I don't remember much about the drive from New Hampshire to Utah except that I got a second-degree burn from one of the custom side pipes of my grandfather's Ranchero at our first pit stop. I spent the rest of the trip nursing my wound and trying to show my mom I wasn’t a klutz.
It was just after sunrise when we pulled up to Grandpa's place in Salt Lake City. After being pressed together like Siamese twins in the truck for several days, my brother Ronnie and I scrambled out from the middle of the bench seat before my grandfather had a chance to cut the engine.
"Settle down," my mother chuckled. It was the first time I heard her laugh the entire trip. Maybe ever.
The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I jumped out of the passenger side. The first thing that caught my eye was the mustard yellow sign on the building just above the door. It said Ken's Auto Body in big, red, curvy letters.
I looked from one end of the building to the other and back again. I don't know what I expected an autobody shop to look like, but this wasn't it. Aside from one spot where a tiny camper sat propped up on cement blocks, the small parking area in front of the shop was occupied by a long row of antique cars, each of their shells in various stages of decay. I wondered how long they’d been there.
My grandfather shuffled over to the office door, unlocked it, and led us inside. Just as my eyes started to adjust to the darkness, the fluorescent lights flicked on, and I scanned the room.
There was a long metal desk to the left, a stack of boxes with a tiny TV on top in the back left corner, a doorway in the middle of the opposite wall that opened to the garage, a file cabinet in the far right corner, and a cot against the wall to the right.
It was so small that all the furniture almost touched. Magazines, car manuals, papers, tools, open cigarette packs, and glass jars filled with nuts and bolts covered every surface. The place smelled like dirt, rubber, and spray paint.
My brother whisper-yelled to all of us that he had to pee, and I could see that he’d already had a little bit of an accident. Mom picked him up and started in the direction my grandfather was pointing to find the bathroom.
"Do you live here, Grandpa?" I asked after they left.
I wasn't sure if that was something my mother would get mad at me for asking because it was none of my business, but since she was out of earshot, I figured it was okay.
"Yup. I sleep on the cot right there. I don't need much, just a place to lay my head. I spend most a my time here at the shop or at a meetin’ anyways, so it doesn't make no sense to live someplace else."
What kind of meeting? How does he cook his food? Where are the rest of his clothes?
I plopped down on the cot and watched dust shoot out of the thin mattress and float to the floor. I wrinkled my nose by accident but managed to fix it before Grandpa noticed.
I hoped we wouldn't be living here with him. His office was filthy, and there was no place for us to sleep or put the stuff we brought from New Hampshire. There had only been room in the truck for me to take a few things; four or five outfits, my Donny and Marie dolls, the portable record player my Grandma had given me, and a few 45s.
There wasn’t a single empty spot for any of my things here, let alone whatever my mother packed for herself and Ronnie.
As if I had said my thoughts aloud (had I?), my grandfather responded, "You guys'll stay in the camper out front for now. Till we figure somethin' else out."
It didn’t look like there was much more room inside the camper, but it was bigger than the cab of the Ranchero, so maybe we wouldn’t have to sleep sitting up at least.
Suddenly, something inside my chest made it hard to breathe. I wondered what my grandmother was doing back home and if her new husband Cy was nicer to her than Charlie had been.
I hoped she'd keep the Snoopy sheets on my old bed just in case I ever came back.
Kimberly says it so well. These personal narrative pieces you’re posting are starting to carry a story forth.
This piece turns in the final lines. We get to see inside your young mind, just a glimpse, not too much. And it creates a suspense and a desire to know what happens next. You do a wonderful job depicting your grandfather. There is complexity here. We start to see into the world of each of you.
I look forward to reading more. . . .
Those last three sentences. You brought me right inside your young mind, the wondering, the uncertainty, the longing for something to remain unchanged. Looking forward to reading what happens in this setting.