The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America

by McIntyre, Mike

  When they leave, Eric explains that his mother acts as his bank. He gives her all his money because he can’t hold on to it.

  Eric goes downstairs to his room to wash up. When he returns, he looks like a new man. He’s changed into a neatly pressed button-down shirt. His hair is gelled. He now wears prescription glasses. He’s shaved off that pathetic goatee. There’s no sign of the smart-aleck punk I met out on the highway. He now looks scholarly, which, as it turns out, he is.

  “Yeah, I’m a brain,” he says, “or so they say.”

  Eric aced his college entrance exams, and Iowa State gave him a full scholarship to study agricultural science. He played trombone in the marching band and graduated with a 4.0 grade average.

  We drive to a restaurant called Dr. Salami’s, where everybody greets Eric by name. We have a beer at the bar. Eric sees two women he knows, and we join them at a table. We order more beer and pizza.

  “This is Mike McIntyre,” Eric says to Kim and Cheryl, both nurses. “He’s hitchhiking his way across America without a penny.”

  The nurses don’t buy it. They insist I’m probably a cousin of Eric’s from the next county over.

  “Show us your ID,” Cheryl says.

  I reach in my shirt pocket for my driver’s license. It’s gone. I remember that I changed shirts at Eric’s. Now I really look like I’m fibbing.

  I give the women a day-by-day summary of my trip. Where I’ve stayed. People I’ve met.

  “How could I make all this up?” I say.

  They still don’t believe me. They’re the first people on this journey who doubt my story, or at least say so to my face. I’m actually surprised there haven’t been more skeptics along the way. Let’s see, a guy quits his job, gives all the money in his pocket to a panhandler and travels penniless across the country. I wouldn’t believe him.

  I don’t know why, but I want to convince the women I’m telling the truth. I answer every question, fill in every blank. But it’s no use.

  “I would never pick you up,” Cheryl says.

  “If you saw me on the road tomorrow, you’d give me a ride.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Cheryl insists.

  Kim joins me on my side of the table. She drapes an arm around my shoulder and rests her other hand on my knee. She smiles. Her eyes sparkle with dreams.

  “That’s so romantic,” she says.

  Cheryl looks at her like she’s a traitor.

  “That’s so romantic,” Kim says again.

  Tonight is the first night of Oskyfest, Oskaloosa’s answer to Oktoberfest. Eric and I drive to the fairgrounds, where the beer bash is underway in a giant exhibit hall.

  “Both my mom and dad are super religious,” he says. “They don’t approve of my extracurricular activities, but they don’t say much, mainly because of my age.”

  A Country and Western band plays on the stage at the end of the building. Locals dance the Texas two-step across the cement floor. Hundreds of other folks hover in groups at the edge, sipping beer from plastic cups.

  Eric is the perfect host. He seems to know everybody, and he introduces me around. A simple introduction is powerful. It elevates you from outsider to one of the gang. I appreciate Eric’s manners more than the pizza and beer. It feels good to be included.

  Kim and Cheryl show up. Kim grabs my arm and stands on tiptoe to talk to me over the music. She’s pretty, in a wholesome way, and if I didn’t have a girlfriend waiting at home, I’d listen with a little more enthusiasm.

  I fantasize about life with Kim in rural America. But I know I’m now romanticizing the Midwest, just as she’s romanticizing my trip. As if to prove my point, Kim commences to rip on Oskaloosa.

  Those who don’t conform to the conservative small town ways are ostracized, Kim says. People talk. They make things up. Right now, there are two conflicting rumors going around about Kim: She’s a lesbian, and she’s having an affair with a prominent male physician.

  “This town is like high school,” she says, growing sullen. “Everyone always knows what you’re doing.”

  “There’s a reason she feels this way,” Cheryl says.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “No,” Kim says.

  “Tell me, I’m a stranger, I’m just passing through.”

  “No, you’ll think it’s such a cliché,” Kim says.

  “Tell me, tell me.” I goad Kim. “Is it a scandal?”

  Cheryl smiles and nods. Kim pouts.

  “You’re sleeping with another nurse?” I say.

