Arrival and Departure

THE PACIFIC OCEAN crashed in sparkling white bands against the bold California cliffs. Standing wide-eyed above the raw splendor, Sam Thurber took a deep breath, filling himself with the crisp sea air. It was like nothing he had ever experienced in his 52 years on earth. The tremendous expanse of rich blue water moved Thurber the way it had Balboa, Magellan and Cortez when they too had set eyes upon it for the first time. Now, five hundred years later, this new explorer had reached something of an apex in his own journey. Thurber’s months behind the helm of his butt-numbing motorhome had paid off well. Wherever his travels brought him next, it didn’t really matter. For now, however, Thurber had a promise to keep. It would not be easy to say good-bye to a dear friend who had reshaped his life. It was also hard to believe they had met only eight weeks before...

“Your classified said two thousand original miles? Is that right?” Thurber turned his attention from the antiquated motorhome to the widow in the lavender house dress. The craggy-faced woman blew a solid cloud of cigarette smoke across the pasty Brooklyn sun and replied, “Chicago and back. Two thousand unforgettable miles.” After a phlegm-soaked cough she continued. “My husband had the crazy idea that we should drive cross-country on our honeymoon. By the

time we hit Lake Michigan I couldn’t stand another minute cooped up in that stinking ham can. I told Marty to put me on a plane and to drive himself straight home. A week later that rolling eyesore was planted right there where you see it.”

Sam Thurber, tall, lanky, uncommonly serious, and somewhat timid, twitched his gangly fingers through the gray-black stubble on his head. Then, placing his dark cap back in its rightful place, Thurber undertook some personal calculations.

Being past what some might consider his prime, the idea of leaving everything he knew and hitting the road seemed a big gamble. Thurber’s day-to-day existence was dull but secure; money was always an issue but he did manage to make his rent every month. Still, there was a persistent call in Thurber’s head, telling him to either take this journey or put it out of his mind once and for all.

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Another cloud of rancid tobacco twined around the woman’s next comment, “Did I mention the motorhome got factory air?” Thurber glanced in at the dashboard, searching for the climate controls. “Don’t bother looking there. It’s in the tires.” After a self-gratified pause the woman delivered another waft of choking smoke and tossed her Marlboro to the oil-stained driveway, giving it a deadly squeeze with her right slipper.

While Thurber lay on the crazed blacktop trying to look at the vehicle from a new angle, the widow lit another cigarette and circled the motorhome, wishing she could forget forty years of memories. Despite Mrs. Kessel’s late husband’s failed attempt, he had never given up his hope of traveling the open road. He figured all he had to do was outlive his wife. Aware of her husband’s plan to outlast her, Edna Kessel made the motorhome the cornerstone of a loveless marriage. What became their ever-increasing mutual dislike for each other was also their greatest bond.

Because her memories always gave her a headache, Mrs. Kessel announced,

“I’ll be in the house. You’ll find the key in the ignition. You could do me a favor. If you don’t want to buy the old bus, just drive it into the East River for me.”

Thurber gave a polite chuckle. He wasn’t sure what to think of a comment like that.

Sitting behind the wheel, Sam reached to the white-enameled dash and gave the key a clockwise twist. A blue-black fog circled in through the half-open driver’s side door. The explosive sputtering smoothed into the promising hum of roads untraveled. Thurber’s imagination ran wild. He envisioned the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Great Lakes, Texas, California and the Great Plains. Gigantic highways and dirt roads appeared like great unfilled pages before his eyes. “I can drive to Bolivia,” he ventured aloud. “What the heck, Argentina! This journey will inspire my novel!”

Regrettably for Thurber, his own life, like the Kessel’s, had not turned out as planned. Swiveling back and forth in the coach’s inadequately upholstered seat, Thurber thought of the path he never took. He might have been a great writer if he had not been pigeonholed early in his career as a children’s book author. Now, ever so much older, the man had reached the point where he would rather die than struggle in the quicksand of another smiling moose, talking pigeon or adventurous sea sponge. The last straw had come just two days earlier. Thurber’s publisher, Henry Harcourt, asked Sam for another story about his magical dog.

“Enough!” Thurber, normally quiet, couldn’t stop his own reaction.

H.H., looking surprised, actually enjoyed the uncharacteristic outburst while Thurber quickly gathered himself and tried to express, more quietly, his frustrations; his desire to remold himself into a serious author. After a pregnant pause H.H. took up Thurber’s cause.

“Sam, great idea. I think you should take that trip of yours.” Harcourt, seeming to paste his next words on a marquee with his hand, proclaimed, “Travel’s with My Van! Or maybe, Huck Finn in the New Millennium” and then, returning his eyes to the astonished Thurber, added, “You bring me back something I can print. Just don’t expect any kind of advance.”

“Advance indeed,” thought Thurber as he packed the last of his meager belongings into his newly acquired rolling home. If he had been famous, the author could have gleaned an advance worth a fortune from any publisher with just the suggestion that he planned a new work. Instead, Thurber now gambled his paltry savings on undertaking his venture. The only thing he received from Mr. Harcourt was a friendly slap on the back.

Thurber sat at the command post of Thor, as he had named his motorhome, and looked in the rearview mirror. Behind him extended a 27-foot-long tunnel draped and swaddled in tasteless ’60’s fruit-colored fabrics. On the outside Thor was a dusty blue six-wheeled Dodge Travco land yacht. Inside it was swollen with beds, dining table, kitchen and bathroom. In the very stern, complete with transom windows, was the master bedroom. It was a cabin, Thurber thought, worthy of an admiral, though obviously not suited to the likes of Mrs. Kessel. The writer tried to shade his imagination from the distasteful image of the unhappy Kessels squeezed into the aft bedroom on their honeymoon.

Thurber had twice scrubbed everything inside and out with Ajax hoping to erase any of the bad karma which might remain. Then, loading Thor with only his most significant possessions— pencils, paper, books, typewriter and toothbrush— he felt ready to hit the road.

Having filled the voluminous gas tank, Thurber was now prepared to leave Brooklyn well behind. If he remained frugal the balance his savings should last a little while. Thurber figured he would, on occasion, have to find employment to quench Thor’s appetite and buy himself groceries. Thurber’s life had been filled with odd jobs he had taken to support his writing, so in that regard, life on the road would not be very different.

