This is the conclusion of a story begun in last month’s SUN.
— Ed.
“Sometimes you get tired of riding in taxicabs the same way you get tired of riding in elevators. All of a sudden, you have to walk, no matter how far or how high up.”
Holden Caulfield
I caught a ride into the Lexington suburbs, then took out my rain hat and harmonica and began marching and playing to the townsfolk on my way down to the University of Kentucky. It was four miles in pouring rain, and people thought I was crazy. A man along the way spotted the writing on my bag and told his buddy not to worry, it’s just another one of those nuts from California. Another guy, with his little kids tagging along behind him, dragging their miniature flags along the sidewalk, smiled and told me I looked very happy. His wife, whose dark feet in her bright white pumps reminded me of chocolate ice cream with marshmallows, was more concerned about her kids, though, and bent over to tell them not to drag the flags. As I continued past the red brick buildings of downtown Lexington, I was accompanied by an old lady in a green dress with white polka dots. She was carrying a purple handbag with lots of yarn and knitting needles, and was being pulled along by her dachshund. She had an old straw hat with a withered rose tucked into the hatband, and her snow-white hair was gathered into a bun at the back — holding up the brim of her hat. She had one of those drying-up-like-prunes faces that you see on so many old people. It happens to all of us, eventually, but at least she wasn’t dried up on the inside. She laughed at everything I said, even plain statements. When we passed a “Small Animal Hospital,” she asked me what it was. “That’s a hospital for small animals,” I said. You should have heard her howl. I really loved her.
At Ashland, I began looking around for a place to eat. I asked a girl with curly black Little Orphan Annie hair if she knew of one. Her name was Joe, and she suggested a bowling alley uptown, where she said she just happened to be going.
At the bowling alley, it was like old times. Polar Bear Hendley and I used to bowl every Friday night. I really was getting pretty good, until we started taking girls along. I wasn’t going to let them see me using those bright-colored kids’ balls, and my game was never the same. Anyway, tonight they had a hot contest going where, if the red pin turned up in the number one position, and you got a strike, you won a buck. People were going crazy for it. Just offer them something for nothing, and they’ll do anything for you.
After dinner, Joe insisted I drop her off at a dance over at the Moonlight Gardens. Just as I was about to let her off, she got up on her tiptoes and kissed me real quick. I told her I’d write to her, so she gave me a bigger kiss, and then I offered to write her two letters. I was beginning to get the hang of it, and asked if she wanted to try for a third letter. But she said she’d better be going. We shook hands, and I headed back into town.
“The purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. It is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world.”
The shades clattered all night so, around four, I got up and shoved them all the way up. Along about five the sun woke me.
It was eight. I’d said I was going to get up at eight and get a good start, but remembered that I hadn’t slept much. Actually, I knew I wasn’t going to get up then, and tried to go back and finish this dream about me and Sophia Loren which, unfortunately, I was already beginning to forget.
It was now nine-thirty, and I was more tired than ever but figured that if I went back to bed once more, I’d be so tired I’d never get up. So I arose and blindly tried to do everything you’re supposed to do in the morning — then went back to bed.
Now I know why people always manage to get out of bed. They’re hungry. I went down the block and got a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with a carrot-raisin salad. It wasn’t the best meal I ever had. The only good thing about the sandwich was the toothpicks they stuck in it to keep the bacon from springing around, and you’d have to be a juggler to eat one of those salads. I think, when I get older, I’m going to invent a push-button combination knife-fork-spoon called the “kniferoon,” so you can cut the lettuce, stab the raisins, and catch all the juice at the bottom with just a single kniferoon.
There are certain days when the world’s determined you’re not going to make a bit of progress. Or maybe it’s just fate — why, on certain days, your belt keeps turning to the right for no reason, or your nose starts bleeding when you do too many push-ups. At any rate, though supposedly headed south on the West Virginia Turnpike, I wasn’t getting anywhere.
