The problem Eric now faced was how to actually get to Lyon Mt Correctional Facility. It was a distance of some three and a half thousand miles from San Francisco, and a bus journey of at least three and a half days. Affording the $250 for the journey wasn’t an issue for Eric, but being under the age of fifteen was: bus company regulations barred him from travelling unaccompanied on any journey lasting more than five daylight hours. He was also a young-looking thirteen-year-old, and would have easier passed for eleven than fifteen. The only thing for him to do was the one thing his parents had always warned him not to do: accept rides from strangers.
Eric was aware his absence from school would be noticed, and calculated he’d require at least two days start before the alarm was raised. He therefore gave the school three weeks’ notice that he would be returning home one weekend to attend a church memorial service for his parents, and asked for, and received, permission to leave school at the end of that Friday’s morning classes. He told this lie only reluctantly, and hoped that both God and his parents would forgive him its telling.
On the day of his planned departure, Eric was collected from school by taxi and dropped off near Union Square; from there he walked to the Greyhound bus station on Mission Street and bought a one-way ticket to Sacramento. In the Sacramento bus station he bought a ticket to Roseville, a community located at the outskirts of the Sacramento metropolitan area and close to Interstate 80 and, from there, walked the remaining distance to where Route 65 joined the interstate. He then took up position on the hard shoulder.
Eric slipped the rucksack from his back, placed it on the ground and then unstrapped the white bicycle helmet he’d taken to wearing, and tied it to one of the bag’s straps. He knelt on the asphalt, closed his eyes and placed his hands together. He prayed that God would watch over him and keep him safe, lead him to Susan and back to a life of happiness. It seemed to Eric that God had answered his prayer when a two-hundred-and-eighty-pound angel with a belly the size of a pregnancy in its ninth month called out to him. The angel’s name was Red Dunbar and he drove a truck.
The Kindness of Strangers
Eric’s eyes were still shut tight when the long-nosed eighteen-wheeler hissed to a halt. He opened them the same moment the passenger door swung open, and a large crew-cut head peered out.
‘Where you goin’ to, kid?’
‘Plattsburgh, New York, sir,’ Eric replied.
‘Okay, climb in. Quick as you can, I’m not supposed to stop here!’
Eric took hold of his rucksack and threw it into the cab.
The driver took his first good look at Eric and was surprised by the boy’s youth.
‘How old are you, kid?’ he asked. ‘Eleven?’
‘No sir, I’m thirteen. I just look young for my age. My name’s Eric Gole.’
‘My name’s Red – Red Dunbar. Tell me, kid, how come someone young as you is out here on his own? Do your parents know where you are – and why are you heading to New York?’
Eric told Red Dunbar the truth. All of it: the death of his parents, his placement in a school for the deaf and his search for the only family he had left – Jeff in prison and Susan somewhere not in prison.
‘Crappen dap!’ Red exclaimed. (It was one of only three expressions of surprise he ever used: crappen dappen and, if time permitted, crappen dappen doo-dah being the other two.)
Red Dunbar was fifty-four. He’d been born in 1956 and lived in Yuba City with the woman he’d married thirty-three years previously, and who’d borne him two children: a son who also drove trucks, and a daughter who drove him to distraction. Red had driven trucks the whole of his working life, first for others and now for himself. He’d bought his first truck in 1999 and ever since had been self-employed and a paid-up member of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.
Eric’s story touched Red, and he could at least identify with one part of it: he too had lost his parents at a young age. He remembered clearly the day he’d returned home from a friend’s house to find a police car waiting outside his house and neighbours milling around in the yard. A young policewoman had broken the news that his parents and younger sister had been killed in a car accident; she told him their deaths had been immediate, that they hadn’t suffered.
Red had been fifteen at the time, and the suffering his parents had escaped now fell on him like a ton of bricks. He was placed in foster care for three years with a family that fed and clothed him, but showed little affection. He turned eighteen and left their house for good, never to return; he still believed them to be people who fostered for money rather than reasons of altruism. If, at the time, there had been the remotest possibility of him finding the loving relations Eric now searched for, then Red was sure he’d have made the same journey and, if necessary, walked the three and half thousand miles to find them.
