Side Roads and Dandelions

by W.H. Harrod

  ~~ Chapter Thirteen

  Bright lights, radiating from the far horizon, brought the conversation to a close and Allison, for one, felt relieved. They had come close enough to the lair of her personal demons for the present. There would come a time in the future when she could tell her whole story. First though, she intended to recount the story to a soon to be surprised prominent citizen of the Berkeley community. That’s why it was so important the three people she trusted most in this world came with her. Not to give her the courage to confront this person, but to keep her from killing the bastard.

  “It’s chow time everybody,” said Allison. “Who’s ready for some grub?”

  Sam looked at his watch. It was already past midnight. “What are we supposed to eat at this hour of the night? Breakfast, dinner, lunch, brunch?”

  “Hey, I told you guys that I have my meal waiting for me in this bag. You get what you want, don’t worry about me.” Ernest held his remaining onion-fried burger in hand as he spoke.

  “You have to come in and sit with us,” responded Allison. “The last time we didn’t have that opportunity, what with you and Bobby becoming such good friends with the nice policeman.”

  “I’ll go with you,” came the unexpected reply from Bobby as he raised himself from his pallet. “I ought to get something more solid inside me pretty soon.”

  “Great!” said Allison relieved to see Bobby coming to life. “Now does anyone remember the name of the restaurant?”

  No one spoke up. Then, Bobby, of all people had a recollection. “I kinda remember it being located on the same side of the street out towards the tourist store that had the big tee-pee out front. I’m pretty sure there weren’t many other restaurants in that general area so it ought to be easy enough to find.”

  “Great, let’s do it. Sam, the exit should be right up ahead. I’m so happy, I’m going to get to eat inside this time,” said Allison excitedly.

  When they first exited the interstate the full effect of the changes to the community they visited so briefly years before were obvious.

  They expected the new motels and truck stops to appear around busy interstate exits, but they soon discovered a solid wall of bright lights advertising every national chain restaurant, motel, and quick shop known to the traveling world. Thirty-four years earlier only dimly lit motels and an occasional restaurant existed here and there. To try to find something old mixed in with this vast assemblage of modern day lighting fixtures posed a challenge. Allison started to look for her sunglasses as the brightness caused her to squint.

  “Oh, my God! What happened? Does anyone see any building anywhere that looks to be more than ten years old? Oh, wait, there’s one. I don’t remember it, but it looks ancient compared to this other stuff. This can’t be the old Route 66, can it?” lamented Allison.

  It was the old Route 66 according to the many signs claiming some past association with a previous structure or business that once served the intrepid travelers of a bygone era. It’s doubtful that any other event in recent memory did so much to make the bunch of them feel so old than did this sudden shock to their collective memories. To their minds it was merely last month or last year since they came through this desert oasis during their flight for safety.

  “You sure this is the right place?” asked Sam.

  “This is it,” said Allison. “Can you believe this? Somebody stole the town and left a Las Vegas knock off in its place. Do they need all these lights? There are only two or three other cars on the streets. No wonder I saw the lights from a hundred miles back.”

  “That’s progress,” said Sam with obvious resignation in his tone. “Somebody go ahead and pick out one of the chain restaurants. At least we will know what we’re getting. They prepare the exact foods to the same specifications. I’m open as long as I don’t have to eat anything Mongolian.”

  “No!” Allison yelled. “Keep going. We’re not going to give up yet. We’re looking for authentic local road kill. I’m with Ernest. This time we need to find some real food prepared from local parts and pieces. We’ll have the opportunity to eat chain restaurant food for the rest of our lives once this is over.”

  They drove on looking for anything that jogged any part of their long dormant memories of their past life experiences. Occasionally an original structure did appear along the route, but for the most part they were dwarfed by the gaudiness of their newer and larger neighbors. They had become relics just like the gaping occupants of the rainbow colored time capsule cruising along amidst the scattered residue of an earlier generation.

  “Look there!” said Ernest excitedly. “That’s the tee-pee up ahead that you wanted to see. So where’s our restaurant?”

  “I think that’s it,” said Bobby pointing to a darkened building located a half-block farther on. “It looks like it’s closed. I guess it’s hard to compete for business with the bright lights we’ve passed by so far.”

  They were at the end of the strip by now and nothing old or original looked to be open for business save for a couple of motels. It was going to be either bright light chain food or no food, excepting, of course, Ernest who clutched his prize closer to his chest for protection.

