Friday, December 27, 2013
minds. We felt silly and didn’t know what to say and I for one didn’t
want to get hung up with a carnival, I was in such a bloody hurry to get
to the gang in Denver. I said “I don’t know, I’m going as fast as I can
and I don’t think I have the time.” Eddie said the same thing, and the
old man waved his hand and casually sauntered back to his car and drove
off. And that was that. We laughed about it awhile and speculated what
it would have been like. I for one had visions of a dark and dusty night
on the plains, and the faces of Nebraska families wandering by, Okies
mostly, with their rosy children looking at everything in awe, and I
know I would have felt like the devil himself rooking them with all
those cheap carnival tricks that they make you do…and the ferris wheel
revolving in the flatlands darkness, and Godalmighty the sad music of
the merry-go-round and me wanting to get on to my goal…and sleeping in
some gilt wagon on a bed of burlap. Eddie turned out to be a pretty
absentminded pal of the road. A funny old contraption rolled by, driven
by an old man, it was made of some kind of aluminum, square as a box, a
trailer no doubt, but a weird crazy Nebraska homemade trailer, and he
was going very slow and stopped. We rushed up; he said he could only
take one; without a word, after a look from me, Eddie jumped in and
slowly rattled from my sight, and wearing my wool plaid shirt, the very
shirt I’d worn to write the first half of my book. Well, lackaday, I
kissed the shirt goodbye, it only had sentimental value in any case,
besides of which, though I didn’t know it, I was destined to retrieve it
some ways up the road. I waited in our personal godawful Preston for a
long, long time, several hours; I kept thinking it was getting night but
actually it was only early afternoon, but dark. Denver, Denver, how
would I ever get to Denver. I was just about giving up and planning to
sit over coffee in a stew when a fairly new car stopped, driven by a
young guy. I ran like mad. “Where you going?” “Denver.” “Well I can take
you a hundred miles up the line.” “Grand, grand, you saved my life.” “I
used to hitch hike myself, That’s why I always pickup a fellow.” “I
would too if I had a car.” And so we talked, and he told me about his
life which wasn’t very interesting and I started to sleep some and woke
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