‘Moving Right Along’

  On this cross country road trip, I really got to know Lucinda a lot better than I ever had. She was Eric’s wife and I was friends with Eric. I only hung out with her in social situations that involved groups so we never really got to talk.

  One of the big things I learned was that she really had a self-conscious issue about not having graduated college like everyone else. By this time she had two teenage sons. The first one she had when she was 18 or so, so she was never able to go to college. This made her feel like everyone thought she was just another ‘dumb blonde’. The funny thing is no one thought of her as dumb. When Lori and I dated, Lori was going to school. When she graduated, she was so proud because she was the first person in her family to graduate college and Lucinda, unaware of this fact, always thought of it as a jab at her. Ironically, Lucinda always came off as rather intelligent, but she was very attractive as well. That made her destined to be very successful when it came to a career with or without a degree.

  Another thing I learned was how much a worrier Eric was about everything. Most of it was financial, I’m guessing. He always seemed like such a carefree guy, but at home it was the opposite. I knew he called in sick often but didn’t realize it was his chronic worrying that was making him sick. They were pot smokers and I guess he used it to calm down. I found out during this trip, that Lucinda didn’t care for the pot. She was more of a wine drinker and was afraid that my family would frown on her if she drank on her vacation. I laughed and explained how she had nothing to worry about…

   We drove through the night and talked about everything and anything. Occasionally we switched off and someone took a nap in the back, back of the van (the seats went three or four back, it was insane. It felt like an airplane). By sunrise, we made it to Iowa and stopped for breakfast at some chain restaurant because the sign said they served funnel cake for breakfast. Having only thought of funnel cake as a carnival food, we found it novel. Lucinda indulged even though she was trying to lose weight and was carrying around a little book that told you the calories of everything under the sun. I found it amusing when I bought a bag of Combos at a little county store how she pointed out that it alone surpassed the recommended daily intake of everything bad for you. Of course it does. That’s why it tastes so good.

  By early to mid-morning we passed through Chicago and by 3 or 4 in the afternoon, Lucinda and I were visiting Niagra Falls. Now, we were less than two hours away from where my brothers lived. Lucinda was getting nervous and again I told her that she had nothing to worry about.

  We got to Tom’s, my younger brother, apartment in the evening, but he wasn’t home. I called his cell phone and he told me that they just went over to a friend’s BBQ for a bit and to come there. When we arrived, my older brother Kevin was playing with the kids that were there. He was dragging three kids around the yard using a blanket like a sled and the kids loved it. Lucinda fit right in. Tom’s girlfriend Mindy was drinking away and assured Lucinda that there was nothing to worry about if she drank too much in Vermont. It was almost a requirement. But that night, Mindy may have drank to much because toward the end of the night she got really quiet. When we asked her if she was okay she said no.

  What’s wrong, we asked. She basically said that she was nervous about tomorrow. Right after we got through telling Lucinda there was nothing to be nervous about in meeting my family…

  Mindy explained it had nothing to do with that. But tomorrow, we were going to show up in Vermont and my father was going to make her dig up a grave yard for some gold that wasn’t even there.

  “What do you mean there isn’t any gold?” I asked casually. “How do you know?”

  “Because Tommy told me.” She sobbed. “Kevin made it up.”

  And just like that, it all made sense. I was afraid that Lucinda would be disappointed or upset, but she was not. My brother went through great lengths to play a prank on my dad and before he knew it, he was in too deep.

  He bought all of the ‘Clues’ at an antique store and buried it up in the mountains the year before. He wrote a two page letter, translated it into Norwegian, rewote it in Norwegian. Looked online for old Civil War enlistment records for anyone with the last name of Baker and another person listed in the records for him to ‘write to’, Wrote another two page letter and dipped it in coffee to age it, found an old Xerox copier to copy it. Looked up and forged the signature for the curator of public records for Danby, Vermont in the ‘70’s. Basically, the works. If only he committed this much effort into being successful…

  All Kevin could say was, “Dad is going to kill me.” He didn’t tell him right away because before Kevin knew it, my dad had bought the expensive metal detector.

  “Kevin. Tomorrow, Dad is going to go up into that mountain and blow up that graveyard look

ing for that gold. When were you going to tell him?”

  “I was kind of hopping I could kind of lead him somewhere else for a few years until he died. How many years can he have left, anyway?”

“You are so dead.”