  Not one of the three men seemed prepared to remind Allison of the obvious. Like she always said, Whoever spoke first, lost. The guys riding in the bus with her were not going to be mistaken for Einstein’s, but they didn’t get to this advanced stage of life without learning something about the opposite sex. Right now, most likely all of their male instincts screamed loudly for them to shut up.

  “Just turn here and head back to the interstate. I’d rather eat some truck stop swill than that cookie cutter stuff behind us,” mumbled Allison.

  “So would I,” agreed Sam.

  “Me, too,” said Bobby. “I live on truck stop food.”

  “I told you I already have my food,” said Ernest defiantly, “but I will go in with you and get them to warm up my OFB for me.”

  As they turned towards the interstate, the bright lights of a distant truck stop beckoned them. Allison scratched one of the side roads off the list. Her profound disappointment showed. There is still a lot of highway between us and the coast, she rationalized. We’ll find something familiar somewhere ahead.

  This truck stop attracted customers other than local farmers looking for a good breakfast and a place to gossip. Hundreds of giant rigs cluttered the acres of asphalt-paved surface carved out of the semi-arid landscape. Compared to the hugeness of the trucks, the VW bus looked like a child’s colorful toy creeping among prodigious piles of sheet metal on wheels. In the center of this activity sat an otherwise nondescript building wrapped in enough incandescent and neon signage to make the former keepers of the lighthouse at Alexandria proud. This is where the group would fill both the gas tank and their stomachs.

  Safely parked among the few passenger vehicles present, the group exited the bus without further comment and started to make their way inside the restaurant. Bobby, unaware of Allison’s gaze, donned his jungle fatigue jacket saying the dry night air gave him a chill. Ernest and Sam, on the other hand, felt no need for additional clothing so they started for the entrance in mufti. They did not proceed far before the heat of Allison’s gaze brought both of them to a halt. Sam instantly recognized the problem.

  “Are you serious?” he asked. “You want me to wear that heavy leather jacket into that restaurant? What do you want Ernest to wear, his beret and sunglasses? You do, don’t you?”

  The delay cost them less than a minute. Allison entered first fully arrayed in her ‘60s attire. Bobby in his Vietnam jacket, followed. Straggling behind, walked Sam, decked out in leather and looking like an eight-year-old child, being led into church in front of his pals wearing a hand-me-down suit and tie. Bringing up the rear the hefty frame of Ernest trudged along wearing the requisite Black Panther accoutrements -- black beret and dark sunglasses. Hardly anyone noticed when he kicked over a bucket outside the entrance used for the disposal of cigarette
butts because he couldn’t see it.

  Fortunately, the sign inside the door next to the checkout counter told them to seat themselves. The part of the restaurant not reserved for truck drivers was limited and mostly empty. One old truck driver missed his mouth altogether as he tried to ingest a dripping hunk of sausage as the odd group passed by his roped off area. The only other customers in the civilian area consisted of two elderly people, who belonged to a monster motor home parked diagonally across six passenger car-only parking spaces, and two young couples.

  The old truck driver, having recovered from the shock of witnessing four aging adults in search of a ‘60s costume party saunter by his table, returned to minding his own business, which apparently involved clogging every artery in his body before daylight. The young folks stared in unison as if they were witnessing the reappearance of a previously extinct species.

  Allison and Bobby cared little about who looked at them. Sam, on the other hand, looked as if he sat on a two-pound hemorrhoid. Ernest noticed the stares of the younger people and glowered back at them.

  “Okay, Mustafa,” said Allison. “You can stop trying to scare those kids. I doubt they ever heard of Huey Newton anyway. Why don’t you break out that side of meat you have there in that greasy sack so it can be heated up for you.”

  She struck a chord because Ernest immediately turned his attention to the bag he still held tightly under his arm. Allison summoned a waitress, and in short order, “Lucy” their home grown and vivacious young order taker read back their order to make sure she had it right.

