My name is Lucius Van Dyke III. The Van Dykes came from Amsterdam one hundred years ago this year. This year is our American Centennial.

My great-grandfather, Gregor Van Dyke was a son-of-a-bitch. He was an engineer on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad who was seldom home but when he was, you knew it.

He met my great-grandmother, Evaline, at a beer garden in an Ohio steel town. She mistook Gregor for her fiancé during a particularly rigorous polka. She didn’t notice any difference until the next morning. Nine months later, Lucius Van Dyke, my grandfather, was born.

Read the rest of this entry…

My former girlfriend, Noel, and I hitchhiked our way across the USA from my old hometown, Youngstown, about eleven years ago. Youngstown was, and is, a rusty old hulk of a city lost somewhere between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. A steel town that was kicked to the ground during the Carter administration, had its guts ripped out during the Reagan years, and its brains kicked in during “Daddy” Bush’s reign.

On a Saturday night in June Noel and I finished our drinks at Cedars (now yuppified–it used the kind of place “normal” people were scared to go. I’ve since seen newscaster Bob Black in there bopping along to an Oldies band) and hiked out along the 680 to Interstate 80 for points west. We got our first ride from a guy named Steve just outside of Ravenna.

Read the rest of this entry…

Other than suffering the malodorous Chevy, the first couple of hours went fine. Noel, Steve, and I played a game where we had to name a band for each letter of the alphabet. Steve sucked at that game. The only names he could come up with were Cheap Trick, The Dave Matthews Band, and Terence Trent D’arby.

We stopped for gas and fast food just outside of Grove City, hopped back on the 71, continuing our journey south and west. Noel napped in the back seat while I flipped through the Weekly World News that Noel picked up at the gas station.

Read the rest of this entry…

I was involved in a car chase once before with my father, Lucius Van Dyke II. I was five years old and we were watching the Memorial Day Parade march by Brown’s Drugstore. The Shriners drove up and started their precision driving in their tiny little cars. They drove in circles, figure 8’s, a daisy pattern. It was really cool for a five year old boy.

The Shriners started a new pattern that had them driving within a foot of where my father and I were standing. All of a sudden, my father swung back his fist and clobbered a Shriner, knocking him free of his little car. The tiny Mustang drifted to a halt.

Read the rest of this entry…

We entered the Cincinnati city limits with a line of State Troopers on our tail and a helicopter overhead. Noel was still asleep in the back, oblivious to the excitement surrounding her. I didn’t wake her. She needed the rest.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I hissed at Steve.
“Back off, man. Back off.”
“Fuck that. Pull over. Let us out of here.”

Steve reached down between his seat and the driver’s side door, pulling out a gun and aiming it my direction.

Read the rest of this entry…

My father, Lucius Van Dyke II, took my brother Scooter and I fishing once. Scooter’s name wasn’t really Scooter, of course, it was Peter. He was christened with that unfortunate nickname due to a childhood malady that for a time left him with what my mother called “the scoots.”

My father woke us early. He stumbled into the bedroom and flicked on the light.

“C’mon boys, we’re going fishing.”

Read the rest of this entry…

“Take a seat at the bar boys,” said Lucius Van Dyke II.

Scooter and I climbed up the tall bar stools and pulled ourselves up to the bar.

“A little eye opener, Karen,” said my father. “And a little something to eat for the boys.”
“Sure thing, hun.”

On the back wall behind the bar next to the cash register was a small glass case with a red top and happy yellow letters that read ‘Hot Dogs.’ Inside the glass were a mélange of franks and wieners in grey, brackish water. I swear the hot dogs had been there, untouched, for years.

Read the rest of this entry…