The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America

by McIntyre, Mike

  Halfway across, I stop and stare down at the river. I think of the sorry bastard who jumped from here and drowned. He died stealing a car. Maybe he was a murderer who got what was coming. Or maybe he was just a petty thief who panicked and lost his life for a hunk of metal. I forgot to ask the fisherman if they ever found the guy’s body. I wonder if he had a wife and kids? Was there anyone who loved him? Was he ever befriended by a kind stranger?

  I’m glad to see Mel and Judie’s trailer still parked at the campground. Council Bluffs sits amid a snarl of freeways. I’ll ride with the Skokie couple and get out at a country road. I write in my journal at a picnic table until they return from Omaha in their van.

  “Do you want that ride?” Judie says.

  “Sounds good.”

  “What’ll we charge him, Judie?” Mel says. “By the mile or the minute?”

  I laugh and think, If they only knew.

  Mel starts to hitch the trailer to the bumper. I ask if he needs help.

  “No, thank you!” he says, leaving no doubt.

  “When I ask if I can help,” Judie says, “he says, ‘Yes, stay out of my way,’”

  We’re soon rolling down the interstate, Mel at the wheel. I sit behind them. Mel calls back. He wants to know why I’m traveling across the country. I tell them about my penniless mission.

  “No plastic?” Judie says incredulously.

  “No cash, no checks, no credit cards, no nothing,” I say.

  “Oh, I feel so bad now,” Judie says. “If I would have known, I would have had you over for dinner last night.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” I say. “I never tell people unless they ask. I don’t want to come off like a con man.”

  “You’re courageous,” Judie says. “I could never do that.”

  “Judie complains if she can’t watch TV,” Mel says.

  “Open that,” Judie tells me, pointing to an ice chest behind Mel’s seat. “You eat today. There’s cookies and sodas and graham crackers, and I think there’s a plum in there, too. We’ll stop and get some real food out of the trailer if you want.”

  “No, this is good, thanks.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s diet pop and nonfat cookies,” Judie says, chuckling.

  Every time I finish a cookie or a stack of graham crackers, Judie orders me to open the cooler for more.

  “You’ve heard about Jewish mothers?” she says.

  I nod.

  “Well, it’s true. We’re always telling you to eat.”

  Outside the window, combines roll over golden fields of corn and soybeans. It’s been a bountiful year. Even the ditches are lush and green. I think of what Ron told me yesterday—America at its finest.

  Mel worked in his mother’s clothing store in Chicago for 18 years. Then he owned an auto parts franchise for 21 years. Judie stayed home with the kids. In her spare time, she collected antiques. One day Mel came home and said, “Let’s open an antiques store.” He sold the auto parts franchise, and he and Judie started an entire antiques mall.

  “It was very profitable, but a lot of headaches,” Mel says. “After three years, we sold it.”

  “We didn’t want to be the richest people in the cemetery,” Judie says.

  She looks back at me.

  “Mike, open that chest, eat!”

  Mel and Judie bought their first trailer in 1983. They roamed around the country for two years.

  “Then we got back to Skokie,” Mel recalls, “and Judie asked, ‘What are you going to do today, Mel?’ And I said, ‘Golf.’ And the next day it was, ‘What are you going to do today, Mel?’ And I said, ‘Fish.’ Finally, my wife told me to go get a job.”

  “No, Mel, I said, ‘Go get some insurance,’” Judie says.

  She turns to me. “Our insurance payments were killing us.”

  “So I started working in lumber yards,” Mel says. “But only nine months of the year, because we go to Florida every winter. So I did that five years. And on July first, I turned sixty-five. So June thirtieth was my last day of work, and I said, ‘See you later.’”

  “Mike, have some more food!” Judie says.

  Mel starts to change lanes. He doesn’t see the little red sports car, and we almost collide. Mel swerves. The trailer fishtails, rocking us in our seats.

  “My fault!” Mel says, almost loud enough for the other driver to hear.

