West With Giraffes(53)

10

Into Arkansas

I once knew a man who didn’t know his own birthday. He was a lucky man. He lived his life each day like any other, never quite knowing his age, therefore never knowing a birth date’s yearly tyranny. I can do without them, thank you, having had many, many more than my share. The thing about birthdays is you’re rocking along drawing breath, living sunrise to sunrise, becoming who you’ll become without a thought put to it—until the day you popped into this world arrives. Then whatever happens, good or bad, you’ll forever mark it in memory along with the passage of ticking time, a date on a calendar forcing you to look behind with no way to change things and look ahead with no way to know what’s coming. When I reach back for this birthday on my ride with the giraffes, that’s what I recall my new eighteen-year-old-self feeling as I stood on the banks of the Mississippi River, a river so wide that, if you try crossing it, you can’t see where you’re going. With no idea what was ahead for me and no time to ponder what was behind, I was traveling blind.

We’d just passed through Memphis proper after the fat-cat chase. The giraffes were riding heavy, the green Packard was either hiding or waiting down the road again, and I was still discombobulated. With every sign we’d seen pointing back to the Memphis Zoo as we drove through the city, I had mourned my lost California ticket, eyeing the Old Man for any change of heart and still worrying about some Old Man–style retribution. But he kept on looking back, shotgun in hand, until we saw the bridge up ahead and he motioned me to stop near the riverbank before we crossed over.

As the Old Man parked the shotgun under an arm and started checking the rig, out popped the giraffes’ snouts, their nostrils sniffing the watery smell. But I couldn’t make myself move. All I could do was stand and stare at the skinny bridge disappearing over the river like it was falling off the edge of the world—and I felt my stomach do the same. HARAHAN BRIDGE, the sign had said, 4,973 FEET LONG. Almost a mile. I had come over it heading toward Cuz, but at night on a train down the middle. From what I could see, cars and trucks were crossing on single lanes slapped on either side that were scarcely more than boarded-over tracks.

“I’m driving the rig over that?” I mumbled.

“No choice,” the Old Man said. “Plus, it’s rough. So help me get their heads in and let’s hope they keep ’em there.”

No choice. My gut, though, was telling me if I went over that bridge, I was making a choice, one that I wasn’t quite understanding. And I still wasn’t ready. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Right then, one of the giraffes kicked the rig and the Old Man sprung up the side to latch their windows himself. “Let’s go,” he called down to the sound of stomping and snorting.

I’m jumpy about the water, that’s all . . . like the giraffes, I kept telling myself as I crawled behind the wheel and pulled us into the traffic entering the bridge. Taking one last look over his shoulder, the Old Man placed the shotgun back on the rack.

With a thump and a bounce, we were on.

Every tire taking a beating, every tooth in my jaw rattling, we crept along. On my side was the track going down the middle, and I tried not to think what would happen if a train came along. On the Old Man’s side was water, water, and more water, the jutting trestles the only thing between us and a free fall of giraffe, truck, and body parts to a muddy Mississippi splashdown.

“K-keep it s-steady . . . ,” the Old Man said as we jolted along, cars stacked up behind us and getting more so with every minute.

WELCOME TO ARKANSAS, said the sign halfway across the bridge.

“S-s-steady—” the Old Man kept on saying. “Steady-y-y.”

With one last bone-jangling bounce, we were on the other side, rolling once again onto solid ground, both giraffes popping their latches to sniff the good earth.

The delta land spread out flat on either side as far as all four of us could see, and the Old Man started showing signs of relaxing. The racked shotgun stayed put and his glances over his shoulder stopped altogether. Heaving a hefty sigh, he leaned back, took that fedora off his head, and set it on the seat between us. Soon, as the railroad track once again veered out of sight, we were back to good traveling speed and the soothing rhythm of the road. That was nothing, though, compared to the soothing sight of that fedora lying quiet between us.

For a couple of miles, we rode in silence, watching the black delta land stretch into cotton fields from here to yonder. I could see acres and acres of pickers’ backs bent low, pulling their “whole-9-yards” cotton bags behind them, only a few near the highway unbending in time to see the giraffes go by. Still looking plain pitiful with dried blood on his shirt and a crusted-up gash on his temple, the Old Man then spied a grocery and dry goods store on the dirt road skirting the highway and ordered me to stop. Steering around a farmer driving a mule-driven rickety wagon, I parked us this side of the store.

The Old Man got out and flipped open Girl’s trapdoor, and she was still so exhausted she didn’t even kick when he dared to touch the rewrapped splint.

“Water ’em,” he ordered as he flipped the door shut, his face grim, and headed into the store. When he returned, he was wearing a new shirt, his head gash was cleaned up, and he was carrying a gunnysack of onions to replace the one used to smack the driver.

“I called Little Rock,” he said as we climbed back into the truck cab. “We’ll be overnighting at their pint-sized zoo.” Then he said, “I haven’t forgot what I promised you about Memphis, boy. But things have changed. We’ll talk about it tonight.”