Good Vibrations

by Tom Cunliffe

  Lesgo made many land voyages and John remembers them all. His boats have been called by the same name and when his sailing days were done and his boat money reinvested in a full-blown modern RV, that too sported the familiar ‘handle’. John and Thérèse now live on the highways of the United States, but they can always be reached through their children. Stopping by a roadside payphone, I called up their elder daughter on the off-chance that the telephone lines were up again.

  ‘Tom, you’re in luck,’ the Southern Belle voice came clear down the handset. ‘John and Thérèse are right here in town. They’re seeing to old friends who live out on the beach. Their home got flattened.’

  ‘How about yourselves?’

  ‘We’ve been lucky. Just lost a tree and a few shingles. Get yourselves down there and find the folks. Pop’ll kill you if you don’t. They got plenty of space for you to sleep.’ I scratched directions on the back of an old parking ticket and we altered course for Devastation Alley.

  Passing through storm-shattered Wilmington to find the RV parked up behind a ravaged cinema complex, it was impossible not to contrast the Roberts family with some of the crazy characters a few hundred miles down the coast. Full of wry humour, intelligently aware of the world situation, the Roberts tribe tend to take mid-line careers, yet they would not know how to be boring. Politically far removed from the often alarming ‘my country right-or-wrong’ position so common in the US, they nevertheless represent the real strength of America.

  After a loud reunion and the best sleep of the trip, Roz and Thérèse updated recent family history while John and I walked down to look at the beaches.

  It seemed we had followed the hurricane up the coast and, just as in Georgia, it was ten days since it ran over the town. While trees were still down across roads, the emergency services had made good most of the utilities essential to life on US earth. Linemen were hanging off poles re-rigging power and phone systems, while the fire brigade were on overtime pumping out cellars. The general impression was one of returning order. It was only as we approached the ocean edge that we saw what a hurricane can really do.

  East Coast beach villages are built on or immediately behind the first line of sand dunes. The dunes are often only a few feet high and the buildings are fearfully vulnerable, yet such is the optimism or, some might say, stupidity, of those who choose to live there, that hurricane statistics are essentially ignored from the Carolinas down to southern Florida.

  The communities are largely leisure oriented, with second homes, gift shops, restaurants and all the paraphernalia of seaside vacations. To someone who has never visited an active war zone, the sight that presented itself as we drove into this neighbourhood was mind-bending. All the streets were choked with sand. Many were impassable. Police cordons were everywhere, but we managed to approach the front line. Here on the ocean, every house had been either flattened or appeared to have suffered the effects of some distant nuclear explosion. Windows had become ancient history. Whole roofs had simply disappeared. Others were draped over the ruins of homes or businesses across the street. Looking into the rubble, any still usable furniture or appliances had been removed already to frustrate looters. Cars were up-ended or lay with doors open, half-filled with sand.

  The devastation was best summed up by a gas station, whose office had gone altogether, leaving only its foundation and a few ripped-out electric wires disappearing underground like frozen multicoloured snakes. One pump still stood, as though ready to dispense premium unleaded to the sports car that sat forlornly hoodless beside it. The rest were torn up and lying at crazy angles. The most impressive single item was the canopy which had once provided shade in summer and shelter from any normal storm. This hefty erection bearing the logo of a well-known oil company had been supported by two massive steel stanchions which now were bent over like sticks of liquorice so that the canopy itself was touching the ground at an angle of beyond 90 degrees.

  ‘Kinda makes you think, don’t it,’ said John in his easy Southern drawl.

  ‘The folks have all gone by the time the storm hits, of course, but once that wave’s been through, she don’t leave much for when they come home.’

  He poured me coffee from a Thermos into a plastic cup. ‘You have natural forces at work here that people in Britain can’t begin to imagine,’ I said to John. ‘You build a city, you call it San Francisco, then an earthquake flattens it. So you build it again and another ’quake dumps half the Bay Bridge into the sea, complete with cars, trucks and people. This summer, Roz and I have seen rain like we never knew existed, and now this…’

  ‘We’re the most powerful nation the Earth has ever known,’ John said, ‘but this beach reminds you that the whole thing is just a house of cards. And even if it don’t get blown away, the country’s changin’ at some rate these days. When me and Thérèse came back from a few years in the islands, we were so shocked at how the dollar was takin’ over from family values that we almost turned right round and went back again.’

  ‘It’s not only here, John.’

  ‘I ain’t a world traveller, but I know my own country. Right now I’m not proud of it, but I’m proud of my family. We’re not greedy, we don’t go round lyin’ to people and thank the Lord none of us has gotten involved in a serious lawsuit. But I guess that’s just a matter of time.’

  I couldn’t argue with that. I’d only lived here for a total of perhaps three years, and I’d already managed it. Sipping my thin, black, American coffee, I told John about what we’d seen at Shem Creek.

  ‘I’ve been trying to package up how it made me feel,’ I said. ‘All I could think was that, somehow, the youth of the growing country is buried under those condos they’ve built over the boatyard at Shem Creek. What’s left is a confident middle age, but it’s not what America ought to be about. Now I’m not so sure if it’s America’s youth or my own that’s down there.’

  ‘Only history will tell us that, and by the time any worthwhile perspective has come about, we’ll both be long dead. So never mind trying to work stuff out. How’s the trip been, buddy? How’s it really been?’

  I thought hard.