To begin with, I couldn’t stay outside. These two vicious looking St. Bernards had gotten loose on what was previously a crowded street and scared everybody into the stores. Then a woman who picked me up stopped at a shopping center and expected me to wait in the car while she went hunting for a new dress. So it was late evening by the time I checked into the Whytheville Court Motel. But, while it wasn’t exactly Triple A’s, or the kind of place where they show you how sanitary everything is by making you rip strips of paper off the toilet, it was still the best place I’d stayed so far.
“It is the rich people who have all the money.”
Sigmund Freud
At breakfast this morning they tried to pawn some ham off on me by saying I’d ordered it with my eggs. The guy next to me insisted I stick up for my rights, and not accept it. He and the waitress got into a big argument over it but, tiring of the whole thing, I ended the dispute by eating the ham.
I got a ride all the way into Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from a local policeman. He mostly talked about the crime in Harrisburg. “It’s those dagos that are causing it all,” he said. “But, hell, even the damn dagos ain’t nothin’ like the damn niggers. We’ve got to keep letting old niggers out of jail just so we can get the new ones in.” As for the kids, he grinned, “Just when they were starting to get out of hand, we nipped ’em in the bud.”
“To me, the only faith that needs to be blind is that faith which contains something to which you prefer to close your eyes.”
Phillip Abbot Luce
I caught a ride through Pennsylvania from an eighteen-year-old named Harry. He was wearing green levis with three-inch cuffs, the pockets bloated with sundry goodies. His orange, ivy league shirt had all the buttons undone, showing off his broad, hairy chest. He said he was just out hot-rodding his Daddy’s Sting Ray, picking up hitchhikers, so he could find out what people from other parts of the country were like. He complained about his name. I tried consoling him, “After all, no girls are named Harry — it’s really masculine!” But I don’t think it worked. “Yeah, no girls are named Pluteschnufz either!” he replied.
There must be millions of terrible-tempered people in the world, but I doubt if many could match the guy who took me into New Jersey. Cars going slower than his were all driven by bastards who had nothing better to do than get in people’s way; cars going faster were reckless motherfuckers. When we stopped for gas, he almost came to blows with the attendant because he wouldn’t wipe off the inside of his windshield. Finally, after I reminded him that he’d be late to work if he stayed to fight the gas station attendant, he changed his mind — and Grumpy and I were off once again.
Once I found out a little more about him, though, I felt sorry for him. He’d been on his own since he was thirteen, and was now working in Summerville as a night watchman for Johnson & Johnson. Only a month before, as he was coming to work, the watchman on the earlier shift thought he was a burglar — and shot him in the leg. They didn’t even get the bullet out until the next morning.
In Princeton, I asked directions of a guy who had a huge body, oodles of fat, and no elbows. For some reason, all the flab on his arms just came straight down on both sides. I accepted an invitation to stay at his apartment. After eating dinner and seeing the campus, we went up to his place. He started in about how he used to give rubdowns in the Navy, telling me to take a shower and he’d give me a $7.50 rubdown free of charge. I said fine.
Like I said, just offer people something for nothing, and they’ll do anything for you.
Sometimes it seems like you can’t win. I mean, you’re either too suspicious or too naive. This time it was too naive. He actually started the rubdown pretty good, but it wasn’t long before he started roaming around to parts I was sure weren’t part of the standard rubdown. So I said, “I’ll just take the rubdown.” “How ’bout something else?” he grinned lewdly.
Well, I’ve never been very gymnastic, but I pushed down on his bed so hard I had every ounce of spring going for me. I pushed off, turned completely around, circled him in mid-air, and landed five feet from the bed! Was I shaking. I was getting out of there immediately, I screamed.
Now it seems funny. Standing there naked in a pitch-dark, unfamiliar room, in a strange town, telling some 250-pound guy I was leaving. He just said I shouldn’t get excited, he wasn’t going to force anything. After all, he said, what could he do — tie me down? Well?
Well, I didn’t sleep much that night. The room was hot, but I felt obligated to keep all my clothes on so, if he was going to try anything, he’d at least have to work at it.
Did you know the world’s made up of a pack of conniving morons who’d think nothing of pulling the wool over the eyes of an innocent kid? Well, it is.
“To any man who finds it equally easy to chop up a live dog and a live lettuce, I would recommend suicide at his earliest convenience.”
