Boyfriend Gouhlfriend - Chapter One

When you’re stuck in a vehicle with your parents for eight hours you begin to think that maybe a summer vacation would be more fun if you just stayed at home. And when you start thinking that it will only get worse, you have no idea how right you really are. Even though you are excited to see the new summer home your parents bought, you don’t show any excitement at all. Or at least I don’t.1

And the reason I don’t seem excited is because life has a grand way of disappointing me. Massachusetts just screams let down. So sorry if my outlook is a little depressing, but here in the back seat of a plain white minivan all I’ve got is a cd player and one hundred thirty five shiny round little friends to keep me from going insane.2

Don’t blame my parents though they are good enough people. I don’t even fight with my kid brother Alex anymore, who just happens to be playing with my game boy right now since he forgot his own.3

But right now I’m in this van, no one is talking to me and yet I still want to be alone. And it is right as I am thinking about jumping out the sliding door that dad pulls into a gas station. Hallelujah, I have to piss. I’m almost out the passenger side when dad starts talking to me. He’s telling me something about needing the windows washed but I pretend like I can’t hear him over my headphones. I’m sixteen now, I should be able to drive, but since I can’t he can wash his own car.4

“Zach!” he’s saying.5

He tries one more time to call my name, but I’m half way to the automatic doors and he gives up.6

Half the time I’m in the bathroom I am just staring at myself in the mirror. What I’m doing here is trying to perfect my look of disgust. I am scowling into my own reflection with my eyebrows furled because I know that when I walk outside dad will still be expecting me to wash the windows and I want him to know exactly how much that pisses me off. He’ll get the service, but I’ll be damned if he gets the smile.7

I was right and after I squeegee the last of the water off I throw the washer back into its bucket. My attempts at being dramatic are wasted because dad’s face is halfway devoured by a road map. I get inside and slam the door shut.8

All right! We can go!9

I know I am only yelling over the music only I can hear, but at this point we only have an hour left and I just want to get there.10

We’re on the road again and in my boredom I start to daydream. My eyes close and somewhere amongst my fantasies I fall asleep. It’s not until the van is bumping up and down that I wake up. We are in the middle of a forest on some dirt road heading into more forest.11

I decide to be decent so I take off my headphones, “Does this mean we’re close?”12

“Oh, you’re awake,” dad says.13

Oh, you’re observant.14

“The house is at the end of this road. Just a couple more minutes.”15

I smile. The van winds and turns and jolts and then we come to a clearing. The dirt road turns into a grassy yard with two racing stripes down the middle. And straight ahead are two stories of disappointment. Chipped paint and hanging shutters is just the damage that can be seen from thirty yards back. Eight hours of driving for a grounded bench swing, light fixtures hanging from their own electrical wires and a shredded screen door. By the time our slow approach to the front porch ends my smile has once again reverted to the scowl.16

“We’re here!” dad says and I see his smile in the rearview mirror.17

I am so not looking forward to this.18

We all pile out and unload everything onto the wooden deck. Of course we can’t go inside until dad finds the key somewhere in his luggage. So I lie on the hood of the van and take the whole house in at once. I get lost in the cobwebs that are scattered across the face of the house when the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Something about the house is out of place. I am trying to look for what it is when I realize that the feeling I am getting is that someone is looking back.19

I am so not looking forward to this.20