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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 EIGHT
“A Breath of Fresh Air”
We drove until it started getting dark, then Dad handed me a map.
“Hey, Buddy, see if you can find a campsite on there for us. They should be marked.”
I loved maps; I still do. I’m guessing I got it from Dad. I could sit in a room with an atlas and spend the entire day tracing routes all around the world with my fingertips and imagining what each place was like. I could look at Italy and try finding places relatives talked about. I could imagine whole stories about Dad’s ancestors in Ireland. Places I might never see, I could at least look at and pretend I was there.
I looked at the map of America and saw how far we had traveled—we would have made better time had we not had so many problems. I found the closest campsite on the map. “There’s a place to stop about twenty-five miles ahead,” I said.
Mom was happy. “Good, I’m ready for a cigarette!”
The twins were happy, too. “Goody! We can roast marshmallows!”
With the windows down to air out the smell of the burned carpet, and I rested my chin on the door and let the wind blow in my face. Even back then, as much as my family drove me nuts, I appreciated those moments: the windows down, no one talking, and the sound of the tires racing along the pavement. It was easy to lose yourself in the moment—even in a packed car there was a sense of isolation. It only lasted a few minutes at most, but for those few minutes, there wasn’t a care in the world. We made it to the campground in time to watch the sun set.
Half the campground was full of RVs, and the rest of the area was full of four-bed canvas army tents. Mom hated the thought of sleeping in tents, it reminded her of a time in Yellowstone when a bear decided all the sugar Mom and the twins left lying about camp was a fitting late-night snack. The campground was torn apart, but our tent was spared. Still, Mom couldn’t shake the thought. Even if she had a tent pitched in the middle of Time’s Square—in her mind—a bear would somehow show up.
“I’m not sleeping in a tent, James!”
“You can sleep in the car,” Dad said, “but you’re not smoking.”
She looked at the Inferno, then the tents. “Okay, I’ll take the tent,” she said, “but if any bears mess with me, James, you’re taking me home.”
“I can assure you, Mary, no bears are going to mess with you.”
He looked at me and said, “Let’s go find the owners—the rest of you wait here a sec.”
We went to the owners’ trailer. A husband and wife team, who were probably first cousins, sat outside under a canopy, sipping iced tea and watching a television sitting on an old card table.
“Howdy! Can I help ya?” the man said.
“Hi. Yes,” Dad said. “We need a couple tents for the night.
“How many?”
“Two should do.”
“That’ll be twenty-four dollars.”
Dad handed him some money and said, “Keep the change.”
“Thank y’all,” the owner said, pointing to a pair of tents. “Y’all take those two and have a nice evenin’.”
His wife nudged him.
“Oh yeah,” he added. “With it bein’ so dry and all, we ask that you don’t start no campfires.”
“No problem,” Dad said.
We walked back to the car, where the twins had a bag of marshmallows ready.
“Daddy, can we roast marshmallows?”
“I’m sorry, guys. They aren’t allowing fires right now, so you’ll have to wait. Maybe next time.”
“Booooo!!!!”
Dad pointed to the tents and said, “Those two are ours.” The twins stomped off to one.
Mom handed Aunt Margie her evening tobacco ration and said, “That should tide you over for the night.”
“Thanky,” Aunt Margie said. She looked around uncomfortably, before finally saying, “So who gets Maw?”
“Huh?” Mom said.
“Maw’s ashes. We can’t just leave ‘em in the car. What if someone done stealed it?”
“No one’s stealing that ugly car,” Mom said, looking at Dad. She wasn’t going to let him forget how much she hated the Inferno. “I’ll take care of the ashes.”
“I wanna keep them.”
“They’ll be safe with me, Marge,” Mom said.
“I want them. You’ve had them all this time.”
“There’s a reason for that. Mom liked me best and she wanted me to hold onto her.”
“Maw didn’t like you best! She liked me best!”
