“What the fuck is wrong with you? You love Walking Dead.”
I should have dropped it. I should have just let it go, but I didn’t. It made me feel like I was important, that I knew something life changing that she didn’t know. I did, but I wasn’t as good at explaining it as Tristan was. My mom just thought I was crazy. The entire conversation came out all mixed up. It didn’t flow and sound poetic like Tristan at all. Nonetheless, I still did it, giving her a shit ton of word vomit, trying to make it sound as good in words at it did in my mind until Tristan arrived to pick me up.
She didn’t like it, but my mom let me go, not that I didn’t think she would. Besides, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop me.
I loaded the packed bag with clean folded clothes in the back, and forced Tristan from the driver’s seat. She drove about as well as she sang and I only had one nail left from letting her drive the day before. Scared the hell out of me. “Scoot over. We’re in a ridiculous, scandalous, partnership,” I said in a lighthearted tone.
With confusion, Tristan kissed me and then moved over. “We are? Wait. What?”
Laughing I explained the whole conversation with my mom, “She think’s I’ve joined a cult and you’re teaching me witchcraft or some shit.”
“Okay, listen up. I’m about to give you another one of my dad’s lessons.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re about to lecture me for something?”
“I’m not. Not really, but you don’t have to try to convince people to see what’s going on.”
“What do you mean? Isn’t that what you do? I thought you wanted me to spread love. That’s what you preach all the time.”
“To you, but I don’t lecture the average Joe with more information than they’re ready for. People don’t like to think about being systematically lied to their entire lives, Ty. People like to think they’re in control. If it was that easy, I’d do it every day, but it’s not. It’s not your story, Ty. Not your lesson. Even if they want to, you can’t change people. They have to do it their self.”
“I wasn’t trying to change her.”
“Sure you were, but that’s not my point. People don’t want to hear everything wrong in this world. They don’t want to accept all the horrible things going on that they are too asleep to learn about. It’s easier to lose yourself in a game of Candy Crush, a reality show, or Facebook. You can make people aware by just being the change, living how you want everyone else to live, and showing them by example. Especially if you’re not fully awake yourself yet. Sometimes it makes you look like you’re lecturing or being haughty if you don’t get it yourself. Don’t be a snob.”
“I don’t get it. I thought you’d be proud of me.”
Tristan smiled and patted my leg. “You’re just going to make her hate me more.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She just doesn’t know you. I don’t think you ever have to worry about being hated.”
“Oh, I’m hated, I just don’t let what other people think of me influence my life. It’s really none of my business what other people say about me. Once you make it your business, you not only hand over your control, you also feed your mind a flesh-eating bacteria that eats at you.I’d rather think about something more important, like you and my baby, this van, and the magnificent beach you’re about to see. I’d rather be humble, you know?”
A tingling sensation warmed my chest and a genuine smile touched my lips. “Yes, I know. Me, too and I am humble, I just needed you to remind me that I was humble.”
“Just be you, T. Be you, the rest of the world will adjust. It’s not anyone’s job to like you, but yours. If you don’t love yourself, you’re not capable of loving anyone else. That’s what my dad said and it’s true. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“It used to be true. Now I have you and Baby-T. It’s very important to me that you guys love me, too. I don’t even know what happened here, T. You’re both just here. One minute it was just me and my old van, working at fairs, or campgrounds, seeing the world and living my life, and then… With one blink there you were. It’s sort of like looking up to the sky waiting for the stars to come out. You see them appearing, but you don’t realize their adding up. First there’s one or two, and then ten or fifteen, and then hundreds, and then thousands, and then millions. And then you guys. My universe.”
“Wow, T. No wonder I love you so much. That was straight out of a Hallmark card. Better than a Hallmark card.”
“It’s true, Ty. I don’t know what I would do without you. I feel unoccupied when either one of you aren’t right beside me.”
I didn’t have time to think about going deep. She pulled that shit out of her hat and I had nothing brilliant to come back with, “unoccupied?” I questioned, a failed attempt to feign ignorance.
“Yes, thank you very much for doing my laundry, but I’d rather do it at a Laundromat next time. Together. Where we can flirt while you fold my undies,” she replied, admitting in a roundabout way that she missed me.
“Okay, that sounds way better than folding them in front of my mom.”
Tristan gasped and slapped my arm. “You did not. You’re so dead.”
“Hey, check that out. Want to go?” I asked, the heat moving from me to a swinging, covered bridge somewhere on a back road in Maryland.
“A swinging bridge? Okay, you’re undead.”
Of course I was. Tristan got excited about swinging bridges, waterfalls, and starry skis, and baby smiles, like most girls her age got excited about diamonds. There was nothing like a road trip with Tristan. Never in a hurry, she wanted to see everything, and we did. Nine stops in our thirteen-hour trip, including an overnight stay at a Walmart parking lot in Massachusetts, a long nap in a mall parking lot somewhere in New Hampshire, and pancakes with a homeless guy in a park not far from the beach we planned on staying at.
