Buy the book Growing Up Itchy

The old pale yellow Datsun shuddered as it came to a stop, heater roaring under the dash. Sleep dissipated, and Grey struggled up from the cracked vinyl seat. Impressions of plastic leather stitching ran across the side of his face. His eyes cleared as he blinked away the vestiges of a dream. Grey could see that Ash was struggling to get up from the floorboard, where he had been sleeping. Seat belt laws might have been invented at that time; but not a single soul within 100 miles gave a hoot of such things. So Ash slept on the floor; he was the only one who could fit down there.

Grey and his brother looked groggily at each other,
then it hit them – they had stopped! Their eyes brightened as they clambered up to look out of the foggy window. In front of them, like old, tired guards, eight dented mailboxes stood in a ragged row next to a steep dirt road. It was a bit mysterious, Grey thought, the way the road went up and out of sight so quickly.

Mom let out a great, long sigh. She shut the car off and the engine rattled to a stop. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her arms. They sat motionless, listening to the silence for a bit, and stared at those mailboxes. Pine trees and tall brown grass framed the scene as silence filled their ears. The window fogged more at their excited breath, and the cold glass blocked their view. Grey wiped it away and refocused his attention to that road. It led up a mountain and curved out of sight, like a big snake trying to get away from them.

“Can I get out?” Asher innocently shattered the silent moment. He was pointing forward.

Grey turned away from the foggy window. In front of the old Datsun he could see the dump truck with its halo of plastic wrap, and Dad was stumping around the side. He peered up at the shredded sheet of plastic that was once an intact rain barrier. The wind-torn shreds stuck out from the top of the dump truck’s cargo bed like the white hair of a boy who had just woken up from his nap.

Mom was saying something unpleasant, but quietly – Grey couldn’t hear what it was. He knew that inside the dump truck was every single thing that used to be in their little home back in California, including a piano and all his books. He also knew that some rainwater had gotten through the plastic, and that made Mom and Dad considerably unhappy. When the storm came, Grey had been glad to ride in the car with Mom; Dad wasn’t good to be around when he was in a bad mood.

Mom slowly turned in the driver’s seat to look at the two boys. Asher was growing like a weed, and Grey was five now. The boys were both dirt-colored and Asher had white hair like his older brother – “towheads” was the word Dad sometimes used – although Grey had no idea what that meant. Black fuzz and floorboard dirt stuck to Ash’s cheek, and his eyes begged Mom to let him get out. Ash didn’t care much about dirt, one way or the other.

“It’s cold,” Mom said. “Put on your coats and you can get out for just a minute – we’re not there yet.”

Grey struggled into his coat, but he couldn’t work the zipper. It was always getting stuck and it made everyone unhappy, so he held his coat together – small pale hands gripping the zipper – he hoped Mom wouldn’t make him zip it up and turned away from her so that she would not see.

He pulled on the clammy chrome handle and the door clunked open. He climbed out of the Datsun, his legs feeling like they had been stuck in a box for too long – it felt so good to walk around. As Ash carefully climbed down behind him, Grey swallowed up the country view with wide eyes.

They were standing on a small winding road. On one side, away from the mailboxes, a brown meadow stretched away from view. On the other side was the biggest mountain Grey had ever seen up close: it was made of brown grass with big patches of dark green pine trees, and there was the road that wound up out of sight.

“We’re going up there, Grey.”

Grey looked up at Dad. He had finished inspecting the load, and joined Grey in gazing up the mountainside.

“We’ll leave in a minute” Dad said. “Why don’t you go potty around the side of the truck, and then we’ll go.”

The dump truck loomed tall over Grey’s head as he peed onto the large tire. It was as tall as Grey – perfectly gigantic. It had to be tall because the dump truck was as big as a whale. A black and rusty whale. It was also rounded like a whale, not square like the Datsun. Grey loved to ride in it, and as he gazed upward, he wanted to get in the truck. He enjoyed looking out from the high cab like a king looked out of his castle.

Ash didn’t have to go potty. He already went to the bathroom in the floorboards, while he was sleeping.

Grey finished and asked, “Dad, can I ride in the truck with you?”

