The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America (15 page)

CHAPTER 20

I circle the campground, looking for the softest patch of grass. Somebody has fashioned a pathetic tube tent out of a piece of green plastic. The guy sits in his beat-up car, watching a black-and-white TV plugged into a campground outlet. I’m sure there’s a sad story in this, but I don’t want to hear it.

I pitch my tent on the other side of a trailer.

Before long, a retired couple comes out of the trailer. Mel looks like a professor, with glasses and white hair. Judie is plump and chatty. They’re from Skokie, Illinois, near Chicago.

Judie walks over to my picnic table to visit. Mel hangs back by the trailer. When he hears me tell Judie I’m hitchhiking east, he urges me to stay at least 50 miles south of Chicago.

“Parts of it are
eee-vil!
” he calls over dramatically, hands cupped around his mouth. Then mosquitoes chase him back inside.

I ask Judie if they’re originally from Chicago. Mel is, she says. She was born in Austria. Eager for conversation, I tell her I passed through Austria last year on my way to Hungary. But Austria holds no happy memories for Judie. She lost nine relatives in the Holocaust.

Mel and Judie have been on the road for seven weeks. Judie liked New Orleans the best. She wanted to tour rural Louisiana, but she and Mel were warned by other Jewish friends that they might run into trouble there.

“In 1994, can you imagine that?” Judie says.

“I can,” I say, remembering the redneck last night at the bar. “I think you can go to any state and find pockets of people like that.”

Judie and Mel are visiting Omaha tomorrow morning. In the afternoon, they’re driving east to Dubuque, Iowa, to see Mel’s sister. Judie says I’m welcome to ride along. I thank her and say I’ll sure keep it in mind.

“If there’s anything we can do for you, let us know,” she says.

I crawl into my tent. I wish I’d asked Judie for a newspaper, but I don’t want to disturb them now. I lie back and listen to the sounds of the city. A train bridge crosses the river just south of the campground. The creaks and groans of boxcars rolling over the tracks drift in and out of my slumber.

Condensation has turned my tent into a steam bath by the time I wake in the morning. My sleeping bag is soaked, as is my pillow—the old green coat the Oregon housepainter gave me. I set my things out in the sun to dry and head for the shower.

Judie pops her head out of the trailer door.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she says.

“That’d be great, thanks.”

I don’t like to drink coffee on an empty stomach because it gives me the shakes. But it’s hard to refuse an act of kindness.

“Forgive me, but there are a few grounds,” Judie says. “It’s the last cup.”

Judie runs a brush through her hair, brown with flecks of gray. The coffee is black and thick, and with each sip I tingle and fill with good cheer. I remember when I was a boy, water tasted better when the neighbor lady filled a glass from her tap and handed it to me. It’s how I feel now with Judie.

“This is good coffee,” I say.

“Well, it’s old. It’s yesterday’s reheated. I drink my coffee until it’s gone.”

The campground shower is hot, the pressure strong. I hang a clean shirt in the stall and let the steam iron out the wrinkles. It feels good to put on a fresh shirt and roll up the sleeves for the first time. It’s such a simple pleasure. I catch a whiff of the fabric softener Edie poured into her washer, way back in Idaho. I pull the collar to my nose and breathe in. It’s like an old friend is here by my side.

I walk out into the brilliant day, down along the bank of the muddy Missouri. Factories across the river belch smoke into a sky the color of faded jeans. The limbs of fallen trees poke up through the murky water. A boat zooms upriver, sending beer cans and motor oil containers ashore with its wake.

An unshaven man in a baseball cap tends three fishing poles.

“What are you fishing for?” I say.

“Catfish,” he growls. “But I’m not catching any catfish.”

He peels the cellophane wrapper off a cigar and throws it against the bank.

I feel like taking a walk.

“What’s the quickest way across the river into Omaha by foot?”

The man jabs his cigar up at the train bridge. Water courses around its three stone pillars.

“There room up there?” I say.

“Oh yeah. There’s two tracks, and there’s usually only one train.” He grins. “They don’t like you crossing there, but I’ve seen guys do it.”

He grabs one of the three rods and starts reeling. Something invisible tugs at the line, maybe only a snag.

“Or you can go across there.” He points his cigar at another bridge, about a half mile north. “That’s where those two guys jumped from last week.”

