Trailer Trashed: My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility (11 page)

The night the trailer "went missing," all my dad did was call me
and my sisters outside, point to the empty carport, yell at us about
how the trailer was taken "right out from under us," and ask us why
the hell we didn't just lie down in front of the tires to block the evil
repo men. But I think he went easy on us because he could tell from
our faces that we were more bereft that the trailer was missing than
he could ever be.

For one thing, it meant no more camping, and to us camping
meant something entirely different than it does to most people. To
us, camping meant parking ourselves at a vast concrete lot where trees
and wildlife were about fiftieth on our list of priorities, way below the
really important stuff, like amenities and "hookups." In fact, it was possible, if you worked it right, to not lay eyes on any actual nature for
the entire trip. You could just spend the day sitting next to your trailer
in the concrete RV lot, swimming in the concrete RV-lot pool, then
playing billiards in the concrete RV-lot clubhouse. This was paradise
on wheels. One time the RV-lot amenities included a diner where you
could make your own pancakes on grills in the middle of the tables.
At the very least, amenities meant a snack bar during high season,
vending machines for the off months. When our mother showed us
brochures for consideration for future trips, we would ask, "Are there
hookups?" because to us the term "hookups" had come to refer to
everything, not just the plumbing and electricity but the entire concrete wonder that RV camping had become.

"There's a waterslide!" she'd exclaim, and we'd all squeal with
excitement, my father included.

Because it was my father who was in charge of all the hookups.
There was a panel along the side of the trailer with big outlets behind
it that he attached things to, which magically enabled us to do a wide
variety of things that weren't nearly as amazing at home, from cooking
sausage links to flushing toilets. My mother would actually show him
affection, because in our real home, where my parents customarily
fought like rival tigers, my father was not nearly as proficient as he was
in the miniature-trailer version of our home. In the miniature-trailer
version, everything was compartmentalized, cleaner, newer, and more
manageable. In the miniature-trailer version, my dad was in charge
and my mother was enamored with him and my sisters and I basked
in the entire harmonious mirage of it all. Look at us, a happy family.

I purchased the vintage Shasta trailer without really thinking
about particulars, such as towing the damn thing home. I thought
maybe I could have it hauled here and sit it in my yard as a lovely
restored relic or something. But my daughter bought the whole harmonious mirage from the moment we started researching travel trailers on the Web. To her, the purpose of the trailer is not simply to
plunk it somewhere in order to make a fun statement. To her the
trailer is paradise on wheels.

"Where are we taking it?" she asked excitedly. "Disney World?"

So I started thinking maybe I could tow the damn thing myself.
I had never towed so much as a red kiddie wagon with this car before,
but I got a hitch put on, and damn if that little Shasta trailer didn't
tow like a (kinda wind-resistant) dream all the way back from Indiana.
I would not have believed it possible if not for my girl. That's one of
the surprise perks of parenthood: When you have kids, you get to
believe everything all over again. I can't wait to see her face when I
show her the trailer. "That right there," I'll say, pointing to the panel
on the side, "is where you put the hookups."

Growing up, we drifted to so many addresses that often the only people
my sisters and I could count on as friends were each other. Jim was old
enough to move out while we were still in grade school. But my sisters and
I are almost exactly twenty-two months apart in age, a fairly perfect gradation in maturity for being best friends throughout childhood ... only
to go on drifting, apart and then back together again, through marriage,
parenthood, and other various estrangements. My little sister, Kim, sees the
good in everything, which I used to find exasperating. But then she recognized goodness in a young, drunk, part-Swiss, part-South African who
dressed like Crocodile Dundee-and she married him. My brother-in-law
Eddie turned out to be my unexpected savior when I attempted a nearly
disastrous foray into real-estate investment after finding myself abruptly
unemployed. Therefore, I believe, if Kim sees the good in something, then
the good must be there.

I CAN'T PINPOINT THE EXACT TIME WHEN my sister Kim got right with
God, except to say that maybe she always was. It's true that she never
seemed to go through that phase where she did drugs and fucked
around like her other sisters-me, admittedly, and my older sister,
Cheryl, not so admittedly-but it's not like Kim carried a Bible
around and spouted Scripture, either.

For one, if she did that my mother might have parked a roll-away
bed on the balcony and demanded she live out there until it was time
for her to attend college. It was tough enough, I know, for my atheist
mother while we were young, when my dad would belt one too many
Budweisers and break open the hefty children's Bible we still kept
hidden in the bottom drawer of the big room divider. He'd insist we
gather around and he'd read to us in his James Earl Jones voice. After
a few minutes our mother would attempt to save us by distracting him
with the sound of air escaping from another can of opened beer, and
it sometimes worked. Other times, though, he would go on and on,
hyperpronouncing the "d" in "God" so the word sounded like it had
two syllables: Ga-duh!

