Car Ride

Car Ride

"You're squishing me, you fat lark!" I had to scream it over the rattle of gravel. My brother's bulk was pushing me against the side of the small jeep. It was a miracle that the vehicle didn't tip over on the sharp corners in the back roads of Michigan.

Unfortunately, my stepmother's capacity for pity was reaching an end. The long, winding roads were grinding it down to a Scrooge-like persona.

"Shut up! How old are you? Seventeen?" I cringed. I felt my brother chuckling, his rolls of fat shivering against my burning face. My stomach fell out from under me. Scorn and indignation held me up.

Why we had to shove three people in the back I didn't understand. Two hours in the car, and we still had two to go. We were headed to another family reunion at the old family farm; how nostalgic. I hoped it wouldn't be another drunken bash, with uncle Larry trying to do a belly flop in the kiddy pool. I wouldn't make the mistake of being in it while that happened twice, in any case. Loss of dignity was a theme in my family.

"Hey, Gregg, how 'bout we play a game?" asked my brother, Matt.

"Shut up," I said. I was resigned to staring out the window, somewhat hoping that a rib would break and puncture my lung.

"No! Let's play I spy." I knew where this was going.

"I spy something fat and ugly." He said. I looked up at him. He was twice my size, staring down at me with beady eyes like buttons in his cusion of a face.

"What? Did you see a mirror out here?" I paid for that: he pushed all his weight on me so that the door handle was digging into my side. I was struggling at breathing.

"Ahhh, that's a bit better," said Al, my other uncle, who used the opportunity to scoot more towards the middle and free his legs.

"No," said Matt, back on the subject of fatness and ugliness. "Your girlfriend." Things hurt the most when they’re true.

"You're a pig," I pointedly told him.

"Marry!"

"Cut it out, Gregg! I'm sick of this, you say one more thing, and you'll be sitting in the cabin the whole time !"

So I cut it out, and stared out the window.