Before carefully backing Thor out of the dead-end street, Thurber looked up to the fourth-floor windows and the apartment that had been his nest for so many years. He had mixed feelings about his departure but was too smitten by the uncertainties that lay ahead to allow sentimentality to win out. After slowly negotiating his narrow street in reverse, Thurber placed the unwieldy 27-foot Thor in forward and began rolling towards the unknown.

Talk Radio

WHAT THURBER WAS NOT ready to admit to himself was that the act of driving completely unnerved him. Having lived his whole life in a thriving metropolis the writer had never seen the need to own even a small a car. Truth be told, Sam only retained his license in order to keep his hopes of travel alive. The closest he had ever come to any vehicle the size of Thor was as a straphanger on a city bus.

“That’s not entirely true,” Thurber told himself aloud as he carelessly turned right from Church Avenue onto Ocean Parkway. Ignoring the anxious squeal of breaks and car horns from outside, Thurber recalled the time he sat in a flight simulator doing research for Rocket Girl from Asteroid Nine. The writer remembered unhappily too, while waiting for the light to turn green, that the story, a favorite of his, never did get published. All Henry Harcourt said about that manuscript was, “Sorry, Sam but we can’t do a children’s book with semicolons.”

Coasting forward again, Thurber realized with glee that the parkway was now funneling him onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. One road had ended and another, with a temperament all its own, had begun. Within an hour, if traffic allowed, Thurber would cross to the mainland. People tend to forget Brooklyn is part of an island, though Sam felt it every day of his life. He squeezed his foot against the gas pedal to hasten his escape. Slowly the white needle climbed the black and chrome dial above the steering column. Thirty-five, forty-five, six, seven, eight, nine... 50!

The pointer crept like it was sealed in molasses. Thurber listened with alarm to the straining engine that was slung low between Thor’s two front seats. The carburetor drank thirstily as it sucked down the gas. Eight fuel-hungry cylinders squawked, Thurber thought, like baby vultures calling their mother to feed them. The writer liked his own analogy so much he almost hit a taxi while looking for a scrap of paper to write it on. When the cab driver displayed his middle finger it awakened Thurber to the fact that he had just received his christening as a New York driver. Returning both hands to the wheel the inexperienced motorman smiled with nervous delight.

The Expressway scooted Thor along the East River and past the awe- inspiring Brooklyn Bridge. Whenever Sam saw it he remorsefully thought of his one great lady love. The way the white lights draped across the span always reminded him of her necklace of pearls and of warm summer nights. He was now unhappy to think that he was leaving the city that once was theirs, though it had been twenty years since last they spoke.

The potholes and steel-bedded roadways rumbled unnervingly beneath the Dodge, almost rupturing Thurber through his seat. His eyes vibrated as he searched for a sign that would lead him to the Van Wick Expressway. He was terrified of missing his exit, for though he had studied the map, he had memorized only one route.

Thurber was grateful as the morning rush hour traffic slowed to a near- standstill. Because of it he was able to see clearly the sign that said that less than a mile ahead was the exit he sought. It took twenty minutes for Thor to creep the next thousand yards, as crumbling cement barricades squeezed the traffic away from the road Sam needed to some mysterious path. As the bumper-to-bumper traffic inched forward Thurber rummaged around for his atlas, wondering where he would end up. Jets from the adjacent airport distractingly screamed low overhead, rattling Thurber’s half-cold coffee in its plastic travel mug, making it hard for him to concentrate on the problem at hand. After what seemed an eternity of gut- wrenching stop-and-go, Thurber noticed a small yellow sign bolted a light pole. “For Traffic Information Tune to 510AM.”

Sam bent to the dash, realizing with annoyance that in his haste to buy the motorhome he had never even bothered to try the radio. He gave a heavy right- handed twist to the closest knob. For a moment there was a hiss, then— “It looks like the Van Wick is closed. Get off and we’ll take the side streets.”

Sam gawked at the speaker in the dashboard. “Excuse me?”

“If the exit is closed we’ll take the side streets. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly.” Confused, Sam reached to wind the tuner on the radio. “Hey Sam, don’t touch that dial! I know a shortcut near the stadium.”

Sam’s reaction was what we might expect of anyone who was confronted with a radio that was speaking directly to them. He slammed on the brakes. Fortunately, because he was traveling at six and not sixty miles an hour, there was no resulting accident.

Clutching the wheel, Thurber avoided eye contact with the dashboard.

Unable to hide his fright he stammered, “Who are you?” Thurber’s question was quickly rewarded.

“See, now we got us a dialogue. It’s me, Marty Kessel. The dead husband?”

came the jocular reply. Sam remained silent.

“Okay, let’s try this. Does the name Edna Kessel ring a bell? You bought this Dodge from that fire-breathing witch. Ah, mazel tov! I see maybe I’m making a dent...”

Recovering ever so slightly, Sam said but one word. “How?”

Marty’s answer came swiftly... “How? Who? What? When? Where? Why? You’re a writer. You got to ask all those questions. Let’s see. You already got the who. That of course would be me. When did I stop living? Last month, end of September. Where? East 29th one block off Nostrand. You know the place, you were there. The what. That’s a good one. I’m dead. My wife murdered me and stuck my cremated remains here in the ashtray.”

Thurber, finally looking across to the center of the dashboard, slowly began to reach out his hand to confirm the unbelievable.

“Hey, look, don’t touch. You’ll get your chance,” snapped the radio.

Pulling back quickly Thurber asked. “If you were murdered shouldn’t I call the police or something?”

Kindly, the radio replied, “We’ll have that conversation, but first let’s get out of this traffic. Ignore the signs and get to the right lane.”

With Marty’s directions the two travelers were soon buzzing along the side

streets in a winding route beneath the slow-moving expressway. While orchestrating turns left and right Marty’s voice from the radio took time to let loose a variety of editorials.

“Hey, take a look! Did you ever see such an ugly stadium? What the heck is a Shea anyhow? What’s a Met for that matter! Now Ebbets Field, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Those were the days! Hey Sam, you follow baseball?”

Thurber allowed that he did not.

“Used to be a great game. Okay, we’re coming up to a left that will take us onto the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. This used to be a nice neighborhood before the mayor...”

And so began Marty’s blistering tirade on city government and a rant about the highway department which ultimately culminated in a condemnation of every president since Kennedy. Though Thurber had yet to hear the details of his passenger’s murder he was starting to suspect it was justifiable homicide. But good to his word, the dead Marty Kessel’s navigation soon had Sam and Thor blasting their way west on the thruway. New York City was falling into the distance.

