West With Giraffes(11)

Rushing to my fence squeeze-hole, I all but beat them to the front gate. Their lights flashing in the predawn dark, two New Jersey state cycle cops were waiting and escorted the giraffe rig onto the road.

I dragged the thieved cycle from under the downed oak, cranked it sputtering, spewing, backfiring to life, and, after a mighty rub of Cuz’s rabbit’s foot, I followed. Californy, here we come, I thought. With nothing between but the entire USA, sea to shining sea.

Little did I know I wasn’t the only one with plans for the giraffes, and worse, that those plans included never getting to California at all.





. . . “Hon?”

Someone’s at my door again, jangling me out of my scribbling. Before I can do a thing about it, in strides another orderly. I start to growl at him, but it’s a her. She’s flame-haired. Familiar.

Then I remember. She’s the big-boned redheaded gal I like—Rose? Rosie? Yeah, Rosie.

“You didn’t come to breakfast, hon. The chaplain will be here soon for chapel. Why don’t you let me to take you down?”

It’s Sunday morning. I never go. Which doesn’t keep them from asking. It’s a kindness in their minds to offer, seeing as each Sunday could be the last chance for us old reprobates to rectify. Today may be my last chance. But these scribbles are my rectifying. I study her face a second and then turn back to my writing pad. “I’m busy.”

“Hon, do you recognize me?” she says next.

“’Course I do,” I mutter over my shoulder.

“Oh, hon, it’s been such a long time! You used to make me play a game of dominoes and hear a story before you’d take your pills, remember?” she is saying. “I heard about the giraffes. I’m so sorry.” But then I hear her reach over and close the window.

Whirling around too fast, my wheelchair bumps the bedstead and I almost fall out. “OPEN IT—OPEN IT!”

She pushes the window back up. Wild Girl is still there. My heart starts stuttering mmmphgh again and I rub it.

Rosie notices. “I better call the nurse right now to give you a pill.”

“No! No nurses. No pills. I got to think straight to write it all down for her!”

Rosie settles her hands on her sturdy hips to look me up and down, exactly like the Old Man used to do. Pushing a graying strand of hair behind her ear, she says, “OK, but I’m staying until you calm down.”

“Suit yourself,” I say, calm as a clam, then return to my writing pad, hoping that will hush her. It does not.

“Hon, who is ‘her’? Who are you ‘writing it all down’ for?”

I don’t answer.

“Is it Augusta Red?”

I almost jerk my neck off looking around. “How do you know about Red?”

“She’s in all the stories you told me while we played dominoes. Augusta Red, the Old Man, and the giraffes. Is that what you’re writing down—your trip? But you always said it didn’t matter.”

“I was wrong,” I mumble. Calmly. And start back writing.

For a few minutes, she perches her big self on the edge of the bed. Then, hearing her get up, I watch her close the door behind her, remembering it all.

A game of dominoes and a story . . .





3

Across New Jersey and Delaware

So we hit the road.

Being on the road’s no song, though. Not if you’re a stray. There’s nothing more pitiful than a wandering creature who was never meant to be wild. By the time a stray dog showed up at our Panhandle farm, it had that scary all-is-lost look that made even my saintly Christian ma run it off. She’d never have believed she’d turn away a stray boy, though, and I know you’d want to believe you’d do the same. But there were thousands of us back then, wandering, hapless, and reckless. What if you lived by the tracks? Or the highway? What if your place got marked as the home of a kindhearted Christian or a Roosevelt bleeding heart so that you had dirty bums and feral boys knocking on your screen door night and day? Would you lock your doors and close your curtains? Would you hide your little ones in your own house? What if a tramp starts waving a straight razor or glass shard at the competition hiding in your shrubbery? Would you call the police or reach for your shotgun?

You won’t remember all that back then—and I’m glad of it. I’ve tried to forget what it was like as a stray boy heading toward Cuz. I was barely human after the first wretched few days, and as time went on I cared less about being so. When your shriveled stomach’s aching with hunger, you forget all about your hungry heart. And you keep on forgetting it a little each day until a stray dog has more heart or soul than you.

Then, there were the roads themselves. What we called highways were barely tolerable for transporting people much less chauffeuring giraffes. The country’s only two “transcontinental auto trails” were so singular they had names—the Lincoln and the Lee—and we weren’t near either of them. Most town-to-town roads still had little more than a gas station guy pointing you the right way or the dead-and-gone wrong. During the Hard Times, taking them any stretch at all could mean taking your life into your own hands—which I was aiming to avoid by following the giraffes.

So, while I should have been quaking at the thought of hitting the road again, I was OK as long as I could see the rig. As the sun came up, though, it began to wobble. It was as if, spooked by daylight, the giraffes didn’t know where to stand in this new fresh hell they were in, their heads popping in and out, the back of the rig swaying and rocking, one time even lifting the tires right off the road so bad I thought they might flip over and finish themselves off before we’d even got started. The Old Man, though, started screaming at Earl until the rig slowed to a crawl, the giraffes got their balance, and everything simmered down.