  “Close,” Cheryl says.

  “You really are having an affair with that doctor?”

  Cheryl nods. Kim hangs her head.

  “Is he married?” I say.

  Kim bites her lip and nods.

  “See, I told you you’d think it’s such a cliché,” she says. “Now you think less of me.”

  Ten years ago, I started talking to a woman at work. She was married. Talk led to lunch, and lunch led to flirting, and flirting led to a kiss at a New Year’s Eve party as her husband dozed on the couch. We fell in love. The woman left her husband. This was it, this was the real thing, this was fate. Or maybe I told myself that to justify what I was doing with another man’s wife. It’s scary what we can rationalize. In the end, no great new love was created, only a marriage destroyed. A decade later, it’s hard to picture the woman. I’ve tried, but I can’t even recall the feelings that led to my profound lapse of judgment. All of it has faded from memory. All of it except for the pain I caused and the respect I lost for myself. That’s something I can’t forget.

  “I was in one of these situations once,” I tell Kim. “It happens. I don’t think less of you. But I’ll tell you, these things rarely work out. And if they do, they’re not worth the price you pay.”

  The last stop of the night is the Country Corner. Eric circles the parking lot looking for a car that belongs to a married woman he’s seeing.

  Inside, a cowboy sings karaoke on stage as 30 people do the line dance. The 25-cent drafts flow, and pyramids of plastic cups rise from the tables. The music is loud, the air thick with smoke. It’s a crude crowd of drunks, hayseeds, yahoos and floozies.

  Eric joins a group of foul-mouthed men and sleazy women. They spend hours playing a drinking game, taking turns trying to flip a quarter into a cup. There isn’t an ounce of intelligence on display at the table, and though Eric is a Phi Beta Kappa, he does his level best to fit in.

  On the way home, Eric slows down and looks through the window of a coffee shop. He drops in to visit one of the waitresses whenever he gets the itch. She’s also married, he says, but her husband ignores her.

  “She’ll take you in back and fuck you. She’s lonely.”

  I’ll pass, I tell him.

  I wake the next morning at Eric’s, feeling like I’ve been poisoned. I hadn’t had anything to drink since that long day back in Montana with J.D. and Kristin.

  Irene and Joe are already gone, and Eric is running late.

  When I come out of the shower, I see that Eric has made a sack lunch for me and set it on the bed. There’s a hoagie sandwich, three raisin bars, two bananas, an apple and a bag of potato chips. There’s also a note, but I don’t read it.

  Eric drives me to the south edge of town. After he takes off, I pull out his note.

  “Mike, I will continue to pray for your safety as your journey eastward continues,” it reads. “It was a pleasure for us to have you visit our fair city. Best wishes, and keep yourself safe and dry. Eric.”

  I think of the many identities Eric has presented over the last 18 hours: The punk, the brain, the gentleman, the scoundrel. The pressure to suppress your instincts and play the good ol’ boy must be immense in these parts. I hope Eric will keep his own inner counsel and walk his own true path.

  I’ve never understood what people mean when they say they have to find themselves. We know who we are. The hard part is being that person. It’s always so much easier to be someone else.

&n
bsp; CHAPTER 23

  A farmer on his way to apply for a loan at the bank drops me in Ottumwa, Iowa, hometown of Tom Arnold, Roseanne’s ex-husband. After Arnold, it must be a long drop down Ottumwa’s celebrity ladder, because the local paper is eager to interview me. I pose for the photographer on the bank of the Des Moines River. A sign notes that last year’s Great Flood crested at 22 feet, almost over the bridge. I hold the sign I started with in San Francisco, the one that says “America.”

  I walk a few miles south, past the John Deere plant, to get to where the highway narrows to two lanes. The bridges have no shoulders, so I hustle across them, my pack pounding me into the asphalt, to avoid onrushing semis. When I return to the golden heartland, I write a sign for the next town, Centerville.

  A blue Toyota pickup slams on its breaks and skids to a stop. I toss my pack in back.

  “Push it all the way up,” the driver says through the cab’s sliding window. He gives me a friendly smile.

