Part Two: Road Trip

Note #9

We’re listening to the cassette player sitting on Aunt Louise’s kitchen table as Hank Williams Sr. yodels through “Lovesick Blues.” Me and Jenkins are making our way through some peanut butter toast that my aunt has made for us.

Louise lives in what is not much more than a shack. It’s at the end of a short road called Acorn Parkway. This is where my dad and his four siblings grew up. The place isn’t much smaller than the dump my family lived in on Evanston Road for six years preceding our move to California.

Acorn Parkway in its current state, not unlike the stretch of road where my family lived on Evanston, could serve as an exemplary snapshot of white trash Americana. The street is littered with kids whose faces are half covered in grime. They chase one another around getting their kicks out of dragging each other into the gravel next to the road. In the backyards, V-8 engines hang from trees under which sit mutilated circle-burners that the fathers of the dirt-faced kids run at a local race track called Whiskey Ridge. The fenders of these stock-cars are smashed up so badly that discerning ‘make’ and ‘model’ is impossible.

“They got them lottery tickets out there in California, huh?” Aunt Louise inquires. “Sure would be nice to win all that money.” Then she starts whistling along with Hank Sr.

Later on in the day, me and Jenkins walk back towards where the Cutlass is sitting about a half mile off Evanston Road. We’re walking along when I spot Nick Caulkins in his mom’s front yard.

“Hey Nick,” I call out. He doesn’t recognize me. Maybe because it’s been a few years, or because of my hair color.

“Jack Sturm!” I yell. “Back from California.”

“Oh..., hey Jack!” he responds looking a little confused at me with my hairdo and Jenkins with his long blue-black bangs.

I tell him the story about the off-roading adventures with the Cutlass.

“Thinkin’ about havin’ Fred Brown see if he can fix it, or maybe junk it. Not sure if it’s worth puttin’ the money into,” the hideous sight of that gouged radiator passes through my head.

Nick follows us into the woods to where the Olds is parked.

“Shit..., it’s pretty messed up,” he remarks looking under the hood. “I can tow it out ta the road for ya with my tractor. Then Fred can come and tow it back to the junkyard.”

Nick fastens a chain to the mashed in bumper of my car. I steer as he pulls me and Jenkins out to the road.

Standing in the dirt ditch next to Evanston, Nick takes a look at the body of the Cutlass.

“California car..., no rust,” he ponders for a minute. “Tell ya what... It’s pretty fucked up... If ya end up junkin’ it you’ll only get fifty bucks for it. I’ll give ya fifty bucks right now then ya won’t have’ta sink all that money into the repairs. They’ll end up costin’ ya a lot.”

I think about having Fred Brown do the repairs. I envision the embarrassment of showing up with a car with four bald tires and a collapsed exhaust pipe that has caused a leak where the manifold connects to the head. My dad had strongly advised getting everything fixed before leaving California. But when I had mentioned something about having Fred fix it when we got to Michigan, he had erupted and strictly told me not to mention the fact that it had been like that when we’d left.

Nick isn’t aware of the messed up exhaust system. I can’t tell if he’s noticed the bald tires as they are covered in dust from the ditch. But there is something else I am not bothering to tell him. Anyway, it seems he’s trying to pull a fast one on me. His interest most likely being piqued because, even though the bumper is mashed in, most of the body is pretty straight. Getting the radiator fixed isn’t that big of a deal. The important information I’m holding back is the fact that the 330 cubic inch engine has become a bit tired of late lacking the proper compression ratio and probably in need of an expensive valve-job.

I shove the fifty bucks in my pocket and me and Jenkins start walking.

“We oughtta stop by and see my Uncle Junior. He lives up here on Maple Island Road.” We take a left at Maple Island and soon I am knocking on Uncle Junior’s door.

“Hey Jackie, I didn’t know you was in town. Come on in, grab a beer.” My father’s eldest brother walks into the kitchen and comes back with a couple of cold cans of Old Style. He hands them to Jenkins and me. We immediately crack the beers and start sipping.

Junior turns his attention to one of his grandkids, “Hey, Billy..., ya want some beer?” The kid shakes his head declining. “Ya wanna smoke?” Junior jokes taking a pack out of his shirt pocket. “Yeah, he was born without a anus,” he’s talking to me and Jenkins now. “And had a hole in ‘is heart, but he had a couple uh operations and he’s doin’ OK now.”

“Fuck dude...,” Your Uncle Junior’s fuckin’ rad... Gettin’ all drunk there in the middle of the day with his shoes all untied and shit,” Jenkins laughs as we walk away from Junior’s back to Aunt Louise’s.


Photo by CirrosisAguda