The Question of Homicide and a Venture Begun

JUST AS THE SUN was setting, the winding roadway finally opened straight and clear. Thurber, now having a chance to breathe, found himself delighted that he had finally taken this big step. But the writer now faced an unexpected and highly unusual problem. A dead and somewhat annoying stranger was speaking to him through his radio. There had been silence for the past few miles, which Thurber was afraid to break in hopes that he had been hallucinating. Finally curiosity got the best of him.

“Marty, you still there?”

The radio exploded back. “And just where do you think I am going to go? It’s not by choice I got to rely on you for transportation.”

Sam, feeling better about leaving New York behind and now welcoming some conversation, asked Marty to explain the details of his murder. The dashboard buzzed, “Oh right, Mr. Curiosity. We’re up to the how of how she killed me...

“To answer your question, my wife murdered me with poison. Decades of emotional poison. Unfortunately her personal venom wasn’t working fast enough so last summer she mixed up all my pills until I was so confused I gave myself a lethal cocktail. It’s not easy for old people to keep track of eighteen different prescriptions a day plus vitamins.”

Thurber’s interest was piqued. “So were you murdered or not? And how did you end up in the ashtray?”

Marty explained in no uncertain terms that Edna had long wanted him dead, but added, in all fairness, that the feeling was mutual.

“Look,” he explained, “if two people are playing a matched game of chess do

you blame one for defeating the other? Anyway she stuck me in this ashtray thinking I would be soooo insulted. Well here I am, finally getting to drive across the country. So, you tell me. Who’s the winner?”

Thurber’s dilemma was profound. He had embarked on this expedition to find himself and the inspiration he needed to write his first serious book. Now Thurber was afraid he would find neither until he managed to rid himself of his unwanted companion. Of course the writer was not unsympathetic to Marty’s plight. There was only one course of action that Thurber, in good conscience, could pursue, and he proposed it even before his thought was fully formed.

“So, Marty. If I drive you to California, could I empty the ashtray and we’ll call it even, say our goodbyes?”

There was a hesitation before the radio crackled, “Well, if it’s not too much trouble. I wouldn’t want to put you out or anything.”

At that moment an interesting change happened in Sam. With a clear understanding between himself and Mr. Kessel the writer suddenly looked forward to their venture together. Thurber was delighted with himself for being so open- minded. For, truth be told, his spontaneity generally tended to be well-planned.

Mr. Kessel and Thurber were soon discussing the best route to California. If they drove straight through they could reach the west coast in forty-eight hours. Marty, because it was not in his best interest to hurry, but rather savor the experience, pointed out that they definitely needed rest stops and that it might be nice to take in some sights along the way.

“Rest stops?” Thurber was puzzled. Taking breaks should not be of any concern to the dead Mr. Kessel. But though he had only known the ghost for a short time Thurber wasn’t sure he wanted to provoke an explanation which of course was forthcoming anyway, “Listen, Mr. I Can breathe and You Can’t... At my age even when you’re dead you always got the urge, you know, to pee.”

After some debate the travelers decided together that perhaps a less direct route to the Pacific would be okay. And with that, since the sky was dark and the overhead lights streaked like javelins in Thurber’s bleary eyes, Sam and Marty took the next exit to hunker down for the night.

Roommates

“PAJAMAS? A grown man like you?” Marty chuckled at the blue checked nightclothes that Thurber was using to cover his scanty frame.

Having brought Thor to a safe anchorage, Thurber now readied for bed. Outside glared the blinding security lights of the Osco’s Variety Truck Stop. The bright vapor glow illuminated the orange and lime curtains that Thurber had drawn closed for privacy. Now, suddenly realizing he had an audience, Thurber was disgusted with his girlish reaction of throwing himself behind the small bathroom door at the sound of his roommate’s voice. “Excuse me, Mr. Kessel. A little privacy, please?”

“Privacy? What, I got eyes to close? Trust me, it’s not such a thrill to see you change.”

With scarcely another word, Thurber climbed into his berth, pulling the covers tight up to his chin. Outside he could hear the noise of trucks coming and going; the hiss of brakes as eighteen-wheelers cruised in off the highway, combined with the whine of starter motors and low grinding gears as other trucks sped off to take their place on the roadway.

Tired though Thurber was, sleep did not come. For a while he tried to picture where he was, somewhere on Route 80, maybe in Pennsylvania, or perhaps Ohio. He couldn’t be sure because the sky had been so dark and the lights so glaring in Thurber’s weary eyes that he could barely see as he pulled Thor into the truck stop.

Eventually Thurber’s thoughts ran to Marty, until he could not resist calling out, “Mr. Kessel, just how well can you see anyway?”

A deep yawn came from the dashboard before Marty thoughtfully replied. “I see pretty good. It’s kinda like, like, remember the color-by-numbers pictures? It’s like that but done by a 2-year-old. Listen, I don’t have to see so good anyway. It’s not like I got to worry about walking into stuff. Forget the seeing, I’ll tell you what I really miss is breathing. Can’t smell a thing. What I wouldn’t give to sniff a nice gherkin. And don’t ask, because I have no idea if this is the same for all dead people because I haven’t met any, what with being stuck in this ashtray.”

Thurber, satisfied with the answer, called “good night” to his roommate. It had been far too many years since he said that to anyone. A quiet, “Pleasant dreams, Mr. Live Person,” came floating aft in response. Thurber, drifting to sleep, wondered if perhaps there was something more to Marty Kessel, and questioned if three thousand miles would be long enough to find out.

*********

“Hey Sam, Sammy! You got to look at this! Great parking job. You really hit the jackpot!” Thurber rustled unhappily for a moment while groaning a few pathetic “What?’s” He was the sort who did not wake too quickly.

“Come on sleepyhead!” insisted Marty. “You are going to love this.”

Stumbling to the front of the motorhome, Sam, in his rumpled pajamas, pulled back the right-hand curtains. “Marty, it’s barely sunrise. What is so important?” But quickly Thurber understood the reason for his early call. Staring into the harsh morning light he found himself gaping into the heel of a gigantic brown cowboy boot. The spur alone, which glistened like a new silver dollar, “...must be at least the size of a tire,” Thurber figured.

Without further need for Marty’s coaxing Sam tossed open the motorhome’s door and stepped barefoot into the day. His disbelieving eyes traced the boot upward to the pants and higher until it was clear that straddling Thor from high above was the largest blue-jean-clad crotch in the world. Soaring above that was the rest of a smiling cowboy, a six-shooter in each hand.

