Unavoidably, my situation in the truck triggered flashbacks to Rikers Island, where I’d spent many hours locked in a box of nearly identical size while I’d worked in the prison laundry. Every weekday morning I’d report to the CO and he’d unlock the room that contained the big steam press machine used for ironing out wrinkles in the freshly washed guards’ uniforms, which accounted for the bulk of my workload. It would have been a serious threat to security if any of those guards’ uniforms were to fall into the hands of the inmates, so I was always locked in by myself when I worked. The CO only unlocked the door when one of the other inmates arrived to drop off another rolling laundry cart full of clothes for pressing. The pedal-operated pressing machine threw off so much steam it was like working in a sauna, but I still considered it a lucky job assignment. There was a small transistor radio in the room, and a barred window that offered a view of an interior courtyard planted with lilacs and forsythia, so five days a week I at least got a minimal glimpse of nature, which was more than most inmates could say.
The truth is, the pressing room was the one place in Rikers where I ever felt reasonably safe. Compared to the open-plan cell block, where I slept at night with eighty other prisoners free to wander where they pleased once the lights went out, that locked room in the laundry was a fortress of solitude, and oddly enough I used to miss it on weekends. Besides the temporary security it offered while I was locked in, my job also proved to be a source of revenue – over and above whatever few cents an hour I was making from the Department of Corrections for my labour.
Within days of my taking over, I was approached by another inmate in the laundry, an Italian guy who worked the counter in the exchange room, where prisoners came once a week to trade in their dirty uniforms for clean ones. The guy had a scheme going – at Rikers they called it ‘working a contract’ – and he offered to cut me in if I was willing. I asked what it involved and all he wanted me to do was put sharp creases in certain inmates’ uniforms, which he would smuggle into the pressing room with the help of his accomplice, the Puerto Rican kid who delivered the laundry carts to my door every shift.
‘What’s in it for me?’ I asked.
When he told me I’d be paid half a pack of cigarettes for every uniform I pressed, I told him to count me in. Apparently even in prison catering to vanity is a lucrative business. You’d be surprised at how many inmates were willing to shell out their commissary money just for the privilege of strutting around in a sharply creased uniform. It was a status thing. In their minds, it set them apart from the losers who served their time in rumpled clothes. Which was fine with me. For the rest of my sentence, I never had to buy a pack of smokes.
When Gino popped the lock and finally set me free at a little past seven, I scowled at him and snarled, ‘About fucking time!’ And without another word I jumped down from the box and dashed away to relieve myself between two cars that were parked beside the U-Haul. When I came back to the truck, I resumed venting my anger, and I laid such a guilt trip on Gino for locking me in the box overnight he ended up making amends by stopping at a McDonald’s on the way out of town and treating me to a big breakfast – which was exactly the result I’d been angling for with my complaints. By the time we had finished, my anger and my growling stomach had both been appeased, and when we got back on the road again we lapsed back into the same uneasy truce we’d been maintaining ever since Gino had decided not to ditch me in El Paso.
It was a grey, misty morning, with drizzle in the valleys and light snow falling on the upper slopes of the surrounding peaks. We pushed north toward the Idaho border through alternating tracts of Buereau of Land Management land and private ranches, where large herds of sheep and Black Angus cattle dotted the rocky hillsides, grazing placidly amid the sagebrush and pinyon pines. There were quite a few thermal hot springs in the area, and we kept passing rustic-looking spas whose signs advertised the therapeutic powers of their mineral waters. What I wouldn’t have given to soothe my achy joints with a long soak in one of those pools! Bedding down overnight on the steel floor of the cargo box had left me sore all over. But even if I’d had money to pay the entry fee, I knew Gino would never agree to interrupting our trip for a spa session. He was intent on making it to Boise by nightfall. With four hundred miles of road still ahead of us, we had no time to spare.
