five
We step out of the bathroom, my short-haired, black-haired mom, sister and me. I’m self-consciously tugging at my clothing to try to get it to fit right. Dad did remember to get me a bra, but it’s slightly too small and therefore uncomfortable. The shirt that he bought me, aside from being brown (which is my absolute least favorite color in the entire world), is one of those tight ones that’s supposedly “fitted” to a girl’s body. I’ve never liked those kinds of shirts. I prefer baggy old T-shirts. And the jeans he got for me are a little bit too big, which means I keep needing to pull them up so I don’t look like one of the boys at school who seem to think underwear is a fashion accessory.
Dad and Jeremy are waiting for us. They both have buzz cuts, and their hair is as black as ours. Something else seems off about Dad’s face too, and when I get closer, I realize his green eyes are now brown. Colored contact lenses. I shudder. I’m glad that I, at least, don’t have to wear those.
“Anybody have to use the bathroom before we get going?” Dad asks.
Jeremy and I both do, so we step in to our respective restrooms alone. When we come out, Dad steps into the men’s room, and Mom starts ushering Rachel back into the women’s room despite Rachel’s insistence that she doesn’t need to go potty.
“Can Krystie and I wait in the car?” Jeremy asks.
Mom glances around nervously. “I… guess that would be okay. Just lock yourselves in, okay?” She hands Jeremy a set of keys.
Jeremy and I walk out of the convenience store, and Jeremy unlocks the front door of the car, using the key attached to the ring. Dad’s car is so old it doesn’t even have a remote like most modern cars do. Instead of reaching in and pressing the button to unlock the back doors, Jeremy slides into the front seat.
“Jeremy…” I say, as I push the unlock button and get into the back seat. “What are you doing?” In Iowa, where we live, you’re allowed to get your learner’s permit at fourteen, which means Jeremy has had his for over a year. He’s practiced driving with Mom and Dad, and he’s really good at it. But he can’t possibly be thinking about stealing the car and driving away, right? That would be illegal on so many levels. And we’d be leaving Rachel behind…
But Jeremy isn’t sticking the key in the ignition. He’s leaning over and rummaging for something in the glove compartment. He pulls out something flat, something wrapped in one of our towels from home.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re going to find out. I saw Dad put this here last night.” Even as he’s speaking, Jeremy’s unwrapping the towel from the package. I lean closer, and I can see what it is.
License plates.
Two Iowa license plates, with the same number on them. The number seems familiar for some reason. Jeremy makes it clear why. “These are our license plates.”
“Ours? From an old car?”
“No, from this car. The ones that are supposed to be on this car right now.”
I let that sink in. I remember the scraping I heard at the back and front of the car last night. Could that have been Dad unscrewing our license plates? “So we’re driving without plates? Isn’t that kind of asking to be pulled over?”
“No, Dad put other plates on the car after he took these off. So if ‘they’”—he says it mockingly—“knew Dad’s license plate number, they couldn’t track him by it because he doesn’t have his real plates on. That’s my guess, anyway.”
“Isn’t that… isn’t that, like, illegal? Changing your plates?”
“It’s totally illegal. But nobody’s gonna catch him unless these plates belong to some criminal or something, because it’s not like the cops automatically know he doesn’t have his real plates on just by looking at them. But yeah, I think it’s like a federal crime.”
Gulp. So we’re not only running from them; we’re also running from the government?
“Hey!” Jeremy and I both jump. We look up to see Dad glaring at us from outside the car. He sticks his key in the lock and opens the driver’s side door, glowering. I have never seen my dad so mad or so scary.
“Get in the back,” he growls at Jeremy. He yanks the license plates out of Jeremy’s hands and wraps them back up in the towel.
Jeremy obeys, sliding in next to me. Before Mom and Rachel get in the car, Dad shuts the door and faces us, the fierce anger still in his eyes. “Don’t ever mention these again,” he says, waving the package in which the license plates are concealed. “Do you hear me? Don’t ever talk about them again, don’t ever look for them again, don’t ever think about them again. From this moment on, they do not exist. Do you understand?”
