When I was twelve my momma moved us into a camper parked in Uncle Jeff’s yard. There was a bunk over the cab, where I slept, and for her a little bed in the back hidden by an accordion-style curtain that didn’t close all the way. I could hear her climb under the covers at night. Up front a mini-fridge had been tucked beneath the tombstone shaped counter. Momma bought a toaster oven and a hot plate. We ate fried baloney and boiled hot dogs striped with mustard then pressed between the same sweet white bread. A generator powered things. There was no working commode. We used Uncle Jeff’s bathroom to shower too. The hot water always ran out before I finished scrubbing my pits, where dark hair had recently sprouted in shameful tufts.
After a few weeks I decided Philip should sleep over. He was my best friend. There was barely enough room for Momma and me, so I asked if she’d stay at Uncle Jeff’s for the night. She agreed after talking with Philip’s momma, who also once took her son and left. That was back when Philip’s dad still punched holes in walls. One time I saw him rip down a ceiling fan because someone left the freezer open. Nobody talked about that after he started taking mood pills that made him loopy when he drank instead of volatile like before.
My dad never got violent, never hit us. As far as I knew he hadn’t been caught with another woman. I could tell my parents were unhappy, though they fought behind closed doors. Sometimes I pressed my head to the wood and listened. I don’t recall the exact words Dad said, but can conjure his tone. I’ve used it myself. He spoke to my momma like I’ve heard men speak toward dogs. Afterward she cried on the couch and ate chocolate Kisses. I rested my head on her lap. Dad went to his truck, smoked cigarettes, blared sports-talk radio. Then, after one particular fight during which he called Momma stupid and fat, when Dad left for the mines, she packed our bags and we left too.
Philip and I coordinated our sleepover with one happening between his girlfriend and a friend of hers. They were staying just a few miles from a Chevron down the road past my uncle’s house. Before leaving school we set up a time to meet them. We didn’t really know what would happen that night. Probably thought we’d get some, which was a catch-all term for the vague understandings us boys had of sex. Philip was popular, athletic, had a six-pack and a smooth jump shot. He’d been to second base. I was shy and soft. I’d never kissed a girl and wouldn’t for seven more years when I lost my virginity at a lake party, rolling around on pine needles. It happened so quickly that for the longest time I pretended it hadn’t. Not until I shared the memory with my wife did anyone suggest it was a strange thing to do. Not the sex – that made sense, she said – but repressing the whole thing for years.
Anyway, the problem with Philip and I’s plan was the next day was Saturday. That’s when Dad and I rode bikes. Since we’d moved into the camper, it was the only time he and I saw each other. Momma said I had to call. I dreaded it so bad. I could hear a Braves game in the background. I asked Dad the score. He told me, then I came out with it. Dad coughed, said that was alright. We’d ride next week.
After hanging up I didn’t think anymore about how he felt. I didn’t feel bad about ditching him. All I cared about then was having my best friend over, pretending we were grown enough to inhabit our own private space, a rundown camper parked in my uncle’s yard, being alone with some girls after dark.
Philip and I waited for them at the Chevron that night. Everybody called it Barbara Anne’s because that’s who ran the place. Eventually I went inside to look around. Next to the drink coolers were video-rentals. I pulled a dirty movie off the top row and lifted a flap covering the box. There was a woman wearing a pearl necklace and black lingerie. She was straddling a chair. I got stirred up and adjusted myself. That felt nice, so I did it again, not realizing Philip had walked up with the girls.
“Dude,” he said, “what are you doing?”
They giggled as I fumbled the box back on the shelf. It fell to the floor. Barbara Anne cut a look at us. I picked up the box and tried again. This time it stuck.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
While Philip bought drinks the rest of us went outside. Holly was his girlfriend. Her friend was Pilar. They both wore low-slung jeans and tight-fitting shirts and makeup done like they’d dipped their faces in it. They were beautiful, I thought, knowing no other ideal than what I’d seen on television. I remember paining over girls, especially those who ignored me. Thought I’d never find anyone pretty and sweet. Now it all seems silly of course. Here I am longing not for a type, but an individual – my wife. Always I’m wanting what I don’t have. She said that was my problem. Especially near the end when we got into it over something as small as what to eat for dinner. Spaghetti or chicken? You’re always wanting what you don’t have.
Holly had stolen some of her dad’s vodka. We poured out half of a couple of Sprites then filled liquor to the top and drank as fast as we could stand. Then we wandered around a field behind Barbara Anne’s, jumping out of shadows to scare each other. Philip suggested throwing rocks at cars. We did that until one slammed on its brakes, reversed, and shined headlights toward us. We took off into some woods, Philip far ahead, and hid there. The girls were skittish, ready to bail on the night.
“Let’s go back to your camper,” Philip said.
“You have a camper?” Pilar asked.
“It’s my uncle’s,” I said. “He lets me use it.”
