A Mightily Loud House

Taken For a Ride

The whine in Lynn Jr. Jr. was strong as he groaned for, if Lincoln was correct, the thirty-seventh time since leaving the motel room that morning. Which was only two hours ago. And while Lincoln could agree that the ride was rather tedious, he felt it necessary to remind his son, "This is for your mother, LJJ, now that's enough."

"But Dad!" was he actually a teenager? Lincoln wondered about that, because he wasn't seeing it. "Why couldn't we at least fly? I mean, it'd be quicker that way, right?"

"Yes, but we'd also be seriously constrained by time to fly back or have to re-book," Lincoln began ticking off as he pulled onto an off ramp and onto the next road in the travels. "And we'd have to rent a car, pay to ship the stuff back home, risk your mother finding it and opening it then getting an idea of what her birthday present is, and-"

"Eyesonroadplease?"

Lincoln whipped his head back, chagrined slightly. "Sorry, LJJ!" checking to make sure his son had calmed down, Lincoln sighed. "Anyways, on top of everything else I could list," the man smiled now, "I figured a nice little drive, just the two of us, would hit the spot! We don't get to do this sort of stuff that often."

"Because it's boring," LJJ droned.

Shaking his head, Lincoln could only laugh. "You'll look back on this when you're older and smile, you know?"

"If I make it that far without dying of boredom."

"Enough hanging out with Lane, LJJ."

His son smirked.

It was a much quieter trip from that point on. And by a little before noon, the two had finally arrived at their destination.

"Here we are, LJJ," Lincoln announced as he and his son pulled up to the place. "Royal Woods Memorial Landfill."

LJJ quite obviously had questions if the look on his face was any indications. "Memorial Landfill?"

"Yep."

"For Mom's… present?

"Yeah."

"Which we traveled several days to reach?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Dad!" Lynn Jr. Jr. burst out. "Even I know you don't go dumpster diving for a girl's birthday present!"

"This is different."

"And especially for our mothers!"

Lincoln couldn't help but laugh as he pulled into the landfill and began cruising for his neighborhood's section. "Trust me, LJJ, this is different," then, before LJJ could interrupt, Lincoln explained by blindly pulling out an old photograph from his coat pocket and handing it to his son. "We're looking for this. Or," he corrected himself, "parts of it, most likely."

The photo was of Lynn's old bike, the very same one he'd stolen and the McBrides managed to return. Thinking about it embarrassed Lincoln a bit, but he didn't show it as he explained, "When the house was totaled, her bike was, too. But back then, we didn't think much of it. Too much else mattered. But now?" Lincoln smiled as they found their destination. "Well, you were saying you didn't know what to get your mother for her birthday, weren't you?"

LJJ groaned. "You brought me to dig through trash?"

"Yeah." Lincoln snickered as they pulled up to their particular street's spot. "But it's for your mother, so hop to it."

It was an interesting time digging through everything, Lincoln had to admit as they worked through noon and into the afternoon. He'd made sure to pack a cooler full of meals and drinks for them, and on top of the safety gear he brought he'd even remembered to bring hand wipes and other things they'd perhaps need that day, so they weren't pressed to leave anytime soon.

Which was good, Lincoln groaned, as even though he knew where their house was supposedly dumped?

He didn't actually know what was theirs and what wasn't.

"Uh, Dad?" LJJ called out a little before two. "What's this stuff?"

Lincoln looked up from where he was digging to find some furniture that looked rather familiar… and then it clicked. "Huh, that chest looks like something that belonged to Mr. Grouse!"

His son looked back at him. "Mr. Grouse?"

Lincoln had to laugh as he continued his own search. "Next door neighbor of our family's before the tornado. A real grouch, but a good guy."

"Huh," LJJ looked back at the cracked and beaten chest, then looked closer, grabbing an item out of it and holding it up to look at it. "But what I meant was, why did he have stuff that looks like a guy's-"

Lincoln had chosen about that time to look back up, only to see what his son was holding as pure mortification washed over the older man. "Drop that now, LJJ."

"But-"

"Now." He forced himself not to gag. "And go wash your hands."

"But I'm just-"

"Now."

With a groan, LJJ turned for the car.

"And put that back!"

As if remembering, LJJ dropped the offending item back in its place before doing as his father ordered. Lincoln, meanwhile, crawled up to look for himself, fighting his gag reflex the whole way before he, too, laid eyes upon what sat within.

"There are some things I did not need to know about you, Mr. Grouse," Lincoln shuddered as he shut the lid tight and threw it down the other side of the heap, ignoring it when it crashed against a second pile right below. "And that? That's about five million of 'em, right there."

Forty minutes later, LJJ groaned again. "Man, I could be playing baseball right now."

"Think of it like a sport."

