We rolled through all the crowded streets of New Jersey, and got on the road, and come to a sign that said “South” with an arrow pointin flat to the left, and “West” with an arrow pointin straight down, and stayed right on the straight arrow down into the West. It got dark, and countrylike, and pretty soon there was hills.
It took some hours to get to Pennsylvania where the man was drivin to, and about five to get to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he lived. I slept some of the way. It kept right on rainin. Inside the cab was warm and comfortable, and a good start it was for me and Slim. He said he wasn’t far behind Sheila after all.
At Harrisburg at midnight the man said he could save time by droppin us off outside town at a junction and pointed to it when we passed, and it was a lonely rainy junction that made me gulp it was so dark, but he said he would take us in anyhow to make sure we connected right for Pittsburgh and points west, and added he knowed another short cut downtown. That was good for us, that short cut. Harrisburg was all lit up in halos in the rain and looked quiet and gloomy. There was big gray bridges, and the Susquehanna river below them, and the main street in town where ever’body was waitin for buses at midnight.
Me and Slim jumped out of the tractor-cab at the red light, and the man repeated his instructions over whilst Slim thanked him gladly, and then back we was on foot, goin slant across town for the other highway with hopes on high. “That was a good ride,” Slim said, “and I wouldn’t of got one like it alone. Ever’body’ll sympathize with you bein so little and we’ll make time to the Coast. Pic, you’re my goodluck chile. Come along with me you old daddyo.”
The houses in Harrisburg is extremely old, and come from the time of George Washington, Slim said. They’s all old brick in one part of town, and have crooked chimbleys and ancient shapes but look all neat. Slim said the town was so old because it was on a great old river. “Ain’t you ever heard of the Susquehanna, and Daniel Boone and Benjamin Franklin and the French and Italian wars? In those times ever’body was here, and come from New York where we was, with pushcarts and oxes over the hills that truck groaned on, in rain and high weather, and suffered and died jess to reach it here. It was the beginnin of the big long push to California and now you remember how long it took us to get here by truck then figure it by ox, and then tell me about it when we get to San Francisco—about the ox. I’ll ask you about it when we go over the sink in Nevady. In Nevady they’s a sink that took down a whole ocean and’s been dry ever since, and takes a month to measure the edges of it. Ain’t nobody wash their teeth over that sink. You ain’t seen nothin yet, boy.”
Well, we was still in Susquehanna and hungry enough to be in Nevady, so Slim said we’d have Hot Dog Number Two and Hot Dog Number Three and maybe Four. We went to a diner and ate them, and had a side dish of beans with katchup, and coffee both of us. Slim said I had to learn to drink coffee to keep warm on the road. He counted his money, said we had $46.80 left, and dug down in the suitcase to put on more clothes in case it rained bigger. He said he hoped we got a ride soon so’s I could sleep, and wished I could wake up in Pittsburgh and then we’d move right on ’stead of sleepin. “Up ahead the sun is shinin in Illinois and Missouri, I know it,” he said.
By and by we hit the night again, and Slim brought along two packs of cigarettes that left us $46.40, and we walked to the outskirts of town. Folks looked at us curious and wondered what we was doin. Well, that’s life. A man’s got to live and get there, Slim always said about that. “Life is a sneeze, life is a breeze,” he said. Along come a car with a man goin home from work and Slim didn’t care, he threw out his thumb and whistled ’most shrill through his teeth, and when he seen the man wouldn’t stop, why he stuck his leg and pulled up the pants and said “Have pity on a poor young girl of the road.” Tickled me the way he fooled around ever’where he went.