“Sam, you gotta love this country.”

Thurber scratched his bare head, still speechless as he took long strides back, further and further until at last he was able to fully understand the scope of the towering oddity before him. “Well howdy,” Thurber muttered as he felt the first unabashed grin in years cross his face.

Thirty minutes later Sam Thurber wolfed down the last of his instant oatmeal and a powdered coffee that was even more instant than the oatmeal.

“Thanks for the wake-up call, Marty. I would offer you some breakfast but I...”

“Sam, don’t say it. Jokes, you are not good at. Honestly, I think you got to be the straight man in this team.”

Thurber knew there was some truth to what his companion just said. It was just that his spirits were so high. Even more than yesterday when he first began his trip. On some level seeing that giant fiberglass cowpoke made Thurber feel like he was finally in the real world. Not at all like the sheltered city that had encompassed his whole life. He called to Marty, “Well, thanks for waking me just the same.”

With gas filled to the brim Thor was soon cruising west down the highway once more. Marty and Thurber chitchatted about the various sites they passed and eventually decided to take some of the lesser roads. They both enjoyed the Ohio farmlands and a fantastically large pig which sipped coffee by the entrance to a sprawling mall. The plastic Porky was perched atop a doughnut shack. Thirty miles later, however, the steakhouse with an open-jawed cow’s skull inviting customers inside was, they agreed, bad marketing. “I mean,” said Thurber, “if you are trying to get people to eat a cow, don’t show them a dead one... No offence, Marty.”

“None taken.”

Miles roared beneath the unlikely companions. They grew to become friends from both conversation and quiet... but neither one ventured too deeply into the other until somewhere past Columbus when Marty broke one of the long silences. “So tell me Sam, who is Adrianne?”

Thurber glanced down at the radio long enough to reply with his own question. “Why would you ask that?”

“Mr. Thurber, I don’t have to be a genius to know that if a man mumbles a woman’s name numerous times in his sleep that there might be something to it.”

Thurber was clearly uncomfortable with this topic. He twisted his aching butt in his seat and checked his rearview mirrors repeatedly, as if to indicate he had more important things to think about than Marty’s inquiry.

Marty, both sensing his new friend’s discomfort and also wishing to win his confidence by not being too pushy, changed the subject while tactfully keeping Sam the focus of the conversation. “So Sammy, you gave my Dodge the name Thor. Can I make a guess about that?”

Relieved to be away from the subject of Adrianne, Thurber happily welcomed any other topic.

“Okay, Mr. Writer. So, I figure you as a thoughtful, deliberate kind of guy. It wasn’t making sense to me that you would name this machine of yours after the Norse god of thunder... far too macho. Then last night it occurred to me. It’s not really Thor is it?! It’s Thor as in Thoreau. You know, the Henry David kind.”

Sam honestly had to think about Mr. Kessel’s remark for a second. He had named the motorhome Thor because it was big and powerful and because nothing else had come to mind. Now, Marty’s question gave Thurber the chance to say he had in fact named his home for a great American writer; it certainly made Sam appear much more the intellectual. Still pondering how to respond, Thurber delayed his answer by asking, “Just what was it you did when you were alive?”

“Me? I taught literature in a city high school. Thirty-five years. But when the @#%*$#&*! mayor cut the budget, lo and behold I suddenly discovered I was a gym teacher. Remarkable. That kind of sports thing they always got money for. Reading? Forget it. So after three years of watching overweight kids collapse doing squat thrusts I took early retirement and ended up driving a kosher meat truck... Want to know a secret? Second after my love for Melville and Steinbeck, driving a van of beef was my other passion.”

Thurber’s imagination was fired and clearly he needed to know more.

“Oh, so you want to hear about the lovely Mrs. Kessel? After Princess Edna and I got married she stayed home to care for her toy poodles. That didn’t last too long. Poor things, they died of lung cancer. So then my beloved, Mrs. Stay-at-home Pet Owner got herself a career three nights a week in Manhattan as a bookkeeper. It would have been a nice thing to have the house to myself those nights but because she couldn’t drive and wouldn’t ride a train I had to shuttle her back and forth. This job of hers cost me more in gas than she ever earned but God forbid I shouldn’t appear supportive. Back in those days was the beginning of the world going crazy. Men were supposed to be supportive no matter what.”

Thurber had to raise the question. “Were you ever happy?”

“I could inquire the same thing, Mr. Thurber. But okay, you asked first, were we ever happy. At times I would have to say yes, if you can believe it. First you should realize, I myself was no picnic...”

Columbus, Ohio slipped by in the distance as a nondescript blur. That’s how Thurber had pictured it all his life anyhow. The writer was tuned so completely to his companion’s tale that all he could see beyond the flashing of white painted lines was the unfolding tale that was Marty Kessel’s life...

“You maybe heard of my father. He was with the original Three Stooges back when they were still doing vaudeville as the Four Shmoes. Israel Kessel? Never heard of him? Well anyway, as it turned out, during one rehearsal he got such a poke in the eye that his equilibrium was never the same and he had to leave the act. Not a week later Moe, Larry and Curly went on to be discovered. I don’t think I need to describe the significance of that... Such heartbreak as my father suffered no man should know. Thank God I wasn’t born yet to such misery. Well, what could a man who was always stumbling into tables and tripping over his own feet do but get a job in the government? And let me tell you, he surprised everyone. With all the trouble that was going on in Europe and the fact that he spoke German, French, Italian, some Polish and who knows what else, he ended up a spy. Sam, don’t ask. You’ll just have to picture the fourth Stooge jumping out of a plane over Poland, then fill in the rest for yourself. My father never talked about the war much, but according to Aunt Sadie, her brother the spy, more than once, smuggled some very secret documents wrapped inside stale cheese blintzes... Well, after the war he met my mother and nine months later came me. Not at all how kids do it these days.”

Thurber didn’t want Marty’s narrative to stop but Thor had been bouncing Sam’s bladder mercilessly for the past thirty miles. With a quick apology for the interruption, which Mr. Kessel completely understood, Thurber pulled the motorhome off the highway and dashed aft to the potty. It was a much-needed chance to stretch anyhow for he had been glued behind the wheel since departing the giant cowboy early that morning.

