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Surf music plays. A male voice says:
Christopher Gronlund presents Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors. Read by me, the author, Christopher Gronlund.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Swelling Itching Brain”
That morning while I was cleaning up, Dad paid for the damages caused by the station wagon from hell. He was able to catch a ride into town to get two new tires. While Dad was in town, I broke down the tents, but didn’t put them in The Inferno; there was no way I was going near that car unless the sun was up and I was accompanied by a large group of people. I finished just in time to hear Mom say, “Oh my God! Lucky!”
For a moment, my heart raced; for an instant I thought she had found him dead and I’d no longer have to deal with him. While I wasn’t fond of the little dog, I never wanted to see him hurt, but once full-blown possession took hold, I didn’t care what it took to get him away from me…even if it meant Lucky taking his last breath. I was disappointed when I saw him squirming while Mom gently dug through the fur on the top of his head. I wandered over.
“What’s wrong?”
“This!” she said, holding Lucky out to me. “Look at his head!”
There, in the center of his soft spot, was a swollen tick the size of a plump blueberry. With no skull protecting the top of his head, the tick had a shot straight to his brain.
“This is far worse than your chiggers!”
I wanted to say, “Why don’t you pour nail polish remover on his head and light a cigarette, then,” but I said, “What are you going to do?” instead.
“I have to get my special tweezers from my bag and get rid of that thing, is what I’m gonna do.” She handed Lucky to me. “Don’t touch, and don’t you dare try pulling it out.”
“Mom, can’t you get Elvis or Aunt Margie to help?” I said, but she was already gone.
Lucky looked at me, but didn’t try biting—his mouth was closed and he looked like he was concentrating deeply. I waited for his eyes to turn red, but instead, blood vessels on the side of his head started rising beneath his skin and his eyes bulged. The blood vessels swelled and swelled and I noticed the tick was getting bigger! It grew at a steady pace, reminiscent of that carnival game where you shoot the clown’s mouth with a water gun and inflate a balloon. And just like those balloons, it was only a matter of time before the tick popped! I was able to shield my face with my hand, but I was still covered in blood when the tick finally exploded. Lucky went limp in my arms just in time for Mom’s return.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!” Mom screamed. “OH MY GOD!!!” She pulled Lucky’s limp body from my hands and held him against her chest. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH IT!!!”
“I didn’t, Mom—“
“DON’T LIE TO ME!!!” A small crowd was gathering.
“What happened?” Aunt Margie said, rushing from the only standing outhouse on site.
“Michael killed my dog is what happened!” she shouted.
“I didn’t touch him, Mom. Seriously!”
“The evidence is all over you, Michael!” she said, pointing to the blood on my hands and splattered on my clothes. “Why did you do that when I told you not to?!”
“Mom, I didn’t. I swear on the Bible—“
“Don’t blaspheme! You don’t believe in the Bible,” she said.
She was right; I didn’t, but I was trying something. I reached out to put my hand on Lucky’s floppy body, but Mom quickly smacked it away. Words would have to do the trick.
“Lucky!” I said quickly, hoping to jar him awake. “Jesus…Jesus, Lucky! Jesus loves you, Lucky! Who’s your Buddy? Jesus is your Buddy! Jesus!” At the mention of Mom’s savior, Lucky moved!
“LUCKY?!” She hugged him like Dad hugged me after I was on fire; she didn’t want to let go.
“See,” I said. “I told you. He’s okay.”
Mom dug through his fur, examining the area where the tick attached itself. A small bump had already formed where the tick was. “He’s not okay, Michael,” Mom said. “The tick’s head is probably stuck in Lucky’s brain! If it gets infected and he dies, Michael…” She stormed off.
When Dad returned with the tires, Mom spent twenty minutes informing him how the tick—which was somehow my fault—almost killed Lucky. She reminded him Lucky would be all right if Dad stopped insisting we sleep outside, “like cavemen.” Dad rolled with the punches when it came to Mom’s bickering, but he really just wanted to get the tires on the car and hit the road; we were only an hour or so from an alligator farm, afterall. In Dad’s mind, if anything could bring us all back together, it was captive reptiles and souvenirs.
We got into The Inferno…everyone but Mom. “This car smells like shit! I’m not getting in that car until it’s cleaned, James. Ask someone if there’s a carwash nearby.”
“I already did—when I went into town,” he said. “We’re out of luck, though.”
It turns out there was a carwash nearby, but the water was out and the only business it saw were rural skatepunks who grinded their days away on the only friendly slab of concrete for miles.
“Can’t believe this crap,” Mom said, getting into the car only after Dad opened the door so she didn’t have to touch it. “First my dog dies and comes back from the dead, and now I have to ride in The Shitmobile!”
We rolled down the highway, suffering the stench of the Inferno. We rolled up all the windows, except Dad and Aunt Margie’s (now that we needed the windows up, her window was rolled down and stuck), and Dad cranked the air conditioner as cold as it would go, which was about the same temperature as it was outside.