‘You eaten yet, kid?’
‘I ate breakfast and some toffees on the bus. Are you hungry?’
‘I will be soon. What do you say we stop at the next pickle park and get us some dinner?’
‘I like the idea, Mr Dunbar, but I’ve never really liked pickles. If there’s nothing there I like, can I just buy some chocolate?’
‘Pickle Park’s a rest area, kid,’ Red laughed. ‘It serves all kinds of food. By the time we get you to Chicago, you’ll have meat on your bones. I can promise you that much.’
Twenty minutes later, Red and Eric were sitting at a table in the truckers’ section of a diner, their plates piled high with food. Red had ordered an all-day breakfast with a side order of pancakes for himself and a chicken platter for Eric.
‘You going to finish that, kid?’ he asked Eric, when he saw the boy starting to struggle.
‘I don’t think I can, sir. I’m about as full as I’ve ever been.’
‘Mind if I take over?’
Eric handed his plate to Red, and Red handed his empty plate to Eric. It was as clean as a whistle and showed no evidence that food had ever been placed on it. (Red wasn’t two hundred and eighty pounds for nothing, and neither had his belly appeared overnight.)
A couple of truckers came to the table and greeted Red. ‘This kid teaching you how to drive, Red?’ one of the men joked.
‘I’m getting old, Pete,’ Red replied, ‘I need all the help I can get these days. Who better than my own grandson? Eric, this is Pete, and the guy next to him, by the looks of things, is an escaped convict.’
The man next to Pete laughed and held out his hand to Eric. ‘I’m Dave,’ he said. ‘Don’t take no notice of your Granddaddy, son, he’s getting forgetful in his old age. It was me who taught him all he knows!’ He turned to Red and asked him what he was hauling.
‘More prunes, Dave. The people of Chicago have gotten themselves blocked up again. Sometimes I think I may as well be driving for the Red Cross as the California Sunshine Corporation.’
At last, the men went their different ways: Pete and Dave to the food counter, and Red and Eric back to the truck. As they walked, Red told Eric it was safer all round if people thought he was his grandson.
Eric agreed. ‘Do you want me to call you granddad, Mr Dunbar?’
‘Only if people are around. Otherwise call me Red – that’s my given name.’
‘Okay, Red. How much money do I owe you for my meal?’
‘Not a cent, kid! While you’re travelling with me you’re my guest. But thanks for asking. Not many people do that nowadays.’
It took more than three days for them to reach Chicago. The number of hours Red could drive in a day was limited by law to no more than eleven in any fourteen hour period, and had to be followed by ten consecutive hours of rest. Nights he would sleep in the purpose-built compartment attached to the cab, while Eric slept on the seat, covered by a blanket. They washed and showered in facilities provided by the rest areas, and ate their breakfasts and dinners there too; for lunch they ate sandwiches and chips bought from the rest areas and drank Dr Pepper.
They traversed the Sierra Nevada Moun
tains of California and the Continental Divide in Wyoming. They journeyed through the barren deserts of northern Nevada and the salt flats of Utah, the Great Plains of Nebraska and the rolling hills of Iowa. They crossed the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and passed from Pacific Time to Mountain Time, from Mountain Time to Central Time. All the while they chatted.
‘I love this country,’ Red told Eric. ‘I don’t always agree with its politics, and there’s been more than one President I wouldn’t have opened my door to if he’d been stood there knocking, but I love the country. It’s beautiful, kid, and I never get tired of driving through it – hearing it, smelling it. And I think most of the people who live in it are good people and kind-hearted. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I’ve never once left its borders and I don’t ever intend to.’
‘I like sport but I’m not much good at it,’ Eric told Red. ‘I can’t catch all the balls thrown to me, especially if they’re thrown hard, but I do try. I’m usually the last to be chosen when it comes to picking teams, but I don’t mind as long as I get to play. What I don’t like though is the way people shout at me when I miss a catch or mis-hit the ball. I don’t understand why winning’s so important and losing’s so bad.’