The two met the other's gaze as they each looked up from their own spot on the heap. "A sport?"

"Well, that or… oh yeah! Your mother could make anything a competition, LJJ," this was definitely no secret. "So just-"

LJJ absently threw an object behind his back. "Yay. I found yet another piece of junk."

Lincoln would have scolded him, but he was too impressed by the two three pointers LJJ had unintentionally scored when the piece of junk in his hand sailed through the air, plopped through one old bent and twisted basketball hoop only to cause the trash to resettle, the hoop to bend down, and the piece of junk to sail on through it again before crashing down on the ground below.

Both males looked at each other in silence. "Okay," LJJ finally said after a moment, "that was kind of cool."

This kept LJJ digging without complaint for another thirty minutes or so before he finally whined again.

"I could so be watching the RaDicallyeXtreme channel's sport'o'rama marathon right now, Dad."

"This is more important, LJJ," Lincoln grunted as he dug deeper. "Now, back to work."

As they dug about, Lincoln and his son would briefly cross each other's paths whenever their own section turned out nothing. It was during one such occurrence nearing the evening that LJJ, frustrated, sweaty and covered in dirt, said, "Hey, I have an idea, Dad."

Willing to entertain his boy, Lincoln replied, "Yeah, what's that?"

"Why not forget this junk heap and I'll just go earn the money to buy Mom a new bike?" he sighed as, despite it all, he continued his work. "I mean, it's gotta be better, getting something newer and more awesome than-"

"That's not what this is about, LJJ," Lincoln had hoped that his son would understand the importance of everything they were doing, but perhaps he was wrong? Maybe he went about it all the wrong way? "Something new isn't what she'd want."

"But," LJJ countered. "Face facts, Dad, even if we do find anything of that old bike, the pieces themselves are probably too old and rusted, and they'd break if Mom tried any stunts with'em, maybe even hurt herself." LJJ went quiet for a few minutes before, as the silence grew oppressive, he added, "More."

Lincoln wasn't a fool, or an idiot. He knew this, too.

And then, just as he was about to say something, his eyes fell upon a very familiar sight.

Slowly, carefully, almost reverentially Lincoln reached down and took the warped and rusted old baking pan in hand, his son's words falling on deaf ears as he looked it over, stared at it, felt it first in his gloved then bared hands. Then he lifted it to his nose, and sniffed.

He could still smell Dad's cooking, even after all this time.

It wasn't until LJJ had come up beside him and shook him that Lincoln had realized he'd been crying, though not heavily. "Sorry, LJJ," Lincoln wiped his eyes with his upper arms, then looked back at his son. "Just…," but he couldn't find the words, so he just fell silent as he looked back at the pan in his hands.

A moment passed in silence before LJJ asked, "That… important to you, Dad?"

Lincoln laughed lightly. "Never thought it would be, but it is, yeah."

LJJ took a seat nearby, got comfortable on what Lincoln soon realized was the old couch frame. "Why's that?"

Taking his own seat after a time, Lincoln explained as he turned the dish over in his hands and inspected it. "My… our dad, he was the family cook," how long had it been since he'd eaten his dad's cooking? Lincoln couldn't quite remember now. "When he made something you liked? Man, it was the best. Better than going out to eat… not that we always enjoyed what he cooked, just like you kids and your mamas and I. Most of the time at least half of us wanted to chuck it for take out after we got rid of the kids table."

"Kids table?" LJJ gave him an odd look.

Lincoln actually laughed at that. "Yeah. In our family, our parents originally had a kids table in the kitchen for the younger kids, but they got rid of it. For family bonding reasons… or so they said."

"Why didn't you do that with us?"

That was a good question, Lincoln realized. And one that, after thinking for just one moment, he also realized he could answer.

"Well, LJJ," Lincoln looked at the younger boy and smiled painfully. "See, even though we got rid of the kids table and ate dinner as a family, that happened the same year the tornado hit. So we all didn't really get to eat as a family as much as we definitely should have. Your mamas didn't want that to happen a second time, and now I see why they vetoed the kids table right off the bat."

His son nodded in understanding. "Oh, I think I see, too."

But Lincoln saw an opening and decided to take it. "The reason, LJJ, that we're looking here, through all this trash for even just a few pieces of an old and probably rusted bike, isn't because your mother wants to ride it again. Heck, she hasn't ridden a bike in so long she'd probably wobble on down the street if she tried."

"Then what would she do?" LJJ asked, genuinely curious. "Just look at it? Like that head you guys-"

Lincoln cut him off before he started laughing too hard at that reminder. "Well, probably. Or maybe she'd test it out just a little, remember what it was like back then." Lincoln grew a bit somber now. "Maybe remember the dumb time I stole her bike and lost it," LJJ's eyes widened at that, and his father nodded. "Yeah, a real dumb move that I still feel awful about, especially with how important that bike really was to her back then."

