Life, in General part 1

‘Notions of change remain arbitrary in the grasp of desperation.’

A coldness set in and made itself to home. Even after the snow had found it’s way downhill into the creeks and gullies, the air remained stubborn in it’s bitterness to such an extent that the few sunny days which Oregon was able to snatch from the Northwest winter weren’t enough to change it’s frigid tune.

Orval was leaning on the rail of the back porch, watching his great-grandson trying to situate a television around the suitcases in the trunk of Grandma’s car. Grandma was in the kitchen doing a little packing herself. The promise of fried chicken and potato salad floated through an open window.

“You best leave some room for the picnic basket, boy,” Orval advised his great-grandson. Then - “it amazes me that you can be out in this chilly morning in just a t-shirt and short pants.”

“I was born in Denver,” his great-grandson answered, as if that would explain it all.

A.J. thought that he might have the puzzle of the trunk figured out until his father appeared from the house carrying a wicker basket half the size of a grown man’s coffin.

“Duane, you ain’t got the sense God gave a turkey, letting that boy run around half-naked in this weather,” Orval calls after him.

“He was born in Denver, Grandpa,” Duane calls back, over his shoulder.

A.J. grabs the basket from his father and feels the weight of it. He had never seen such a huge picnic basket.

“What’s in here?”

“Grandma’s ‘tater salad,” Duane explained. “Why is your t.v. in the trunk of this car?”

“It’s a good t.v. I don’t want to leave it behind.”

“We’re only going to be gone a few weeks, A.J.”

“That’s what you say every time we leave for somewhere and we’ve never once gone back to anywhere.”

A.J. didn’t necessarily subscribe to his father’s theories on life and such. That there were ‘reasons for everything happening the way that they happened’ was the worst of a variety of ridicules theories in which Duane held a subscription to. Destiny - or the blue collar version ‘gut feeling’, was a religion that A.J. dismissed with the click of his mouse. His father’s gut feelings seemed to have garnered him nothing but regret.

“It was a long time before you were born that my gut feelings saved my life - on several occasions,” Duane tried to explain to his son.

“I’m really not interested in hearing your stories about surviving the 80’s, dad.” A.J. was tired of his father’s ghosts haunting their lives. Some sort of demon had cast a spell over Duane’s world and it was making him crazy. A.J. wasn’t about to ride shotgun on that trip. In lack of better judgment maybe, he decided to poke the bear.

“I bet you believe an invisible entity lurking about had saved your bacon, huh dad? The almighty hand of God! Worship me, ye heathens, and I’ll give you poverty, cancer, stale bread and depression!”

Duane regarded his son, standing there in the driveway, flailing his arm about and hollering like a buckboard preacher selling snake oil.

“I’ve been pretty lucky,” Duane smiled. “Life’s just a series of chain reactions.”

“Life’s a train wreck waiting to happen,” countered A.J. Why did every conversation with his father have to evolve into a cautionary tale?

“Careful now,” Duane warned in good humor, “God hears everything.”

A.J. merely shook his head. “I reckon I’ll see aliens before I set eyes on any god.”

“How do you know that God won’t be piloting the spaceship?”

“That looks like an interesting conversation going on over there. I wish my ears still worked proper.”

“They ain’t talking about you, Orval,” Ruby scolded as they watched Duane and A.J. fiddle with their course, packing the trunk of Ruby’s old Ford sedan.

“Well, my ears are burning anyway,” defended Orval.

“I believe burning ears are one of the seven danger signs of an impending stroke, dear,” Ruby teased.

“You’re the one going to have a stroke when they bring that car of yours back all dinged an’ dented.”

“Oh, hush now, Orval. That car is almost as old as Duane, and he’s an excellent driver.”

“That car only has forty-eight thousand original miles on it and nary a scratch. Besides, I doubt those two will get a hundred miles down the road before they kill each other.”

“Just drink your coffee, Orval, and enjoy the morning,” Ruby warned, though underneath the fray she found a worrisome thread dangling from her conviction. Indeed, Duane hadn’t really been himself since the illness caught him. Mostly, it was anger that he simmered in, but Ruby realized that her grandson’s spirit had received a substantial blow. Her one hope was for Duane to find his faith again - not the faith of religion, mind you, but of life itself. He was still too young of a man to live the rest of his days broken.

“Well,” began Orval, “this trip might do the both of them some good. For Duane, anyway.”

“I wish I had the money to send A.J. to law school. Lord, that boy likes to argue!”

“One likes to argue an’ tha other one’s never wrong. It’s gonna be a short trip, Ruby.”

“The Bay Area is only seven-hundred miles away, old man. I doubt they’ll be on the road longer than ten hours.”

“Eight hours, the way Duane drives, and I’ll bet ya they don’t make the state line,” Orval sneers.

“Don’t get all fogey on me, Orval.”

“I just don’t understand why I have to go with you,” A.J. insisted. “Grandpa needs me here to help with the chores.”

“That old man doesn’t need help with anything - ‘cept maybe to look for a place to hide when Grandma’s pitchin’ a biscuit.”

“I just can’t believe that we’re leaving when Grandma’s got the cancer,” A.J. counters, drawing the biggest weapon in his arsenal.

“You’re no going to guilt me into changing my mind. Not this time, amigo,” Duane promised. “I doubt that Grandma is going to expire within the next three weeks, A.J., and we’re not going to be gone longer than that.”

Duane caught the faintest glimpse of surrender in his son’s eyes. It only made him feel worse. His son shouldn’t have to surrender to an element he didn’t understand, and Duane himself thought that he shouldn’t be feeling the need to conquer the determination of his son’s reasons. But how was he to explain to A.J. the motivation behind the trip if he really didn’t fully understand the philosophy either.

It had been a month earlier when the e-mail from his father arrived. The time since Duane had seen his father, or his two younger brothers, could be counted in years. It was an estrangement in time and miles, sometimes of passivity, sometimes of regret, but always with a hollowness that perpetually haunted his life. The e-mail itself was a surprise, to say the least, and Duane attempted to respond in kind , but was handicapped by an awkward sense of failure. The subsequent phone call between father and son was a cordial exchange between two men living outside of each other’s lives. Duane left the conversation in a strange sense of relief, happiness even, believing that he could still recognize happiness for what it was. But that feeling of emptiness soon enveloped him, especially when he inserted A.J. into the equation.