Tribute


I’ve been driving irradically all weekend. My uncle, Truman, died last Thursday and I’m beginning to suspect that my driving might be an unconscious tribute to him. My uncle pushed the term crazy driver to lunatic levels. Born generations before extreme sports hit the scene, my father and his brothers Truman and Grant enjoyed plummeting down the vertical streets known as the avenues. Always in the middle of a story, steering, stopping, or signaling, never got in the way of their gesticulating to emphasize a point. Cars honking, yelps of startled pain as result of passenger’s heads banging into side windows after a sudden jolts and jerks, wouldn’t cause so much as a pause in the dialogue. Instead of trips to theme parks, my parents could just throw us in a car with Uncle Truman, give the pre-recorded safety advice to keep our heads and arms in the vehicle at all times, and tell us to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Truman owned a burgundy Gremlin, more the color of a wine stain than the actual liquid. The geodesic dome-like roof created the illusion that you were going for a ride inside a purple turtle shell. At a time that predated seat belt laws, we could all pile into the back and bounce around like the multi-colored balls inside those playschool popcorn popping bubble topped push toys that had two wheels and a long wooden handle.

I think about that car. I think about how Truman, on leisure days, would wear a mechanic’s jumpsuit with a trucker’s polyester and mesh hat resting on the top of his head because he couldn’t be bothered to unstick the plastic adjustable band in the back to make it fit. I think about how he was the middle of three boys, raised alone by their sturdy father, their mother having died from complications after the birth of my father. I think about the smell of their father’s head, bald and sweet, the same smell of my father’s head and the smell of my middle son’s forehead. I think of their family motto “Us Four and No More.” One, Two and Three are gone. My father is Four and there are No More. I think of my three boys and my grief overtakes me. Grief for a mother who never knew her beautiful sons, grief for a Grandfather who never knew my sons, grief for my father who now lives without brothers. This grief sits at the top of my throat, hovering above my heart, waiting for the ride to be over. I swallow and swallow but I can not force it to the pit of my stomach.

Even now, as I am driving home, I can picture his soft clear, watery blue eyes, a smile creasing their corners. His hands raised above his head, “Blessings,” he says as he exits. I brake and swerve from the shoulder back onto the road.