Escape from Vacationland
Maudlin House, 2024 A coming-of-age story about growing up in Maine where beauty belies a starker reality of insular and economic hardship. The boy experiences vertigo as he weighs the possibility of leaving home, a right of passage that is both inevitable and impossible to imagine. The story echoes with reverence, restlessness, and the longing for home.
I grew up one of those townies who lived in vacationland year-round. Awkward in our jenky jeans and sweatshirts, grease on our sneakers even a week after they were new. We fixed up old tourist cars just to have something to drive. We were the ones serving the tourists eggs each morning. The tourists were the ones never sweating on the hottest of days and wearing white sneakers that never got dirty. When I wasn’t working, I was swimming, paddling, laying on rocks and staring up at the blue sky. I didn’t have money, but I had a car and the lake. Sundays I played the rebel at church and sneaked out to smoke in the parking lot with the pastor’s daughters. Mom made hot dinners and gave long hugs. Dad stared at the TV and sometimes took me to work fixing summer camps. His hands wired outlets and plumbed pipes like someone fluent in Japanese, skills so far out of reach that I had no desire to pursue them. Back then, Lilly and I talked into the endless nights until we inevitably were laughing so hard that Dad woke to our howls and began pounding the walls, demanding us to stop, only making us laugh harder.
I dreamed about crossing over the state line, but I feared what I might become on the other side. I imagined myself in ten years a city guy with rich clothes and cookie-cutter wife and look-alike kids like a tourist, but Dad looked at my floppy hair and pretty eyes and told me I had to get educated.
“A kid like you can’t survive working with your hands,” he said.
Still, I worried about the world I was leaving behind.
Just before graduation, Lilly said it was about time I learned a skill I couldn’t glean from a book. Lilly dated this guy Tom, the head chef of an inn down on Long Pond. Lilly convinced Tom to give me a summer job washing dishes so I could have a little spending money when I got away.
After I checked in for my first shift, the summer crew was called to the kitchen to listen to Tom — our red-bearded, foul-mouthed chef — explain common prep procedures. We stood in a small cluster by the stove, waiting for Tom to bring a saucepan to boil. Great Pond glittered in the southern light that splintered through the screen door. Ducks barked in the yard. Tom’s beard sprung from his chin in orange flames. His eyes jumped between us. He was doling out wisdom like the orange marmalade he slapped on the duck that made him famous.
“Kitchen life is patience. You wait for the water to boil. You don’t jump the gun. You wait overnight for duck to cook. You don’t rush a bird with heat. Patience is required for veal to let go from the pan before you turn it. If you have to pry it from the pan, you’ve already lost the battle. Like women. You can’t rush the right one, and when it comes to drinking, wait until night. Alcohol may be life’s greatest pleasure, ambrosia, but don’t partake in my goddamned kitchen. Wait till your shift ends, then have at, is what I say. Waiting is what the kitchen life is all about.”
One of the line cooks rolled his eyes. “It takes money to buy beer and keep the right girl. Only bums blow everything on booze.”
Tom threw the knife down into his chopping board. He laughed. “I work all day every day, but I enjoy a little life.”
“I don’t know, man,” said the line cook. “I want real money, not just what I can save in a day.”
Tom pointed his knife straight at his heart. “I know the type who work in kitchens. But I have rules. I don’t drink during the day or I’d just be a drunk and drunks don’t run goddamned kitchens, and they don’t marry the girl I’m going to marry.”
Tom’s declaration surprised me. When I was in junior high, Tom’s mother hung herself in their basement. He lived above a bar and didn’t have his license to drive. He lost it to a bout with alcohol in the snow, so now my sister drove him around. I knew he liked my sister but marrying seemed a little far off. My sister had started taking him to church. She thought she could straighten him out, maybe even get him saved. Surprising to everyone, Tom liked church. One night over dinner, my parents got hopeful and asked if he had accepted Jesus into his heart.
“I’m open to all forms of faith,” Tom said.
Chewing his steak, dad slowly countered, “Well, there’s only one true faith, and that’s Jesus.”
“Jesus, Buddha, whatever you want to call them. I agree. One faith, many names.”
With a squeaky urgency, Mom quickly spit back, “He who comes in sheep’s clothing can’t be trusted.”
'Well, Jesus was the lamb that taketh away the sins of the world, right?”
After Tom announced his intention to marry my sister, he turned back to the stove and slid a veal and a chicken into two pans gurgling with hot oil. He gave one pan handle an upward thrust. A piece of veal rose up over the pan, performed the most elegant backflip, then landed softly back in the pan where it continued to sizzle. He hummed along, seeming completely at peace with his world, then shook the pan handles one with each hand and slapped the towel over his shoulder.
“#2 up in 10. There’s a 6 on the line and an 8 on its way. Get back to work, you goddamned sons of bitches. Training’s over.”
