Part 6 The TRAGIC TALE: "My Little Cheeseburger"

I stood on the lonely highway and stared at nothing, but a white line that faded into the darkness as the dusk hues of hot, burnt orange turned as dark and gloomy as my soul.  I was lost, discarded, left behind. 

My entire chest cavity groaned, pressed in, as if in a vise. The red dye of my unlicked, untasted, untried nickel Popsicle ran down my arm as if blood from an open wound.  Chocked up with pain and tears, I sauntered slowly back to the marina and sat on the curb holding the stick as if my life depended on it.

I knew I would be stolen and have to live with the slow Salton Sea People in a million degree weather for the rest of my life. I had been erased.

I was sentenced to Purgatory: The place where fish, unarmed atom bombs, trailers and dreams come to die. 

I wanted my family and had nothing but a red Popsicle stick.  "Our Father who art in heaven... I need your help... I'm alone, lost and forgotten!" It was a dumb prayer but it was all I could think of... We weren't allowed to talk to God, only to say rote prayers... lots and lots of prayers...

Anyway, I figured that my guardian angel didn't need to come into the diner with me just to buy a Popsicle and had probably waited in the trailer. Right now the poor angel was being tossed around in that hot trailer without me and I was without him.  I cried and prayed for a replacement angel. Where would I sleep? Where would I go? What would I do?

I was a sight.. a mud covered refugee with blonde hair, burnt nose and a red stain on my arm that looked like an open wound. Because I looked like a piece of garbage I thought maybe I would be safe and that no one would steal me.  I wasn't worth anything, after all - my family had thrown me away! TRASH! That's what I felt like. I decided to curl up for the night on the hot cement under the sole lamp post and tried to stop the flow of tears. This small hot patch of earth where flying insects gather at night was my new home. I began to brush off some of the flying pest that landed on me, but realizing the futility of that gave up trying.

Just then a Ford truck pulled up with an older, gray-haired couple inside...they must have been a hundred and twenty years old.

"You lost?" The man asked gently from inside the truck as it slowed to a stop in front of me.

"No, I'm not lost...I know exactly where I am. I just don't don't where my family is..." Stuttering, I said in words that had a difficult time coming out. The older couple approached me carefully, like you would a cornered dog whose trust you wanted to win, hoping to not get bitten. He sat down on the curb next to me and tried to get information. Holding onto my red-stained Popsicle stick, I couldn't say another word.  I felt empty -  hollow - like a Zombie, dead on the inside. I wasn't even aware that he had stood me up and began to walk me away from my little puddle of melted red goo. I didn't know if he was an angel sent from God or if this was the man who was going to steal me and make me a slave in a foreign country (like the Ishmaelites and Joseph).

Zombie-esque... I followed the man and his wife into the dinner. "Hey, Gene!" He shouted to the owner. "This boy's parents up and left him here."

"Yeah, we know that family. They came in here just a little bit ago like a swarm of locust:  Hippies, some of them."

"Poor parents."

"No wonder they left one behind!"  Now the conspiracy theories began.

"That's probably what they do. They're probably driving around and leaving one kid at each stop...Did you see 'em - that's what I would have done."

"I saw them..." they both stated and questioned hoping to gather information. In that gold Dodge station wagon... the one with the big dent on the driver door that had red paint that read "OUCH!"


"Yep, that was the one. I saw it too. The one with a hundred kids in it...must have been about 15 of them."

I had taken the "Oath" and pledged on my sacred honor not to reveal that bodies rode in the trailer. That was good, I thought! I had to protect dad and wanted them to believe that all of those stinky, hot sweaty bodies were all crammed in the station wagon... I wouldn't give away the secret. "Yep, there was like 15 of us in that CAR!"  I saw a man to my right who sitting alone at booth suddenly jump to his feet in excitement and began to ask questions as he wrote things on his small pad of paper.

"Call the Highway Patrol, Gene!" one guy yelled across the diner. I didn't want them to call the police, I thought it was the Police's job to take me to an orphanage. Orphanages in movies were never a good thing.

I didn't have a lot of information to give: who I was, where I was from, phone numbers, no answers- just the
living-dead. Everyone else filled in the blanks as wild theories and exaggerated explanations flew around the diner like a murder of angry crows. I covered my head not to be attacked as my angel led me to the very back booth - at the far end of the diner.

An officer came in and asked me for a description of the car and trailer as the excited Salton Sea-ites supplied the answers along with the criminal intent of the abandonment theories. I sat motionless on the faded-blue sticky-vinyl holding my Popsicle stick. The guy with the pad of paper furiously wrote like a Washington reporter discovering a government coverup... this was his Pulitzer (well ,as close as it gets at Salton Sea - anyway). Boats sank, trailers rusted and dreams died at regular intervals at Salton Sea - that's exciting at it gets at this place.  THIS WAS BIG! A newspaper reporter, the Highway Patrol, A Swedish tribe of hippy locust, Parents systematically abandoning children...

