Somehow I've written approximately 1000x more about my friends than I have my family, which I guess is a little strange. The material is certainly here in spades. I think I've really just struggled with finding some footing on how to attack it. But the timing has begun to seem right for maybe trying to piece this all together.
It’s true that I finished one full book-length manuscript about my family somewhere around 15 years ago, yet even at the time it just felt off, and I haven’t cracked it open since. Not to mention that so much has happened in the years that have followed, and leaving off where I did at that totally arbitrary point would make no sense now. Yet here lately I’ve had some ideas about how to arrange and filter these occurrences into some sort of coherent narrative. Built around the episodes that I consider crucial. So I guess we’ll start with this one, and let it rip, and see where this project takes us.
As the title of this segment would indicate, it’s early October, 2022. I'm standing outside my parents' place in Mocksville, a charming, mostly quiet, but steadily blowing up little town in the middle of the state. It's still so early that the sky has not yet lightened, and we are packing for an unplanned trip down to the Florida. The occasion isn't a joyous one, however, because the point of origin is another in this endless seeming series of family tragedies, another too-young death: in this case my 40 year old cousin, Rick.
Mom is sitting in her favorite chair on the front porch, smoking a cigarette, while Dad K continues arranging everything just so in their truck. For the record, nobody has ever referred to either of the father figures in my life as “Dad M” or “Dad K,” this is totally something I thought up at one point in my writings, as a shorthand device to eliminate explaining everything to death over and over again. Or referring to them by their first names only, which always just feels weird. But yes, Dad K is my mom's second husband, Bill Kimes, and they've been married at this point for almost forty years. My brother and I were instructed to call both of these guys “Dad” growing up, though, which didn’t seem weird at first, became a little stranger as time went on, and is now unbelievably awkward in certain situations. For all parties involved. Not to mention confusing as hell to a great many people before (and possibly even after) they learn more about our family.
Well okay, my parents only bought this house six months ago, the latest in a dizzying series of moves they've made over the past decade. Hard to believe they were really kind of the model of stability up to that point. Why they felt they needed a huge four bedroom place at this stage in their lives is open to questioning, apart from the most obvious ghoul plaguing just about all of our existences: where else would they put all of this stuff!? So it’s not just the four bedroom house, but the absolutely essential man cave/shed behind it. Oh yeah, and also a full blown, full sized shipping container next to that, which he has already wired with electricity and had a door carved into the side of. A beautiful place, though, out in the country yet only maybe a mile from town, heavily treed and with a corn field somewhat bordering one side, a mostly empty one across the street. A dead end street, that is, with very little traffic.
I was told we were leaving at 5am and left my house, in Statesville, at 4:30. My even being able to come on this trip is itself somewhat remarkable, because under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't even consider driving to Florida and back for a two or even three day weekend. However, it only just emerged at the last minute that the company I've worked for the past five plus years has just announced it is shutting down most of its operations, effectively immediately. My weekdays were heavily scripted, sometimes down to the minute, but are now suddenly and unexpectedly wide open. I haven’t lined up another job yet, but figure there's no reason to freak and that I'll find something else as soon as I get back to town. But yes, I am suddenly a man with almost no job - my boss does plan on throwing some lesser, inconsistent, “special project” type work my way here and there - and all the free time in the world. My parents are stoked I am unexpectedly joining them, though, and I consider this the most pertinent point.
So as I show up over here this morning, Dad K answers the door in pajama shorts and no shirt. We are obviously not leaving at 5. One other hilarity concerning this situation (more on it in a bit) is that I'm convinced it made no sense whatsoever for me to be driving in this direction for a trip to Florida. But he just wouldn't hear of any other scenario, like for example picking me up at home or even somewhere else in Statesville.
But, yeah...at 4:56am, I happen to glance over at the clock, right as he is fiddling around with their kitchen table for some unknown reason. Then asks me to come over and help him. The key issue requiring utmost scrutiny and a swift resolution, for this house where they are the only occupants and are about to leave for who knows how many days, is that he needs the leaf taken out of the middle. Except then when we do so, the remaining table is stuck and we can't seem to make any progress pushing the ends together. Therefore he strolls off to find a can of WD-40 and resolve this situation, pronto.
