The Car

by Gary Paulsen

  Large drops were spattering across the windshield now and he turned the wipers on. There were three small wipers and he couldn’t help smiling as they kicked in. They looked silly. But they worked.

  He would have to hole up, take the next exit and pull the plastic out and wait for it to clear.

  It was a mile and a half to the next exit and by the time he turned off the highway he was soaked.

  He steered the Cat off the highway, down the exit ramp, and pulled over to the side at the bottom near some trees.

  It took just a moment to pull the plastic out from behind the seat and spread it over the car, with him underneath, the water slithering off to the side. He left the engine running and flicked the switch for the heater. It was small, a little one-speed motor, but he felt warm air blowing onto his feet and thought it would help dry him off.

  Dry or not, it was warm and he had not slept properly for over a week, just catching a doze when he could, and now with the heater blowing and filling the car with warm air, and the rain pattering on the plastic and the darkness coming down he could not keep his eyes open.

  They closed gently and sleep started to take him, would have taken him except that on the passenger side of the Cat there was a rustling sound and a round face with a beard poked under the plastic.

  “The quality of mercy is not strain’d;

  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.

  It is twice bless’d.

  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

  And Terry opened his eyes for his first view of Waylon Jackson.

  7

  “WHAT . . . WHO?” Terry was only half awake.

  “Shakespeare wrote that. It’s about rain. I need mercy and a dry place to sit so I thought it was appropriate. Do you mind?”

  Waylon slid in beneath the plastic, hunkering down. He left a backpack outside but brought in a guitar case—which barely fit down between his knees—and smiled over at Terry. “Cozy, isn’t it?”

  “I . . . didn’t plan on company.”

  “Ahh, yes. A loner. I thought so. Me, too. But still, sometimes we have to work together or we fall apart, right?”

  The guy is whacked, Terry thought. Completely nuts. He’s probably a serial killer. I’m sitting under a piece of plastic in the rain with a serial killer.

  But in some way he didn’t feel afraid or threatened. The man looked friendly, crouched down, his face lighted by the glow from the instrument panel—Terry noticed that the light on the fuel indicator was flickering and he reached under the dash almost without thinking and pushed the light firmly into place—but still, he didn’t want this guy sitting in the car. He didn’t know him, didn’t know anything about him.

  “Clearly you’re traveling. I noticed all the gear packed on the back luggage rack. Would you be going east or west?” Waylon asked.

  “West,” Terry answered promptly, then shook his head. “I mean I’m not sure.” I mean, he thought, it’s none of your business, but he didn’t say it.

  “Me, too. All the way to where the blue part starts. It’s a long way to run alone, isn’t it?”

  Terry shook his head. “No, I don’t mind. I do it all the time. . . .”

  “Of course, of course. Still, a man gets lonely on such a long trip. And then, too, there’s the expense. Gas, oil, breakdowns. Then there’s the intellectual tedium.”

  Breakdowns, Terry thought. The possibility hadn’t occurred to him. He had almost twelve hundred dollars left and it seemed like a lot of money. Still, if this man was willing to pay his way—he shook his head. He didn’t know the guy. Some weirdo gets in the car spouting Shakespeare and the next thing you know he kills you and chops you up and puts you in garbage sacks and mails the pieces to South America. “Intellectual tedium?”

  Waylon nodded. “It’ll cause brain damage. That’s what happened back in the fifties and then again all through the eighties. Tedium that led to brain damage. The whole damn world. You don’t want that to happen to you, not driving across the country. You don’t want to turn into something from the fifties or eighties—a lopped-out, intellectually dead piece of Republican manure—do you?”

  “No.” Terry shook his head, then shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know. I guess not.”

  “Exactly. And I can keep that from happening.”

  “You can?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve done it before. Many times.”

  “How?”

  “It’s complicated. There’s music, and verse, and books, and just pointing at things. How old are you?”

  Terry almost told him the truth, then caught himself and lied. “Eighteen.”

  Waylon studied him in the soft light, then nodded slowly. “I thought so—in fact I actually thought you might be nineteen.”

  “You did?” Terry asked hopefully.

  “No. I’m lying there. You have to look for the lies—I’ll be throwing them in from time to time. It helps to break the tedium. But you look older than your age, anyway. When I was your age I was on the road, except I didn’t have a car. I thumbed it and rode some trains, worked here and there. Back in the early sixties . . .”

  Terry frowned. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Was it?” Waylon smiled. “It seems like just last week sometimes.” He lifted the plastic. “Look, the rain is stopping.”

  Terry lifted the plastic and peeked out into the darkness. A breath of warm, soft summer air hit his face and he pushed the plastic farther back. It had indeed stopped raining. A quick summer storm.

  “Shall we go?” Waylon peeled his side of the plastic back all the way, pushing droplets of water down the side of the car onto the ground. He reached out and got his pack, held it in his lap.

  And Terry thought of all the things he should say but didn’t; thought of telling the man, Waylon, to get out, thought of telling Waylon that he wasn’t really taking a trip but that his parents were waiting at home, but none of it came out.

  “Right,” he said. “West it is . . .”

