It was a rare day in Washington State, the sun had decided to make an appearance and had coincidentally dried out the usual sulky, sopping, seconds-from-Seattle scene. My mother, in her infinite wisdom and constant need to fuel the economy, had decided that this particular day would be a shopping day. She loaded her 73 year old, crazier than a bitch on wheels mother and her 5 year old only child into her dilapidated 1973 convertible Volkswagen Super Beetle. As I shoved my nimble body into what only a small European man would call a backseat, I avoided all the hazards that car had collected over the years. First, I had to struggle over the lever that kept the car from moving when my mom wasn’t driving it. From that point I had to make an acrobatic toss of my body over the hole which had formed behind the driver’s seat and beyond the barbed wire-esque metal spring that stuck up from the seat ever since we tried to take our dog, Teton, for a ride and he decided there were Milk Bones hidden somewhere deep in the upholstery. After I strapped myself in my mom began the laborious process of getting Granny into the car.
Granny had lived with my family for a number of years. We never really knew what happened to her mind. We did know she had a few strokes, which my mom believes led to Alzheimer’s Disease. I never knew Granny the way my mom knew her. Apparently, Granny loved me, unfortunately, the only way she knew how to show her affection was through throwing things at me and grabbing onto my hair with her death grip every time I walked by her wheelchair.
In order to get Granny into the car we had to angle her backwards and slide her, rear end first, into the seat and then, much like putting pants on a toddler, we would shove her flailing legs into the car. Slam, Click, and the job was done. We had to start locking Granny in after she tried to open the door of the car and walk home while we were doing 65 miles an hour on the highway a few years back. Basically, once Granny was in the car, she stayed in the car; given my mom’s wonderfully responsible nature, I often played the part of my grandmother’s babysitter.
I can’t quite remember which store my mom visited that fateful day. I remember the strip mall being stereotypically early 90’s. The store fronts were adorned with names like BAR, FURNITURE, CLOTHES, and LIQUOR. Mom’s infamous “short” shopping trips usually consisted of me sitting in The People’s Car counting the number of ticks between stations on the radio dial. Granny would usually mumble incoherently to a number of invisible people who probably were paying as much attention to her as I was. That day things got interesting. I guess Granny realized that her “friends” were momentary figments of her imagination because she became very interested in the mechanical workings of the gear shifter that bolted into the floor. Usually, being the good babysitter that I was, I would have stopped her. I must have been off my game that day; before I knew it we were slowly creeping backwards. To be completely honest, I didn’t think much of our journey in reverse until I peered out of the small rear window and came face to face with certain death.
Slightly farther down the incline was a freeway of sorts. I’m not sure of the criteria are used to define a freeway from other forms of roadway but the cars on the road behind us were moving rather quickly. At age 5 I didn’t have quite the grasp of physics that I do now, but, I did a few calculations on the fly and realized if our trajectory didn’t change, I wasn’t going to blow out the candles on my 6th birthday cake. I looked into Granny’s eyes and for a moment we were connected, she was thinking clearly and knew exactly what she wanted, “Gimme a tootsie.” Connection terminated. Realizing Granny’s grasp on the situation wasn’t quite as firm as I had hoped, I began looking around for help. Suddenly the driver’s side door swung open. The long haired fellow who sat down confidently in the driver’s seat was not my mother. Without saying a word the man gingerly engaged the clutch and then pushed the brake pedal, bringing the car to a stop. He placed the gear shifter into first and pulled up the emergency brake. He broke the silence nonchalantly, “You guys okay?”
He sensed Granny’s lack of understanding immediately as he redirected the question to the sole person sane enough to answer, “I think..we’re okay.”
“Cool, have a good one man,” and off he went. I tracked his movement across the parking lot; just as he was about to enter the store labeled BAR he turned and looked back one last time. The fluorescent buzz of the Bud Light sign gave him an almost angelic aura, highlighting his shoulder length auburn hair against a sullied white t-shirt. I don’t think he actually waved but I’ve forced myself to remember that he had.
Hours later my mom walked out of the furniture store, bewildered to find her car missing. I stared at her from that awkward space between the driver’s seat and passenger’s seat, waving erratically. Finally, she spotted us and galloped to the car. As soon as she opened the door I started regaling her with my latest near death experience. My mom started asking questions before I had even finished.
“Who was this man? Where did he come from? Did he smell like Uncle Dwight’s special orange juice?”
I informed her that the man had gone back into the bar. When prompted for a description of him I answered accordingly, “he looked just like the dead man tied to the lower case ‘t’ that hangs in the hallway at home Mom.” She was awe struck, she looked for the man from the bar for an hour. She asked everyone about the guy; she had just wanted to offer him a reward for his good deed. No one had seen him though, even the bartender couldn’t place him in the bar that day.
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