The Highway Kind(64)

After a few minutes she said, “I don’t know what happened. I was just trying to get to my hotel. It’s down there. Just down the street. All the lights on the dash went on and it just stopped.”

I figured she’d run out of oil or gas but I was no expert. I said I would drive her to her hotel. She hemmed and hawed a little but I told her I had nowhere to go anyway, which wasn’t true, and finally she agreed. We left a note on the car. She’d just have to hope the Cadillac would still be there when she arranged for a tow.

She got in the car and I put the air on. We drove for a while. Turned out the hotel was actually all the way at the other side of the valley. She said her name was Hannah Martinez. She said she’d been a dancer, which I believed because of how straight her back was, and that she was in town for a job doing outfits for the girls in “a little revue.” She said she was also a musician and she’d written a song that was a big hit in Germany about seventeen years ago.

“Boy, I tell you,” she said. “Those were some good years. We ate well.”

I didn’t know if it was true, but so what? What did I know about hit songs in Germany? Everyone had the right to the story they want, I supposed. So what if maybe things happened a little different in real life. Who was keeping score?

Finally, after close to an hour, we got where she was going. It was a motel way over almost in the next county. Nearby were a bunch of places that fixed dents and hubcaps and engines, which I figured was kind of ironic.

She thanked me a bunch of times and I could tell she meant it. I told her it was nothing. When I got home there was a big fuss and no one believed where I’d been. They were a bunch of clowns. That whole crowd was good for nothing. They all said it sounded like a story—about the costumes and the hit song in Germany. Well, I got news for you, kids, I told them, everything interesting sounds like a story. That’s life. A bunch of stories. If you think you know what’s true and what isn’t, good for you.

Before she got out of the car, in the dark of the parking lot, where she wouldn’t see what I was doing, I stuck a couple of dollars in her purse and a prayer card I’d been carrying around with me for a while. Saint Francis.


Not long after that, I came across that exact car for sale. Hannah Martinez’s actual car. They’d painted it and fixed it all up, but I recognized the burn marks, and they’d left on the ’82 bumpers. It was for sale at a used-car place in Van Nuys. I was buying a car for no reason at all, if you can believe that. Things seemed so great then. I’d just married my second husband and he was making good money, really good money. I had a little Japanese car I’d never liked so he says, Well, let’s go trade it in. I mean, I was trading it in for another used car, but still.

There was Hannah Martinez’s car, for sale in the lot.

“That’s the car,” I told my husband. “I’ve always loved that car.”

He bought it for me on the spot. I had them check it out again, on account of the breakdown, but the best anyone could figure, it must’ve run out of gas. Then after I bought it, I took it to my own mechanic for another look, and he said everything seemed fine. Even complimented me on getting it for such a good price.

I kept the Cadillac when we divorced. It was the only thing we had left that was worth anything. I’d pawned my engagement ring and my wedding ring a few months back. Sold all my pricey clothes, the jewelry, the nice things for the house he’d bought for me. That made it easy to leave. Didn’t even have to worry about the rings.

After that, things were hard for a couple of years. I sold the Cadillac eventually and replaced it with a series of inferior cars: lower-quality American models and fourth-hand imports. I always kicked myself for it because I knew I’d never get a chance at a car like that again. But life takes you where it takes you, and you need money when you need it, not next week.

I did serve a little time here and there, for kiting checks, shoplifting, vice. I tried to make ends meet—around the West, mostly. I spent some more time in Southern California; when that became too hot I headed up to Portland. That was one city I didn’t care for. I like the sunshine. I did okay there money-wise but one day I’d had enough rain and I got in my car and I drove and drove and drove until a couple days later I was in Tucson. Found work in Tucson and had a good thing for a while there. A very nice setup. That resulted in my first real lockup. Women’s prison isn’t so bad, not if you’re a grown woman. The kids fuss and fight but they leave the rest of us out of it. Other women aren’t too bad. Never had such a perfect thing as Tucson again. That was a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

After I got out I just couldn’t manage to settle down again. Nothing seemed to fit. I’d think I was settling down in one place and then one night I wouldn’t be able to sleep and my blood would be rushing through me and I’d get in my car and drive, and I wouldn’t stop until I was someplace new.

In Dallas I was in the newspaper because I caused a traffic accident when I stopped short to let a family of ducks cross the street. About six cars played a little bumper-bump but no one was hurt. No one’s car was wrecked. They took me to court for vehicular something-or-other, but then a bunch of nature ladies showed up in court to say how I’d done the right thing trying to save the ducks. Everyone had a lot of fun with it and the judge let me off after the nature ladies convinced him. They even put a little thing in the paper—“Duck Lady Has Day in Court.”