volume 2
Dad’s RV
by Dani Linn
The Ford truck that Dad bought was a minty aqua green color, like the water in a comic book swimming pool, or even the one at the YMCA, but cleaner. He called it his recreational vehicle because neither him nor Mom had to drive it to work, and he installed a CB radio in it right away. It even had a P.A., so you could talk to people outside the truck, and to other cars. Dad seemed happy about all of this, so I, too, was sure that a mint green R.V. was a very good thing to have.
For some reason, however, my older sister Tiff didn’t seem to enjoy the R.V. In fact, when Dad picked her up from junior high, and called her name over the P.A., she got really mad at him. Later, she told me he embarrassed her. When I stood on the playground after school, I , too, tried to feel embarrassed watching Dad pull up in the R.V. among all the other parents in regular cars waiting in the circle drive in front of school.
It still seemed like fun to me, though, which went along with what Dad said; that recreation, which was part of ‘R.V.’, meant fun. It made so much sense I didn’t even need to double-check it with Mom, who knew everything and was always right because she did crossword puzzles.
One day there was a teacher’s institute at both my school and my sister’s. No one, not even Mom, had any idea what a teacher’s institute was. It was rumored that all the teachers went to mental hospitals for the afternoon. The mystery of it all plagued me for nearly two minutes, while I sat on the bike rack waiting. When I saw the R.V. appear in the circle drive, though, one significant fact remained--I had half a day off school, and the R.V. awaited me.
Dad was driving and Tiff, with her new acne and Farrah Fawcet haircut, was scowling in the passenger seat. This, I knew, meant that I would sit in the middle. Sitting in the middle in the R.V. was nothing like when you had to sit in the middle in the backseat of a regular car. First of all, there was no bump, so it was more comfortable. And it was an ideal location for messing with the centrally located eight-track player, in addition to being a short leap from Dad’s lap if I wanted to help with the driving. On top of it all, it provided easy access to the CB mike, which hung next to Dad’s sun visor.
It amazed me that I never had to fight with Tiff for the middle. There was no accounting for taste, I guessed, if Tiff preferred the window seat; and Mom actually preferred the Camaro to the R.V. Tiff was weird these days, though. Her hair had been long and straight like mine, until recently. Then she made friends with Cheryl Ray, who had bleached-blonde hair, and whose mom didn’t wait up for her at night. Tiff had the same haircut as Cheryl Ray, and Charlie’s Angels, now. Not to mention boobs, and a preference for spending time with a boy named Jon Gee, who swore a lot and wore a jeans jacket. He never wanted to play with any of the rest of the neighborhood kids, not even with Hot Wheels. My sister had the best Hot Wheels collection of anyone within Mom-sanctioned walking distance of our house, and he didn’t want to play with them. He called her baby, but she said it wasn’t supposed to be an insult. The guy was just weird. So while they wandered off to swear at each other, I had the best Hot Wheels collection on the block.
It was early in the school year, and the air was warm and crisp like autumn leaves. Usually, Dad would have had to work, or if he was home, he would have had to watch Rockford Files. Today, I found out, was to be different.
When I was lifted into the R.V., I asked if we would be home in time to watch Underdog. This past summer, I had unwittingly gotten hooked on Underdog. Mom had made a stringent television-watching policy for summer vacation. I was only allowed to watch three hours of TV each day, and of the three hours, one half-hour had to be Underdog, or I wasn’t allowed to watch any TV at all. My friend Carrie said that was the weirdest rule she had ever heard of, but I didn’t really mind watching Underdog. It didn’t conflict with Scooby-Doo, or my beloved Bewitched reruns. Today, I was told, there was a chance we wouldn’t be home in time for Scooby-Doo. (Though we’d definitely make it in time for Rockford Files.)
The fishing poles waited behind the seat. We were headed for the stream between the seed plant and Pioneer Park. Dad had Willie Nelson on the eight-track player. Tiff was grimacing through Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain; Dad and Willie were singing loudly, about equally off-key. I liked the song, but I saw Tiff’s face and remembered that Mom didn’t like Willie Nelson, either.
“Yuk. Can we listen to Elvis, instead?”
Dad looked a little sad, but he reached into the eight-track tape holder, and produced Elvis: Pure Gold. It had a picture of a giant man in a white suit, with very big black hair and a beard that was mostly on the sides of his face and not his chin. Mom said that when Dad was twenty-one and he was in the Air Force, he would hitch-hike home; and men would gives him rides because he looked like Elvis. I didn’t see the resemblance, but I figured Elvis must have been pretty popular if strange men gave my dad a ride just for looking like him. The multi-colored sequins on his suit, however, made the eight-track fun to look at. Dad ejected Willie, and I handed over Elvis.
There was another eight-track, with a picture of Gordon Lightfoot, which looked much more like my dad, with his curly brown hair, his beard, and his sun-creased face. They were indistinguishable, as far as I was concerned. Mom said Gordon Lightfoot looked nice, though. I guessed that meant that Dad wore t-shirts everyday, and Gordon didn’t. (Of course, my dad’s beard and my mom’s earrings were the only things that distinguished them from one another, in my eyes. Mom said that wasn’t quite right; my dad had a nice nose, and that was why she had married him. I pictured her pinching his nose and tucking her thumb between her fingers, saying, “Got your nose!” in the middle of a church, and Dad having to chase her down to get it back.)
“I suppose you want to hear...” and he burst into a howl, “...In the Ghettoooo?”
“Yeah!” I bounced on the seat. “Hey, Tiff, remember when you got this for Dad for his birthday, and then we went on a long trip in the car, and we listened to In the Ghetto for...three whole hours, Mom, too, and then we went to Dog’n’Suds late at night?”
“It wasn’t three hours, but, yes.”
“You picked the tape out, and you didn’t think Dad would like it, but then we decided he probably did. That was fun, huh?”
“No. It was kind of stupid.”
“In the Ghetto isn’t cool anymore,” Dad snickered. “She’s got Andy Gibb, now.”
Tiff shot him a look intended to vaporize--the look Endora gave Darrin on Bewitched, right before she’d turn him into an inanimate object for the day. He just averted his eyes from the laser look and started the tape. Dad and I sang along with In the Ghetto as loud as we could, Dad howling.
My middle-seat vantage point offered me a perfect eye-level view of Dad’s stunning tattoo, a bright red rose with a shamrock-colored stem and a yellow and blue banner underneath, emblazoned with Betty, which is another word for Mom. I wanted one, too, but when I had told Mom, her face showed the same horror it had when she found out that our neighbor across the street had a pet rat. (I thought the rat was cute, but she said if I had grown up on the South Side I’d want to hit it with a broom, too.) Later, in the next room, I overheard Mom telling Tiff that she had always hated tattoos, and she had to pretend to like Dad’s when he got it done. All that so she could marry his nose.
Then there were these brothers Gibb to consider. Barry Gibb: the enemy. Mom thought he was cute, with his giant glowing teeth, chest fur, and no tattoos. Now Tiff had this thing for Andy Gibb, and she wasn’t amused by CB’s, or Elvis, or even fishing, anymore. I was beginning to suspect this family of toothy musicians were nothing but a bunch of homewreckers. I made up my mind to stick with Dad through this whole thing, even if Mom did run away with Barry.
We parked in the gravel lot at the seed plant. Tiff held my hand as we walked down the road, my fingers running along the guardrail. Dad carried the poles and his tackle box. Just past the guardrail, Dad climbed down the steep incline that led to the stream, and set our fishing wares down. Tiff picked me up, hands under my armpits, and passed me down to Dad.
“Why can’t I climb down, too?”
“You’re too damn short...and skinny, Ding-a-rella!” And Dad tickled me as he set me down next to the stream-bank.
“Dad, do you have to call her that?” Tiff was climbing down behind
us.
Dad shrugged. “I can’t help it if she’s a dingbat.”
I giggled. “It doesn’t bother me. I think it’s funny.”
“Well, it’s not. It’s kind of mean. And kind of...gross.” She rolled her wide, brown, eye-shadowed eyes.
I grabbed the Snoopy fishing pole, and attempted to cast it into the water.
“Maybe we oughta put a lure on it, huh, Ding-a-rella?” Dad reached down and plucked the pole out of my hands"
“Maybe Dad’s right about you, kid.” Tiff ruffled my hair.