Konrad Lorenz
In and out of New York City, sitting next to a bellboy for the Chelsea down in the West Village. He said he liked to dabble in the arts, but mostly kept complaining about the rotten air-conditioning on the bus — while puffing on a huge cigar, smoking up the whole place. But, when I told him I was Jewish, he said that some of his best tippers were Jewish.
Some mornings you have a feeling everything’s going to go right. I got mine when this blond girl in an old Studebaker, wearing light blue shorts, a cotton blouse, and sunglasses perched on top of her head, stopped to pick me up. She said she had the whole day off with nothing to do.
It wasn’t too hard talking her into heading towards Boston. But we first stopped at Plymouth Rock, where a large crowd was gathering. A little girl in front of us was carrying a “Peace on Earth” balloon, and asked her older brother why the rock had “1620” stamped on it. So the Pilgrims could tell what year it was when they got here, he said. At one time Plymouth Rock was three times as big, but people kept chipping pieces off it — at least that’s what this guy who was dressed up like a Pilgrim told us.
On a couple of rocks overlooking the Atlantic, pretty close to THE rock, we sat and ate watermelon. It was nice, sitting there together dropping thousands of watermelon seeds through the rocks.
We took Boston by storm, guiding the Studie through the rush-hour traffic, down to the Common. Then, all of a sudden, the girl said she was in a hurry to get back to Rhode Island. So we sat down by a lake in the Common, took out a huge map of New England, and tried to figure out how I could get to Maine. That was the last I saw of her. I just met a girl the other day, though, who told me how neat she thought it would be to just come into somebody’s life, be with them a few hours, or as long as it was good, and then be gone — like the passing wind. Perhaps they’re related.
I got a ride from a guy who said he’d been gay for more than twenty years. He said he led a sad life and that, once people let booze or sex run their lives, it’s all downhill. As he let me out, he warned: “Remember boy, you can go on trusting everyone — except when it comes to sex. A stiff prick has no conscience. If you can control your sex, you’ll be a great man some day. Avoid that first homosexual contact, because you’ll discover it’s not nearly as disgusting as you’ve been brought up to believe. You’ll be shocked to find yourself actually enjoying it. It took me fifteen years before I was honest enough to say to myself, ‘Face it, you’re a homosexual.’ It’s just too bad that, if you ever to give in, I couldn’t have been the first to do it with you.”
“Never before has a civilization engaged so frantically in an attempt to destroy its standards. Nothing is considered important in itself anymore. There are no eternal truths, no lasting verities, no positive values.”
Dr. Max Rafferty
I got a ride into Maine from a man who said he was an auditor. I asked him what that meant. “Well, you might say that I go around and see if businesses can’t be run more efficiently. Oh hell, what I really am is sort of a fink!” He said he once caught a secretary spending $250,000 for some things that weren’t even needed! As she was about to be fired, she pleaded, “I promise I won’t do it again!” At least she had a sense of humor. But the boss didn’t think it was so funny, and fired her.
I walked around Skowhegan tonight, eventually stopping at a schoolyard. Sometimes I’ll just stop at schoolyards and watch kids for hours if I get a chance. Stupid, crazy kids and all their wild dreams. Sometimes I think growing up is when you realize most of them won’t come true. I got into one of the swings and pretty soon I was flying through the cool night air of Skowhegan. I really can’t tell you how long I just stayed up there and swung.
Breakfast and off through Maine and the gorgeous southern Quebec farmland, divided into perfect plots — just the way my grandmother sections her cantaloupes. I think I’d like Maine. It has snowmobiles, lobster traps, offshore islands, and corny Yankee jokes like the rhubarb not getting wet when it rains because it’s in cans. They say that, during the winter, all life goes south, because the trees are barren and the land is hard (and you’d freeze your ass off). But when the air is very still, boys come out to play hockey on the ice.
That evening, on the boardwalk of the Hotel Frontenac in Quebec City, they were having a big square dance. I jumped onto the back of one of the huge cannons and sat and watched all the people, the old-fashioned lamps, and the St. Lawrence flowing past. A guy about my age came up and sat on the lower half of the cannon. We eventually began walking the boardwalk trying to hustle the French girls. We only met a seaman who was about to head up the St. Lawrence to Greenland to deliver provisions to the Eskimos before winter set in, but it was still a great night.