Jeremy and I both nod meekly. I have a million questions, but I know Dad’s not about to answer any of them, so I just stay quiet and let Rachel climb over me into her seat in the middle.
The car pulls out of the dead gas station and back onto the highway. “I’m hungry,” Rachel moans.
“We’ll get breakfast in a little while,” Mom promises her. “When it’s breakfast time. It’s still night out now, look.”
That’s not exactly true. The faintest edge of pink has appeared on the horizon, and I can tell that sunrise is not far off. I try to glance at the car’s clock and find that I can’t see it. I move my head to the right and to the left, wondering if it’s just out of my line of vision, but it doesn’t appear.
Did Dad turn the car clock off on purpose so none of us would know what time it is? What would be the point of that? Can car clocks even be turned off?
“But I want breakfast now!” Rachel is getting whiny. I put an arm around her and hold her close to me.
“We’ll get breakfast soon,” I tell her. I don’t know why I’m parroting Mom’s words; I don’t know when we’re getting breakfast or what’s going on or even how much we can trust Mom and Dad, crazy as that sounds. But it’s important to keep Rachel feeling safe and secure.
“Sing to me,” Rachel begs me. “Sing me the silly song about the beaver and the moose and all the animals.”
So I sing to her. I sing the animal song, and then another song, and then more and more songs until her breathing slows and I can tell she’s asleep. And then there’s nothing to do, so I rest my head against the window and just let thoughts run through my head. Thoughts about singing little-kid songs, and about Dad telling us never to mention the license plates again, and as I start to drift off into unconsciousness, I can remember another time when I was told never to mention something again, and the reason I don’t like brown…
“The color of the grass is green! The color of the sky is blue!” I am four years old, singing a song of my own composition. “The color of the rocks is gray! The color of the dirt is brown!”
“Don’t say that!” Jeremy pops out of nowhere, startling me.
“Don’t say what?” I want to know.
“That word you just said. It’s a bad word.”
“What is?”
“The b-word.”
I wrinkle my nose. I know my alphabet, but I’m not very clear on what words begin with what letters. “What’s the b-word?”
“The word you said in your song. ‘The color of the dirt is—’ That word.”
“What, brown?”
“Yes! Stop saying it!”
“Why?”
“’Cause I said it and Daddy told me to never say it again. So that means it’s a bad word.”
At four years old, I don’t have much experience with bad words, but what Jeremy is saying sounds so silly. “No it’s not.”
“It is! Daddy said so!”
“Brown,” I say, to prove I don’t care. “Brown brown brown brown br—”
Jeremy clamps his hand over my mouth. I bite him. “MOMMY!” He screams. “Krystie bit me!”
Mommy comes rushing into the room. “What’s going on?”
“Krystie bit me.”
“Jeremy said brown is a bad word.”
I speak more loudly, so Mom hears me instead of Jeremy. “He said brown is a bad word?”
“Yeah.” I look over at Jeremy with a triumphant, I’ve-already-won face. If Mom is saying “brown”, it can’t be a bad word.
“Brown is a color, Jeremy, not a bad word. Why would you think it’s a bad word?”
“Because Daddy said so,” Jeremy protests. “He did!”
“Was that maybe in a dream you had?”
Jeremy shakes his head vehemently back and forth. “No. It was right this morning when Daddy was drinking his coffee. I saw a piece of paper and it said Jeremy Jackson on it. And I asked Daddy who’s Jeremy Jackson and he said I’m Jeremy Jackson. And I said, ‘I thought I was Jeremy—’ and then, you know, the bad word, and he told me to never say that bad word again. He said, ‘You’re Jeremy Jackson.’ And that’s it.”
Mom sighs. “Okay. Well, he’s right, your name is Jeremy Jackson now. And Krystie, your name is Krystie Jackson. He meant don’t ever say the other name again. But saying the word 'brown', when talking about the color, is fine.”