Seated once again at his command post, Thurber paused before restarting the engine. After a thoughtful moment he made a confession, “Marty, you thought up that Thor-Thoreau thing all yourself, not me. I wish I could take credit.”

Marty comforted, “Listen, you would have come up with it eventually. But we’ll call it even if you tell me who this Adrianne is.”

Passing Indianapolis

SAM THURBER STOLE sidelong glances at the flat farmlands around him. Even at Thor’s steady gate of 65 miles an hour it was possible to absorb details of the landscape because Thurber knew if missed anything, he was sure to see something just like it further down the road.

Untold exits had passed and Thurber still managed to steer around Marty’s inquiry about Adrianne. The lonely writer had spent much of his life trying to avoid feelings, and questions especially, about this part of the past. Marty graciously changed the subject, after his most recent attempt to pry into Sam’s love life, by inquiring what sort of book Sam might like to write. That was a topic Thurber eagerly warmed up to.

“I’m inclined to try a political thriller,” began the writer. “It takes place during the gas crisis of the 1970s. My hero is named Dan Fargo, a former CIA agent turned mercenary. It’s an election year and a ruthless candidate who wants to unseat President Carter hires Fargo to prove the fuel shortage is a conspiracy to drive up prices.

“So, late one winter’s... no, make it a summer’s night, Fargo sneaks into an oil tank farm in Newark. You probably know the ones across the Hudson from Manhattan with all the flames and stuff. Anyway, Fargo gets past security and ascends the ladders to the top of each tank and with his miniature pen camera he photographs the proof he needs. You see, peering over the tops of the tanks Fargo can see each one is brimming with oil...” At this point Marty could not help but interrupt.

“Hold on there, Mr. Imagination Run Amok. Before you go any further I just got to ask you a couple of questions. First, you don’t follow politics much, do you. Don’t answer. We both know. Second, do you really think they build those big oil thingies without some kind of cover? Come on now, Sam. I think you got some homework to do.”

Sam was not apologetic. “It was just an idea.” But Marty was not going to let

Thurber off the hook so easily. “Mr. Head in the Sand, I have to ask. How did you ever get a book published? Why wouldn’t you write about things you know? Richard Henry Dana, he knew ships and all that sailor stuff. Fielding, knew miscreants. Beverly Cleary, she liked kids. You get the point? Someday you may come to appreciate how very lucky it was for you I was in this ashtray.”

There was an uneasy moment. Marty was perhaps a bit harsh, but he spoke the truth and Thurber knew it. It was time to be truthful in return.

“When Adrianne left me I wrote her letters almost every day. For the longest time I implored her to come back. Months went by with no reply and eventually I ran out of ways to offer my declarations of affection. Still, I hoped for any kind of response from her, so I began to mail her foolish little stories I wrote because I had nothing else to say. Well, one day about a year later a package arrived. Adrianne returned my manuscripts with a letter that read, Dear Sam, These are really very good but you must stop writing to me. Good luck, Addie.”

Marty murmured some encouragement as Thurber continued.

“So I got to rereading my stories and did a bit of rewriting. I’m not sure why but I sent my favorite out to a couple of publishers. Surprisingly one day I got a letter back inviting me to come talk to Henry Harcourt himself. He loved my story and a year later it was illustrated and in print. I suspected, as much as anything, he liked having a Thurber on his authors’ list. Good name recognition. The book sold well enough that Harcourt asked me for another, and then another and you get the idea. The fact is, mostly what I’ve done for the past twenty-five years is to keep reaching into that pile of stories, still in the same box Adrianne returned them in and forking them over to Harcourt. I have tried to write all sorts of other stuff but so far most everything comes out wrong.”

Marty consolingly remarked, “This Adrianne, she was your muse. So, wherever this woman is, she must feel proud to have been such inspiration?”

Thurber breathed an ironic chuckle. “Oh, you will be seeing her before I do.” “What are you saying? Is she...”

“Dead. Dead. Died and dead.” Thurber completed.

What solace could Marty give except, “I know what that’s like,” then softly added, “I take it Adrianne’s departure from life is a recent development and I am sorry, but I have to ask: who mourned your death when she left you all those years ago?” Was Thurber aware of what Marty was alluding to? Perhaps not. Sam was feeling too sorry for himself when these words wrote themselves in his underutilized right brain...

“On a warm morning in late spring I lay quietly under the covers as a soft wind glided through the open windows. From beyond the gently swaying curtain lace came the call of sparrows and bluejays. Adrianne, who had already awakened was in the living room. The sound of her ambitious pencil scratching away seemed to keep time with the broadcast refrains of Bach’s Clarinet Concerto in D. Even with my eyes closed I could see Addie’s lustrous brown hair draping in curls towards her desk. I knew and felt her desperation to find a means to express herself. This time she was trying to write a play. I dared not move from my half-slumber, wanting to prolong the feeling that Adrianne and I were not part of the tempestuous world we knew... that by some blessing we had wound up as lord and lady of a manor long ago...”

Sam stopped suddenly. Was it possible that Marty could hear his thoughts?

“Mr. Kessel, you there?”

Marty softly replied, “Yeah, Yeah. That was some very nice composition... almost lyrical.”

Sam was stunned. “You can read my thoughts?” “Frankly, no, Sam. Your lips were moving.”

A Little Side Trip

THE NEXT MORNING’S crack of dawn was heralded by the crack of a hard-boiled egg. Thurber, sitting in the open doorway of his parked homestead, dropped the broken bits of shell to the dusty gravel beneath his feet and washed his bites down with buttered toast and a cup of reheated Folgers. It had been a sleepless night and Thurber was more tired now than when he landed in the parking lot of Luke’s Discount Tire World the evening before.

Exhausted though he was Sam was pleased with himself for being someplace, anyplace new. It’s interesting the places you can find when you take the wrong exit.

The early sun was overcast with the air lying heavily on all it touched. Thurber drowsily thought, I don’t have to be from here, wherever here is, to know the weather is changing for the worse. I’ll have to ask Marty to tune in the forecast.

Despite his tired daze Thurber realized that his companion was unusually quiet but decided not to rouse him. Marty could be a bit draining anyhow and the way Thurber felt just then he had no energy to spare.

Thurber drove back and forth several miles on a poorly marked two-lane road until he finally got his bearings and found a place to gas up his petroleum thirsty beast. Fuel prices had jumped tremendously and Thurber gave a loud whistle as he forked over a wad of cash to the unsympathetic attendant.