“What two guys?”

“They were running from the cops. They caught one right over there on that bank.” He aims his cigar at a pipe that spews sewage into the river. “The other one drowned.”

“He couldn’t swim, huh?”

“Hell, it don’t matter if you know how to swim or not in this fucking river. Look at those undercurrents. It’s thirty-five foot deep out there.”

Indeed, the merciless brown water swirls and churns like a whirlpool, reversing course in some spots and flowing back upstream.

I walk away from the bank, then stop and turn around.

“What was their crime?” I say to the fisherman.

“They stole a car,” he says, and chomps down on his cigar.

I decide on the distant car bridge, even though the highway patrol might stop me. I climb a gate and walk down a dirt utility road that skirts the golf course. The road passes under the bridge, tattooed with graffiti. I scramble up the littered embankment and slip through a hole in the chain link fence. I pop out onto Interstate 80 like a fugitive.

There’s no sidewalk, only a slender cement berm, not even a body wide. The guardrail reaches my thigh. I take quick but careful steps as the morning traffic whizzes by. I duck under the sign at the state line to stay off the freeway.

Halfway across, I stop and stare down at the river. I think of the sorry bastard who jumped from here and drowned. He died stealing a car. Maybe he was a murderer who got what was coming. Or maybe he was just a petty thief who panicked and lost his life for a hunk of metal. I forgot to ask the fisherman if they ever found the guy’s body. I wonder if he had a wife and kids? Was there anyone who loved him? Was he ever befriended by a kind stranger?

I’m glad to see Mel and Judie’s trailer still parked at the campground. Council Bluffs sits amid a snarl of freeways. I’ll ride with the Skokie couple and get out at a country road. I write in my journal at a picnic table until they return from Omaha in their van.

“Do you want that ride?” Judie says.

“Sounds good.”

“What’ll we charge him, Judie?” Mel says. “By the mile or the minute?”

I laugh and think,
If they only knew
.

Mel starts to hitch the trailer to the bumper. I ask if he needs help.

“No, thank you!” he says, leaving no doubt.

“When I ask if I can help,” Judie says, “he says, ‘Yes, stay out of my way,’”

We’re soon rolling down the interstate, Mel at the wheel. I sit behind them. Mel calls back. He wants to know why I’m traveling across the country. I tell them about my penniless mission.

“No plastic?” Judie says incredulously.

“No cash, no checks, no credit cards, no nothing,” I say.

“Oh, I feel so bad now,” Judie says. “If I would have known, I would have had you over for dinner last night.”

“Don’t feel bad,” I say. “I never tell people unless they ask. I don’t want to come off like a con man.”

“You’re courageous,” Judie says. “I could never do that.”

“Judie complains if she can’t watch TV,” Mel says.

“Open that,” Judie tells me, pointing to an ice chest behind Mel’s seat. “You eat today. There’s cookies and sodas and graham crackers, and I think there’s a plum in there, too. We’ll stop and get some real food out of the trailer if you want.”

“No, this is good, thanks.”

“Unfortunately, it’s diet pop and nonfat cookies,” Judie says, chuckling.

Every time I finish a cookie or a stack of graham crackers, Judie orders me to open the cooler for more.

“You’ve heard about Jewish mothers?” she says.

I nod.

“Well, it’s true. We’re always telling you to eat.”

Outside the window, combines roll over golden fields of corn and soybeans. It’s been a bountiful year. Even the ditches are lush and green. I think of what Ron told me yesterday—America at its finest.

Mel worked in his mother’s clothing store in Chicago for 18 years. Then he owned an auto parts franchise for 21 years. Judie stayed home with the kids. In her spare time, she collected antiques. One day Mel came home and said, “Let’s open an antiques store.” He sold the auto parts franchise, and he and Judie started an entire antiques mall.

“It was very profitable, but a lot of headaches,” Mel says. “After three years, we sold it.”

“We didn’t want to be the richest people in the cemetery,” Judie says.

She looks back at me.

“Mike, open that chest, eat!”

Mel and Judie bought their first trailer in 1983. They roamed around the country for two years.

“Then we got back to Skokie,” Mel recalls, “and Judie asked, ‘What are you going to do today, Mel?’ And I said, ‘Golf.’ And the next day it was, ‘What are you going to do today, Mel?’ And I said, ‘Fish.’ Finally, my wife told me to go get a job.”

