“I. Starving.”
“You’re not hungry,” Karen said. “You just ate a big breakfast. Now, come on. Let’s do some reading. What am I pointing at?”
Karen’s prodding inevitably activated Question Mode.
“Where. Mindy. Be?”
“She’s in the other van.”
“Where. Mom. Be?”
“She’s with Mindy.”
“Where. Sal. Be?”
“I don’t know where Uncle Sal be. Here, see what I wrote? That’s the word pickle. You like pickles.”
“Where. Sally. Be?”
“She’s with Sal.”
“Where. Mom. Be?”
“I just told you.”
This kept on until Karen broke down and gave him a can of Sprite.
“Going to the Sprite pretty early in the game,” I said.
“Just drive.”
The Sprite bought her all of four minutes. As soon as Ethan finished, I knew what was coming.
“Pee-pee.”
“You don’t have to go,” she said.
“Pee-pee. Now!”
“Ethan, we’ve only been driving for fifteen minutes. Here, now let’s do the alphabet. I’m going to write a letter, then you’re going to circle it. I’m going to use capital letters, since they’re easier to recognize.”
“Pee-pee now! Now! Now!”
“You don’t have to go!”
“Yes. Pee-pee. Pee-pee. Bad!”
“Dad, does he really have to go?”
“You just gave him a can of pop. What do you think?”
“It can’t run through his system that fast.”
I put on my blinker. We were coming upon an exit. “He has a very unique system.”
*
We stopped at one of those sprawling mega truck stops that offered all of life’s basics: food, clothing, showers, books, booze, massages, and, much to Mindy’s enormous delight, guns.
“Now. We. Are. Talking,” she said.
In the men’s room, Ethan relieved himself of the Sprite, urinating a solid, gushing stream that could have put out a forest fire.
“A lot of pee-pee,” I said softly.
After he was done and after he made a careful inspection of all the open stalls (“Wow! Stinky!”), we wound our way back through the eighteen-wheelers’ metropolis, passing by a large magazine rack that ran half the length of an aisle.
“Hold on a second.”
I perused the paperbacks, picked up a trashy romance novel for Mary, Betrayed Love, thought about it, and selected another, Forever Love.
On the way to the checkout line, we passed the gun department, where I spotted Mindy leaning over the glass counter. She was sporting a new oversize Bud Light cap and talking to a bald, pinched-faced older man.
I took in the crowded truck stop; the bald man; the guns; my condescending, professionally provoking daughter, and concluded that this was a volatile and potentially violent mix. I cautiously approached.
“Tell me why the Glock is so great again,” I heard her say.
“Squeeze off more rounds with it.”
“Squeeze off more rounds,” Mindy said, nodding. “Great, I’m going to be doing a lot of shooting.”
I tapped her on the shoulder. “Ready to go?”
She ignored me, her eyes glued to the guns under the glass. “Do you have anything else. Any Uzis? I heard they’re pretty good.”
The man assessed her with small, watery eyes. “No, but I got an AK-47. Got it out back.”
“An AK? Perfect. I lost mine.”
The man squinted at her.
“Yeah, left it on the bus. Really stupid.”
I took Ethan’s hand and scurried away.
After paying for the book and a couple of Hershey bars, we made our way outside and headed toward the rental van. I wanted to make a grand presentation of Forever Love to Mary, who was sitting up front, checking her phone.
When I held up the book, she lowered her window and smiled the cute little sweet-sweetie I’m-embarrassed smile that made me fall in love with her when I first saw her across a hot classroom in Lincoln Hall at U of I close to a lifetime ago. It had been a while since I had seen that smile. “What’s that?” she said.
I held the book up so she could take in the cover in all of its glory: a young, shirtless man kneeling on the ground, gazing up at a young woman who looked queen-like in a flowing white gown. Both the man and woman’s hair was swept back to reveal beautifully stoic faces. Behind them, a moon was rising over a restless sea.
“Tolstoy’s last book,” I said.
She took the book, then slyly snatched one of the Hershey bars out of my hand.
“Enjoy,” I said. “And let me know how that book ends. It sounds very pro-love.”
When we reached our van, I was not really surprised to find Karen sitting in the driver’s seat.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I thought I’d drive for a while. Give you a break.”
“We’ve only been driving for twenty minutes.”
“I drive faster than you. Where’s Mindy?”
“She’s buying a machine gun. Come on, I’ll drive.”
“No, I think we should revise our seating strategy.”
“Our seating strategy. Revise it.”