All the Lost Things

by Michelle Sacks

  Dad and I left the eagles in their cage and went toward the rides. Before you could go on any, you had to first check that you were tall enough by standing next to a stick measure. You also needed to check that you weren’t too fat to go on the ride by sitting in a special plastic seat. I sat and wiggled around and there was plenty of room so I was very happy, but there was another girl standing nearby who was crying. I guess she was too obese to have any fun so HARD LUCK for her. I stared at her but only very quickly.

  Dad and I went on two rides. They were medium-scary but everyone screamed so I wasn’t the only scaredy-cat. We all got wet and afterward we got to dry off in the special family-drier which is like a clothes drier for wet people. After that we walked around. There was that old-timey accordion music playing and lots of people screaming their lungs out and different smells of food. I watched all the other families walking together and I saw Dad watching them too. We didn’t look like them. They looked like they were having fun but our fun was only half fun and half something else.

  Dad rubbed his head and popped two pills out of the plastic bottle and into his mouth. We came across the shooting range booth and I spotted a row of the stuffed tigers hanging up, next to pandas and eagles and polar bears. I locked eyes with the tiger in the middle of the row.

  She said, “I am Louisanda and I will be yours.” I turned to Dad.

  “Can you PRETTY PLEASE win me that tiger?”

  “You bet,” he said.

  He took the gun but he only popped two balloons and you had to get all three for a prize. He paid the man for another round but this time he only got one of the balloons popped.

  He rubbed his eyes. “One more,” he said, but his face was red and I could tell that he was getting mad. There were two girls next to us and they laughed behind their hands because they had already hit all their balloons and were choosing their animals to take home.

  Dad shot again, but he missed everything. “Fuck,” he said. “How much for a tiger? Let me just buy the damn thing.”

  “Can’t do that, sir,” the man said. He was an old granddad with a big bushy gray beard that he stroked with his hand like it was a pet cat.

  Dad slammed his gun down. “SHE WANTS A GODDAMN TIGER,” he said, “so let me buy that toy off you.”

  The granddad shook his head. “Rules are rules.”

  “Fuck your rules,” Dad said. He took me by the hand and we stormed off together even though I wasn’t in a bad mood, I was trying to be nice and polite with lovely manners, and especially to old people who can die of fright if you are too rude in front of them.

  “Asshole,” Dad said. He was squeezing my hand very tightly and I tried to pull it away. We walked like that for a while. I was shaking a little in my shoes and my heart was going THUMPITY THUMP.

  “Let’s just get some food,” Dad said. At the pizza place, he bought a couple of hot and cheesy slices that left big grease marks behind on the paper plates. I touched the pizza and the oil made a pool around my finger.

  Dad’s hand squeezed into a punching fist. That’s the fist that breaks things in the house sometimes when he’s really mad. It isn’t his fault, it’s Mr. Angry Bear who lives inside him and wakes up in a bad mood if someone does something silly. Sometimes Mr. Angry Bear gets into fights with other dads and then he comes home with black eyes. Mr. Angry Bear makes Mom cry but afterward Dad is always very sorry and full of love and they hold their heads together and say lots of gentle whispers and Mom glows from happiness. “I need you,” Dad says. “I need you to help me be better, my shining light.” Mom always looks extra beautiful on those days. I think because the tears are good for her skin.

  Slowly, slowly Dad’s fists came undone. He rubbed his head.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I lost my temper. I just hate it when I can’t give you what you want. When I disappoint you.”

  His voice went scratchy and high, not like Dad’s regular voice but like a little boy’s voice instead. He swallowed. “We’ll get you a tiger,” he said. “I promise.”

  I pulled the crust off the pizza. “I don’t want one anymore,” I said. “They’re for babies.”

  I watched the ride opposite us. It made my stomach flip-flop. The roller coaster went all the way into the sky, taking the people slowly slowly up to the top and then stopping for a moment, dangling them in the air and then tipping them right over the edge. They fell down but you couldn’t see anything after that, they just looked like they vanished into the air forever and never came out again. Maybe they didn’t and you had to go home without someone you came with.

