Wilbur Goes Camping – or – The mistake, it seems, was getting into the car

Spark: Write about a childhood, teen, or more recent vacation 
from the viewpoint of someone/something other than yourself.
The family dog, a sibling, a parent, the car's seat, the steering wheel,
aunt, grandparent, camp counselor, best friend...

When she opens the car door, I always jump in. Because anything is better than one more hour of staring at the inside of that dark, practically-underground apartment. Even when I stand on the chairs, I can’t quite see out the windows.

She spent a lot of time last night and again this morning walking out of the house with stuff that she didn’t bring back. Now I know where it went – it’s all in the car. Piled on the back seat and stacked, a little neater, in the hatchback part.

Fortunately, there is nothing on the co-pilot’s seat except my favorite crocheted afghan and me. I can see out the windshield, I can see out the side window… I’m already feeling more expansive. When my chauffeur scratches my left ear, I actually look at her.

“Know where we’re going, little guy?” she asks.

I’m not feeling that magnanimous. To avoid suffering through a conversation, I put my front paws on the passenger side door, lift my head to enjoy the smells coming in the half-opened window.

We’re heading west. There are no traffic lights. She plays with the radio. Many songs go by.

“We’re going camping, Wilbur,” she finally says. “Susan and some of her foster kids have a two-night reservation at Allegheny State Park, and we’ll be joining them.”

All I hear is “kids.” I pin back my ears as hard as I can, making huffing noises with the sides of my mouth while I stare pointedly out the window. Just because I’m little and white with great big eyes and pink inside my great big ears, kids think I’m the cutest little toy. Or the cutest little puppy. Or something lovable and kissable. Which I’m not. I’m Idi Amin in a bunny suit. I bit the last kid who tried to vacuum me.

That memory amuses me so much that I relax even more, curling up for a nap on my favorite crocheted afghan. It will be the last shred of comfort for a long, long time.

I wake up when the car slows. The road is bumpy. Dust comes in the windows. We stop in an area dotted with cars, small trees, flattened grass, picnic tables and big dog houses that don’t seem to be made out of anything substantial.

Susan welcomes us. Apparently the kids are somewhere, swimming. They’ll be back before dinner. “I’ll remind them that he might bite,” says Susan.

My chauffeur ties me to a picnic table, sets a plastic bowl full of water next to me, and starts to carry the stuff from the car into one of the dog houses. Why she brought it here instead of just dropping it off at the Salvation Army, I don’t know.

When it’s all unloaded, I’m ready to get up out of the dust and have another nap on the way home. But my chauffeur keeps talking with Susan. They chat so long, the kids come back. I pointedly ignore them all. If there was a window nearby, I would be staring out of it. During dinner, I sit on the picnic bench. Afterwards, though, I am set back down in the dirt for some pizza crusts and my same old unappetizing kibble. Why has it been presented in my food dish from home? After finishing off the crusts, I ignore the dry food like I always do.

The sun is sinking. The temperature is dropping. That bench was not very soft. Neither is this dirt. I shiver, looking irritated, but all she does is go into the “tent” – it’s not a doghouse, after all – and get sweatshirts for us both.

“He’s a size 4-T,” she says, guiding my ears through the head hole before tugging it down over my big head and setting me back down in the dirt.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” she then asks. Without waiting for an answer, she pulls me to my feet, tucks the sweatshirt up around my armpits, dragging me first to a dark field where I’m supposed to empty my bladder, then to a brightly-lit, puddle-floored building where she brushes her teeth. I’m getting a bad feeling about all this, because this is what happens right before she gets in bed. As we walk by the car, I look up at it meaningfully, but she drags me on, back towards the tents.

The kids are in bed, Susan’s going to bed, and here I am with my chauffeur in a separate tent, crammed into a sleeping bag. Where is the double bed with two pillows? Where are the covers I sleep under while I rest my head on my pillow on my side of the bed?

And why can’t I see anything? Have the streetlights been shot out? Am I going blind? And what are those noises… not those, I know what crickets are. But those… like starving dogs, howling, like crazy starving dogs in the field, sniffing where I peed. Sniffing, sniffing, sniffing, they’ll follow the trail till they find me here in this insubstantial fabric tent, where they’ll huff and they’ll puff and they’ll bite my ears off like a chocolate bunny’s before they kill me and eat me.

“Shush, shush, shush,” she says. “Stop panting, you’re not hot, you’re okay. Just quiet down a little bit. If you do, you can listen to nature.”

Nature. Red in Tooth and Claw. I saw that episode on PBS once. And that night in the tent – I saw it a million more times.

The next morning, it is obvious that somebody has eaten all my kibble, then used their sharp teeth to put dents in my food dish. I can’t stop shivering.

After doing my morning business in the field, I sit down next to the car. I become an immovable object. She finally gives in and opens the door. I jump up, nestle into my favorite crocheted afghan, and wait for her to start the car.

All that day, with the windows open, I wait in the car. At sundown we are still there, we are still camping. Goddam it. All that night, with my eyes wide open, I wait for morning.

When we finally get home the next day, I head for the bedroom even though it’s the middle of the afternoon. As my weary head sinks onto my pillow on my side of the bed, I hear her come in to pull the covers up over me.

“You know, I didn’t sleep too well those nights in the tent,” she says. “I’m going to take a nap, too. By the way, before you nod off, I have to tell you – I’m getting you a new food dish. Yours got all banged up in the car or something. Anyway, have sweet dreams, little Wilbur.”

I do. I dream of little chocolate bunnies who never get their ears bit off.  One little bunny, wearing a size 4-T sweatshirt, sleeps safely in his bed with his head on his pillow, snuggling his favorite chauffeur close, in his heart, forever.

________

Writing Through the Rough Spots. July 2017.