by Ingrid Pitt
Friday night saw seven people in the audience. I tried to tap the director again but he wasn’t having a good time and got a bit shirty with me. Hadn’t I seen the house that night? Seven bloody customers! How did I expect him to pay me out of a lousy $14 take? I didn’t argue. I went back to the dressing-room, picked up Steffka and drove to our lodgings to collect my final bits and pieces. I felt a real shit promising the landlady that I would pay her the next day. She was a kindly soul and gave us a generous dinner before we went to bed.
At two o’clock, which I supposed to be the perfect hour for a moonlight flit, I crept quietly down the stairs, threw my things in the boot of the car, installed Steffanie in the carry cot on a nest of pillows and let off the handbrake. Luckily the drive led down to the road which sloped towards the highway and the State line. I switched on the engine after a hundred yards or so and put my foot down. I figured I would be in another county and another jurisdiction before my landlady woke up to the fact that I had reneged on the rent.
But that was only one of my problems. What should I do? As always, I called my mother for advice. She had recovered from her stomach infection by now but, as ever, was worried about me. She hadn’t been too happy when I’d admitted to leaving my husband so, naturally, I had since played up my success with the Playhouse. It wasn’t easy now to paint a scenario which left me looking good and also explained my predicament. Not surprisingly, Matka told me to go back to my husband. It wasn’t the solution I was looking for. My husband was in Vietnam so as far as I was concerned there was no husband to return to.
Back in the Oldsmobile I headed east, until, with a sinking heart, I felt a tyre blow. As the car came to a stop, I remembered that I hadn’t had the spare tyre repaired following the last puncture. I sat at the side of the road and tried to work out my next move. As far as I could see in any direction, nothing was stirring. I put the car in gear and drove slowly with the deflated tyre on the soft sand at the side of the road. Several lorries passed and blew their horns but nobody stopped. I even began to pray that a police car would come along. I hoped I was far enough away for the little matter of an unpaid lodging bill not to get in the way of salvation.
Through the heat haze I could see something at the side of the road. A gas station or a store, I hoped. It turned out to be something even better: a heap of tyres. There was a sort of totem pole with wheelhubs nailed up it surrounded by a pile of second-hand tyres. Sprawled on them was a young Indian boy of about thirteen. He was playing it cool. He didn’t move when I stopped a couple of yards away from him and climbed out of the car. When I asked if the tyres were for sale he did manage to raise a flagging eyelid, and slowly sat up to cast an expert eye over my deflated wheel.
‘Five dollars.’ He was obviously too exhausted from sitting up to waste words.
I nodded. It would knock a hole in my paltry reserves but there was no alternative.
The boy picked up the nearest tyre to hand and, without getting up, rolled it towards my car and held out his hand for the money.
I was surprised and getting annoyed. I didn’t feel like being jerked about by a lad. ‘Aren’t you going to fix it?’ I snapped at him.
He looked a bit surprised, rose lethargically to his feet and ambled over to the tyre, peering at it as if seeing it for the first time. ‘It doesn’t fit,’ he said, as if I were to blame. At this moment Steffka decided to stand up on the seat and smile down at the boy. The presence of a baby seemed to do something for him for he turned back to his pile, but after a brief hunt for a suitable tyre, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘We haven’t got one,’ he said cheerfully.
The heat was getting to me. I sat on a tyre and fought back tears. This was stupid. Fancy getting all tearful over a bloody tyre, I castigated myself, but the hint of tears worked.
The boy looked along the track that ran at right angles to the road and thought. ‘I think I have one back at the yard,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to get it?’
I nodded wearily.
‘Look after the stand,’ he commanded, as if there was a queue of people lining up to buy his threadbare wares, and loped off along the lane. I lifted Steffka out of the car and made myself comfortable on the tyres. I was beginning to mull over my options, or lack of them, when a little girl in an oversized blue frock appeared. She stood a little way off and stared. I tried smiling but she wasn’t in the market for smiles. I turned Steffi to face her. That didn’t make a mark either.
‘What is it?’ I snarled.
The girl ran off a little, stopped, said I was to follow her, then sprinted away at a great rate.
