This series is a little bit biographical and a little
bit imaginary about my dad and a road trip he took in the summer of 1946, when
he turned fifteen. He and a friend hitchhiked from Loring Park to Duluth, into
Canada and back again. He was gone from home for a month. I was astonished and
fascinated by the tale. So, I added some speculation about things I've always
wondered about and this series is the result. To read earlier SHORT LONG
JOURNEY NORTH clips, click on the label to the right, scroll down to and click
OLDER ENTRIES seven or eight times. The FIRST entry is on the bottom of the
last page.
An hour later, after
screaming through Anoka, they arrived in downtown Minneapolis after rumbling
down West River Road, past the power plant, and along old, deserted streets,
through the warehouse district, and finally along Hennepin Avenue. Their first
stop was at Fifteenth, where she got stuck behind a taxi and laid on the horn
while the boys scrambled out of the barely open door, down to the street, and
disappeared into the clogged up traffic.
Tommy said, “Now you gotta
follow close behind.”
“I’m like your shadow,” the
other boy said as they cut across Hennepin and disappeared down Fifteenth,
taking alleys, short cuts, scrambling up and down ladders, and startled three
old women who’d just pulled on their hats to do some shopping downtown.
“Hooligans!”
“Ruffians!”
“Scoundrels!”
The boys ran, laughing, then
ducked down another alley. Tommy skidded to a halt, grabbing Freddie’s shirt. “Hey!”
Freddie said, then slapped a hand over his mouth as they leaned around the
corner and peered down the street.
Hennepin was now backed up,
men in the street shaking their fists and cursing! Tommy looked both ways then
dragged Freddie after him. Shortly, they were in the alley behind then apartments.
“Nobody can see us. We gotta be totally sneaky.” Freddie nodded as they ran to
the back of Tommy’s house. “I gotta check stuff out.”
Freddie grabbed his shoulder
and whispered, “Watch out for them! They’ll kill you if they catch you.”
“They’re not here.”
“You don’t know that. They’re
Socialists! You don’t know anything about them.”
“I know they scare me to
death,” Tommy said.
Freddie’s eyes bulged, “They
do?”
“‘course. But it’s my ma I’m
scared about. I gotta make sure she’s safe.”
Freddie nodded, awkwardly patted
Tommy on the shoulder and shoved him forward.
Tommy took a deep breath,
then ran silently down the sidewalk between his house and the next. He stopped
at the street, pressing his back against the wall, sooty from the stacks of the
factories on the Mississippi. He stuck his head around the corner just as a
flatbed truck carrying men in the back of it drove by in a cloud of blue smoke.
Tommy’s heart seemed to stop –
then he realized it was just highway workers coming back into the city after
getting out of a traffic jam. His knees went weak and he slid down the wall a
little. He looked the other way up the street but didn’t see any sign of the
Socialists. He ran back to Freddie and said, “Let’s go in. I’ll grab the picture
and we’ll take it and hide it in the park.”
“That’s your plan?” Freddie
said, “Hide it in the park?”
Tommy straightened up, “What’s
wrong with it?”
“I thought you were gonna
like, give it to the Tribune or the Star-Journal and then tell the Socialists
that it’ll stay there…”
“But then what’s to stop ‘em
from killing me and Mom and Dad and sis?”
Freddie started to say
something out loud. Tommy shushed him as a truck rumbled slowly past the street
end of the sidewalk. The boys cringed, backing around the corner. “I think it
was them! Stay here!”
“What…”
Tommy ran to the back door,
up the stairs, then stopped, slowly opened the door, then slipped in. While he
was gone, Freddie stared at the door, jumping every time a truck or car drove
past the end of the sidewalk. He waited so long, he knew he had to go to the
bathroom – just like he did when they used to play hide-and-seek as kids. He
crossed his legs. He held his breath. He counted to five hundred…
Suddenly the back door opened
and Tommy came out.
Followed by his sister, who
was holding him by the ear!
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