The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America (19 page)

“The doctors said the only thing that saved him was the fall,” Teri says. “It jolted him back to life.”

As a soldier, Dan survived three tours in Vietnam. Now he was paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair. When he moved in with Teri, he outfitted her previous trailer with ramps.

“He hated sympathy,” she says. “He was so good in that wheelchair.”

He died of smoke inhalation in a fire in their old trailer. They figure he was trapped in the trailer and he couldn’t get out.

“The only thing that kept me going was my kids,” Teri says. “People told me I’d get over it. You learn to deal with it, but you never get over it. I think about it every day.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “That’s terrible. I’ve never had to face anything like that before.”

Teri looks up at me. Her brown eyes go wet.

“I hope you never do,” she says quietly. “I
hope
you never do.”

She nudges the food on her plate and sets down her fork.

“I loved Howard, the kids’ father,” she says. “And I love Mitch. But I believe you have one real love in life, and Dan was it. “

Teri stays with Mitch out of fear as much as love.

“He told me that if anything ever happened between us, he would do everything in his power to take April from me,” she says. “I’m one of those people who if you take my kids from me, you might as well put a gun to my head, ’cause I’d be through.”

Teri is being so candid, I decide to ask her about Marty. “So that was your brother, huh?”

She sighs. A couple years ago, her father and Mitch got into an argument—over what, nobody remembers. Just two stubborn and opinionated men, neither willing to back down.

“If you weren’t holding that baby,” Teri’s dad told Mitch, “I’d deck you.” Mitch handed April to Teri, and Teri’s dad came at Mitch, and they got into it.

Mitch used his connections in the sheriff’s department to get Teri’s father arrested. Mitch later asked that the charges be dropped, but it was too late. Teri’s dad was convicted, fined and placed on probation. He told Teri to never set foot in his house again. He eventually made up with Teri, but Marty still carries a grudge. He thinks Teri should leave Mitch, out of family loyalty. But with Mitch holding April over Teri’s head, that’s impossible.

Julie, Kenny and Dwight roll in around 10 pm. Julie and Kenny scoop Hamburger Helper into their bowls and sit down at the table. Dwight plays in the living room, snot running from his nose.

“Dwight eat yet?” Teri says.

“No,” Julie says.

“You’re sitting there feeding your face and he hasn’t eaten yet? You get up and feed him something!”

It’s the only time I hear Teri raise her soft voice.

I take the local newspaper out to my tent and read it using my flashlight.

When I wake in the morning, Mitch has already returned home and left again for work.

Teri looks out the back window and sees me packing.

“Do you like sausage gravy?” she says through a hole in the screen.

“I love sausage gravy.”

“Well, I’ll get breakfast started then.”

On my way in, I stop to visit with Kenny, who’s washing his Bronco. The best way to get a man talking is to compliment his wheels, so I do.

“I know it’ll rain, now that I’ve washed the car,” he says.

Kenny has a shag haircut and rotting front teeth. He works as a laborer, digging holes for telephone poles. He still keeps a room at his parents’ house, down the road in Luray, but he spends most of his time here in Wayland.

“There are fewer blacks over here,” he says.

I don’t know if Kenny assumes I’m a racist like him, or if he just doesn’t care. Either way, I’ve heard enough, and I go inside.

I sit at the kitchen table, sipping coffee while Teri cooks breakfast. She tells me Missy got home after midnight and got a call from a guy she met on a 900-number party line. She fell asleep during the call. Kenny discovered the receiver off the hook this morning.

“This one boy from Texas calls Missy a lot,” Teri says. “I heard him talking to her one time. I couldn’t believe the things he was saying. He kept calling her. She wasn’t home one time and I answered the phone. ‘I been trying to call Missy,’ he said. I said, ‘I know you have, and I don’t like what you say to her.’ He said, ‘Do you know what Missy does for me?’ I said, ‘No, what?’ He said, ‘She masturbates over the phone.’

“I just hung up,” Teri says, flushing red with embarrassment.

At last, I meet Missy. She walks out of her room, separated from the kitchen by a torn accordion-shaped partition. She wears a St. Louis Cardinals baseball jersey.

Teri tells her how Kenny found the phone off the hook. Missy mumbles something about the Texas trash talker having enough money to pay his long distance bills.

