The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America (16 page)

They put their heads together and come up with three possibilities. They insist on showing me all three.

We drive to the campground at Lake Diamond, several miles north of town. A bit out of the way, notes the man.

The couple then brings me back through Montezuma to a rest stop on the highway. The drawback here is that there’s no water, the woman says.

They swing me by the city park. That would be the most convenient. I wonder aloud if the police would mind. We’ll just go by the sheriff’s office and ask, the woman says.

Montezuma is a town of about 1,500 people, with white clapboard houses and expansive lawns. It’s harvest season, and jack-o’-lanterns decorate every porch. The town appears untouched by the problems that plague much of the rest of the country. The bell tower chimes “The Sound of Silence.”

As I suspected, camping is forbidden at the city park. The couple assures me it’s no trouble at all to drive me back out to Lake Diamond. I’ve heard it said that helpfulness in the Midwest is a trait born of necessity. The original homesteaders were so far removed from comfort and convenience, they had to rely on one another to get by. It’s a trait that’s been handed down over generations. By the time we reach the campground, the couple has spent an hour shepherding me around, making sure that a total stranger is not left wanting. It’s a sharp contrast to life in San Francisco, where I don’t even know my next-door neighbors.

I pitch my tent near the lake. The thick woods are painted by autumn’s brush. I have the entire campground to myself. There’s not even a ranger to offer my services to. There’s not even any litter to pick up. All is clean and still and quiet.

I write in my journal in the fading light. A truck pulls up, and an old man steps out with great effort. He wears a camouflage jacket and carries binoculars.

“The geese come yet?” he says, ambling toward me.

“What geese?”

He cups a hand to his ear and cocks his head.

“What geese?” I say louder.

“Canadian geese. There were a hundred and fifty of ’em last night.” The man smiles.

I’ve never seen Canadian geese. What would they be doing in Iowa? I wonder if the old geezer is having me on.

“That your house?” he says, pointing to my tent.

“For tonight it is.”

“Where’s home?”

“California.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Yeah, I’ve come twenty-six hundred miles. This is my twenty-fourth day. I’m headed across the United States.”

“You got a bike or something?”

“Nope.”

He leans back and makes a sweeping motion with his thumb, like he’s hitching a ride. The image is comical.

“I don’t use a thumb,” I say. “I’ve got a sign.”

“You won’t have any trouble. I can take one look at someone and tell right away what kind of person they are.”

“What kind of person am I?”

“You’re a good person,” the man says, smiling. The skin on his face is smooth and tight, radiating an inner glow.

The man says he dropped his wife at the entrance, so she can walk down to the lake.

“I can’t walk much anymore, too old. I’ve had two bypasses, though I mowed the lawn today. I do some things I shouldn’t do. I’ve got too much pride for my body and my pocketbook.” He grins.

“You live in Montezuma?” I say.

“Yep. It’s an old house, but it’s right on the town square. My wife looks at the Presbyterian Church, and I look at the jail.”

An old woman hooded with a scarf walks up and gets in the truck without a word.

“What is your age?” I say to the man.

“Guess,” he says, standing up straight.

“Oh, I’m not good at this. Seventies?”

“Hah! I’ll be eighty-seven.”

“Wow.”

He wonders if I’ll be cold, but says I’m young and look like I’m in a good shape.

“What are you, about twenty?”

“Twenty?”

“Boy, I’m really off. What, sixteen?”

“You’re joking,” I say.

“Well, you must go to school somewhere.”

“I’m thirty-seven.”

“Boy, I was further off than you were with me.”

He looks at the sky.

“Well, it’s dark,” he says. “I better get going.”

He turns and shuffles back to the truck.

“What about the geese?” I call to him.

“Oh, they’ll be here.”

He grins wide and his eyes gleam. I know for sure that he’s pulling my leg.

But when I see the taillights disappear around the bend, I hear a honk, and it’s not the horn from the old man’s truck.

I stare up at the blackening sky and see them. Seven geese flying overhead in a chevron—graceful and magnificent.

They’re followed by another flock of 40, moving as one in a perfect wedge. Unbelievably, 100 others appear, and then 100 more. They keep coming, wave after wave, and I lose count.

The birds glide through the air and touch down on the lake, the water now white from their wakes. I step slowly to the water’s edge and squint for a better look in the last of the light. The shadowy night fills with beautiful noise—the whoosh of wings, the splash of water, the honks of contentment. The music is deafening and lovely.

