Miles

Read Miles for Free Online Page B

Book: Read Miles for Free Online
Authors: Adam Henry Carriere
worshipers. 
    The
front door closed.  The house was left as quiet as a crypt.  Dad's
hand touched my shoulder.  I turned around and stared at him impassively,
the only real defense I had left.
    "I'm
sorry about last night."  He didn't look me in the eyes, the coward.
    "So
am I." 
    "Your
mother and I...we've run out of answers.  It's all gone wrong, son."
    "No, it hasn't.  You both have."  My voice was soft and
level, quite an achievement, I thought, considering how I felt at that
particular moment. 
    He
finally looked back at me, his eyes bloodshot and wet.  "I've decided
to take a job with some outfit in New
York .  I'll be moving there
just after Christmas.  Your mother wants to stay here, in the house. 
It's up to you where you'd like to go."
    I
knew where I wanted to go.  I wanted to go out, far out.
     
    *
     
    There
were no lights on in the room except for the fireplace, which blazed
away.  I huddled myself into the corner of our over-stuffed couch with my
arms around my knees, staring out at the cold, blue picture of our moonlit
yard.  I hadn't heard my drunken father stumble about upstairs for a
while. 
    I
kept picking up the phone to call Nicolasha, but kept hanging up halfway
through his number.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to say.  It felt
like he was my only friend in the world.  Anyhow, I didn't know if that
was what I really wanted to say.  I wasn't sure how that felt, either.
    My
mind began to blur, flashing back throughout my life, remembering all of the
things me, Dad, and Mom used to do together, when we were still a sort of
family, careful to omit about two years worth of meals at home.
    Like
my first helicopter ride over Cape Hatteras .  It was a flimsy Bell 25; Plexiglas bubble, bench seat, and engine.  This was the way to see the
spectacular Outer Banks scenery.  Mom was petrified, but I loved it, especially
when the ex-Marine pilot veered the bird to the right, leaning me over the
rough sea below. 
    Or
being "absent" from school whenever the new James Bond film opened at
the Woods Theater downtown.  1971 came to mind.  We loved
"Diamonds Are Forever" so much, Mom took me with to buy her first
brand new car, a fire-engine red Mustang Mach 1, just like the one in the
movie.  It was the coolest car anyone's mom drove.  But 007 only came
every other year, while my beloved White Sox were an annual "he has a slight
fever" event.
    My
favorite "fever" was 1973.  We were getting killed by the Oakland A's (again), but we all were having a good time, because our entire row was
taken by the old Congressman's friends and cronies.  Mom set fire to a
senile Cub fan's pennant (which hopefully taught him to stay on the North Side
where he belonged), and Dad got thrown out of the park after tossing his beer
at some guy's head when the silly ass stood up for the Oakland seventh.
    And
then there was our Road Trip from Hell (no family should be without one) to Rock City and Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga , Tennessee .  Despite rainstorms, Ford Motor Company
water pump engineering, and cartographic illiteracy by Daddy dearest, I enjoyed
all the Civil War stuff, but not as much as charging across a steel suspension
bridge to shake up my terrified Mom and Dad. 
    Of
course, there were all the times the young couple from next door to our
Roseland bungalow, Scott and Roberta, would take me off of Mom's hands to go to
the drive-in to watch classic Hammer, Amicus, and AIP horror movie double
features from the roof of their old Impala two-door.  Scott lived off of
the sort of food they served at the concession stand, and would overstock the
car with dry hot dogs, soft Raisinettes, tasteless popcorn, rock-hard frozen
Heath bars, badly carbonated cola, and out-of-date Dolly Madison fruit pies
throughout the movies, which weren't nearly as chilling as the Halsted
Drive-In's bathrooms, next to the projection booth.
    There
was going tubing down Wisconsin 's Apple River with a bunch of Dad's

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