The ‘yard’ turned out to be an auto graveyard. Everywhere you looked there was a rusting giant. And at least thirty dogs stretched out in the sun. They flickered an eyelid as I passed but that was the extent of their curiosity. Before the walk I had felt tired, now I was so exhausted I wondered if I was hallucinating, for from all sides it seemed that there were pairs of sun-glasses leering at me.
An elderly Native American with long grey hair stood in front of me and looked me over. ‘Hey, you want a tyre?’ he said. Why else would I be hauling my aching carcass around in the heat of the day, I felt like snapping, but I kept my thoughts to myself and nodded.
The old man walked away and shouted, ‘Woman.’ In response, an elderly woman poked her head around the door of the nearest corrugated-iron shack. He jerked his head towards me and walked off.
The woman strolled over, looked at me and waved me to a car seat by the side of the shack. She went towards the door and stopped on the step. ‘Ya wanna eat?’ she asked.
I nodded, then hesitated. I remembered that half my reserves were needed for the tyre I had to buy. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t any money,’ I mumbled primly. She made a little explosive sound with her lips and went into the shack. I sat there miserably and tried to outstare the sun-glasses that were all turned in my direction. After a few minutes the woman came back and thrust a plate of rabbit and bread at me. I took it gratefully. The little girl in the blue dress followed her grandmother out with a glass of milk and some home-baked biscuits for Steffi. I wanted to cry, it was so unexpected.
The grey-haired man came back. Now that I was eating his food he felt that introductions were in order. ‘I’m Johnny Running Bear,’ he said tersely.
‘Ingrid.’ I wanted to add ‘Victorious on horseback’, but I thought better of it. I held out my hand, but he wasn’t prepared to go that far.
‘Give me your keys and I’ll bring your car in.’
Hold it! I thought. Nobody knows I’m here. At least the car on the side of the highway is a sort of bookmark. Then I thought Who gives a shit and gave him the keys.
I stayed in the reservation for nearly six weeks. Once the initial wariness had dissipated we got on like a tepee on fire. They were wholly uncritical and never once asked me how I came to be on the road with ten bucks, two punctured tyres and a toddler. On the other hand they were happy to tell me all their troubles. I had to agree that they had a bad deal from the government but although I never let on, I felt that a lot of their problems could be solved if they lived more in the present. While I was with them, as far as I was aware, they didn’t make one sale from the scrapyard. The women, who were supposed to make touristy things like belts and moccasins, never seemed to finish anything and didn’t have a market to sell them to if they had done. When I left they gave me various presents, one of which was a belt. I was really touched. Later I found a label on it: Made in Taiwan.
A cousin of Johnny’s lived off the reservation and had worked out a better way of making a living. Every week he would turn up with a Volkswagen Combi full of would-be wranglers. Johnny would meet them with some horses at the top of one of the pony trails leading down into the Grand Canyon. I dearly wanted to go with them but I was already living off my hosts so I didn’t like to suggest it as I knew they would let me go even if it meant taking one less paying guest. Then one day they had a no show. Johnny was going to leave the horse behind
so I decided it was time to let him know that I would love to go with him. He nodded and I was in.
When we reached the top of the trail I had second thoughts. Johnny’s woman, who was actually named ‘Woman’, had fixed me up with a woven basket for Steffanie to ride in, which I wore slung around my shoulders. Looking at the steep path, fears rose at an alarming rate. What if the horse stumbled? What if it was stung by a horse-fly? What if I just fell off? Nobody seemed to be interested in my problems. I cursed myself for having adopted such a tough image, for having pretended I could do everything for myself. Now nobody could see I needed some cosseting.
To my enormous relief, the descent passed without incident and we arrived on the bank of the river near nightfall. There was a well-used barbecue pit, a rough corral for the horses and strategically placed logs to give us the feeling that we were a bunch of tough guys out for a ride and living off the land. Tents were slung up for those who preferred them to a sleeping bag and the canopy of stars. I opted for the stars.