Mom's ready all along and mostly hangs out on the front porch chain smoking. At some point we do eventually make progress toward leaving ourselves, which is how we too end up outside, bringing out their luggage, and the few items from my car. While packmaster works his magic, Mom is randomly telling me some anecdotes, a couple of which I don't remember ever hearing before. One concerns her much younger days, a newlywed for the first time, that she was working at North Electric up in Galion, Ohio. On the floor in their factory where she was tasked with crimping transistors. As a new hire she thought the whole point was to go as fast as possible, until the other employees began yelling at her almost immediately that this was screwing up their piece rate – i.e. if you went insanely fast, they would consider this your “normal” speed, and then they would all be expected to crank out parts at that pace forever.
The second recollection concerns a time, during this same approximate period, where Dad M. was working at a different factory across town, Carter Machine. That he was pulling a 3-11pm shift, and she often went up there, would sit and have “lunch” with him during those nights, rather than stay at home alone.
Even as she's relating these things to me, I'm thinking it's completely remarkable how new stories – and I have no doubt, essentially correct ones – can surface even after so much time has passed. Also how little I feel like I still know about my parents, all of them, with the chronology itself of what happened when especially murky for me. Certain families seem to know each other's histories frontwards and backwards, but that is not us. Mostly I guess because even they might not know this, or at least not without sitting down for an extended spell and piecing it all together.
And meanwhile, don't even get me started about the information flow going the other direction. Their generation, the boomers, have been great all along at talking endlessly about themselves, even if it's generally speaking just a scattershot series of isolated tales; mine and my brother's generation, the Xers, are frequently categorized as gifted at fading into the background. Then again, one could certainly argue we didn't have much choice in the matter. One of my more prominent sources of bafflement for example concerns girls I dated for years, whom they met at least a couple times, yet have always drawn complete blanks on if I ever mention them. On the flipside though I could somehow tell you names of so-and-so they were dating in, like, 1972, before I was ever born, and somebody I've never even seen.
As she's telling me these tales, I'm standing on the sidewalk, looking up at her, and thinking even then, I really should really make an effort at getting all this stuff down, and straightened out, while I still have time.
We finally hit the road at 5:45, which altogether isn't bad – it certainly could have been worse – especially when considering we're not in any kind of hurry. Rick's funeral isn't until tomorrow morning, so we have plenty of time. Even though it is at this point that the day's second great hilarity already rears its head, before we've even left Mocksville. In the planning stages, a couple of days ago, when I called to say I could ride with them after all, I mentioned my proposed route, of I-77 down from Statesville (and indeed, just to confirm I wasn't crazy, any map app pulled up says this shaves off a good half hour from even the second-best method.) Mom even chimed in on the background of our call to say this seemed to make sense to her as well. But he wasn't hearing it.
And this isn't because he has looked into the matter and disagrees with the assessment – he refuses to even consider it. “That wouldn't make any sense,” he declares, “you wanna be moving south and east.” He mentions something about maybe taking Route 52 down, seeing what it connects with, and proceeding from there. Another factor, though, I'm convinced, is that he doesn't want to be stuck picking me up, which is part of why he avoids even researching the matter. I believe I have a good handle on his thought processes by now. It went something like he’s thinking he will tell everyone we are leaving at 5am, and I can start heading this way with that in mind, but if “something” comes up and we don’t quite set out at that hour, then he needs to keep his options open.
So this morning, I don't even mention it. Especially now that I've already driven over here. I'm thinking it will be something different, at least, and the interstates are boring anyway, and who cares. But the real icing on this topic is when he scoffs at, in totally unrelated fashion, not even connecting these two strands together, how he used to always tell his dad it was faster to drive through here, down I-77, when coming down from Ohio to vacation in Florida every winter, instead of taking 75 down through Atlanta and so on.