Five hours north of Ely, we reached the last town on the Nevada side of the border with Idaho and rolled through the one-street town of Jackpot, a tourist trap whose five or six casinos appeared to be a thriving destination for gamblers from neighbouring states. Nearly all the cars I saw parked in the casino lots bore licence plates from Idaho or Wyoming or Montana. If I ever passed through Jackpot again, I knew which casino would get my business – the biggest of the bunch, a sprawling place called Cactus Petes (for some reason, spelled with no apostrophe – was punctuation a lost art in Jackpot, or were there several Petes behind the operation?).
The sky had begun to brighten by the time we got to Jackpot, and as we crossed the Snake River into Twin Falls, Idaho, we were greeted by the first triple rainbow I’d ever seen. Naturally, I took it as a promising omen. After seventeen days on the road, I was within striking distance of the West Coast at last, and the rare spectacle of a triple rainbow seemed to me nothing less than a sign that my luck was about to change for the better. From your lips to God’s ear, as my Irish nana was fond of saying.
We reached Boise in late afternoon, and by that time I’d had ample opportunity to see the Snake River justify its name. The stretch of I-84 between Twin Falls and Boise was riddled with bridges that spanned the river’s meandering switchbacks, and I lost count of how many we crossed before we finally arrived in the capital city.
The golden dome of the statehouse building was gleaming so brightly in the late-day sun it hurt my eyes to look at it when Gino pulled off the interstate at the city centre exit. Maneouvring our long load cautiously through the traffic, he headed for an industrial area on the northwest side of town and eventually turned onto a busy side street, where his Vietnam buddy, a guy named Bob, had an auto repair shop. The plan was to spend the night in Boise with Bob and his wife Ellen, who’d invited Gino to stop by on his way to Washington so they could show off the new house they’d bought since his last visit.
As soon as Gino pulled up in front of the shop and climbed out of the U-Haul, Bob came trotting out to greet him, and as I watched the two of them bear-hug, they were certainly a mismatched pair. Gino, with his strapping build, was the perfect picture of a fighting leatherneck, but Bob was short and wiry, built more like a VC tunnel rat, and it was almost comical to see him trying to wrap his short arms around Gino’s hulking frame.
When they were done embracing, Bob hustled back into the shop to let his mechanics know he was leaving for the day and then hopped into his Ford pick-up to lead us to his new house, which turned out to be a fixer-upper on a quiet rural road a few miles outside the city limits. Ellen, his wife, came out to the driveway to greet Gino when we arrived, and though I could see by her puzzled expression that she hadn’t expected him to turn up with a guest in tow, she smiled pleasantly when Gino introduced me, and then excused herself so she could go set an extra place at the dinner table. Ellen proved to be quite a good cook. The spaghetti and meatballs she served us were delicious, and when I finished my first plate and she graciously offered me a second helping I happily accepted. It was only after she’d refilled my plate that I noticed the angry glare Gino was aiming at me from across the table, and I realised I’d somehow just pissed him off.
When the meal was over, Gino and Bob went outside for a smoke, and I stayed behind to help Ellen clear the table and load the dishwasher, hoping this might get me back in Gino’s good graces. But, as I quickly discovered, Gino was far too angry to be so easily mollified. The second I stepped out of the house Gino excused himself from his conversation with Bob, grabbed me by the arm and quick-marched me to the U-Haul, which was parked kerb-side out in the street. He kept his voice
down, but he was seething as he ripped me for embarrassing him in front of his friends by being such a greedy pig at the dinner table.
‘I didn’t ask for seconds, Ellen offered them,’ I replied in defence.
‘She was just being polite, you dumb fuck!’ he spat back. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, these aren’t rich people. The extra helping you just ate was probably tomorrow’s lunch for Bob. Well, that’s it, I’m done with your sorry ass. Help me get the Audi off the trailer, then grab your pack from the truck. I’m taking you back to the highway right now.’
