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. ?zZ
The truck roared on. The sign
on the road read, “Minneapolis 50 Miles”. Edwina Olds Lieutenant, WACS (ret.) said,
“We’d better have a plan, boys, before we get down there.” Both boys nodded as
the truck roared on. Neither one spoke. She said, “So, what’s the plan?” She
leaned forward a bit, shot a glance at Tommy Hastings. “This is your mama we’re
talking about here, son. What would you like us to do?” She turned her
attention back to driving.
Tommy’s eyes practically
bugged out. He swallowed hard opened his mouth then closed it. Finally, he
said, “I can’t do nothin’.”
“Like hell you can’t!” Ed
shouted.
Both boys slid away from her,
scrunching against the door. Finally, Tommy said, “We have to get there before
everyone else does.”
“So far, we’re fine,” Ed
said. “We’re ahead of the Socialists for certain. What about the witch?”
Freddie Hastings said, “She’s
from Anoka.”
“Hmmm.” Ed paused, “That’s a
lot closer.”
“But she wasn’t bad. Scary,
but not bad.”
“So we don’t have to worry
about her?”
Tommy piped up, “Like Freddie
said, she wasn’t bad. Just creepy. Why would she want mom’s picture?” He shook
his head. “It wasn’t her.”
Freddie said, “What about the
mobsters?”
Tommy stared out the window,
his short hair rippling in the wind roaring through the window. “I dunno. Could
be.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. They were too…neat.” He shrugged. “She
was beautiful, sure. He looked cool. Like a movie. But they didn’t even seem
real.” He watched for a while more. “Nah. It’s the Socialists. They want Mom’s
picture.”
“Then we’re ahead of them,”
said Ed. She paused, downshifting to keep from crashing into a pickup truck,
sweeping around it.
Tommy was looking in the
window of the car. The driver was a stranger, but the head that leaned forward
suddenly looked directly up. It jerked back as Tommy shouted, “One of the Socialists
is in that truck!”
Ed floored it and cut back into
her lane as a car appeared over a hill. She used a bad word. The truck driver
laid on the horn and hit his brakes. Ed hit the accelerator and the truck roared
down the road. “You’d better come up with a plan really, really quick, kid! I’m
gonna be downtown in about an hour and a quarter.”
Tommy closed his eyes and
leaned forward until his forehead smacked against the hot dashboard. He sat
that way for a long time. Freddie tapped him on the shoulder. Tommy’s voice was
barely audible when he said, “Leave me alone! I’m think up a plan!” Freddie and
Ed looked up, eyes locking. Both sets of eyes bulged.
They rode on in silence. After
twenty miles, Tommy sat up suddenly and said, “I think I got an idea.” He looked
over at Ed and said, “Can you drop us off in the alley behind my house?”
Ed pursed her lips then shook
her head. “Afraid not, kid. Those are too narrow for a rig like mine.”
“Can you drop us on Hennepin and
Fifteenth?”
Ed grunted, nodding, “I can imagine
what you’re planning, kid. I think it’ll work.”
“You think you can have a little
engine trouble then?”
This time Ed grinned, nodded,
and said, “I believe I can, son! I believe I can.”
No comments:
Post a Comment