Lapsus Calami - Spokane Stock

 

The air was dry and sweet. The light, and with it heat, of a scorching midsummer's day had slowly drifted into dusk. We packed up our meagre cargo—our toothbrushes and, well, us, and climbed into the car. Traveling light. We weaved our way through the congested Wasatch corridor and hit the freedoms of fresh open road around Brigham City. I yawned as the first light of Venus crested the mountaintops. Arcturus, Vega, and Canopus wiggled their ways out of the darkness. The car hummed along smoothly, whispering through the quieting countryside of Northern Utah. We slipped past the border and entered Idaho. I briefly nodded off, but was awakened by the climbing revs of the engine as we struggled up Malad Pass. My eyes fought and fought, but the weight of their lids were unmanageable. 

I woke again as we turned from the freeway and decreased to highway speeds. I stared through the side window, trying to cut through the night to make sense of our surroundings, but my attempts were futile. Up ahead a bridge loomed, and we took a gentle left turn onto the Old Oregon Trail Road. I was suddenly very familiar with my surroundings. Nearly there. We wound slowly down the road, eyes peeled for wildlife and runaway cattle, until we reached our destination. 

Gravel crunched under the tires as we pull off Old Oregon and into the Andrus Ranch. A childhood home away from home. The memories flooded back. With no time for sentimentality, Dad parked, we grabbed our toothbrushes and departed to look for Uncle Joseph. A faint breeze tickled at our backs and caressed the hairs of our necks. It was much colder here than in the concrete jungles of Utah. Over the din of baa-ing sheep, we heard Uncle Joseph call "over here." We followed his voice past the bull pen and found a truck and livestock trailer parked near the old barn. Joseph greeted us warmly with a  handshake hug and a smirk on his face. "We're taking that?" I thought. "Jump in," said Joseph, "we've got a long ways to go." I clambered into the back of the double cab and tried to make myself cozy. Dad joined me in the back as Joseph hopped behind the wheel, with Uncle Jess riding shotgun. 

It was nearly midnight when we pulled the large rickety trailer out of the ranch and back onto Old Oregon. Spokane bound. I was wide awake now as the uncles began to tell their famous stories and converse about the adventure ahead. We would drive over 600 miles straight through the night, hoping to arrive by first light. Sometime around two in the morning my eyelids got the best of me again, as the hum of the V8 engine lulled me to sleep. 

About 3a.m. we pulled to the side of the road to get gas. At the recommendation of Uncle Joseph, Dad and I decided to climb into the stock trailer to try and catch some full-body-extended sleep. We opened the side door, climbed up into the loft area of the trailer and wrapped ourselves in the blankets there. The darkness outside the trailer enveloped us with her frozen arms. I questioned the legality of such sleeping accommodations while the vapors of my breath danced lazily by the illuminations of the taillights. Dad called Joseph and gave him the all clear. The truck shifted back into gear and merged onto the interstate, gradually gaining momentum. I stretched out long and luxuriously, troubled at first by only the faint smell of manure and old hay bales. As we picked up speed, the genius of Uncle Joseph was soon renamed the folly of Uncle Joseph. 40mph, the wind began to swish through the holes in the trailer. 50, the wind began to whistle. 75, and the wind was howling like a demon from the netherworld. I tried to ward it off by telling myself how tired I was, how I would need strength for the day ahead. It nearly worked. 

As we thundered down the road, deep in the heart of nowhere land, it became evident that Uncle Joseph must be accustomed to sleeping in the midst of a hurricane. The trailer rattled, shrieked, and shook at every bump, divot, and pothole of America's crumbling infrastructure. After thirty minutes of sheer determination and grit, Dad and I had to call 'uncle.' Once more, Joseph eased the rig off the side of the road and we jumped out of the stock trailer. Frozen, deaf, and completely rattled awake, we climbed into the cab, silently cursing. Joseph seized his opportunity to show us what city slickers we were, and he jumped into the stock trailer as Dad took the wheel. "Yeah we'll see how long he lasts!" I said to Uncle Jess, "It sounded like a war zone in there, with the Viet Cong closing in fast." 

Four hours later, we crept into the outskirts of Spokane. We stopped to fill the tank and check on Uncle Joseph. Half expecting him to have died of hypothermia or shaken adult syndrome, we unlatched the trailer door and discovered him wrapped in a giant tarp, snoring away. More impressively, he was on the main floor of the trailer, likely bouncing around like a pinball all night. But he reportedly "slept soundly." Now, Uncle Joseph is one of the most honest persons you could ever meet, but I still have my doubts about this instance. 

We pulled the rattling old trailer into Uncle Justin's driveway around 9 a.m. a little behind schedule, but just in time to pull the largest items out the house and stuff them into the back of the stock trailer. We loaded that and his personal trailer to the hilt. As we looked around desperately for little cousin Ella's cat, I walked around the side of their car and saw it flapping wildly in the driveway. "How strange for a cat to move that way," I thought. Then it hit me. The cat's eyeball was lying on the ground a few inches away, connected only by a long sinewy string to the socket. A puddle of blood rapidly pooled around the body. I yelled to the others as the cat's convulsions resided. Dead. It had somehow escaped its cage and ran under the car, just as the car was being moved to make way for the garage to be emptied. I felt bad for my cousins as they mourned the loss of their beloved pet, on a day already filled with the stresses and heartbreaks of leaving a chapter of their lives behind.

After the tears subsided, we hit the road. Joseph pulling the stock trailer, Justin driving his truck, and cousin Kenzie left to navigate the Volkswagen Jetta. I was assigned to keep Kenzie company as I was only just legally licensed to drive. Kenzie, nearly a year younger than I, had recently acquired her permit, but neither of us knew much about driving a car with a manual transmission! Again, I had to question at the legality of it all. To tell the truth, we were both a bit nervous. After a few coaxing reminders about how to operate a clutch, we had been turned loose.

Reminiscent of the Joad family, our fully loaded caravan trundled down the streets of Spokane. Joseph and the stock trailer in the lead, Justin and his trailer next, with frightened Kenzie and I bringing up the rear. As the caravan picked up speed, Kenzie and I simultaneously shrieked. The trailer in front of us swerved left, then hard right, then began to oscillate rapidly. The weight of the load was too much for the axles to bear, and caused the trailer to fish-tail violently. Justin was able to wrangle the flailing beast back under control, but not before it began to whip his truck with it. We all made a beeline for the shoulder of the road. After the uncles inspected the trailer and Kenzie and I had a freak-out session, it was determined that we would return to the vacant house and re-arrange the trailers to lighten Justin's load. 

Once settled and secured, the trailers eased back onto the blacktop. Other than a few missed gears along the marathon transit, Kenzie and I eased into our new driving situation. We gossiped about other cousins, caught up on years past, and occasionally tried to quote the driver's handbook to each other in assurance that we would not find ourselves harassed by any Highway Patrol Officers. The journey was mostly peaceful as we pounded mile after mile across farmland and high desert scenes. 

We reached Provo, Utah 30 hours after our initial departure. Tired, bruised, and road worn, but successful.  We delicately emptied the trailers of their contents. For some,  a new life had begun.