This is where the inevitable first Grandpa Bill reference rears its head in our narrative, a figure often compared to Archie Bunker with maybe some Adolf Hitler undertones. That was that whole generation. Grandpa Bill and the infinitely sweeter Grandma Dixie used to winter in the middle of the Sunshine State every year, but the old man refused to even look at his son's proposed route. Until long after Dixie died, and he'd moved on to a girlfriend, Joanna, for his final ever Florida trip, and finally decided to give it a try – with the added bonus that they were able to spend the night with my parents at roughly the midway point.
“Hey, I like this route!” Grandpa announced at that time...without any reference to their previous countless discussions on this topic.
Dad K's chortling about this, doesn't even connect it with the matter at hand. As we nonetheless drive through Mocksville, south on 601, and reach the edge of town, at which moment he decides to pull over into some random parking lot and fire up his Waze app. Coming this far in this manner was a no-brainer, he felt, the question was how to proceed from this point. And now that we have reached the opposite end of town, from here it does of course tell him to just continue proceeding south on 601, until we reach I-85 at Salisbury and take that the relatively short distance down to Charlotte and hit...I-77.
“Hmm, that's weird,” he says.
Even so, as we begin moving, and he announces, “so let's just say we left at 6am,” for a roundabout figure to help determine exactly how long this is taking us, he tells me this method, according to Waze, is only a 7 ½ hour drive, yet estimates that mine would have taken 9.
Once we hit Salisbury, everything else is relatively familiar, at least until we reach South Carolina. We stop at a gas station in the northern part of the state, where Mom gets some scratch off Lotto tickets, then pick up some breakfast at a Wendy's which isn't very good. Past Columbia on I-26, we then pop into another gas station because Mom believes she has some winners – the clerk here is some sassy black woman, kind of rude, who scans them once and throws them in the trash, declaring they were in fact duds. Dad doesn't believe her, asks for the tickets back.
On the road again, we're taking turns reading the somewhat inscrutable instructions which nonetheless do make it sound as though these should be winners. Somewhere along this stretch, I also text Mom the latest Emma photo, per request, which she is excited to receive. Then we're in a rest stop somewhere near a town called Yemasee where the people are moving like zombies – everyone! Dad says we should film a faux documentary here called What Happened While I Was Sleeping? This would include an old timer who puts index finger to corner of mouth when asked a question, desperately trying to come up with an answer. For example:
“Where you living now?”
“Uh...Yemasee...”
Dad drives the whole way down. Our next pit stop finds us in Florida, where we're marveling at something called Murray Bros. Caddyshack, a restaurant. Looking this up online we learn the famous actor and his not quite as famous brothers are indeed behind it, that there are only two in the world: one up by Chicago, and this St. Augustine one. Checking this out on the way back might be in the cards, but for now we're in too much of a hurry. There's also a Bucee's across the street, which we don't have in North Carolina (yet) but I'm telling them about. However, though Mom says what she really wants for lunch is some Subway, somehow we wind up at yet another Wendy's.
Dad goes in alone, then returns empty handed after a lengthy ordeal. It was lined out the ass, he says, plus on top of it he's mad that this is a kiosk only ordering setup, robo-ordering, though he nonetheless instantly bonds with some mom in there who is also grousing about this arrangement.
“Pretty soon they're gonna have us back there cooking it,” she complains, which he of course thinks is just awesome.
So we're back on the interstate, then pull off again the next time we see a sign for Subway. This is now Palm Coast Florida we're in. Those two split a foot-long, though I can knock off one by myself, and I pay for it all using Starfish. We enjoy our lunch outside at a table in front of the place, on the sidewalk. There's a “discount” liquor store next door, which Dad somehow checks out twice without buying anything. In between, I go inside to grab a 6 pack of canned IPA from Jacksonville called Mad Manatee, which I’ve never seen before. Ahead of me in line is some youngish sketchy looking guy who's trying hardcore to flirt with the cashier. He's obviously a regular. Nonetheless, after he leaves, the cashier tells me he was on the news awhile ago for an altercation with a cop. And I would gauge his chances with her as pretty close to zero.