I stick my tongue out at Jeremy, an action copied from the kids across the street who we always watch from the window but are never allowed to play with. “Brown,” I say.
Jeremy sticks his tongue out at me and does not play with me for the rest of the day.
Dad and Jeremy are waiting for us. They both have buzz cuts, and their hair is as black as ours. Something else seems off about Dad’s face too, and when I get closer, I realize his green eyes are now brown. Colored contact lenses. I shudder. I’m glad that I, at least, don’t have to wear those.
“Anybody have to use the bathroom before we get going?” Dad asks.
Jeremy and I both do, so we step in to our respective restrooms alone. When we come out, Dad steps into the men’s room, and Mom starts ushering Rachel back into the women’s room despite Rachel’s insistence that she doesn’t need to go potty.
“Can Krystie and I wait in the car?” Jeremy asks.
Mom glances around nervously. “I… guess that would be okay. Just lock yourselves in, okay?” She hands Jeremy a set of keys.
Jeremy and I walk out of the convenience store, and Jeremy unlocks the front door of the car, using the key attached to the ring. Dad’s car is so old it doesn’t even have a remote like most modern cars do. Instead of reaching in and pressing the button to unlock the back doors, Jeremy slides into the front seat.
“Jeremy…” I say, as I push the unlock button and get into the back seat. “What are you doing?” In Iowa, where we live, you’re allowed to get your learner’s permit at fourteen, which means Jeremy has had his for over a year. He’s practiced driving with Mom and Dad, and he’s really good at it. But he can’t possibly be thinking about stealing the car and driving away, right? That would be illegal on so many levels. And we’d be leaving Rachel behind…
But Jeremy isn’t sticking the key in the ignition. He’s leaning over and rummaging for something in the glove compartment. He pulls out something flat, something wrapped in one of our towels from home.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re going to find out. I saw Dad put this here last night.” Even as he’s speaking, Jeremy’s unwrapping the towel from the package. I lean closer, and I can see what it is.
License plates.
Two Iowa license plates, with the same number on them. The number seems familiar for some reason. Jeremy makes it clear why. “These are our license plates.”
“Ours? From an old car?”
“No, from this car. The ones that are supposed to be on this car right now.”
I let that sink in. I remember the scraping I heard at the back and front of the car last night. Could that have been Dad unscrewing our license plates? “So we’re driving without plates? Isn’t that kind of asking to be pulled over?”
“No, Dad put other plates on the car after he took these off. So if ‘they’”—he says it mockingly—“knew Dad’s license plate number, they couldn’t track him by it because he doesn’t have his real plates on. That’s my guess, anyway.”
“Isn’t that… isn’t that, like, illegal? Changing your plates?”
“It’s totally illegal. But nobody’s gonna catch him unless these plates belong to some criminal or something, because it’s not like the cops automatically know he doesn’t have his real plates on just by looking at them. But yeah, I think it’s like a federal crime.”
Gulp. So we’re not only running from them; we’re also running from the government?
“Hey!” Jeremy and I both jump. We look up to see Dad glaring at us from outside the car. He sticks his key in the lock and opens the driver’s side door, glowering. I have never seen my dad so mad or so scary.
“Get in the back,” he growls at Jeremy. He yanks the license plates out of Jeremy’s hands and wraps them back up in the towel.
Jeremy obeys, sliding in next to me. Before Mom and Rachel get in the car, Dad shuts the door and faces us, the fierce anger still in his eyes. “Don’t ever mention these again,” he says, waving the package in which the license plates are concealed. “Do you hear me? Don’t ever talk about them again, don’t ever look for them again, don’t ever think about them again. From this moment on, they do not exist. Do you understand?”
Jeremy and I both nod meekly. I have a million questions, but I know Dad’s not about to answer any of them, so I just stay quiet and let Rachel climb over me into her seat in the middle.
