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.
Tommy Hastings and Freddie
Merrill woke up to the thundering rumble of a truck roaring past them. It
didn’t have a muffler. It didn’t have a top over the back and was full of men.
Neither one moved as it
disappeared over the horizon. Finally Freddie whispered, “They’re going to the
Cities.”
“Duh,” said Tommy, standing. “Let’s
go.” He started walking, the sun glaring full in his face. He stopped. “The sun’s
goin’ down.”
Freddie stepped up beside him
and said, “Duh.”
“How can we get back home before
them?”
“We can’t,” said Freddie.
Tommy spun to face him then
shoved him backwards. Freddie didn’t do anything to protect himself. He just
fell backward and rolled a little down into the ditch. He stayed there. Tommy
slid down and shouted, “Get up! We have to go!”
Freddie rolled over,
squinting into the sun. “Go where?”
“Home!”
“Why?”
“To save my ma!”
Freddie shrugged, then said, “Unless
you can fly ‘faster than a speeding bullet’, you ain’t gonna catch up with the
Communists.”
Tommy screamed, “They’re
Socialists!”
Freddie shrugged again. “We
don’t got no truck. We don’t got no car. We don’t got nobody but us and our
feet.”
Tommy glared down at him. He
clenched his teeth tight. He jaw trembled. He turned bright red. He glared some
more. The trembling passed. He took a deep breath. “I got a thumb.” He stared
down at Freddie for a long time then said, “And so do you.” He held out his
hand. The other boy didn’t move for a long time. Tommy held rock solid.
Finally Freddie grinned and
held out his hand. Tommy pulled him to his feet as Freddie said, “Now you’re
talkin’.” They climbed out of the ditch and headed south, thumbs stuck out, facing the way they walked.
The sun slid a little farther down in the sky.
It slid farther.
Shadows started to crawl
across the road and the monster heat that made the other side of the silent
road shimmer fell away. Soaked in sweat, Tommy and Freddie trudged in silence,
fair hair plastered to their foreheads. “I think I got heat stroke.” Freddie
said suddenly.
“You don’t have heat stroke,”
said Tommy.
“How do you know? Last time I
looked, you weren’t a doctor.”
“Last time I looked, you
weren’t layin’ on the road, you weren’t boiling hot...”
“I am, too!”
“Not the weather, stupid,
YOU! Earl said they got heat stroke in the South Pacific all the time.”
“How come he told you that?”
They trudged in silence until
Tommy finally said, “‘Cause I told him I had heat stroke to see if I could get
outta school”
Freddie barked a laugh just
as a cool breeze dribbled from the north, along the road and slid up their
backs. Both boys sighed and trudged a few more feet until they stopped.
The breeze carried the
deep-throated rumble of the diesel engine of a big rig.
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