Our father started to smile. It was a faint, almost imperceptible smile and no one would have ever picked up on it unless of course they knew the circumstances behind it. Us kids in the back seat knew. So did our mother upfront as she glared over and gave our father an unmistakably dirty look, telling him in no uncertain terms to wipe that smile off his face.

      We were on our way to Grandpa and Grandma’s farm for Sunday dinner. It was way out in the middle of nowhere, east of Egypt, out in rural Midwest America where the tall corn grows. My mother’s brother and his family would be there too. Our cousins and us three kids would run around like chickens with our heads cut off until we were called to eat. Then after a huge noon meal we would go right back at it again while the adults would sit out on the front porch, digest, and chat away until late afternoon. But before all this was to happen something else had to happen first and it was about to happen now.

     And that something was that we had to drive by Uncle Glen’s. And Glen’s place was just up ahead now. We had passed by it for years now on our way to Grandma’s and Grandpa's and everytime we did so our father would, without exception, point to it and say, “There’s where your mother’s junky uncle lives.” This irked our mother to no end and I’m sure that’s why he said it. We three kids along with our father would always burst out laughing when he did so while our mother would sit there in silence and scowl at us the whole time. It was a family routine.

    But today was going to be different. It was to be no more. Our mother had had enough, reached her breaking point after all these years and warned our father before we left, again in no uncertain terms, that he better not make any cutesy remarks about her uncle’s place this time or else. What the or else was she didn’t say.

     Our father was right. The place was junky, real junky. Glen was a farmer and in the barnyard, scattered willy nilly, here and there, among the other old rusted out and decaying things one could find the following: the frame of a Model T, a  flat tired tractor sinking into the earth, a dented up wheeless and motorless Ford pick up truck up blocks, broken down and disassembled farm equipment, nasty rusty barbed wire rolls of fencing waiting to give someone tetanus, and an old dilapidated GE refrigerator standing upright right in the front yard not bringing good things to life. The old paintless farmhouse was an eyesore too, weathered away over the last fifty or so years to a dull gray brownish color. Same held true for the barns, outbuildings and the outhouse. The place was right out of Tobacco Road.

     Now as we started to pass Glen’s our father just couldn’t resist and despite his warning by our mother  he sprung into silent action. He jerked his head not once but at least half a dozen times toward Glen’s place and us kids started to giggle. Then he pointed his index fingers while his hands were still on the steering wheel toward Glen’s. He never uttered a word though for he knew our mother had told him not to say anything.

     But our mother didn’t care. His actions spoke volumes as far as she was concerned and he had crossed the line of that ‘or else’ she had warned him about. So she reached over and started whacking him on his shoulder with her pocketbook. My father wasn’t suspecting this and such a violent reprisal at that and let go of the steering wheel to defend himself against the oncoming rain of blows. Our old buick, now driverless, had a mind of its own and veered toward the ditch.

      But by the time my father regained control with one hand on the steering wheel while fending off our mother with the other, it was too late. We had ploughed into the ditch and were stuck in the muddy water and muck thereof. My mother, realizing what had happened now, stopped her attack. My father gunned the engine hoping to re-establish us on the road but the car only sank and buried itself up to the hubcaps in the mud and muck. We were stuck.

    No one breathed. No one moved. No one dared say a word or utter or let out a sound.

   Our mother finally broke the silence.

   “Well Bob, go over there.” She pointed to Glen’s house. “And ask him to pull us out.”

    “You go, Elaine,” countered my father. “I don’t know him. I’ve never even met the man. He’s your relative, not mine. You go.”

    “I haven’t seen him since I was a little kid. He won’t remember me. Besides, you’re the one who caused all this with all your foolishness.”

    “Me? You’re the one that caused all this by whopping me with your purse. You should be the one to go.”

    The standoff went on for about five minutes with bickering and shouting back and forth. Then our father, realizing that caving was the better part of valor, caved and grabbed the door handle and was about to open it when our mother hollered, “Don’t. You’ll let all that water seep in the car. Climb out the window.” The Buick was buried that deep, its weight the equivalent of a tank.

     Our father gave no response. Deafening silence followed for a few minutes.

     Then our mother barked out her command to me. “Jeff, you go!” 

