I somehow managed to get through those last weeks before we moved. I didn’t throw any more tantrums. I was in my “grimly stoic” mode, just going through the motions.
Carrie, my girlfriend, took the news of my imminent departure pretty well, too well in fact. Looking back, I think she was more annoyed that she would have to find a new boyfriend before Christmas than broken up over losing the love of her life.
I couldn’t fault her for that. The week before I left she suggested it might be good if we both started “seeing other people”, so I figured she probably had someone in mind. At least she waited until I was gone before she and whoever it was started walking down the halls hand in hand.
I was hurt and disappointed but not exactly heartbroken.
We moved out with our usual practiced precision.
We put an ad in the paper and sold Mom’s rusty Oldsmobile (she always buys some beater of a car when we get to a new town and then sells it off when we leave. You wouldn’t want to trust any of them to survive a long drive.)
We packed our worldly possessions into yet another rental truck, loading it up with all the efficiency of a well-oiled machine.
Lugging load after load out of the apartment and into the van, I got to thinking. If Dad can’t get a full professorship we can use our expertise to become professional movers.
Swartz Moving Company – getting you nowhere fast!
It was raining when we drove out of town. The mall had some soggy-looking Christmas decorations up, and there was a droopy banner strung over the entrance: “Season’s Greetings!”
We pulled onto the interstate, and I watched through the side-view mirror as the town disappeared behind us.
Goodbye Middleton.
The truck we ended up with had seen better days.
The radio had a range of about five miles before it went all scratchy. The heater and defroster were marginal and we had to take turns using a rag to clean the fog off the windshield.
Usually these drives had a let’s-make-the-best-of-it frivolity to them. Dad has a bottomless repertoire of songs, from opera to the Grateful Dead, with everything in between.
We’ll be rattling down the road with him bellowing some silly Gilbert and Sullivan tune, followed by an old gospel song, followed by a Coca-cola jingle, followed by…well, you get the picture.
Not this trip though.
Dad focused grimly on the highway in front of him, humming through what sounded like clenched teeth.
There’s not much to tell about our trip. It was cold, boring, and depressing. We rattled through an empty landscape under a grey sky. We ate in fast-food restaurants and slept in cheap motels.
Once, as we were driving along a particularly empty stretch of highway, I saw a sorry-looking old guy standing by the road with his thumb out.
Hitchhiking?
The guy was going to freeze to death.
Mom and Dad weren’t saying anything about him, which was weird. I kept expecting one of them to say something sympathetic. You know, “Poor guy’s going to freeze out there…” Or, “too bad we don’t have more room…”
As we passed him, though, I understood why they hadn’t said anything.
I could just make out the shadow of the signpost he was leaning against by looking hard through his pale scarecrow-like body.
I stopped worrying about him freezing to death.
After three days we pulled into the thriving metropolis of Gierman, our new home.