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Authors: Amber Kizer
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load our stuff into that Jeep?”
“Oh, please. Give me fifteen minutes and we’ll be ready to roll.” Rabbit crossed over four lanes of parked cars and sure enough, even though he had to break the windows, he got the racks off and onto ours in under a half hour. I just did what I was told.
Back on the road we couldn’t decide if we should go into Spokane or avoid it. Now that we knew there might be people, and they couldn’t all be shooters, there was a huge temptation to find others. A black cloud ahead of us looked like millions of birds swarming.
“What is that?” Rab sat farther forward.
“I don’t know.” Whatever it was, it didn’t look friendly and happy.
“Birds?’
“No, not birds.” They weren’t big enough, and I couldn’t see a single wing outline.
“Are those bugs?”
Oh no
.
“Those
are
bugs.” Rabbit grinned. I could tell he was torn between being a gross boy and being horrified. There were predictions in the early days about the increase in numbers of bugs that ate carrion or used it for breeding. We’d seen it in our neighborhood.
Maggots no longer gave me the total creeps. For weeks, they were common any time we left the house. “Flies,” I said, turning on the headlights and the windshield wipers to help see into the wall of iridescent black.
“Are they coming this way?”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re going to drive through them?”
“I don’t think we can go around them.” The fly cloud seemed to stretch from one side of the landscape to the other.
“This is going to be disgusting, isn’t it?” Rabbit almost clapped his hands.
Boys
.
With the ping of large raindrops, and the splat of flyover bird bombs, thousands of flies smashed against the Jeep windows. It was impossible to stop from flinching and ducking in reaction to all the hits.
Rabbit’s giggles and groans had me loosening my grip on the steering wheel.
“New this year at Disneyland, the Bug Splat, the ride that will have you laughing your guts out.” Rab’s sense of humor was fully intact and so like Dad’s that it sometimes surprised me.
I smiled as Rab dialed to a song on the MP3 player.
“Sound track,” he said as the first beats of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” came pouring over the sound system. We rocked out three times before the edge of the flies brightened.
“I guess we know what all the maggots became. You know they think this is the best thing to ever happen to them.” He grew silent.
“Perspective?” I immediately thought of one of Mom’s last lectures.
Rabbit nodded. “Depends on how you look at it. Let’s turn here and go south.”
“Take 195 south?”
“I don’t want to go into Spokane. What if it’s like Cheney?”
“It might not be bad.”
“But don’t you think those flies mean something?”
“They mean it’s a good time to be a fly. But sure, we can take 195.” I slowed and took the twisty ramp to get onto the smaller highway. There were even fewer vehicles on the sides of the road. We rolled down the windows again and paid attention to the scenery.
“What was that?”
It took me a moment to recognize the brown rolling hills and sand traps. “A dead golf course.”
“Why’s it so brown?”
“No one to water and feed it, I guess.”
“That’s sad.”
Of all the things Rab had seen and been through, this is what he found sad?
“You’re a weird kid.”
He grinned. “Tell me something new.”
For lunch Rab ate cold SpaghettiOs out of the can, while I munched on a granola bar. I missed salad. Fresh fruit.
Thank goodness I’m not vegan
.
“Welcome to Idaho.”
“Wow, we’ve done a state.”
“Yep.” I tried not to imagine how many more we’d need to cross.
“We can spend the night at the St. Joe River tributary.” Rab showed me on the map. “I could use a bath.”
We had a couple hours of sunlight left, enough to make camp, stretch our legs, and wash off in the river. With clean hair and clean clothes, I could
“Oh, please. Give me fifteen minutes and we’ll be ready to roll.” Rabbit crossed over four lanes of parked cars and sure enough, even though he had to break the windows, he got the racks off and onto ours in under a half hour. I just did what I was told.
Back on the road we couldn’t decide if we should go into Spokane or avoid it. Now that we knew there might be people, and they couldn’t all be shooters, there was a huge temptation to find others. A black cloud ahead of us looked like millions of birds swarming.
“What is that?” Rab sat farther forward.
“I don’t know.” Whatever it was, it didn’t look friendly and happy.
“Birds?’
“No, not birds.” They weren’t big enough, and I couldn’t see a single wing outline.
“Are those bugs?”
Oh no
.
“Those
are
bugs.” Rabbit grinned. I could tell he was torn between being a gross boy and being horrified. There were predictions in the early days about the increase in numbers of bugs that ate carrion or used it for breeding. We’d seen it in our neighborhood.
Maggots no longer gave me the total creeps. For weeks, they were common any time we left the house. “Flies,” I said, turning on the headlights and the windshield wipers to help see into the wall of iridescent black.
“Are they coming this way?”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re going to drive through them?”
“I don’t think we can go around them.” The fly cloud seemed to stretch from one side of the landscape to the other.
“This is going to be disgusting, isn’t it?” Rabbit almost clapped his hands.
Boys
.
With the ping of large raindrops, and the splat of flyover bird bombs, thousands of flies smashed against the Jeep windows. It was impossible to stop from flinching and ducking in reaction to all the hits.
Rabbit’s giggles and groans had me loosening my grip on the steering wheel.
“New this year at Disneyland, the Bug Splat, the ride that will have you laughing your guts out.” Rab’s sense of humor was fully intact and so like Dad’s that it sometimes surprised me.
I smiled as Rab dialed to a song on the MP3 player.
“Sound track,” he said as the first beats of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” came pouring over the sound system. We rocked out three times before the edge of the flies brightened.
“I guess we know what all the maggots became. You know they think this is the best thing to ever happen to them.” He grew silent.
“Perspective?” I immediately thought of one of Mom’s last lectures.
Rabbit nodded. “Depends on how you look at it. Let’s turn here and go south.”
“Take 195 south?”
“I don’t want to go into Spokane. What if it’s like Cheney?”
“It might not be bad.”
“But don’t you think those flies mean something?”
“They mean it’s a good time to be a fly. But sure, we can take 195.” I slowed and took the twisty ramp to get onto the smaller highway. There were even fewer vehicles on the sides of the road. We rolled down the windows again and paid attention to the scenery.
“What was that?”
It took me a moment to recognize the brown rolling hills and sand traps. “A dead golf course.”
“Why’s it so brown?”
“No one to water and feed it, I guess.”
“That’s sad.”
Of all the things Rab had seen and been through, this is what he found sad?
“You’re a weird kid.”
He grinned. “Tell me something new.”
For lunch Rab ate cold SpaghettiOs out of the can, while I munched on a granola bar. I missed salad. Fresh fruit.
Thank goodness I’m not vegan
.
“Welcome to Idaho.”
“Wow, we’ve done a state.”
“Yep.” I tried not to imagine how many more we’d need to cross.
“We can spend the night at the St. Joe River tributary.” Rab showed me on the map. “I could use a bath.”
We had a couple hours of sunlight left, enough to make camp, stretch our legs, and wash off in the river. With clean hair and clean clothes, I could
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