Summer 2000
“Florida Florida Florida” Lars muttered, peering out the window at a sign announcing his family’s entrance into the Sunshine State. “Can you please stop repeating words? It’s really annoying.” Marybeth was reading. Lars apologized, unaware of his mutter filling the whole car. “It’s okay, Buddy Boy” Mom said from shotgun, looking up from her papers. “It’s helpful for a lot of dyslexic children to repeat words” she informed Marybeth. “They understand them better that way.”
Marybeth hadn’t stopped reading since they left home in Virginia. Lars had some comics and Civil War illustration books he liked to look at, but it was taxing to cut through all those words. “The only reason I read is to know what the picture’s for a little better” he’d say sometimes. Lars gazed up at a coffee stain on the ceiling. He knew there was some story about how it got there—something about Mom and Dad rushing to the hospital when he or Marybeth was about to be born. He realized his mouth was agape and shut it. Grandma would make it a point to slap Lars across the face when she caught him with a slackjaw. Mom would always apologize profusely for her own mother’s byzantine ways, but the lesson stuck.
Marybeth slapped her book closed and tossed it on the middle seat. Another one done, cover to cover. Lars asked Dad how much longer. “We’re going seventy miles per hour” he said, scratching his mustache with eyes fixed on the road. “Check the map and tell me how much further.” All those lines and numbers looked messy. Lars knew they were headed to Tallahassee, but couldn’t trace a path. Marybeth took the map away from him. “Hey Mom” she said. “How many miles would you guess it is from Mississippi to Montana?” Mom shriveled her nose and made the face she’d get when asked about the sillier things. “I wouldn’t care to guess” she said. “What about Tallahassee? How far away are we?” Lars asked. “An hour, two hours—I don’t know.” Marybeth put the map down and opened the next book.
Lars turned around to the trunk. Since the family had a station wagon, he could see how everything was arranged. They had packed light, but there was still a purpose to the way Mom and Dad placed the bags. There was a suitcase for his and Dad’s clothes. Lars imagined being able to teleport and wondered what would happen if he did it into something smaller than himself. Like that suitcase; would it burst open? He gazed over at his sister’s soccer bag and saw a shin guard poking out the top. He yanked it out and hawked a lugey as quiet as he could. As his saliva and phlegm dripped into Marybeth’s shin guard, Lars wondered if it wouldn’t dry up before she put it on. It would be better if he could get some piss, or maybe even a flattened turd in there.