Teri’s biscuits and gravy are the best food I’ve tasted since San Francisco, but they sit in my stomach like hockey pucks. I may stay full clear to Cape Fear. She offers to make me some sandwiches, but I tell her I’m good.

The sky is dark gray. All through my time in the Midwest, they’ve been forecasting rain, but I’ve managed to stay a day ahead of the storms. I haven’t been drenched since Oregon, and I see no point in getting soaked in Missouri. I say my thanks and grab my pack.

Thirty yards up the road, I turn to take one last look at Teri’s trailer. I’m surprised to see her standing at a window, staring at me. Our eyes lock. Even at this distance, I can see tears welling, the way they did last night when she told me about Dan.

It dawns on me that so many of the kind strangers I’ve met are women who have suffered great heartache and tragedy. They are fierce survivors. They have taught me lessons in perseverance and compassion that will stick with me long after this journey is over. But what have I given them in return?

Jerry, the man back in Idaho who bought me a motel room, said that people who help me have their own motivations. As I turn away from Teri’s wet gaze, I can only hope he’s right.

CHAPTER 26

My Magic Marker is fading. I’ve put a lot of miles on it. I use the last of its ink to write “Quincy” on a sheet of paper and tape it to my dog-eared piece of cardboard.

A man stops for me. He has gray hair and gray pants and two toothpicks in his mouth. He’s headed for church in Quincy, Illinois, across the Mississippi River. He owned a drugstore there, but the Wal-Marts and Kmarts moved in and forced him out. He now runs a drugstore in Memphis, Missouri. Half his customers are on welfare, he says. No one has a job, but they’ve got slews of kids.

“It’s their meal ticket,” he grumbles. “I’ve got a solution to it. It may sound extreme to you, but the answer is orphanages. They’d reduce the welfare rolls and give these kids a better chance than with their deadbeat parents.”

I see the top of a steel bridge in the distance and my stomach flutters with excitement. I told myself before I left that if I made it to the Mississippi, I’d make it the whole way.

“All this was under water,” the man says, recalling the terrible flood last year.

“How about that Phillips 66 station?”

“That’s new. The old one washed away.”

This part of northeastern Missouri was above water until some nut broke the levee. Officials said it would have held. Instead, thousands of acres of crops, along with buildings and homes, were destroyed.

“If the farmers could get hold of him, they’d hang him from the highest tree,” the druggist says.

We cross the Big Muddy, the grated bridge humming beneath the tires. I feel like a racehorse turning for home.

Quincy, site of one of the famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, occupies the limestone bluff above the river. It’s an old town of brick storefronts and stately houses. The druggist parks at the Episcopal Church at the eastern edge of the city. He recommends I take Highway 104, the scenic route.

The “scenic route” is lined with the chain stores that chased the druggist across the river. If somebody knocked me out and dropped me here, there would be nothing to let me know I was in Quincy, Illinois, when I came to. I could be in California or New York or Texas. Every city in the country is starting to look the same. America has been
malled
.

This section of Route 104 has four lanes—two too many. I’ll walk until it slims down to a friendlier width.

The strip malls give way to fields of corn. Some ears stand taller than my own. But the highway still resembles an interstate, so I keep walking.

At noon, I rest at the entrance of a motor speedway. I shed my long-sleeved shirt and drink half the water from my bottle. I eat the banana Eric gave me and the last of the raisin bars.

Food has almost become a nonissue on this trip. If I don’t meet another kind stranger, I could ration my provisions and still limp into Cape Fear with something in my belly. As of today, my food bank includes two cans of tuna from Mel and Judie, four nutrition cookies from Pete and Doris, a brick of sweaty cheddar cheese from the Montana Rescue Mission, a can of beans and two tins of lunch loaf from Pastor Larry, the eight remaining energy bars from my friend Bruce, and somewhere at the bottom of my pack, down near my winter gloves, the big bag of trail mix Linda bought me way back in Redway, California. The stash is reassuring, a hedge against a downturn in the kindness market. The drawback is that my pack now weighs 70 pounds. I feel like I’ve got a pantry strapped to my back.

