1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway (2 page)

The Sergeant nodded.

‘Got a job waiting for you in Paradise City?’

‘No, but I’ll find one. I don’t reckon to stay more than two months: a job’s waiting for me in New York.’

The Sergeant nodded.

‘You may not believe it,’ he said in a more relaxed conversational tone, ‘but this district is about as unhealthy and as dangerous as your paddy fields in Vietnam.’

Harry shifted restlessly like a man restraining his impatience only out of politeness.

‘You think so? But then you haven’t been in my paddy fields as you call them while I’ve been on your roads for the past two days. I think there’s a little exaggeration going on about this

district. Frankly, I’m not worried.’

The Sergeant sighed and lifted his heavy shoulders.

‘A couple of hours back,’ he said, ‘five youngsters, one of them a girl, stopped at a farm about five miles back. They stole three chickens and a transistor radio. There were four grown men on the farm. They saw these kids take the chickens and they saw them walk into the farmhouse and take the radio. None of these four grown men did anything about it. They let the kids do what they did and when they had gone, they called us. I said they did right to have left these kids alone. If and when I catch up with them I’m going to talk to them with a gun in my fist. . . that’s the only way to talk to them. I guess the only way to talk to the Viet Cong is also to keep a gun in your fist. No, I wouldn’t say there’s any exaggeration in this district: that’s the last thing I would say.’

Harry’s blue eyes suddenly flashed with anger.

‘Just what the hell is going on in this country since I’ve been away?’ he said half to himself. ‘What makes grown men scared of dirty, boneless kids?’

The Sergeant cocked his head on one side as he regarded Harry.

‘Things change even in three years. What you’ve forgotten is we have a dope problem in this country which keeps escalating. Most of these kids heading south are hopheads. They really believe they are ten times larger than life. They will do things they wouldn’t dream of doing if they weren’t stoned. Folk around here know that. They don’t want to get maimed or cut or

put in a hospital just when it is picking time. You remember that, Sergeant. Watch out for these kids, keep clear of them and don’t try anything heroic. I wouldn’t like to think your first vacation after three years could get spoilt. You don’t want to spend the next two months in a hospital bed, do you?’ He turned to his companion. ‘Okay, Jackson, let’s go.’ Nodding to Harry, he got back into the police car.

Harry watched them drive away. Then he picked up his rucksack, rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, shrugged his shoulders and started off down the long, dusty road.

* * *

A red neon light that spelt out GOOD EATS dominated the road that was the main street of Yellow Acres. Below the sign was a box-shaped, clapboard building with curtained windows and a veranda where customers could sit and drink and watch any activity there might be during the day. It was seldom used after dark.

This building was the only restaurant-bar in the town and it was owned by Toni Morelli, a fat, jovial Italian. Some twenty years ago, Morelli had drifted into Yellow Acres, taken a look around and had decided this tiny farming town needed a restaurant. Because he was all things to all men, could produce substantial tasty and cheap food and was always willing to listen to any tale of woe, he prospered. When his wife died of a chest complaint the whole town turned out for the funeral.

This turnout told Toni as nothing else could that he was not only a valuable member of the community, but that he was genuinely liked. The discovery did much to lessen his grief. His daughter, Maria, had stepped into her mother’s shoes and she took over the running of the bar and the restaurant while her father remained in the kitchen.

Most of Morelli’s business was done between 11.00 hours and 15.00 hours. Farmers coming into Yellow Acres stopped at the restaurant for a drink and lunch. Around 20.00 hours trade fell off sharply. The folk of Yellow Acres believed in eating their dinners at home: one and all were rabid television addicts, but Morelli kept the restaurant open. He liked company, and if some passing stranger or some hungry trucker who didn’t want to wait until he reached Orangeville before he ate looked in, he received a welcome.

Harry Mitchell came down the main street around 20.30 hours. He was slightly tired, extremely hungry and longing for a cold beer. The red neon sign made him quicken his pace and he climbed the four steps up to the veranda, pushed open the door and entered the restaurant. He paused to look around.