  ‘John, it’s the best thing I ever did in my whole life. It’s been like a long ocean passage with all those kind of satisfactions, with the added factor of people to meet all the way.’

  ‘And what do you think of the American people now?’

  I recalled the rednecks, the muggers, the dope dealers, the bent cop, the ‘great country’ and the phantom desperadoes always lying in wait across the next state line but one. Then I remembered the essential fairness and straightforward kindness of the silent majority, as fresh this morning as it had been when first I flew into New York in 1967.

  ‘John,’ I replied, ‘this country’s so huge and complex that it’s beyond anybody’s power to give a simple answer to that question. But you once told me that a man should only speak as he finds. It’s windy out there, but the roots are still well set.’ I smiled. ‘You haven’t as much to worry about as you may think.’

  EPILOGUE – THE

  LAST LAP

  The Harleys gave all they had on the last frenzied ride up the sandbar of the Outer Banks, inshore of the sugar-stick lighthouse of Hatteras. We roared by Kitty Hawk beach where the Wright Brothers had momentously defied gravity, across the giant bridge north of Albemarle Sound and on up to Newport News, then ‘hard-assed’ it into Maryland. The place still looked like a park.

  Pulling up outside the plate glass front of Harley-Davidson of Annapolis was a major high for both of us, particularly Roz. Apart from a postcard from Sturgis, the crowd at the dealership had no idea how far Betty Boop, the 883 Sportster, had managed to go. We’d been out of their consciousness for three months, doing what many of their customers wished their lives away for, running the long highway on what I now had no doubt were the best bikes for the job. As we stepped off, our spines tingling with the massive vibration of a Harley after a fast run, Scott happened to notice us shrugging off
our leathers. He did a classic double-take, then called the boys and girls.

  The whole team was still there, doing the jobs they’d had on the day we set out for the West. All the weeks, hours and minutes we’d been away, grey-haired, handsome Tim had been dispensing his well-organised spares, the girl with the best eyes in America had been marketing the gear, Scott had been solving everyone’s problems and Gary had been selling bikes. Life for them had carried on at normal speed in those three months. We felt as though we had passed through a lifetime. As the impromptu party fell to bits late in the evening, I began to evaluate what had really been going on.

  Roz and I had ridden 12,000 miles, sipping the honey of the US like humming birds darting from flower to flower. We tasted deep from each bloom as it passed beneath our spoked wings, but it was not always possible to step back and view the garden. This, though, is the traveller’s lot. Like many journeys, ours had taught us something about the land but a good deal more about the people who lived in it.

  The cost of gasoline is low in the US and the Harley-Davidson holds its value so well that this rite of passage financially set us back less than might be imagined. Gary was so impressed by Betty Boop’s performance and general appearance that he bought her back, making a fair deduction for mileage. Roz was gutted to see her go. Despite having had clearance to sell Black Madonna from the local customs right at the outset, I was still considering shipping her back to the UK. She suited me, and a proven bike is something you do not take for granted. But Gary had customers lining up for a clean Heritage, especially one that had survived the desert highways without even a dent in the tank. He made me an offer that was too tempting and, like many a traitor before me, I sold her, walking out with nothing worse than a tear in my eye.

  The postscript is that when I returned to England I bought myself a ‘classic’ British motorcycle, a Triumph Bonneville. It’s been around long enough to be given the key of the door and it would blow my Harley away for acceleration, but it doesn’t give me the confidence to plan a trip to Scotland, let alone California. As for Roz, she hasn’t taken on another bike and she still won’t travel on the back of mine. Instead, she drives a Citroen 2CV, almost always with the roof down.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  p. 31 From I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die: Country Joe and the Fish, ‘The Acid Commercial’ (words and music by Joe McDonald copyright © 1967 Joyful Wisdom Music renewed 1995 Alkatraz Corner Music Co.)

  p. 31 From I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die: Country Joe and the Fish, ‘I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag’ (words and music by Joe McDonald copyright ©1965 Alkatraz Corner Music Co, renewed 1993)

  p. 59 From At Folsom Prison: Johnny Cash ‘Folsom Prison Blues’. Words and music by John R. Cash copyright © 1956 (Renewed 1984) HOUSE OF CASH, INC. (BMI)/Administered by BUG MUSIC, All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.

  p. 79 From Ballads and Poems: John Masefield ‘Roadways’ (Heinemann, 1923)

  p. 155 From Pioneer Women, Joanna L. Stratton (Simon and Schuster, 1981)

  p. 156 Ibid

  p. 194 From Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown (Vintage, 1987)

  p. 220 From Skiffle Sensation: Lonnie Donegan, ‘Grand Coulee Dam’ (Woody Guthrie/Lonnie Donegan copyright © 1957 Ludlow Music Inc/TRO Essex Music Limited)

  p. 221 Ibid

  p. 222 Ibid

  Although every effort has been made to trace the present copyright holders, we apologise in advance for any unintentional omission or neglect and will be pleased to insert appropriate acknowledgement to companies or individuals in any subsequent edition of this publication.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tom Cunliffe has been a writer since 1986, and is the author of the best-selling The Complete Yachtmaster, as well as two ‘Best Book of the Sea’ award winners: Topsail and Battleaxe and Hand, Reef and Steer. His television work includes the series The Boats that Built Britain, shown on BBC 2 and BBC 4. He is based in Salisbury.

  Have you enjoyed this book?

  If so, why not write a review on your favourite website?

  Thanks very much for buying this Summersdale book.

  www.summersdale.com