The worst thing about Gino’s tirade was that I knew it was justified. Poverty had turned me feral, and like a stray cat who never knows when the next meal is coming I had slipped into the needy habit of eating anything that was put in front of me, even when I could have done with less. My mother had raised me better than that. And I’m sure she’d have been as mortified by my behaviour as I now was. And yet, for all my embarrassment, when I was done mouthing lame apologies to Gino on the ride back to the interstate, I still had the unbelievable nerve to hit him up for a handout before he dropped me off at the Oregon border forty-five minutes later. Desperation knows no shame, I guess.
‘Jesus, you’re some piece of work,’ Gino said, shaking his head in disbelief. But to his credit, he handed me two dollars anyway, and when we parted company I had to admit he was a better man than me.
The idiot wind had blown through Gino’s life, too, yet he’d survived.
I could only pray that out here in the West I’d find some way to do the same.
CHAPTER 7
You’re a pain in the ass, Pete, but good luck, I guess. I hope for your sake you get your act together soon.
Gino’s parting words were still ringing in my ears as he pulled away and left me shamefacedly clutching the two dollars I’d just cadged from him. Of course, I was grateful for his generosity, but that didn’t stop me from sighing with relief as I watched him go – four days of travelling with Gino had worn me out, both mentally and emotionally.
I suspect if we hadn’t been the same age Gino’s prickly personality and withering candour might have been easier to shrug off. But the fact that our lives spanned exactly the same years, and had been plagued in their own way by the same destructive drug, gave Gino’s criticism a validity that sharpened its edge and made it cut deeper. Then, too, there was the matter of Gino’s imposing size and gruff demeanour, which were so similar to my father’s that they made his remarks even harder not to take to heart. Though it pained me to admit it, Gino had been right when he’d said it was high time I started ‘owning’ my fuck-ups. Facing up to the hard questions I’d been ducking for so long was the only way I’d ever turn my life around. There was no getting around it. But soul-searching is an exhausting business, and for the moment I was glad to be free of Gino and the constant reminder of my shortcomings he’d come to represent as our time on the road dragged on.
The highway rest area where Gino had dropped me off was just over the Oregon border, in the small farming town of Ontario, and the only amenities it offered were the usual blockhouse with public toilets and a few tin-roofed informational kiosks clustered on the sidewalk outside the restrooms. After Gino pulled away, I walked over to one of the kiosks and spent a moment checking the posted roadmap to get my bearings. According to the map, Interstate 84 would take me straight into Portland, 375 miles down the road. I figured with any luck I could cover the distance in ten or twelve hours of hitchhiking. But I’d never been to Oregon before, and I thought it would be a shame not to check out the scenery, so I decided to postpone my departure until the morning.
Before looking for somewhere to bed down at the rest area, I made a cautious dash across the highway to a roadside diner on the eastbound side and spent the better part of Gino’s two dollars on a pouch of Bugler tobacco and a small cup of coffee to go. I took my coffee outside to the diner’s gravel parking lot and sat down on a kerbstone to roll a cigarette. Then, as I relaxed in the chilly twilight, enjoying a leisurely smoke, I noticed a dark mass of clouds sweeping in from the west and had a bad feeling the weather was about to change. Fearing I would get caught in a downpour, I hurried back across the highway and immediately started scouting the shadowy pine woods at the back of the rest area for a spot to make camp.
But, as I quickly discovered, the pine woods wouldn’t do. The ground between trees was overgrown with dense thickets of some sort of bush that was bristling with needle-like thorns, sharp as tiny icepicks, which poked right through my socks and drew blood from my ankles before I realised what I’d stumbled into. Cursing in pain, I retreated to the parking lot and pulled down my socks to assess the damage. It was hard to see in the dusky half-light, but what I could see wasn’t pretty. Suffice to say, the word pincushion came to mind. Hunched over, plucking thorns from my skin, I couldn’t help thinking that my first night in Oregon had gotten off to an inauspicious start. Which, as it turned out, was merely a foretaste of the miseries in store for me in the hours ahead.