‘It’s people with tattoos and pieces of metal stuck in their faces I despair of most,’ Red told Eric. ‘I don’t know why they do it or why they think it makes them look more attractive, either. And it’s not just young kids who don’t know any better, it’s old people who do. I see men in their sixties with diamond studs in their ears and women of the same age with lumps of metal in their noses, tattoos of dolphins on their shoulders and barbed wire round the tops of their arms. It turns me right off.’
‘My hands sweat a lot,’ Eric told Red. ‘They never used to, but they’re wet all the time now, especially when I’m around girls. I never used to feel uncomfortable around girls but I do now. I never know what to say to them. My Dad said it was natural and a stage all boys go through. Do you think he was right, Red? Why would I have this problem when none of my friends has?’
‘It’s truckers who are the backbone of this country,’ Red told Eric. ‘And it burns me up when I hear the FBI telling everyone we’re a bunch of serial killers. If you listen to them, we’re responsible for hundreds of unsolved deaths: fallen women, stranded motorists, hitchhikers; you name them and we’re supposed to have killed them. They say we drive mobile crime scenes! That’s what they call our trucks these days. Can you believe that? I tell you, if I ever got into a jam, it’s a trucker I’d want in my corner and not some suited-up college kid who thinks he knows all there is to know about the world. Burns me up big time!’
‘Do you miss your parents?’ Eric asked Red.
‘Sure I do. Not like I did when they first died. It hurt even to think about them then, but it got easier.’ Red turned to look at Eric. ‘Time does heal, kid. You’ve probably heard it a thousand times from a thousand different people, and the chances are you didn’t believe one of them, did you? But it’s true. Take it from me, one who’s been there and one who knows.
‘You’ll have your own family one day, kid, and believe me you’ll appreciate it all the more for having lost your own. Mark my words: you’ll make a better husband and a better father than most other men your age.’
The moisture from Eric’s hands magically disappeared and found its way to his eyes. He bit his lip and in a voice that trembled said: ‘I, I hope so.’
‘Let it out, kid, let it out,’ Red said gently. ‘There’s no shame in crying, no shame at all.’
As Chicago approached and their time together neared its end, Red got busy on the CB: who was heading towards New York or into Canada, who knew of someone who was? Each time they pulled into a rest area, he left Eric at a table and went to speak to truckers he knew and truckers he didn’t, asking them the same questions. He eventually struck gold and came back to the table with a triumphant look on his face.
‘Got you a ride with a gal, kid,’ he beamed. ‘We’re meeting her at the South Holland Service Plaza and she’ll get you to Albany. She’ll also make sure you pick up a ride from there to Plattsburg. You’re almost there, kid. Another two days and you’ll be talking to your Uncle Jeff.’
Sure enough, the woman, called Lily Gomez, was waiting for them when they arrived at the South Holland Plaza. She was standing by the entrance to the restaurant drinking coffee from a cardboard cup. She gave Red a hug and shook Eric by the hand.
‘I don’t mean to hurry you, Red, but I need to start rolling. Larry Hicks is going to meet us in Albany and I don’t want to keep him waiting. He’ll take Eric the rest of the way.’
‘Crappen dappen!’ Red said. ‘I thought old Larry was dead! I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him for ten years at least. Tell him I owe him one, will you?’
He then turned to Eric and handed him a piece of paper. ‘It’s got my home address and telephone number on it, and also my mobile number. I want to hear from you once you’ve found Susan, and anytime you’re in Yuba City, you call in. Got it? Now come and give old Red a big hug, kid.’
Eric did, and as Red had suspected, the boy burst into tears. What did surprise him, however, were the tears he felt running down his own cheeks. ‘God speed, Eric,’ he spoke softly in the boy’s ear. ‘He’ll look after you. And if you get yourself in a jam you can’t get out of, don’t go to the FBI! Come to me!’
