Chapter 5

Uncle Raul

It was early in the morning. The warmth of the previous day still clung to the earth. A sign that winter was still a long way off. Elena pushed Lincoln down the rough driveway, the little rocks doing an outsized job of jostling Lincoln in his wheelchair. “Good thing we were ready with a wheelchair,” Lincoln thought. He gasped and grimaced when a particularly sharp jolt sent icy pain through his thigh.

“Sorry. Shit. Sorry.” Elena said. Her face was scrunched in concentration, her tongue in the corner of her mouth.

They got to the end of their driveway and settled in to wait for the bus. The driveway was a rutted, hard packed two track back to their house. The edge of the road was crumbled and gray. Lincoln guessed it was because his road had narrow shoulders. Like the town didn’t want to pay for aid shoulders on his crappy road, so it crumbled from lack of support. There was a metaphor in their somewhere, but like heck if he was going to ask Elena. She would just make fun of him.

Lincoln looked up at his sister as she caught her breath. She was wearing a series of layers and armbands that made her look like a Hot Topic display. But instead of a slightly edgy picture of a Disney character on her shirt, it had a subdued photo of Nikolai Tesla. It was a black and white picture of the inventor sitting in a high backed wooden chair. He wore a grey suit and had his chin in his hand. But it was his eyes that always caught Lincoln’s attention. Tesla looked like he always knew what you were about to say, already had the answer, but hadn’t decided if you were worth helping. It was permanent mischief. Like Elena.

“Dude, looking at your sisters boobs is a serious red flag.” Elena said evenly.

“What!?” Lincoln sputtered. “I just think that shirt is cool, you freaking weirdo! Why do you say those cringy things?”

“Because I’m trying to toughen you up for the real world.”

“I’m plenty tough. Look how tough I am! I can handle letting my little sister help me carry my wheelchair onto the bus on my first day of senior year! So. Cool. And. Tough.”

“Also, I am not the one who needs to get ready for the real world. I already know where I’m going to end up. It’s you that needs to get more serious about the world. Start by being nice and making friends. No one is going to hire you if you are snarky and bitter all the time. People don’t like being told they are doing things wrong every minute of the day.”

Elena looked down at me. Unreadable.

“Yes they do. It’s good for them,” she said confidently. “And I don’t like it when you say you aren’t going to be leaving this place.”

“Elena-” Lincoln started to protest.

She held up a hand. “Oh, I know, I know.” She did a slightly deeper, strongly accented Mexican voice that was her favorite impression of Lincoln. “I must stay for the honor of my father, and my father’s father, and my father’s father’s dog! It is… my destiny!”

Lincoln tried not to laugh. He failed. “I don’t sound like that. I don’t have an accent. That’s racist!”

They both started laughing, feeling for a moment like the kids they really were.

That stopped as the bus appeared down the road. The yellow dot shimmering into reality in the early morning light just a few miles away. Lincoln and Elena looked at each other and put their game faces on.

Every kid with a secret at home has a game face. A mix of “don’t mess with me” and “please don’t ask me” that is meant to head off any uncomfortable lines of questioning. It’s like a furtive 1,000 yard stare. Elena’s also had a dose of “I know where to bury bodies” while Lincoln’s had nervous giggles at the ready.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

As the bus drew closer, they started to mentally rehearse their lines again. ‘I was working on my Uncle Rauls farm over the summer and fell when I was messing around and playing on the thresher’. ‘My brother is so clumsy, he’s a dumbass’.

The silhouettes of the bus driver and kids already riding came into view through the dusty windshield. They all swayed together as the buses suspension poorly navigated over the broken pavement on the shoulder of the road. Already dancing in unison for the day to come. Lincoln readied to join the dance.

Then over the now audible rumble of the buses diesel engine, came a more chaotic ‘rrap-rrap’ of another engine. An underpowered 250 inline-six, squeaking and whining as it was asked to go above 45 miles per hour. Lincoln and Elena looked at each other with a smile as a pair of headlights came out around the bus and accelerated toward them.

