The other day I had this weird flashback to this awful trip I went on when I was ten or so.
My grandmother and my step-grandpa Ray took me to what I think was the Adirondacks, or possibly to Maine. To tell you the truth, I really just don't remember. We were driving around in this white truck with a trailer attached, the kind of vehicle that didn't have AC, and that forced us to all sit uncomfortably close to each other. I remember this trip really being the moment at which I realized that I hated spending time with my "grammy," who was nothing like the warm and fuzzy grandmothers that appear in the movies/television. I retrospect she reminds me of a woman capable of Dickensian style cruelty. This is the woman who, when she comes to see my shows, tells me I'm no good and implies that I'm gay (to strangers) because of my involement in the theater.
Anyhow, there we were, driving for mile after mile in this hot, sweaty truck. And we're not even really talking. I read this whole book while we were driving, the one about the two kids who hide in the museum and live off of the coins that people throw into the fountain. The files of something, as I dimly recall. By the end of the day I'm literally crying on the phone to my parents to please let me come home, that I never wanted to go on this trip, etc. I feel rather guilty about this in retrospect, since I know that my grandparents just wanted to spend time with me. Actually, I only really feel bad for Ray, who died while I was in college. I wasn't really his grandson though so I figure he could probably deal with it (he had four other kids of his own, who had sons and daughters of their own. A story for another time.) As for grammy, you can't really make up for years of snide remarks and neglect with a simple trip into the middle of nowhere.
The first night we're parked by some lake. I get to play for a bit at this playground and its really sort of creepy, since all the kids look like extras from "deliverance," including one with (I kid you not) a hook ensemble for an arm. We go to some restaurant attached to a lighthouse (which supports my Maine theory) and I eat fried clams, which before this trip used to be my favorite food. That night, being eaten alive by the mosquitos that seem to be easily infiltrating our trailer, I eventually totally lose it and vomit into our camp fire.
The next day we drive to some other woodsey place, and I attempt some conversation. My grandmother tells me an honest to god "in my day" story about when the ice-man used to come and bring ice for the ice box, and that she had to walk to school through snow drifts. The not so subtle implication is that I have it too easy, which is obviously true, but you don't really want people to give you a hard time about it, especially when you are ten. When we get to the campsite I see a family of what appears to be twelve children carrying buckets of water and setting up a tent while their parents boss them around. Grammy points out that that's what real kids should do. I silently thank a higher power that I wasn't brought into life as my mother.
The main thing I kept thinking was: "What am I going to do now to make the time go by? How can I kill more time?" I had read all the books that I had brought to keep me occupied, and had no real desire to sit and talk with grammy. Grandpa Ray had a good sense of humor, but we were never terribly close and I was afraid of him because I had accidentaly broken his grandfather clock a year or so previous while hiding in it during a hide and go seek game. So what to do? Looking back, I tend to attribute the current rich fantasy life going on in my head to moments such as these, when i was forced to kill time. I distinctly remember that as night went on I began to daydream about a horrible black sentient slime that might creep out of the marshland around us, perhaps engulphing a vagrant before eating the family of fourteen that was camped nearby. Then we'd have to make a riveting escape through the night in the truck, leaving the mosquito infested trailer behind to slow the thing down. Ironically, I daydreamed about a horrible monster to get myself to fall asleep that night.
Anyway, the next day grammy informed me that we were heading home. I was obviously sick. It just goes to show how much power your mind has over your body that though being so horribly upset I had made myself physically ill. The drive back actually wasn't all that bad, since I had something to look forward to, and we even stopped at a place to camp for the night that had a pool. I love pools, and swimming was one of my favorite things when I was younger. I swam for hours, even getting to go for a swim in the morning before we left. Hard to believe, knowing how incredibly white I am now, but I was quite olive from all the time I had spent outside that summer. This was, of course, before my dad had cancer.
My other memory of that place was that it had an arcade, the magical mecca of a boy growing up in the 80's youth. Back then I didn't have any kind of home entertainment system (I'm sensing my own "in my day" speech coming on), and arcades were where you could go to see what was essentially better than any magic show. My parents, and grammy, are intensely against violence, which probably explains my own fascination with it. Also, this was before the first nintendo power came out, so I was easy to impress.
Long story short, we finally got back to Syracuse, and went out to the now defunct Mr. Steak in Fayetteville for dinner. I remember being so happy to be back, but at the same time I remember taking my parents aside before we rode over there. I think the gist of my conversation was: "Never make me go on a trip with grammy again. Ever." It was probably the first time that I had made real demands on my parents, that if broken I would have considered a sort of deal breaker. This trip seemed to mess me up more than you would think. For years I had problems going over to other people's houses to spend the night, and refused to go to summer camp. I had never had problems like this before. I still feel I have some vestiges of this, such as my enduring hatred of sleeping anywhere but my own bed.
But enough about me.