“The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.”
Winston S. Churchhill
The only room in the Quebec Salvation Army wasn’t much — guys snoring with their mouths open — but it was only seventy-five cents and, while washing up in their men’s room, I met the Premier of Canada. He said his name was Roger Lavoire, and he’d just overthrown Prime Minister Pearson last week and now controlled Quebec at the snap of his fingers. He said he was staying at the Salvation Army because he hadn’t received his first check from Ottawa. They only paid every two weeks. “Actually, being Premier isn’t as impressive as it sounds. I’m really only a guardian of the people until the Second Coming of Christ, eh?”
The Premier was going out campaigning, and I told him I’d come along as far as Montreal. But when we got to the other side of the Quebec Bridge, I told the Premier I was going inside and grab some breakfast and, if he didn’t think I was unduly influencing him, I’d buy him some, too. But he said he was in a hurry to spread the Light and, if I had any questions, to address them to Offeburn Park. We said our au revoirs, and that was the last I saw of him.
Once in Montreal, I immediately called up the Normans. They’ve got this fantastic daughter named Jane. She answered the phone, seeming quite excited I was in town, and gave me the directions to her place. So I hopped on the Dixie Bus for Lachine. It was pouring, and the bus vibrated to the rhythm of windshield wipers. An old lady asked the driver if he would take her to her driveway, and he said all right. An hour later I was at Jane’s.
It was really nice to be back. I was here last year with a guy from Scotland, so neither of us tried to get anywhere with Jane. But fate was against me this time, too. Right after dinner, some guy came over and took Jane out.
So my record of never having gone out with a girl I’ve really gone for remained unblemished. Actually, though, I’ve only been mad about three girls in my life. The first was Melissa McDonald. I asked her out about five times before I realized she might not want to go out with me. So I decided to go on this crash weight-lifting program. Well, it crashed all right. The weights, the program, the whole damn deal. After I was done, I was still skinny enough to take the lead in “The Mysterious Skeleton.”
Then came Linda Greenlee. She had the prettiest smile I’d ever seen. I used to spend days just thinking up these corny jokes so, when I told them, I’d get to see her smile. The only trouble was, we were always “just friends.” Finally, on a dark November afternoon, I decided to ask her to the big UCLA-SC game. While walking up Hilgard Avenue I said, “I’ve got these two tickets for the Big Game this Saturday . . .” — all of a sudden, right there in mid-sentence, I chickened out — “. . . do you want them?” Well, you should have seen her smile THEN! She’d been looking for a pair of tickets for her and her date all week.
I told her I’d write to her, so she gave me a bigger kiss, and then I offered to write her two letters.
And, finally, there was Senorita Goldberg — who sat behind me in Spanish. She might not have been much to look at, but she had the prettiest voice in the whole world. You don’t have to believe this, but there were times I’d hear her speak and actually begin bawling. Anyway, I didn’t say a word to her the whole semester but, when finals were over, having nothing to lose, I decided to look her up in the UCLA phone book and give her a buzz. It wasn’t a smashingly successful conversation. To make sure nothing would go wrong, I had the whole conversation typed up on three by fives. I was to introduce myself as the one who mispronounced “tortilla” (as, for some reason, she thought it was a big joke when I pronounced the silent “ll’s”), then move on to a condemnation of old Professor Munoz, then to her plans for next semester. Then, finally, for next Friday night.
The only trouble was, by the time of my final rehearsal, I’d gotten so good that I’d put Cards #1 and #3, which I’d memorized, into my back pocket. Well, it was putting Card #1 back there that did it. I mean, all it had on it was, “Hello, is this Susan Goldberg? This is Nyle Frank. I hope I didn’t ruin your dinner. I know you don’t remember me, but I was in your Spanish class last semester. You know, the one who mispronounced ‘tortilla’ ” Well, you don’t have to be an elephant to remember that.
