Free Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 by Road Trip of the Living Dead Page B

wet-nap.
    “Did you two forget to say the blessing? Because I’m pretty sure I stepped in poo back there.” He scraped the square-toed black shoe against the curb. The dog feces rolled up like a holiday sponge cake and dropped from the toe.
    Wendy held her palms together in prayer. “We’d like to thank the Lord, Jesus Christ, for minimal tread on Italian loafers.”
    “You’re both going to Hell … and yet I’m amused.” I giggled.
    We all laughed and tramped back to the Win-nebago. 45
    By 3:00 A.M. we were rolling along the Interstate, heading east. Next stop, wherever, since we still hadn’t bothered to pick up a road atlas. Gil had chosen to follow in the Volvo, opting for the comfort of the seats. During the previous night, he’d been forced to sleep holding a plank of cardboard over the bathroom window, and complained of a crick in his neck as a result. He insisted heated seats were the cure. And after we’d tin-foiled up the bedroom window in the back of the Winnie for his next hibernation.
    Ingrate.
    By dawn, eastern Washington proved to be nothing to look at. Hills rolled off into flat dusty farmland, already harvested and tilled, like the Evergreen State’s dirty brown secret. There were no trees, very few structures, nothing really to look at; even the few cars, at that time, were stuffed with faces so drawn and exhausted as to be completely uninteresting. Gil locked himself up in the back, Wendy buried her nose in fashion magazines at the table, and Fishhook talked me into driving the Volvo for a while. I didn’t expect thathe had anywhere else to go and his social skills pretty much guaranteed he wouldn’t be making many friends, so I went with it.
    The low drone of the engine lulled me into mem-ories. 46
    Of Chapstick and diarrhea.
    This is how bad my mother was—probably still is. Oh, who am I kidding? Definitely still is—one year, my father (the real one, not one of Ethel’s scaly substitutions) took us along on one of his trucking routes. It was a cause for celebration, as he’d never brought us before and, thankfully never brought us, again. I was eight at the time and even then into my mother’s makeup, which she loathed.
    “Don’t touch my goddamned mascara, Amanda Shutter. You’ll get germs on it. Do these eyes look like they want germs on ’em?” 47
    I didn’t know whether eyes
wanted
anything, or noses, or ears. But lips—I can tell you—lips
want
Chap-stick, if for no other reason than to mimic my mother’s lipstick routine. She wasn’t a smearer, nor did she line. Ethel Ellen Frazier was a patter. She’d pat that tube of blood red paste on in the tiniest overlapping circles until her lips were as rosy as a Chinese jewelry box.
    “Dad!” I yelled from the backseat. “Can we pull over and get some Chapstick? My lips are dry.”
    “Sure thing, soon as I see me a 7-Eleven.” Dad’s face was well-lined and tanned, and the cigarette dangling from his lips bobbed with every word. It was a skill.
    “Oh, John. You’re spoiling her, next thing you know, she’ll be hounding us for mini-skirts and alcohol.”
    “She’s eight, woman. She’s not interested in boys or booze.”
    “You keep tellin’ yourself that, Hoss. I know girls. It starts early.” Ethel shot a glance into the back cab, daring me to say something back. She hated backtalk.
    “I’m not interested in—” I began.
    “What? What? What?” She was in one of her moods and normally, I’d acquiesce or she’d come up with some ludicrous punishment like licking hot peppers, or going to the Humane Society on Monday morning, or as she liked to call it Ash Monday.
    “I’m not
interested
in boys.”
    “What do you know? Nothin’, that’s what.”
    Dad pulled the big rig into a convenience store, and we hopped out. My mother clopped over to a phone booth, lit up a Virginia Slim and sucked at it like a blowgun. My father led me into the store and let me pick out a cherry Chapstick and a Coke-flavored