peach said to my mother.
“Is he one of Dad’s friends?” I said.
“How should I know?” she said. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
My mother looked smug. I slurped my drink. Done. If the faux cowboy pulled my mother up there to play the tambourine, I was leaving. Chip Jr.’s fist was clenched tightly, the fossil still in it. He drank his Coke so fast, he’d be burping cannonballs.
Everyone finished their drinks as the faux cowboy was wrapping it up for a break. The audience broke into a smattering of applause. He started handing out signed photos of himself. I had a few of those of Dad, which he had given me.
“Ready to go, gang?” Peach said.
“Yay. Get me out of here,” Chip Jr. said.
“What about you, Ann?” Miz June said.
“Yes,” Mom said. “I’m ready.”
“The sign says a magician is next,” Harold said.
“We’ve got places to go,” Miz June said.
We shoved our chairs back, maneuvered once more to the door.
“Bye, folks,” the faux cowboy called to us.
“Bye,” we said.
“Did you get your picture?” he waved a handful of his photos.
“No, thanks,” my mother said. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
I have to admit. The way she went out those swinging saloon doors would have made any cowgirl proud.
After the three corn dogs he’d eaten, Harold farted halfway to Eureka, although he said it wasn’t him. Both he and Lillian eventually fell asleep, and Miz June finally let my mother drive, as she said she couldn’t see well in the dark. One night, she told us, she’d slammed on the brakes and skidded half a block, narrowly missing what she thought was a boy with a backpack about to cross the street, but was actually a pair of mailboxes. So glad she shared that. I felt better with Mom behind the wheel. The funny thing was, as far as the metaphorical Car of Life went, this time she really was driving.
When we got to the motel and opened the trunk to get the bags, the frog balloon leaped out and made my mother scream. It waved around in the night air as if pleased with its trick. It reminded me of Chip Jr.’s phase of hiding behind my bedroom door and jumping out, scaring the crap out of me.
We got ready for bed in the new motel room. My mother made her phone calls, and used her fakey voice talking to Joe Davis, her shoulders curved around the phone for privacy, while we pretended not to listen. She called our own answering machine. She listened for a long time. Five messages from Travis Becker, she said. Five.
My heart lurched at his name, the idea that he’d been calling. There was power in the knowledge that I hadn’t been there when he did. I felt a surge of wanting, and yet his name, spoken in that motel room, made me feel that unpleasant sensation of biting into hot food and finding it cold in the middle.
“Call him,” my mother said. “Deal with it.”
“You just got finished saying how these calls from the motel were going to cost you a fortune,” I said.
“Call him. It’s worth every penny.”
“I don’t want to call him.” I didn’t want to hear his voice. I wasn’t sure I could be as strong as she wanted me to be.
“I rode the roller coasters. I went into that saloon.”
“Yeah, you made eyes at the singer, too,” Chip Jr. said.
“I did not,” she said.
Chip Jr. wiggled his eyebrows up and down, tried to give the motel dresser a sexy look. My mother threw a pillow at him.
“Call him and deal with it,” she said. “Let it go. You can do it, Ruby.”
I wasn’t sure about that. I wondered if there were some pieces of your life that would always be too monumental to ever leave you. Some events in life that were fossils embedded in rock, the wrinkles etched on an old person’s face, words imprinted in a book. Permanent, permeating. I told Mom what I was thinking.
“You’re right,” she said. “Yes. Words imprinted in a book. But Ruby, then you turn the page.”
“I can’t do it while you’re both here,” I said.
“We’ll go in the bathroom.”
Chip Jr. scurried off the bed. Mom followed him. They shut the door. “Make some noise in there, or something,” I called to them.
Chip Jr. began to sing “This Land Is Your Land.” My mother must have socked him. “Ow,” he yelled. I tried to read the plastic card on the phone for d
irections. I still remembered Travis Becker’s number.
The phone rang. He picked it up right away. I realized he was probably still recovering, lying in bed. I pictured a glass of water by his bed, with a bendy straw. I pictured his mother bringing him meals, little yellow-brown bottles of pills he’d swallow with his head back and his neck stretched.
His voice sounded strong as ever. He might have just been out riding his motorcycle, having just parked it on the lawn. I thought of his golden hair, nearly white in the sun. I thought of us that day by the train tracks, feeling each other’s hearts. I felt like my insides had been gathered up in a fist. I was clutching on to him, and there was a sick fear of letting go. I didn’t understand the feeling. It was loss, I guess.
“Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to call you. You didn’t even come see me in the hospital.”
“How are you feeling?” I asked. I could imagine the groans from the bathroom. I heard Chip Jr. spinning the toilet paper roll. I couldn’t help it—I started to cry.
“I can’t hear you. Where are you?”
“Eureka.” Tears rolled down my face. A few slid between my cheek and the phone.
“What? Shit, I can barely hear you.”
“I asked how you’re feeling.”
“The drugs are great. When they wear off, I hurt like hell.”
“I’m glad you’re all right,” I said. It was true. I couldn’t have lived with the thought of him being permanently hurt that night, or, God forbid, dead. I touched my fossil on the nightstand, circled it around with my finger.
“Come over and see me. You can take my mind off the pain. I’ve been lying here thinking about the possibilities.”
“The only reason I called was to tell you that I can’t see you again.”
“Right,” he laughed.
“I mean it.” I pictured those saloon doors, the way they swished closed behind my mother. I’d been so proud of her. I wanted to be as proud of myself. That thing I was clutching ripped away from me. And it hurt. But it felt good too. “Not just can’t. But don’t want to.”