It was the seventh of February 1985 and I stood in my parent’s driveway with my father and brother as well as my new other half. I wore a rabbit fur jacket with its shoulder pads wide and broad, it rivaled my bigger than life hair which needed half a can of mousse and thirty minutes with my head by my knees, while I listened to the buzz of a blow dryer. I placed a brown fedora on my creation causing my hair to compact and flare out at the same time. I finished the look with green eyeshadow, softer than life angora gloves and pointy-toed high-heel cowboy boots. I was the optimum of eighties style.
I headed into my future looking the best that fashion had to offer and all the confidence which came from being a naive youth – I was ready for an adventure.
Forty-eight hours of marital bliss and now duty called; we were headed back to Loring Air Force Base where Allen was stationed. Practicality and poverty had us moving all the wedding presents as well as my prize crap of the past eighteen years ourselves. All of it would not fit into my red Chevy Vega, so my father loaned us his winter vehicle.
There it stood, in the middle of the driveway – the station wagon. Our prairie schooner and like our forefathers it was going to carry us to a new life. In its two-tone coloring of manufactured mustard yellow and New England rust with a muffler too close to the ground. The windows leaked, a lesson learned when my cousin partied too hard and sprayed the outside doors with her drunken graffiti. The quick whip through the car wash to remove the evidence had us dodging mini waterfalls, then driving home sitting on wet seats with puddles around our feet. It earned the named ‘The Party Wagon’. It was glorious.
The wagon was filled with boxes which occupied about ninety-eight percent of the vehicle. Allen was eating his own cooking for the last two months and was down to a buck-thirty, and me being twenty pounds slimmer from the whole bridal stress thing we were still one ass cheek to many for the front seat.
I excitedly hugged my dad and brother good-bye, then I bounded into the small opening which we would live in for the next eight hours – more if we ran into snow. Young, optimistic – and foolish would have described us. Allen, with a furrowed forehead, a grim line instead of a smile, slowly with fortitude and grit that got him through basic training, settled down behind the wheel. It was a tight fit, Allen was 5’9, the seat was pushed so far forward even my short legs hit the dashboard. Once inside we realized we had only two-thirds visibility out the front windshield from boxes and the only useable mirror was on the driver’s side door – each surface with a coating of dirt thick enough which made both barely usable.
What amazed me when I looked back was that not once did any of the four-people standing in that driveway mention anything about leaving some things behind, like the three boxes of fabric, the four boxes of shoes or my doll collection. We would be back in two weeks for my car.
I had a box of cooking pots digging into one side and Allen’s hip bone bumping into the other. My new husband closed the door. It didn’t shut tight. My father, opened and slammed the door shut, which caused a chain reaction that left bruises on each of my hips plus a dusting of rust on the snowy ground. It marked an outline of the crime victims, which was us and that poor car. It was only the first of many crimes which the Party Wagon would lead us through, in the next twenty-four hours.
The car sputtered and jerked.
We pulled out of the driveway and to our new life. The gear shift was vibrating between my legs and the heater was blowing cold air, stirring the loose fur on my cheap coat into Allen’s nose. It wasn’t ideal, but we were on our way to adulthood and Caribou, Maine.
Twenty miles later we finally reached the speed limit with the heat blowing only slightly less cool air. By the time we were on 95 – I was asleep. Allen drove to the sound of static on the broken radio and soft snores while smashed between me and the door – he complained that my hat bumped into his face with every contour of the road. Our only conversation was at toll booths and pit stops which required me for any purchases, for I was the keeper of the cash after a long discussion of the importance of paying things on time that morning.
Later in the year when we traveled back and forth, I realized he went through the trip in pure monotony; for a man who hated silence it must have been a little piece of hell. Allen did it all in stoic quiet. Route 2 was a desolate stretch of state highway, an unending tundra of deserted winter land that stretched out on each side of the road. Gas stations and oncoming cars were a hundred miles apart just like the warning signs stated. It was a lonely isolated drive even with two people awake in the car.
Allen’s purgatory ended eight hours later at two in the morning in the driveway of our apartment. “Get the keys and we will unload in the morning.” Though he had been speaking to me upon entering Caribou this was the first request which finally soaked my sleep muddled brain. I adjusted my hat, which was pushed askew after my chauffeur stretched to relieve the kinks from his body and I reached for my purse. I started confidently – digging into the pit of a bag around life savers, a paperback novel and Kleenex. Nothing.
I couldn’t find them.
Emptying my purse onto the hood of the car to search through loose change, gas receipts and feminine products. Nothing.
We checked the floor, in drive thru bags with grease and ketchup stains, even inside empty soda cups with melting ice – nothing.
We checked the crack between the seats only to find a comb and unopened sugar packets – no keys.
We stood in the cold and looked hard at the road weary car and its artistically packed contents, as if the answer would come from its dirt and salt covered soul. My panic level rose and as a last-ditch effort to hold it at bay, Allen unhappily agreed to tunnel out a small passage way on the floor of the back seat, hoping beyond hope to find them. He removed two liqueur boxes of shoes and a small shoe box of homemade Christmas ornaments. On his back he shimmed into the home-made tunnel to check out the floor. I heard a thump. The boxes in my view shifted down. His legs sticking out of the open door, convulsed for a moment. A groan wafted out from the bowel of the station wagon which could only come from having a crock pot fall on your head.