But maybe some of the Bible stuff got through to us. Personally,
I can't say it really manifested itself any further than the fact that, as
a child, I was terrified little devils would claw through the underside
of my coffin after I died, grab my dead heathen ass, and perform cunnilingus on me for all of eternity. I realize now that hardly paints a
picture of hell, but as I got older my fears became less fun and more sophisticated, and I began to dread the day Rapture happened and my
good sister would get sucked up to heaven and leave me alone with
the pagan flotsam that comprised the rest of our family.

Because try as I might-and truthfully, I didn't try that hard-I
was never as good as Kim. She seemed to have been born with an
abundance of intelligence and integrity, and maybe we're all born with
this, I don't know, and maybe it's a matter of simply keeping it intact,
as if that were so simple. Whatever it is, Kim had it and I didn't. Don't
get me wrong, I never agonized about this beyond the thought that,
if there were to be the big prophesized divide one day between good
and evil, Kim would be on one side of it and I'd be on the other, and
I'd miss her.

So, you know, over the years-and it's really hard for me to admit
this-I've actually, I swear this is true, taken steps to become a better
person. Not tons of steps. Like I don't give handouts to junkies who
knock on my door, and I still flip off the crack addict who pretends
to collect donations for the deaf at the intersection near my house,
and I'm still completely open to the idea of copious premarital sex,
but I've willingly gone to church a few times over the past few yearsseriously, I did-though I had to discontinue that when my favorite
pastor left to open a coffeehouse in Decatur named The Gathering
Grounds.

I thought about going with Kim to hers, but she lives eight hours
away, and I met her pastor when I attended a church play in which my
niece played a part, and he looked like he would pronounce "God"
with two syllables. Plus, the only Bible I own was given to me by Grant, who had inscribed across the front, in big letters outlined in
red-and-yellow oil paint, "Nothin' Harder Than a Preacher's Dick"and Kim's congregation doesn't look to be the kind to appreciate that
kind of humor.

Kim herself, though, doesn't judge. When we were kids, I was
the runt of the family, and she was bigger than me even though I was
older than her. My other siblings treated me like a kid-shaped kickball, and Kim could have easily followed suit. Instead she kept to herself and read, or played cards with her stuffed monkey, or interacted
with her other imaginary acquaintances, which I'm sure were kinder
than her siblings, including me. Usually after I'd sustained a losing
battle of some kind, I'd drag my crying, scratched, and pummeled
hide to sit outside Kim's bedroom. I'd listen to her talk to her stuffed
animals, sweetly teaching them what our mother taught us, like how
to double down on a 10 when the dealer is showing a 6, among other
nuggets of wisdom.

These days I still think about the divide between good and bad
that I thought separated us, and I've come a long way since sitting,
defeated, outside my little sister's door just to hear her voice. For one,
I realize I switched to her side not because I always thought I was a
bad person and needed to change, but because she always thought I
was a good person and never asked me to.

MY FRIEND DOUG LEFT TOWN BEFORE WE EVEN got to see if his second
exorcism was effective.

"My first exorcism had failed miserably," he said, dejectedly stating
that the demon was still in him. I looked closely at him as I always did
when Doug talked about his demon. I tried to see the evil he insisted
was inside, but Doug didn't seem any more evil to me than he did the
day I met him over a decade earlier. In fact, if you were to ask me, I
would say Doug was one of the most demon-free people I know.

Our demons are for us to decide, as all demons are personal; that
I know. Doug has since moved to New York to make a difference in
the world by teaching inner-city high-school kids. I was a little worried when I heard he decided to do this. I thought that inner-city New
York high-school kids would tear him up and crap him out their collective assholes if given the chance, but I also felt that Doug was doing
the right thing, because often the best way to wrestle with demons
is to stop looking inward and start looking outward, which is what
Doug decided to do.

"Every day is crazier than the last," he reports. "I had the cops in
my classroom yesterday because one of the seventh-graders started a
fire. This is like a trip to Mars!"

He sounded happy, though, or at least less dejected about the
presence of his demon than he did before.

We all have our demons to deal with, and believe me, I'd be grateful for my personal demon's presence if I were Doug, because it would mean I wouldn't have to face those kids alone. For example, one kid
often, repeatedly, and very loudly tells Doug to suck his dick. I would
find that, at the very least, an unsettling element to have to face in my
daily life, but these are words that for Doug lost their shock value a
long time ago. If he responds at all, it's simply to gasp in mock horror
and say, "Such language!" then continue with the daily ministrations
of dealing with the demons around him rather than in him. I have to
say I admire him for that, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of his
students do, too.