“Daddy liked you best. Mom liked me…”
Seeing two grown women carrying on even worse than my siblings and me was a sad sight. Within moments, their argument was reduced to, “Did not!—Did too!” They wouldn’t give up and I could tell it was really bothering Dad, who normally let things like that roll off his back. He was sweating and had the same distant look he had that morning, when he was changing the tire.
“Shut up!” Mom said to Aunt Margie.
“You shut up!”
“Both of you, shut up!!!” Dad shouted.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Inferno’s horn went off and wouldn’t stop. Dad rushed over and messed with it, but had no luck.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Other campers were coming out of their tents, looking to see what the problem was. I wandered over to see if I could help.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dad popped the hood. People were getting annoyed; I saw the campsite’s owner standing up, looking our way.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dad ripped some wires from the engine and the beeping finally stopped. He was dripping with sweat.
“Sorry about that, everybody!” he said to the campground. “I don’t know what caused that, but it won’t happen again.” He held up the wires as proof. “You can go back to relaxing.”
Mom and Aunt Margie weren’t through. Mom headed toward the Inferno.
“What are you doin’?” Aunt Margie said.
“Going to the car. I forgot something.”
“Yer gonna get Maw’s ashes is what yer doin’.”
“She liked me best,” Mom said.
I cut Aunt Margie off before they started again.
“I’m sleeping in the car, tonight. Grandma’s ashes will be safe with me.”
“Oh…” they both said, disappointed. I don’t know why I said it—I didn’t really want to sleep in the car, but I wanted them to stop arguing. I felt a need to defend Grandma, and it did beat sleeping in a tent with Elvis and Olivia and struggling to breathe while Aunt Margie smoked.
As they headed off toward their tents, I heard Mom say, “I give you cigarettes and this is how you treat me?”
Before they went their separate ways, Aunt Margie said, “Maw did so like me the best.”
“Did not…”
“Did too…”
They finally disappeared from view as Dad closed the hood. He stepped back, looked at the car, and sighed.
“I’m really beginning to regret buying this car.”
“It’s probably just dumb luck,” I said, even though I was thinking the same thing.
“It’s weird,” he said.
“What?”
“It’s almost like the car is doing things on its own. That’s crazy, though.”
Now was the time to tell Dad what I wanted to tell him since the rest stop. “Speaking of crazy…can I tell you something, Dad?”
“Sure, Buddy. Always.”
“I think there’s something wrong with Lucky.”
I thought Dad was going to laugh, but he held it back, realizing I was serious. “We all know there’s something wrong with Lucky,” he said.
“No, I mean really wrong.”
“Is he sick?”
I stepped away from the car and looked around, making sure no one could hear me. “I think Lucky’s possessed.”
“Possessed? Like Exorcist possessed?” he said.
“Yeah.”
Dad searched for words. “He’s a mean little guy—I’ll give you that. But I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying he’s possessed.”
I wasn’t going to give up. “His eyes were red,” I said.
“Red?”
“Yeah. Like your jackalope’s.”
“Look, it’s been a rough day,” Dad said. “You probably just need some sleep—I think we all do. Sometimes an animal’s eyes catch the light on a weird angle and they look like they’re glowing. We’re all pretty tired. Get some rest, Buddy. I’m sure things will be better tomorrow.”
“I hope so.” Maybe Dad was right, maybe I was overreacting and just seeing things, but I was definitely going to keep a better watch over Lucky and the things he did.
Dad said goodnight, gave me a hug, then headed off toward the tent. I slept well that night, with two exceptions. First, when a raccoon wandered near Mom’s tent and she screamed, thinking a bear was attacking her. She woke the entire camp. While the tiny raccoon was a far cry from the ten thousand pound black bear with shark’s teeth and fiery eyes my mother was convinced would emerge from the woods and strip the flesh from her bones while she dreamed deeply about Elvis, raccoons—like bears—had a penchant for finding the gooey food wrappers my Mom left scattered around camp. I guess she figured, since bears and raccoons are distantly related, screaming bloody murder was the safest bet. I had to laugh.
