I Walk the Line

By: Lola Bosa

Lurching onto the familiar gravel road, Nonno, against the wishes of me and my siblings, inputs “Johnny Cash’s Best Hits.” While assuming a lower register to mimic Cash’s baritone, he rolls down the windows. Between fallen, parched leaves and long stretches of yellowed grass that failed to green long ago, only a few houses litter the mouth of the lake.

Momentarily releasing his hands from the steering wheel, Nonno strums the air with his pinched thumb and forefinger. Inevitably, our protests morph into giggles, ricocheting off the mounds of dirt fencing the path.

Once we hit Loon Lake road, roughly halfway to our cabin, me and my siblings crawl into the front seats with my grandparents. The Abercrombie & Fitch logos embroidering our shirts peek through the sunroof as we take turns standing on the center console.

Yet, on each drive, once the frequented convenience stores gave way to the remnants of a trailer park, Nonno and Lori shared a glance before rolling up the windows, ushering us back into safety. My grandparents would never tell us why we hid, only that something bad had happened there.

I didn’t ask any questions—for fear of what could be revealed by my pressing—and I only did so three years later when I was 11.

“You know, when we’re driving to the cabin, why do we,” I stuttered, “Who lives in that place?” I couldn’t understand why my grandparents would never let us go beyond White Moose Lodge, where we biked each day to get candy.

I sat in the kitchen of my grandparent’s house, watching Nonno carve an apple. He walked over to me, slicing towards himself, and placed a jagged piece in my palm. “How about you ask me again in two years when you’re thirteen,” he paused, thinking to himself, “that seems old enough to know, and I’ll tell you.” I nodded, not wishing to argue the often firm consensus of my Nonno.

In the meantime, provoked by a too-early exposure to the dark side of the Internet, I came to my own conclusions—the potential for Hells Angels or unexplained child disappearances. I stayed awake most nights, responding to threads of unsolved murders on YouTube with the hair commercials on TV playing in the background—my only companion in the late hours.

Arming myself with all the gore I could acquire, I made myself ready for what my Nonno would come to tell me. But, in the process, I became unsettled—Loon Lake’s shield of protection seemed to wriggle out from under me. If undisclosed darkness could exist just down the road from me, in the carcass of a trailer pack, who’s to say it couldn’t be anywhere else?

My Nonno believed that he was protecting me, that my fragile self would shatter at such unveilings, but perhaps he only made me more afraid. Possibilities of what could’ve happened became more real to me than any truth.