I walk against the traffic. A few motorists wave, but most folks glare at me, as if menaced by the sight of a man walking down the highway. My left arm goes numb. I poke my thumbs under my backpack’s shoulder straps to relieve the pressure. I buckle the hip belt to shift the weight. I undo it 100 yards later. I alternately tighten and loosen the shoulder straps. I fasten and unfasten the chest strap. I reach behind and support the bottom of the pack. Nothing works for long.

A plane swoops down over the cornfields. A crop duster, I figure. But when I reach the crest, I see runway lights and an airstrip. A sign says “Quincy Municipal Airport.” After two hours of walking, it’s mighty discouraging to learn I’m still in greater Quincy. I drink the last of my water.

I keep passing campaign signs for some fellow named Allan Witte. He’s running for treasurer. I know there’s a thing or two I could teach him about saving money.

After 10 miles, the highway thins to two lanes. But now there’s no shoulder to stand on, no place for a car to stop. With highway dollars, it’s always feast or famine. I decide to walk straight on through to Liberty, another 10 miles.

The road cuts through a forest, tree limbs meeting above the blacktop and forming a tunnel. Traffic is light, so I follow the centerline. When the occasional car happens by, I hop up onto the bank, watching for snakes in the grass.

I round a bend and a bull-necked dog rushes me from a gravel driveway across the road. I freeze in my tracks.

“Buddy! Buddy!” shouts a man working under the hood of a car. Then to me: “He won’t hurt you.” But Buddy looks like he’s still making up his mind. He veers off at the last instant, right before my body language was about to admit that I was dog chow.

I falter down the road, barely able to lift my feet.

At last I see a water tower, the ubiquitous symbol of the rural Midwest. A sign at the edge of the village reads: “Welcome to Liberty, America’s Freedom Town.” I take a look around. Liberty is free, all right. Free of a drinking fountain, free of a bathroom and free of a campground. At least it’s also free of a Wal-Mart.

I cross the town park, headed for a bench under a shelter. Kids rake leaves into piles and wade through them like snowdrifts.

“Hey, what are you doing?” a boy calls to me.

“I’m on a trip.”

“How far you goin’?”

“All the way.”

“Clear across Adams County?” he says.

“Yeah,” I chuckle, “and then some.”

Jay, 10, and his brother Ricky, nine, drop their rakes and follow me to the bench. We’re soon joined by Trudy, a seven-year-old with freckles and a gap-toothed smile.

“So what do you guys do for fun around here?” I ask.

“We love watching cartoons,” Jay says.

“Yeah, we can name every cartoon on TV,” Ricky says. “One time I woke up at three in the morning, I wanted to watch cartoons so bad.”

“But they’re not on then,” I say.

“Yeah, I know,” Ricky groans, disappointed all over again.

“Even when I get old,” Jay says, “I’m gonna watch cartoons.”

“Nah, when you’re twenty, you won’t want to watch cartoons,” Ricky says.

“Uh-huh, when I’m a hundred, I’ll watch cartoons,” Jay replies.

Trudy has nothing to add to the debate. She’s content to sit close to me, like I’m her new biggest, bestest buddy.

I ask Jay and Ricky what their dad does. I cringe when they tell me he’s dead. And their mother?

“She lives in Clayton,” Ricky says, like that explains it all.

The boys live with their aunt. The three of them recently moved to Liberty from Quincy.

“We couldn’t keep the house,” Jay says. “Our uncle died last month.”

“Our aunt adopted us,” Ricky adds.

“No, she
is
adopting us,” Jay corrects him.

The boys seem so carefree, as if they’re untouched by their losses, though I know that can’t be true. If I were to return to Liberty in 10 years, I wonder what kind of young men I’d find.

Jay and Ricky take turns trying to lift my pack off the ground. Trudy stays by my side. I look up and see a man down the street barbecuing in his yard. He keeps staring over at us. I can guess what he’s thinking:
Some pervert is in town to molest our children
. I don’t mind. If I ever have kids, I’d like to live in a place where my neighbors kept an eye out for them. I’m sure the man is relieved when my three little friends spring up and run to the swings.

I rest my aching feet and write in my journal. Around sundown, a father and his four boys drive up. They carry ice chests to a picnic table and spread out their dinner.

The man asks where I’m going. I tell him.

“Where you staying tonight?”

“Don’t know yet.”

He laughs.

After he’s through eating, he comes over to my bench.