Cousin Casey Was a Stowaway

We took a road trip to Florida.
I don’t recall the reason for it,
but Boompa rented a 15-passenger van for the trip.

I got my own bench.
NJ got her own bench.
Mom, Granny, and the baby (Sterling) shared a bench.
Dad and Boompa traded off driving.

Aunt Betty lived in Orlando.
She was Granny’s sister.
Uncle Frank and Jason lived with her.

Jason was Kathy and Mike’s kid—the Rouches.
Jason had Down syndrome,
and Kathy and Mike had two other kids: Casey and [girl-cousin].

Casey was the oldest.
He was about my age—maybe a year younger.
Girl-cousin had leukemia,
and she was just a year older than Jason.

Jason had been a bone marrow donor for her.

Aunt Betty took care of him.
Someone had to.
She said his parents just treated him like spare parts.

Mike was a professional firefighter—
the captain of the local firehouse.
I remember getting to slide down the fire pole
and turn on the sirens in the trucks.

We went to Disney for a day,
because duh.

When it was time to pile into the van and head home,
Casey convinced me to help him hide in the van.

I said sure, because Casey was cool.

He didn’t even grab a change of clothes.

When we were packing the van,
I made sure to be there to help fit the luggage in.
I had been playing a lot of Tetris on my Game Boy,
so I volunteered this as a unique skill
for helping pack the van.

The adults bought it.

Casey had rolled under the back bench and hid.

When we stopped for gas in Georgia,
I helped him out.

My parents were shocked.

They went to the pay phone and called his parents—
no answer.

“We’re already past where we can turn around.
I’ve got a job starting tomorrow I need to be back for,”
Dad said.

Casey volunteered that he told his parents
he was coming back with us for the summer.

My parents didn’t buy it,
but since Orlando was half a day the opposite direction—
a full day out of our way—
there wasn’t much they could do.

So back home to Virginia we went.

Eventually, Mom got his parents on the phone.
They didn’t realize he was missing.
They also didn’t care.

Casey stayed in my room—on the trundle bed pullout.
We used the void this created under my bed to maintain a fort.

At night, we would pretend to be flying fighter jets,
using our “joysticks.”

It was a fun game—
until my mother walked in on us one night.

She had Dad whip my ass with a belt
for the offenses against God I was committing.

His parents eventually came to get him.
It was the week before school started back up in Orlando.

They brought Jason and Aunt Betty with them.

They stayed for a few days.

Mom commented on how Aunt Kathy
asked for so many bed pillows while she was there.

“It sounded like she wanted to build a pillow fort
to keep her husband away during the night,
because she didn’t love him,” she said.