My dad was not one to plan for the worst, and my mom knew not to bother planning at all. So when we went on our big road trip to Alaska, the one that we'd been talking about for a year, everything was thrown helter-skelter into the Wagoneer. And once the hibachi, the tents, sleeping bags, canned food, dog food, bread and peanut butter, cooler, tarps, foamies, rain gear, and dogs were in, Jules and I clambered aboard and made ourselves a nest.
We both loved this part-travelling into the dark of night, our parents quiet, and us hunkered down under a makeshift tent of blankets, tarps and sleeping bags. Carly the Heinz 57 and Simon the lab-cross panted or snored beside us and we held a flashlight and played Crazy 8's, Snap, and War until one of us got cranky and threw down her cards, crossed her hands over her chest and pouted. That was when we'd lie down in the mess of bedding and fall asleep.
After the second day of steady rain, my dad pulled into a rest stop. "This is crap," he said. We crouched under a tree to eat peanut butter sandwiches and cold spaghetti from a can. Rain dripped off the branches and the dogs whined to get back in the Wagoneer. My mom chucked the trash and we had a pee, and not ten minutes after we were driving again, my dad did a halting U-turn, right in the middle of the highway.
My sister and I watched the headlights behind grow closer until they went by in a streak of light and rain and left us in the echo of a horn blast. My mom was slumped down in a kind of resignation that I recognized and didn't like.
"You can't just do that, Eddie. I don't think it's right," she said shaking her head.
"Too much rain, Karin. And I'm not spending this holiday driving through rain. The wipers don't even work."
"I mean turning on the highway. We could've been killed."
"But we weren't, were we?" My dad turned to look at us. He winked. "Girls. What about Mexico? It never rains there."
We shouted like cheerleaders, like we had a clue what driving from Canada to Mexico meant.
"Yeah," said Jules, "Mexico! I wanna get a bracelet. And can we go in the ocean? A girl in my class went swimming with dolphins in Mexico. Can we Dad?" My mom reached back and cuffed the side of Jules' head. That was when we lay down and closed our eyes.
"It's gonna takes us weeks to get there, Ed. You can't be serious." They whispered back and forth and I lay there and felt the drone of the car and heard the uneven swish of the wipers in the steamy dampness of dog breath and body heat. I hoped Mexico was far away and I felt, at that moment, as though we could go anywhere.
My dad was serious. He drove eight or ten hours at a time never letting my mom take the wheel. We slept when it got dark after we'd eaten pepperoni and crackers or apples and cheese, and when we woke up we'd be at a new lake or a creek or a slough. There was always water and there was never a campground. My dad would dig a hole for a toilet and throw sticks in the water for the dogs. He challenged Jules and me to get there first and he'd stand on the shore and cheer like we were Olympians. Our skin turned brown from the sun and the lack of soap. No one complained; this was how we camped. My dad made treasure hunts, breaking twigs and bending grass so that only the cleverest tracker could find his way. We did our best and he guided us to the end with broad hints, then he praised us as though we were terribly clever. Or he called us idiots and walked off until dinner when my mom would look at him from the corners of her eyes.
One of the things he was keen to see was Crater Lake. "It's on the way," he said. "I think it's the deepest lake in the world. A volcano. Could erupt right when we're standing there looking at it. Would you be ready for that? Hey?" He nudged my mom.
"Where is it, Ed? Is this a real lake or are you making this up because if you are it's not funny."
Jules and I climbed a slippery rain forest tree in Oregon and my dad stood at the bottom. "Come on girls," he cried, "Higher!" I was behind Jules, reaching and pulling, and looking down. Mossy growth on the branches under me, soft and thick as wet leaves so that I caught myself against the trunk and cried out. Jules looked at me like I'd slipped on purpose. "You're gonna be chicken at the volcano," she said.
I became convinced the lake would erupt and I kept my eyes on my mom. She had her knitting and thick torn paperbacks like Hawaii and Airport. She didn't even see us when she was reading.
"But what about Carly and Simon?" I asked, "When the volcano erupts?"
My dad picked me up and swung me by the wrists, round and round so that I was tottery and a little sick when he put me down.
"First stop Crater Lake," he shouted, "Next stop Mexico!" And then he chased Jules and me down to the water, the dogs wound up and barking at his heels. He tossed us in one by one, clothes and all so that we dripped back up to the car where my mom threw up her hands.
"Oh my God, Eddie! Do you always have to be so damned juvenile? Can't you for once just sit down and read a book? For once?"
"Books talk about it, baby, but I do it." Jules held my dad's hand when we walked. And I did too, usually.
We got to Crater Lake at the end of a full day of driving. We were cranky and the dogs stank of car sweats. It was hot and we'd gone too long without a swim or a stop. My dad clenched the wheel with buggy tired eyes.
'Closed' the sign read, but my dad veered around the barrier so that the car leaned right and we almost went into the ditch. Jules and I perked up and shouted, "Whoa!" clutching at the cooler, and my mom hissed, "Shhh!" At the little hut beside the second barrier stretching across the road, a man in brown pants and a brown shirt stepped in front of the Wagoneer with his hand up like a stop sign.
"The lake's closed," he said. "Whadyamean the lake's closed," my dad said, leaning out of the window. "A lake can't be closed."
"Sewage leak," the man said. My dad was silent for a second, "How long?"
"We're not sure just yet. Shouldn't be too long, a day or two."
"A day or two? A day or two? We're on a tight schedule."
"Yeah," Jules said, "We're going to Mexico!" The man didn't look at Jules. He shifted his gaze to the empty gravel road behind us. With his hand in the air he made a circling motion that meant that we had to turn around. My dad spun the tires making gravel fly so that Jules shrieked and my mom pursed her lips. She was the number one lip-purser. I hit Jules to make her quiet.