I’m not cold, yet I shiver. I recall what the Indian told Linda about nature being kin. The Indian’s language has no word for loneliness.

I’m the only man on this dark shore, but I’m not alone.

CHAPTER 22

They’re talking bumper crops this year in the Midwest. Iowa corn is yielding 200 bushels an acre. Everybody has a vested interest in the land, but they don’t call it that. They call it “ground.” As in, “He owns that ground” or, “We’re growing soybeans on that ground.”

I pick my next destination the same way I did Montezuma. Purely by the sound of the name—Oskaloosa.

Drivers in rural Iowa acknowledge you like they do in Nebraska. But instead of a wave, it’s an index finger raised from the steering wheel.

Lots of cars pass me. Lots of folks give me the friendly finger.

A white Cadillac that passed me a couple minutes ago turns back and stops across the road.

“I ain’t got all day,” the guy hollers out the window.

He wears a red baseball cap and wraparound shades. A cigarette hangs from his lip, above his poor excuse for a goatee.

I’m about to holler back, “Then why did you bother turning around and stopping for me?” but this might be my only chance at a ride, so I hustle across the road.

Eric is a 29-year-old farmer from Oskaloosa, which he calls “Osky.” He asks where I’m from and I tell him. He says he was recently visiting his sister in San Francisco. That gives us a connection. Eric warms to me. He asks me questions until he has my whole story.

“So you’re just seeing where the kindest people are in America?” he says.

“Something like that.”

“Where has it been the best so far? The Midwest, I bet.”

I decide to have a little fun with Eric.

“South Dakota was great,” I say.

He seems to take this as a personal challenge.

“It’s quarter-draft night out at the Country Corner. Stop by and I’ll buy you a few beers.”

“Sounds good.”

“You can stay at my place.”

In the span of a few miles, Eric transforms from a jerk into a nice guy.

Eric farms 10,000 acres with his father and two cousins. Corn and soybeans. Today he needs to pick up a dump truck from another farmer who borrowed it.

We drive down dirt roads to a soybean field that rolls out to the horizon. Giant green combines gobble up the crops like grazing dinosaurs.

We wait for the combines to fill the dump truck with soybeans.

Eric yanks a plant from the ground and shows me how to shell the pods.

“I eat these by the thousands,” he says, popping several beans into his mouth.

I try a handful. The beans taste bland, but I know they’re rich in protein.

A garter snake slithers by my feet. The combines kick up dust over the land, creating an unreal sunset of pink, orange and purple.

Eric sits on the harvested ground near the dump truck. He worked eight years as a chemical salesman throughout the Midwest and the South. He returned to Iowa last year.

“Why did you come back?” I say.

“Settle down, I guess, maybe find a wife with some Midwestern values. Not a woman who wants to burn her bra and get breast implants. I don’t want a wife that’ll just stay home and cook and clean. I’m a man of the nineties. But I don’t need someone who’s not fulfilled unless she’s got a better job than me.”

When the dump truck is full, Eric drives it to a grain bin. I follow in his car.

After we unload the beans, we drive to Eric’s farm. He nearly loses me, zipping 60 miles an hour down a dirt road.

He parks the truck and we drive his car into Oskaloosa.

Eric lives with his mother and her second husband, a retired teacher. They own a modern ranch house, with a detached garage and a big backyard.

Eric tells me to drop my pack in the guest room.

His mother, Irene, knits an afghan on the sofa, a fat cat sleeping next to her. Neither she nor her husband Joe thinks it odd that Eric has brought a hitchhiker home to spend the night. They greet me like a long lost son.

Irene pours me a glass of iced tea and sets out a plate of freshly baked raisin bars topped with white frosting. She apologizes, but she and Joe have plans to visit some friends tonight. She writes a check for Eric and tells him to buy me dinner.

When they leave, Eric explains that his mother acts as his bank. He gives her all his money because he can’t hold on to it.

Eric goes downstairs to his room to wash up. When he returns, he looks like a new man. He’s changed into a neatly pressed button-down shirt. His hair is gelled. He now wears prescription glasses. He’s shaved off that pathetic goatee. There’s no sign of the smart-aleck punk I met out on the highway. He now looks scholarly, which, as it turns out, he is.

“Yeah, I’m a brain,” he says, “or so they say.”

