On the Road Again

It was one of those situations between two people where silence seemed too prevalent to even merit a comment; my father and I cruising along the interstate on our way to the white whale of our family’s patriarch for the past five years.  The radio in the beat up Chevy truck he bought specifically for these trips, always hauling plywood, paint, household fixtures, and tools sporadically shifting in the bed of the truck, never seemed to pick up anything other than country and static after exit 83, a mere ten miles from the house I grew up in.  With another thirty to go, I blankly stared ahead of the truck at the snow swirling across the highway, sifting between the trees along the road and smacking the outsides of our battered tank, dulling the bed’s clattering tools and radio’s thankfully muted twangs. 

            I visited my parents’ house sporadically over the past few years; college and job responsibilities tended to most of my time, and my returns were generally centered around Christmas, Easter, or 4th of July.  Jubilant spaces of the calendar where work and school paused long enough to allow for enough sanctioned fun and relaxation to avoid driving people crazy.  The routine became comfortable for me; home for a day or two, just the right amount of time to enjoy but not regret or dislike the creators of my world.  This was my first trip out to the “giant pain in the ass” in almost a year, and my father was sure to acknowledge that point before forgetting; “its nice to have you back up here, son… could’ve used your help over the summer to dig out the basement and set the foundation.” 

            I nodded slightly, even though my father’s gaze didn’t leave the road.  At the age of twenty-three, our relationship had slowly petered down to simple gestures and comments; whole conversations were comprised of sentence fragments, single words, and feelings of doubt and disagreement.  We agreed on little when we spoke, and I finally had matured enough to have the presence of mind and self control to avoid the open traps I encountered; blow out arguments over grades, girlfriends, drinking, bills, and jobs, laced with curses and bullhorn volumes, became needling comments that pricked the surface, but didn’t pop the balloon.

            Minutes after his comment, almost like clockwork, came the “weather discussion”; a favorite of my father’s because of its neutral territory in both our minds and relative ease in which we could agree on the matter.  “Yeah, I heard on the news we’re s’posed to get another four-to-six inches of this shit before the week’s done.”  I forced the words out of my system, feeling wrong about continually accepting this morsel of “conversation” because of its affects.

            “They said this morning that its gonna pass right on through tonight with only a minor dusting.  Of course, you never know what the hell you’re gonna get with those god damn weather people.”  My head bobbed again on cue, hardly listening.  This truck held a kind of sanctuary for my father, despite its cataclysmic shifting of gears that wracked the car everywhere except on the highway; it was littered with a wonderfully interesting mixture of fast food trash and religious symbols; I had to wonder if “God’s love” glued next to the steering wheel column offset the stained McDonald’s wrappers, or simply balanced out my father’s colorful “mechanic’s language” that stayed mostly away from my mother, yet came out in full force around me or my brother.

            “Yeah… Well, at least it ain’t too bad around here… snow hasn’t stuck to the ground yet.”

            “Yeah, but I’m sure by the time we get out to the country its gonna be cold as hell out there.”  I can see his weathered face turn quickly towards me, stealing a look.  “Didn’t you bring a heavier jacket with you?  I told you to take one of those winter coats out of the closet.”

            Uncharted territory, this was not. 

            “I’m sure I’ll be fine… can’t be that bad out there.”  His turn to let the comment hang in the air for a moment, frozen by the decrepit truck heater, then fall on the pile of gloves, coffee cups, newspaper, and burger wrappers between us.

            As we pulled off the highway and onto the first of many dirt roads that would eventually take us to our destination, I thought about one of the first moments in my life that I remembered as an “it” moment; I was ten, old enough to know what it meant to be drunk without ever actually having a personal experience with the stuff.  This was before the adolscent years of sporadic arguments and door slamming followed by the kind of uneasy silence you might encounter after a car accident.  Back then, fear and loathing iced my veins and kept a remote calm existing throughout our little suburban home; I believed my mother’s words of encouragement towards my father, how things would change and he had a good heart, unwilling to accept that a person could be that wrong and that angry forever.  He slurred out my name from across the room of my grandmother’s living room; among the thirty-plus voices bouncing off the walls singing “Deck the Halls” out-of-tune yet beautifully, his voice pierced them all, a power that still holds true to this day.  I looked at the half-smile on his face, the glass in his hand, and the froth teetering closer and closer to the lip of the glass as he beckoned me forward; I stole a glance to my right at my seven-year-old brother, too enamored with his new basketball and football cards to care if Santa had fallen off the roof and landed on an elf.  Coaxing my way through the crowd of relatives, I stood in front of him briefly before he swooped me up with his free arm and dropped me onto his lap.  He licked his lips and focused his eyes, holding me tight and warm in a way I have never been able to recapture or recall happening before; “TJ, you know you’re a great kid, with a wealth of potential to do terrific things… a great heart, and smart mind.  There’s just one thing holding you back, son; you’re too much like you’re old man.”  I sat, confused, staring into his face in hopes of figuring out what the heck he meant, unsure of everything and nothing at that moment; immediately, as if afraid of revealing his secret, he swiftly grabbed me round the waist and plopped on the floor, patting me on the butt and telling me to “get outahere.”

