Freedom's Just Another Word

by Caroline Stelllings

  What I didn’t know was how emotionally attached so many people were to this stretch of asphalt. I was in a diner near Albuquerque when I realized how critical the situation really was. It was late Wednesday afternoon, and we were almost to the junction of Routes 85 and 66. We were tired and hungry and wanted something to eat before we made our way to the nuns’ final destination, the Sisters of Charity Convent.

  A big-boned waitress gave the oilcloth on our table a swipe with her rag, then came back with water and menus. The nuns ordered their usual feasts; I settled for the cheapest thing I could find. I remembered to wait to say grace, and when Marsha couldn’t finish what was on her plate, I polished it off. This tactic had been working well across five states. By my calculations, the pope had saved me at least twenty bucks. The three of us were saying our good-byes, or in Marsha’s case, our good-riddances, since I planned on taking the next bus to Amarillo. From there, after I’d given the medals to Agnes Foster, I’d be on my way to Threadgill’s. On my way to a new life.

  “I think you should stay over at the convent, Louisiana,” said Sister Beatrice. “It’s too dangerous to travel alone at night.” She checked her watch. “It’s at least four hours to Amarillo. And it’s already past six.”

  I waited for Marsha to agree with her, but she adjusted the bobby pins in that stupid white veil of hers and said nothing.

  “If there’s a bus tonight,” I said, “I’ll be on it.” The thought of sleeping one more night in another gloomy institution, with the faint whispers of prayers leaking from tiny cracks under closed doors, made a mortuary seem more inviting. But not wanting to seem like an ingrate, I did thank the nuns for letting me ride with them. We settled up the gas bill, and while they finished their coffee, I bought a postcard and moved to an empty booth to fill it out. It was the perfect one to send to my father, because it had a Phillips 66 service station on the front.

  Dear Clarence and Larry (and Mrs. Hill because I know you’re reading this.) I am writing from a roadside diner near Albuquerque. Am doing well and hope you are too. I’m on my way to Amarillo next—hope you’re not mad that I took the medals, Clarence.

  Pet Gillie for me. Love, Easy.

  As I was addressing the card, I overheard a conversation between two men in the booth across from me. A beer-bellied trucker was working a toothpick between his molars, talking to a sad-looking man with sideburns about his rig. He pointed to it, and since it was parked near the window, I could see the bumper sticker which read Everything is Bigger in Texas. At first I thought they were talking about someone’s death because they kept mentioning the fifteenth of November, 1968.

  “Yeah, that was it. Right there,” said the one with the belly. “End of it all.”

  “Fine for those suits in the capital. Fine for the politicians, too,” declared the other one. “But that old road means life.” He had tears in his eyes. “Goddam super slab! It’s gonna kill every business from Chicago to Los Angeles. Every goddam business.” He wiped his eye with a serviette. “It’s gonna kill me too.”

  I listened for a while, and it turned out that November 15, 1968 was the day they opened the I-40 and diverted every bit of traffic off the mother road. The businesses that had built up over the years on Route 66 would soon be nothing but bare lots and the occasional tumbleweed rolling past. I thought for a minute about change, and how some things were changing for the better—six years before, I’d have needed the Negro Motorist Green Book to determine if I could eat in that diner—but not all change was good.

  I listened as the trucker read a newspaper article out loud to his friend. It read like an obituary.

  The most famous highway in the world. The Mother Road. America’s Main Street. Call it what you like, that string of neon lights, motor courts, diners and cafés is like no other place in the world.

  Route 66 is tourist traps and speed traps. Fly traps dangling over Arborite tables that are stickier than they are, and seats that never get a chance to cool off. Porch swings, treacherous curves with crosses in the weeds to prove it, and fry cooks serving up more grease than the service stations. It’s the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. It’s dreamers and drifters and the waitress who can sling coffee, crack eggs, and find out where those drifters are from and where they’re headed, all before the toast pops. It’s two thousand miles of concrete and asphalt and mustard and maple syrup and a million lights sputtering out Good Eats, Clean Rooms, and Jesus Loves You.

