Wally Burns turned up the radio inside his rusted, yellow Dodge Dart and lit a cigarette. He loved the familiar click of the lid flipping open on his tarnished, Zippo lighter. He had carried it since he was a young man, never remembering where he actually picked it up. George Jones and Tammy Wynette crooned from the rattling, radio speaker, “You’re the Reason Why Our Kids are So Ugly.” The irony was downright funny, he thought. After what, forty six years, his father had found him and wanted to see him. This man that Wally only remembered as stumbling down drunk, smelling of salty sweat, his breath heavy and sour. The painful throb in his ears, as he would try to block out the hollering. He had a slim recollection of his mama crying, “Henry no!” as she fought off his father’s big, swinging arms. The radio pumped out song after song and Wally had more jumbled recall; three men from town bringing in the pine coffin, hoisting it onto the kitchen table with their hairy hands. One of them had looked down and said, “ Boy, where is your daddy? A little tyke like you left all by yourself, that’s a damn shame.” He shivered with cold, looking at the box with his mama inside. Little Wally stood there until the sun went down and came up again and the men came back. Then the men took Wally away.

The phone call had come just as Wally was leaving for work. Seven days a week he drove the 4.3 miles from the trailer park he called home to the Video Barn. It was not his life long dream, but it was his own store and he worked long and hard to keep it that way. On the phone, the nurse had explained that his father was very ill. The staff at the hospital had been trying to locate his son for weeks. Henry Burns had Alzheimer’s and he was not lucid most times, but he did seem clear on one thing, he had a son named Walter.

Wind hit Wally’s face and road grit hit the grill as the Dodge rumbled down the Interstate. The heat rippled the roadway in front of him and he tore at the memories. His father’s face, it was all displaced. He was lost in a fog of rage and ache, taking the place of any love that was meant to exist. The love had left in the box with his mama. Still, something was forcing Wally’s threadbare tires down the desolate road ahead .

The Delta Ridge Center was another hour or so to go, Wally figured. Pulling out the map from the glove box, he remembered the pint of Jack Daniel. He unscrewed the cap and threw back a heavy swig.
“Not many cars on the road,” he mumbled to himself and swilled down another long one.
He was always so very alone. It was a state he liked or at least had gotten used to along time ago.

The liquor was hot and burned his gut but it comforted too. He lit another cigarette and noticed a billboard ahead; a smiling family of four having the time of their lives in a brightly colored amusement park. It read, “ Playland -Fun For the Whole Family- just ahead.” Wally wondered what having a family would have been like. He imagined laughter filled holidays, aromas of feasts and opening fancy wrapped gifts. He thought of people singing those goofy little tunes for whatever season being celebrated. Vacations in a station wagon, trips to grandparents’ house, beach toys filled with sand. Things he had seen in the video movies.
“Just didn’t happen, that’s all. No use crying about it.” Wally slurred out loud, tipping back the bottle to his unshaven face.

He could see the turn off ahead. Wally nervously scraped a dry hand over his stubbled face. Turning into the U-shaped driveway of the Delta Ridge Center, he inhaled an earthy scent of the planted marigolds, he turned off the radio and felt his heart beat in his throat.

A large, blue-haired woman at the front desk told Wally to have a seat. Her nametag said, Ester Pearson R.N. and she wore a navy colored pants suit. Several elderly people were shuffling around with their yellowed gowns flapping open, exposing the backs of their veined legs and flabby buttocks. Some were clutching walkers that scooted across the pale linoleum. A horribly unpleasant smell permeated the place. Wally thought it smelled like a mix of urine and pine cleaner and maybe something else. He wanted to leave, felt the knots in his gut, but then he saw the nurse holding the arm of a man. A man that looked just like him but timeworn beyond belief. They walked slowly up to Wally with a long, brown duffle bag.
“ Mr. Burns, this is all that your father had with him. You’ll need to sign some papers.”
She walked away and the two men stood looking at each other until Wally exhaled and with contemptuous breath, spewed, “ So you’re my father, you lousy piece of shit”.
The old man looked back and smiled. He whispered, “Could you please tell me where the stairs are? I have to find the stairs and no one seems to know where they are.”

This is how it is when you loose your mind, thought Wally, and what do I do now? The old man grabbed Wally’s arm and held tight.

After the papers were signed, Wally threw his father’s bag in the back of the Dodge and guided the old man to the front seat.

“ You see, you see, I get very mad when I can’t find the stairs and no one knows where they are. Around the corner you see. Ask my son, he’ll know.”

“ I’m your son you stupid jerk!” Wally yelled frustrated out of his head.

Wally felt his hands sweat on the steering wheel, started the engine with a cloud of smoke, and drove in the direction home. He was numb and silent as he listened to the old man ramble endlessly. He hated him for what he was then and he hated him for what he was now. As they passed the two-sided billboard with the happy family, Wally yelled,“ Old man, I hate you! You left me when I was a boy! How could you do that to me, you son-of-a-bitch?” and a flood of tears washed over his whiskered cheeks.

The old man was oblivious and muttered on about hallways and rocking horses and stairs. Wally pulled into a rest stop and hung his head over the wheel of the Dodge. With a feverish chill, he thought he might be sick and braced himself until nothing came. Wally’s father sat next to him continually talking nonsense. He pulled the whiskey out again and polishing off the remainder, lit a cigarette. His was the only car at the rest stop besides one long-haul truck with the driver asleep in the back. Looking around, Wally got an ill sense of exhilaration. A surge in his gut he had never experienced. Maybe it was the whiskey and maybe the hate but he took his father out of the car and walked him over to a bench by the grass. He sat him down and said angrily,“ Let’s see how you like it when the only person left that’s supposed tolove you, leaves you, abandons you where there’s nothing. Nothing around you, in the middle of goddamn nowhere!”

He threw the duffel bag at his feet, turned around and walked away. He knew he could not look back and he didn’t. He could hear the gravelly mumbling voice of his father as he opened the door of the Dodge. Wally wanted to glance back, but instead turned on the radio and grabbed the bottle from the glove box. One last sip left. He flipped the radio knob on and heard Johnny Cash’s gravelly voice churn out, “Burning Ring of Fire”. Wally took the empty bottle of whiskey and threw it towards the road, sending the glass crashing into the hot asphalt. He started the engine and drove towards home.

Before pulling into the dusty road of the trailer park, Wally made a u-turn onto the old highway. About sixteen miles away, in a direction neither his father occupied nor he, Wally pulled up to a phone booth at The Whistle Blower’s Inn. The sun was going down now, the eerie green neon blazing above the booth. Dialing the emergency operator Wally identified himself as an anonymous caller. He wanted to report an old man left sitting at a rest stop, all alone. He gave the general vicinity of the rest stop and hung up the phone.


_____________________________________________________________________________