West With Giraffes(28)

After that, he told me story after crazy story about life at the zoo, making it all sound mighty exciting, until we came to the Virginia state line. “There you go, boy,” he said, pointing to an official-looking sign announcing the road’s name: LEE HIGHWAY. We’d made it to the Old Man’s cross-country “transcontinental auto route,” the southern route he’d been talking about, and the farther we cruised down the fine smooth road, the more my destiny feeling returned and the more I was sure I’d make it to California. If I’d had a map, I’d have seen the fancy highway was two lanes paved all the way to San Diego right through the desert, its smooth concrete looking like the world of tomorrow to anybody who’d ever tried to drive farther than the nearest cotton gin.

But I’d also have seen something else—the Lee Highway wasn’t going south. It was already south. I’d heard “southern route” and imagined what was south to my Panhandle mind, that being Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast and a skirting of the Mexico border. In only one more day, though, the road was going to turn and go straight-arrow west—right back through the Texas Panhandle where I came from—and I couldn’t hazard that for reasons I never wanted the Old Man to know.

Little did I know that being dumped at Memphis might be the saving of me. As I drove that nice highway with the hurricane giraffes, hanging on to my California dream and feeling God Almighty and the Heavenly Host again on my side, I hadn’t a clue what I was risking behind that wheel. It was far more than a couple of mighty precious giraffe necks. It was my own.

Before long, we seemed to be gaining alti—





. . . “Lunchtime, sunshine!”

—Rattling me clean out of the story and back into my room is Greasy.

“You interrupted me in the middle of a sentence!” I holler as he busts through the door again.

“But it’s lunchtime, sunshine, the best part of the day, and you didn’t touch your breakfast. That’s a bad boy.”

“Quit talking to me like I’m a child, you little pipsqueak! Go AWAY. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

He grabs my wheelchair handles again. “C’mon now.”

I throw on the brakes.

He pulls them back up.

I push them back down. Dropping my pencil, my heart . . . freezes.

“Hey—” I hear Greasy’s voice from far away. “Hey, hey—goddamn! You dying? I’m going for the nurse!”

He rushes out the door as my heart starts up again. Mmmphgh.

“Whew.” Rattled, I rub my chest, take a deep breath, and look around. Over in the window, Girl is wiggling her rubbery lips at me. “I could’ve used your help, you know.” Uneasy, I pick up my pencil, forcing myself to focus.

And I hear the shuffling of dominoes.

Real slow, I turn around. There, sitting on the bed shuffling, is Rosie. She’s younger, though, her hair brighter, longer . . . with no hint of gray.

I blink.

She’s still there.

A game and a story . . . she’s saying . . . “Then you take your pills. Why don’t you tell me about the Old Man, Riley Jones, again? I do love a man with a dark secret. Or maybe the night you slept in the cab with you-know-who! No, wait. The mountains—that was so exciting. Yes, that’s always been one of my favorite parts.”

Then she isn’t there anymore.

“Did you see her, too?” I ask Girl.

Girl nods her big snout.

I take another deep breath. “Oh, good. I was beginning to worry I was seeing things,” I say, and turn back to my writing pad, headed to the mountains.





7

Over the Blue Ridge Mountains

Before long, we seemed to be gaining altitude.

I could feel us climbing as I began working the gears more. Despite what the Old Man said about the Memphis stretch being smooth sailing, I knew full well that mountains stood between us and the flat side of Tennessee. I’d never even seen a mountain, much less driven up one—much less driven a rig with two-ton giraffes over one.

But at least mountains, I told myself, wouldn’t have cornfields.

By midmorning, right after we’d had a stop by the side of the road for some tree-munching and neck-stretching and bandage-checking and Girl-kicking, we crossed over a stone bridge that looked like it had been crossed by George Washington himself. And we started going up. There was no maybe about it anymore.

At a burg called Thornton’s Gap, the two-lane highway narrowed and we went around our first hill, then another and another. I geared down. Up. Then down again. I began to feel heat doing the same up and down my neck. The giraffes were moving back and forth with the rig, their big weight shifting. Even the Old Man had a healthy grip on his door frame.

Then the signs started coming.

ENTRY TO THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS AND SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, said the first one.

SCENIC SKYLINE DRIVE—FIRST LEFT, said the second.

Any other time, I might’ve thought something called Skyline Drive was a hot-dog-and-damn sight worth seeing. But now was not any other time.

Then came the third sign: LEE HIGHWAY—KEEP STRAIGHT AHEAD.

My spirits rose.

“Just follow that sign,” the Old Man said. “I scouted this. It’s an easy up and over, then back down to the highway proper.”