From here it's a straight shot to Melbourne, our eventual destination. Dad's friend Jim calls, and we talk to him on speaker phone, as he offers his condolences. He owns a quite lucrative business construction operation – for example a lot of local fast food restaurants are his doing, back home – and is in Florida a ton himself. Without being prompted in the slightest, he also mentions the St. Augustine Bucee's gas station, raving about it, and whereas Dad hadn't really seemed interested before, now he suddenly is. But who knows, maybe it's just the way I describe something that leaves people flat, which wouldn't be the first time I've suspected as much if so.
We are staying with Dad's cousin, Marlen, who I haven't seen in close to 40 years. He's actually a cousin by marriage, because Dad is related to his wife, Marty, a first cousin. And a big chunk of the reason I haven't seen Marlen (apart from their being separated for over a decade at some point in the middle) is that these two have a very unique arrangement. Every year, she heads up to Ohio for multiple months at a time. And within about the first three minutes, it's readily apparent to me why she insists upon such an escape hatch: this guy is a lunatic.
I already expected as much, though not quite to this extent. Marlen says he vaguely remembers me, as a little kid, but I sure do recall him, this feral seeming mountain man type living in the boondocks between Bellville and Butler, way back then. Since relocating to Florida, decades ago, he now lives on a quiet dead end street just off of a major one. Their house is small and so is the property it sits upon, yet the whole place exudes military compound vibes anyway.
Which makes sense considering he's a Vietnam vet and admits to having PTSD from that overseas nightmare. So I don't mean to make light of that. And if being totally honest, I'm sure he was plenty crazy before he was ever shipped out. He's one of these guys who takes the chattiness of really his entire age bracket, but then extends it a step farther in almost never pairing the dots between points A and B. For example though Dad K and Mom are plenty fond or relating various anecdotes about their past, these are nonetheless consistent, fully formed stories with a beginning, middle, and end, and at least some semblance of a point.
Whereas Marlen here will throw out one semi or perhaps even legitimately interesting line, such as, “I was paratrooper, see, and when we landed in snow, you know how they trained you to tell which direction was up? You spit,” and you'll follow that up with, “oh yeah?” and some other leading question, encouraging him to explain more. Except then the next line is, “yeah...uh...so that's like I was sayin...whew...I drank too much last night...normally all I drink is the Voodoo Ranger but that's why I'm sippin on these here Busch camo cans, even though they taste like water, I'm feelin a little rough today, a little rough...” and by the time you attempt elaborating on that, he's already moved onto the next topic. Stack a few hours of this madness, end over end, and it becomes beyond exhausting. Also, as I've said before elsewhere, it always blows my mind when you spend day after day with certain people, who talk endlessly about themselves, yet never ask you a single question about yourself in all that time. It's like, you're not that interesting. Well, maybe in this instance he has a decent case, but still.
But I don't want to rip on the guy. He is after all letting us stay here, and is hospitable enough for the most part, even if that mostly means his disappearing for long stretches while he meanders about the property tinkering with who knows what. Like this solar panel setup he has, admittedly clever, affixed to a picnic table on wheels, so he can roll it to the best spot in his yard as he sees fit. And there's also another majorly extenuating circumstance, which surely helped push him over the edge, which nobody should ever have to deal with. Even though our extended family knows all too much about such a thing: ten years or so ago, he lost his son, who drank himself to death at about the age of 35.
They've got a shrine of sorts built in his honor, along the front external wall of this man cave/shed behind their house. His name also happens to be Daniel, just like my brother's. When our collective parents were cranking out kids, that whole era was apparently drawing from a limited number of options in the whole naming department. While we somehow managed to avoid having many Mikes in the family, pretty much all the other usual suspects were repeated to death, especially when it came to the boys. And I also suspect this is part of the reason that for me to talk about my family has been one gigantic ball of confusion for anyone stuck listening to it: a brother named Daniel, also this deceased second cousin; meanwhile there's not just me but also a first cousin and a second cousin named Jason; not one but two sets of brothers, first cousins all, named Dustin and Tyson; two Nicks, three Scotts; and so on and so forth. This without getting into other confusing twists like a cousin named Shanna, which also happens to be the name of one uncle's ex-wife, or an aunt named Brenda, which is also the name of a different uncle's different ex-wife, et cetera.
