Mimi Read Online Free PDF Page B

his old briefcase echoing the angularity of his suit on his slightly pudgy 1960s body; and later return, giving off a whiff of car smell from the jalopy his parents had given him when they got themselves a new Chevy. Armed with these accoutrements, our father displayed an obtuseness which at best amounted to kindly indifference—No hard feelings, kids, I just don’t give a damn what goes on here all day—compounded by his determined obliviousness of his wife’s concerns, chief among them being me, a distinction that often elicited his fears for my masculinity.
    My admiration of him was unassailable, since he was in charge of a vehicle. Mom, a pedestrian and bus-user, earned my contempt. I liked to rile her in the grocery store: success was when I got her to yell, entitling me to sympathetic looks from strangers and apologetic candy from Mom.
    The first vehicle I ever revered was my little red truck, the envy of the neighborhood, a miniature pickup truck with real headlights, red upholstery, horn, a dashboard covered with knobs and dials, and, under the chassis, the hidden source of propulsion: pedals. I drove that truck everywhere, couldn’t be parted from it. And one morning, at about the age of three, I drove it across the street and straight into the nice green Chevron River that surged so appealingly past our house. The truck floated fine and I held on for a wild ride, carried for miles clinging to the steering wheel, giggling and wiggling my toes out behind me in the water. People who saw me go by held their hands to their mouths or started running along the bank, hollering. I paid no attention. I was on my way in the world, and there can be no better feeling. I was happy as a clam in fact, until a boatload of cops fished me out, and left my beautiful red truck to spin away downriver (instilling in me my first real doubts about cops).
    But why was I forced to use my truck as a boat, when there was a big old canoe sitting in our garage? The canoe had been hanging in the rafters since before I was born, left there by the previous owners of our house when they moved to Wyoming. But every time Bee and I asked if we could get the canoe down and try it out, Dad claimed the people who owned it might come back for it some day. Nobody ever comes back from Wyoming ! They’re stuck there, moaning, “Why? Why?” No, they were never coming back for their stupid canoe. Our parents were just lazy stinkers.
    They were the least adventurous people I ever knew! In my whole entire childhood we only left Virtue and Chewing Gum once, apart from trips to the farmers’ market just outside of town, where Mom bought stuff for bottling. Talk about corny! She was always pickling something—’maters, cukes, watermelon rind—for what good it did anybody. But one day, for reasons never specified, we all bundled into the hot car and drove through flat, hot plains and hazy, underpopulated towns, where other families mysteriously chose to live, past HoJos and blueberry stands and pet zoos and picnic spots, never stopping, despite our pleas and threats from the back (“I need to go to the bathroom!” “I’m gonna throw up!”).
    When you’re a kid, you don’t really know if you’re going to survive boredom. It feels life-threatening. Bee and I played I Spy and Ghost, but there were long stretches when she just stared out the window at her imaginary stallion, Hollenius, who was apparently galloping beside our car the whole way. I was left to glare at the brown semicircle of my mom’s head, just visible over the front seat, or else chortle my way through my joke book, with which I tormented my family for years. “What’s yellow and goes up and down? A banana in an elevator!. . . What did the mayonnaise say when somebody left the fridge door open? Shut the door, I’m dressing!. . . What did one wall say to the other wall? Meetcha at the corner!. . . What trembles