  The Cat was already running. He caught first, moved off the shoulder, crossed a small road, and caught second and third as the Cat nosed up the highway entrance back onto I-40.

  Waylon shook the rest of the plastic off, folded it neatly, and put it down in the small opening behind the seats and leaned back, taking the summer night air on his face with the same soft smile he’d had earlier, when he first stuck his head in and spoke Shakespeare to Terry.

  They moved onto the highway. Terry shifted the Cat to fourth and looked at the speedometer.

  Sixty-five exactly. He had just seen a sign saying that was the speed limit. He didn’t want to speed. If the cops stopped him they’d find out the plate wasn’t really any good and that he didn’t have a license and it would be all over. He’d have to take it easy.

  But it was hard to think of problems.

  He was heading west on a warm summer night. The stars were coming out. The headlights seemed to be adjusted about right. Waylon was humming some kind of tune next to him, and Terry didn’t care about yesterday, tomorrow, last week, or next week.

  Just tonight. And the road. And the car he’d made with his own hands.

  The Cat.

  8

  THE HIGHWAY he took west—I-80/90—was a toll road. He went through the booth, feeling the man inside was staring at him, and then drove for two hours, holding sixty-five, letting the warm wind coming over the top of the windshield and around the sides blow Cleveland somewhere to the rear.

  When he’d put the dashboard together it had come with a small map light that had given him problems. It hadn’t fit the hole made for it, and he had finally used a round file to enlarge the hole. Then the wire in the harness that came with the kit hadn’t been long enough and he had spliced a piece in to make it fit and the splice hadn’t been good enough and now the light flickered.

  He turned the light on and worked a hand up in the area of the splice and squeezed it and the light glowed stea
dily.

  Waylon was dozing, and Terry took a moment to study his face in the glow.

  He seemed happy. Even sleeping he had a smile in his eyes somehow, some look that made Terry want to smile as well.

  Terry was still concerned. He was setting out on a trip across the country with what amounted to a complete stranger. It was crazy. But the whole thing was crazy anyway. What was one more crazy part?

  Waylon’s eyes opened suddenly and he was looking directly into Terry’s eyes. He smiled, or rather his sleeping smile widened.

  “I have done this for so many years it all seems like one car, one highway, one country.” He rubbed his face, looked at his wrist—there was no watch there but he nodded. “About three in the morning. This is the worst time to drive as far as sleep is concerned. You want me to drive awhile?”

  Terry started. Let somebody else drive the Cat? “No . . . I’ll take it.”

  “I thought as much. So then, we’ll talk. What do you want to talk about?”

  Terry shrugged. A truck moved past him on the highway and the wind from the trailer of the semi buffeted the Cat around. He held it in the center of the lane.

  “How about how we should leave the highway?” Waylon asked.

  “Why? It’s good road and goes the direction we want to go and . . .”

  “And it’s patrolled heavily and you’re underage, driving a car with invalid license plates, and if you get popped I get popped. It’s not new for me. I was detained a few times back in the sixties and seventies—when getting arrested meant you cared. But it might not be so much fun for you.”

  “How did you know all that?” Terry had actually jerked the wheel in surprise at Waylon’s words.

  “I know you’re underage because of how you look and how I see things. If you’re too young to have a driver’s license, the plates probably aren’t valid. I know you haven’t been arrested because we’ve met three state patrol cars and you didn’t notice any of them. If you’ve ever been arrested you always see police.”

  “We did?” Terry turned and looked back. “Are they still around?”

  “No. They were going the other way. But it might be a good idea to get off the toll road and travel the back highways. Toll roads suck.”

  “I kind of like them,” Terry said. “They’re so nice and wide.”

  “You don’t see anything. Don’t learn anything.” Waylon put his arm out to the side and directed a stream of air against his face. “You don’t learn, you die.”

  Terry said nothing, thought about what Waylon had said. A sign said there was an exit for a state highway in one mile. “How about that road? Will that take us where we want to go?”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “West.” Terry gestured with his chin. “To Portland, Oregon.” He pointed across Waylon. “There’s a small road atlas in that pocket on the door. Why don’t you check on the map and see?”

  Waylon nodded. “Take the exit, we’ll work it out from there.”

  Terry turned off the toll road and came to a booth. He paid fifty cents and drove through—feeling this man was staring as well—and after a mile and a half pulled off onto a side road.

  “What have you found?”

  Waylon had the map under the little map light, tracing a line with his finger. “It goes for eight or ten miles and then turns into a county road, but if we cut west for twenty miles or so it becomes another state highway. Not a toll road. It all seems to work west.”

  Terry yawned. “I’m getting kind of tired.”

  Waylon nodded. “Maybe we better grab some sleep, and then I’ll cook breakfast and we can get started on a full stomach. It’s nicer to run in the day. You see more. You lea—”

  “Learn more.” Terry smiled. “I know.”

  “See?” Waylon leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. “You’re learning already.”

  Terry looked at him for a moment, then leaned back as well and closed his own eyes. In less than five seconds he was asleep.

  9

  THE SMELL awakened him; stole in over the door of the Cat, slid sideways and into his nose, and prompted a signal from his brain.