  And by the time we ring in 1971, it will be gone forever.

  The man wiped his eyes again, and I thought about what he’d just read. I wondered if Janis had taken Route 66 when she moved from Texas to California, and what was going through her mind at the time—when she was nobody. When she was just another one of those dreamers and drifters.

  “I wish the bus would take Route 66, not the Interstate,” I told Sister Beatrice, once I was back in their booth. “I want to see more of it—before it disappears.” I licked a stamp and put it on the back of my postcard. “Before it’s gone for good.”

  “Efficiency is what matters,” mumbled Marsha, sounding more like a foreman than a nun.

  Sister Beatrice handed me a bus schedule she’d obtained from the waitress, and happily pointed out that I’d missed the last one out of town. “You’ll have to stay with us at the convent!”

  I checked the pamphlet and noticed, to my dismay, that the coach used the new Interstate to make the trip from Albuquerque to Amarillo. Listening to those truck drivers made me all the more determined to follow Route 66, even if it meant hitchhiking. I waited a minute, and sure enough, Thelma appeared in my thoughts.

  You’ll get yourself killed, Easy.

  “I’ll be careful….”

  “Pardon me?” said Sister Beatrice.

  “I was talking to myself.” I smiled. “I was talking to Thelma, actually.”

  “Who’s Thelma?” asked Sister Beatrice.

  “My mother. Well, not my real mother. The mother who raised me.”

  I felt the full impact of Marsha’s granite eyes. “You were adopted?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. Then I changed the subject. Having decided to take a middle position—I would hitch a ride down the Mother Road, but wait until daylight to do it—I told Sister Beatrice that I would accept her offer to stay the night at the convent.

  As it turned out, it was a good thing I did.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sister Beatrice had to make another stop, to visit a priest she knew on the outskirts of Albuquerque, so it was late by the time we arrived at the convent. It was located near Central Avenue, which is what Route 66 was called within the city limits. We drove past countless motor courts and tacky little stores that stayed open to catch the last dribble of trade; colorful ribbons of neon outlined roadside cafes and honky-tonk bars.

  The convent itself was a huge, adobe structure that sat quietly on a side street, watching the comings and goings of the citizens of Albuquerque, much like the river did in Saskatoon. It didn’t seem to pass judgment, although it served as a reminder that all of this—the noise, the crowds, the hullabaloo—was temporal. Not eternal like God. A single star twinkled in the night sky behind the cross on the roof, and somehow the place reminded me of a Christmas card. Thelma’s cards were always like that: the desert, the star, the white buildings. Bethlehem.

  Sister Beatrice said the convent was Pueblo Revival architecture, and told me the history of the mission, while Marsha examined her fingernails for dirt. It was an inviting place, not at all like the forbidding convents we’d been staying in. And although in New Mexico the days are hot, the nights can be quite cool; the convent, though, was warm and friendly. Despite the late hour, Marsha hurried off to find the Mother Superior, and Sister Beatrice exited with nuns, leaving me to bed down either in the sanctuary or next door in the mission building.

  I chose the latter, and found it
full of people.

  The place was designed so that males and females had separate sleeping quarters, but shared an area in the middle for eating and socializing. It was almost eleven by that time, but a nun was sitting in the middle of the room, and around her were fifteen or sixteen young men and women. They all had that same foggy look that Janis had. Like their station wasn’t quite tuned in.

  “Come here, honey,” the nun said, passing me a plate of cookies. “They’re not too stale,” she added, her mouth full. Obviously not the fussy type, it was apparent that she was happy to eat the same food as those who had no choice. “Coffee and tea over there.” She gestured to a table against the wall.

  The guy next to me was completely strung out, but clear-headed enough to realize that I was new. He tried to hand me a vanilla wafer.

  “No, thanks, really.”

  “They’re better than usual,” he assured me.

