Part II: Journeys (Chapter 18)
Visiting
Sioux City once a year is a little bit like Christmas: anticipation
promises more than reality.
I
know this, but every year, I think that things will be different, that all my
relatives and old friends will drop their lives for the sole purpose of
entertaining me.
“Look
who’s blown into town,” I imagine everyone saying as Shel and I swing onto the
Hamilton Blvd. exit in our red Jetta with the blue Pennsylvania plate.
The
girl who moved east and married a big-time psychologist and professor.
If
they only knew...
As
we head for Sal’s via Hamilton Boulevard and West 14th Street, I’m disappointed
when I see Sioux City people doing what people anywhere would do: shopping at
the Hy-Vee, hanging out at the old Lippmann’s store, walking their dogs along
West 7th, hitting afternoon Bingo at the V.F.W.
And
I’m always surprised at how dirty and small the town seems: litter everywhere,
empty lots overgrown with crabgrass, broken glass in the streets, old clapboard
houses with peeling paint, the whiff of the stockyards hanging in the air, the
air heavy with wavering heat and humidity.
I
don’t remember these scenes and smells from my youth.
Somehow,
the visions and smells of way-back-when include bluey foot-deep snow, sweet
crisp air, the fog of my breath as I walked to school, the odor of the Wonder
Bread factory distracting me during first period Algebra – maybe just a dirty
world covered by a blanket of snow, after all.
When
we arrive at Sal’s, tired and hungry, no one is home. Shel and I climb over the
fence in the backyard and scrounge around on the back porch for the key that
Sal has sworn is in the old dresser drawers. I take comfort in the fact that
nothing here has changed: old rags, dog and kid toys, bones, auto parts, old
pots and pans – and even occasional piles of dried dog shit – still litter the
porch. When my cousins were young, Sal’s house always smelled like piss, shit,
and sour milk, odors I have always associated with big, happy families.
I
don’t know what I would do if Sal suddenly became a cleaning freak. Probably
flip out and go back to Pennsylvania. Sal’s sloppiness drives Sheldon nuts, but
I find it comforting in a world that already places too much importance on the
expected and the ordinary. I like the fact that Sal doesn’t give a damn what
others think about her housekeeping and vow that I’ll work on caring less, too.
By
the time Shel and I find the key among the old, gray jockey underwear and
tattered swimming trunks that Sal keeps for her grandkids, Ashley, my cousin,
arrives home from work and, without breaking stride, sidesteps a pile of
doggie-do.
“Oh,
good. You found the key,” she says as if she sees us every day instead of once
a year.
“Forgot mine this morning.”