Chapter Six
Going Mobile
The next big step in my Harlequin romance type adventure was breaking the news to my parents. I thought I would try the time tested divide and conquer technique by first telling Mom and gaining her as a strategic ally. This idea collapsed under the weight of a world class motherly eye roll and the June Cleverish “talk to your father” passing of the buck.
“Come again, son. You are going where to do what?”
“’I got to roll it straight and I got to roll it great before it be getting on too late.’”
“Son, that’s a classic rock line from the ’72 Live in Fresno album by the Rolling Thigh Rash. I’m proud that you can quote it verbatim but that doesn’t tell me a darned thing about what you are doing.”
“Right, Pop. Cindy means everything to me. It’s a new beginning in a new place with the girl of my dreams.”
“Ok, those sound more like Broadway lyrics than rock lyrics, but I’ll let it slide. So, let me get this straight. You want to give up becoming part of the Buckeye nation and getting a great education to go somewhere you’ve never been to try to get a job you know nothing about.”
“Dad, ‘you’re roaring when you’re scoring.’”
“Stop that or I will disown you. Country music? Wasn’t that Hick Hucklespoon? Where have your mother and I gone wrong? Let’s get back on subject. Son, have you really thought this through?”
“Dad, I know this must seem three kinds of crazy to you. You know I have always been the type to carefully choose one less club to be sure the ball lands in the fairway. This may be the one time in my life I need to take a big swing and go for it. If I land in the rough, so be it. At least I’ll know I gave it a shot.”
“But some guys lose their balls in the rough.”
“Dad! He shoots, he scores! That was really funny.”
“Don’t tell your mother. Son, I know this is all for Cindy. Do you love her?”
“I think I do. What a great way to really find out. And if it doesn’t work out, I can always come back with my tail between my legs and go to Ohio State next year.”
“Mick, you’re a great boy. You have always had a good head on your shoulders. Up to this point, I’ve fully supported all your decisions and they have been the right ones. Well, maybe with the exception of TPing the Assistant Principal’s home with black crepe paper the night before that big storm. But, that’s ancient history and, somehow, you never got caught. Plus, I got a big new siding contract out of it. Anyway, let me sleep on this North Carolina thing. We’ll talk again in the morning.”
“’Sweet dreams on slippery ice creams,’ Dad.”
“Flying Taco Shells from the ’68 Gastronic tour. Geesh, I’ve created a monster.”
I awoke the next morning and cowered under covers for about an hour. Without his support, the love of my eighteen years to-date life was probably heading out forever. If he did support me, my life was about to change rather dramatically. I finally got up and snuck downstairs to an unusually quiet household for this time of summer. Normally Dad would be loudly talking back to the Fairview Journal’s editorial page. Jay would have something guaranteed to drive Mom and Dad crazy cranked to cat in heat distortion levels on his Tandy thirty-five watt quadraphonic system (i.e. Prince, John Denver etc.). The only indication of normalcy was the sweet aroma of blueberry pancakes floating out of the kitchen. I found Mom in there happily stirring and flipping away.
“My, Mom, what a beautiful dress you are wearing today.”
“Shut up and get the syrup.”
“It’s not Saturday or my birthday, so why the special breakfast? And where are Dad and Jay?”
“They had an errand to run. And it doesn’t have to be Saturday for me to make my baby boy his favorite breakfast.”
Alert. Leg hairs tingling. “Yeah, it does. So since when does Jay go with Dad on his errands? Did Dad say anything to you this morning? Did he seem like he was in a good mood?”
“He told me I look ravishing as usual and gave me a hotly erotic pinch on my bottom.”
“Ah, Mom…”
As I was attempting to not barf in my mouth, the sound of two laboring internal combustion engines rumbled up the driveway. Two? I rushed outside in time to see Dad getting out of a hideous looking two tone green 1972 Chevy Impala. As it coughed to stop, Jay got out of our family Ford wagon behind him.
“What the heck? Was it drive away free day at the junkyard?”
“No, Son. Let me introduce you to Dreamboat. Treat her well and she will treat you well. She is all yours. No son of mine is going to North Carolina on a Greyhound bus.”
“Whaaa???? Mine? A car? Mine?”
Suddenly, through a slight misting of tears, I saw her in a whole new light. Did I say hideous? I meant glorious. My first car and my father’s blessing sat on four balding tires and a mostly rusted frame directly in front of me. I think I peed myself a little bit.
“Hey! If I run away to Tahiti with Heather Locklear, do I get a Corvette?”