“Climb in,” Dad said, looking away from the mountain path.

As Grey climbed up the mountain of cold iron, Dad tossed Ash up onto the seat, careful not to touch Ash’s dark, wet pants. Ash was too small to climb up.

The dump truck was vintage forties. It was old American iron, and its days of beauty were long gone, if they ever even existed. Now it was slowly turning a crusty brown as the paint – well past its intended lifespan – gave up its decades-long struggle and flaked away. Every sound the truck made was hollow and booming, and it had a big round nose.

Grey and Ash waited, supreme rulers in their high tower while Mom and Dad talked.

“Get off my side,” Grey snapped.

Ash glowered at Grey and stuck out his tongue, then moved across the expansive seat to look out the driver’s side window.

Grey looked down at the mailboxes below. Each had numbers on it. Some were unreadable, some were hand-painted, and some were stickers. Many of the numbers seemed to be missing, and Grey wondered about the people who got mail from those boxes. Did they live up the mountain road? Were they nice or mean? He didn’t like meeting new people, and hoped he wouldn’t have to meet anyone on the mountain. A childish thought suggested that the people would be old and battered like their mailboxes. He wanted nothing to do with them.

Ash interrupted Grey’s thoughts with a noisy scrambling, he moved back into the middle of the wide seat.

“Dad’s coming,” Ash said.

Dad opened the door and grunted as he stepped up into the old cab. The door closed with a hollow boom. The large, worn-out engine rumbled to life and a fan somewhere under the dash rattled. Tiny clear spots appeared near the bottom of the windshield, fog from the boy’s warm breath had made it white and cloudy. Gears ground as the old dump truck whined to life. It did not want to go up the mountainside, Grey could tell; but Dad made it go.

“Hang on boys,” Dad said.

Grey held on as the truck lurched and growled its way up the steep road. Branches and prickly pine cones slid and scraped along the sides, squeaking across glass and rusty metal. It was as if the trees were trying to hold them back. Grey wasn’t sure they should go up there, it seemed so steep. He couldn’t see far, which made him feel closed in. The sky was so small here, and this was a new experience. Trees and hills covered his view and left him ever curious about what was out of sight – over the next hill, past that group of trees, around the corner. Up and up they went, and the sounds of the truck grew quieter and muffled. At first, Grey didn’t notice, but the pressure in his ears grew. His ears began to feel uncomfortable, then they began to hurt, just a little. The engine sounded far away. Grey looked over at Dad, concern in his eyes.

“My ears feel funny!” Grey said.

“That’s because we’re going way up,” said Dad in a strange watery quiet voice. “It’s a change in air pressure. Yawn real big and it’ll go away.”

Grey tried to yawn, but he wasn’t tired enough. He opened his mouth and pretended, then he opened it a little wider. Then wider still. Something popped inside his head, bringing the truck sounds roaring back to life.

Ash was standing on the seat, wide-eyed, hands held to his ears.

“Just yawn, Ash,” Grey showed him, his new-found knowledge giving him a sense of importance.

Ash held his mouth open wide for the next two minutes.

“Sit down, Ash.” Dad said, grinning. “You’ll fall off the seat.”

Higher and higher they went, the old truck crawling around corners like an enormous grumpy snail. Huge gray rocks with black and green moss stood to the side of the dirt road now, and something moved. Grey stared hard, trying to hold his head still as his vision jounced around. A brown thing! A dog was on that rock! Grey’s eyes bugged as they got closer. The brown animal thing was looking at them. It was round; the brownest and roundest dog he had ever seen. No, not a dog… too small.

“A big mouse!” Grey cried out.

Dad and Ash, surprised by Grey’s sudden outburst, looked over in time to see the brown thing roll over the far side of the rock.

“I think that’s a marmot,” Dad said.

Grey mulled over that word in his head as the truck continued up the mountain. “Marmot” he thought. That was a new animal – not one he ever saw in books. It was not in his brontosaurus book. It was not in his Jesus books. It probably was not in any book. What a strange new place this was.