  I climb in front. The floorboard is heaped with dirty clothes and soda cans, leaving little room for my feet. When I manage to get the door closed, we’re already up to speed.

  “I hope you don’t mind riding with a crazy man,” the guy says.

  He lets loose a booming laugh. I figure it’s a little joke, a conversation starter, but he keeps laughing maniacally. He won’t stop. He laughs and laughs as he looks at me. The smile I first thought friendly now appears demonic. His teeth are yellow and caked with plaque. I must look spooked, as the man flips off the laugh like a light and says, “Nah, just kidding.” He grins. I take my first breath of the ride.

  He’s a bear of a man, a University of Iowa T-shirt stretched over his enormous belly. Dark sunglasses hide his eyes. The tip of the first finger on his right hand is missing. That explains why he stopped. He wasn’t able to give me the full Iowa index finger wave.

  I ask where he’s going.

  “Home.”

  “What do you do out here?”

  “I might go to Fairfield next week,” he says.

  He follows that nonsensical answer with the fact that he was an alcoholic and drug addict.

  “Former?” I say.

  “Oh yeah, I wouldn’t touch a drop now for all the tea in China.”

  “How long you been clean?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “That’s great,” I say, trying to sound upbeat.

  “What I did then is the reason I’m not working today.”

  “How does something you did twelve years ago have an effect on your ability to work today?”

  “I’m a manic-depressive,” the man says, flashing me a disturbing grin.

  Oh no, here I go again, I think, remembering Barbara.

  “Oh yeah?” I say, acting casual. “I stayed with a woman in Montana who is a manic-depressive. Bipolar, it’s called, right?”

  “Bipolar, yeah.”

  “Ted Turner is bipolar.”

  “I get terrible mood swings. I’m gonna pull in here and get a soda. That all right with you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, it better be. I’m the driver. Hah, hah, hah!”

  He parks in front of a convenience store on the edge of a cornfield.

  “I won’t be too long. Unless I get to talking. I talk a lot.”

  I step out of the truck to stretch my cramped legs. My gut tells me to grab my pack and hitch another ride. Instead, I follow the man into the store to see if anybody recognizes him. I don’t learn anything new from the way the cashier rings up the driver’s soda. What the heck, it’s not that far to Centerville.

  Back on the road, the man opens a 20-ounce bottle of Coke. He swigs big gulps and spills some on his chest. He sets the bottle between his legs.

  “I had a job that paid four sixty-five an hour,” he says. “A farmer hired me. He just wanted someone that wouldn’t make him mad. I made him mad the first day and he fired me. So I’ll go to Fairfield next week and make six dollars. Or I’ll go to Mt. Pleasant and make six forty-five. Or I’ll go to Drakesville! Or Albia! Or Chariton!”

  His face reddens. A vein on his temple bulges. He grips the wheel like he’s trying to strangle it.

  “Cuz what the farmers don’t understand is they’re gonna be—”

  He lets go of the wheel and balls his hands into fists. He raises his beefy forearms and pounds them down across the steering wheel, a blow punctuating every word.

  “—Out! Of! Work! And! I’ll! Have! A! Job!!!”

  The rage subsides like a spent wave, and the man grows eerily calm. Stunned, I stare out the windshield, hoping to see a road sign. How far to Centerville? If it’s a mile, it’s too far.

  “I pick up hitchhikers,” the man says. “I don’t care. I picked one guy up one time, said he was from Fairfield. It was Fairfield, New Jersey. Ha, ha, ha! He said, ‘I’m from Jah-zee,’ just like an aristocrat. Ha, ha, ha! There’s a lot of Fairfields in the country.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got one in California,” I offer meekly.

  “I know!” he shouts. “There’s a Fairfield, Connecticut; Fairfield, Florida; Fairfield, Idaho; Fairfield, Illinois. There’s thirty-seven of ’em. I counted ’em up one day, cuz I had nothing else to do.”

  He exhales. “Hey, sorry for talking so loud back there. I talk too loud, that’s my problem.”

  “Well, people can hear you better,” I say, hoping to sound sympathetic.