It was cold, and it was raw, but we felt real fine jess like we was home. Ever’ now and then I got to worryin about findin a bed and home in Californy, and worried about Sheila, and worried about get-tin tireder than I was, and damper, in a darker place than this, but Slim made me forget it the way he went along. “It’s the only way to live,” Slim said, “jess don’t die. Whoopee, sometimes I feel like dyin but now I wantsa wait the longest time. Bein that you bring it in some more, Lord, I ain’t afraid of a few cold toes so long’s my whole foot don’t crack. Lord, you didn’t give me any money but you gave me the right to complain. Whoo! Complain so long on the left hand, the other hand’ll fall off. Well, I’ve got my baby, I’ll hold on jess a while longer, and see what Californy looks like now, and look around inside myself, and bet. I can’t do no more than kick, Lord, kick this way, kick that way, and then I kick it proper. Look out for you boy, Lord.” Slim was always talkin to God like that. We got to know each other fine and could talk to ourselves anytime, the other one only listened. I’d say “Tick, tack, toe!” countin my footsteps and Slim would say “There you go!” jess as absent-minded and thinkin about somethin else. It was the grandest fun, and good.
Someday grandpa I’ll make a whole lot of money for you and me, but I’ll enjoy it like Slim enjoyed it without no money, and make sure to be a happy man.
We crossed over the town, and pretty soon there we was on the highway and there was the Susquehanna River runnin right with us, most solemn and black and not makin a sound for miles.
And here come a man with a little tiny suitcase hurryin along most jaunty from the shore, and seen us, and waved, and said “Walk a little faster if you want to keep up with me, for I’m goin to CANADY and I don’t aim to waste time.” Well, he wasn’t even caught up with us and talked like that, but soon enough he passed us. “Can’t lag, son, can’t lag,” he said, and was lookin back. Me and Slim hurried on after him quick.
“Where you headed?” Slim said, and the man—he was jess a little old man, white, and poor—said “Why, I’m gonna get me a HIBALL up the river here soon’s I cross the bridge. Member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. Red Cross in this town wouldn’t give me a dime. Tried to sleep in the railyards last night and they put a spotlight on me. Told them ’You’ll never see me in this town again,’ walked away. Had a good breakfast last week, Martinsburg, West Virginia, pancakes, syrup, ham, toast, two glasses milk and a half, and a Mars candy bar. Always like to load up for the winter like a squirrel. Had grits and brains in Hippensburg two weeks now, and wasn’t hungry for three days.”
“You mean Harrisburg?”
“Hippensburg, son, Hippensburg, Pennsylvania. I’ve got to meet my pardner in Canady by month’s end so I can go into a uranium deal. Know upstate New York!” he said wavin his fist most determined. He was a funny old man, was short and thin, all weazled up his face that had such a long horny nose, and looked so shrunk and wan under his hat I wouldn’t recognize if I seen him again. “Walk fast,” he yelled to usn’s behind, “knew a boy three years ago on this road jess the same as you. Lazy! Slow! Don’t lag!” We followed him and had to hustle some.
We walked about two mile.
“Where we goin?” Slim said.
“Know what I had me in Harrisburg last night? One fine meal I tell you, in any diner in the world. Had candied pig’s feet, yams, with peas, peanut butter sandwich and two cups tea and Jello with fruits in it. Old Veteran of Foreign Wars cook behind the counter. On the twelfth of this month had me a cold shower followed by hot, in the Cameo Hotel, won’t tell you where, desk clerk was Jim, Veteran of Foreign Wars, I caught a cold and sneezed myself all over.”
“You sure keep movin along, Pop,” said Slim.
“Old silver-haired man with a pack an hour ago couldn’t even keep up with me. All set for Canady, I am. Got things in this bag. Got a nice new necktie, too.” His bag was a poor little tore-up piece of cardboard and was held together by a big belt tied around it. He kept fiddlin at the belt. “Wait a secont while I take out that tie,” he said, and we all stopped in front of a empty gas station and he kneeled down to undo the belt.
/> I sat down and caught back the rest in my legs, and watched. That man was so funny, that was why Slim was followin him and talkin to him so. Slim jess went along trailin what innerested him, you know, and couldn’t say no to any old man like that.
“Now where can that tie be?” said the old man, and fiddle-faddled around in his busted satchel the longest time, and scratched his haid. “Now don’t tell me I left it in Martinsburg. I packed two dozen cough drops that morning and remember the tie was stuck up alongside. No it wasn’t Martinsburg at all, at all, at all, now where was it? Harrisburg? Ah shoot, this old tie will do till I get to Ogdensburg, New York State,” and off we went again walkin. He didn’t have no such a tie.