As summer rolled along, I couldn’t help but smoke in the kitchen. The heat and the speed and the constant feeling you might miss a beat and lose a hand to a random knife — it kept you on edge.
Every forty-five minutes to an hour, like clockwork, Tom and I slipped out to the loading dock for a cigarette. Tom talked nonstop about the mountains and lakes and ways to cook the sundry meats he liked to consume. I told how it felt driving a car, going nowhere, following the tar in any direction through wilderness to city to ocean. I talked about the land I grew up on, how it was more a part of me than family. About church, how after the service it was a joy to speak to people I’d been crammed into pews next to all my life, who knew every detail of who I was and how I was made. But more than anything else, Tom made sure we talked about Lilly. I don’t think I ever met the Lilly that Tom spoke about. She was a myth that floated above Tom’s head. Tom elevated at the first thought of her. His Mainer slur became less pronounced. He sat up higher on the wobbling stool. His voice rose up a half octave. “A woman like her is worth changing for,” he liked to say. They would have a restaurant of their own. He would run the kitchen, she the wait staff, a real family restaurant. But there were some things that had to be done right. She deserved better than what he was. His checklist had two things on it. First, get his license to drive, so Lilly wouldn’t have to drive his lame ass around. Second, start his own restaurant.
“Lilly is something worth changing for. I have to be worth something, too.”
That seemed a lot to ask. If she already loved him, and he loved her, why wait?
“Would you ever leave Maine?” I asked. The only people who owned Tom’s sort of restaurants were out-of-staters with out-of-state money.
“Not for the fanciest restaurant in the biggest fucking city.” He cast his cigarette into the gravel. “Look at that,” he said, pointing a big finger at the lake and sun turning silver and yellow. “I could never leave that.”
The days ended at midnight, me drenched by dish steam, smelling of burnt bird flesh, and tired of reliving with each dish the vision of driving south to college. I drove home smoking with the windows rolled down and wondering why I would ever want to leave home. I saw myself surrounded by high rises, talking to slick people, discussing books that people only read in cities. The world held knowledge only to be attained by leaving Maine. I refused to be left in the dark, but I longed to keep driving familiar roads, swimming lakes hidden to everyone but me. It didn’t matter what I wanted. It was a done deal. It was middle of August and by the end of the month, I’d be driving south. In my head, the debate went on and on.
I couldn’t take it any longer. I told my parents I was moving to Portland to get a job as a chef. School couldn’t teach me what life had in store. I told dad to keep the money he saved. Dad paced my room. He picked up a red rock off my bookshelf. “You have no clue what life is. I should have shown you what life was but me and mom sheltered you, we thought for your own good.” He held up the rock. A blood red circle in his right palm. “Out there, if you don’t make good money, no one gives a damn for you at all.”
“I don’t care,” I shouted. “I want to live, not just read about living.”
Dad stepped back. His face purpled. He hammered his fist on the wall, “You’re right. You don’t know what life is but if you give up college, you will know!”
That night Tom asked if I wanted to go to a party after work. I said, “Sure.”
It was a humid night, my shirt sticking to my back, black flies biting my legs, locusts vibrating in the trees. I parked on the street across from the address Tom gave me. Tom stood on the lawn surrounded by flopped over bikes and unleashed dogs with a rum and coke in his left hand, a beer in his right, a cigarette balanced in the corner of his mouth. “Where you been, you bastard?” he said handing me a beer.
A guy with a mane of blond hair, no shirt, and wearing tight leather chaps like an 80s hair rock guitarist was shouting about the rum situation. Barb, the waitress throwing the party, still wearing her blouse from the restaurant sat on the curb reaching between her knees with a corkscrew to pry open a bottle of merlot.
“Tom’s the DD tonight,” she shouted.
“Tom’s no good,” said the hair rock guy. “Look at him. He’s been drinking longer than I have.”
Tom raised his beer sheepishly.
“Goddammit.” The waitress pushed her glasses back up her nose. “You’re supposed to be sober. That’s the goddamned point.”
Tom shrugged and pulled a red ten speed from the bushes.
“Don’t worry. I got this.”
“You’re crazy as shit if you get on that bike!”
Tom leaped atop the tiny red frame and wobbled down the sidewalk glued to the bike seat weaving between the streetlights.
“Why all the bikes?” I asked Barb.
“No one in this crowd has a license.”
She pulled a fifth of vodka out her shirt pocket and asked which high school I went to. I told her I was going to college in two weeks.
“College was a shit show for me, but I loved getting away from here for a while.” She pointed the bottle in a wide circle at everything surrounding us.
Tom came back up the street weaving and singing, balancing a case of beer on the handle bars, a handle of rum between his legs, and a bottle of beer in one hand that he tipped to his lips while smoking a cigarette and singing out, “It sure is a beautiful night.”
We drank in the dark. I fell asleep in a lawn chair on the porch until the sound of a slamming door woke me. I peered back into the living room window. Tom was in a chair with Barb on his lap. Lilly stood over them screaming. Tom and Barb had flushed cheeks and tousled hair. Hands waved, tears flowed. The back door slammed behind both women leaving.