Eric aced his college entrance exams, and Iowa State gave him a full scholarship to study agricultural science. He played trombone in the marching band and graduated with a 4.0 grade average.

We drive to a restaurant called Dr. Salami’s, where everybody greets Eric by name. We have a beer at the bar. Eric sees two women he knows, and we join them at a table. We order more beer and pizza.

“This is Mike McIntyre,” Eric says to Kim and Cheryl, both nurses. “He’s hitchhiking his way across America without a penny.”

The nurses don’t buy it. They insist I’m probably a cousin of Eric’s from the next county over.

“Show us your ID,” Cheryl says.

I reach in my shirt pocket for my driver’s license. It’s gone. I remember that I changed shirts at Eric’s. Now I really look like I’m fibbing.

I give the women a day-by-day summary of my trip. Where I’ve stayed. People I’ve met.

“How could I make all this up?” I say.

They still don’t believe me. They’re the first people on this journey who doubt my story, or at least say so to my face. I’m actually surprised there haven’t been more skeptics along the way. Let’s see, a guy quits his job, gives all the money in his pocket to a panhandler and travels penniless across the country. I wouldn’t believe him.

I don’t know why, but I want to convince the women I’m telling the truth. I answer every question, fill in every blank. But it’s no use.

“I would never pick you up,” Cheryl says.

“If you saw me on the road tomorrow, you’d give me a ride.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Cheryl insists.

Kim joins me on my side of the table. She drapes an arm around my shoulder and rests her other hand on my knee. She smiles. Her eyes sparkle with dreams.

“That’s so romantic,” she says.

Cheryl looks at her like she’s a traitor.

“That’s so romantic,” Kim says again.

Tonight is the first night of Oskyfest, Oskaloosa’s answer to Oktoberfest. Eric and I drive to the fairgrounds, where the beer bash is underway in a giant exhibit hall.

“Both my mom and dad are super religious,” he says. “They don’t approve of my extracurricular activities, but they don’t say much, mainly because of my age.”

A Country and Western band plays on the stage at the end of the building. Locals dance the Texas two-step across the cement floor. Hundreds of other folks hover in groups at the edge, sipping beer from plastic cups.

Eric is the perfect host. He seems to know everybody, and he introduces me around. A simple introduction is powerful. It elevates you from outsider to one of the gang. I appreciate Eric’s manners more than the pizza and beer. It feels good to be included.

Kim and Cheryl show up. Kim grabs my arm and stands on tiptoe to talk to me over the music. She’s pretty, in a wholesome way, and if I didn’t have a girlfriend waiting at home, I’d listen with a little more enthusiasm.

I fantasize about life with Kim in rural America. But I know I’m now romanticizing the Midwest, just as she’s romanticizing my trip. As if to prove my point, Kim commences to rip on Oskaloosa.

Those who don’t conform to the conservative small town ways are ostracized, Kim says. People talk. They make things up. Right now, there are two conflicting rumors going around about Kim: She’s a lesbian, and she’s having an affair with a prominent male physician.

“This town is like high school,” she says, growing sullen. “Everyone always knows what you’re doing.”

“There’s a reason she feels this way,” Cheryl says.

“Tell me,” I say.

“No,” Kim says.

“Tell me, I’m a stranger, I’m just passing through.”

“No, you’ll think it’s such a cliché,” Kim says.

“Tell me, tell me.” I goad Kim. “Is it a scandal?”

Cheryl smiles and nods. Kim pouts.

“You’re sleeping with another nurse?” I say.

“Close,” Cheryl says.

“You really are having an affair with that doctor?”

Cheryl nods. Kim hangs her head.

“Is he married?” I say.

Kim bites her lip and nods.

“See, I told you you’d think it’s such a cliché,” she says. “Now you think less of me.”

Ten years ago, I started talking to a woman at work. She was married. Talk led to lunch, and lunch led to flirting, and flirting led to a kiss at a New Year’s Eve party as her husband dozed on the couch. We fell in love. The woman left her husband. This was it, this was the real thing, this was fate. Or maybe I told myself that to justify what I was doing with another man’s wife. It’s scary what we can rationalize. In the end, no great new love was created, only a marriage destroyed. A decade later, it’s hard to picture the woman. I’ve tried, but I can’t even recall the feelings that led to my profound lapse of judgment. All of it has faded from memory. All of it except for the pain I caused and the respect I lost for myself. That’s something I can’t forget.