The Bad Trip

In this excerpt, my mother and I embark at Kennedy Airport for our 5th trip to Germany, which we made in the summer before I began 8th grade.

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             My mother planned another trip to Germany.  A big one.           

             I have money saved and they will let me take time from my jobs, she said.  I told them Oma is sick.  I lied but I don’t care.  We’re going to leave after July Fourth and stay seven weeks.  You’ll be back in time to start school.

                        I thought that was a long time.  I wanted to play war with Andrew and Colin and ride my bike all summer.  At the same time I knew I would have a lot of chances in Germany to buy more wargame models, things I couldn’t find at home.

                        You’ll really learn great German.  You’ll be an expert by the time we come home.  You’ll learn more than you did in German school.

                        Why are we staying seven weeks?

                        I’ve got to get away from you old man for a while.  Two or three weeks just isn’t enough, I need at least a month’s vacation from him.  And while I’m gone he’ll find out what it’s like without a slave of a woman to cook and clean for him, to wash his dirty underpants.  Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll get sick of it after a couple weeks and go find some other stupid woman and take up with her.  That would be good, if he would just leave.  But he’ll probably stick around until I go crazy or drop dead, and then you’ll be left to take care of yourselves, or get put in foster care like he did with his other sons.

                        My old man was mad that we would be away for so long.  But my mother told him the lie about my Oma being sick, so he shut up. 

                        My old man dropped us off at Kennedy Airport, like he always did.  He didn’t stay long.  He kissed us with his scratchy, sweaty face and hurried away, turning and waving his arms.

                        Look at that idiot, my mother said.  My old man was waving both arms over his head like a leathered castaway signaling a vanishing ship.  Except things were backwards, it was him and not the rescue ship that was slowly vanishing into an erratic swell of human waves.  Then he was gone.

                        And as much as I didn’t want to, I felt sad to see him go. I bit my lip and hated myself for it until I wasn’t sad any more.

                        My mother sagged in her terminal seat.  She sank inside our palisade of luggage.  Thank God he’s gone.  Now I can relax.  She covered her face with her hand and she wept a little.

                        Her tears were a premonition: it would be a bad trip.  A very bad trip.