  “Past the best-before date?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but you can’t tell.”

  Wanting to get an early start the next morning, I thought I’d turn in and asked the nun if I could have a bed.

  “Help yourself,” she said, pointing to the women’s area. “We won’t be much longer. We’re having a couple more songs first.” She got up, walked across the room, and picked up a guitar.

  “Songs?”

  “Sure, songs.” She took her place in the middle again.

  “Mind if I join in? I’ll get my accordion!”

  “Wonderful.”

  I ran out to the yellow submarine, and from outside could hear them start into the Jackie DeShannon song “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.” Not the blues, but a good one nevertheless. I hurried back and joined in. The way the nun played guitar and sang, she reminded me of Maria in The Sound of Music. We did a few more numbers—all pop songs that you wouldn’t expect a nun to know—then everyone started washing cups and plates and putting things into cupboards. By their clothes, I could tell that these young people didn’t have a penny to their name; they were lucky, though, to have such a joyful place to spend time and eat and sleep.

  “You have a marvelous voice,” the nun said, jamming her guitar back into its case.

  “Thanks. I’m on my way to Texas…um…to become a blues singer.”

  “No way!” she said. “Well, good luck with that. Drop by sometime and let me know how it goes, will you?”

  The nun sounded like she really meant it.

  “What’s your name, anyway?” she asked.

  “I’m Louisiana Merritt. But everyone calls me Easy.”

  “Okay, Easy, why Texas? Why not Louisiana, like your name? That’s the place for blues, isn’t it?” She grabbed a tea towel and started drying mugs, so I followed suit.

  “You won’t believe it but—”

  “I’ll believe it.”

  “I met Janis Joplin—up in Saskatoon, where I’m from. And she invited me to Texas to play for people she knows.” Just as I spoke those words, I felt a cold, bony hand grab the back of my arm. I jumped backwards and turned, expecting to see Boris Karloff standing behind me.

  It was Marsha.

  “The Mother Superior doesn’t want to hear about a drug-addicted sinner like Janis Joplin, I’m sure,” she declared, her lips stretched tight with disapproval.

  “Mother Superior?” I asked. I’d always thought a Mother Superior was a gray-haired old woman with an office—like a businessman, only in a habit.

  “Yes—I’m sorry, Easy. I’m Reverend Mother Grace. I didn’t have a chance—”

  “No, I’m sorry, Reverend Mother,” said Marsha. “She shouldn’t bring up that woman’s name in your presence.”

  “Why not?” asked the nun. “I love Janis Joplin.” She turned to me. “That’s an amazing opportunity for you. I hope it works out.”

  “You…love…that woman?” Marsha abhorred Janis and enjoyed doing it. “She’s helping to destroy our nation. She promotes drug use and alcoholism and…well, everyone knows she’s a prostitute.”

  “Prostitute?”

  “Well, she might as well be, the way she—” She stopped once it finally dawned on her that Mother Grace wasn’t on her side.

  The older nun took a good long look at Marsha. “So you must be the postulant from Saskatoon I’ve heard so much about.”

  Somebody must have warned her.

  “Yes. I tried to find your office the minute I arrived.”

  “I’m out here most of the time,” she said with a smile.

  Marsha gave me the evil eye, as if she’d discovered me trying to convert the Reverend Mother to atheism. I left the two of them to get acquainted, and walked around the room. One guy had collected a small group around himself and was insisting they do something to stop the dirty capitalists in government. He was determined that everyone hear “the truth,” and I guessed that this was nothing new for him; he’d probably been one of those kids who assembled the neighborhood children to tell them where babies came from.

  While he rattled on, most of the others went into the respective sleeping areas. That was when I noticed a guy sitting alone on the floor, his back resting against the wall. He was twenty or so and would have been downright handsome, but his hair was filthy, and his clothes were full of gaping holes. Beside him on the floor was a bag of stale cookies that the nun had given him to take home, although I doubted he had one to go back to.