The car pulls out of the dead gas station and back onto the highway. “I’m hungry,” Rachel moans.
“We’ll get breakfast in a little while,” Mom promises her. “When it’s breakfast time. It’s still night out now, look.”
That’s not exactly true. The faintest edge of pink has appeared on the horizon, and I can tell that sunrise is not far off. I try to glance at the car’s clock and find that I can’t see it. I move my head to the right and to the left, wondering if it’s just out of my line of vision, but it doesn’t appear.
Did Dad turn the car clock off on purpose so none of us would know what time it is? What would be the point of that? Can car clocks even be turned off?
“But I want breakfast now!” Rachel is getting whiny. I put an arm around her and hold her close to me.
“We’ll get breakfast soon,” I tell her. I don’t know why I’m parroting Mom’s words; I don’t know when we’re getting breakfast or what’s going on or even how much we can trust Mom and Dad, crazy as that sounds. But it’s important to keep Rachel feeling safe and secure.
“Sing to me,” Rachel begs me. “Sing me the silly song about the beaver and the moose and all the animals.”
So I sing to her. I sing the animal song, and then another song, and then more and more songs until her breathing slows and I can tell she’s asleep. And then there’s nothing to do, so I rest my head against the window and just let thoughts run through my head. Thoughts about singing little-kid songs, and about Dad telling us never to mention the license plates again, and as I start to drift off into unconsciousness, I can remember another time when I was told never to mention something again, and the reason I don’t like brown…
“The color of the grass is green! The color of the sky is blue!” I am four years old, singing a song of my own composition. “The color of the rocks is gray! The color of the dirt is brown!”
“Don’t say that!” Jeremy pops out of nowhere, startling me.
“Don’t say what?” I want to know.
“That word you just said. It’s a bad word.”
“What is?”
“The b-word.”
I wrinkle my nose. I know my alphabet, but I’m not very clear on what words begin with what letters. “What’s the b-word?”
“The word you said in your song. ‘The color of the dirt is—’ That word.”
“What, brown?”
“Yes! Stop saying it!”
“Why?”
“’Cause I said it and Daddy told me to never say it again. So that means it’s a bad word.”
At four years old, I don’t have much experience with bad words, but what Jeremy is saying sounds so silly. “No it’s not.”
“It is! Daddy said so!”
“Brown,” I say, to prove I don’t care. “Brown brown brown brown br—”
Jeremy clamps his hand over my mouth. I bite him. “MOMMY!” He screams. “Krystie bit me!”
Mommy comes rushing into the room. “What’s going on?”
“Krystie bit me.”
“Jeremy said brown is a bad word.”
I speak more loudly, so Mom hears me instead of Jeremy. “He said brown is a bad word?”
“Yeah.” I look over at Jeremy with a triumphant, I’ve-already-won face. If Mom is saying “brown”, it can’t be a bad word.
“Brown is a color, Jeremy, not a bad word. Why would you think it’s a bad word?”
“Because Daddy said so,” Jeremy protests. “He did!”
“Was that maybe in a dream you had?”
Jeremy shakes his head vehemently back and forth. “No. It was right this morning when Daddy was drinking his coffee. I saw a piece of paper and it said Jeremy Jackson on it. And I asked Daddy who’s Jeremy Jackson and he said I’m Jeremy Jackson. And I said, ‘I thought I was Jeremy—’ and then, you know, the bad word, and he told me to never say that bad word again. He said, ‘You’re Jeremy Jackson.’ And that’s it.”
Mom sighs. “Okay. Well, he’s right, your name is Jeremy Jackson now. And Krystie, your name is Krystie Jackson. He meant don’t ever say the other name again. But saying the word 'brown', when talking about the color, is fine.”
I stick my tongue out at Jeremy, an action copied from the kids across the street who we always watch from the window but are never allowed to play with. “Brown,” I say.
Jeremy sticks his tongue out at me and does not play with me for the rest of the day.