The guide built a fire and started cooking. I wished I could have taken my jeans off and sat there with nothing on. My legs and bits were killing me. I wanted to moan a bit and share my aching bum with the others but they all looked a bit sorry for themselves. I thought of Matka and kept schtum. My back was also sore but the Indians kindly set up a backrest for support and soon the aroma of roasting meat made me feel better.
After supper, the Indians went off to collect more firewood and the other wranglers retired to sleep. I moved close to the fire as it was getting cold now that the sun had gone down, and cuddled Steffanie, my face warm and glowing from the embers. Suddenly the logs shifted and a thousand golden stars spiralled up into the dark sky. In the flames I saw the face of my father. He looked at me, a soft, gentle smile on his face. Tears poured from my eyes. I lifted up my baby and showed her to him. He nodded and winked at me. Then he was gone.
I cried and hugged Steffi, and in my excitement began to hyperventilate. When Johnny came back he could see something had happened. He put his big hand over my nose until I began to breathe more normally. ‘You got a problem?’ he asked, not unkindly. I wanted to tell him but his cousin was standing by his side so I just shrugged and they both went off. Johnny brought me a tin cup of hot coffee and sat on the log beside me. He didn’t say anything but I was bursting to share my experience and blurted out what I had seen. He dropped into his trading-post Indian pose and simply said ‘Indian Magic’ before going to snuggle down into his blanket. I guess he thought I was a little weird. Maybe I was.
I spent the rest of the night thinking about what my vision meant. It seemed to be telling me that there is life after death, there are folk in the hereafter looking out for us. I took comfort in the belief that Steffanie’s grandfather would keep her safe.
In the morning I felt terrible. My buttocks had stiffened up, my back was quite obviously pounded to smithereens in several places and my biological clock told me it was still the middle of the night. Johnny didn’t want to know about any of this. He had a schedule to keep. Day one: down the trail. Day two: ride along the Colorado river bank to camp two, spend afternoon swimming, taking photographs and hire a canoe and paddle around in the shallows. Day three: back up the trail. My bum and back just had to lump it. I tried to be a little trooper and not complain but the occasional sigh insisted on looking for sympathy whenever Johnny or one of the guides was close enough to hear. That night I dropped off to sleep as the sun went down and woke up when Steffanie was calling for attention the next morning. It was an early start and by nightfall we were standing at the top of the pony trail waiting for the horse boxes and Combi to arrive. The trip up had been worse than the trip down and I promised myself I would never get on a horse again. When Johnny was giving his customers his honest Indian spiel and touting for dollar bills in his hat I gave him the dead eye. ‘Squaw no likum hard saddle?’ he asked. I agreed.
It was time to move on. I still didn’t have any money but Johnny donated a couple of nearly new tyres and Woman made up a hamper of bread, dried meat and fruit. I hated to leave. My time with them had been very therapeutic. They had no agenda. If things didn’t turn out the way they expected they would shrug philosophically and blame it on the great Manitou or the government. I worked out that the great Manitou got the blame if the weather was bad; the government for everything else. Although their problems were not wholly the fault of the government I did feel they received a raw deal and when my life had settled down again I wrote a letter, based on what I’d seen and the stories they’d told me, to Lyndon Johnson. He was obviously horribly embarrassed to be brought to task because he never wrote back.
In the car I studied the map. I had decided to return to Europe. New York airport seemed an awfully long way off. I looked in my purse: $7 and some small change. If I spent $2 on some milk and a big box of cornflakes I would have enough petrol money for about 300 miles. I knew it was useless but I had to do something.
I set my sights on New York and hit the highway. Coasting downhill, accelerating carefully and keeping the speed down got me about a third of the way. I pulled into a gas station, filled her up and then went through the ‘I left my purse at home’ routine. I left Steffi’s push chair as security and promised to be back before the hour was up. Another trusting American citizen I had gibbed. I took a note of the gas station and promised myself that as soon as I sorted things out I would send the money. Sadly I never did.
My tank ran empty again before too long. I was also starving. So far I had held on to my wedding ring. To sell it seemed so final and an act of betrayal. But I had come to the spot where you either give up or you put everything on the line. My mother had always given her all and it had got us through much more dire problems than not having fuel in the tank. Her answer would have been to get a bit of tubing and siphon what she wanted out of an army jeep and hang the consequences. I’d lived in polite society for too long to want to try that, so it was the ring or nothing.
