1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway
Page 20
‘Yellow Acres?’ Harkness paused to light a cigar. ‘My hometown. Who are your friends? I bet I know them. I know everyone in Yellow Acres: nice little town if you don’t have to live there for long.’
‘Mr. Morelli and his daughter,’ Harry said. ‘He runs the restaurant there.’
Harkness frowned. He looked at Harry, his mouth making a small grimace.
‘You know Toni? One of the nicest. Have you known him long?’
‘Oh no. I stopped off at his restaurant a few days back. He and his daughter were good to me.’
‘They had bad luck.’ Harkness rubbed his hand over his balding head. ‘Toni died four days ago. Maria is in some hospital . . . first degree burns.’
Harry stiffened.
‘What are you telling me?’ His voice was harsh.
‘Yeah . . . a bunch of kids set fire to the restaurant. Toni was trapped. Maria managed to get out, but she’s bad, so I hear. The place was burned down.’
‘Kids?’
‘Hippies,’ Harkness shook his head. ‘Five of them. The cops got them. They’ve been looking for them for some time. Stinking little junkies.’
‘Four boys and a girl?’
Harkness stared at him.
‘That’s right. One with a broken arm. They said they did it to get even.’
Harry crushed out his cigarette. He sat in silence for some moments while Harkness looked curiously at him.
‘We get a lot of trouble from the Hippies in this district,’ Harkness said after a while. ‘I don’t like driving at night any more on this highway. That’s why I welcome company. If you get a puncture or a breakdown it can be dangerous. Only the other night, my old friend Sam Bentz . . . he’s been a trucker for years . . . had a blow-out. The Hippies found him. He’s in jail now, facing a manslaughter charge. He killed two of them before they set fire to his truck.’
Harry’s hands turned into fists.
‘Sam Bentz gave me a ride as far as Orangeville,’ he said. ‘I planned to ride back with him. What happened?’
‘Well, he got this blow-out and as he was changing the tyre, ten Hippies descended on him. Sam has seen service in the Korean war: he’s a toughie. He had this Indian club. The Hippies were stoned to the eyeballs. He cracked the skulls of two of them before he went down. They kicked him around, set fire to the truck, then found these two junkies were dead so they took off. Sam has a broken arm and he’s lost all his teeth. He’s in jail now but he won’t stay there long, but he won’t be the same man again either.’ Harkness stood up. Well, let’s go. We’ve got a long night’s drive.’
If I’d known it was going to be like this, he was thinking as Harkness started the car, I would have stayed on with the Regiment. The Ice Age . . . the Stone Age . . . the Bronze Age . . . now the Age of Violence. You can’t get away from it: it seems to be everywhere.
He leaned back, watching the headlights of the approaching cars, seeing the groups of Hippies waving their thumbs. The future people, Sam Bentz had called them.
He thought of Maria in hospital, the fat, good natured Morelli dead, Nina floating in the sea, her head a red halo, Solo in the hands of the police and Randy. . . where was Randy?
Harry shrugged. He reached for a cigarette as the Chevrolet, roaring along the highway, carried him towards the jungle known as New York.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine