Four years ago, I wrote this historical fiction short story for my freshman English class, my very first semester at college.
Phillips 66
We stopped. Right in time, too. My bladder, trying to contain itself in its dark atmosphere, couldn't hold on for much longer, and well, neither could I.
After all, we had been driving for six hours in rain. And rain can do something to a person. Not even the suckiest day at work, a boyfriend dumping you, or the news of your grandma dying can put you in the kind of depression that ongoing, gray, soak-to-the-bone rain gives you. On the other hand, rain was sort of a relief. Just like alcohol to festering wound.
My mother parked under the leaky roof of the Phillip's 66 gas station. Paul was asleep as usual, as he never is fully awake these days. I was just glad to get to some kind of waste hole. We were somewhere in between Gainesville and Orlando by now. The rain sounded like twenty fingers trying to tap the annoyance right out of us. It was only a broken stream from the rusted gutter above our Toyota Mini-van fiber glass roof.
After all, we were in the Florida desert. And when I say desert, I mean endless rows of the ugliest pine trees you've ever seen on either side of the flat roads. No cities, not many small towns, or even the occasional stranded hillbilly trailer. It just made the rain that much worse. Florida rain never seemed as happy as Kentucky rain. It seemed to me more serene, yet ominous, as if at any moment a hurricane could strike. Back home, the sun was usually out when it rained, and tornado season for Kentucky was only a month long.
I stumbled out only to find my flip flops half submerged under gritty brown water which pooled stagnant on the broken concrete. Yep, I thought to myself, typical middle-of-nowhere gas station. I couldn't help but watch my tip-toed steps, afraid of getting my freshly pedicured toes contaminated with the yuck. Careful not to trip over the stained garden hose sprawled over the only dry path to the door, a dark figure moved in my peripheral vision. I quickly turned, expecting to see another free drugs, sex and alcohol victim, but relaxed when I saw a shorter plump and drenched woman wearing an extra-long black t-shirt and dark blue jeans. She wiped the water streaming down her face coming from her tight, wet ponytail as she said in a thick country accent, ''Hi! This rain sure does need to stop, don't ya think? My children back home's probly' jumpin' all around in this.'' I looked at her, curious about who she thought I was. Maybe she thought I was all by myself, the driver of this vehicle that symbolized motherhood. Perhaps she thought I was older than a recent high school graduate who was forced to see her grandparents one last time before moving out west. Regardless, adults usually didn’t talk to me about their every day activities. Conversation directed to me consisted of small talk about high school and the latest interest in boys. Either way, I was too concentrated on her twangy accent to notice right then the content of her speech. Her voice seemed to be made up and from a different world. It didn't fit with the atmosphere, and quite frankly surprised me a little bit. With that accent, I would have expected her to be from the Hollars in Kentucky. Quick to respond and move on with reality, I chuckled the most light hearted laugh I could make my vocal chords create, and continued my journey to the bathroom. I opened the heavy door and immediately became another subject to second hand smoke. The man behind the counter, with a thick cigar half gone, gave me a look of pity while checking my feet to see why I was still tip-toeing. To be honest, I don't really know why. I could only imagine him thinking to himself, “My little five year old tiptoes around the house too.”
I went to the bathroom and all I could think of was how long I'd have to stay at Grandma Knight's house. The point of the whole trip down was to see her just in case she died while I was away at school. Naturally, we would have to see all the other relatives on the way down, who really didn't want us coming in the first place. My parents like to think that I don't know what's going on, but secretly I figured out what the rest of our family really thinks of us. Grandma Knight was the ring leader. She's had two mental breakdowns based on the fact we're not Catholic, and the rest of my dad's family follows suit. For reasons I've had since I was little, I dreaded once more stepping into that hurricane blown trailer. The praying hands, the glowing heart of Jesus, the smell of rotting carpet and photographs at least twenty years old did not ring my bell of fun. But, we went anyway because “it's a family obligation.” Whatever that meant.