I found one of those shops with a window stashed with forlorn musical instruments and lethal-looking weapons. The ring was a broad band of twenty-four-carat gold. My husband had paid over $70 for it. A fortune. I was offered $10. I argued and the offer was raised to $12.50. Without concluding the deal, I stomped out of the shop and sat on the ground beside the Oldsmobile. What were my options? The only other thing of value I owned was the car. I ran it into a sales forecourt. The salesman looked as if I came with a bad smell attached. I looked at my heap expiring there and could see his point. It didn’t sit well among the highly polished cars. I told the man my troubles and wished I’d thought to wash the heap before trying to persuade him what a wonderful bargain it was. He scrutinised it with the sort of look on his face that said that only finding a secret cache of diamonds in the glove compartment could make him interested and said he wasn’t in the market for a ’59 Oldsmobile at that particular moment. A man of sense. He followed this up, however, with the suggestion that he might be in the mood to change his mind if I returned later – after he had closed up shop. I didn’t turn him down on the spot. I didn’t know how I might feel about the offer if I couldn’t get a better one before nightfall.
By the middle of the afternoon I was left with two alternatives if I didn’t want to get old in a suburb of Little Rock. I could either renegotiate my deal with the second-hand car dealer or accept $12.50 for my wedding ring. The coin came down on the side of the wedding ring. I divided up the spoils: $2.50 for immediate food; $5 for petrol and $5 for emergencies. I reckoned it was probably enough to get me to the airport and there I would be on the doorstep of Europe and anything could happen.
I just made it to the airport. For the last hundred miles I concentrated on conserving fuel and refused to answer the question nagging at the back of my mind: what would I do when I reached my destination? When I at last pulled up outside the airport doors I was instantly warned to keep moving. Livid, I begged, promised, lied, showed my baby and grovelled, but to no avail. The off
icial directed me to a car-park.
I refused to waste money on parking so I drove around the back of the airport where there was a row of cabs and drew in behind them. On cue, a uniform came over and told me to move on. Only taxis were allowed to park in that spot, he informed me. Again I began arguing and pleading, until eventually one of the cab drivers came over, listened and finally suggested that I should be allowed to stay there while I got myself together.
The cabbie introduced himself as Emile, a refugee from Algiers, and squatted down beside the car to play with Steffanie. At last I felt I had found a friend. I blurted out all my trials and tribulations, how desperately I needed to get back to Europe where my brother was dying . . . If I didn’t get back all his money would go to his girl-friend . . . and such rubbish. Seemingly unmoved, he continued playing with Steffi, but when I eventually ran out of steam he came up with a simple suggestion: ‘Sell your car.’ He got up and walked around it. ‘Clean it up and you might get a couple of hundred for it.’
I nodded.
He went across to his cab and took some rags and a bucket from the boot. He filled the bucket at a standpipe, came back, threw a cloth to me and started sloshing water down the car. I was glad of the action. It made me feel I was getting somewhere. A couple of other drivers came across and helped with the shine while Steffanie had a wonderful time stamping in the puddles.
I must admit that the old jalopy didn’t look too bad cleaned up. But what now? Emile parked the car by the side of the cabbies’ rest room and got one of the other drivers to take me up to the terminals. I felt like a devotee of Hari Krishna hanging around the concourse and approaching incoming passengers. I expected to be arrested at any moment but I guess the presence of a toddler at my side kept the cops from being heavy. I had more or less given up on finding a tourist wanting to buy my car when a big blond German, his blonde Frau and four blond children hove into sight. They were my meat! I gave them my best German and a tale of my plight that could have won me an Oscar. They were obviously a bit worried that I was pulling a scam. I explained that even as we spoke the car was in the official care of the airport authorities who had given me permission to sell on the concourse. I took them out, stuck them in a taxi, took them to Emile and let him explain what a wonderful bargain they were getting. He got me $250, enough to get me where I wanted to be. We tucked the family aboard and waved them off.