Page 26 - WTP Vol. X #2

At Christmas break Rafe’s Volkswagen, an aging Jetta, runs out of gas. He tells his cousin Zdenek— he’s just fetched him from his job at the local gro- cery—that the gauge went kaputski during the jour- ney cross-country, somewhere around the beginning of Ohio, and it has been a guessing-game ever since. Rafe got to the Indiana line last night and wanted to push on through to Illinois, and he didn’t stop at all for gas today. Zdenek ribs him about it—You’ve got your kick-ass Alpine system playing all your ancient rock heroes, but you can’t figure out how much gas you’ve got in the car.
Zdenek is a senior in high school here, on the plains outside the city of Dockett, seven years younger than Rafe: he is heading for a lacrosse scholarship at the University of Notre Dame next year. The kid lives for his workouts—he’s got biceps like trees. When they get together, as is true with most members of this family, the banter of the cousins is quickly like old times—they were just talking about Zdenek’s current lacrosse stats when the Jetta suddenly, moments ago, shuddered and then had no acceleration. Rafe glides the car onto the grass at the side of the two-lane high- way and stops on a small rise.
Rafe is a graduate student at Tufts, back east; poor and proud, he jokes with his cousin now, let this be a lesson for you, grasshopper: never neglect the essen- tials. I just didn’t want to stop to get the damned thing fixed. He arrived at his grandfather Viktor’s home yes- terday, after twenty hours on the road. Viktor Jaros is ninety-two, a native of Prague—the family patriarch. He had a significant stroke this year, seven months ago—he has largely recovered from it, but more of the family than usual is gathering for Christmas din- ner, relatives driving in from all over—Rafe’s parents and sister from Skokie, south of here, and myriad cousins and aunts and uncles from Indiana and Iowa. Today, Viktor’s wife Tereza has been parceling out du- ties, and—as Zdenek’s car was already employed in family chores—Rafe was called on to pick his cousin up. After they get gas, they’ll need to stop at Zdenek’s home, a few miles up the highway, so that he can shower and change.
You can see the sky forever here. It is Christmas Eve, no snow on the ground, a horizon of stunted corn- stalks. The lowering sun stretches over fields of dry, blown grass. Some flakes fall in the atmosphere.
There are a few trees up ahead, that sun breaking through sparse branches. Silos are sketches off in the distance. Rafe gets out with Zdenek, opens the trunk, pulls out the two-gallon plastic gas can he bought— just in case—somewhere outside of Cleveland. There is no question of needing to call Triple-A: the walk will not be far. You can see the local Sunoco station just there, over the next rise west.
~
The cousins begin their hike. The silos are so far away, the farm next to them so vast, that you hardly sense you are getting anywhere. Rafe walks behind Zdenek. Occasionally cars pass them without slowing. Showing some real Christmas spirit, Zdenek jokes at the disap- pearing vehicles. No, really—thanks for stopping.
Rafe grins at his cousin’s big back and shoulders. The college in the east, with its brick-ivy walls, its blue cupola, Rafe’s slowly-evolving dissertation on Bohe- mian writers under latter twentieth-century oppres- sion—all this seems part of another universe now, now that he is home. Rafe imagines their white- haired grandfather at the head of the Christmas table, carving the roast beef, saying Our professor ran out of gas, the family howling, teasing Rafe in Czech and English—Skvělá práce: good planning, professor. Viktor still moves with some difficulty, though he can speak again almost perfectly; he will be jolly with all the relatives gathered round. Rafe imagines teasing everyone back, saying, Je to vaše vina, It’s your fault— to all those glowing faces—I was so eager to get home to the bosom of this supportive, respectful family I didn’t fill up at all the last day of my arduous trip—the family would laugh and kid him about his bravado.
The guardrails are dented and dark gray. The wild grass growing there is blackened with pollution. The bleached highway reaches forward, looking
like some runway at the end of the earth. Slowly the whole gas station emerges, yellow propane trucks with their chrome cylinder-tanks parked there, the Sunoco sign hovering, the big American flag ruf- fling at its torn ends. Arnie, the manager, is running some large tires out of the garage and laughs when Zdenek and Rafe tell him their predicament. He says to Zdenek, Whole family back for the holidays? And Zdenek says, Just about all of them, Viktor’s getting on— and Arnie says I hear that. When the cousins
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Viktor
Joseph huRka