  “Tell them that! Ha, ha, ha!”

  He raises the Coke bottle from between his legs and takes another sloppy swig.

  “The stuff they have me on now puts me to sleep, right to sleep. That’s why I gotta pull over all the time and get one of these.”

  He gulps from the bottle again.

  “Know what the doctor told me?” he says.

  “No, what?”

  “He said he can’t believe I’m even able to function.”

  I think of something to ask, but I’m afraid anything I say might set him off. So I nod and say, “Hmm,” to whatever comes out of his mouth.

  I look straight ahead. I’m calm on the outside, but on the inside, I cower like a whipped dog awaiting his master’s next tirade.

  “I picked one guy up and he shot me,” the man says. “I said, ‘What did you do that for?’”

  He reaches across me into the glove box. Oh, shit, this is it, I think.

  I slip a finger in the door handle. I look out the window and see the blacktop whizzing underneath. I’ve often wondered what it’s like to jump from a speeding car. Now I’ll find out. I remember the article about me that will appear in tomorrow’s paper. They can follow that with my obituary.

  The man pulls something from the glove box, but it’s not a gun.

  He pops the cassette into the tape deck. Jesus music blasts from the speakers.

  “The thing with me is, I don’t care! Ha, ha, ha!”

  I see a sign. Centerville, three miles. Just hold on.

  A car pulls onto the highway ahead of us. We come up on it fast. I flinch and point. The man waits until the last second before he hits the breaks. Tires squeal.

  “I won’t stop! You don’t like the way I drive, too bad! I don’t believe in laws. My daughter ran away two weeks ago. I asked a highway patrolman to help me find her. He wouldn’t. You know what I told him?”

  He raises his damaged finger and jabs it at me. I’m now the cop on the receiving end of his wrath.

  “If I speed on the road, you don’t know me. If you stop me, I’ll take that gun away from you and kill you.”

  The man looks ready to reach over and squeeze the life out of me.

  “Are you a pastor?” he says.

  “A pastor?”

  “Yeah, you’re a pastor.”

  “No.”

  “But you could be one, right?”

  I choose my words carefully.

  “Well, in the broadest sense of the word,” I say, “yes, I suppose I could be a pastor.”

  “Are you a Christian?”

  I’l
l admit to being Judas Iscariot at this point. “Yep,” I say.

  “I’m a Christian who cusses. A lot of people say that means I’m not a Christian.”

  “It’s what’s in your heart that counts,” I say, hoping this doesn’t piss the guy off.

  “I just do my thing. I go where God tells me.”

  We race down the highway, Jesus music and fear banging on my eardrums.

  “You’re not in the good part of Iowa here,” the man says. “You want to be over in Van Buren County. Lebanon, Keosauqua, Douds, Pittsburg.”

  I fear an imminent detour. I slip my finger through the door handle again.

  All of a sudden we crest a rise and enter the town of Centerville. I glimpse Lady Justice atop the old stone courthouse. I breathe easy.

  “Where you want off?”

  “Middle of town would be great.”

  He swings around the town square. People sitting in lawn chairs line the sidewalks.

  “This is good,” I say.

  “Nah, there’s a homecoming parade today. I can’t park here. I don’t want to get in trouble. I’ve already been in trouble this week.”

  The parade hasn’t started. There’s room to pull over and let me out.

  “Anywhere here is fine,” I say.

  “Nah, I’m gonna take you down a side street.”

  We stop at a red light. I wonder if I can hop out and reach my pack before the light changes. But it turns green, and we’re now driving down a road—away from all the people.

  There’s no place to park. All the spaces are taken. There’s no one in sight. Everybody’s in the town square, waiting for the parade. We’re now heading out of town. How long before I act?

  Suddenly the man pulls to the curb and cuts the engine. I jump out like the truck’s on fire and grab my pack.

  “Hey, thanks a lot,” I say.

  The man slumps in the seat, grinning his demented grin.

  “Well,” I say, but leave it at that.

  “Yeah,” the man says. “It’ll be all right.”

  I don’t know if he’s talking about him or me.