We all headed back toward Uncle Jeff’s, walking on the side of the road. Whenever a vehicle came we got down in the ditch. Philip and Holly stayed in front. Pilar and I lingered behind. She wrapped her arm in mine. She smelled like vanilla. It was wonderful, her touch and scent, being a little drunk for the third or fourth time in my life. Another vehicle came. This time I didn’t bother hiding. I felt totally invincible. Pilar was laughing as I stepped into the road and struck some sort of ridiculous warrior-like pose.
The truck eased up beside us. My dad sat at the wheel. He cranked down the window, letting out smoke and sports-talk radio.
“Get in,” he said, “and let me give y’all a ride.”
Philip and Holly climbed in back. Pilar and I squeezed into the cab. Dad wasn’t dressed for the mines, as he should’ve been on Friday night. He wore a t-shirt and blue-jean shorts. I smelled beer. Momma wouldn’t let him drink in front of me. It was understood that after dark on Saturday – his one night off – nobody went to the shop where he sat in a lawn chair. Nobody looked under the bed where he lay alone, while I slept next to Momma, or mentioned the empties in the back of his truck the next morning.
“What y’all doing out?”
“Needed something from the store,” I said.
“Let me see that.”
I handed him the Sprite. He uncapped it, sniffed, then passed it back.
“Your momma will shit a brick.”
Pilar started crying. “Please don’t tell my parents,” she said. “I’m sorry, please.”
Dad patted her arm then turned up the volume on the radio and didn’t say another word until we got to Uncle Jeff’s. He killed the engine. The truck rolled to a stop. He got out and let the tailgate down for Philip and Holly, then stood there all glum.
“Where’s your momma at?”
“In the house,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll come sit in the camper just a minute then.”
Dad made the space feel even smaller. I wanted to disappear underneath the fridge. Philip played Nintendo. The girls watched. None of us drank anymore, except Dad. Every so often he went out to get another beer from the truck.
“Anybody hungry?” he asked after a while.
The girls picked up their feet as he passed by to the fridge.
“I’m good,” Philip said.
Dad took out a carton of eggs, filled a pot with water from a jug then set it on the hot plate. When the eggs were done boiling he carefully peeled each one, rolled them around in salt he’d dumped onto a paper plate. Those boiled eggs smelled like farts. He ate four then left the rest in the bottom of the pot.
After that I went to bed. My head ached. I was angry Dad had ruined the night. Through a crack between the curtain and frame I could see light from the television. Philip still playing that Nintendo game. A football one, I think. Eventually Pilar joined me. She slipped her hand underneath my shirt. When she felt the hair beneath my arms she took it back. She said we should just sleep. And we did, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder until sometime in the night I felt my dad’s cheek pressed against mine and heard him whisper, “Make sure those girls are gone before your momma gets up.”
When I woke it was dark and Pilar was still there. I had to pee. I could hear Philip snoring in the bunk. I wondered if Holly and him did anything. I decided I’d lie when he asked me. I climbed over Pilar and snuck outside. At first I didn’t notice Dad’s truck. Its color blended with the night. I walked up to the driver’s side. He’d passed out at the wheel. A beer can stood between his legs and a cigarette burned in the ashtray.
I went into the house, careful not to wake Uncle Jeff. Momma was sleeping on the couch with the covers pulled tight underneath her chin. When I shook her she gasped. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you alright?”
I led her to the porch and pointed toward the driveway.
“Go back to bed,” she said.
I hustled inside the camper. She dragged Dad out of his truck. He fell hard to the ground then staggered upright. Momma started screaming loud enough to set dogs barking way down the road. Philip and the girls woke up too.
“Oh shit,” Holly said.
“We’re screwed,” Philip said. He put a hand on her back. “Y’all need to go,” he said.
The girls stayed put. We could make out every you sorry drunk, in front of our son, wish I’d never laid eyes, if you show your face again, divorced, piece of shit, over, hate your goddamn guts that came out of my momma’s mouth.
When she was all yelled out Momma reached inside the truck bed and grabbed a crushed can. She threw it at Dad. The can hit him in the leg. She threw another one. Dad swatted it away. Another can. This one pegged him on the shoulder. Momma started laughing. She chucked another and another. She had on the kind of gown she always wore at night. It slipped off her shoulder every time she unloosed on him. Until then I’d never really registered how pretty she was. In that moment I was devastated by her beauty. I found myself rooting for Dad, rooting for him to stop this, to find words that could fix things between them. I was sick of the fighting, sick of the camper, baloney sandwiches, a broken commode.
Instead he got in his truck and left.
Momma stepped into the camper. We were busted. “Girls,” she said all out of breath, “come with me. I’ll fix y’all a place to sleep in the house.”
