Westward, with Daughter (Day Three)

Ten Years Ago: I Am Not OK. Down Came the Rain and Washed the Driver Out. Target: Michaels. Where the Buffalo Snack.

Oklahoma has tried to kill me at least three times. It’ll probably try to do it again someday.

I don’t take it personally. I think this is just Oklahoma being Oklahoma: The Sooner State. (The sooner to kill you, my dear…) My least favorite state and the one that fascinates me the most. Someday I’m going to set a crime novel here, or at least part of one, and take my revenge.

The day started out fine. We entered the Will Rogers Turnpike at Joplin and the skies were gray, but not particularly foreboding. According to my receipt, Collector #1082 took my four bucks at 7:34:54 a.m.

Soon, however, things got dark.

Literally. The wind kicked up, and suddenly the sky looked like someone had punched it in the eye. Droplets of rain began to hammer Mildred, my trusty pre-owned Honda Accord, but by the time we reached Tulsa, the storm was a full-on assault. Wipers on high did nothing. The pelting rain was so intense, I found myself struggling to see the painted lanes on I-44.

Welcome to Oklahoma.

I think it was the Daughter who spotted the bright beacon off in the distance… a bloodshot eye peering through the gloom. As the rain actively tried to wash me off the road like a pissed-off god with an electric pressure washer, we decided to pull off the next exit and make our way to the bloodshot eye… no, make that a bullseye!

It was just before nine in the morning, and thankfully the Target in Tulsa Hills was open.

The Daughter was happy, because this gave her the opportunity to pick up the new Twentyone Pilots CD ($9.99), as well as a copy of Seventeen magazine ($2.99) with Shawn Mendes on the cover.

I was happy, because I picked up a copy of Joe Hill’s latest hardcover, The Fireman, ($20.29) and a new set of blades for my shaving razor ($8.49).

But I worried about the travel time we were losing. And the storm showed no signs of letting up.

Twenty minutes later we were in a Michaels (“Where Creativity Happens”) in the same shopping complex.

This also thrilled the Daughter, since she was looking for an artsy-crafty kind of project to work on while we drove west. She ended up with latch hook kits featuring a kitten and a puppy ($10.99 each)… mostly because she missed her cat, Rocky, who was back home in Philly. The puppy kit? A grudging acknowledgement that yeah, there was a dog (Sherlock) back home, too.

We finally returned to Mildred in hopes the storm would back off. And this is one of those moments I’ll never forget. The two of us, just sitting in the massive parking lot, rain spattering the windshield. I pulled out my phone and recorded a 10-second video from the driver’s seat, slowly panning over to the Daughter.

She was ready for me.

The camera found the Daughter with this sad expression on her face, bottom lip puffed out and everything. She dragged her index finger down her cheek like a slow-rolling tear.

Then,at the very last second, right before I stopped recording, she broke character and smirked. She was having fun, too. Despite the weather, we were still having an adventure.

If only you could live inside a 10-second video clip…

The next receipt I have tells me we got back on I-44, now called the Turner Turnpike. Operator #44 took my four bucks and we were on our way. I suppose the rain had slowed enough for it to feel safe. But the atmosphere remained unsettled all the way to Texas.

The reason I say that Oklahoma tried to kill me three times is because this exact scenario would repeat itself. A month later, when the whole family was driving to L.A. in a caravan that included a minivan and a U-Haul truck, the rains once again tried to power wash us off the road. And this happened a third time in November 2022, when I was driving cross-country in another rented U-Haul, transporting the last of the possession we’d left behind in a storage locker six years before.

Welp, looks like this Swierczynski feller is trying to drive down the Will Rogers again. Let’s give him the usual warm welcome…

Oklahoma… what did I ever do to you?

I recorded some of this drive in my short story-in-progress:

Drove the blue Ford 520 miles through a hellacious storm near Tulsa all the way to a small town called Central City in Texas. An oil town at one point, because there are rusted derricks dotting the landscape.

And of course I pick the one motel that’s being refurbished. Dust everywhere. God knows what kind of toxic filth I’m breathing in. Got $15 off the room, though, so there’s that.

Nothing to do here except listen to the sound of hammers and saws and start to seriously doubt my sanity. What kind of demon compelled me to jump in the car and drive the 2,770 miles from Philadelphia to California? Sometimes I do things and don’t fully understand why I’m doing them.

Soon we were past Oklahoma City and on I-40, which would remain our mother road all the way to California. By the time we spotted the Cherokee Travel Plaza in Calumet, the two humans were starving, and Mildred was thirsty. A receipt tells me we bought two “Veggie Delite” footlong hoagies at Subway, along with some fountain sodas and a bag chips, all for $16.18.

We browsed the souvenirs, but if we bought anything, I must have paid in cash. I remember a lot of buffalo-themed gifts.

We were eager to get back on the road and make our way to Amarillo before dark.

Our next stop was familiar one… a hotel we’d stayed at years before. And just beyond that, a graveyard of sorts that I’d been eager to visit since I read about it in a zombie anthology way back in 1989.

But more on that next time. For now, I’ll leave you with a waffle in the shape of Texas.