1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway (4 page)

‘I just don’t dig for some fat old bastard controlling my life. The draft board is loaded with fat old bastards who would blow their stacks if someone sent them out there. Why should they have the right to send me?’

Harry laughed.

‘You have a point.’ He walked in silence for a while, then said abruptly, ‘If I’d known what I was going into, I might have burned my draft card too, but at the time it seemed a good idea . . . an escape.’

‘An escape from what?’ Randy asked curiously.

‘This and that.’

‘Plenty of ways of escaping without going out there.’

‘They can get rough with a draft dodger.’

‘They have to catch him first,’ Randy said complacently.

‘What makes you think they won’t catch you?’

‘They haven’t so far. I worry when things happen, not when they don’t.’

‘Like when I broke that junkie’s arm?’

Randy shifted his duffel bag from one shoulder to the other.

‘I don’t say I really worry about it, but it looked as if you meant to bust his arm. I mean it wasn’t an accident. You sure gave him a hell of a belt.’

‘That’s right. I did mean to break his arm. One thing, among many others, you learn in the army is not to make a mistake in a fight. If you have to hit a guy, then you hit him so he stays hit. If I had tapped that junkie, the rest of them would have been all over me. They were higher than kites. By busting his arm, I shocked them sober, and I had to shock them sober. By busting his arm, I stopped them giving you the treatment.’ He glanced at Randy. ‘Still worrying?’

‘You have a point,’ Randy said and grinned.

Ten minutes later they reached the highway and Randy put down his guitar and duffel bag.

‘Let s wait here for half an hour and see what turns up,’ he said. ‘We could be lucky. Around fifty miles on is an all-night snack bar. Most truckers stop there. If we can get a ride there, we are almost certain to find some trucker going to Miami and after Miami there’s no trouble.’

They waited by the roadside. After some minutes, the headlights of a big truck came over the distant hill. Randy stepped out onto the road and began waving. The truck thundered past, the driver ignoring Randy’s thumb. Randy muttered under his breath while Harry sat down on the grass verge and lit a cigarette. Both men watched the road. Four trucks went by during the next fifteen minutes, each ignoring Randy’s thumb.

‘It could be quicker to walk,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t think they fancy you.’

‘Give it another quarter of an hour. Could be the creeps don’t like the way I wear my hair. Suppose you try?’

They changed places, but it didn’t help them to get a ride.

Three more trucks stormed by without stopping.

Randy took off his Mexican boots and cooled his feet in the grass.

‘Keep trying,’ he encouraged. ‘Every door is a door of opportunity.’

As he spoke a car’s headlights showed over the hill. In the light of the moon Harry saw the car was a Mustang and it was towing a small two-berth caravan.

‘Not a hope here,’ he said, ‘but I’ll try.’

He moved further into the road so that the searching fingers of the headlights picked him out with the intensity of a spotlight. He jerked his thumb and put on his wide, disarming smile.

He heard the soft squealing of tyres biting into the tarmac as brakes were applied, and to his surprise the car slowed, came alongside him and stopped.

Hurriedly grabbing up his guitar and duffel bag in one hand and his boots in the other, Randy joined Harry.

Harry was peering at the driver ‘Are you going to Miami?’ he asked. ‘Any chance of a ride, please?’

As he drew nearer, he could see in the reflected light from the dashboard that the driver was a girl and this startled him. He couldn’t see anything of her face. She was wearing anti-dazzle, dark yellow goggles: a white scarf completely concealed her hair and the rest of her face. The ends of the scarf were tucked into a black open neck shirt.

He could feel the eyes hidden behind the goggles searching his face.

‘Can you drive?’

Her voice was low and husky with a faint accent that Harry couldn’t place.

‘Why, sure.’

‘Got a driving license?’

‘Yes. I’m carrying it.’

The girl heaved a long, weary sigh.

‘That’s wonderful. You can have a ride if you’ll drive.’

‘Does that include me?’ Randy asked anxiously.

She turned her head and looked at him, then at Harry.

‘Is he a friend of yours?’ she asked.

‘Yes. He’s all right. He wears his hair like that to keep his head warm.’

‘You know the way?’

‘Straight ahead.’

‘That’s it. I’ve been driving eighteen hours. I’m bushed.’ She opened the car door and slid out. ‘If I don’t get some sleep, I’ll drive off the road. I’m delivering the caravan to Miami. The jerk who ordered it said he would cancel the order if he doesn’t get delivery tomorrow.’

All this seemed a little odd to Harry.