  I swallowed a bite of pizza. My throat was dry and it hurt going down the pipe.

  “I don’t want to go on any more rides,” I said.

  Dad bunched up the napkins and threw everything into the trash.

  As we walked to the exit, I held Clemesta close. She was very quiet.

  “Did the cat get your tongue and eat it up?”

  “Dad scares me sometimes,” she said.

  “He doesn’t mean it,” I said. “It’s just Mr. Angry Bear. We woke him today.”

  “I don’t know, Dolly,” Clemesta said. “I don’t think it’s really a bear.”

  I watched Dad’s chest move in and out, in and out. I squeezed his hand so he would be reminded of our BEST LOVE. Best love helps to keep bears sleeping.

  Jan didn’t take us on the tram back to the car. The new lady’s name was Felicia and she was talking on her phone.

  “Yeah, Carl, that’s what I’m telling you,” she said, “it isn’t right.”

  Dad’s knee was bouncing up and down like it was itching to run away.

  “Where are we sleeping tonight?” I said.

  “I don’t know yet. This place is a tourist trap. It’s probably all a rip-off.”

  “And money doesn’t grow on trees.”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe if it runs out at the ATM you can just get a loan. Mom got a whole pile of money from that place in Manhattan.”

  Dad frowned and then he let out a long sigh.

  Clemesta hoofed me in the side. “That was meant to be a secret,” she said.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth. “It fell out.”

  Clemesta humphed. “That’s not the only one, is it?”

  There was a man standing at our car. It was a police officer and his radio was crackling and his badge was shining in the sunlight. He watched us as we walked toward the doors to open up, and he very slowly tipped his police officer hat.

  “You have a good time?” he said. He was standing very close to my side. I looked over at Dad, who was not moving or opening the door or saying a word.

  “Yeah,” I told the officer. “It was fun.” My heart went racing very fast because of TELLING LIES and I made a wish that the officer wouldn’t find out. Maybe they could arrest you and take you to prison for that. I pinched the skin under my thumb. The officer turned his head to look at Dad. He was still in the same place in front of the car, like he was frozen in ice. He opened his mouth to say something but just then the officer lifted up his arms, and two boys came running toward him.

  Dad watched them. He wiped his hand down his face and then he slowly climbed into the Jeep.

  At the lights, he checked the mirrors. First the one in front, then the sides. He did it at the next stop again.

  “Who are you looking out for?”

  “No one.”

  “Is that officer following us?”

  “No.”

  He kept checking the mirrors.

  “He’s going to follow us,” I said. I turned to look back down the road. I felt like throwing up. “It’s because I told a lie,” I said.

  “What?”

  “He’s going to chase after us because I told him something that wasn’t true.”

  Dad turned around. “What did you tell him, Dolly?” His eyes were two wide saucers.

  “I said I had fun at Dollywood,” I said. “And I didn’t. Not really. Because of you getting so
mad.”

  “Christ.” Dad wiped his face. His hands were shaking.

  “Are you even more mad now?”

  “No, no, Doll, I’m not.” He checked the mirrors again and took another pill out of the bottle and sucked it onto his tongue. He opened the windows and let the wind hit him in the face.

  We drove on the empty road and then turned off at a sign that said WELCOME TO. I couldn’t read the town’s name because it was too dark. All I could see was that it looked murky and creepy, like it was full of bad things hiding in the trailers in the trees.

  Out the window it smelled of gas and grease and rotting leaves and probably rotting dead animals too.

  Dad pulled up at the HALFWAY MOTEL & LODGE. It wasn’t a house like Darlene’s place and it wasn’t a lovely and fancy hotel like the Chambersburg Comfort Lodge with tubs in the middle of the room. Instead it was a yellowy-colored square building with most of the paint chipped away and a broken welcome sign and a few pickups parked in the lot. Next door to the motel there was a bar with one of those flashing red arrows pointing to the entrance saying COME AND BE SILLY HERE, DADS.

