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Backstory

The couple took off for Prince Edward Island. One kid was left in Sunnyvale with his great aunt and great uncle to watch Road Warrior everyday while having his lunch. The other kid was left in Palo Alto with her maternal grandparents to have Happy-Hour-At-Home where, at 4:15 p.m. on the nose, she had a Coors Original while her grandmother sipped on two jiggers of Old Crow with a splash of water.

Prince Edward Island

The couple is trying to get to Confederation Bridge to go back to the mainland. She has the crisply unfolded map gripped widthwise, then lengthwise, everywhichway but upsidedown. The signs at the crossroads, every junction being a crossroad, look like something from Looney Tunes: a wooden post with arrowed slats pointing to the various communities of Kilkora, Lower Freetown, Summerside; she tries to reconcile the topography of her view with the AAA map by the slant of the roads. There is yelling.

“We’re going the wrong direction!”

“Whose fault is that?!”

Words are as adversarial blows rather than transmissive devices. He pulls over to the side shouldering a potato field. Both are down for the count and…there is silence, intolerable silence. No verbal darts between the couple. No way to talk around the remarks they really want to make. He switches on the radio and tunes into a BBC game show of word association.

Sunnyvale

He plugs the tape (Memorex) into the VCR (Sanyo) and maneuvers himself back around the TV tray (oak) on which sits a chicken salad sandwich (with grapes and almonds on cracked wheat), carrots (raw, cut into sticks), and a 7-UP (slightly flat, ½ drank). Mel Gibson (Max) flexes (triceps, biceps, his sister, Suzanne, would be impressed) and the dust (powder-fine) flies. He absently picks at the scab (cracked and scaly) on his knee from the previous week’s skateboarding mishap.

His eyes (blue, Daniel) widen as the dune buggies roar toward certain violence (death and destruction). His parents (Harvey and Kay) had a date once where they had dinner in the movie theater’s (The Guild, The Park, The Varsity, he couldn’t remember the name) courtyard followed by a viewing of Road Warrior. He saw what they viewed (death and destruction). They said they had almost lost their dinners (steak or something). His lunch (chicken salad sandwich, carrots, and 7-UP) was staying down quite nicely.

Game Show

[CONTESTANT clears his throat and crosses himself silently, almost without discernable gestures. He stretches his neck forward while widening his eyes. His body becomes rigid and his mouth is drawn. The microphone is positioned approximately six inches from his mouth. The word is MAPS. Pause.]

Contestant: This is something that can come between the closest of friends.

Palo Alto

Looking at the grandmother, a former home economics teacher. Sitting on the couch. The grandmother sitting in a chair. The grandmother having the right hand with the permanently limp fingers resting in the lap. The grandmother having the left hand curling about the sweating cocktail. Both the hands are gripping the can of beer.

There is slow and hesitant talking. Words unfurling from half drooping and quivering lips. The neural networks are tangling as the rest of the body.

There is active and reactive listening. Words are taken in to, into, a growing mind. There is building, and inheriting, of memory, in bits, and pieces.

The grandfather, a former electrical engineer and radio announcer, is in the garage building electrical devices that are somehow connected to radio transmission.

Game Show

[AUDIENCE applause for approximately 10 seconds. Pause.]

Sunnyvale

He thinks that Max (Mel Gibson) is a lot like Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood). Max is a good guy (Superman, Ronald Reagan, Eddie Van Halen). He thinks there doesn’t seem to be much to save (dirty clothes, dirty houses, dirty roads), but Max (Mel Gibson) still wants to do it.

He pauses the VCR (Sanyo) to get up and go to the bathroom (body moisturizers, seashell shaped soaps, blue toilet water, pink toilet paper).

The hallway (off which there are two bedrooms and one bathroom) is a gallery of family photographs (great aunt and great uncle’s wedding, 1st cousin once removed, the Album family, grandparents, brothers, sisters, unidentifiable family members). The rug is a Persian runner that had formerly lain in his grandparents’ (where Suzanne is) hallway. There are no rugs in the movie (Road Warrior), only rags.

Palo Alto

The grandmother is finishing the drink and dry Cheerios. She is finishing the one and only beer for the day, and the small saucer of mixed nuts whose chill from the freezer had thawed.

The conversation is done. The grandmother is sitting silently licking the lips while she is sitting silently watching the grandmother. She is thinking of the brother at the great aunt and uncle’s house. She is glad that the brother and she cannot fight over such a distance. She is glad the brother is not sitting in the grandparents’ living room. She is bored, so she decides to read one of the mystery books that are lying on the end table, unread, by the grandfather’s chair.

Sunnyvale

He returns to the chair (oak with a floral cushion tied to the seat) in front of the TV (and the oak TV tray that now held the empty plate that had sat under his lunch) and uses the remote control (for the Sanyo VCR) to take the movie (Road Warrior) off pause.

He decides not to watch the movie (Road Warrior) all the way through today (Tuesday, 12:37 p.m.).

Prince Edward Island

There is complete disbelief, followed by laughter. He pulls away from the shoulder while she, with a lingering titter and flap of her hand, guides the map back into its folds. The wounds are sutured, creating another map of sorts, one more appealing to this newly found liberty born of the laughter and release of the resentment.

“Let’s go exploring.”

“Yes, let’s.”