The second time I was awakened wasn’t so funny…
* * *
I was in the middle of a dream about opening a box that contained the secret of life, when I woke up choking! I jolted upright, grasping at my throat while coughing and gasping for air! The windows were rolled up and the doors were locked. I tried the power locks to no avail, and then tried physically unlocking the door with my finger. The car was trying to kill me! It didn’t finish me off on the highway earlier that day, so it was trying again, now that it had me alone!
I banged on the windows and yelled for help, but no one heard me. I jumped to the front seat and tried the horn, but it wasn’t working since Dad disconnected it. I was on the verge of passing out when I remembered something: Grandma! I grabbed the urn from the passenger seat and used it to break the driver’s window, waking the camp up for the second time that evening, and bothering them for the third. Dad rushed to the Inferno.
“What happened?!” he shouted.
I was hanging out the window, struggling to catch my breath and fill my lungs with fresh air. “The windows were up and I couldn’t breathe!” I said. “The doors were locked, too.”
Dad looked at the car—all the doors were unlocked and the windows were down (including the one that tried killing me when Mom refused to crack her window while smoking). He opened the driver’s side door and I got out, clutching the urn in my arms.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Grandma. I used her urn to break the window.”
He felt my forehead as Mom, Aunt Margie, and the twins came out of their tents to see what was happening.
“What’s happening?” Mom said.
“Nothing. Everything’s all right,” Dad said. “Go back to sleep.” He checked out the car.
“All the doors are unlocked and the windows the windows are down, Buddy.”
“I’m not lying!” I said. “Everything really was closed and locked up, Dad. Don’t you believe me?”
He struggled to pick me up and set me on the hood. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, bud. I know sometimes when we wake up on a trip we can forget where we are. I’m not saying things weren’t locked—I’m just saying I have a hard time believing they were when everything’s wide open right now.”
“I also know you wouldn’t just break a window without reason. It could have been a bad dream. You could have been hyperventilating. What’s important is you’re okay now.”
He gave me a hug and said, “How ‘bout I go get my sleeping bag and we can both sleep outside? That sound good?”
“Yeah.”
“And hey—I won’t have to listen to your mother’s snoring all night!” he said, laughing.
Dad may have been right about everything—maybe it was just a bad dream; maybe it was just a faulty window motor in the car door that got me earlier that day; and maybe Lucky’s eyes were just a strange reflection, but I wasn’t buying it. As he went to gather his things, I looked at the Inferno and said, “I know what you are, you son of a bitch.” I swear it growled back at me.
Dad came back and we set up camp away from the car, beneath the stars. Dad took my mind off the Inferno by pointing out constellations I didn’t know. He showed me how to spot Aquarius, Cygnus, and Pegasus, and told me the mythology behind each one. He stared at the stars and said, “You know, there was a time that’s all people had to go by. There was a time things weren’t all plotted out on maps.”
His eyes sparkled beneath the crescent moon—they were welling up with tears. Dad could look at the sky and get emotional. Staring up at the vastness of space and all the possibility of what’s out there made him feel something I wouldn’t experience until finally seeing the Grand Canyon; the feeling that there are simply things much bigger than us—so hard to fathom—that we can only stare in awe.
If I had three wishes at that very moment they would have been, one: that the Inferno and Lucky stopped doing whatever it was they were doing and left us alone. Two: that my family could function like a real family, if only for a few days. And three: that Dad could have traveled back to a time when stars were maps and there was still untainted land left to explore. That’s what he lived for.
We chatted about the stars a little longer until he finally dozed off, dreaming about uncharted territories, I’m sure. I couldn’t sleep; I stayed awake and stared at the car. I knew it was a matter of time before it did something really bad, or until my family would finally see that I wasn’t nuts in thinking it was possessed. I only knew I wasn’t going to be near the car alone anymore. After almost being choked to death, I didn’t even want to be in it with five other people.
I held Grandma’s urn like a teddy bear, thankful I was able to get to it before the Inferno got to me. There was something comforting about having Grandma with us. No matter how frightened I was, I felt like nothing would truly be able to hurt me as long as she was around. I kissed the urn, whispered, “Thanks Grandma,” and fell fast asleep.
* * *
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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