gassed

chapter 8

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next (the big ballyhoo)

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Despite failing to transition us from ‘boyhood friends’ to ‘family friends,’ the Goodspeeds continued to include me in some of even their most intimate family gatherings. My parents didn’t mind this, as long as I wasn’t missing out on anything they had planned for our family, which was never much, save for the big important things like Christmas and Thanksgiving, or our birthdays.

The summer after our eighth-grade graduation, on the eve of high school, the Goodspeeds invited me to accompany them to their family’s lake house out on Kinderhook Lake, southeast of Albany, for their annual Fourth of July celebration.

My family never did much for the Fourth of July. My mom usually worked or else had to work early the next morning. It was a holiday my parents tended to remember only a day or two before, and maybe my dad would buy some special beers and grill a few steaks, maybe take us to wherever the local fireworks were, but it wasn’t something we’d see extended family for or have plans for. So, on that occasion, they were fine with me accompanying the Goodspeeds and let me go after making me promise I would, of course, “have fun.”

We certainly did not have such elaborate traditions as the Goodspeed family, which Tommy explained to me on the car ride:

“Okay, so the first really cool thing is we make Chicago-style hot dogs, which are like just regular hot dogs, but they have, uhm, let’s see, hot dog, tomato slices, a big, long pickle in it, and uh, onions, celery salt, banana peppers…”

“Ketchup?” I asked.

“Ketchup is sacrilege. Don’t ever let me see you put some ketchup on a dog, Mr. Jude Harris, ya hear?” Mr. Goodspeed said from up front.

“Yes, sir,” I said, laughing.

“And you have to take the first bite of the hot dog with everyone else while ‘Born in the USA’ by Bruce Springsteen is playing!” Tommy said.

“That’s cool. I love Bruce.”

“So, then we have to do the big ballyhoo!” Tommy continued.

“The big ballyhoo?”

“Ballyhoo!” howled his father, accentuating the ‘hoo’ like a wolf.

“Ballyhoo!” howled his mother in the same manner. Even Waldo gave a little bark from the back seat.

They and Tommy laughed together, and I could not help but be enthralled by their togetherness.

“The big ballyhoo is when the oldest Big T goes to the big rock on the front lawn by the lake and lets off the biggest fireworks rocket we can buy out over the lake, and we all yell, ballyhoo!” Tommy explained.

“Wow, how did that get started?” I asked. It was hard for me to imagine the origins of traditions like this, so different from the operations of my family. The nearest equivalent would be when we watched The Last Waltz on Thanksgiving, which was a tradition all the same, but one we shared with many other families. The Goodspeeds were on their own. It was like they inhabited a different world, where fairy tales came to life.

“Grandpa says his grandpa used to do it in their backyard in Albany. And his grandfather used to do it in their backyard. I guess it just keeps going back and back,” Tommy said. “And it’s just so fun they kept passing it on!”

“Then there’s the clam bake,” Mrs. Goodspeed said. “You can’t forget that.”

“Of course, of course, the clam bake,” Tommy said. I rarely saw him so excited to spend time with his family or so in sync with them. I’d never even had clams.

“Crap, I forgot I gotta get gas,” Mr. Goodspeed said. “Almost half a friggin’ tank to get all the way there and back.”

Tommy rolled his eyes at me. He had explained before the trip that his father was always bitter about the lake house. Though technically owned by Tommy's grandfather, all three Goodspeed brothers had paid for it, intending to share its use. Tim Goodspeed had lobbied for a house on Lake Sacandaga, which was much further west and closer to Veddersburgh. He was overruled, though, by his eastern brothers who, by virtue of proximity, garnered much greater use of the lake house than Tommy’s family.

We were in a backcountry, rural area not far from the lake when Tommy’s father rolled into a gas station on one corner of a four-way stop, across from a 24-hour emergency vet and an old church.

“Do you think this is open?” Mrs. Goodspeed asked.

There was yellow construction do-not-cross tape over the other entrance to the station, and the entrance we entered had clearly once been blocked off as well, but one of the cones holding up the tape had been knocked over or moved such that the tape was strewn across the nearby lawn. Other than that, the station did look like it was open. It looked brand new, if maybe uninhabited.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Mr. Goodspeed said. “I think this is probably the last one before Kinderhook, and I don’t want to have to get it when we go home.”

We pulled up to one of the stations. Mr. Goodspeed got out and tried to insert his card. None of the panels lit up or turned on.

Mrs. Goodspeed rolled down her window. “I think it’s closed,” she said. “Let’s just get it on the way back.”

Here was where my own father would have shrugged, gotten back in the car, and driven away.

But that would have been inconvenient for Tim Goodspeed, and so he was compelled by whatever curse he was burdened with to grab the gas handle and stick it into their Acura MDX anyway.

“Tim!” Mrs. Goodspeed exclaimed.

“Hey, hey! It’s working. Gas is flowing,” Mr. Goodspeed said, a wicked grin beneath his sunglasses.

The tank was filled, and just as Mr. Goodspeed was going to re-enter the vehicle, presumably without offering any payment, a man with a high-vis jacket and hard hat came out of the station store.

“Sir!” the man called out. “Sir, the stations aren’t operational yet.”

“Oh, sorry about that! Didn’t realize. Thank you!” Mr. Goodspeed yelled back, getting in the car and closing the door before the guy in the high-vis jacket could respond. He waved as he started the car, and the guy waved back, unsure of what to do as we backed out and exited via the unblocked entrance from which we came.

Tommy looked at me and burst out laughing. “Can you believe that?! Free gas!”

“I think you just stole some gasoline on accident,” Mrs. Goodspeed said, with the same tone she’d scold Waldo with when he got in the garbage.

I saw Tommy smiling a facsimile of his father’s grin. I thought about the convenience store trip and the iced tea he had snagged for me and wondered what difference there was between that and this, or whether there was any, or whether his proclivities descended from his father.

“They should have done a better job indicating it wasn’t open yet,” Mr. Goodspeed said.

“What if they got you on camera?” Tommy’s mother pressed, taking the side I would have espoused if I felt I had a voice.

“Well, maybe the payment wasn’t working, but I was just going to pay inside, wasn’t I? Not my fault it was closed and I already pumped the gas. See, this is why you never became a lawyer like you wanted, dear. You’re no good with technicalities. You want to be a lawyer, Tommy, you gotta learn to argue better than your mother here.”

“I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Tommy said, quietly enough for his father to ignore. The previous harmony he’d had with his parents on the trip so far had been severed, and his face was scrunched into frown as he looked out the window to avoid eye contact with me.

Mrs. Goodspeed scowled. Mr. Goodspeed was giddy after his accidental pilfering of the gasoline, and as he peered at us in the rearview mirror through his sunglasses, even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew there was no sort of remorse in them, at least none like what Tommy had after stealing the iced tea.

What bothered me most was that the Goodspeed family was one that did not ever need such a fortuitous happenstance, and never would. Yet it had happened all the same, and I wondered if whatever I perceived afflicted Mr. Goodspeed was really a blessing rather than a curse.

I ultimately found it was not.

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next (the big ballyhoo)

previous (harris meet goodspeed)