He wiggled. I pulled. A slightly mangled man came out from under the pile of wedding gifts. I was thinking of a way to salvage this situation by myself. A man who bought a motorcycle as his full-time source of transportation and lived in an area which only had two months of summer was not a problem solver. Allen rubbed his head and muttered about being cursed or maybe something about a crazy wife. I was not sure nor cared. I had a solution – an idea from a movie I saw – we could open the door with a credit card.
I tell Allen.
He was just as desperate to end that night as I was to solve our problem and he took out his shiny new Sears charge card. Allen looked at me, hoping I had an even better idea. Nope. That was it. Do or die. We marched up the interior stairs to our second-floor apartment, it was a converted old farm house. The stairs were carpeted but it didn’t deaden the sound of creaking. I was optimistically holding pillows and blankets while walking up. Allen held the credit card, his first, which still carried the balance of my wedding gift from him. A colored television. I didn’t watch TV.
In front of our apartment door my husband turned to me. “I’ve only had this for two weeks.” He moaned. An arched eyebrow was my only reply; a sigh escaped him as he turned back towards the door and kneeled down. He placed the card at the edge of that door. Then he turned towards me once more, “Didn’t you tell me you picked locks when you were a kid?”
“Yes.” I whispered, “But Lori did all the picking. I just brought the hair pins and cigarettes.” I pointed back towards his task. He turned to the door then proceeded to mangle that shiny new source of debt, while I leaned over and whispered instructions.
I heard a click in my left ear and slowly turned. It was Dirty Harry’s gun aimed directly at Allen’s head. The deadly tunnel of the 357’s barrel was dark and foreboding as my eyes drew up along the length of brushed steel, to the guns hammer which was pulled back and ready.
“Allen.” I nudged his shoulder with a gulp.
“Shh, you will wakeup Tina.”
“Allen-n!” I poked him harder which made his head slam into the door.
“Look I almost had it.” He groused. “Now will you be quiet, I wa-” the harshly whispered words died in his throat as he became aware of what I saw.
Very dainty hands with neatly trimmed nails held the rubber grip of the gun and thankfully pulled the weapon and pointed it towards the ceiling. A beautiful caramel face said, “Boy, you almost done an’ got yourself shot.” Tina’s sultry southern drawl wrapped around me in blessed relief. Tina was tawny; hair, skin and eyes, standing five feet even, and weighed in at a hundred and six pounds. She was one scary woman with the gun held up beside her head. It was very action hero.
She was pleasant after our introduction and invited us in to call the landlady with her phone, even went out so far as to offer hospitality so I could wait with her while Allen went to get the apartment keys. I looked at the gun on the table and decide to take a rain check.
We headed towards the owner’s house in our driving cubicle, and shivered as the heater blew cold air and rabbit fur around us. The keys were given to us by a giggling elderly widow dressed in a house coat and curlers. We apologized and drove back to the scene of our crime in silence.
I stood, excitement pulsed through me. I was in front of the entry of my future home.
Again.
Opening the door, letting it swing wide, Allen smiled. “Welcome to your new home.” He swept me up into his arms. Romantic. I heard him groan and felt his knees buckle a little as he carried me over the threshold, which made me feel fat at a hundred and fifteen pounds. My knees slammed into the door. He quickly over corrected and then my head hit a wall. I grunted in pain. I feel him stagger a little and two steps into the apartment he tripped over the coffee table. A whoosh of air, I feel myself become airborne and then bounced safely onto the couch. The light shining in from the hall allowed me to see Allen sprawled over the coffee table with his ass in the air. I was too excited to get a glimpse of our first place to do more than laugh at the sight.
He flipped a switch and the living room came into view. He should not have done that. I didn’t realize how many beer bottles and pizza boxes could fit into such a small apartment. I wanted to get back into my Dad’s old jalopy and go home. “Did you have a party?” I couldn’t think of any other reason why our home would have looked like a frat house after a kegger.
“No.” He answered as if I asked a ridiculous question.
I walked into the kitchen with trepidation. On the stove was a pan of cream corn dumped over something. I pointed. “A fire,” he stated – not ashamed. Each step in the kitchen echoed with the sound of suction from my shoes as I peeled them off the floor. The three feet of counter space was covered with dishes and garbage.
‘Didn’t he buy a garbage can?’ was my main thought – one more step and I had a clear view of the sink with cold scummy dishwater and more dirty dishes. The refrigerator took up the far corner of the galley kitchen. I did not want to open that.
I entered the bedroom. A full-size bed was made with twin sheets and a sleeping bag. I tripped over more beer bottles, but for the most part it was the cleanest room. The bathroom was a happy looking yellow which smelled like a urinal. A pile of dirty laundry prevented the door from opening completely.
The tour was over.
My new husband followed me around in silence. He smiled when I looked at him. The same grin that was in a photo which later lived in our wedding album. He was wearing it as we left the church, it was a “I now have someone to clean my socks” kind of smile.
“Home sweet home.”
