1993, Detroit and Belleville, Michigan

By Ryan McCormick

I was embarrassed.

I felt ashamed to have friends over at my house because I didn’t live in a house. Growing up, I lived in a double-wide trailer in Holiday Woods trailer park.

Long as a semi-truck and roughly twice as wide, my home at 108 Mulberry Lane wasn’t a suitable subject for an oil painting. It had beige sidings with a couple thick vertical green lines running through and a white shirting running around the bottom of the rectangle. Our backyard couldn’t have been larger than a helicopter landing and there were neighboring trailers ten feet way on either side.

“Why don’t you ever invite Bobby or Michael over?” mom asked for what seemed like the millionth time. “Is it because we don’t have a Nintendo?”

“Yeah, mom,” I said in my 5th grade mumble talk. “Will you please just give me a ride over to Michael’s.”

She drove me because I had said, “Please,” but on the ride over she explained that I would never have a Nintendo because it was too expensive and I didn’t need one.

The truth was I didn’t really go over to Michaels’s to play Nintendo.

We jumped on his trampoline, played in his tree fort and kicked the soccer ball around. Michael had a great yard that seemed like an ocean of fun compared to my swamp of nothing-to-do.

I liked Michael’s house because we weren’t constantly under parental supervision. His parents were either working, off running errands, or too tired to pay any attention to us. Plus, the vastness of his two-story brick house and yard allowed us to avoid his parents even when they were there.

So when I phoned my mom and asked to spend the night I was crushed when she said, “No, you’ve already spent too much time over there. You need to come home.”

I begged to stay. Michael had a furnished basement where we could build a fort on the pull-out couch. I had always dreamed of having a basement, furnished or not, and what kid didn’t love building forts with a friend?

“No, you can hang out with Michael tomorrow, just not tonight. I’ll be over in half an hour to pick you up.”

Mom hung up.

In the car ride home, mom delighted in my misery and seemed to rub it in.

“What do you think about Michael coming over to our house tomorrow?” she asked with a smile.

I didn’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings, so I didn’t correct her by pointing out that we lived in a double-wide trailer - not a house. I did tell her that it wasn’t a good idea to have Michael over, but she was ready for my negative response. She quickly pitched the idea of going to the Detroit Institute of Arts tomorrow for an Egyptian exhibition and said that Michael could come along if he wanted.

She knew I couldn’t resist. I wanted to resist because she didn’t let me spend the night at Michael’s. I had been to the DIA before. I loved it. Now there would be mummies. Still, I had to show mom that I was upset, so I again employed my 5th grade mumble talk.

“Sure, I guess we could go.”

Mom, dad, sister and I showed up at Michael’s beautiful house around 11 a.m. the next day. I had made sure we picked him up, rather than have him come to the trailer park.

En route to the mummies, my dad announced that we would stop at McDonald’s for some lunch. On the surface this sounded like a good thing, but my dad liked to limit the choices for ordering at McDonald’s. Actually, he never even asked what we wanted.

Luckily, Michael had stopped at McDonald’s with my family before. He knew to expect a hamburger and a water - nothing more, nothing less. If you didn’t like onions on your burger then you were going to have to scrape them off because my dad wasn’t going to change the order.

“Five burgers and five waters,” said dad, then pulled around.

I had once yelled from the back seat that I wanted a chicken sandwich and a strawberry shake while my dad was ordering. His face turned the color of the Red Wings’ home jerseys. I didn’t try anything sneaky this time because I didn’t want to start a fight in front of Michael, or draw attention to the penny pinching. Plus, I didn’t want to mess up anything before we got to see the mummies.

After we were done with our burgers, Michael and I moaned with our arms out-stretched, pretending to be mummies.

My dad swerved onto the cobblestone driveway in front of the DIA. Michael and I floated toward the entrance with my family following. We even held the doors for my family. Nothing could stop us from seeing the mummies, or at least that’s what we thought.

“That will be $15 each, sir, for the Egyptian exhibition.”

“What?” blurted dad, while pulling a thin wallet out of his fanny pack.

My dad had to pay. We had come to the DIA to see the mummies.

“Sorry, sir, there is no discount for children or students.”

My dad lost it right then and there. I can’t recount exactly what he yelled. Most of it didn’t make sense, but it seemed to be echoing through the whole museum. I was embarrassed, ashamed that my family was poor. It wouldn’t have been as bad if Michael wasn’t there to witness it.

After I told Michael that I was really sorry a couple of times, my dad slapped down one dollar bill on the counter.

“We’re going in,” shouted dad. But we weren’t going to see the mummies. My dad had only paid a dollar donation for us to see the regular collection.

With our heads down, Michael and I promptly separated from my family - especially my dad. We were able to find some pieces of art that we enjoyed, but after about half an hour of checking out the DIA my dad, still fuming, found us and told us it was time to go. My dad is not exactly an art lover.

Again, I let Michael know how sorry I was. His response surprised me.

“Don’t worry about it, my parents never take me anywhere. I really liked the knight’s armor and your dad is hilarious when he gets mad.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I wish we would’ve seen the mummies, but I still had fun.”

“Cool.”

Michael was treated to another dose of dad’s “hilarious” rage when he got a good look at the windshield of our mini-van. He had a ticket for parking on the cobblestone driveway. Dad had parked in the V.I.P. area.

We weren’t allowed the luxury of the seeing the mummies, but we did have a close parking spot and the bonus treat of seeing my dad flip his wig again. Instead of feeling ashamed, I learned to laugh with Michael’s help.

Ryan McCormick is a recent graduate of Michigan State University, where he worked as an entertainment journalist for The State News. He currently resides in Belleville, Michigan - where he was raised - and is working on his first novel.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, November 27th, 2006 | Email This Post

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