I had hardly finished pulling out the last of the thorns when suddenly the parking lot got ominously dark. An instant later, the storm clouds gusting overhead opened up and began pelting me with rain and sleet, a mixture I was sure would soon turn to snow as the night air got colder. I ran to the restroom building to escape the downpour. As I stood in the open doorway of the men’s room, wondering how I was going to survive the night in such weather, I spotted a pile of construction sand near the parking lot exit and found my answer. The big blue plastic tarp atop the pile was meant to keep the sand dry, but I definitely needed it more than the sand did, and as soon as the rain let up a little I ran over to the pile, kicked away the concrete pavers that were anchoring the tarp’s edges and dragged the tarp back to the shelter of one of the map kiosks.
The Plexiglas-sided kiosk was maybe twice the size of your average phone booth, but there was room enough on the concrete pad beneath it for me to hunker down in the foetal position, and that’s where I wound up bedding down, wrapped up like a mummy in the sandy tarp’s gritty embrace – and watched over throughout the long night by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, both pictured on the Oregon Trail poster which hung above my head. Every time I glanced their way, their intrepid gazes seemed to be mocking my tenderfoot’s discomfort. I just flipped them one of Jarhead Gino’s helicopter salutes and went on shivering.
The sleet soon turned to snow as the temperature dropped into the twenties, and the three-sided kiosk offered no protection from the biting winds that swirled through its open end. Even swaddled in the tarp, I could only catch ninety minutes of sleep before the cold drove me inside to the restroom, where I spent the next fifteen minutes punching the start button on the hot-air hand dryer until I was thawed out enough to brave trudging back out to the kiosk and wrapping myself in the tarp again. And that’s how it went for the rest of the night, with me shuttling back and forth between the kiosk and the men’s room – though the intervals of sleep got shorter and shorter as the temperature continued to drop.
The only break in my routine came sometime after midnight, when one of my sessions at the hand dryer was interrupted by a tap on my shoulder. I spun around to see what was up and found myself face-to-face with a smiling old queen in a cracked leather bomber jacket and cashmere scarf, who sheepishly ran a hand through his slicked-back silver hair and politely enquired if I’d care for a blow job. When I just as politely declined, he simply shrugged and headed for the door. But as he stepped back outside into the snowy night, I heard him mutter, ‘Never hurts to ask.’ Which left me wondering if the guy didn’t have a screw loose. Ask the wrong person that question, it could definitely hurt. Then again, maybe the old boy lived a charmed life. If so, I hoped he’d left some of his luck behind, because hypothermia and frostbite were starting to seem like real possibilities before the night was over, and I’d need all the help I could get to make it through till dawn.
The next few hours were by far the worst I’d suffered since
leaving New York, and I’d venture to say there was nobody in that sleepy town of Ontario any happier to see the sunrise than I was. I was stiff all over, and the teeth-chattering cold had left me with an achy jaw, but I’d survived to see another day – a day which (as if I needed further cause for celebration) just happened to be my birthday. My thirty-eighth. I was now three years older than Dante was when he wrote ‘Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ché la diritta via era smarrita’ (‘Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a dark wood, for the straightforward pathway had been lost’). I had a strong hunch the year ahead would determine my future. Unless I found my way back to the straight path, and soon, I’d be stuck in Dante’s dark wood forever.
The frosty air fogged my breath and I was shivering with cold as I dragged the tarp across the parking lot and returned it to the sand pile, which was now covered by a thin skiff of snow. All I could think about at that point was getting my hands on a hot cup of coffee. However, after bedding down on cold concrete all night, my joints were too sore to risk a dash across four lanes of traffic, so I took the prudent course and hiked half a mile back up the road to use the overpass bridge. The exercise did me good, though, and by the time I reached the diner I was no longer moving like a stiff-legged zombie.
At the diner, I counted out my pocket change and was upset to discover I was a nickel shy of the price for a small cup of coffee. ‘No problem,’ smiled the kindly woman at the cashier counter, plucking five pennies from the ‘take one, leave one’ cup beside the register. Thanking her, I remarked that she’d just given me the only gift I was likely to receive for my birthday, and when she heard that sob story she gave me a jumbo coffee instead of the small cup I’d ordered. Score!
Idiot Wind Page 18