  The near miss reminds me that I’ve been over this stretch of freeway before. It was 14 years ago. I was just out of college. I had no plans.

  My brother was hired to deliver a car to Washington, D.C. I went along for the ride. We drove coast to coast in three days. I was scared back then. I mean, really petrified. My brother slept while I drove. When it was his turn to drive, I stayed awake, for fear that he would fall asleep at the wheel. When neither of us could drive anymore, we pulled to the side of the road. I was afraid to close my eyes then, too, knowing if I slept, a madman would walk up and fire a bullet into my head. On the plane home, I clutched the armrests, swearing to my brother that we were going down.

  I entered a long, dark period. I was paralyzed by the image of bodily harm. I feared the loss of an arm or leg, a fate I surely knew was mine. Youthful ideals and dreams faded. At one point my greatest ambition in life was to die with all four limbs intact.

  My fear of physical pain was eventually replaced by a fear of life in general. I was afraid of making the choices it takes to be happy. There were things I thought I might enjoy doing, but I’ll be damned if I could summon the courage to try them. My life had stalled before it ever started. All the while I told myself, This part doesn’t count. You’ll start your life one day. And when you do, life will be grand.

  A girlfriend who knew me all too well often said, “There are no dress rehearsals for life.” I knew that in my head, but I couldn’t convince my heart. I carried on as if there were no consequences to inaction. I behaved as if I had all the time in the world.

  Years later I happened upon a quote by Franz Kafka: “From a certain point on there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.”

  The words seemed to be spoken directly to me. I wrote them down on an index card. I memorized them. I repeated them to myself. No truth was ever so clear. Yet I still could not stir my soul to act.

  Years passed, and I acquired the trappings of a life. But it has been a sham. It’s so easy to get by, and get by very well. But it’s so hard to simply live. And though I had a life, I never really lived. And when the yo-yo flew off the string, I realized that all my worst fears had already come to pass. I was devoid of passion. I was numb. I was halfway to nowhere. I was dead.

  So I walked out into the world with empty pockets, and that was my first true step. I know that I will die. Die for real and die for good. But right now, I’m alive. I’m alive and I’m in Iowa, and that’s not a bad place to be.

  “You can’t take it with you,” Mel is saying. “They throw dirt in your face and say a few prayers.

  “Do it!” Mel booms. “Do it now!”

  CHAPTER 21

  I pull out my map and have a gander at southeastern Iowa. The town of Montezuma leaps off the page. I smile at the name, as I know instantly that it’s my next stop on the Road to Cape Fear.

  I ask Mel to drop me at Route 63.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to be closer to Iowa City?” Judie says.

  “Judie, the man knows where he’s going,” Mel says.

  Mel pumps gas and Judie watches my pack while I use the restroom. When I return, I snap a photo of the couple standing by their trailer. Judie hands me a plastic bag filled with food.

  “Mel and I want you to have this.”

  Inside are two sleeves of graham crackers, two cans of soda pop, two tins of tuna, two apples and two pieces of chicken—a veritable Noah’s Ark of sack lunches.

  Hooray for Jewish mothers!

  I draw a sign for Montezuma, eight miles south. A middle-aged couple pulls out of the gas station, the wife at the whe
el. I can read her lips through the windshield: “Should we give him a ride?”

  The man nods in the affirmative.

  “We never pick up hitchhikers, but you look so nice and clean,” the woman says.

  “You going to Monty, are you?” the man says.

  I tell them I’m traveling across the country, but I don’t mention how. I ask if they know a safe spot I can pitch my tent for the night.

  They put their heads together and come up with three possibilities. They insist on showing me all three.

  We drive to the campground at Lake Diamond, several miles north of town. A bit out of the way, notes the man.

  The couple then brings me back through Montezuma to a rest stop on the highway. The drawback here is that there’s no water, the woman says.

  They swing me by the city park. That would be the most convenient. I wonder aloud if the police would mind. We’ll just go by the sheriff’s office and ask, the woman says.