  “Well, let’s see now. That’s one baked chicken breast with a dry side salad without the onions and water to drink with a lemon slice. Next, we have a small bowl of chicken soup with black coffee. Then we have eggs benedict, light on the paprika and lemon, which I’ll be sure to tell the cook will overwhelm the true flavor of the hollandaise sauce. I’ll see if we have any glass bottles of European natural spring water. And again, I’m sorry about that stupid remark about our wine steward being at home stomping grapes. I didn’t know you were serious about wanting to know if we serve that Chardonnay stuff. If you want I can check with some of the drivers, some of them like to carry a jug of Ripple with them occasionally. You don’t? Well, if you change your mind it won’t be a problem for me to ask around. Lastly, I’m going to take the leaky contents of this bag over to that microwave and heat it up for two minutes and bring it back with a large vanilla shake. That it? I’ll be right back.”

  “What?” exclaimed Sam after the waitress left the table. “Can I help it if my tastes have become slightly more refined? At least I’m not asking them to warm up a bag of grease.”

  Before Ernest had time to respond to this slight their waitress returned. “I told the cook about the sauce. He acted real pleased for the advice. We don’t have any natural spring bottled water. All we have is the stuff we get out of Albuquerque. Is that okay? Good. One other thing, are you guys hippies? We saw your bus outside, and Thelma, the manager here, said it looks like those hippie buses that used to come through here on old Route 66 back in the ‘60s. If you came through here back then, you could have met my grandpa. He was a police officer.”

  All four looked at each other. Could this be a relative of the same policeman that befriended Ernest and Bobby back in 1969?

  Allison asked the obvious question. “Was your grandpa a policeman in 1969? He was, was he. Well per chance, did he ever mention anything about meeting up with some very dirty hippies one morning out at the lake who saved a bird?”

  You could hear the waitresses screaming all the way out in the parking lot. “Are you the hippies he met that morning? He told that story to every person in town until he died a few years back. Who’s Ernest and who’s Bobby?”

  Both Bobby and Ernest looked meekly at one another prior to raising their hands.

  The waitress screamed once more. “Thelma, come here and bring the camera. It’s Ernest and Bobby. Hurry!”

  By now other diners began to gather at a safe distance to catch sight of the heroes of legend. Many of them had heard the same story over the years and knew it well.

  Once more Allison and Sam may as well have been sitting at the North Pole. Bobby and Ernest were again the center of attention. Not one person glanced in their direction no matter that they sat only inches away.

  “Can I have both of you guys’ autographs?” asked Lucy still giddy from the experience. “Why don’t you both go ahead and sign several of these menus, if you will. I know everybody’s gonna want to see the real names. Hurry up with that camera, Thelma!”

  The whole place became a circus. Every person whoever heard the story came over to the table to shake the hands of the legendary Bobby and Ernest who wallowed in the muck and mire to save a red tail hawk in distress. Many who heard the story for the first time came over, too. Sam and Allison, completely unbothered by the throng, busied themselves with their meals. Only later did Sam admit that his eggs benedict had excessive amounts of lemon and paprika added. He washed down the eggs with a couple of swigs of tap water served in a plastic bottle. He said he regretted not taking Lucy up on her offer to check around and see if any of the drivers had an extra bottle of Ripple.

  Allison felt pleased her dear friends were once more receiving their just rewards for the heroic efforts they made those many years ago. Only one thing bothered her, she and Sam had to pay for their barely adequate meals, while of course, the admirers picked up the tab for the two heroes. She could barely restrain herself from shouting, “It’s my bus!”

  Try as they might it took another thirty minutes to satisfy the throng and get back on the road. Allison drove, rebuffing the offers of the two earlier backseat passengers who had once again gotten the red carpet treatment in a friendly little community that Allison now disliked.

  With all the sarcasm she could muster, Allison spoke to a yet grinning Ernest who sat beside her in the front passenger seat. “I’m so sorry they couldn’t get hold of someone from the newspaper to come over and record for posterity this very touching event. When we come back through we should call first. Maybe they’ll have the blown up photographs framed and hung on the wall along with the signed menus. By the way, I thought you said you felt like an idiot for having gone out there and gotten muddy for that stupid bird. How come when you retold the story you said it was a natural instinct, something any animal lover would do.”

  Ernest wouldn’t stop smiling, no matter what his envious friend said out of jealousy.

  Waxing philosophical, Sam reflected on the experience from the safety of his rear seat. “I suppose such is life when simple events are shuffled from the more pastoral confines of the side roads and are thrown pell-mell into life’s fast lane. Yet, I did learn one thing,” continued Sam. “If anyone ever asks me about my dining experience in this fair community, I’m going to tell them to be sure to order the Ripple.”