Lynn Jr. Jr. shifted uncomfortably, moved forward on the frame, then lifted his legs so that he was perfectly balanced on it, his back resting against one of the bare armrests. "Guess it probably meant a lot to you, too. Huh, Dad?"

Sighing, Lincoln looked fully at his boy now, not just from the side as he had been all that time. LJJ seemed to be thinking, though about what Lincoln didn't know. So the man just laughed a little and said, "In a way, I guess it did. After all, it was a part of my childhood, too…

"Unlike all you boys, many of us didn't get to enjoy our childhoods to the fullest. All we really have are the memories of better—no," Lincoln shook his head. Not better. "The memories of less complicated times, now. And I know some of your mamas are worried they might someday not have even that. So I thought that, maybe, they'd like some reminders of those times, and that it'd be best if you boys were the ones to help them with that, to be there for them, like they were and are for you, every day since you were born."

LJJ almost immediately blew the pall over them away by saying, "Gee, Uncle Dad, less complicated times, you say?"

To his credit, at least Lincoln held his bladder in check as he let loose a roar of laughter. He hadn't expected that! And as he and LJJ started laughing together, the tension in the atmosphere drained just like that.

After they'd calmed down, Lincoln looked back to the pan. "Did I ever tell you about how I imagined my dad opened his own restaurant?" LJJ shook his head, so Lincoln took the chance to do just that. "Yeah, I actually imagined, when I was still delusional and in denial, that my dad opened up a restaurant. And LJJ?" his son looked up at him before Lincoln continued. "If you ever think of opening your own restaurant? Word of advice; don't."

"Why?"

Lincoln shuddered. "Out of interest, I asked around about doing just that. Seventy to eighty hour weeks?" his son gaped. "Yeah, no. Start a cult and sacrifice yourself, it'll at least save time and be easier on you and your wallet."

His son gave him a flat look. "Thanks for the advice, Dad. Just go out and off myself rather than be a business owner. Such parental material, right there."

"I know, right?"

He and LJJ shared a laugh over that, too, before Lincoln wiped his brow. "Dang, it's getting hot out here. Should we take a break-"

"You go ahead, Dad," LJJ hopped to his feet and looked around the heap. "I'm… gonna give it another go," then, as if to save face he looked back at Lincoln and shrugged. "Besides, you're older, and aren't old people supposed to be, like, cold or hot all the time? Like you can't control it?"

"It's a wonder you made it to this point in your life with no filter on that mouth when talking to your parents, boy."

LJJ just gave him a big ol' grin in response, but Lincoln relented.

They really did raise a good pack of kids.

The search continued into the evening, and when Lincoln had finally figured to call it quits for the night, LJJ came stumbling over and down the top of the heap with several things in hand as well as something under his arm.

"Hey, Dad?" as soon as he'd reached Lincoln, he showed the bent handlebars and a part of what he was sure was the down tube to his dad. He then set the tube down, reached into his back pocket and fished out a jockey wheel and the chain it'd been wrapped up in by some amazing stroke of luck. "This was all I could find of the bike. There weren't any other parts where I found 'em."

Lincoln was stunned. The chain must have been wrapped around it during the tornado, he thought to himself as he took it turned it over in his hands. But then LJJ caught his attention again and showed the other thing he'd found.

"I.. well, I happened to find this, too," he handed the object, a picture frame, to his father before scratching his nose, the handlebars in his off hand. "I mean, I know it's kind of ripped, and worn down, but-"

Lincoln had to fight, to struggle not to burst out crying then and there. What his son, what Lynn Jr. Jr., had found, was the perfect picture.

The perfect picture.

Despite LJJ whining briefly over, "The mushy stuff," Lincoln couldn't help grabbing him into a hug, practically picking his son up off the ground as he did so. It wasn't until LJJ not only returned the hug and began rubbing his dad's back that Lincoln relented, put the boy down and wiped his eyes.

"Thank you," he pulled LJJ into a one-armed hug now, which his boy mirrored. "Thank you so much, Lynn Jr. Jr."

After some silent contemplation, LJJ finally broke it with, "So… should we get going now?"

"Yeah, these pieces ought to-" Lincoln paused, his jaw slowly dropping. "Uh, LJJ?"

"What's up, Dad?"

"Did I ever call and reserve a motel room?"

LJJ was quiet. Then, after a moment, he suggested, his voice squeaking, "Maybe check your phone?"

Lincoln did just that, finding that, no, he hadn't called.

As Lincoln sighed and began trying to look up a room, LJJ droned as he twirled his finger in the air, "Sleeping in the car. What a prize for everything today. Yay."

End