Red waited in the parking area while Eric settled himself in Lily’s truck, and stood there waving as the truck pulled away and headed for the exit and Interstate 90. He then took a handkerchief from his jeans pocket and gave his nose a mighty blow.
Lily was in her early thirties. She had an olive-coloured complexion lightly pitted with acne scars, and hair and eyebrows the colour of coal. When she rolled up her shirt sleeves, a tattoo of a truck came into view on her left forearm, encased in a heart with an arrow running through it. Eric wondered if Red knew about this.
Lily occasionally turned to Eric and smiled, but was otherwise taciturn. She didn’t like small talk at the best of times, and even though she had two children of her own, disliked small talk with small people in particular.
The truck passed silently into Eastern Time and through the states of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Lily and Eric ate dinner at a rest area near Cleveland and Lily paid with money given to her by Red. They spent the night close to Buffalo, Lily in her sleeping compartment and Eric again on the seat. The following morning they rose early.
They arrived in Albany mid-morning and Larry Hicks was there to meet them. He looked like a man who didn’t have much waiting time left in him, and Eric guessed his age to be about one hundred and five. Lily must have also appreciated the limited amount of time Larry now had left on earth as she simply shook his hand, introduced Eric and left. ‘Call Red once you’ve dropped the boy off,’ she called over her shoulder to Larry.
Larry was in fact only in his early sixties, but had lived a life full enough to have satisfied three people. His thin face was webbed with broken veins and crevassed by deep lines. Most of his teeth were also missing, and the stubble above his lip was the colour of nicotine. He had a voice that rasped and spoke with the speed of an express train. Most of the time Eric had no idea what Larry was talking about, and the chances were good that neither did Larry.
The journey to Plattsburgh took them two and a half hours and Larry then insisted on driving Eric the extra fifteen miles to the town of Dannemora, where Lyon Mt Correctional Facility was located. They arrived outside its gates at two in the afternoon.
Eric thanked Larry for all his help and reminded him to call Red. ‘Sure thing,’ Larry replied, and a mile down the road promptly forgot.
The Hair in the Plughole
Eric went into a reception room to the side of the gate and asked the man standing behind the counter for Big Guy. The man folded his newspaper and peered down at him over half-moon glasses.
‘And who should I say is asking for him, young man? His big brother?�
��
‘No, sir. Tell him Eric Gole has arrived. I think he’ll know who I am.’
The man left through a door to the rear of the counter and told Eric to wait. Almost five minutes passed before the door opened again but, unusually, no one appeared to pass through it. Eric became curious and had just started to peer over the counter when a small man jumped on to the stool and scared him half to death.
‘I’m Big Guy,’ the man said. ‘Follow me.’
Big Guy was a three-foot-six-inch dwarf. He had a large angular head and a bulging brow; his arms were short, his fingers even smaller and his little legs were bowed at the knees. He walked with difficulty and in pain. Everything about Big Guy was disproportionate, including his heart, which, according to Jeff – who they’d found sitting at a picnic table – was the size of the moon.
‘I don’t think I’d have made it in here without Big Guy,’ he told Eric.
Big Guy laughed when he heard Jeff say this. ‘Man alive, Lawrence, if you can’t make it in a holiday camp like this, God help you if they ever send you to a real prison. You have it made here. Look at yourself: you’ve got a coffee in one hand and a fat cigar in the other. What kind of torture is that? The most you ever have to do is pick up litter from roadsides or repair little league fields. Anyone can make it here. All I’ve done is given you paper and pencils.’
‘You’ve given me more than that and you know it, Big Guy. You’ve given me inspiration!’
He turned to Eric. ‘Big Guy was a huge fan of The Dwarf Detective, and once he knew it was me who’d created it, suggested we try writing something together. So that’s what we’ve been doing, and I think we’ve come up with something big, something that could well prove to be a defining moment in the history of cinema. Do you want to hear about it?’ Eric nodded that he did.
Last Bus to Coffeeville Page 26