     I was thirteen at the time, my brother nine, my sister five... and thus, being the oldest, somehow the consequences of my parents’ childish actions fell on me.

     “Roll down the window and climb out,” my mother screamed. “Now! Today Jeff.”

     “Do I have to? Why can’t Dad go?” I sat there motionless awaiting my fate for my disobedience.

     “You heard your mother, Jeff. Do as she says.”

     I thought that pretty rich. ’Do as she says,’ coming from him. But I kept my mouth shut. The consequences of responding might prove fatal.

     “Now Jeff. Today!”  she repeated and raised her purse into the hitting position.

     “Why do I have to do it. It’s not my fault,” I whined

     She cocked her loaded arm even higher in response, poised to strike me any second now.

     I flinched.

     Then she lowered it, set her purse aside, rolled down her window and started to climb out it. When she was about halfway out, I caved and hollered, “Okay, okay, I’ll go.”

      “Thank you,” she answered, drawing herself back in. “But,” she said, and this was after I was out the window and wading through the mud, “you’re grounded for a week for talking back and disobeying.”

     I rolled my eyes in disbelief. She caught it and said, “Do you want to make that two weeks young man?”

     I plodded myself out of the ditch through the ankle deep water, ran across the road to Glen’s with wet feet, and knocked on the door. After repeated knocks (the man must have been deaf, I thought, since I had pounded loud enough to wake the dead) a toothless, balding, weathered old man, who, in fact, looked like he had just risen from the dead, opened it and stared down at me half awake. He was dressed in blue bib overalls, one shoulder strap unhitched and dangling, no shirt on underneath, his gray hairy chest exposed, and he was barefoot. His feet were so dirty and caked with something-or-other that little skin showed. He itched his head.

     “Mr. Franks,” I mumbled, looking at the ground. But he cut me off before I could say anything further.

     “I’m not Mr. Franks, young fellow. I’m Mr. Sneed.”

     “I thought Mr. Franks lived here,” I responded nonplussed.

     “He used to live here but I bought the place from him about ten years back. You need to be pulled out, huh?” he asked as he nodded across the road at our car.

    “Yes. My father got the car buried and can’t open his door. That’s why he had me crawl out the window and come over here.”

    “Hold on young man and let me get dressed and I’ll be right there.” He turned his back to me and left, leaving the front door wide open. I peered in and the inside of his house had the same decor as the outside of his barnyard. Junk that is, junk everywhere.

     When he returned, both shoulder straps were buttoned up, but he still had no shirt on, a red handkerchief dangled out of a side pocket, it was kind of crusty, a tattered straw farmer’s hat was scrunched down over his ears, and his rubber boots still wet with cattle manure stunk to high heaven. At least I thought it was cattle manure since I had spotted a bony emaciated spotted cow on the premises. But he did have his teeth in now.

    “I’ll go get the tractor and a chain. Tell your folks I’ll be right there,” he instructed me.

    “Mr. Sneed,” I said. I was in the process of devising a plan of revenge against my mother for grounding me and making me do this. This had been weighing heavily on my nascent teenage brain for the last minute or so while waiting on Mr. Sneed.

    “Yes.”

    “I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” I asked as my prankish devilish little plan had now come to fruition.

    “Depends. What is it?”

    “Well, my mother, Elaine’s her name, well she’s not quite right in the head and she thinks that her uncle Glen Franks still lives here. She’s kind of a problem for all of us. We think her mind is going. So if could you just humor her and  pretend you’re Glen, my father and I would appreciate it. We don’t want to get her any further upset than she already is under the circumstances and all.”

     “Surely young man she’ll know I’m not her uncle. And what about your father?”

     “No, she won’t. Believe me. She hasn’t seen her uncle since she was a kid and my father has never even met the man.”

     “Well,” he paused, stared at the floor deep in thought, rubbed his chin in contemplation, then looked up at me, smiled, and said, “This all sounds kind of deceitful and devious to me young man. But then again, I like that in a kid. Deceitfulness, deviousness that is. Kind of reminds me of myself when I was about your age. I don’t know what you’re up to young fella, but I’ll play along.”

     “Thank you Mr. Sneed,” I said. “I appreciate it.”