When Thurber finished counting his change Marty reappeared. “We should get your super spy Dan Fargo to look into those gas prices.” Marty’s emergence took Thurber by surprise. “Where have you been?”

“Me? I was just catching a few extra winks... not that we can take turns driving. On another subject, Sammy, I couldn’t help but notice we seem to be taking a somewhat direct route west and, well, frankly back there a thousand miles or so ago we discussed the possibility of taking in a few sights... So with that off my mind, I thought I could persuade you to take a little side trip?”

Thurber could not deny the observation. He was just starting to admit to himself that he was treating this road experience the way he treated everything that had come before in his life.

“Yo ho! Mr. Complex Avoidance Mechanism Guy, I’d like to point out something Thoreau said, at least I think it was him and for now let’s say it was him because I know you heard of him and you’ll also forgive me if I paraphrase. If two people, or whatever, set out for California and one takes the train and the other walks, it’s obvious who will get there first but very certain who will have the more interesting journey.”

Thurber digested Marty’s words and realized, embarrassed, he had been caught in the act. Long-buried scenes from his life suddenly flickered before him like the second reel of a bad movie. Perhaps if he changed his ways he might have a chance to rewrite the end of the picture. But first Thurber had to face the real reason Adrianne had left him, which was that she had learned that despite all Sam’s grandiose ambitions he would never actually pursue them. In fact, it was about the time Thurber began to waver about the travels that he and Adrianne planned together that the young woman had begun to slip away from him. For years Thurber conveniently blamed another man for stealing Adrianne away. It was much easier than looking at his own shortcomings. Finally, it was recent news of Adrianne’s death that had persuaded Thurber to make this trip.

Poor Thurber tried one last time to cram his disturbing recollections back into their closet. But, try as he might, they would not fit as they once had. He would never be able to close the door again.

In the distance numerous twisters spun across the dusty plain, but Thurber as usual was too lost in his own thoughts to notice as they too passed him by.

“Hey Sammy. You’ve been very quiet. Anything you want to talk about?”

Thurber, still chewing the cud of his latest self-revelation, reentered the world of living with a dead guy...

“Mr. Kessel, about this side trip you want. I just have one rule. Don’t tell me where you are taking me. Just say left, right or whatever else you have to say to get us there.”

“You got yourself a deal, Mr. Wonderfully Spontaneous. Now I just have an itty-bitty question for you. Could you possibly tell me where we are?”

Thurber propped up the atlas on the passenger seat and, keeping one eye on the road ahead, traced out their present location and course for Marty.

“Okay, two things, Mr. Driver. First. Up ahead is an exit that will take us south for maybe two or three hundred miles. Who cares, right? The other thing is that tonight I will find you a nice diner where you will eat instead of cooking that mush you have been defrosting. Let’s face it. You’ve been cooped up far too long talking to the likes of lifeless old me. Not exactly healthy. I think being around people that don’t look like talc will do you a world of good.”

Just before sunset, on the edge of a faceless rural town in Missouri, Marty directed Sam to a long strip of minimalls, car lots and convenience stores. In the middle of this commercial alleyway, perched like some fantastic hallucination, was a two-story upside-down Victorian farmhouse. Whirling skyward from the inverted cellar was a life-size, pulsating neon cyclone.

“Well Sam, Mr. Gonna Be a Real Tourist for a Change. What do you think? You were so excited by the giant cowboy I figured this would be a real hit. Here you got a combination architectural oddity diner and miniature golf course.”

Indeed, Dorothy’s Place was one of the most perfect representations of Middle America that Thurber could have imagined. Near as he could tell it seemed an exact replica of the farmhouse from the Wizard of Oz. Ingeniously built into the inverted end gable was an entryway framed with a bevy of colored lights. Numerous cars, trucks and a few motorcycles were tightly parked between the diner and an effervescent sign proclaiming Miniature Golf – Fun Arcade.

Sam, thoroughly enthralled by Dorothy’s, wasn’t at all sure how to approach it. He peered at the scene before him from the safety of his driver’s seat.

“Hey Mr. Sense of Adventure. Look at that! It’s wonderful. Well, don’t just sit there. Go! You got a look on that punum of yours like this is a Close Encounter of the Third Kind. It’s a diner... Okay, try this. Pretend like you’re Dan Fargo. Go in and make something happen.”

Thurber began to protest, “It’s not that easy.” But he could not. Marty knew his traveling companion better than he knew himself. Sam had spent his life as a watcher, and apparently not a very good one at that.

At last as if to prove he were no coward, Thurber slid from his seat as Marty yelled “Attaboy. That’s it. Be a mensch!” The sheepish writer reached into the glove-box for his wallet the way Dick Tracy might reach for a revolver. In a voice that mimicked something from an Ian Fleming movie Sam declared aloud, “The name is Thurber... Sam Thurber.”

“That’s great, Sammy. Now go do something crazy like order from the specials menu,” cheered Marty. “And don’t come back until they... they... they... oh, boy.” For once Marty was at a loss for words.

From where he parked it took Thurber but 20 steps to cross the twilight to the luminescent doorway of Dorothy’s Place. Absorbed by the strange facade and now out of Marty Kessel’s jurisdiction, Thurber allowed himself to relax. He was going along with his ghost companion’s encouragements in part because he knew Marty was right, but also because Thurber needed a break from Marty’s barrage of incessant wisdom. More than once while driving Thurber had stopped himself from crying out, “Okay, okay, I get it. Enough already,” but Thurber’s overworked sense of decorum would not allow him to do so, for as he justified to himself, “After all, the guy’s been murdered, for Pete’s sake.”

Putting aside his inner space for the moment, Thurber took up the task of drinking in the topsy-turvy world of Dorothy’s Place. Whoever had designed the building had their hands full, for they had convincingly created an environment where up and down had completely lost their meaning. So good was the effect that Thurber suffered a brief wave of nausea as his mind struggled to make sense of this startling diner.

“Just take a seat anywhere. I’ll get a waitress over to you.” The call of a voice that was not disembodied brought some cheer to Thurber. He smiled sheepishly at the gingham-clad hostess while answering, “Er, thanks.”

Making a uncharacteristically quick decision Thurber stepped deeper inside the diner where, after brushing a few crushed french-fries off a vinyl window seat, he parked himself with a grand view of the miniature golf course next door. A moment later a menu was dropped before him and he was asked the most oft-used one-word question in the world, “Coffee?” With a response in the affirmative, the waitress whisked herself away to other, clearly more exciting tables. Now alone in his booth, Thurber considered the cyclonic theme of Dorothy’s Place. He had half a notion that the waitstaff should walk around on their hands. The idea made him chuckle as a genuinely warm sensation ran through him.