  Montezuma is a town of about 1,500 people, with white clapboard houses and expansive lawns. It’s harvest season, and jack-o’-lanterns decorate every porch. The town appears untouched by the problems that plague much of the rest of the country. The bell tower chimes “The Sound of Silence.”

  As I suspected, camping is forbidden at the city park. The couple assures me it’s no trouble at all to drive me back out to Lake Diamond. I’ve heard it said that helpfulness in the Midwest is a trait born of necessity. The original homesteaders were so far removed from comfort and convenience, they had to rely on one another to get by. It’s a trait that’s been handed down over generations. By the time we reach the campground, the couple has spent an hour shepherding me around, making sure that a total stranger is not left wanting. It’s a sharp contrast to life in San Francisco, where I don’t even know my next-door neighbors.

  I pitch my tent near the lake. The thick woods are painted by autumn’s brush. I have the entire campground to myself. There’s not even a ranger to offer my services to. There’s not even any litter to pick up. All is clean and still and quiet.

  I write in my journal in the fading light. A truck pulls up, and an old man steps out with great effort. He wears a camouflage jacket and carries binoculars.

  “The geese come yet?” he says, ambling toward me.

  “What geese?”

  He cups a hand to his ear and cocks his head.

  “What geese?” I say louder.

  “Canadian geese. There were a hundred and fifty of ’em last night.” The man smiles.

  I’ve never seen Canadian geese. What would they be doing in Iowa? I wonder if the old geezer is having me on.

  “That your house?” he says, pointing to my tent.

  “For tonight it is.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “California.”

  “You’re a long way from home.”

  “Yeah, I’ve come twenty-six hundred miles. This is my twenty-fourth day. I’m headed across the United States.”

  “You got a bike or something?”

  “Nope.”

  He leans back and makes a sweeping motion with his thumb, like he’s hitching a ride. The image is comical.

  “I don’t use a thumb,” I say. “I’ve got a sign.”

  “You won’t have any trouble. I can take one look at someone and tell right away what kind of person they are.”

  “What kind of person am I?”

  “You’re a good person,” the man says, smiling. The skin on his face is smooth and tight, radiating an inner glow.

  The man says he dropped his wife at the entrance, so she can walk down to the lake.

  “I can’t walk much anymore, too old. I’ve had two bypasses, though I mowed the lawn today. I do some things I shouldn’t do. I’ve got too much pride for my body and my pocketbook.” He grins.

  “You live in Montezuma?” I say.

  “Yep. It’s an old house, but it’s right on the town square. My wife looks at the Presbyterian Church, and I look at the jail.”

  An old woman hooded with a scarf walks up and gets in the truck without a word.

  “What is your age?” I say to the man.

  “Guess,” he says, standing up straight.

  “Oh, I’m not good at this. Seventies?”

  “Hah! I’ll be eighty-seven.”

  “Wow.”

  He wonders if I’ll be cold, but says I’m young and look like I’m in a good shape.

  “What are you, about twenty?”

  “Twenty?”

  “Boy, I’m really off. What, sixteen?”

  “You’re joking,” I say.

  “Well, you must go to school somewhere.”

  “I’m thirty-seven.”

  “Boy, I was further off than you were with me.”

  He looks at the sky.

  “Well, it’s dark,” he says. “I better get going.”

  He turns and shuffles back to the truck.

  “What about the geese?” I call to him.

  “Oh, they’ll be here.”

  He grins wide and his eyes gleam. I know for sure that he’s pulling my leg.

  But when I see the taillights disappear around the bend, I hear a honk, and it’s not the horn from the old man’s truck.

  I stare up at the blackening sky and see them. Seven geese flying overhead in a chevron—graceful and magnificent.

  They’re followed by another flock of 40, moving as one in a perfect wedge. Unbelievably, 100 others appear, and then 100 more. They keep coming, wave after wave, and I lose count.

  The birds glide through the air and touch down on the lake, the water now white from their wakes. I step slowly to the water’s edge and squint for a better look in the last of the light. The shadowy night fills with beautiful noise—the whoosh of wings, the splash of water, the honks of contentment. The music is deafening and lovely.