Dad was crouched down on one knee, preparing my pole, cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He looked up and nodded at Tiff. “What about you? Are you too cool to fish, now?"
“I’ll fish.” She shrugged.
“Are you going to add your fish up with ours?” Mom had a tendency to laugh at Dad for not catching any fish, sometimes. So now whenever she asked how many fish each of us had caught, I told her what our joint-effort catch was. She would give Dad a funny look, and he would just smile knowingly.
“No. Dad can catch his own fish.”
Snoopy and I, of course, caught the first bluegill of the day; and maybe
the second. After a while, and one fish for Tiff, three for “us”,
Dad decided the fish weren’t really biting today.
We got back into the R.V. and went to McDonald’s, Dad and I talking on
the CB. “Okay, say, ‘Breaker, 1-9’.”
I clutched the mike. “Breaker, 1-9...No one answered.”
“You have to hold the button down.”
“Oh.” I tried again. “Hi.”
“No, you’re supposed to say ‘break,’ remember?”
We went through the drive-thru, which was a fairly new concept-- talking to a sign to get a happy meal. The plan was to have a picnic at Pioneer Park, the place on the other side of the stream. Pioneer Park had a lot of animals--not like zoo animals, though, because you were allowed to pet most of these, and even ride some of them. And there were two separate entrances. When my class at school came to Pioneer Park, we all walked through a building with a gate, where we gave a lady the money our moms had given us and got our hands stamped. With Dad, we parked at the seed plant and climbed down by the stream, just like when we went fishing. Then, Dad would lift each of us over the fence and then climb over himself. This time, Tiff climbed over by herself. I tried, too, but I got stuck halfway over and Dad ended up having to lift me over anyway. He handed the McDonald’s bags and the pink blanket with the roses over to Tiff , and climbed the fence in a way that seemed more like a hop, to me, both legs at once and only one hand on the fence itself.
Then we set off to find our picnic spot. I think it was my idea that we sit under the plump little tree with the shining orange-red berries. Its leaves were every hue from green to red, some scattered on the ground around its trunk. But it was still full, and kind of round, like a cartoon tree.
While I was eating my hamburger, I studied the tree. It was like a rainbow without blue and purple, and even more like the little packets of Sixlets they gave us at the bank drive-up window.
“Hey, Dad, are those poison berries?”
He set his Big Mac on the blanket, and leapt up, grinning. “Only one
way to find out!” He said it cheerfully, as his arm shot up, grabbed
a branch and plucked its berries. I watched in horror as he casually popped
a few into his mouth and winked.
Tiff caught on first. “No, honey, he’s just teasing you.”
And then the look of realization on Dad’s face as he looked at mine.
He rolled his eyes.
“Aw, shit. I’m just kidding. They’re not poison.”
“What are they?”
“Just...something like...crab apples.”
But Dad and Tiff both looked so serious that I was sure Dad had gone and poisoned himself. If that were the case, he was bound to die, because Mom was still at work--she wasn’t going to make him go to the doctor.
After we finished lunch, we walked around the park, looking at geese and goats and horses. I kept an eye on Dad. He didn’t seem to be dying.
That night, when I go to bed, I dream that Dad and I are walking through a huge, wheat-colored field. We’re on our way to go fishing. We are both knee-deep in brush. When I look back in the direction we came from, I can’t see the RV. For that matter, I can’t see anything but more field in every direction that I look, and I’m nervous because Mom doesn’t know where we are--I feel like there’s no one to take care of us; we’re so far away.
Then a sleek silver-green snake slithers across the field. He looks strong
and muscular; he looks like he’s made of a bundle of wires. The snake
bites Dad and then slithers away. Dad’s leg is bleeding and turning
bluish-white and he can’t walk. I try to drag him but he’s too
big. I think he’s annoyed that we can’t go fishing now, but I’m
preoccupied by this unspoken feeling between us that Dad is going to die
if I don’t do something. He tells me in a grouchy voice that’s
not quite mean that I’d better go get someone, but not the police because
we don’t have fishing licenses. I look around at the field, endless
in every direction and I start to lose my breath. I stammer to him that I
can’t, I’m too little, I don’t know the way. But he says, “Just
GO,” and waves his hand in the direction I’m supposed to take.