One of the first orders of business for me, patrolling the grounds, naturally involves a visit to this shrine. I didn't know this Daniel, Daniel Haynes, very well, but have heard plenty of stories about him, and he was likable enough on the few occasions where we ever did hang out beyond our very youngest years. Of course, the story most repeated now is how the doctors told him near the end of his life that if he stopped drinking completely, they would give him about 6 months to live. And perhaps understandably, he effectively said forget it, who cares at this point, and did nothing of the sort.
Marlen stumbles onto me snapping pictures of this tribute, meandering about the property during his eternal weird quests, but says nothing. There's plenty else going on here, I suppose, to keep everyone distracted. For example we just learned that there's a shuttle launch tonight, from Cape Canaveral, which you can apparently see fairly well from here. Having never caught a glimpse of these before, I'm stoked about this occasion. Also, Dad just recently purchased a snazzy new electric wheelchair for Mom, which she is using for the first time ever right now.
Meanwhile, my cousin Jason – one of Rick's brothers – is having a birthday party today, for his daughter, who just turned 7. For whatever reason, most likely exhaustion, however, my parents decide not to drive up there, to the Cocoa Beach area, even though it's only a half hour away. Instead, in anticipation of the shuttle launch, Dad and I walk the short distance up to the main road, at the corner of which a Cumberland gas station sits. Here we pick up some beer for ourselves, inquire about Voodoo Ranger on Marlen's behalf, though they happen to be out of it. Then return a short while later because we forgot the ginger ale Mom wanted.
She's scooting around the front yard in the wheelchair and by all appearances having a grand old time. During a break in the action, she calls her brother Allie, who is Rick and Jason's dad, to see if they might want to drive down here tonight. However they are citing weariness now themselves, and since we are seeing them tomorrow at the funeral anyway, figure we'll catch up then and sort out the remainder of the days beyond that.
In the moments leading up to the launch, with a live feed running on his TV, Marlen and I are in his tiny living room watching the big countdown. Let it be said that if I were his age and single, this is pretty much the life I would envision for myself, an existence very close to this, in a spartan bunker featuring just the bare minimums, a pad just a few steps elevated beyond a high end hunting cabin. It’s tastefully decorated, and quite clean, but yeah, the military compound vibes are heavy here. But of course, he technically isn't even single himself, just gets to live that way for almost half the year, every year.
“I was out there when that one blowed up,” he tells me.
“Oh, the Challenger?” I question.
After confirming that this was indeed the shuttle in question, Marlen adds, “you know them people was still alive, flyin through the air?” Which would be a most remarkable and unfamiliar fact to me, if true - although I’m really more astounded that the second sentence actually pertained to the first sentence, which isn’t always the case coming from him.
We stick right here through liftoff, but then my folks shout that they can already see it, rising from some point north of us on the distant horizon. Marlen and I therefore immediately shuffle out the door to join them. I remember filming all of this, too, but am only just watching the footage now, as I write this, some two and a half years later. Mostly because I know some of the extraneous material, or so it seemed at the time, caught in fleeting split seconds while I'm panning to something to else – namely my mom, her face alight with a broad grin, mostly sitting still in her snazzy wheelchair now as she too captures the launch.
But then other things I other forgot or had no possible frame of reference for appreciating at the time. Like how the arc of this rocket is not at all like I expected, more parallel and then even vaguely downward looking, from our spot here on the ground, rather than the straight up trajectory I'd expected. Marlen knowing the different stages it goes through well enough to call them out even from here. And the moon, visible already even though it's still not even quite twilight, huge and bright out somewhere over the ocean to the east of us. Dad K, who still can't quite resist telling both of us how we should be filming these things if we want a perfect take, appearing shockingly so much younger and healthier than he does now, even if it really wasn't all that long ago.
Once these matters have run their course, returning to the television coverage until growing bored with that as well, we all slip back into our familiar rhythms, or at least as familiar as they can be for us who find ourselves in this strange land. Though Mom has only had maybe two vodka and ginger ale drinks, in her flower patterned plastic cup that Erin and I got her, she's in great spirits, but tired, telling us she's heading off to bed at a relatively early hour. The last I see of her tonight, she scoots the wheelchair over near the front porch, after which Dad helps her off to bed.