Grandpa don’t believe it if you will, but we walked SIX more miles along that river with that old man, and somethin was supposed to be around the bend ever’ time, but there never was anything. I never walked so much and minded it so little, he talked so crazy. “I have all my papers,” he kept sayin, and told us what he done in ever’ town for the past month to eat, how he showed his cridentials at places, and what the meal was, and how much sugar he put in his coffee and crackers in his soup. It made me and Slim hungry to hear him. He’s so small, and loved food so large. And walked, and walked.
Well, that somethin never showed up and we had walked clear into the wilderness where the road lit in only the longest spaces.
Slim stopped cold, and said “Say, you must be …” but didn’t wanta say “crazy” and just said “You must be … Pop, me and my brother better turn back.”
“Back? No back about this part of the country. Heh heh. I just misjudged you boys like I misjudged that young man three years ago, that’s all I done. I’m ready to go on if you ain’t.”
“Well, we can’t walk all night,” Slim said.
“Go ahead, give up, I’m all set to walk to Canady and straight on through New York City if that’s how the chips fall.”
“New York City?” Slim yelled. “Did I hear you say? Ain’t this the road west to Pittsburgh?”
Slim stopped, but the man hurried right along. “Say, did you hear me?” Slim yelled. That old man heard him all right but didn’t care. “Keep walking,” I say, “maybe I’ll be in Canady, maybe I won’t. Can’t wait around all night.” And he kept talkin, and walkin, till all we could see was his shadow fadin in the dark and gone like a ghost.
“Well,” Slim said, “it was a ghost.” And he worried himself to death standin there with me in those fearful river woods, at midnight, tryin to figure where we was and how we got lost. All I could hear now was the pat of rain on a million leaves, and the chug-chug across the river, and my own heart beatin in all that open air. Lord, it’s somethin.
“Why’d I go follow that crazy man!” Slim said, and seemed lonesome, and looked for me, and reached some. “Pic, you there?”
“Slim, I’m scairt,” I said.
“Well don’t be scairt, we’ll walk back to town and get back to those lights and folks can see us. Whoo!”
“Slim, who was that man?” I asked him, and he said, “Shoo, that was some kinda ghost of the river, he’s been lookin for Canady in Virginia, West Virginia, West Pennsylvania, North New York, New York City, East Arthuritis and South Pottzawattomy for the last eighty years as far as I can figure, and on foot, too. He’ll never find the Canady and he’ll never get to Canady because he’s goin the wrong way all the time.”
So grandpa the next three cars swished by, and the fourth one stopped for us, and we ran for it. Was big solemn white man in a beach-wagon truck. “Yes,” he said, “this is the road west to Pittsburgh but you better go back to town for a ride.”
“That old man is goin to walk west all night, and he wants to get to the North to Canady,” said Slim, and it was the God-awfullest truth, and we was talkin about that Ghost of the Susquehanna for the next three months I tell you when we got to Sheila in San Francisco.
14. HOW WE FINALLY GOT TO CALIFORNY
I’M GOIN TELL YOU IT WAS A LONG TRIP, grandpa. That man rode us back to Harrisburg in the rain. He told us how to take a left and then a right and then left and then right and go down to a lunch wagon where he said they made very good sweet yams and pigs’ feet and also seven-inch-long hot dogs with Picadilly Circus on it. Me and Slim went in there and sat down in the eatin part of the restrant, th’other side was a spittoon place with a big bunch of men argufyin about how they was Jindians.
“Don’t tell me that, you’re no Indian!”
“Oh I ain’t, ain’t I?—I’m a Pottzawattomy from Canady and my mother was pure-bred Cherokee.”
“If you’re a Pottzawattomy from Canady and your mother was pure-bredded Cherokee I’m James Roosevelt Turner.”