Four tables further along the same wall a different waitress in yet another blue gingham dress forked over several carefully balanced plates of steaming hot meat, grease and potatoes. To Thurber it smelled wonderful and he hungrily began to pore over his own menu. Finally, with the echo of Marty’s words chiming in his ears, Thurber narrowed his choices down to two different specials.

The Flying Monkey Chowder had a certain appeal but even with all the fixings didn’t appear very filling. No, at last Thurber selected the most eye-popping item on the list, The Cowardly Lion. It was billed as Tornado Alley’s largest sandwich and begged the question, Are you brave enough to order one? Perhaps what clinched the deal for the writer was the double side of Munchkinland Sweet Potato Fries and the Hail Dorothy Coleslaw. Not that he particularly liked fries or slaw but rather because of the poetry in their names.

With the appearance of Sam’s coffee he placed his order but then was compelled to inquire of his waitress, “I don’t remember crossing into Kansas so why the Wizard of Oz theme?” The woman smiled politely, rolled her gum behind her front teeth and pointing to a yellowed news clipping on the wall she replied in monotone, “Back in ’27 this place was in Kansas.”

Thurber realized his question was not only unoriginal, but even touristy. Ordinarily he might not even have asked it out of fear of appearing common. Was his interaction with Marty Kessel having some influence? At any rate Thurber was glad he asked because the payoff was so satisfying. “Okay,” he thought to himself. Chalk one up for Marty. Then he looked out the window and wondered what it might be like to play miniature golf.

Suddenly the deafening roar of humanity washed over Thurber as he became the unsuspecting victim of a chorus of six waitresses, a hostess, two busboys and three cooks who formed a semi-circle beside Sam’s table. Every customer in Dorothy’s Place was looking at him as a sickening roar of “He ordered the Cowardly Lion... He’s king of the forest!” accompanied by a blaring trombone and thumping bass drum, shook the restaurant right up to its very inverted foundation. Salutations complete, Thurber’s waitress skidded a four-foot long by ten-layer-high sandwich in front of the astonished and reddened traveler. A stroke of the gingham clad woman’s other hand littered the table with all sorts of smaller dishes.

When the crowd around him dissipated the mortified Sam regained enough composure to skirmish with a few unsuccessful bites. Failing to rediscover his appetite, Sam surrendered himself to a large doggie bag and hastened back to Thor. Gone was any thought about trying miniature golf.

Bristling past the dashboard Thurber cut his ghostly mentor to the quick.

“Don’t you... you... dare say a word!”

The Last 100 Miles of Marty Kessel

IS IT ANY WONDER that Thurber blamed Marty for his public humiliation? After all, Marty had goaded Sam into trying something outside his usual venue. The writer, sitting mute in the parked motorhome, had every intention of giving Marty the silent treatment and quipped to himself about driving to California as fast as he could to dump the ghost’s “sorry ash.”

Thurber’s unspoken joke caught him off guard. He started to smile, then chuckle out loud as the entire ridiculous situation in the restaurant came into perspective.

Marty begged. “Hey, Mr. Comedian, what’s so funny?” But Thurber, wishing to keep the upper hand for a change, was not ready to explain except by saying, “I think I over-ordered, Mr. Kessel.” With that Thurber stowed all but a short length of the humongous sandwich.

After consuming his quantity of bread, meat, pickles and yellow cheese on a more human scale, Thurber washed down supper with a glass of orange juice. The kind with the pulp. Well fed and happy the weary traveler prepared for bed by finishing with a warm goodnight for the puzzled Marty.

Over the next six weeks it was a changed Sam Thurber with his friend Marty Kessel who bounded across America. From one parkland to another, from one tacky diner to the next... through cities and countrysides they roamed. Even the mundane felt extraordinary as natural and man-made sights blended into a joyful canvas. Nothing could spoil their shear pleasure of being on the move. It didn’t matter that they arrived in Capistrano the day the swallows were leaving. Why should they care that a sign at Old Faithful read Closed for Maintenance? The odd friends didn’t just cross the country. They traveled with abandon, erratically chasing every scent they fancied like two dogs romping together across an open field.

Late one night, passing into Montana, the travelers, on a lark, decided to restart their voyage so they might visit the states in alphabetical order. Putting Thor into a wildly spontaneous U-turn Thurber headed toward Alabama... but on a hot bumpy road in New Mexico Marty noticed that Thor was starting to smoke. A gunmetal-blue cloud was vomiting from the tailpipe. While Thurber inspected the rear of the idling motor coach, Marty extolled, “Last time I saw smoke that color was from the posterior of my father’s Studebaker. When was the last time you put oil in the engine anyway?” Taken somewhat aback, all Thurber could answer was, “Oil?”

Marty did not participate in the unkind and surprisingly foul-mouthed rebukes that Thurber showered upon himself. To say there was no oil in the engine would be unfair. But what little lubricant that did remain, however, formed a black sludge whose consistency resembled chocolate pudding.

Reading his friend’s dismay Mary resounded, “Sammy, if you ever doubted the existence of a God, cast it aside now. Our breakdown happened in the best possible place, for we are blessed to find ourselves amidst a special people who will help us breathe life into our Thor so that we may, at the very least, complete our journey. Now cheer up and turn this thing around. Not so far back we passed a whatchamacallit... bodega.”

Very disheartened, Thurber nursed his ailing Thor along the previously traveled roadway. In the glaring New Mexican sun, just one desolate mile short of the bodega, Thor seemed to take his last gasp. Fortunately the burst of steam from the radiator lifted skyward like a smoke signal. Within minutes an old man in a faded Chevy pickup came into view. Chained to his front bumper was a burly, rimless tractor tire. He smiled at Thurber through a grayed moustache. The sun beaten stranger grinned as if to say, “I will take care of you.”

The next thing Sam knew he was steering a comatose Dodge Travco while being pushed by a vehicle which by every right should have died long before his dear Thor.

“Divine intervention Sammy?” laughed Marty. Thurber, though helpless, wanted to wait and see.

“Hey, Mr. Gloomy Because I’m Stuck in the Middle of Nowhere, there are mysteries to keeping an old engine going that the Fates have decided to reveal only to a select few,” is what Marty told Thurber as they watched three quiet men work in unspeaking unison on Thor’s worn-out motor.