Us three guys will remain up for quite some time. Like the proper hillbillies I suppose we are, this means kicking back in lawn chairs in the middle of his front yard, while, by request, I have some random mostly old school country music playlist cranking out the classics on my phone. Marlen sits for only brief stretches, mostly paces around or disappears entirely, during which it will always unfailingly emerge he had some odd yet pressing project to attend to, like maybe checking how much juice his modest solar panel setup has pulled in for the day.
During one of his flybys, Dwight Yoakam is playing and Marlen observes that he does like this stuff, that this is about where he draws the line for him and “newer” country – anything beyond this point, no thanks. Then during another, it's David Allan Coe and for this he sits down, says, “he's from Ohio,” and fully absorbs the tune. But of course Marlen vibes with his maniac. Of course he does. Dad meanwhile launches into this tale about this dude he knew in Shelby, OH who was friends with the famed country outlaw, and I have to admit, having heard this on occasion before, it does sound believable enough. After all everybody says that Coe did some time in various jails and prisons around our original neck of the woods.
Our illustrious host eventually retires to the camper he is sleeping in, having been kind enough to give us free reign of his modest two bedroom house. Dad and I remain up in the front yard, listening to music and drinking beer, and I'm getting on this kick talking about how when somebody dies, everything in their head is just gone in that instant, and what a shame it is. But I feel like he's not getting it. Like I mention this occurred to me when his brother Gary passed away, how much I didn't know and would never never know, and he says, “what did you want to know? I could tell you!” Almost like my observation is an affront.
Once again I bring up how I would really like to record him & Mom talking about whatever from their past – it's crazy how everyone bristles at this concept, nobody is ever really interested. But I'm already halfway thinking that I will just start recording people without their knowledge. Screw it. Nothing shady or weird, like taping top secret conversations or arguments or whatever, but nights like this, where people are chatting at length about old war stories. These are totally fair game, the way I see it, and I already have an app on my phone that will work beautifully. Otherwise all this information is falling into the abyss of oblivion.
On the tailgate of his truck, in the driveway, he and I eat a late “dinner” which consists of potato chips and crackers. It's the first food either of us have had since Subway, however many hours ago, while we continue to sip our brews and chat. Then I fire up a Facetime with Erin, right before going to bed, and he chimes in as well, though it's too dark on both ends to actually see anything.
I go to bed around midnight, in the spare room. Mom and Dad are of course claiming the master bedroom. As always, I'm happy I didn't drink any more than I did. And that most of it was Modelo, purchased at the gas station up the road, after sampling some of that Mad Manatee business.
The following morning starts like pretty much any other. We know we have to get up somewhat early for Rick's funeral, which is somewhat of a cloud hanging over this otherwise bright, gorgeous morning. Even so I'm in admittedly great spirits, as I wake up and drift outside for a moment, observe that Dad is already up, despite outlasting me last night, and is goofing around with the stuff in the bed of his truck, sorting and rearranging and doing who knows what. Someone brewed coffee and I go back inside, pour myself a cup, am then just walking around the yard while I sip on it, enjoying this pleasant morning.
I even film this charming little thirty second video, of a squirrel at the very apex of Marlen's roof, almost glowing in this golden sunshine, while his paws and teeth furiously work over a nut or something that he's enjoying for breakfast. Then he turns and glares down at me, as though wondering what on earth I'm doing down here, and how I have such nerve as to record him. It's just barely past 7:30am.
This formerly glorious morning will take a much darker turn, soon enough. Dad has at this point gone back inside to check on Mom. He says she woke up, but seemed half asleep still, like dreaming, so he told her to try and get some more rest.
Except now he comes barging out the front door, says something's wrong and that we need to take her to the hospital. She threw up in the bed, and is talking gibberish for the most part, including something about a “pencil sharpener.” So he asks me to look up the nearest hospital, on my phone, while he brings her out. Although he only makes it as far as this middle room, where he sits her down on this bench seat, while rustling up her shoes and purse.