  Food.

  Food cooking.

  Good food cooking.

  Terry opened his eyes and found that he’d been sleeping with his head sideways over the seat, his mouth open. His neck was so stiff he couldn’t straighten his head for a moment and he wiped drool from his chin.

  Class, he thought. I’ve got real class. . . .

  He had forgotten Waylon until his head popped up over the side of the car. “Morning. You ready to eat?”

  That was the smell. Waylon was cooking.

  “I have to pee,” Terry said, “big time.”

  “Grab a bush.”

  Terry went to a nearby stand of willow, waited while a car passed before finishing, then came back to the car.

  “You sleep good?”

  “I think so. My neck is still bent.”

  “After a while you learn to keep your head straight.”

  Terry came around the rear end of the Cat and stopped.

  There was what seemed to be a kitchen on the ground by the car door. Waylon had spread a small red-and-white checkered tablecloth and set it with two plastic cups, two metal plates—both dented but clean—and two forks and two knives. Off to the side a small camp stove with an external bright red aluminum tank was cooking quietly. On top of the stove was a one-gallon aluminum pot, also beat up but clean, and something in the pot was cooking with a smell that made Terry’s mouth water. He suddenly remembered that he hadn’t had a proper cooked meal in over a week—just bits of junk food while he worked on the Cat. Next to the pot but on the ground was a small coffeepot, also steaming.

  “What is it?”

  “In the small pot or the big one?”

  “The big one.”

  Waylon smiled. “Beef stroganoff.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Beef and sour cream over noodles. Or it’s supposed to be. I kind of make my own from a recipe I learned in Vietnam.”

  “What kind of recipe?”

  “It’s a can of beef stew on top of noodles with water and two tablespoons of nondairy creamer muted in. Sit down and have some coffee—that’s in the other pot. I’m sorry there aren’t any napkins.”

  “Right.” Terry squatted. “It ruins the whole thing, not having napkins.”

  I don’t, he started to say, drink coffee. But then I don’t build cars or take off across the country, either. It might be time to try something new. It might be time to try everything new. Besides, the smell of the coffee seemed to make his mouth water as much as the beef stroganoff.

  Waylon poured coffee in both cups. It had cooled somewhat but was still hot enough to burn Terry’s mouth when he took a sip. It tasted bitter.

  “Is there sugar?” he asked.

  Waylon shook his head. “Ruins it. Coffee has to be taken black or not at all.”

  Terry nodded but said nothing.

  Waylon used a large spoon to ladle food from the pot onto the plates. “Eat up. We’re wasting daylight.”

  Terry took a bite and found it to be hot as well as delicious. So good he kept trying to eat it hot, wiggling his tongue.

  Waylon let his cool, then ate carefully, chewing each bite slowly, looking at the trees, the birds that flew past.

  Terry finally got it all down and leaned back, belched. “That was incredible—where did you get it?”

  “From my pack. I live in the pack.”

  “But a tablecloth? And two plates?”

  Waylon cleaned his plate carefully, using a clump of grass. “It isn’t necessary to be savage just because you aren’t in a building.” He pointed at Terry’s plate. “That needs to be cleaned.”

  Terry nodded and used another clump of grass to clean his plate and fork.

  “We’ll use hot water on the plates when we stop for gas.” Waylon put the eating equipment away, carefully fitting the pans and c
ups inside the cooking pot, then folding the tablecloth and placing it gently in the pack. When he was done, he tied the pack on top of Terry’s bag on the back of the luggage rack and then pulled out the atlas. “Let’s see where we’re going.”

  Terry came around the car and looked at the atlas. “West,” he said. “On back roads.”

  “Well, there’s back roads, and then there’s back roads.” Waylon traced a finger on the map. “If we go this way, work these smaller state highways, we’ll see some country but there’s a chance we’ll get stopped and we can’t afford to get stopped, right?”

  “Right.”

  Waylon studied Terry. “It isn’t that you’ve done anything wrong, is it?”

  Terry shook his head. “I don’t think so. I just built the car and found the license plates in the garage to put on it.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They left me.”

  “Both of them?”

  Terry nodded. “Sort of.”

  “Booze?”

  Terry shook his head. “No. They just aren’t the types who make parents.”

  “Are they going to be looking for you?”

  Terry thought about it. “Maybe later. A lot later. In two weeks or so. If they find I’m missing. But not right away.”

  “So we’re just in a nonregistered vehicle.”

  “I guess so. Yeah.”

  “Which the police won’t be looking for.”

  “I don’t think so—why should they?”

  “Well, if they’re not looking for you and they’re not looking for the car and they’re not looking for me, we can take the better state roads and make some time. Let’s do that, shall we?”

  Terry was already back around the car and he dropped into the seat “Just tell me where to go.”

  He turned the key and the starter cranked, but the car didn’t start. He let it grind for a while, until the battery seemed to be wearing down, then stopped. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “It cooled last night She needs a little choke—just a minute.” Waylon opened the hood and propped it on the rod braces, fumbled with the air cleaner on top of the carburetor, and removed it.