I came bounding out of the mildew growing bathroom and out towards the car. With these thoughts in my mind, I felt I needed to shrug it off with a nice nap. My mother, strained from driving eight hours already was walking sluggishly towards the passenger side. “Martha, why don't you drive the rest of the way. I am too tired.” I could hardly believe my ears. My mother wants me to drive? Yeah right. The fact is she never wanted me to drive. When I got my permit, she never wanted to teach me, even after the constant begging of “Please mom, please?!” I wasn't experienced enough. “But mom, if you don't let me drive, how can I be experienced?”
“Just get in the car, Martha.”
Unbelievable.
After two years of driving, she was going to trust me in Florida while she slept no less, when she wouldn't trust me to drive down five blocks to the grocery on streets I'd known since I could see.
“Uh, mom? Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, hurry up, we've got five hours left.”
I hurried, but in my own sort of way. I casually grabbed the keys and slowly turned towards the front, contemplating why now.
Five hours later, after no snide comments about my driving, the radio, or the way I was chewing my gum, we arrived safely in time for dinner at my Grandpa Barr's. The sand dirt road took a nice toll on our Sienna yet again. The last time I saw that trailer, I was two years immature and going on my second grandparent funeral.
“Oh, I see you guys made it ok. How are you Martha? Didja drive? You're such a young lady now!” Grandpa always had a way of patronizing me. As a matter of fact, they all did.
The dinner was odd: spaghetti and meatballs the size of clementines. I wasn't used to Alice's recipes, and I'm not sure anyone else was either; Alice and Grandpa had only been married for almost a year now. I knew my mom wasn't comfortable, or my Aunt Linda. The two sisters pretty much disapproved the wedding completely, especially since it was six months after Grandma died. Paul and Grandpa just shoveled the food in silently, just like the rest of the men in the family do.
After the meal, we went to visit (great) Aunt Marie. She lived in the trailer next door, and Paul and I always slept over there. With Uncle Lenvul dead, and the rest of her family up north, she was all alone, and loved company. We talked and talked, just like old times.
“So how was graduation?”
“Oh, you know...” I hate telling the same story twenty times and then there’s the questions—kill me.
“Fallon is getting a divorce, did you know that? Yeah, her and Brian split up—says he's just too immature.” That was a shock. They got married at sixteen and twenty-one, and she's just now saying he's too immature.
Aunt Marie didn't have many people to talk to, especially since her sister died. Sometimes I thought if I weren't here she'd talk to the wall. I found myself in a deep conversation with her, which was surprising to me when all was said and done.
“Don't leave the light on when you go to sleep, and make sure to turn the TV off. But I'm sure you already knew that, honey, see you in the morning.” And with a kiss on the forehead, she disappeared into her dark hallway on to her bedroom. She left me in the dark with the TV flashing on the walls, making the same friendly shadows from the past. Her seventeen teddy bears still filled Uncle Lenvul's chair in the corner exactly where she had placed them five years ago. This was an unusual action on her part because normally, Aunt Marie would wait up and go to bed with me, no matter how late. One evening, she stayed up until two o'clock in the morning just to make sure Paul and I were safe. Not tonight. She left me to myself with the TV, the kitchen with the drawer full of snacks, and her unbelievably comfortable chair at my disposal. What was I to do? I felt liberated. Free from the same conversation that distant family members have every time they see each other, the awkwardness of laughing at old people jokes, and restraining the feeling of needing a glass of water or going to the bathroom just to get a break. I could avoid those awkward moments, and I can do those things now. In the dark. On my own time. As I sat contemplating which would come first, the bathroom or the glass of water, I realized that this wasn't the only different thing that occurred that night. Our conversation seemed a tiny bit more real. We had talked about life in general: marriage, school, and family. She shared things about our family I had only suspected until then, her marriage and the things she would have done different, and how she dealt with being an adult after leaving home for the first time. I couldn't help but think that old people should just write their lives down or better yet, tell the story on tape. Write all the gold nuggets of wisdom that will take the rest of us a lifetime to figure out. Aunt Marie and I were peers that evening.