In her calm voice my mom said, "Come on Ed. I know what you're thinking and it's not going to happen."
"What? What am I thinking?"
"All right. You're going to come up with a way. Am I right?"
"You girls want to see Crater Lake? You want to see a volcano erupt kaboom! right up into the lake so there's a humongous spouting fountain and we're on it like a water slide?"
"Did you notice that the guard had a gun, Ed? This is not Canada. These people mean business." She tightened up against the passenger door with her hands pressed under her legs.
"Come on Karin, a sewage leak? P-lease! How can a goddamned lake have a sewage leak? It's a frigging conspiracy. Don't think I can't see that and don't think I'm going to be stopped by some little wanker gun-toting boy scout."
My mom closed her eyes. And then I didn't even want to see the lake. I held onto Simon and banged my body against the cooler, quiet, rhythmic bangs, one, two; one, two.
"It's not the lake, Ed. Obviously. It must be the outbuildings or whatever they call them. They must know. Must know if it's a health risk or something. They run the place."
"That's the trouble with you, always ready to cave, always caving to so-called authority. How would some idiot carrying a gun and wearing a ranger suit know the first thing about health risks?" "Somebody's got to know," she said.
Jules glanced at me and then she bounced onto her knees, "A gun! A real gun! That shoots! You better behave Simon, you better behave Carly," she wagged her finger in front of the dogs, "'Cause we're not in Canada and that man had a gun."
I pinched the soft flesh under her arm and tried to clap my hand over her mouth because I knew what my dad was doing. I knew he was crossing the little line. That's what my mom called it, "There's a little line," she'd said to me in my room, "An imaginary line. Everybody knows where it is. It's like how you know that you can't go to school in your underwear. That kind of line." She told me that after my dad took me to work and let me drive the forklift when I was six. I could've died, she said.
My dad followed the signs for Shady Grove. I thought it sounded like a town in a comic book. Maybe we would stay there and it would be nice and then we'd just keep going on to Mexico. It took a long time and when we got there we'd missed dinner so my mom bought donuts and we sat at a picnic table by the river and watched the sun set. It was nice and I made myself forget about Crater Lake. Jules and I looked at the wall of clouds that were heavy and dark in front of the sun. She pointed to the clouds and said, "It looks like you."
"What?"
"Kind of sad," she said. While we were eating, my dad walked around the town. He came back whistling, swinging a stick at the bushes and drinking beer. He tossed the empty cans one by one into the river. Jules and I went in the water in the leftover light until our feet were numb and we were shaking all over.
"Glacial fed," my dad said.
"Maybe they were in too long," my mom said and she hustled us into the Wagoneer with the dogs so that we could get warm and fall asleep.
I sat up when the car slowed into the turnoff and the tires crunched on the gravel. At the hut, my dad stopped and turned off the engine. He took off one shoe and held it in his hand. He leaned his head back and slapped the shoe down onto his open palm. Letting out a long airy whistle, he opened the door and got out. I held my breath.
The man with the gun stood there like he'd been waiting for us. My dad held up his shoe and shouted, "What are you going to do, ranger boy, shoot me? Hey? Shoot me? In front of my wife and my daughters?" I didn't like that. I didn't want to be included. "We're going to that goddamned lake. You can shoot us with your friggin' BB gun, you little faggot, but we're going. " I shoved my head under the sleeping bag and hummed and hummed not wanting to hear the shot, not wanting to see my dad fight with the man with the gun. I didn't want to see dumb old Crater Lake.
Beside me Jules sat up and I lifted my head to watch her. "Are we there yet?" she said, "Did I miss it?"
She was stupid. The way she peered out the steamy window. The way she tried to see what was going on. Like she didn't know our dad would get shot out there. I hissed, "Shhh."
My mom's hands were tight fists and she kept her lips stiff, her jaw working while she waited, like she'd forgotten us. Jules ignored me and leaned over to open the door, just like we were at a gas station and she had to get water or put something in the garbage or stretch her legs. She climbed out, blankets and junk trailing behind her. Simon whined. Carly lifted her head, sniffed, and hopped over the bedding after Jules.
"Oh Jesus," my mom said and she took hold of the dashboard and sat sideways, looking out at Jules and Carly, and the two men.
I sort of couldn't breathe. My dad held the shoe above his head and the man held the gun in front of his belt with both hands.
"Turn your vehicle around, mister," he said.
"What the hell you gonna do? Hey? Forest ranger fairy. Shoot? Ya gonna shoot us? Come on, boy. Shoot me." My dad was hopping around in his sock and his shoe, banging his hand against his chest, "Shoot me. Come on, shoot me!"
Carly barked. He ran around like a maniac, jumping and snapping at the man then turning and running at my dad. He went back and forth, back and forth, and then he trotted off towards the lake, with his tail turning in circles. My dad stopped. He and the man watched Carly run off into the dark and then they turned to look at Jules who was standing beside the Wagoneer in her bare feet, watching them and saying nothing.
"To hell with you," the man said and he walked back to the hut with his gun hanging by his side. He banged the door hard.
When we got to the lake my dad left the car running. The headlights shone onto black water. That was all we saw-a beam of light on thick darkness and nothing else. Jules and I stood there side by side. I wanted to cry. My dad sat in the car with his hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead and my mom sat beside him with her hand on his.
Born in Calgary, Meg lives in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»with her husband and four children. She enjoys working in the garden and spends a fair amount of time contemplating recipes for kale and Swiss chard. Meg teaches fitness classes, and writing fiction is a relatively new and sporadic part of her life. She can attest that though beef jerky may not inspire one to put pen to paper, the clouds can be anyone's muse.