The next morning we ate biscuits drowned in chocolate gravy. Everyone pretended as though nothing had happened in the night. Even Uncle Jeff, who took every opportunity to badmouth my dad. He didn’t say a thing. Momma called Holly and Pilar’s parents. Philip called his momma. They all got picked up.
I started clearing the table. Momma filled the kitchen sink with water.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said. “I figure what you’re thinking.”
I wondered how. I didn’t even know what I was thinking then.
“If you knew everything you wouldn’t look at me like that.” She turned off the faucet then plunged her hands into the suds, searching for a dirty plate. “One day you’ll understand why I did all the things I’ve done.”
In this case I can say that my momma was wrong. I myself live across town from the house where my wife and our son sleep. I don’t even see Owen every week. It kills me not being there to show him how to throw a baseball or read to him before bed. Just the little things, you know, which are life. Point is Momma was wrong. I don’t understand any better now why adults do the things we do than I did back then.
I didn’t stay with her that morning. I didn’t ask any questions. I went back to the camper and played Nintendo. I’d forgotten it was Saturday until Dad showed up. He was freshly showered, doused in spicy cologne, his black hair parted toward the right side of his face. He wore a polo shirt tucked into ironed blue jeans, and leather flip-flops. He had crooked toes, the second one longer than the first – just like mine.
He lifted our bikes from the truck. “Ready?”
I looked to Momma. I felt like I’d been given a pop quiz, but one with no right answer. “Guess so,” I said.
We took off across Johnsy Bridge, down to Blackwater, where we dropped the bikes and walked to a slough dammed by beavers. We skipped rocks then remounted and pedaled around Saragossa, past the meadows of wildflowers and the occasional ashy mule switching its tail at flies and the broken-down cars my dad named by make and model. We biked all the way to the church camp where his parents lived, visiting long enough to eat a plate of meatloaf and lima beans and cornbread, and avoid most questions about Momma.
“You never bring her to see us,” my grandmother said.
“Leave the man alone,” my grandfather said.
“How’s your momma doing?” my grandmother asked me.
“She’s good,” I said.
“Tell her we asked about her now.”
I promised I would as we got up to leave.
On the way back we stopped at Barbara Anne’s. Dad bought a tall beer. We sat on a bench next to the payphone while he drank. “Don’t tell your momma,” he said, crushing the empty and dropping it into a plastic bag.
He hung this bag on the handlebars. Whenever we came across a littered can he stopped and picked it up. Since Momma and I left Dad had piled mountains of aluminum around the side of the house. Every so often he hauled the stuff to a scrapyard and made forty or fifty bucks, which he split with me. This on top of a weekly allowance. Yes, I was spoiled. Aside from Philip, my classmates didn’t get an allowance. None of their dads rode bikes on Saturday morning. Back then few adults in rural Alabama cycled, period. Bikes were reserved for children or folks with mental disabilities. Now you see spandex-clad adults zipping along roads paved around our lake and don’t think twice how strange the sight. Sometimes I meet my wife dressed this way, leaned forward as she barrels downhill and around a curve. I never know whether to wave or pretend I don’t recognize her.
Back at the camper Dad loaded our bikes into his truck. “Did your momma say anything about me?”
“Not to me,” I said.
“I work. She’s on my ass,” he said. “It’s like you can’t breathe, know what I mean”
I didn’t, not then.
“Just tell her to give me a call,” he said, then left.
I found Momma watching a rerun of Gunsmoke with Uncle Jeff.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
I told her I did.
“Was he drinking?”
“He was breathing wasn’t he,” said Uncle Jeff.
I said no, he wasn’t drinking. “He wants you to call him.”
“Right now?” she asked.
I shrugged and plopped down on the couch next to her.
At school on Monday everyone knew what happened. Philip had told; Holly and Pilar confirmed it. During our reading period I slipped Philip a note saying we were no longer friends. That was the longest week. I don’t think I said a word to anyone at all. I remember faking an upset stomach when I woke up one morning. It didn’t matter. Momma said I had to go to school because she had to go to work.
One evening not long after the sleepover, she announced we were going out for dinner. Unusual, but not so much as her pulling into a car wash on the edge of town. Dad was waiting there in his truck. He tried to smile and held up a paper sack. He’d bought chili dogs, and a chocolate milkshake just for me. We ate, then he gave me tokens so I could hose off the tires of his truck and wax the rims.
Before he went on to the mines that night he hugged Momma. I remember feeling startled by the sight, wondering what it meant. Even after this period of our lives ended – Momma and I home again – I rarely saw them touch. I don’t remember them kissing. I never saw him take hold of her and dance the way I once did with my wife.
Anyway, Philip and I didn’t stay enemies for long. He’s a youth minister now, the sort of devout person I don’t mind because he’s not judgy about it. We routinely talk on the phone, mostly about sports. Alabama football, the Braves in season. Sometimes Philip asks about my wife and son. I tell him what I know. They seem to be doing fine.