Thin, Red Line

I remembered a story from my childhood in St. Anthony, ID yesterday.

One day, while walking home from school, my friend, Chad, and I noticed a red streak that lead down the road. They were two thin, red lines that first started out dotted, but soon turned solid as we followed them for a few blocks.

Our normal walking route took us down East 4th North, crossing Bridge Street, past the Forest Service Building where my dad worked. Sometimes, when we would pass by his office window, he would bang loudly on it to get our attention. Once he did, he would squeeze the bulb on his Seymour Buns doll, causing the doll to drop his pants and greet us with a plastic butt. My friends would always tell me how funny my dad was, which surprised me because I can quote him saying, "I barely like my own kids, let alone other peoples'."

Once past the Forest Service building, that's where our red trail picked up. We walked along the church ball fields for a while and then crossed into the road, something that our mothers always told us not to do. When I saw the red lines, my imagination soared. What if they were blood streaks from a recent murder? I convinced Chad to follow them with me, he being a little hesitant.

We continued down 4th North, past 3rd East, then 4th, then 5th, then 6th. As we followed the trail, the red lines in the road got thicker. They rounded the corner to 7th East. That was my street!

We lived at the end of the road. The Henry's Fork of the Snake River was also at the end of the road. A perfect place to drop a body. We continued in hot pursuit, taking the role of half detectives, half blood hounds, going through all possibilities in our heads if we discovered a body.

At the end of the road, I could see my dad's 1970's blue Ford pick-up, Ol' Blue, in its usual parking spot, all the way at the end of the road, up against the red barricade that marked the dead end. The red trail continued on toward the river. We passed through the intersection of 7th East and 2nd North leaving no doubt that whose ever body the blood belonged to was well on it's way through town via a water route and heading on toward the slow moving current of the Snake River.

But then it stopped.

The red line traced along the right side of the road, right to the bed of my dad's truck. At first I was in denial, but then I reasoned that my dad must have been hunting that day and killed a deer. The blood easily could have leaked out of his white canvas bag that he usually wrapped his big game in. (By the way, my mom hates it when he washes it in the washer.) It was only late August, deer season didn't open until October and I could have sworn I saw him dressed in his olive drab uniform, wearing his gold name tag that scraped my face when I would give him a hug. My dad couldn't have gone hunting, but there was no way he was the culprit, either.

Then it dawned on me. No body was murdered... Yet.

My dad and brother had just finished painting the wood paneling on our house a nice, dark red and Chad and I had climbed into the back of his truck that weekend to play fisherman, or something. My dad had an old, magnetic CB antenna that we would stick to the side of his truck as our fishing pole. The shine on the truck had long since faded, so we didn't have to worry about scratching it. He kept the used paint in the back of his truck and I distinctly remembered taking the lid off, but I didn't remember putting it back on.

When my dad drove to work, I guess the paint stayed upright just fine, but for what ever reason, on the way home, it tipped leaving a nice red trail.

Chad explained that he needed to go home to do chores, which I knew was a lie. His lawn was never mowed, his room was never clean, and his basement smelled like mildew from water damage long ago. I stuck around to face the music. When my dad saw me, his face was as red as the paint. By the end of it, so was my butt.

My dad remembers better than I do the details of my punishment, because for me, I felt like I deserved it. He on the other hand, feels that he was a bit too harsh. But like a good father, he showed an increase of love and a lesson was learned. I would often follow that line home in the warmer Idaho months before the snow would cover the road and later, St. Anthony's high-quality, chip-seal method of paving. My dad sold Ol' Blue in 1997 as well, so the visual reminders have long since gone. When I would walk home with friends from school, I would tell them, "Yeah, that blood is from a murder that could have happened."