When I picked up the receiver, my heart was banging away so loudly I could barely make out the rings. Unfortunately, it was Senorita Goldberg that answered, and on the very first ring! I mean, I knew I’d have to talk to her eventually, but so soon!
“Hello . . . who is this? . . . who IS it?”
“Uh . . . OH! . . . I hate to ruin your dinner, but I was in your Spanish class last semester.”
“Who?”
“Uh . . . I know you don’t remember me, but I’m the one who mispronounced . . .”
“WHO?”
“Nyle TORTILLA! I mean . . .”
“Don, who?”
Well, you can imagine how long it took to get across what I wanted. All I can remember is that she just sat there saying “what?” over and over again — for what seemed like hours. After a while, though, when I’d make it clear I’d called to ask her out, she said she couldn’t do it because she had all these term papers to write. She said she’d be writing them next weekend too. And the weekend after that.
“Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.”
George Santayana
An insurance salesman named Dale Johns took me to Ottawa. To show you what a sterling guy he was, when I got out of the car, he tried to hand me four dollars, “for the road.” I didn’t take them, but said I’d let him treat me to lunch. At lunch, he insisted that I order about everything on the menu. I really wasn’t very hungry, and kept telling him so — but what can you do?
It was raining hard, and Dale took me all the way into downtown Ottawa. When he finally let me out, he said, “Sorry I couldn’t have done more for you” — which is rather odd, since it’s always the guys who’ve done the most for you who say that. Then he said that, although I couldn’t repay him, I could repay somebody else. Pretty soon it would snowball, and the world would be a good place to live in.
I keep thinking about Dale and his snowball, even now. I don’t think it’s gotten very big yet, especially when you compare it with some of the other snowballs rolling around — but at least his was rolling in the right direction.
“Man is the only young thing in the world. A deadly seriousness emanates from all other forms of life. The cry of pain and fear man has in common with other living things, but he alone can smile and laugh.”
Eric Hoffer
I spent all last night on a bus. Sometimes I think the only way you can possibly survive on some of these buses is, before you get on, to take a deep breath, hold it all the time you’re on there, then let it out when you get off.
But I made it all the way to Mackinac Island, Michigan. The second place I walked into was called “Trocato’s” and, as soon as I stepped in the door, a guy named Louie shouted, “You’re hired!” When he asked me what I’d come in there for, we agreed that I’d be a “spieler.”
The spieler stands out on the main street, stops the horse-drawn carriage tours when they’re just beginning, and tells the tourists to take off their sunglasses and smile at the man with the camera. He then tells the driver to go on. By the time their tour is through, the pictures are developed and sold to the passengers for $1.25. Well, that’s all there was to it — no sweat, except when one of the horses relieved himself right where you were supposed to give the spiel. So I improved with time and, the next afternoon, actually gave 141 spiels. Dizzy said it was the most spiels he’d ever heard of. Dizzy was the photographer — a stubby little guy with a blue beret and green handkerchief that hung from his back pocket. He said the reason he became a photographer was that he liked to see people smile. I asked if it ever bothered him that photo smiles were kind of phony, but he said you’ve got to take what you can these days.
I didn’t have much to do that night, so I went to sleep about nine. Sleeping’s not all that exciting, but at least it gives you something to do between dinner and breakfast.
“There isn’t any night club in the world you can sit in for a long time unless you can at least buy some liquor and get drunk. Or unless you’re with some girl that really knocks you out.”
Holden Caulfield
Since this was my last day on the island, I decided to take in the tourist attractions. First I visited an old ship; as soon as people went past the ticket taker and onto the ship, they knew they’d been had. But they were determined nobody was going to take them and get away with it. One little kid cut off a good-sized piece of rope for himself from the mast and, towards the bow, another kid had something that looked like a machete and was hacking away at the sides.
Sleeping’s not all that exciting, but at least it gives you something to do between dinner and breakfast.
I headed for “The Only Steer in the World with Five Legs.” I would have liked to have seen where he kept his fifth leg, but the steer closed at 5 P.M. It was 5:02. The guy working for the steer said, “I’d like to let you in but, if I do, I’ll have to let everybody else in, too.” I told him there was probably nobody within miles of us, except this queer steer. He said, “Yeah, I know, but if there was, I’d still have to let them in.”
