Chapter Eleven: Airstream

Salt, vinegar, and Grape Fanta

Bent Highway

Chapter Eleven: Airstream

Lester’s front porch sagged like a Sally Ann bargain mattress, but more stained and worn. Two of the four supporting posts were completely gone and the others had two by fours nailed into the parts that weren’t rotten. He pulled up the half-ton next to a dented airstream that I recognized right away. I’d spent time in it—a lot of time.

Lester got out of the truck and banged on the trailer door. 

Inside there was a muffled, “What?”

“Where’s your mother?” Lester yelled through the door.

“Damned if I know.”

“Hey, no swearing you little fuck.” Lester turned to me. “What the hell’s with kids these days? No, don’t answer… I’ll tell you. It’s hippies like you. They see you going around with your lily white fingers holding up peace signs, and don’t trust anyone over thirty, and stupid-ass flared pants that have rainbows stitched on them… shit, don’t get me started.”

Too late.

“None of you has ever done a goddamn honest day of work in your lazy-ass guitar strumming life.”

“I don’t play the guitar,” I said.

“Yeah, but you would if you could.”

Lester hacked a loogie and spat it on the ground to punctuate his thesis.

A phone rang from inside the house. I worried that the ringing vibrations might be the final blow to the porch. Lester went inside to go answer it. The yard was a mixture of gray dirt and long brown grass. My eye caught a single brush of colour sprouting up from the ground.

“My mom planted it. Said she got tired of looking at nothing. Still looks like nothing to me.”

I turned to the voice that had emerged from the trailer. A skinny kid with long Neil Young hair, and the plaid shirt to match, stood in the open doorway. Damn, I loved that shirt. The faded jeans led down to a pair of cobalt blue Adidas. The gazelles. Holy crap, I worshipped those shoes like Lester did his Lamas.

“It’ll be dead in a week anyway. Knowing my Uncle, he’ll probably come and piss on it in the night because it’d be easy to hit.”

The voice had that forced quality to it. He was trying for 70’s cool, Pacino-esque, but still having the hiccup of a kid with recently acquired pubes.

“So who are you? Lester bring you back for my mom? Cuz, I’ll tell you, that ain’t going happen Superfly.”

A shiver went through me.

What the hell do you say when you meet yourself?

“He just picked me up,” I said.

“Yeah, right. Like ole Lester’s going pick up hitchers. He tries to run them over with that piece of shit truck of his. You must have been fast, or—” The voice broke, skipped up an octave and landed back down.

“I guess he’s softening,” I said.

The kid sniffed and threw his long hair back.

“Right. Well, she ain’t here anyway. So you ain’t gonna see her.”

Lester came out of the house, yanking on his overalls. I swore his boots looked even shinier.

“Hey you little shit. I thought I told you to cut the lawn?”

A roll of the eyes and a head twitch. I looked across the yard to a rusted pushmover that poked above the two foot high, mostly dead grass.

“See what I mean?” Lester said to me. “Well you flower-children can just fend the fuck fer yerselves. I gotta go out on a call.”

“Emergency paint situation? Someone’s wall peeling?” the kid asked.

Was I really that much of a smartass? I was tempted to give the snot-nose a tap on the head myself.

“You can take yer Pepsi generation and shove it right up the ass-crack of the world.”

Me and teenage-me looked at each other with the exact same shrug of the shoulders. The teenager’s eyes flashed, the cool act flickered, then after another head shake, it was back. Whatever he thought he saw, he decided he was too cool to take note of it.

“Is there any food in the fridge?” the kid asked.

“How in the hell would I know?” Lester barked.

Lester got back in the truck and spun out of the laneway.

“If you’re not here for my mom, why are you riding with that asshole?”

“It’s an honest question.” A pain shot through my stomach. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. “You think there’s anything edible in there?” I pointed back to the house.

“Pickles and jars of peppers. It’s all he lives on.”

“Explains a lot,” I said.

“Damn right,” I said back.

“I’ve got a cooler in here with some bologna and cheese. You shoot me a buck and I’ll give you one of my Fantas.”

“Grape?”

“Of course. Wait—” Another look. Studying me. “Do I know you?”

“Just a good guess. The grape is by far the more excellent—especially with salt and vinegar chips.”

“Looks like we come from the same part of town.”

I followed myself into the trailer.

* * *

I crammed a wedge of acid-chips into my mouth and took a swig of the teeth-numbingly sweet soda. Across the tiny metal table a shaggy-haired teen ate in almost the exact same way, right down to the finger licks. It was the weirdest of fun-house mirrors. He didn’t seem to notice anything strange, except for the odd eye flutter, and the awkward body movements that came with being 16. Still keeping it cool.

And this is climbing up the charts, King Harvest is Dancing in the Moonlight.