I’m almost sure now that there’s not time to get a grown-up before
the snake bite kills him, that he’ll die before I get back. I start
to cry and run at the same time and my legs are tangled in the thick, reedy
weeds. It feels like I’m running but not moving and when I wake up
I am crying but my legs are only tangled in my blankets.
Mom comes in and tries to calm me down, but the fear stays with me, even after
I get up and examine his sleeping form and see that he’s breathing.
A long time later, Mom asks me, “Why don’t you go fishing with
your dad anymore?”
“I would if you’d go with...”
But of course she won’t. And there’s no way to explain to her that
the fear stayed with me, and even the sad, hopeful look in Dad’s eyes
each time he asks me to go somewhere with him can’t lessen that fear.
I am twenty years old, and Dad has just been diagnosed with emphysema. He is officially mortal. The Betty-rose has faded; only its blue outline remains. I am home from college one weekend, and I dream again of Dad.
My sister and I are trying to cross a guarded border to find my father. I have a feeling of cold fear, the kind that accompanies lost causes. The Aryan guards eye us suspiciously as we reach the checkpoint, and we give them falsified papers, hoping they will overlook our dark hair and eyes. Next to the booth, there is an autumn tree, leaves just beginning to turn, berries glistening, red and orange and yellow deaths. It is the same tree, and when I look at it, I am overcome by a feeling that my father is sick, that he will die if we don’t find him soon. The guards begin to hassle my sister; she argues with them. They throw her off the steep incline behind the tree. I look down after her and the ground is so far down it isn’t visible from where I am.
I run, and this time it works. I am floating as I gain speed. When I am out of the sights of the guards, I stop to rest and realize I have no idea where to find Dad. I picture him again, and he is smaller and weaker than before.
I wake up in the cliched state of pounding heart and cold sweat, and I have to get out of bed to make sure he’s still here. I find him asleep in front of the TV, check to make sure he’s breathing, and remove the perpetual toothpick from the corner of his mouth. And I go back to bed, but the vision of the bright killer tree sticks to my eyelids, sticks to my skin until little goosebumps appear in the middle of the day.
And Dad? I don’t dare ask him about any of this. I read last night about Jan Kerouac meeting her drunken, faded father for only the second time, near the end of his life. They were afraid of each other, too. She was still trying to find her father in that silent, ornery man. Even as Dad sits in the next room, watching Walker, Texas Ranger at full volume (James Garner, where have you gone?), and I watch him shrink, watch his cheeks sink in and his skin turn gray, still, I idealize, romanticize him.
This started last winter, at five o’clock one morning. Dad had just gotten up for work, and I was listening to him cough. An emphysema cough doesn’t sound like the cough people get when they’re sick, or like a smoker’s cough. The sound of that cough makes me wince, and gasp for air. Sometimes a long silence follows the gagging, strangling sounds, and I hold my own breath, heart pounding, while I wait to hear him rustle a newspaper or open a drawer. The silence was too long that morning, and when it was over I was still in a panic, because it struck me then that Dad might die without me ever knowing him. I called my boyfriend Matt, and started babbling about how I had to do something, I had to learn to talk to him. For a man who can’t hear the television when he’s two feet in front of it, it’s impressive that Dad has never missed a snippet of conversation when it’s about him, despite closed doors or hushed voices. The next week, he threw a snowball at me. Direct hit, in the back of the head. Our snowball fight lasted about three minutes. I bragged about it for three days, to Mom, Matt, my co-workers, and, of course, to Tiff.
I got home from work on a humid Sunday this past summer, and saw Dad loading his tackle box into his Jeep-the new RV, I guess. We don’t talk much these days, so I have to kind of force the words out of my mouth, “Where’re you goin’?”
“Fishin.’” He studies my face for a moment. “Wanna
come?”
And I forget about dinner, forget that afternoon nap I had planned, forget
that Matt is waiting for me to call, forget to tell my mom I’m leaving
again. Then I remember something else, and I can feel the scratch of the RV’s
upholstery on the backs of my legs, smell the sawdust, smoke and Chapstick
that make up the scent of Dad; and I forget the fear, as I climb into the Jeep.