In the middle of all the commotion...Gene set the most incredible thing I had ever laid eyes on: a great big, hot, delicious, ginormous, incredible, cheeseburger of steaming goodness -  right down in front of me! FOR ME! 

Up to this point in my life, I don't think I had ever had a restaurant-bought cheeseburger all to myself. They had just opened this new place at the corner near the church called McDonalds. The Blasers went to this  new place called McDonalds; they got to eat hamburgers and cheeseburgers all the time. Not us, we went to Wessles at the corner of Lincoln and Venice and bought greasy brown bags of french fries that we all had to share. When that bag eventually made it to our house, it was a feeding frenzy - like sharks on a whale carcass... I'll spare you the gory details - but you get the idea. THIS WAS MINE. My little cheeseburger and mountain of french fries - enough to feed my entire family...ALL MINE! "My little cheeseburger"  It would go down the pipe and share room in my belly with my half piece of gritty bacon.

My family, meanwhile, was probably eating rock-hard, tainted cheese and singing "Oh you can't get to heaven" like they always do. Jovial fun that was also a way to pick on someone about shoe size, nose size, about zits, about retainers, or about being too fat...

"Oh you can't get to heaven in Tony's nose... 'cus the Lord don't allow no garden hose." The leader would sing and the tribe would then raucously echo along, loudly, and not in key (we were not the Lennon Sisters - mind you). "Oh you can't get to heaven in Tony's nose 'cus the Lord don't allow no garden hose... Ain't it going to grieve my Lord no more..."

Next, they would make fun of Kurt, then Kris and Karl and Erick and Philip and Charlie and Bob....all taking stabs at one another...then, when it got too loud, dad would put his right arm up on the back of the driver's bench-seat that was crammed with 4 bodies. It meant that if it didn't quiet down, the arm would strike the next person or persons- it could reach! "THE ARM" was no respecter of persons. Everything had to come down a notch - or else! He would say, "Silence is Golden."  This is where I come in! The Wolf Pack would strategically place me so that the "THE HAND attached to the THE ARM would find its way to me! They loved me for this! This was my omega utility in the wolf pack.  They would get loud after the warning... The Hand would strike... I would get hit.. they would laugh... everyone would have a good time.

ONLY. Only, I wasn't there... bummer for them that I was in the trailer (so they thought). The Hand would probably be hitting Erick about this time... haha...It would not be me. I would not be in that horrible trailer frying or baking or being tossed with every bump along the way...instead, I would be eating my wonder delicious cheeseburger - manna from heaven.

They had made it about as far as Indio when Mr. D saw the speeding Highway Patrol car approaching with lights flashing and siren blaring.

THE ARM. THE HAND was up and in position to strike anyone who made a noise...it was like a reminder of the covenant not to tell about illegal bodies being transported in the trailer.  Mr D was sure he was being pulled over for illegal contraband. Everyone was to keep their mouths shut.

Mrs. D pushed the intercom on the speaker that Tony had wired between the car and the trailer... buzzz... buzzz... buzzz..."Roy (that's what she called my dad) Roy...(mixed with static) what's going on?" Tony pulled the wire out of the intercom just as she was invoking The Clause... "Under-Pain-Of- Mortal......" silence...they didn't want the policeman to know bodies were in the trailer, so the wire was pulled and Joan was cut off midsentence.

"NOT ONE WORD!" Mr. D threatened - knuckles turning white as he gripped the back of the seat, pulling the traveling menagerie slowly over onto the dirt next to the freeway.  Mrs D. began covering bodies in the trailer with blankets, sleeping bags and greasy pots and pans...

There was an uneasy stillness in the air as the officer opened his door and his black jackboot hit the ground sending a puff of angry dirt into the air. As the officer walked ominously towards the Dahlin clan you could hear a pin drop - no one burped or cut the cheese!
                                                                      This would not be pretty!



I sat and stared at my cheeseburger, picked it up, put it to my lips, but could not open my mouth to take a single bite. I did not have the strength to suck the milk shake Gene had given me - through the straw.
I was powerless and unable to enjoy what was set before me...I clutched my Popsicle stick... as conspiracy theories whizzed frantically over my head in the diner.

I guess there might be a lot of things we can pick in this story to contemplate and reflect on.. simply one moral might be that a lot of us are unable to enjoy the blessings and things set before us as we focus on the pains of the things that hurt us so badly. If only we could lift our heads in the times of trouble and count our blessings - rehearse the all the things we can be thankful for - we might experience a little power to open our mouths, take a bite and enjoy what is set before us -  (even in the the middle of crippling crisis). 

Why is that so hard to do?  And how come it can scar so deeply?


NEXT TIME: The Conclusion