There were about twenty tables, covered with red and white check plastic cloths. Each table was neatly set for four people. To his right was a bar and a long glittering mirror a big fan turned slowly in the ceiling moving the thick, hot air.

A dark haired girl, plump with a creamy white skin was behind the bar, reading a newspaper. She looked up as Harry set down his rucksack, and after her eyes had swept over him with approval, she gave him a daring smile.

‘Welcome to Yellow Acres,’ she said. ‘What would you like to drink . . . I can see you need one.’

Returning her smile and leaving his rucksack, Harry crossed to the bar.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Beer, please . . . lots and lots of cold beer.’

She produced a bottle of beer beaded with icy condensation, snapped off the cap, poured and then pushed the glass towards him.

He raised the glass, looking at her, then said, ‘To the light in your eyes and the sun in your smile.’ Then he drank.

No one had ever said anything to Maria like that and she blushed a little, liking it.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Harry set down the glass, ran his tongue over his froth covered lips, and drew in a long, slow breath.

‘When you need it . . . it sure hits the spot! Could I have another, please and is it too late to eat.’

Maria laughed happily as she poured another beer.

‘It’s always eating time here. How about spaghetti, two pork chops with french fries and peas out of the garden and apple pie?’

Harry’s eyes opened wide. He was expecting some kind of sandwich.

‘You mean I can have all that right now?’

Maria turned and slid back the hatch behind her.

‘Dad, we have a hungry customer. The special as fast as you can fix it.’

A fat, beaming face appeared in the hatchway. Morelli surveyed Harry, nodded his approval and said, ‘Spaghetti coming right up. Ten minutes for the chops. Do you like onions, mister?’

Harry made a moaning sound and slapped his flat, muscular stomach.

‘I like everything, thank you.’

Morelli’s beaming face vanished ‘Sit down,’ Maria said. ‘Take your beer.’ She pointed to a nearby table.

Harry collected his rucksack and put it by the table, then sat down. He looked around the deserted restaurant.

‘Is this an off-night or is this normal?’ he asked.

‘Pretty normal. We rely on our lunch trade, but we do get the odd one at night so we keep open. Have you come far?’

‘New York.’ Again Harry looked around. He was feeling relaxed now. ‘Nice place you have here. I wasn’t expecting anything this nice. Do you know any place here where I could get a bed for the night?’

Maria smiled, She rested her chubby elbows on the counter and regarded Harry. She thought he was like some movie star she had once seen. Who was it? Paul Newman? Yes, of course, Paul Newman He had the same startling blue eyes and the same way of wearing his hair.

‘We have a room. Three dollars with breakfast and that means one of Dad’s specials . . . that work?’

‘You have a customer,’ Harry said.

An enormous mound of spaghetti covered with Bolognese sauce was handed through the hatch, Maria brought it to him and set it before him. She paused at his side for a brief moment, watching him as he picked up a fork, then she hurried to a serving table to get bread.

‘Your father do all the cooking?’ Harry asked.

‘That’s right.’ Maria placed the bread by Harry’s side. She stared at him, fascinated. She hadn’t seen such a powerful, well-built, handsome man before except on the movie screen. ‘Believe it or not, Dad and I have been here twenty years. I was born here.’

‘Do you like it here?’ Harry asked as he expertly rolled the spaghetti around his fork and conveyed the roll to his mouth. The sudden smell of frying onions made his nose twitch.

‘Yes, I like it,’ Maria told him. ‘The evenings are a bit dull. Neither Dad nor me care for TV. But when the boys come in for lunch, it’s a lot of fun.’

‘Best spaghetti I’ve ever tasted,’ Harry said and meant it.

‘You enjoy it.’ Maria went around the bar and into the kitchen to tell her father what Harry had just said.

Harry ate ravenously. When he had finished, he pushed his plate aside with a contented sigh. Then he drank the last of the beer as Maria came from the kitchen carrying a laden tray. This she set down on the serving table, whipped away his used plate, looked at the glass, then took it to the bar for a refill when he nodded.

She served him with two pork chops that were two inches thick and smothered with crisp fried onions. There was a dish of fried potatoes and green peas to go with it.