That night I went out with Mary, a girl who worked at a drug store on the island. Every time I saw her, she wore a white waitress’ dress and light-brown pigtails. I’ve always liked girls with white waitress’ dresses and light-brown pigtails.
Now, though, on our last night together, she’d brought along this friend of hers named Camille. I hated Camille. She was one of these types who go around blabbing how they love people and want to experience everything there is to experience. And they never shut up. To try to get in even a word was like getting your ball between the arms of the spinning windmills in the miniature golf course.
Well, it was bad enough that Camille was there, but she insisted we go to a depressing coffee house. After about an hour there, I finally talked Mary into going over to “Little Jim’s” for a couple of raisin cookies. It worked! Camille thought it was a square idea — and stayed behind. Sometimes it gets embarrassing when people catch you reading stuff like “1000 Things to Do on a Date,” but you never can tell when some of it might come in handy.
I spent the night at the Iron River, Michigan fire station, and walked down the street to the Sportsmen’s Cafe for breakfast. The waitress suggested I call up “Telephone Time,” a call-in radio show, and ask for a ride to Minnesota. After four or five tries, I was on the line.
Stupid, crazy kids and all their wild dreams. Sometimes I think growing up is when you realize most of them won’t come true.
“I’m a 19 year old boy from California who is trying to get back home to Los Angeles. If anybody is heading towards Duluth, I’ll be out at Dead End Diamond.”
“How far have you gone?”
“I’ve been through the mid-South and as far east as Quebec.”
“Have you had any exciting experiences?”
“Well, one time I was mistaken for an auto thief in Arkansas, and thrown in jail.”
“What are you doing in Iron River?”
“My last ride took me here and I spent the night in the fire station. I’d like to thank the fire chief and all the people of Iron River for being so nice to me.”
“Well, thank you for calling and I hope you have a real fine trip home.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“One thing about this show — you can never tell who’s going to call in next!”
Out at Dead End Diamond, I was a hero! Everybody who went by smiled or waved. I soon caught a ride from a man whose wife had the radio tuned to this program of old pop records, which she remembered, but I didn’t. She kept making a big deal about it. “What’s the matter,” she said, “don’t you know anything about music?” But I made it all the way into Minneapolis.
“The purpose of education is to drive you nuts.”
Anonymous
One of my longest rides was from a guy named Hayes, who drove me into Miles City, Montana. He invited me to stay at his apartment. It was actually only a small cellar, but it was very nice.
That night, we went to see “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” The movie was about the great country singer Hank Williams, who married some yellow-haired gal who just kept pushing him — right into the grave. Poor Hank. I’ve already got it figured out how I’ll meet my wife, though. She’ll be walking through this blizzard to bring some food to a hungry family about ten miles down the road. I’ll be driving along in my Dodge Meadowbrook and offer her a ride. She won’t get in at first, of course, but after thinking about how hard it is for the family to keep waiting for the food, she’ll do it. That way, I’ll know she’s OK and, if I can talk her into it, I’ll marry her on the spot.
It can be quite hot up here in the summer, even early in the day. So I sat down, under a big oak tree, and watched some kids playing three-flies-up on a vacant lot. There were three big kids. Then there was a little kid in light green peggers and corduroy shirt that everybody called Shrimpy. After about half an hour, every kid had been up a couple of times — except Shrimpy. It wasn’t hard to see why. The bastards were crowding him out of all the flies coming his way and, one time, I swear he’d caught three — but everybody else insisted it was two. Two it was.
Well, the very next time they pulled the same stunt. But Shrimpy wasn’t about to let it happen again, so he and the others got into a big fight over whether it was two flies or three.
So help me, I’d never done anything heroic in my life. In fact, I’d never even felt heroic. But I could feel my muscles tensing, my lips tightening. Then, before I knew it, right there from behind the oak tree, I found myself shouting at the top of my lungs, “That’s three, you bastards.”
All of a sudden everything was so silent you’d have thought the world had ended. Except for old Shrimpy — he just kept walking, right up to the bat.