“No, Mel, I said, ‘Go get some insurance,’” Judie says.

She turns to me. “Our insurance payments were killing us.”

“So I started working in lumber yards,” Mel says. “But only nine months of the year, because we go to Florida every winter. So I did that five years. And on July first, I turned sixty-five. So June thirtieth was my last day of work, and I said, ‘See you later.’”

“Mike, have some more food!” Judie says.

Mel starts to change lanes. He doesn’t see the little red sports car, and we almost collide. Mel swerves. The trailer fishtails, rocking us in our seats.

“My fault!” Mel says, almost loud enough for the other driver to hear.

The near miss reminds me that I’ve been over this stretch of freeway before. It was 14 years ago. I was just out of college. I had no plans.

My brother was hired to deliver a car to Washington, D.C. I went along for the ride. We drove coast to coast in three days. I was scared back then. I mean, really petrified. My brother slept while I drove. When it was his turn to drive, I stayed awake, for fear that he would fall asleep at the wheel. When neither of us could drive anymore, we pulled to the side of the road. I was afraid to close my eyes then, too, knowing if I slept, a madman would walk up and fire a bullet into my head. On the plane home, I clutched the armrests, swearing to my brother that we were going down.

I entered a long, dark period. I was paralyzed by the image of bodily harm. I feared the loss of an arm or leg, a fate I surely knew was mine. Youthful ideals and dreams faded. At one point my greatest ambition in life was to die with all four limbs intact.

My fear of physical pain was eventually replaced by a fear of life in general. I was afraid of making the choices it takes to be happy. There were things I thought I might enjoy doing, but I’ll be damned if I could summon the courage to try them. My life had stalled before it ever started. All the while I told myself,
This part doesn’t count. You’ll start your life one day. And when you do, life will be grand.

A girlfriend who knew me all too well often said, “There are no dress rehearsals for life.” I knew that in my head, but I couldn’t convince my heart. I carried on as if there were no consequences to inaction. I behaved as if I had all the time in the world.

Years later I happened upon a quote by Franz Kafka: “From a certain point on there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.”

The words seemed to be spoken directly to me. I wrote them down on an index card. I memorized them. I repeated them to myself. No truth was ever so clear. Yet I still could not stir my soul to act.

Years passed, and I acquired the trappings of a life. But it has been a sham. It’s so easy to get by, and get by very well. But it’s so hard to simply live. And though I had a life, I never really lived. And when the yo-yo flew off the string, I realized that all my worst fears had already come to pass. I was devoid of passion. I was numb. I was halfway to nowhere. I was dead.

So I walked out into the world with empty pockets, and that was my first true step. I know that I will die. Die for real and die for good. But right now, I’m alive. I’m alive and I’m in Iowa, and that’s not a bad place to be.

“You can’t take it with you,” Mel is saying. “They throw dirt in your face and say a few prayers.

“Do it!” Mel booms. “Do it now!”

CHAPTER 21

I pull out my map and have a gander at southeastern Iowa. The town of Montezuma leaps off the page. I smile at the name, as I know instantly that it’s my next stop on the Road to Cape Fear.

I ask Mel to drop me at Route 63.

“Are you sure you don’t want to be closer to Iowa City?” Judie says.

“Judie, the man knows where he’s going,” Mel says.

Mel pumps gas and Judie watches my pack while I use the restroom. When I return, I snap a photo of the couple standing by their trailer. Judie hands me a plastic bag filled with food.

“Mel and I want you to have this.”

Inside are two sleeves of graham crackers, two cans of soda pop, two tins of tuna, two apples and two pieces of chicken—a veritable Noah’s Ark of sack lunches.

Hooray for Jewish mothers!

I draw a sign for Montezuma, eight miles south. A middle-aged couple pulls out of the gas station, the wife at the wheel. I can read her lips through the windshield: “Should we give him a ride?”

The man nods in the affirmative.

“We never pick up hitchhikers, but you look so nice and clean,” the woman says.

“You going to Monty, are you?” the man says.

I tell them I’m traveling across the country, but I don’t mention how. I ask if they know a safe spot I can pitch my tent for the night.