Dad and Mom (leaning out the kitchen window) unanimously responded, “Shut up, Jay.”
Yes, Jay was twenty-one and still living at home. While he was a good student and a hard worker, Jay had yet to find his calling in life. He had tried the liberal arts thing only to morph one hundred and eighty degrees into Electrical Engineering. When that didn’t charge him up (shocking - hey- you see how good your puns are when you’re taped up on a rancid smelling concrete floor), he briefly dropped out and became his own personnel trainer. This bulked him up considerably physically but not financially. A short time later, he dropped back in to try Criminal Justice with a goal of either becoming Dick Tracy or Al Capone. I wasn’t too sure. But, all in all, he was a great big brother.
Jay maneuvered me out of hearing range of Ma and Pa and said, “Hey, let’s take her to the lake tonight and split a six pack. This might be our last time to get blotto together. I’ll tell the folks we need to put a few fast miles on Dreamboat to blow the carbon out of her pipes. I know they’ll buy it.” Capone, definitely Capone.
So that night, Jay and I shared a few brewskies at Lake Murphy.
“I’m proud of you, Mick. I don’t know if I’d have the guts to do what you are doing.”
Having your big brother tell you he is proud of you has to rank in the top five best things a little brother can ever hear.
“Aw, it’s no big deal. If things don’t work out, I’ll come back and we can flip patties at the Burger Barn for the rest of our lives. Although you might not be talented enough to get any further than fry and shake maker.”
“Bite me.”
So much for sibling pride.
“No, really, Mick. You run into any difficulties down there, you call me. I don’t care how old we get, you’ll always be my little bro and it will always be my job to look out for you.”
Man. I didn’t know how strong this beer was, but it seemed to be bringing tears to my eyes.
The next morning, despite the fact that half my head decided to stay in bed and the other half was pounding harder than the drummer for Sparrow Spit, I left Fairview in the rearview mirror. Counting a junior year Spring Break trip with my then girlfriend’s massive brother (not a good idea – “Keep staring at that bikini over there and I will not only tell my sister, I will personally rip off your left ear and stuff it in your right nostril.”), this was my second trip south of the Ohio river. At thirty, the prospect of loading my entire life in the trunk of my barely functioning non-air conditioned 1972 Impala and heading to a place I had never heard of to interview for a job I knew nothing about might have created a bit of anxiety. But at eighteen, it seemed like a grand adventure. And I was in love. I had my AC/DC, BTO, ELO, etc. Mom and Dad created mix tape all loaded up and ready to (literally) rock. The seats might have been a bit worn and the radiator about to spew, but Dad had installed a cool Pioneer AM/FM cassette stere
o and back deck Jensen six by nines. Priorities.
As I was jamming to the The Monkey Doo Tossers singing about the dung heap of love and cruising just south of the Queen City (Cincinnati for you non-Buckeyes), I noted with some interest a series of colored lights coming up fast behind me. When the sound of the siren penetrated the bass line on Shuck it and Duck It, I eased onto the shoulder to get out of the way. Imagine my utter shock when the cruiser eased in behind me.
A crisp uniformed cop sporting mirrored sunglasses sauntered up to Dreamboat’s driver side window. “Gotcha doing seventy-two in a fifty-five, son. Please step out of the car.”
I opened the door with a mighty metal on metal screech and quickly complied.
“I’m so sorry. Are you sure I was going that fast, officer?” I asked with a sincerely quizzical look on my face.
“Son, I am very…” He stopped, took a step back, and gave Dreamboat a quick visual scan from stem to stern and shook his head. “Hmmm. No way could this hunk of junk could get up over sixty going downhill with a stout tailwind on the best of her days. Must have caught that Olds on radar and thought it was you. Carry on and good luck.”
I know DB’s feelings were hurt. Mine? Not so much. And he was right about being wrong. Fifty-eight was her top cruising speed.
The cassette hopelessly jammed just south of Chesapeake, West Virginia while I was grooving to the excellent song Vehicle by the Ides of March. There is probably a tinge of irony there. While driving through the rural countryside, I decided that listening to religious programs and country songs on AM should be considered corporal punishment in the civilized world. Maybe that CD thing would catch on. The rest of Dreamboat somehow hung together for the whole trip.
I rolled into Asheville and the rest of my life at around nine p.m. on a star filled July evening. I can recall getting out of the car at the Holiday Inn Dad had popped for, looking up at the magnificent twinkling celestial bodies spread across the clear night sky and asking myself the often to be repeated eternal question, “Now what?”