‘Are you in the caravan trade then?’

‘No, I’m one of the mugs who delivers. Get in and get going. I’m bedding down in the caravan. Don’t wake me for pity’s sake until you reach Miami.’

‘Are there two beds in there?’ Randy asked hopefully. ‘I’m dead on my feet too.’

‘If you can’t control this freak, then he stays on the road,’ the girl said to Harry and there was a snap in her voice that made Randy stiffen. ‘Get in and get going. She walked stiffly around to the back of the caravan. They heard the door open and then slam shut. They heard a bolt snap home.

The two men looked at each other, then Harry slid under the driving wheel.

‘Come on, freak,’ he said, ‘unless you want to walk.’

Randy bolted around the car, jerked open the offside door and got in beside Harry who set the car surging forward.

‘Well, what do you know?’ Randy said. Talk about luck! We could be in Miami by seven o’clock.’

‘Could be luck or something else,’ Harry returned. ‘Do girls ferry caravans for eighteen hours non-stop these days? I wouldn’t know. I’m three years out of date.’

‘Let me tell you, Van Winkle, ol’ pal, ol’ pal,’ Randy said, grinning. ‘The dolls do everything these days. That’s what’s the matter with them. They have no respect for us men either . . . widow spiders, all of them!’

‘Pretty cool,’ Harry said thoughtfully, ‘stopping like that and then handing us this car. She could have got knocked on the head and raped for all she knew.’

‘They like being raped: it’s their new occupational pastime,’ Randy said bitterly. ‘I bet she was disappointed to find you were an old-fashioned gentleman.’

‘Take a look in the glove compartment See if she’s left any papers in there,’ Harry said. The speedometer needle was now steady at 50 m.p.h.

Randy opened the glove compartment and found a plastic folder. He took out some papers, turned on the map light and leaning forward, examined them.

After reading, he sat back.

‘This is a Hertz hired car, rented at Vero Beach to Joel Black, 1244, Springfield Road, Cleveland.’

‘Have they logged the mileage?’

‘Yeah, 1,550 miles.’

Harry looked at the mileage counter on the dashboard. He did a sum in his head.

‘Since this car was hired, it has driven 240 miles. Not what you would call an eighteen hour drive.’

Randy turned and stared at him.

‘Do you always act like this? You sound like a fuzz.’

‘She isn’t Joel Whatever his name is. She hasn’t been driving eighteen hours. I don’t like it She might have stolen this car.’

‘Look,’ Randy said earnestly, ‘don’t let’s push our luck. We have a car. We will be in Miami by seven. From there we will waltz to Paradise City. We can even go by bus if we can’t thumb a ride. So what do we care?’

‘You’ll care if there’s an alarm out for this car and some cop stops us.’

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake! At this time of night and on this highway, the cops are in bed.’

Harry hesitated. There was something wrong about this setup which he didn’t like, but he told himself that it was the girl’s business. If they were stopped by the police, he would have no difficulty in clearing himself. If Randy was willing to take the risk why should he worry?

He gently squeezed more pressure on the gas pedal and the speedometer climbed to 65 m.p.h.

‘Have you calmed down?’ Randy asked.

‘It’s your headache. I don’t risk a thing. If you don’t care, why should I?’

‘That’s my boy.’ Randy reached into his duffel bag and found the parcel Morelli had given him. ‘My worms are beginning to gnaw at me.’ He undid the parcel and found a roast chicken, neatly quartered, two doughnuts and four slices of buttered bread, smeared with mayonnaise. That Wop certainly knows his food. You want something to eat?’

‘Not now.’

‘Well, I do.’ Randy began to eat contentedly. With his mouth full, he said, ‘Talking about girls: how were they in Vietnam?’

‘You won’t be going there so why should you care?’ Harry said curtly.

Randy looked at him, bit into the bread, munched for a long moment, then said, ‘Do they do it in the usual way or do they do something different?’

‘You won’t be going there so why should you care?’ Harry repeated, staring at the road ahead, lighted by the powerful headlights.

Randy grimaced.

‘Excuse me for speaking. Yeah . . . why should I care?’ He tossed a chicken bone out of the window and helped himself to a thick slice of the breast.

Harry thought nostalgically of the Vietnamese girl he had left in Saigon. Whenever he had come out of the front line he had found her waiting. She had made a precarious living selling cooked food at a street corner. He had always marvelled that she was able to carry the cooking stove and the sundry pots, slung on a bamboo pole on her shoulder. She had always reminded him of a beautiful butterfly in her pink cheongsam, but he had learned later just how durable and how strong she had been.