Well, the biggest kids were only around eleven or so, so I don’t think I’ll be seeing myself in Profiles in Courage, but you’ve got to begin somewhere.
Down at the Twin Falls railyard I met Joe, the roadmaster. He told me I could ride to Nevada if I found myself an empty boxcar — as long as I was careful not to shut the doors and stayed on until she stopped. I couldn’t find an empty one, so I climbed up the ladder and onto the catwalk atop the train. Pretty soon we were off for Nevada.
You couldn’t believe the view from up there. I was delirious and waving to everything in sight. When you’re doing something for the first time, you feel really important and want everybody to see you. It’s just too bad all I had to wave at were a few cattle and a couple of dogs — but I didn’t miss one of them.
When we reached Wells, Nevada, I talked a guy with a nine-ton truck into taking me west on US 40 with him. His name was Jake, and I asked him why he’d become a truck driver. “To get away from my old lady, man.” I should have known. “Before we were hitched, she’d do anything for me — not anymore, brother.”
Then, changing the subject to a matter obviously more dear to his heart, Jake took out his wallet and showed me his pictures — all of his $18,500 truck. He took out the first one and handed it to me. “This was taken when she was only one year old. It was taken in Tulsa,” he said affectionately.
“It has been said that if you turned America on its side, all the loose nuts would slide into Los Angeles.”
Richard Gilbert
US 40 to 99. I hastily made a big sign reading, “LA” and flashed it to an old couple who looked nutty enough to be from there. They bobbed their heads, we pulled over. I changed cars in mid-highway, and was headed home!
It wasn’t the greatest ride in the world. The car heated up, so we had to ride with the hood up all the way — and had to stop for a quart of oil every hundred miles or so. But we made it! My grandmother was in front of the house when we got there. I yelled to her, but she didn’t even hear me. Finally my Mom spotted me — screamed, kissed me, and closed the door.
I know you’d like me to finish this with a stirring ending. But I’m not really a writer and wouldn’t know how to do it. In fact, I don’t even know what the purpose of my trip was. I don’t feel, look, or think much differently than when I began. I guess all I can say is that I enjoyed it. After all, good times are money in the bank of life and, as long as they don’t come at the expense of others, there’s no need to apologize for them.
“Nyle,
I hope you know the quiz well. It’s been a blast sitting behind you in B9 Science. Best of everything in life. Nyle, do me a favor, don’t change. Grow up a little, but don’t change. And remember, next semester (if you can take it), there will be A9 Science!”Stephanie
It’s been a while now since I took that trip. I guess I’d started acting like a bigshot more and more. Then, not long ago, in the middle of the night, my sister rushed into my room. She pulled me out of bed, and into my parents’ room. There was my Mom, in her pink and white nightgown, lying flat on the floor. My Dad, who was right beside her, was putting on these hot towels. “You’ll be all right, honey,” he said. “I know you’ll be all right. I love you. I love you. I love you.” But my Mom couldn’t feel a thing on her left side. And there was nothing any of us could do.
I went into my room and cried and screamed. Through my tears, I saw myself in this old mirror. For the first time, I noticed that I no longer looked like a kid. My face was that of an old man, and I was even starting to lose part of my hair. Suddenly, I remembered these words from a book which said, “The Naked Lunch is when you see what’s on the other end of the fork.” It’s funny, it never made any sense to me before. In fact, I’d always thought it never could make any sense. But when the time comes, you know. You just do. I guess it’s like, after climbing for a long time, getting near the top of a mountain. You look over to see what will be, only to find that what will be already has been.
Right then, I began thinking about this girl named Sharon Bluestone. Since we were both Jewish, our families had been wanting us to meet for ages. It seems like I spent an entire summer just listening to how great Sharon Bluestone was. Naturally, when we met, I hated her instantly. But now I kept thinking that she was really nice, and not bad about putting up with me through the whole mess. She had a nice smile, and was one of the few girls who thought I was as great as I pretend to be. I got out a pencil and paper and practically proposed to her that night.
A month has passed now. My Mom is better, I’m not really old and bald yet, and Sharon hasn’t written back.
© Copyright Nyle Frank, 1980
