The Passenger

I vividly recall my alarm one long, hot summer day many years ago when Sibling #4 began coughing uncontrollably. After agonizing moments of nothing but the sound of her increasingly desperate coughing, she finally found relief when she coughed something up into her napkin. “Oh, God,” she cried out in horror, “look, I coughed up a blood clot.” My heart stopped beating just long enough for me to realize it was cherry season and the witch had been storing a pit in her chipmunk cheeks, just waiting for the perfect moment to terrorize me with her “oh, look, I coughed up a blood clot” routine.

Like with so many other things, I should have known better. It had only been a week or two prior that the same wicked Sibling #4 had crawled up the back steps, calling out for me to give her a hand. Her knee was all puffy and bruised and she was having trouble walking. After getting her comfortable and situated with a pillow under her leg, I proceeded to wait on her for the next hour or so, until she couldn’t suppress her glee any longer and confessed to having put make-up on her big, fat, uninjured knee. Not long after, though, in a real-life boy who called wolf teaching moment, Sibling #4 really did hurt herself. She had broken a bone in her lower leg and now really did have to crawl up the backstairs. (It was unfortunate that she had already used up her quota of being waited on by me.) Not only did she learn not to cry wolf, but also that if you are going to break something, you shouldn’t do it when both of your parents happen to be out of town at the same time. Mother was in Ireland and Father, who very rarely traveled, just happened to be in California. The hospital has a policy that, regardless of how many underage siblings accompany you, unless you are eighteen you can’t sign yourself out. It took some doing, as this was long before the age of cell phones, but Sibling #1, the only sibling of legal age at the time, was tracked down. And, despite the blue streak that remained in the hospital long after he departed, such was the strength of his cursing, Sibling #1 proved by showing up to sign Sibling #4 out, that perhaps he really does care.

Aside from deriving great entertainment from faking injuries and blood clots, we also would laugh for hours at our imitations of Uncle Louie. (Obviously, this was long before sports camp and band camp and every other type of camp that has taken the endlessness out of summers.) Actually, Louie was our great uncle and it was his walk, in particular, that filled us with such mirth. I think I had the walk down the best. And, I now realize, that was probably because that is the walk of my future.

Uncle Louie didn’t so much walk, as he did a sort of weeble-wobble crashingly off-balanced rolling type of locomotion. He’d usually be yelling about something as he stumbled his way downstairs to his apartment. I’d be upstairs, observing his gait, while everyone screamed at each other. My father and his people are Italian. When we visited, they’d frequently spend most of their time screaming at each other, only to break bread together as happy as clams moments later. I was always a practitioner of the grudge so it used to make me crazy. Anyway, we’d go home and I’d do my Louie imitation and we’d all be in tears. I’m not really laughing now.

In fact, the other day, as I hobbled through the house, all bent and crooked and unable to walk straight, it occurred to me that maybe I had it coming. Poor Great Uncle Louie was all crippled up from a combination of bad arthritis and a crooked spine probably the same way mine is crooked. And sure, I hadn’t been following up my runs with any yoga or Pilates so I should have realized my back was on the verge of being wrenched out of shape. But I can’t help but wonder if my wrenched back isn’t my very own, albeit many years delayed, boy who cried wolf teaching moment. Or perhaps Louie was more practiced in the art of the grudge than I realized and he’s found a way to transcend the grave to repay me for my youthful transgressions.

Another of these transgressions was to pick up his ashes. I was the only one home when the funeral home called and said that we needed to send somebody before they closed that same day to pick Louie up. I don’t know what the big hurry was, it’s not like he was going anywhere. Anyway, the wrong box had apparently been checked - - the box indicating that we did want his ashes as opposed to the box declining the ashes - - but, being young and stupid, it never even occurred to me that maybe I really didn’t have to pick him up. Regardless, the bag was surprisingly large. Apparently, you have to pay extra for an urn; plastic bags come free with the ashes. I was creeped out by the whole thing so I put him in the trunk for the drive back home, despite the nagging worry about the potential damage to my karma that the trunk mode of transportation might result in. I certainly wouldn’t want to be driven around in the trunk. Even if it was in a car with a fancy sounding name - - the Pariessiene.

Things didn’t get a whole lot better for Uncle Louie after the trunk of the Pariessiene. As we were all somewhat disturbed by having him in the trunk, Father took him out and left him in the garage. This was after Father asked me why I had to go and pick Louie up in the first place. Father didn’t have a whole lot of time for properly disposing of the ashes, seeing how he worked all the time, and he really didn’t see what difference it made anyway. He figures that once you’re dead, you’re dead. Father is, not surprisingly, the author of the oft repeated family catchphrase, “just burn my dead ass”. Sooner or later, Sibling #3 discovered the location of the ashes. She had to park the car in the garage late at night when she got home from work and she became rather agitated by the discovery. We never had paper towels at our house so this was before she turned to them as a source of comfort. And as Sibling #3 already suffered the night terrors, Father moved Louie into the van which was kept out on the street, not in the garage.

We soon found ourselves working the fact that Louie was in the van into our conversations as a type of running family joke. For example, the parents would arrive at one of the sibling’s homes for a rare family gathering, and someone would say, “Where’s Louie?” And because we are crazy people, we’d all laugh at the fact that our dead great uncle’s ashes were sitting outside in the van. (Yes, this was years later and Louie was still in the van.) It took a while, but eventually Louie’s ashes finally did make it to a more suitable resting place.

Dick is now Father’s latest traveling companion. The two year old daughter is a particularly big fan of Dick. “Dick! Dickie” she shrieks in absolute glee whenever she sees him. In truth, we all smile gleefully when we see Dick. He is just so lovable with his over-sized head that almost knocks us down in his excitement to see us. Dick is Father’s American Bulldog. Just like with Louie, anywhere Father goes, Dick now goes, too. Unlike Louie, however, Dick gets to sit in the front passenger seat. Mother and Sibling #6 have been relegated to the back.