She had become the most precious thing in his life during those three dreary years: a thought to cling to during the dark, frightening nights. She represented to him tenderness, interest and love and when she had been blown to pieces along with others by a Viet Cong bomb Harry hadn’t looked at another woman out there, nor could he bring himself to talk about the Vietnam girls neither with his buddies nor with men like Randy who had seen pictures of them and thought they were just companions in bed.

Any suggestive talk about them turned Harry sour. His girl, who had been so much fun, so dependable, always waiting for him, represented to him the women of Vietnam, slighting one meant slighting her.

In the wing mirror, he saw the headlights of a car some half mile behind him and he eased the pressure on the gas pedal. There was a 60 m.p.h. speed limit on this highway and the car behind him might be a patrol car He wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks.

Randy, noticing the fall off of speed, glanced at him.

‘Car behind,’ Harry explained.

He looked in the mirror again. The car was driving at his speed. It remained half a mile behind.

‘The cops are in bed,’ Randy said. ‘I know this road, I’ve never seen a cop on it after eleven o’clock.’

‘All the same, sixty is fast enough.’

Randy lit a cigarette and slouched back.

‘You sure you don’t want to eat? I can drive.’

‘Not yet’

‘I’d dig for a good, strong cup of coffee.’

‘That’s something I could use.’

‘About fifteen minutes will bring us to that all-night snack bar I was telling you about. They have good coffee there. Let’s stop. Won’t take us five minutes. Maybe the doll could use a cup too.’

‘She said we weren’t to wake her until we get to Miami,’ Harry reminded him. ‘If she wants to sleep, let her sleep.’

‘Did you get a look at her?’

‘No more than you did.’

‘She could be dishy.’

‘So why should you care, freak?’

Randy laughed.

‘That’s the great thing about Solo’s place. It’s alive with dolls. As a lifeguard you’ll have all you can handle. Working behind the bar puts a crimp in my style. I don’t get the opportunities you’ll get. Solo advertises swimming lessons and you’ll handle that Boy! Wouldn’t I like that job! Cuddling a lush babe in the sea is my idea of good living!’

‘You’re still a bit of a kid, aren’t you?’ Harry said with a friendly grin.

‘So what’s wrong with being a kid?’

‘Nothing. Maybe I’m envying you.’

‘Hey you sound as if you were my father! You’re not telling me you don’t dig for dolls?’

Harry thought of his wife lying in the bath with her wrists slashed. He thought of Nhan smeared in a bloody mess against a brick wall. The other women in his life too were uneasy ghosts. He couldn’t think of one of them that he could remember with pleasure.

‘I wouldn’t want to be your father,’ he said, sidestepping the question.

Randy laughed and began to eat a doughnut.

‘While we are talking about dolls,’ he said with his mouth full, I’ll give you the photo about Nina.

Harry glanced into the wing mirror. The headlights of the car behind him remained at its half-mile distance.

‘Nina?’

‘Yes . . . Solo’s daughter. Maybe I should tell you about Solo first. Twenty years back, Solo was the best peterman in the business. There wasn’t a safe he couldn’t open if he wanted to. The Cops finally caught up with him and he went away for fifteen years. While he was doing his time Nina was born and Mrs. Solo died. When he came out he decided to retire from the racket and he set up this restaurant in Paradise City. He is still considered the best peterman in the game and from time to time he gets propositioned to come out of retirement, but nothing will shift him. He has a good business: he makes a decent profit, and he has Nina.’ Randy paused while he rummaged in the depleted parcel and found the second doughnut. ‘You must treat Solo carefully.

Although he’s over fifty, he’s real tough, mean and rough when he’s in the mood. He acts as his own bouncer, and if a drunk looks for trouble. Solo handles him. I’ve seen Solo handle three punks who got too close to Nina and those three punks landed in the hospital. But Solo is broad minded. He doesn’t mind the staff playing the dolls so long as the dolls are pleased too, but no one and that includes you and me, tries to get close to Nina.’ Randy paused to bite into the doughnut. He munched for a moment, then went on, ‘I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to run into trouble. Nina is something pretty special. You have to see her to understand just how special she is. When I first saw her, I didn’t sleep for a couple of nights. I guess I couldn’t keep my eyes off her and Manuel - he’s the Captain of Waiters - warned me. He said Nina was strictly for the birds. If I started something with her, Solo would finish it for me, and when I say finish, I mean just that.’