Look, I know this has become a macabre, deeply black-humored, morbidly fascinating event, but the fact that I too can laugh along with everyone else doesn’t mean I miss my father any less. But how the hell else can one cope with all this? With a straight face? I don’t think so.
We filled our tank for the second time just south of Kansas City and I turned to the pregnant woman sharing my pump and said, “This pump is so slow.”
“Maybe because we’re both using it?” She answered.
“Come on, it has to be able to handle both of us.”
To which she said, “You must not be from around here. I’m guessing one of the coasts. Everything is slow here.”
From there we talked about her trip to the west coast, her return to Kansas, why I’m in such a hurry and of course to what’s inside my van.
Her parting words before she climbed back into her car?
“So, do you look over and say, ‘Gee dad, you’ve been really quiet lately?’ ”
We arrived in El Dorado around 8 PM, just nine hours after we left Evansville. It’s been a real easy trip with me sleeping next to a driving Diane, while Peter naps with his head on the casket.
Diane and Peter approaching The Best Western in El Dorado.
The back of our van. That is a blanket on top of the casket. It’s disheveled as if we’re ambivalent about whether my father needs to be kept warm or not. To the right of him is our travel cooler loaned to us by Jeff and Karen.