The beach view was all that she said it was and more. We spent an entire day at a flea market on the Fourth where we bought matching bracelets made out of rose quartz. The stone of love or some shit. Tristan made a new friend trying to sell tee shirts and bought us both one. Peace, Love, Resistance, and just below, it said, be that.
There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t know I had something special, but seeing her stand up for humanity and give herself the way she did really made me appreciate her. Not a kid walked by without a kind word, a smile, and a free ticket to the bouncy house. Tristan didn’t have an enemy and she talked to everyone. Not that I minded at all. I had my share of attention. We kissed and flirted the entire day, not that anything about that was out of the ordinary. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I was head over heels in love and I didn’t care who knew it. This was my family, my home.
Later that evening we had the perfect view of fireworks not far from where we were camped. Baby-T even enjoyed it. He laid right between us on the sleeping bag with wide eyes, staring straight up. I think we watched him as much as we watched the light show. He was so amazing and more alert than he had been since I’d held his slippery little body in my hands.
That wasn’t even the best place we’d camped. There were a lot more. Tristan wasn’t lying about seeing summer. That’s for damn sure.
Chapter-Twenty-Six
My time with Tristan and Baby-T was never taken for granted. That summer was the best summer I’d ever had or will ever have again. I’m sure of that. Of course my mother still gave me shit, but it didn’t stop me. An army unit on a team of horses couldn’t have kept me from them. My mom sure as hell wasn’t going to. It wasn’t so bad though. Thanks to Tristan, I’d learned not to get so pissed off at her. Wise beyond my age. That’s what Tristan would tell me when I’d tell her about an argument I refused to have with her. I pretty much stayed out of their way and they stayed out of mine. For the most part anyway. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, even if it was a different kind of fight. I had better things to do.
 
; By the end of July Tristan and I had been all over most of the east coast. We even went to a huge gathering in Canada where we not only explored coves, cliffs, and lighthouses; Tristan also spoke to a group of cub scouts. I met so many people like Tristan. People that believed one thing would fix the world. Humanity. These people didn’t need laws because humanity trumped that. There was no need for laws because there was only good. Free spirited people of all shapes, colors, and ages who loved as hard as Tristan did.
I watched her audience grow over the summer in the most amazing places I’d ever seen. We made love under beautiful skies and woke to amazing views every single day, staying away from home pretty much the entire summer.
We were home two days out of the month of August, one being right after the sickest art gathering I’d ever had the pleasure of being a part of. Tickets for Burning Man. Someone had given them to Tristan after speaking at a real life concert. Some fair we camped at for a week in Indiana. Burning Man was all the way out in the Nevada desert and Tristan didn’t care. An experience of a lifetime, and I’m so happy it was with her. I’d never seen as much individuality as I did that weekend. The bands, the artwork, the poets, the sculptures, and the people; everyone was whoever the hell they wanted to be and everybody was okay with it. There was no diversity and it felt pretty damn good.
We headed southeast at the end of August, planning to hop around the mountains in West Virginia to see fall. After that, we were headed to Florida and then out west again for the winter. The ride back from a few days in Texas was the time I had planned on telling her about the tape hidden in the same envelope as the registration and insurance card. We also needed to talk about me going back to school, but here we were, less than seven hours away, and I still hadn’t said a word. I was sure my mom wasn’t just going to be okay with me not attending my senior year. The best thing to do was probably go to school for seventeen days until I turned eighteen. Tristan got sick the night before we left, keeping me from bringing it up again. She rode the entire way back with a bucket beside her head in the back, sleeping most of the way home.
I parked right between two truckers at a roadside rest around four in the evening, planning to get Baby-T out of his seat and spend the night. Tristan didn’t even get out. She fed Tobias with her eyes closed from the passenger seat and then climbed right back to the back. I changed his diaper and took him for a walk inside the gas station, paying way too much money for a single can of ginger ale for Tristan, hoping she could keep something down and praying Baby-T didn’t get it. She did drink and keep down a little, but not much. It wasn’t until she’d fed Baby-T again and put him to bed for the night that I contemplated; not only my senior year, but a lot of things.
Just after ten at night, I secured Baby-T in his car seat and took off into the night. Tristan was curled into a ball at the other end, and there was no sense in me sitting in a truck stop wide-awake. Instead, I drove toward a half moon wearing my heart on my sleeve. There was something meditative about the roar of the tires on the pavement, the rumble of the engine, and the wipers; swiping slowly every now and then for a light drizzle. Other than the sporadic headlights, there wasn’t much to see; mile markers and reflectors in the center of the road was about it. That left me alone with my thoughts.
I couldn’t believe how much time had gone by, how much I’d experienced in one summer, and all that I’d seen. My life took a direction I never saw coming. How could I? I was metaphorically chasing Pokémon. Tristan and Baby-T changed my entire existence and I was the happiest man alive. Driving down highway, I contemplated the last few months. Little Tobias had grown into his own personality, going from an occasional smile, to a full belly laugh in the blink of an eye. I swear we had tears in our eyes more times than I could count, hearing him cackle like a chicken. His face lit up and his little shoulders bounced just like Tristan’s. We couldn’t leave him alone on our bed for naps anymore because he’d learned that, too. He still had a little trouble going from his belly to his back, but we weren’t taking any chances. Baby-T started sleeping in his own bed more, and sleeping through the night without wanting fed.
