Читать книгу The Way the Family Got Away - Michael Kimball - Страница 7

My brother’s cradle and other baby stuff got us from Mineola to Birthrock. My mother’s necklaces and other dress-up stuff got us from Birthrock to Stringtown. This girl there got my sister’s doll people along with all the other things that went with her practice family. They told my sister she wasn’t going to need her dollhouse and the doll people living in it anymore since we weren’t living in our house anymore. So my sister’s dollhouse and everything in it got us from Stringtown to Albion. That was where this other man got my father’s pocketwatch and pocketknife along with some other things my father almost always kept with him whenever we went anywhere.

Those things from my father’s pockets got us from Albion and all the way out of Oklahoma to Hot Springs and our start through Arkansas. That was where this other boy got my baseball bat and baseball glove along with some other things they told me were too small for me. This other boy got all my clothes but for the handed-down-to-me suit of clothes they made me wear and that left me with a ways to go before it would fit me. My brother might have gotten the baseball stuff handed-down-to-him along with the clothes but he wasn’t ever going to grow up into any of it anyway.

So all my stuff got us from Hot Springs to North Little Rock and we stopped for that one night. That was where these other people got our pillows, blankets, sheets, and the other stuff that helped us sleep. We got from North Little Rock to Campbell Station and we kept going away. My mother’s purse along with everything she had left in it got us from Campbell Station to Biggerton. This other girl there got my sister’s locket and chain that had a picture of my sister in it from when she was a baby and sick. But my sister did not die from that and that other girl getting it and that locket and chain still got us out of Biggerton and Arkansas and into Glenallen in Missouri. That was where these other men got my father’s wallet along with all the stuff my father had left in his wallet. There were the family pictures of us and the cards that had the names of other people and other places on them. There wasn’t any money left but we didn’t need any money anymore anyway. My father’s wallet along with all the stuff left in it got us from Glenallen to Anna, Illinois and left us in the middle of America with all those miles behind us and all those miles to go farther away in front of us.

Anna was where this other boy got my guns, my holster belt, and all the bullets that went in my gun or went in the loops of my holster belt and around my waist. My guns and other play stuff got us from Anna to Giantsburg and Old Shawneetown, over the Ohio River, all the way out of Illinois, and up into the hump of Kentucky that has Henderson in it. That was where my mother traded her wedding dress and wedding ring away to this other lady that wanted to wear them and get married. That other lady also wanted the veil to the wedding dress but my mother didn’t have it or any of her other wedding things left but my father. But my mother’s wedding things still got those two other people married and us from Henderson to Hendricksville. This girl there got all my sister’s clothes but for the dress my sister put on to wear out of Hendricksville, up through Six Points, Big Sheridan, Russellville, and into Bennetts Switch.

It was there that we got down to where my mother’s clothes were almost the last stuff of hers that anybody else really wanted and that got us from Bennetts Switch to Frederick Perrytown. This other brother and sister there got the record player and records that my sister and me played in the back seat. The record player and records made somebody up out of words and songs but trading them away also got us out of Frederick Perrytown, out of Indiana, and up into Edwardsburg at the beginning of Michigan.

All this stuff so far got us up to where this man got the silver frame with the picture of our whole family in it—the picture that had all the old people in it that were already dead and some others of us that weren’t dead yet. Our family was going to need everybody we had left in it to get there. That silver frame with the family picture and all those dead people and us got us the miles that got us out of Edwardsburg, up through Schoolcraft, over to Battle Creek, and into Sunfield. That was where this other father and his family got our suitcases and the other things where we had packed our stuff up. Those suitcases, boxes, and crates were almost empty anyway and that other father and his family let us keep the things we had left in them—the underwear and the shoes, the doll parts, our dirty clothes, and some other stuff of ours that nobody else ever wanted but us. My brother was the only empty thing that we kept with us.

But there was all that other stuff that wasn’t ours anymore. There was that other family on their way to somewhere else. There was all our other stuff with all those other people and other families all over America. But all this stuff so far also got us out of Sunfield, into and out of Lyons and Hubbardston, and up into Far Town. These other people there got everything we had left in the glove box—the maps and our other car papers, the flashlight, a pair of sunglasses, some batteries, a sewing kit, a first-aid kit, some gloves, and some other small things that fit in there. All that stuff from the glove box got us all the way out of Far Town and up into Morrison. That was where there were some men along the way that took our spare tire along with the hubcaps, the tire jack, the lug wrench, and some other tools that were in the trunk. Those men took our back seat for the back of their pickup truck and took our rearview mirror so they could see if anybody else was sitting down in it. The rest of our car got us up through Marceytown and Roscommon, on through Toms Mile, Bradford, and some other places that got their names from people that must have done stuff. Or maybe people got that far and then just stopped so that the town and everybody else kept growing up out of all those miles. We stopped in Gaylord and kept going—into its streets and up to the two-story house that was going to have Bompa coming out of it to take us inside it.

That was as far as all that stuff got us. There were all those towns that we stopped at and all those towns that we did not stop at until we got to Gaylord. We traded for the next town in Hot Springs and in Anna, in Henderson and in Frederick Perrytown, in places that never got big enough to get a name, and in all the other towns along the way that already had their names. We traded our stuff away for miles. We traded for the lives of other people, what might have happened to us for what did.