‘Enjoy it,’ she said and took the used plate into the kitchen.

Harry wished she would stay so he could talk to her. She was the type of natural, simple Italian girl he liked. On his way back from Saigon, he had spent a month in Naples and Capri. He had got to like the Italian girls. They seemed to him uncomplicated and kind: girls without problems. The girls he had briefly met during his week in New York had bothered him. They all seemed to have problems: if it wasn’t sex, it was money: if it wasn’t money, it was dieting: if it wasn’t dieting, it was their future. They seemed to have the weight of the world pressing down on them. They yakked and yakked about the Bomb, the Pill, Freedom, Politics and God knows what: things he hadn’t given a damn about when he had been their age: problems, he felt, that were spoiling their lives.

He was just finishing the second chop, as tender and as succulent as the first, when he heard a sound that made him pause: his fork loaded with a piece of meat and chips half way to his mouth.

Someone heavy footed was running down the street: shoe soles made a hurried, slapping sound on the tarmac: someone running with desperate speed: the sound made Harry lay down his fork.

A moment later the runner came up the steps of the restaurant with two bounding thuds that shook the building. The restaurant door burst open.

Even as Harry was staring at the man who had burst in, he became aware of pattering footfalls coming down the street: the sound of several people running They ran lightly, and there was something menacing in this lightness: the sound a wolf pack might make as it closed on its quarry.

Harry’s quick eyes took in the man as he stood panting by the door. He was around twenty-six years of age, slightly below average height which made him a head shorter than Harry. His black hair reached to his collar and his thin, sharp face was burned to a mahogany colour. Blood ran down the side of his face from an ugly cut above his right eye, and there was a livid bruise on the side of his jaw. His narrow chest heaved with the effort to breathe, sweat plastered his hair to his skull. His red and white check shirt was torn and his white hipsters were streaked with dirt. In his left hand, he clutched a guitar in a canvas case. He had a small duffel bag over his shoulder. All this Harry took in with one quick glance.

The man looked wildly around, like a hunted animal. He caught sight of Harry and he pointed a shaking finger to the street.

‘They are after me. Where can I hide?’

The naked terror in the man s eyes brought Harry to his feet.

‘Get down behind the bar and stay there,’ he said.

The man staggered to the bar, went behind it and disappeared from sight.

Harry sat down. He pulled his rucksack to him, dipped his hand into it and his fingers closed around the Indian club Sam Bentz had given him.

He waited, listening to the approaching footfalls of the hunters. At the moment when they were very close, Maria came out of the kitchen. She stopped short, catching her breath when she saw the man crouching down her side of the bar.

‘It’s all right,’ Harry said quietly. ‘Go back into the kitchen. There could be a little trouble, but leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.’

Seeing the blood trickling down the man’s face and his look of terror, Maria retreated hurriedly into the kitchen.

There was a long pause, then the restaurant door swung slowly open.

They came in one after the other as silently as ghosts: four youths and a girl carrying a transistor radio. Harry guessed at once that these were the five the police sergeant had told him about: the five who had stolen a radio and three chickens.

He shifted the club so he held it between his knees, hidden by the tablecloth, and he put his hands on the table, resting them there, either side of his plate.

The four youths were cut to a pattern: they were between the ages of seventeen and twenty, not older. All had greasy filthy long hair to their shoulders; three of them sprouted beards; all were indescribably dirty and the smell of their dirt advanced before them in a stomach-turning wave.

The girl was about sixteen years of age: small, thin, vicious and shameless. She wore a black blouse and stained dirty red stretch pants. Harry decided she smelt even worse than the four boys.

‘He busted in here, Chuck,’ one of the boys said. ‘I saw him.’

Apparently Chuck was the leader of the pack. He was the eldest, the tallest and the most vicious looking. He stared around the restaurant until his small, glittering eyes reached Harry. He stared for a long moment at Harry, his head on one side. Harry stared back woodenly.

The other four, now aware of Harry, became motionless.

There was a pause, then Harry’s wooden stare began to unsettle Chuck. The pale blue eyes were unwavering. There was no sign of fear. This was something Chuck wasn’t used to.