thanksgiving
anytime it gets colder. i get a distinct memory of thanksgiving when i was a kid. i come from a massive fucking family. at least extended. other then that its just me and my old man. but every year when it gets colder. i had to prepare myself for the BIG ONES.. thanksgiving and christmas parties. someone would always rent out some old shitty shack out on one of the islands. i seriously don't remember why. maybe it was owned by someone? no clue. but we'd always show up. dad and all of the old men would play poker. others would make the meal. i swear there were over 40 people and it would get a little bigger every fucking year. i hated it. my dad would make me wear my church clothes because he never bought me anything else nice. always hand me downs from the local salvation army. sometimes.
if we were really lucky. it would snow. at least i remember one year it snowed and my older cousin had these sleds. and obivously everyone brought the dogs. so we'd get terriers to try and push our asses through the mostly ice roads. it never worked. but i was having the most fun id ever have.
out of town
went out of town with dad. wanted to see the water or something. i took the old highway north and my phone lost service around mile marker 12. saw one of those brown park signs. spectral valley national park. i forgot that place was real? i thought it was a joke from reddit or something. not that i use reddit. i dont. thats gay
anyway we didn’t go in. dad gets carsick nowadays. guess hes really getting old [thank god], could practically kick the bucket anyyyyyday now. maybe. but lets be real old age wont take he out. nope. death comes knocking on our doorstep anytime he cracks open a case of beer from the fridge in the garage. but i could smell pine and something wet.
it reminded me of that zoo glass again. the air had that same fake clean smell they pump into enclosures, like the world outside the fence is filtered through a humidifier. old fuck said it was just the rain coming in off the coast. maybe. but the rain didn’t smell like that when i was a kid. back then it smelled like dirt and worms and the rubber of my rain boots. this smelled like a room trying to remember what rain was. i rolled the window down to get a better whiff and the smell hit harder. sharp, metallic. like pennies in the mouth. i could taste it for a second. dad told me to roll the window back up before the car fogged, but the fog was already there, just sort of rising from the road like breath.
when we passed the next bend, the trees opened for half a mile and i swear i saw the outline of a watchtower through the mist. one of those squat ranger ones with the green roof. only it looked…wrong? wider at the base. like it was melting into the hill. i told myself it was an old barn. it probably was. barns melt all the time.
dad didn’t see it. blind he is i swear to god. he was humming something off the classic rock station. i didn’t know the song. i think he did. when the service came back, my phone clock was nine minutes behind. the car clock said 4:43, my phone said 4:34. i reset it. later, it was right again. on the way home i looked up the park. the site’s ancient. like government 2005 ancient. beige background, pixelated banner. the “visitor info” page still works though. there’s a photo of the same sign we passed. anyway, dad made it home without puking. small miracles. i keep thinking about that smell though. maybe i’ll drive back there sometime when i’ve got nothing better to do. maybe go see the zoo glass again.