  I’m not cold, yet I shiver. I recall what the Indian told Linda about nature being kin. The Indian’s language has no word for loneliness.

  I’m the only man on this dark shore, but I’m not alone.

  CHAPTER 22

  They’re talking bumper crops this year in the Midwest. Iowa corn is yielding 200 bushels an acre. Everybody has a vested interest in the land, but they don’t call it that. They call it “ground.” As in, “He owns that ground” or, “We’re growing soybeans on that ground.”

  I pick my next destination the same way I did Montezuma. Purely by the sound of the name—Oskaloosa.

  Drivers in rural Iowa acknowledge you like they do in Nebraska. But instead of a wave, it’s an index finger raised from the steering wheel.

  Lots of cars pass me. Lots of folks give me the friendly finger.

  A white Cadillac that passed me a couple minutes ago turns back and stops across the road.

  “I ain’t got all day,” the guy hollers out the window.

  He wears a red baseball cap and wraparound shades. A cigarette hangs from his lip, above his poor excuse for a goatee.

  I’m about to holler back, “Then why did you bother turning around and stopping for me?” but this might be my only chance at a ride, so I hustle across the road.

  Eric is a 29-year-old farmer from Oskaloosa, which he calls “Osky.” He asks where I’m from and I tell him. He says he was recently visiting his sister in San Francisco. That gives us a connection. Eric warms to me. He asks me questions until he has my whole story.

  “So you’re just seeing where the kindest people are in America?” he says.

  “Something like that.”

  “Where has it been the best so far? The Midwest, I bet.”

  I decide to have a little fun with Eric.

  “South Dakota was great,” I say.

  He seems to take this as a personal challenge.

  “It’s quarter-draft night out at the Country Corner. Stop by and I’ll buy you a few beers.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “You can stay at my place.”

  In the span of a few miles, Eric tran
sforms from a jerk into a nice guy.

  Eric farms 10,000 acres with his father and two cousins. Corn and soybeans. Today he needs to pick up a dump truck from another farmer who borrowed it.

  We drive down dirt roads to a soybean field that rolls out to the horizon. Giant green combines gobble up the crops like grazing dinosaurs.

  We wait for the combines to fill the dump truck with soybeans.

  Eric yanks a plant from the ground and shows me how to shell the pods.

  “I eat these by the thousands,” he says, popping several beans into his mouth.

  I try a handful. The beans taste bland, but I know they’re rich in protein.

  A garter snake slithers by my feet. The combines kick up dust over the land, creating an unreal sunset of pink, orange and purple.

  Eric sits on the harvested ground near the dump truck. He worked eight years as a chemical salesman throughout the Midwest and the South. He returned to Iowa last year.

  “Why did you come back?” I say.

  “Settle down, I guess, maybe find a wife with some Midwestern values. Not a woman who wants to burn her bra and get breast implants. I don’t want a wife that’ll just stay home and cook and clean. I’m a man of the nineties. But I don’t need someone who’s not fulfilled unless she’s got a better job than me.”

  When the dump truck is full, Eric drives it to a grain bin. I follow in his car.

  After we unload the beans, we drive to Eric’s farm. He nearly loses me, zipping 60 miles an hour down a dirt road.

  He parks the truck and we drive his car into Oskaloosa.

  Eric lives with his mother and her second husband, a retired teacher. They own a modern ranch house, with a detached garage and a big backyard.

  Eric tells me to drop my pack in the guest room.

  His mother, Irene, knits an afghan on the sofa, a fat cat sleeping next to her. Neither she nor her husband Joe thinks it odd that Eric has brought a hitchhiker home to spend the night. They greet me like a long lost son.

  Irene pours me a glass of iced tea and sets out a plate of freshly baked raisin bars topped with white frosting. She apologizes, but she and Joe have plans to visit some friends tonight. She writes a check for Eric and tells him to buy me dinner.