  His gaze was so firmly fixed on the ground, I figured there was no point in trying to strike up a conversation. I returned to Reverend Mother Grace and Marsha, who was still expressing her opinions about Janis Joplin and the modern western world in general.

  I stood there listening, and waited to see how the Mother Superior would handle the situation—how she’d go about lowering Marsha’s nose a notch. I was a Sunday-school dropout, but even I knew that Jesus himself forgave prostitutes and other assorted sinners. Why couldn’t Marsha? Not that I thought Janis needed anybody’s forgiveness. She was amazing. And what blues singer didn’t have issues? Both Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday drank to excess, and Billie Holiday fought a heroin addiction her entire life. Both were accused of reckless behavior. Both were considered prostitutes. Both were spontaneous and emotional singers who turned their tragic lives into moving music. What right did stupid Marsha have to judge Janis Joplin?

  “What do you know about Mother d’Youville, Marsha?” asked the older nun. I was hoping she was going to tell her off for going over Jesus’ head and not forgiving anybody; instead she gave her a history lesson on the Grey Nuns of Montreal and the woman who started the order.

  “I know they began in Quebec in the 1700s, and I know they worked tirelessly to help the sick.” Marsha thought for a minute. “And then they went to the west of Canada to build hospitals.”

  I fought back a yawn while Marsha tried to remember more. Thankfully, she couldn’t.

  “It’s late, so I’ll make it quick, Marsha,” said the Reverend Mother. “The gray habit that you will be wearing once you take your vows is because of a drunk.”

  Marsha raised her eyebrows.

  “Yes, a drunk. You see, Mother d’Youville was married to a notorious bootlegger, and after he died, she founded the order. She and her followers were taunted as les grises, which in French means ‘the gray women’ or ‘the drunken women.’ She accepted this and wore gray as a constant reminder of her humble origins as the wife of a criminal.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “By wearing that color every day, it meant she would never forget that she was no better than the people she served.”

  I nodded, Marsha bit her tongue, and the nun continued talking. “That woman took in the most destitute people and offered them love.” She put an arm around the postulant. “Humility isn’t an abstract virtue, Marsha. It’s an absolute necessity if you plan on mission work. You can’t expect to help anyone
in this world if you’re up on a cloud somewhere.”

  Marsha said nothing. She just stood there—so straight and so stiff, you’d think she was an exclamation point.

  “Mother Grace?” I said.

  “Yes, Easy?”

  “Who is that young man sitting against the wall? Does he live here?”

  “At times,” she said. She began picking up paper napkins from dirty plates and tossing them into a garbage bag. “Roy’s a drug addict. Has been for several years now. We’ve been helping him here at the mission. Once he was clean for three months and was able to work.” She stopped. “But the addiction is bigger than he is, I’m afraid. He needs more help than I can give him.” She glanced at him. “But I won’t stop trying.”

  “Can’t he go to a clinic or something?” sniffed Marsha. She avoided making eye contact with the guy completely.

  “He could, but that would be like death to him. No music, no life. No, I need to keep him here. That’s his only hope,” she explained. “I know there’s an answer for Roy. I just need a bit more time to find it.”

  While Marsha scurried to assist Mother Grace with the clean up, I decided to talk to Roy after all.

  “Hi,” was the most brilliant thing I could come up with.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I’m Louisiana, but everyone calls me Easy. I’m from Canada. From Saskatoon.” I felt like I was talking to myself. “Saskatchewan,” I added as an afterthought.

  He raised his head, but his eyes looked past me. His face was flushed, his pupils were dilated, and he was sweating more than he should have been.

  You hear all the time about people who shoot drugs, but who function as teachers and doctors and judges and live “normal lives” as members of society, because they handle the drugs so well. Roy was not one of those people; his eyes were on two different circuits. He could look at you with one, while watching someone else with the other.

  “There’s no one can pull me back in,” he mumbled.

  “Pull you back in?”