“If this heat and stink are gonna kill me, I’m at least smoking, damnit!” Mom said, taking a moment from checking Lucky’s molera for signs of infection and digging in her purse for a cigarette. Dad knew better than argue, and I have to admit, it was almost nice having the familiar stench of tobacco masking the smell of feces and urine from the outhouse.
We pulled off the highway and onto the interstate. Dad hated traveling the interstates; he missed the good ol’ days when Route 66 was a major highway and not kitschy nostalgia—when the roads we traveled went through small towns instead of skirting them. Dad felt we, as Americans, lost something in that leap from winding roads, to major strips of concrete stretched across the country like long ribbons. No longer did everyday people take their shot at the American Dream on the side of the highway. The only people making money on the interstates, Dad said, were big corporations: gas companies, franchise restaurants, and motel chains.
“I like knowing who I’m giving my money to,” he once told me, and I remember thinking it was a pretty noble ideal. “Why stop at McDonalds when you can stop at Big Billy’s Barbecue Barn? Why give your money to a huge, faceless corporation when you can give it to the guy behind the counter cooking your food? You wanna know what’s wrong with this country, Michael?” he said. I really didn’t want to know, but I knew he was going to tell me anyway. “No one makes things with their own hands anymore. No one thinks about fun anymore. All they think about is going public and making money at all costs. Then we complain no one cares anymore, but we don’t care enough to shop at the places that actually do care.”
He really was onto something. I don’t know if it was something I noticed as I grew older, or if he really was prophetic, but in losing that love of the corny old guy who thought putting concrete, anthropomorphic hotdogs in Tarzan suits on the roof of his hotdog stand was a good idea, we lost something that made this country great. We went downhill as a nation when we stopped building fiberglass sculptures of hodags, giant artichokes, giant bees, and talking cows. Automobiles became something to simply shuttle us to and from work, and sometimes the mall. Hardly anyone packs their family into cramped cars anymore and heads off for days in search of American Adventure.
I knew somewhere in my old man’s mind, there was something bigger to those cross-country road trips than we all felt. He may not have viewed it as a pilgrimage, like I did, but I think to him, it was a way to at least appear like a normal family, come hell or high water. Packing everyone into a car and driving for a week will either bring them together, or drive them apart. I think it was a tiny victory for my dad when we got home and for one short moment, we all agreed, “That really wasn’t that bad, after all.” It may have only lasted a few moments before Mom would say, “Not that bad, except for my aching back!” and the twins wandered off to their rooms, but it meant something to Dad—and deep down—it meant something to the rest of us, too.
I noticed Dad looking at Mom, who had fallen sound asleep in the front seat, snoring in unison with Lucky and Aunt Margie. He looked at the road, then back at Mom. He reached over and gently rubbed Lucky’s head and stoked Mom’s big arm. He then adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at the twins in the back, dozing among suitcases and sleeping bags. He smiled, knowing they were safe and sound. He looked at Aunt Margie in the rearview mirror before adjusting it and taking a look at me. He caught me watching him. I waved and he waved back before putting the mirror where it belonged and returned his attention to the interstate. In Dad’s mind, we were a functional family.
I dozed off for a bit, but woke up just in time to see a huge sign on the side of the interstate. A cartoon alligator wearing a Confederate Civil War cap and carrying a muzzle-loading rifle stood beside this message:
YOU’RE ONLY 10 MILES FROM CLYDE MCALLISTER’S
GATOR VILLAGE AND CIVIL WAR MEMORIAL!
GATORS – HISTORY – SOUVENIRS
Five miles later, another sign; it was like a Burma Shave campaign—sign after sign, each playing off the one before. This sign read:
GATOR WRESTLING – 5 MILES!
A mile later:
GATOR SPLASH – 4 MILES!
“Hey, everybody. Time to rise and shine!” Dad said. Mom instinctively went for her cigarettes as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes in time to see:
CIVIL WAR RELICS – 3 MILES!
“Goody!” she said, sarcastically.
Aunt Margie took her seriously, though.
“I hope they has some good ones,” she said. “Otis just loves the Civil War.”
“I’m sure they’ll have plenty of good things, Margie,” Dad said. I knew he was picturing all the stuff he’d buy: maybe a Confederate flag with a gator silkscreened on it, or a rubber gator with a muzzle loading pop gun.
GATOR FEEDIN’ – 2 MILES!
That one got Dad going. Even if he wasn’t the one feeding the gators, just being there with a camera to capture it all was good enough for him!
CIVIL WAR RE-ENACTMENT – 1 MILE!
We were almost there! Dad could hardly contain himself when he saw the last sign:
HALL O’ GATORS GIFTSHOP – NEXT RIGHT!
Dad pulled the Inferno off the interstate and into the parking lot of Clyde McAllister’s Gator Village and Civil War Memorial! The building, probably once an IGA grocery store, was decorated with plenty of Confederate flags and gun-totin’ gators. Dad grabbed his camera and we all went inside
* * *
Surf music plays. A male voice says:
Thank you so much for listening to Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors–it really means a lot to me.
Theme music is provided by Belgium’s best surf band, Pirato Ketchup.
And if you want to know a little bit more about me and the other things I do, check out ChristopherGronlund.com.
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