  Dad turned to look at it as we unloaded our bags.

  Clemesta’s whole body shuddered.

  “That looks disgusting in there.”

  The motel’s door made a noise like bells ringing. The TV was playing a loud wrestling match between two men who were making lots of screaming and grunting noises as they crashed into each other. They looked PREPOSTEROUS, which is very strong ridiculousness.

  The clerk at the front desk had tattoos all over his arms. One was a picture of a woman’s face, but he also had a dragon and a human skull and a Queen of Hearts playing card. He had a pierced eyebrow and a bolt through his nose that probably got full of boogers all the time.

  “Cash only,” he said. “And the air-conditioning’s down.”

  He rubbed his hand on his stomach, which was poking out of his T-shirt. It was very white. His skin was shiny and he had a row of pimples across his forehead. One of them looked like it was about to explode yellow pus all over us and I stepped away from the desk in case it decided to burst.

  The elevator wasn’t working so we took the stairs. Our room smelled of smoke and clothes that didn’t dry. The TV was a very old box, and in the bathroom the toilet seat was broken. Someone DISGUSTING with no manners had forgotten to flush so there was a big brown lump floating in the water which Dad very quickly sent away.

  “It’s only for one night,” Dad said, when he saw my face.

  He turned the TV onto the boring news channel and watched the fuzzy screen for a few minutes before he switched it off again. He looked at me standing in the corner with my Walmart bag in my arms.

  “Come here,” he said. I stepped over to the bed.

  “I’m not mad,” he said. “I’m never mad at you.”

  He made his eyes big, like for a staring contest. I opened my matching ones wide and stared into them.

  “Your eyes look sad tonight,” I said. He blinked and I won. Nobody giggled.

  “I’m ready to go home now,” I said. “I don’t want any more adventures. I want Mom.”

  Dad swallowed. He let out the air inside him and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He rubbed both hands over his face, like it was a mask he could pull off. “We’ll head back.” He went to use the bathroom. Even though the door was shut, I could hear him peeing. It lasted forever.

  I pressed my hard balloon stomach and sat down on the bed. It squeaked and squished in the middle like it was one hundred years old and dying of tuberculosis. The carpet was full of cigarette burns and there was a big brown stain right near the bed. Blood, I bet.

  I yawned three yawns in a row. “Is it bedtime?”

  “Yeah.” Dad unpacked the bag that had our toothbrushes and my pajamas and set it all out.

  “You want to wash up?” I looked at my hands. My fingernails were dirty and everything felt sticky, but I didn’t want to go into the disgusting bathroom. I bet brown slime was going to come running out of the shower instead of water. Probably the brown lump had come swimming back too.

  “I’ll do it tomorrow.” I pulled the pajama top over my head and looked at the smelly covers.

  “Just one night,” Dad said again.

  “Are you going to sleep?”

  “Uh,” Dad said. “I need to take care of a few things. I’ll be right here, or—if I’m not here, then I just slipped out to the car for a minute to get something. Okay?”

  “But I don’t want to be here alone.”

  Dad shook his head. “You won’t be. I’ll be here.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Pinkie promise.”

  “Sure. And if I’m not, then I just went to get something from the car. Remember.”

  I climbed under the covers. They felt heavy and dirty and I didn’t want them anywhere near my mouth in case I sucked up tiny particles of disgustingness. I lay back and looked up at the ceiling. It was spotty with mildew. My skin went crawling, and the bedbugs started licking their lips.

  I didn’t ask Dad to tuck me in. I just looked at him standing over by the window, staring out at the street.

  “I wish we were already back home,” I said to Clemesta.

  The wish wasn’t jinxed with saying it out loud because saying a wish to Clemesta isn’t the same as saying it to a regular human person.

  She kissed my cheek. “Oh, Dolly,” she said. “I don’t think we’re going home at all.”

