Family Tour
by Kipras Kaukenas ︎︎︎Here we are again about to set out on Papa's tour to explore hangovers of violence.
Yesterday Papa was exhilarating. Only a few kilometers away from our house a violent outburst took place. Something about Eritreans getting at Eritreans throats. Helicopters hung in the air, ambulance sirens blared like a butchered lamb.
But for now we were kept in relative darkness because the house rule went: Nobody’s allowed to check the news until we go on our tour tomorrow. Not like he could’ve prevented it. Luana couldn’t have cared less or waited longer, submitting to this boomer rule. And she didn’t.
So we went on a tour on Saturday, a drizzling and gusty Saturday in early February, neatly packed in Papa’s minivan, our whole family about to depart, even with little Boyle in his safety seat wrapped in fuzzy blankets.
Some with full knowledge of what they were about to see, others in tempting ignorance.
In the back we sat, knowing more than we should about the tour—except for Little Boyle whose world was not yet like ours, full of confusion and wonder—waiting for Papa to fetch powdered milk Mama left on the kitchen counter. I sat in the middle. Little Boyle to my left, Luana to my right. Her face was drawn to her phone, her smile betrayed it was some boy she was chatting to. She rapped the screen with her fake nails, answering.
Papa returned. We departed.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” he said.
The traffic slowed down, as usual, whenever we approached sites of violent outbreaks. We were never the only ones, neither the earliest—perhaps because Mama liked to sleep in on weekends after her exhausting shifts in the hospital. So whenever we went on tour, we always glued ourselves to the end of a long snake made of other cars. This Saturday was no exception.
I recognized the neighborhood, the street. It was on the way to my music school. I'd usually pass it on Tuesdays and Thursdays on my way there. Talk about the smallness of the world.
“Almost there,” Papa announced, lowering the volume level on the stereo to a nearly inaudible. Little Boyle spit out his pacifier. Luana pointed her phone outside the window and started filming.
We were advancing sluggishly, like in McDonald’s drive-thru.
“There it is. See that building?” Papa said, pointing to an event hall.
I remembered the orange entrance door—how could I mistake it—now smashed with some sharp objects and hardly resembling my memory’s representation.
Today the building’s facade was charred and sooty. Many windows were paneled with plywood, beneath which shards of glass were broomed into a turquoise pile. Nearby the entrance stood a burned minivan just like ours. Do-Not-Cross tape ran parallel to the wall. Papa could not hide his excitement.
“Imagine, in our country, far away from their own, they fight amongst each other, that’s a civil war outside their own country. Farce. Boredom knows no bounds. Entertainment of the purest kind.”
“Thrill,” he added after a pause.
“Why do kids need to see all this terror?” she said.
“Immediacy. Directness.”
Papa was never not abstract…Ever abstract. To an extent mysterious. He’d never tell us what had happened, what had caused the turmoil—just a plain exhibition for our eyes to judge, imagine. There was much naivety in his method.
“Simply edifying,” Mama said.
“The only way to avoid mediation.” Papa said, nodding.
“Live. Actual. Present.” Mama jabbed ironically.
I picked up Little Boyle’s pacifier from beneath his feet, cleaned it, and put it back in his mouth. Luana was back to rapping her nails on the screen.
Mama turned up the volume. Papa’s didactic entertainment vanished as if washed away by the wave of sound coming from the stereo. The traffic scattered and cleared. Papa accelerated, leaving the infernal zone behind us.
“From entertainment to horror in fifteen minutes,” Papa concluded as we parked our car in the driveway.
Little Boyle’s brow indicated that he was dreaming sad dreams of the future.