As if on cue, Terry runs to the phone to call Juan, and in only minutes he is knocking at the door.
“What the hell? Were you waiting around the corner or what?” Dad asks, amused at the comedy of Juan’s appearance. “Come in; come in.” He welcomes him in with a wave and a smirk.
Juan is grinning from ear to ear and sits down at the dining room table, ready to strike a deal. He pulls out a bag of Jamaican bud, promising to pay his own way and Terry’s too.
This makes Dad very happy. “Go get your stuff ready. We leave in the morning.”
After a sleepless night, I watch the sun rise on our final day in Florida. “Do you have the map, Dawn?” Dad asks for the third time, making a final run through the details.
“Yeah,” I mutter, distracted by the way Mom and my brother will not look at me, even though they have come to say goodbye. Although I am excited to leave, my heart is heavy. I try to make myself believe it will only be for a short time and we will see each other again soon. Dad has promised Mom he will keep in close touch with her, and she reminds us that if we don’t like the arrangements, we should let her know and she will work something out for us to come back.
“I promise you, Edda,” Dad swears uncomfortably, “they’ll be fine. Now let’s say our good-byes; we gotta go.”
I reach out to Mom first and hug her hard. Her body is stiff, and she is softly crying. “I love you, Mom,” I tell her, and I begin to cry also.
“I luff you too, Dawn,” she says, hugging me close, her German accent thicker through the tears. “If you need anyting, call me. Your fater knows da number.”
I walk over to my brother next. “Hey,” I whisper. There is a long pause. “Are you going to be okay… you know… with Mom and everything?” I keep my tone light.
“Yeah, I guess so.” He sniffs, obviously holding back tears. He looks dejected.
“I love you, Wayne.” I reach out to give him a hug. He melts into my arms, fitting into my body like a well-worn glove. We hug, sweetly, only the way a baby brother and big sister can, and then he lets loose with deep, heavy sobs.
“I love you too, Dawn,” he says through his flood of tears. We hold each other tight one last time, then pull away again, wiping our faces dry.
As he looks down, my thoughts search for just the right words, but what can I say? “Be good, Wayne… and don’t worry. We’ll see each other soon.” I try to reassure him, but my stomach churns with uncertainty. I turn away quickly, before I can stand no more, and walk out to our car, packed to the gills the night before. I get in and stare out the window. I’m not in the mood to watch everyone’s good-byes. I am anxious to flee, to get on the road.
The more I dwell on it, the more of a downer it all is. It doesn’t help that I think Juan is another downer, but I will go along with it anyway; after all, Dad is the one in charge.
We pick up Juan around the corner, where he is waiting with an army green duffel bag and his mirror shades. He thinks he is so cool, and it makes me laugh. Terry shoots me a glance that says, Knock it off, Dawn, but I laugh again anyway, kicking back in my seat up front.
Everything looks so run down around our old streets as we cruise through the neighborhood, and I am glad to be getting out. On the left is the old Kwik Check, where we shopped for groceries with Grandma. It is completely dilapidated now, badly needing a paint job, broken shopping carts lying strewn about in the parking lot. On the right we pass the local 7-Eleven, where I hung out with my girlfriends and spent nights sitting in our guy friends’ souped-up GTO, trying to act tough and cool. At the intersection comes Burger King, the site of my first job. The bright orange and yellow building obnoxiously marks the on-ramp onto the Palmetto Expressway, the highway out of this hell.
The Florida Turnpike is only a short distance off the expressway, giving us a straight shot north past the Everglades on our left, Lake Okeechobee on the right, and miles and miles of rolling hills with lots of orange trees in between.
Juan keeps the joints burning, wanting to maintain the party spirit and to show off for Dad. This eases Dad’s pain and makes him happy. I do my “fake inhale” act, which I have long since perfected, trying to keep up with Juan’s excess, and it works well after the first couple of good tokes. I want to be cool too yet still maintain enough sobriety to avoid falling over immobile and completely stoned.
Eventually, Terry and Juan fall asleep on the extra sleeping bags stuffed between them in the backseat, and the smoky air clears up a bit. Through a glassy-eyed haze, I watch the Suwannee River buzz past. Dad keeps to the west, staying in the Florida panhandle through Tallahassee, and by dinner we stop at an overnight campsite in the Seminole State Park.
Camping outside in the warm, tropical summer weather seems to me the perfect way to say good-bye to my old life. I stare at the stars, bright even with the waning light of dusk at their backs, and I eat my bologna sandwich.
Facing a western horizon and my future, I fall asleep wrapped in the warm colors of sunset.
Oklahoma is where we will camp next. We pass through Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas as quickly as we can. In an area where he has heard a lot of racism exists, Juan is getting nervous about being a Hispanic man with a bag of pot down his pants.
We are all a bit nervous, but Dad and I still have fun teasing him as we head out of these states. “Hey, Juan! Get down—quick! There’s a cop!”
Juan’s brown face turns pale, and he falls quickly onto the backseat. He stays down low until we start to laugh.
“Quit it, you guys,” Terry scolds. “That’s not funny.” But the tears stream down our cheeks, and our sides ache from the joke.
The pot keeps our laughter strong as we enter into the boring safety of the country’s plains. Miles and miles of wheat and flatlands make the afternoon sun unbearable. We have no air-conditioning, and it doesn’t help that Juan is running out of grass.
The radio plays the same top-ten hits over and over. Even though we are glad Oklahoma plays more rock ‘n’ roll than the rest of the Southern states, we are slow to jump into our enthusiastic “air guitar” motions when Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” takes its turn. We are tired of singing, “really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree,” the best line in the Steve Miller Band’s song “Joker,” and we get grumpy.
I can tell Dad is weary of being at the wheel for so long, and I am pissed off too that Juan has lied about having a driver’s license. He lies about how much pot and money he has as well, telling Dad he is about to run out only after we are well on our way. No wonder he’s so scared, I think.
We find another cheap campground in the western part of Oklahoma, and for dinner we load up on bread, lunch meat, and sodas. I am glad to be close to the Texas border, hoping its scenery will be more exciting, and I settle down to go to sleep. Again, the summer sky is beautiful. Purples and pinks, yellows and magentas blaze vividly as we watch, mesmerized by the colors fading into darkness on the huge curve of the Oklahoma horizon.
The landscape in the northern tip of Texas is just as dreary, and the music much worse. Country music plays on every radio station, but Dad says this is to be expected here in the cowboy capital of the country. It is 1976, our country’s bicentenniaclass="underline" two hundred years since the Declaration of Independence was signed. This is a special year. We all know we won’t be alive to see another celebration of history like this one, so we focus on this moment in time, even if the music is a drag.
The mood in the car is still uptight, though. It’s obvious that Dad’s face is causing him a lot of pain, and it frustrates him to have to change the bandages every day while on the road. To top it off, we smoked our last joint in Oklahoma, and everyone is feeling ridden hard and bummed.