The only air moving in the searing heat came from the tail of a mangy dog.

Every once in a while the mongrel arose, seeming to inspect the mechanic’s handiwork. Thurber’s curiosity at the ongoing activity was shared by Kessel, who did his best to narrate.

Several large black hoses were removed from the Dodge and tossed to the ground. Following much hammering and the clanking of wrenches, a flying-saucer- shaped thingy came whizzing out past the driver’s seat. Thurber picked it up and before he had a chance to study it Carlos, their mysterious savior, turned and explained, “It’s the thermostat. You won’t need it around here.” Then the Chicano turned back and began stretching volumes of duct tape around something or other.

Next, near as Marty could figure, one of the men was pouring kerosene into the hole in the engine where the oil was supposed to go. Thurber whispered that he didn’t much like the looks of that, especially when the men started the engine and more black Jell-O came shooting out from between Thor’s front tires. “Sammy, you have to believe in magic. And besides, do we have a choice? You best just tell yourself that you are a privileged witness to a secret ceremony.”

And sure enough, just two hours later, much as Marty had predicted, Thor was running with only the most minimal of fumes seeping from his tailpipe. Carlos clapped the dirt from his hands while proudly listening to the purr of his handiwork. Pleased, he then pulled a small figurine from his pocket and adhered it lovingly to the center of Thor’s dashboard. That done, Carlos turned to Thurber to settle the tab. “I think I will not charge you for the work, but the Saint Christopher who I just placed in your blessed home will cost two hundred dollars.”

Jostling down the road once more the companions remained silent until they passed the spot where Thor had first entered his death throws. For certain they were both aware something had just changed about their journey. The blithe spirit had suddenly vanished. The spectre of Thor gasping by the roadside weighed heavily on the friends. It was Marty who confronted the silence.

“I suspect, Mr. Sammy, that we are thinking the same thing?” Thurber was attentive so Marty continued with their shared thoughts. “It’s time we got me to the Pacific. Like we discussed, toss me someplace nice. My journey is wonderfully complete. It’s time for you to start yours for real.” Thurber glanced at the ashtray where Marty Kessel lay and realized for the first time that it was with an unexpectedly deep fondness.

“Sammy. honey, sorry to interrupt.”

“It’s okay, Adrianne,” Thurber replied, lifting his eyes from his typewriter. He looked to the woman who had long ago stolen his heart. She continued. “You’ve been writing most of the day and, well, I was wondering if we were going to go look at the motorhome we saw listed in the paper... and please don’t tell me you changed your mind again.”

Thurber didn’t know what to answer. He was lost on the West Coast, perhaps on Highway 1, searching for the last hundred miles of Marty Kessel.

Then, seeing the disheartened look come across Adrianne’s face, the budding author gave an encouraging smile and begged for a little more time to finish his story. Adrianne answered by placing a light kiss on Thurber’s brow before quietly turning to gaze out their fourth-floor window to the dead-end street below.

“Hey, Mr. Sammy, who was that?” inquired a puzzled Marty.

“That was Adrianne,” replied Thurber.

Marty hastened, “Listen, we don’t have much time. Do you still love this girl?” Sam didn’t have to say a word. The answer was so obvious. “Okay, Mr. Romeo. You drop me off just like we planned. But then you take your trip with your Juliette. You got a chance I never had. Don’t screw it up.”

The next two hours of driving were spent in idle chatter. Neither Thurber nor Marty wanted to think that their parting was near. They remarked on how well Thor was running and the fortunate weather. As they crested a hill near the Northern coast of California Sam finally admitted the possibility of divine intervention. Suddenly Marty blurted out, “There! Pull over there!”

The Pacific Ocean crashed in sparkling white bands against the bold California cliffs. Standing wide-eyed above the raw splendor, Thurber took a deep breath, filling himself with the crisp sea air. It was like nothing he had ever experienced in his fifty-two years on earth. The tremendous expanse of rich blue water moved Thurber the way it had Balboa, Magellan and Cortez when they too had set eyes upon it for the first time. Now, five hundred years later, he had reached an apex in his own journey. He knew wherever his travels brought him next, it didn’t really matter. But for now, Thurber had a promise to keep. It would not be easy to say good-bye to Marty.

“Beautiful, isn’t it, Sammy?” Marty called across the breeze. “I tried my whole life to get here. Could you ever imagine you might have passed this up?” Thurber stepped back to his motorhome and reached for the dashboard ashtray. “Ready, Mr. Kessel?”

“Er, Sammy, wait... Please don’t open that. There is something I got to tell you.”

Thurber froze in place, wondering what Marty was up to.

“Well, the truth is, Mr. Creative Guy... you made me up.” Sam was astonished. “I did?”

“Yep. Every word.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means, Mr. Sammy, we say good-bye and you go make your life with Adrianne. She is so much more real to you than I am... Just promise me you’ll keep writing.”

Perplexed, Thurber sat behind Thor’s wheel and scanned the lush ocean spread before him. He thought long and hard of opening the ashtray but finally decided he didn’t want to know for sure.

After an hour or so of lonely reflection Sam Thurber started the engine to begin his journey anew. As Thor began to roll Sam thought he heard Marty whisper, “He’s a good kid.”

The Journey of Sam Thurber

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON when Sam and Adrianne jumped off the Avenue R bus. Hand in hand they made the short walk up East 29th Street to the painted brick house where an old Dodge Travco motorhome awaited their inspection. At the appropriate address the young couple crossed up the three steps and rang the bell. They heard its rude buzz and a hoarse woman shout, “Just a minute.”

A moment later the door opened, expelling a waft of cigarette smoke.

“If you are here about the damn bus you’ll find it and Mr. Marco Polo World Traveler back in the driveway.” The woman started to close the door but then added, “Let me know if he is asking too much money. I’ll give you the difference.” As quickly as it opened, the door snapped shut.

More than a little stunned, Sam and Adrianne clambered down the steps and headed for the driveway. A chubby, balding man dressed in shorts and baggy shirt was using a buffing cloth to remove the excess wax from one of the chromed headlight rims. He turned and smiled at the couple standing before him. Sam looked the grinning stranger in the eyes and puzzled over the man’s wink.

“The name’s Marty. I hate to sell this beauty but I suspect you may be saving my life...”

The End

©Neal Evan Parker April 4, 2007– June 17 2007