I got more beer, found Lilly and offered her a cigarette. She slipped it into her pocket.
“What’s up with Tom?”
“We had a fight.”
“Are you still driving him home?”
“You take him.”
"He’s not my boyfriend."
"You work at the same bar.”
“Restaurant.”
“Whatever.”
“What happened anyway?”
“He started out sweet, but he turned sour. Like milk.”
“How long has it been bad?”
She didn’t answer.
“How bad?”
She bit her lip and slid the cigarette out of her pocket.
"Tom is an asshole. Every night he comes back and drinks just like he brags. When he’s drunk he doesn’t ask for things. You know what I mean.”
“Why do you put up with him?”
She took a drag. “He’s no different than you, brother.”
“If you aren’t serious with Tom, and he’s such an asshole, why the hell do you stay with him?”
“Just because a guy falls in love, you think a girl is obliged to either give a shit or leave? Do you know how often I’d have to choose between falling in love or being alone? At this point in my life, all I have time for is a couple nice hours a day. Tom is sweet over coffee. He’s great with a bottle of wine. Perfect in small slices. After that, he can fall in love if he likes or drink all night for all I care. That’s not my problem.”
I felt sick. It was late, but I wasn’t able to drive. I put down my beer. I followed voices to the backyard. Barb and the hair rock guy laid on the grass holding hands. Tom was talking theology. In a weepy voice, he was rehearsing an elaborate explanation of Christ’s love.
“Love like that,” he muttered, “you don’t turn down.”
“You think God loves you?” I blurted out.
“God _is_ love. Why wouldn’t He love me?”
“Why don’t we ask Lilly?”
Tom leaned forward into my face. “I know I break Lilly’s heart twice a day. I admit her that. I say to her, ‘I know I’m a shit.’ And you know what she says? She tells me if Christ could forgive, then so can she.”
When Lilly and I were kids, sitting on a blanket in the backyard, staring at the cloud formations, all those games pretending to be grown up, we never pretended this. Why would anyone want their kid to learn about this?
“I don’t care who you think forgives you. If you ever hurt my sister, I’ll show you how I forgive.”
I grabbed the whisky bottle off the table. Tom was laughing. He called me names. I leaped at him thinking about Lilly having no choice. My fists bounced off his chest like I was punching a balloon. He laughed so hard that I laughed too, but under my breath words slipped out.
“If I was your mother, I’d have killed myself too.”
Tom raised up one hand. My head hit the ground. I looked up. Lilly was leaning over me. She took the bottle from my hand.
"Your problem is you expect too much from people. When they disappoint you, you think they need saving. Look at you. You can’t even save yourself.”
“Who needs forgiveness now, John?”
Lilly pushed me up. “Come on. Just ignore him.”
“Hey Lilly, after you put the darling to bed, I’ll meet you in the car. I could use a little salvation tonight after all.”
Lilly spun back around and swung the bottle still in her hand. A sweet, thick mist sprayed over Tom’s face. He lumbered toward her reaching out for her neck but the hair guy jumped on his back and wrestled him to the ground.
Lilly brought me inside and laid me on a bench. “I’m leaving Tom with you. You two are made for each other.”
I fell asleep.
The next morning I drove Tom to work in head pounding silence. We slowly prepped the kitchen then crept out to the loading dock and settled into a series of cigarettes. The road filled with SUVs towing boats, kids crammed in the back, bikes hovering over the roof. Labor Day was the great exodus. He pulled a flask out of his pants and tipped it back and looked me in the eye.
“There was a reason I was in a mood last night. Not that it excuses anything.”
He kept smoking for a while then went on. “Just before I left work, I bumped into one of the restaurant’s VIP patrons, a personal friend of the owner. The man told me my duck wasn’t up to snuff. He pointed out other smaller things. He cornered me in the foyer and shouted for other guests to hear, ‘It’s just not the same here anymore.’ I followed him to his car and things got bad. A broken rib, maybe worse. I’m not really sure.”
I couldn’t look at him.
“The owner was looking for a reason to fire me already. This week is my last week, but I don’t care about the job. I just can’t stand that I caused it. I was on a path to Lilly, getting my shit together, but that isn’t something I’ve ever done right. Whenever I start to get a thing right, I fuck it up myself. You know?”
I nodded.
“No, you don’t know. You shouldn’t sit with me, kid. You’re smart, right? Smart kids don’t get like this. Smart kids leave before they get like me.” He pointed at the escaping SUVs and all their perfect children, his cigarette trembling. “Follow them. Get the fuck out of this shithole. Don’t do to yourself what I’ve done to me. You need to find something worth changing for. There’s nothing here worth a damn at all.”
He started coughing and threw up off the edge of the dock.
I drove home from work that afternoon, stepping hard on the gas, already farther from home than I’d ever been in my life.