            The downshift into first nearly threw me into the windshield off the truck as my father explained why these “hiccups” occurred and why it wasn’t worth it to fix it.  I replied with my usual nod and noticed a radio station had joined us out in the middle of nowhere.  “Know who this is?” he asked.

            “No idea… George Strait.”  He chuckled.  “Garth Brooks.”  Wrong again.  “I give up.”

            “Clint Black,” he said, turning up the volume as if to reiterate his answer.  “There’s been a lot of changes to the property since you’ve seen it last; how long’s it been?  Since the summer?”

            “Maybe longer; I can’t remember if we came out when I was home then or not.”

            “Well, with the summer weather being so crappy, we didn’t get to finish getting the walls up and getting a roof on it; can’t do a whole lot in the rain with nothing to cover you up.  But last week we came up here when it was in the fifties for a few days trying to get everything ready so that when it gets warm and dry up there, we can get the roof up quick and start getting that thing really looking like a house.”

            “Sounds great.”  And it looked even better as we rounded that final dirt and snow covered bend to reach the new homestead, our “property,” as my father called it (refusing to refer to any sort of “house” or “home” until there was actually one to speak of); the land was a few squares acres of farmland, with the most noteworthy sites around it being a cemetery with graves as far back as the 1850s and speckled anorexic cows mooing for some greenery a half mile further down the road.  The house lies back off the “main road” up a hill steep enough where only vehicles with four-wheel drive even stand a remote chance of getting up when it rains or snows; despite his truck’s penchant for whiplashing passengers at every stop or go, my father prided himself on being able to make the trip up that hill regardless of the conditions.  In fact, I think he chose that site explicitly for the challenge of doing so.

            After conquering the drive up the hill, with my father coaxing the truck through every lurch and slide, we arrived at ground zero; it felt like some top-secret experiment was going on underneath the great blue tarps hanging over the frame of the house, protecting the foundation somewhat from the elements. 

            We walked around, him talking about the advances my uncles and he had made over the last six months or so, going into enough detail to make me completely lost in the description; I felt like I was at an art exhibition, and didn’t understand any of pieces surrounding me.  I asked him vague questions about what would happen next, what would be accomplished over the summer, and how different the property looked from the last time I saw it; he answered at length, with detail and insight that escaped me, but didn’t matter.  He spoke about building things the same way a lot people talk about their children, with pride, excitement, and unfettered enthusiam.  The exuberant talk concluded the way it usually does when it comes to “the property”; with a scathing rant about the cost, the amount of time spent on it, and how my mother constantly busts his chops about timetables, added wings or expanded rooms, and a covered porch, secondary concerns when attempting to “build a friggin’ house on yer own time.” 

            We slammed the truck doors hard, hoping the motion would suck all the cold air out of the cab.  The heat slowly returned to our little space, returning feeling to my fingers and nose while we took turns cursing the cold weather.  The truck made it down the hill easier than it made it up, with the cab again quiet except for the rambunctious joyriders in the back and the hiss of the truck’s heater hissing out whatever warmth it could muster. 

            “Are ya hungry? We could stop off at the French Creek Tavern for some food and some beer; maybe warm up a bit so we don’t freeze to death on the ride home.”  I thought about it briefly; the offer was made, without fail, every time we came out here; it was offered regardless of who was along for the ride, including when my mom or brother came to check out the house-in-progress.  But I always felt a deep undertone in my father’s offering when it was just him and I; maybe it was because we both had something to say, but chose the path of least resistance instead.  My mind raced with reasons to stop: things to discuss, conversations to have, new events or people in my life to describe in full and luxorious detail, like him with the property.

            I looked at him, staring into a face tired of the stalemate, the silence, fearful of sitting down and being faced with questions he didn’t want answered, and seeking his own answers long considered but never spoken.  His baseball cap covered the last remaining strands of gray hair on his head; his shoulders slumped more than I’d realized they ever had before.  He looked a bit different; older, weaker than the man who set out to build a house for a family needing the physical comfort a true home only five years before.  I questioned if this was the time, if it could wait, if I, or he, was ready.  I took a deep breath, opened my mouth to a slit, and decided to finally take that road.