“Well turn around, son, and I’ll give you the biggest whompin you ever got.” And then there was the sound of glasses breakin, and fights, and hollerin, and women yowlin, and this woman came over to the table where me and Slim was eatin and sat down with us with a nice smile and said “May I join you?” just as a big flock of police-men came in out of a squad car. The woman, girl actelly, said to Slim:
“May I sit?”
And she smiled but Slim he was afeared of the police-men and never smiled back at her smile, besides Slim is married to Sheila, but the woman sat there actin as though she was at the same table with us and no one of the police-men offered up to bother her. Slim didn’t say no, and he didn’t say yes. The police-men took away the skeedaddlin Jindians and ever’thing was peaceful again.
Me and Slim ate up all our money on candy yams and pigs’ knucklets feets and seven-inch-long hot dogs and Slim didn’t pay no intention which-however to the woman. It was a barnyard. But you know, grandpa, a whole lot of black men have Jindian blood, as I discovered up when I saw all those Jindians in Nebraskar, loway and Nevady, not to mention Oakland.
But now we were pretty well filled up with food supper and ready to roam on in the rainin, only now it was slower now, pizzlin, and Slim said:
“Now next step is to get to Pittsburgh down this Route 22.”
It was early mornin sunrisin and an au-to went by and squished a blue-color bird under the rollin wheel.
It made me sickish to hear the squeak of it. I wished there was a better place. I felt missilated. A plumber gave us a ride to Huntingdon, then a light-bulb man gave us a ride to Holidaysburg, then a man called Biddy Blair gave us a ride to Blairsville, then we wound up in Corapolis with a countryfolk truck driver whose son had jess had a hernia belly. It was awful all them stories you heard. But I had a feelin in my chest that ever’body was doin their best, I guess.
Now it was about seben o’clock in the mornin and Slim bought some Sin-Sins to put sugar in our mouth. He was rare worried he’d never get to Sheila. He didn’t not ever tell me how long it was to Oakland for fear I’d get scairt. I told him I didn’t know there was so many white people in the world, comin as I done from North Carolina countryfolks.
He said: “Yep.”
Then he said: “I wonder if Mr. Otis sent out the cops after me for kidnapin you. Well, he won’t find us now. Here’s stoppin a car with two men in it.”
They was goin eighty miles a hour or somethin like that but they stopped, squeak. We got in the back. They said:
“Where you goin?—Shoot, we Montana-bound, you got money?”
Slim said “Not much so.”
So they said “We’ll drop you off at Pittsburgh.” It was rainin, grandpa, when we got to Pittsburgh. Me and Slim went inta the railroad station, to get out of the rainin. Two men in blue choo-choo master suits told us to get out. So we pulled up our collars and draddled on down the street, we saw a church, with a cross on top on it. Slim said:
“Let’s go in there and dry up some. Don’t reckon they’ll throw us out of there.”
It was chilly-like but there was a runnin heat comin from the furnace in the bottom down-be-lows, and a man upstairs was playin the big organ piano, Slim said it was the Have-a-Maria, and then a fellow come by with a lighted stic
k and went rush-up lightin candles at the front part, “The Halter,” said Slim (said it laughin), and outside it was rainin cats and dogs.
Grandpa, when I heared that music I shushed Slim, and I said:
“Can I sing?”
“Slim wants to know if you know the tune?” said Slim.
“Well I’ll jess hum.”
Slim said: “Here comes the big man in the black coat.”
By this time I was already hummin.
The big man in the black coat said “You have a beautiful voice, what’s your name?”
“Pictorial Review Jackson of North Carolina.”
“And who’s he?”
“My brother John Jackson.”
The priest axed “Do you know how to dust pews?”
Slim says “I just worked in a cookie factory and I’d rather dust pews.”
“Do you know how to mop floors in the basement? Two Army cots beside the furnace, hundred dollars a month, fifty each, free food, no rent.”
Slim says “Tsa deal, we are goin all the way to Californy to join up with my wife.”
“What’s your wife’s name?”
“Sheila Jackson, born Joyner, North Carolina.”