  I closed my eyes and everything went blank for a long time. I woke up to use the toilet. The room was dark but there was still some brightness coming from the streetlights, and I didn’t turn on the light to find the bathroom. When I came out, my hand accidentally went to the wall and flicked everything on. “Sorry,” I said, because I thought maybe I had woken Dad. But Dad wasn’t there. His bed was still made up.

  “Dad!” I called, even though that was silly because he couldn’t be hiding anywhere. I peered behind the net curtain that was stained brown with a dead moth still hanging from it, and I looked to see if the Jeep was parked outside. It was right where Dad had left it, but he wasn’t inside getting anything.

  “He’s at that bar,” Clemesta said. “I know it.”

  I looked at the neon sign and the red arrow pointing in the direction of DOOM.

  “He promised,” I said.

  “He always breaks that promise.” Clemesta sighed.

  “I wish I could punch him in the face.”

  “Me too,” Clemesta said. “And kick his ankles and do a Chinese burn on his arm.”

  “He deserves that. If he had a gold star chart, I would take away EVERY SINGLE STAR and make him start again.”

  “It’s okay if you want to cry,” Clemesta said. “I’m crying a little myself.”

  I climbed back under the covers. “I’m not crying because I’m scared,” I said. “It’s because I’m MAD AS A SNAKE.”

  Clemesta stroked my cheek. “Oh, Dolly. He doesn’t deserve a best girl like you.”

  I stuck out my lip. “I’m not even going back to bed,” I said. “So there.”

  I switched the TV on and went flicking through the channels. There was a scary movie and a movie about two grown-ups doing SEX. I didn’t switch channels even though it was DISGUSTING. Disgusting and gross and repulsive, which are all the things YOU KNOW WHO is.

  “Really everything is his fault,” I said to Clemesta. “He is to blame for everything bad.”

  “Dolly,” Clemesta said. “I think that’s only part of the story. And I think you’re not remembering the rest on purpose.”

  I shut my eyes. “Shush,” I said. “Close your eyes. We’re going to do a magic vanishing trick to get us out of here. Look, now we are back home in our bed under the blue covers with the white clouds. Clemesta?”

  “I’m doing it.”

  “Good. Now imagine we’re lying in bed and our tummies are nice and full because Mom made a delicious dinner.”
<
br />   “Spaghetti?”

  “Yeah. And ice cream for dessert, the one with three flavors in one tub.”

  “I like that one, but the strawberry best.”

  “Ditto. Anyway. Imagine we already put all the dolls in their beds, and we finished our stories. Now we snuggle down and Mom gives us bedtime Mom-cuddles and the special good-night-sleep-well-with-no-bad-dreams kisses. Do you remember the recipe for those kisses?”

  Clemesta nodded. “One Eskimo rubbing noses kiss, one Butterfly blinking eyelashes kiss, and one Mom kiss on the cheek.”

  “Excellent. Now we’re very sleepy.”

  “I am feeling sleepy.” Clemesta yawned.

  “Yeah, so look up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets that Mom stuck up on the ceiling for us.”

  “I only see mold.”

  “Because you didn’t do the trick like I said. Now try harder, and look up at the ceiling that’s really the one from home and say, ‘Good night, lovely universe, and thanks for shining all night and watching over us.’ Say that and then we will fall asleep.”

  Later, the door made a loud crashing noise and I woke up again. It was Dad. He wasn’t even standing up properly, he was just falling all over and he STANK like the garbage truck when it’s sitting in the street waiting to gobble up the trash.

  “I hate you,” I hissed.

  “Dolly,” Dad said, but his eyes were only half open. “I’m such a fuck-up, baby, I fucked it all up. I try not to but I always do. My whole life, I always fucking do. It’s all I fucking do.” He knocked into his bed and fell on it. His eyes were shut and he covered them with his hand. “I’m gonna make it right, you’ll see. You and me, we’re gonna have a new start, Doll. Everything’s gonna be better. Everything’s gonna be great.”

  He stopped talking and started snoring, with his clothes on and his feet still on the carpet.

  Tuesday

  In the morning, Dad was sleeping and snoring and still wearing his clothes from the night before.