They drove over a small creek, then up more steep turns. At one point Grey looked out over a canyon, treetops pointed up to the sky from down below. An odd feeling crept over him, and he wished the big truck could get a littler farther away from the cliffs edge. His feet tingled. He didn’t like being up high, and concentrated on looking out his window – towards the slope that went up. Doing that made it seem like he was down low, a much better feeling. Dad didn’t seem to be concerned with the steep drop, but he did look down often as he navigated. Whales cannot fly; and this one held the piano, boxes of heavy books, and their toys.

They passed deer, cows, and small side roads disappearing into the brush and trees that dotted the landscape. Each road might lead to a house, Grey thought. And people. What kind of people? He wondered at this and remembered the old mailboxes down at the bottom. He didn’t want to find out who lived down these dusty tracks.

The dump truck eventually stopped and Dad watched out his mirror as Mom pulled up behind them in the Datsun.

“Here we are” he said.

The air was silent after the noise of the engines stopped. A cold breeze played with the aspen leaves and made his arms shiver as he climbed down. Now and then a distant “moooo” would roll up the mountainside, and the air smelled of old plants and new growing things.

Grey saw white stuff on the ground, tucked into shadows underneath trees and bushes, places where the sun had not touched.

“Is that snow?” Grey asked Dad.

“Yep, go check it out.”

After being helped down from the truck, the boys marveled at the cold, white snow. Grey had seen snow only once before – it reminded him of the frost in Grandma’s refrigerator. Ash did not remember snow at all; he had not been born yet. Tiny yellow flowers ringed the white patch as it lay before them, and Grey saw that they grew everywhere, once he really started looking for them. The brown grass was thick, and made a wonderful hiding place for small flowers.

Grey and Ash ran and played while Mom and Dad set up the tent. It was a canvas tent, with shiny metal poles. It smelled funny, a bit like moss. The food shelf was in the middle of the tent, where they kept their food. A potty-pot for Ash went onto the floor by the door. Ash was still learning how to use it. Mom and Dad were to sleep in one bed at one end of the tent, and the two brothers slept in a bed at the other end.

That night Grey and Ash slept with heads at opposite ends, feet tickling each other as they giggled. The giggles soon turned into kicking, and then into crying.

“Time to go to sleep.” Dad said.

It was cold in the tent, but Mom put a heavy sleeping bag over them, and they were warm again.

Life on the mountain was new and different. The snow melted away, and the grass turned green. Tiny birds sang strange new songs. Grey had never noticed birds before. No longer surrounded by people, cars, and buildings, Grey and Ash grew to love the wide outdoors, but sleeping in the tent frightened the boys. Sometimes mysterious animal noises would scare them while they huddled under their sleeping bag. Grey wasn’t sure he liked to hear all of the goings-on out there. Dad said that there were bears, deer, foxes, and worst of all – mountain lions. Grey did not want to think about mountain lions, but he could not sweep away the image in his mind. He had seen pictures of mountain lions in books, and he knew they were mean. The wind moaned and roared at night, and Grey would lay quiet, listening to the sound, intent to hear any creatures lurking out on the mountainside.

The mountain lions visited him often in his dreams.

On weekends, Dad started work on building a house. He tucked it in under three tall pines, and Grey enjoyed the smell of fresh cut boards as it went together. The house was going to be huge – much bigger than the tent, and about the same size as the apartment in California. Grey could take ten whole steps from one end of the house to another, and Dad said that it would have an upstairs! He had never been to an upstairs before. He guessed it would be like climbing up into the cab of the dump truck.

“When will the house be done?” Grey asked.

“Houses take a long time to build.” Dad said. “I’ll have this done before next winter,” he added optimistically.

Grey and Ash would play with the cut ends that fell off the boards, and make little houses of their own in the grass. They would place grasshoppers into their little houses, and planned on finishing them before winter as well.

One chilly autumn day just before winter came, the Whale pulled something new up the mountain road. It was a trailer, and it was round like an egg, had flat sides, and was silver, yellow and pale blue.

“Just like an Easter egg!” Mom told him.

Grey understood the comparison, because he had seen Easter eggs before. He felt much better inside that egg, the walls were hard metal and the wild noises outside were quieter. He slept a little better after that.