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rule number two. I sat back and thought about what other rules might make sense.
6
I must have fallen asleep again, but this time no great dreams starring Jen Wertz and the mystery girl. When I woke up, we were parked in one of those pullouts on the side of the highway. The old man was sitting with his arms resting on the wheel. He was holding the envelope that said permission letter in Mom’s handwriting. He didn’t look over at me, but he must have known I was awake.
“Your mom used to leave little notes on a table in the living room when I was out at night. She’d write a couple of lines about her day and said she hoped my evening had gone well. I’d be out drinking or … whatever, and she’d write me a note for when I got home. Never ever missed. Always ended it with something like, ‘I hope you know how much I love you.’ ’Course she didn’t know that I was drinking or —”
“Screwin’ around.”
“Because I guess I was a pretty good liar. Those notes were probably the nicest thing anybody ever did for me. Your mom’s a … a … very good person.”
He still hadn’t looked over at me. He set the envelope back on the seat between us and started the truck. He pulled out onto the highway, and for the first time since we’d left, there was no loud music pounding out of the radio.
7
I wondered why he’d told me about the notes my mom left for him. Guilt? Didn’t stop him from taking off with the teenager. Maybe she was one of the ones he was screwing when he was out at night and Mom was at home writing notes to him.
I was young when he left, so I don’t really remember how she was after that, you know, how she handled the breakup. Except I remember waking up a couple of times and she was sitting beside my bed watching me sleep. It wasn’t the times when I was sick or anything, so I was never sure why she was there. But thinking back on it, that might have been right around the time the old man took off.
I watched more amazing Minnesota scenery rolling by and yawned a few hundred times. But I was careful not to say the word “boring.” Actually, I didn’t say much of anything.
I got to thinking about the first job I’d ever had. I was eleven years old. One of the women Mom worked with lived just a few blocks from us. She was looking for a baby sitter for the summer for her five-year-old.
I got the job. I’d get up at 7:00 a.m. every weekday and ride my bike over to their house. Then I’d look after the kid — his name was Asa — from eight until four thirty when the mom got home from work.
She left lunch to be warmed up every day, usually soup or macaroni, stuff like that. The best was this soup she called red borscht. I’d never had it before. It’s a cabbage and beet soup — some other vegetables and potatoes in there too. Except it was purple, not red … purple soup. It looked gross but tasted awesome. Asa and me, we really got after it on red borscht days.
The kid was okay. The best part was that even though he was five, he had a sleep every afternoon. I’d sit around and play his mom’s CDs — she had pretty good taste in music — until the kid woke up.
We went for a lot of walks. Pretty much toured the whole neighbourhood. Like explorers. Sometimes we rode our bikes.
One bad day kind of wrecked the whole summer for both of us. We were out walking. Actually, Asa was riding his bike, and I was walking along beside him. It was easy because Asa didn’t ride very fast. He had one of those little bikes, which made sense since he was a pretty small kid, even for five.
We were on the sidewalk by a major street called Edmonton Trail. Asa was pedalling and talking, and I was off in whatever world eleven-year-olds go to when they get tired of listening to five-year-olds. We were by a playground. There were some kids playing on slides and swings and stuff. Suddenly, this little girl, maybe about Asa’s age, ran out onto the road to get a ball.
I started to yell at her not to run out there, but I didn’t have time. She got hit by a car, a big boat of a car, I remember. The guy driving didn’t have a chance to miss her. It was the worst sound I ever heard. I could see what was going to happen, and everything slowed down. It was like I had time to think about what it would sound like when the car hit her.
Except it didn’t sound like what I thought it would. It was awful, first the thump of the car hitting the kid, then the sound of the brakes on the car, squealing but not until after it had hit the little girl, then the bump of her hitting the pavement, I bet it was twenty metres down the road.
It went on what felt like forever — that little girl rolling and rolling on the pavement. But then came the worst sound of all — it was the kid’s mother who came screaming from the park out onto the road. “Carla, oh, god, oh, my god, Carla, my baby!”
She just kept yelling that. Over and over. She was bent over the little girl where she’d finally stopped rolling. I grabbed Asa, and we turned down the lane at the end of the park.
He was pretty shook up. I was too. He told his mom about it that night. She said she’d heard about a little girl being hit by a car on the news on her way home from work. She said the newscast didn’t say if the girl was going to be okay or not. I always had the feeling she really did know but didn’t want to say in front of Asa.
Asa didn’t want to go for any walks or bike rides for a couple of weeks after that. And we never went anywhere near Edmonton Trail again that summer.
8
We hadn’t had a pee stop in quite a while. I told the old man I needed to stop, and we pulled into a Conoco in Sauk Center, Minnesota. The old man told me it was pronounced like ‘go soak your head.’” The hilarity just keeps on coming.
I saw a sign that said Sinclair Lewis House, and there was an arrow pointing off to the right. I figured Sinclair Lewis must be a big deal in Go-soak-your-head Centre, Minnesota. Like in the next town to ours there was an NHL guy born there, and there’s a big sign — Libbert, Alberta, home of whatever the guy’s name is. In Canada, if you’re a hockey star, you can get your name on the town sign.
I asked the old man if he’d ever heard of Sinclair Lewis, but he just shook his head. Then there was another sign a little further on: Sinclair Lewis, 1930 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature. I didn’t figure that would get you a sign in my town. Unless you also happened to play for the Blackhawks or Penguins.
We stayed in a Motel Six just outside of Minneapolis that night. The old man said it was cheaper than getting a place in the city. Great, we’re on the economy plan. I didn’t know how I felt about not having my own room. Sharing a room with my old man. Who, let’s face it, until ten or twelve hours ago, was pretty much a total stranger to me.
What if he was a pervert or something? Or walked in his sleep? Or snored real loud? Sure, Mom had said he wasn’t an evil man — wasn’t that how she’d put it? But hell, she hadn’t seen him in forever. Maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did.
As soon as we checked in and dumped all our stuff in the room. we went out to an Italian restaurant. I had ravioli and meatballs. and the old man had something that had too many consonants for me to pronounce.
We didn’t talk much at first. I noticed a couple of women, I’m guessing in their forties, looking over at us from another table. I doubted very much if it was me they were checking out. The old man didn’t seem to notice them, or if he did, he didn’t seem to care.
After I’d polished off about half of the ravioli and a couple of meatballs, I looked over at him. “You got a girlfriend?”
He was chewing, so it was a while before he could answer, but then all he did was shake his head, which he could have done while he was chewing. He looked at me with a look that I figured said he didn’t want to have this conversation. I set my fork down.
“What happened to the teeth cleaner?”
“She was a dental hygienist. Name was Cindy.”
“Was?”
“She