I thought about the baby calves that Tristan let lose at a farm just outside of Nashville. I stood back with Baby-T, loud whispering for her to stop before we went to jail. She didn’t listen. Instead, she ushered all eleven of them to the adult heard, insisting on reuniting them with their mothers, if only for the night. One night we camped close to an airport in Ohio, watching planes come in and out from a blanket on the ground. Baby-T loved it. Then again, Baby-T loved everything we loved. We couldn’t explore a lot of things we could have without him, but there was plenty we could do with him. He loved waterfalls, too, and of course Tristan made it a point to stop at every one she could find along our path, even if it was out of the way.
She made enough money by doing what she loved to keep us going in gas and food, and then some. Enough to show me what a little bit could do. She handed out a smile and a little blue ticket to everyone we passed at a carnival. We traded dollar bills for plastic water bottles and a lecture about how one bottle can take up to seven-hundred-fifty years to decompose. After a devastating flood in North Carolina, we helped clean up, always furnishing the peanut butter and jelly. When Toni messaged me on Facebook, we met her and a few others in Delaware for a celebration of his life. Of course my girl spoke; a eulogy none of his family would forget. The funeral home director even offered her a job; said it was the first time in his life he’d witnessed a standing ovation in his parlor. Since the place had been in business since the mid-seventies, that was saying a lot.
One afternoon in Jacksonville North Carolina, we spent a rainy day, placing post-it notes on food. Little yellow squares warned people of chemicals not meant for human consumption. Out of eleven shoppers, two of them bought the number one selling instant noodles. Everyone else looked around with a snarled nose and kept walking, proof that people would change their mind after knowing about the petroleum industry byproduct they were about to eat. Petroleum based in big bold letters in red.
We helped a mother move her and her three little boys into a new house for when the dad of the house got out of prison for a nonviolent crime. He’d served nine of twelve months and was able to leave with an address. Hell of a nice guy who had a tough break and made a mistake. It made me extremely happy to see him united with his family; grateful for our help.
These were the memories keeping the smile on my face, and they were plentiful. One happy memory after another kept me company while I drove us toward home, hoping for a million more summers just like this one.
I drove us through the night, pulling inside the barn at my house just after two in the morning, exhausted and ready to crawl in bed with Tristan. After getting out to take a piss and close the barn door behind me, I met Kota with a pat to her side, quietly telling her I’d missed her. She laid down beside the van when I climbed in the side, happy for the electric to run the fan. Baby-T fussed when I unfastened him from his seat, tossing it to the front for storage.
“Hey, buddy. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m right here,” I softly spoke, placing the back of my hand on Tristan’s hand as I sat beside her. Her fever had broken and she hadn’t thrown up since before we stopped at the rest area.
“Where are we?” She questioned, her arms reaching for her fussing baby as she sat up, trying to focus on our location outside the window.
“Home, in the barn.”
Tristan groaned, lifting her shirt for Baby-T. “Tobias. Why do you do this?”
“Because you’re sick. Now don’t give me any shit. Feed him so we can all get some sleep. Nobody knows we’re even here.”
Nobody but Kota knew we were there. Not even the next day. We all slept until almost eleven the next day, and thank God, Tristan felt better. I even talked her into the house when we watched my mom back out of the driveway. There was no fooling around and it was quick, but it felt amazing. We’d all just gotten dressed in clean clothes when Baby-T d
ecided to throw up, too. Just what we needed.
Tristan took him and the van to the other side of the mountain, and I stayed back with our dirty laundry and all the germy blankets. I kicked back on the sofa and watched two hours of television while they washed and dried, dozing off once I’d put the last load in the dryer. Deadliest Catch played in the background as yawned, only planning to close my eyes for a second. I toppled from being asleep and awake, unsure of whether or not I was dreaming.
“You stay gone for weeks at a time and you think you can just show up and use my washer? Ty. Wakeup.”
I opened my eyes to my mom and shopping bags being dropped to my body. “What the hell, Mom?”
“School clothes. It was obvious you were never going to go. I almost called Avery and told her to do your shopping one more time.”
I sat up, shoving the bags off with a frown. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t need it. I’ve got clothes.”
“Shut up and say thank you. I thought you were going to call me yesterday? You never check in like you say you’re going to.”
“That’s because I’m a big boy. I don’t need to check in with my mommy. Take this shit back and get your money back. For real.”
“No, I’m going to get everything washed up for you and you’re going to go to school looking like the hottest guy that ever stepped foot in that building. You’re lucky you got your dad’s looks, Ty. Look at this shirt. Doesn’t this have Ty written all over it?”
I angrily threw the shirt I’d never wear to my dad’s recliner and got up. “I don’t want any of this. Listen for once in your life. I have clothes.”
“She’s still here, isn’t she? You go to school in three days, Ty. I want her gone.”