Like a rumbling piece of dark blue litter, an older than dirt 1980 Chevy pickup, held together with pure determination, slid in front of the bus and then a minute later pulled over across the mouth of the driveway. There, sitting on the cloth and duct tape covered seat, was Uncle Raul.

He had his ever-present straw outback hat on at a slight angle, riding just above his glittering brown eyes. His smile lifted one side of his mouth underneath his mustache as he leaned an elbow out of the window.

“You kids want to ride in style?”

He always said that.

“We do,” Elena answered, “But we can ride with you, instead, Uncle Raul.”

She always answered like that.

Uncle Raul hopped down from the Chevy (he never called it ‘the truck’), and landed in the driveway as the bus zoomed on.

There was a snapshot moment for Lincoln as he saw the faces of the kids riding the bus looked at his family impassively as they drove by. He ignored their perceived teenage judgement.

Raul looked down at Lincoln, a shadow passing over his face as he took in Lincoln’s injured leg. Then his visage brightened up as he said, “So, are you hopping or am I carrying you?”

Elena laughed and she and her Uncle pushed Lincoln around the truck and helped him climb in. Lincoln slipped once but found himself firmly supported by his Uncle’s hands. Lincoln landed on the creaky bench seat, feeling more like a bale of hay then a person, and buckled in. You always buckled up when Uncle Raul was driving.

Raul walked back around the front of the Chevy and hopped in. He gave the house a wary look and then slid the loose gear shifter into drive and eased out onto the road.

The familiar rhythm of the Chevy wrapped around Lincoln like an old blanket. Armor agains the world outside. It had been years since he had ridden in the middle. Back when his mom, Raul’s sister, was still around. He had long since outgrown it, and now he had to swing his legs awkwardly into the passenger footwell so as to resist bending and tearing his healing flesh. But he let himself lean comfortably against his Uncle’s worn denim jacket and smiled at his sister.

For Lincoln, it was the little things. The little moments between the bigger ones where he could find refuge and happiness. When things were hard, he just pushed on through, eyes forward, knowing a moment like this was bound to come along eventually.

Elena looked at Lincoln, that same unreadable look she had so often these days, like she didn’t know what to do with him. Lincoln was thinking he must be disappointing her with his recent weakness. But she didn’t say anything to him, instead whipping her eyes over to Raul and went into detective mode.

“Uncle Raul, I have two questions,” she stated. “One, how did you know we needed a ride? And two, why does your glove box smell like eggs?”

Raul kept his eyes on the road, focused on keeping the splashy steering of the truck more or less straight. “Well, you know, your dad keeps me up to date on you guys and I heard about your… bad day. He did tell me you were getting along a lot better than it looks like you are. And as for the eggs…” He reached over and popped open the glove box where he had 3 fist sized items wrapped in aluminum foil. “I had a breakfast burrito maker installed in the Chevy!” He reached up and pulled down the passenger visor. Little red packets fell onto Elena’s lap. “It even comes with a hot sauce dispenser!”

Lincoln and Elena reached eagerly for the burritos, peeling open one end, tearing the little packets of hot sauce open with their teeth squeezing it into the warm egg, cheese, potato and sausage goodness. Lincoln passed one over to his Uncle.

As the tortilla wrapped gifts from heaven traveled to their mouths, Raul stopped them in their tracks with a honk from the Chevy. “Whoa, there, partner! Elena, what do you say?”

Elena looked shocked and frustrated at her Uncle for a moment. “Me? What about Lincoln?”

“Lincoln already knows this most important fact. But you have yet to learn. Now, what do you say? Or I’ll throw your burrito out of the window for the birds.”

Elena thought angrily for a moment, then smiled. Admitting the rare defeat she held her breakfast burrito over her heart and said, “There is no ride more stylish than the Chevy!”

They all laughed and ate.