“Oh damn, I love the guitar in this song,” teenage-me said and turned up the volume on the transistor.

“Yeah, but listen to the bass. And holy crap, is that a cowbell?”

“A what?”

“Nevermind.”

I sat there listening to another blast from the classic rock era, realizing that I wasn’t listening to an oldie station. Damn. I don’t know how the hell I got here, but if this was real, then I had an actual chance to tell myself something that could change my life. And it had to be real. Everything up to now had been. The guys in the fedoras, the good ole boys in the Charger, the tire iron that Lester planted on the back of my head. I still didn’t know why he hit me. Maybe it was just a thing he did. I scratched the cat-post that was my memory, hoping for a buzz that took me back to growing up around Lester.

M. You ever think about living in another time?

That’s what Harold asked me. Except I’ve already lived in this time. If I’ve been riding some supernatural stretch of river, then why was it spitting me back into my own history. Except it didn’t all line up. For one thing, I don’t remember when I met Harold. He was one of those guys that seemed to always been around—like since conception.

But no matter where I was or when I was, it was all very fucking real. So what do I tell the young M., clad in lumberjack wear, and ready to take on the world one Heart of Gold at a time?

My mind raced through all the mistakes I made in life. Drunken nights of puking—including that time I spilled it all over the girl I came to the party with. Or what about all the bar fights, the bad jobs, lost jobs, getting stoned before that Physics final in grade 12, getting arrested for possession, and then there were the girls that became women. Shit. Who do I tell him not to date? Susan, the psycho that tried to impale me with her high heels the night I told her it was over. Or Jen, the other psycho that took her dad’s 22 and shot out the back window of my Pontiac. Thank God Pops had never taught her how to aim.

“I’m going to get out of this shithole, you know,” the guy that was me said.

“What?”

“I see what you’re thinking. Some know-nothing kid living out here in the sticks with Uncle Nutso and the coyotes. You think I got absolutely zero going on. Am I right?”

“How old are you?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Old enough. My old man took off, but me and my mom aren’t going to stay here.”

“I know,” it was out of my mouth too fast.

“What do you mean you know?” His young bottom lip twitched and I could see the tears form in the corner of his eyes. “Who the hell are you? You’re creeping me out.”

He stood up from the table, his head brushing the roof of the trailer.

“Relax. Sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.” 

He flicked off the radio, right in the middle of the Bellamy Brothers.

“You some sort of cop or something?” Again, the quaver in his voice. “Because my buddy Harold is the one you should be after. He’s the one that does all the bad shit.”

What? Did he, did I, just say Harold? I didn’t meet Harold until I was in my 20’s, even 25. History was not behaving.

“I’m not a cop. I—” A deep rumble sounded outside. “Look, I want to tell you something. I need to tell you something.”

Another rumble.

“What is that?” he asked.

The trailer shook, and teenage-me grabbed the edge of the table. A slow vibration moved through the entire space, the chip bowl bounced toward the edge, my Fanta foamed.

“What’s happening?” 

I watched my young face twist into a look of fear. Tears ran down his cheeks as the shaking increased. His eyes grew wide as he gripped the edge of a tiny cupboard. His bottle rolled across the table and shattered on the floor.

“WHO ARE YOU?” he screamed above the noise. 

It felt like the entire Airstream was about to peel back like a sardine can. Then nature could have its way with us. The door flew open and slammed against the metal siding. Someone was on the other side of the door.

She stood there, clad in a weathered jacket, the black leather covered in a layer of dirt. The whiteness of her skin shone through the grime on her face.

“You coming or what?” she said.

I looked back at my younger self. The look of fear shifted. He gazed at those red lips and then slowly turned to me. A hum washed through the trailer, a high pitched whine rose—the trailer jerked and the back tires fell into the hole that I imagined opening up beneath us. Shit.

“Well?” she asked.

“I know who you are,” the kid said.

“Is this going to stop if we leave?” I shouted.

“Probably. Not sure.” She glanced behind her, toward the house.

I got up and leapt for the door, smashing the chip bowl onto the floor. The kid just stood there.

“You’re me,” he said.

Chalk girl pulled me through the door, and turned and ran. I stared at the motion trail following her, black lines bent and whipped through the air. Behind me the trailer sunk. Through the clouded window, I could just make out his face. I needed to go back. I needed to tell him. I needed to tell him it would be okay. I lunged toward the trailer a second too late. I watched the top of it sink below me, my feet on the edge of the chasm that had opened up.

“M!”

I took a step toward the pit. I gotta tell him.

“M!”

The ground underneath me rippled. I pulled back as the hole began to shrink. In seconds it was a crack, and then sealed itself with a groan. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it burped.

I turned back, running after her voice still calling my name.