The Green Rolling Hills

by V. J. Banis

  The trooper continued up the Interstate. In a few miles this would be Maryland’s problem, he rationalized. He hadn’t been looking forward to tangling with a couple of Mafia hit men anyway.

  * * * *

  “Try to change the way you look,” Mac told Rosie as they parted at the Rest Stop’s main building. “Meet me by the picnic tables quick as you can.” Rosie nodded and disappeared into the Women’s Restroom.

  In the Men’s Restroom, Mac searched through his gear for a razor. He quickly shaved off the short beard that Rosie had liked so well, taking a few chunks of skin with it. He’d found a jacket and a bush hat in the truck and he put them on, and added the sunglasses he found in the jacket’s pocket. He came out of the restroom and looked through the weekend crowd for Rosie.

  A large family group was celebrating by one of the picnic tables. Mac edged closer. A heavy man in a flowered Hawaiian shirt held up a cake glowing with three candles. The whole gang was singing, bellowing away in some foreign language. The object of all this attention, a small blond girl, sat on the bearded man’s lap and clapped her hands to the song. It finished with a rousing, “Bravo, Renée.”

  The man stood up. Balancing the cake in one arm and the little girl in the other, he started a slow, lumbering dance around the tables, accompanied by the rhythmic clapping and cheers of his audience.

  Mac was surprised at how short, but muscular he was. He had dark curling hair and a beard. His bull neck ended with a ruff of black, furry hair at his shirt collar. His chest was square as a block of concrete. Moving slowly around the clapping onlookers, he finally came to a halt in front of a heavyset blond woman and Rosie.

  Or was it Rosie? She had tied her hair back in a bandana and had changed her clothes. Wait. Mac looked more closely. This girl was pregnant. A large, round mound swelled under his old plaid shirt. A small gold chain with a medallion dangled from her hand. She held it out to the child. More cheers and excited discussion followed. Just then, Rosie saw Mac and beckoned to him.

  Mac hesitated, but from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a dark Lincoln entering the parking area. Through the tinted glass, he made out two men in the front. One was very large. By now, Mac was already moving toward the crowd at the picnic tables. Smiling, he joined Rosie.

  Rosie took his hand and introduced him first to the couple with the little girl, then to the others. He couldn’t understand a word anyone said, but he smiled, nodded, and shook hands. Suddenly, she reached up and kissed him. The group responded with cheers of “Felicitations!”

  “They’re French-Canadians, going home to Montreal,” Rosie whispered. “The man with the Hawaiian shirt is the father, Louis. I told them we were running away to get married, that my family don’t approve and may follow us. And our truck just broke down here at the Rest Stop.”

  Mac stared at her, amazed. “Great story,” he told her. “Do you think we can hitch a ride with them? Because your ‘family’ is already here, in the parking lot.”

  Rosie stiffened, but didn’t look around and kept smiling. She went over to the man she had called Louie and began to talk hurriedly to him..

  Trying to stay in the center of the group, Mac helped the women pack up the picnic baskets. They smiled at him, giggling and whispering in French to each other. Mac glanced around. He couldn’t spot the Mafia soldiers, but he knew they were somewhere nearby. The Lincoln was parked conspicuously in the lot.

  Now he knew how a trapped animal felt while he waited for the hunter. He was sure that he could probably get away if he bolted and left Rosie to take her chances. But no, if he had been going to cut out, he would have done it a long time ago. If nothing else, he’d promised to get her to that convent, and he was determined to keep his promise to her, although this whole gift thing of hers mystified him.

  Rosie returned and pulled him aside. “They’ll take us over the border, all the way to Montreal if we want. They’re on their way home from Florida, so they’re driving straight through.”

  Relief showed on Mac’s face. “What about the border?” he asked. “Will there be any trouble?”

  “Louie said not to worry, to keep quiet and leave it all to him. He likes us.” She grabbed Mac’s hand. “They all like us. We have a romance story, yes?”

  Over the top of Rosie’s head, Mac spotted a man walking with a slight limp. He seemed to be searching the grounds. Quickly, Mac turned his head and pulled Rosie toward the center of the group. “Ask them if we can help load up. We gotta get outta here fast.”

  In minutes Mac and Louie had shoved the last of the coolers and baskets into the back of a large panel van. Rosie and Mac climbed in and found places to sit among the luggage. Before closing the door, Louie grinned at them and said, “Demain matin, Montreal.” Rosie translated, “Tomorrow morning we’ll be in Montreal.”

  A white Taurus station wagon and a Ford Explorer made up the rest of the French Canadian caravan. As they pulled out and headed north up the Interstate, Mac caught sight of the limping gangster and his hulking, fatass pal standing by the Lincoln. They looked puzzled and mad as hell. Mac grinned and nudged Rosie.

  “Idioti,” she sneered and made an Italian style hand sign that needed no translation.

  Mac started to laugh. Soon they were both howling with laughter. “Don’t seem like a very nun-like way to act,” Mac said. She shrugged and moved closer to him. Putting an arm around her, he continued, “But you can act any way you want as far as I’m concerned. I gotta hand it to you, Rosie. You got us outta this one.”

  “It wasn’t really me. When I was in the Women’s Restroom changing my clothes, I found a chain with a medal of St. Ursula. I asked around outside and found out it belonged to Louie’s wife. It was the little girl’s birthday gift. I just returned it and they were very grateful. But Mac, now I’m sure we’ll make it to the convent. This was a sign from St. Ursula herself.”

  “Yeah, the convent. Well, they gotta have convents in Canada. These Frenchies should know.” He shot her a puzzled look. “Do they all think you’re pregnant?”

  “Not now. After Louie agreed to take us, I told him I was just trying to disguise the way I looked. Louie laughed.” Rosie reached under the plaid shirt and pulled out the old student backpack. “This was the bambino.” She grinned. “Of course, just to be sure Louie wouldn’t say no, I offered to pay him.”

  “Pay him? With what?”

  Opening the backpack, Rosie pulled out stacks of one hundred dollar bills, held together with rubber bands. “Uncle Vito’s gift to the Ursuline Convent.”

  “You’re kidding. You’ve had this all along?” Mac stared at the wads of bills. He was shocked and just a little angry. Things would sure have been a lot easier if he’d had this money. He glanced at her. Didn’t she trust him?

  Or, should she? He started to laugh again. Maybe she was smarter than he was. “You’re one hellava woman, Rosie. One surprise after another. How’d you get all this money?”

  “Well, back at Uncle Vito’s garage.” She looked serious now and a little scared. “You remember I told you that he and I were in the storage room counting things. When he saw the Mafia car drive up, he got very upset and went to a secret place in the little room. He came back and handed me a box. He said if anything happened to him, it was mine. Never to forget to pray for him. Then he told me to run and hide. Later, when I knew he was dead, I did what he said. I took my lunch and book out of my backpack, and just shoved the stacks of bills in there. I knew the only way I could take this money was to give it to the Sisters. They would pray for Uncle Vito’s soul. It was all I could do for him.”

  She smiled that slow, beautiful smile of hers. Then she leaned over and kissed him, a real kiss this time. A long, lingering kiss.

  “Here, Mac,” she handed him a stack of hundreds. “This is for you, Uncle Vito’s gift. He would agree you’ve earned it. It can take you far in Canada, or it can be his wedding gift to us. You have to decide.”

  “That one’s easy,” he said, grin
ning. He kissed her again, harder this time.

  DEAR ANNE LANDERS: EXCERPTS FROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS, by Craig Tucker

  Des Moines Train Station, 1957

  Bobby Rockwell’s mother latched onto his hand and dragged him up the short steps that led onto the Rock Island Line passenger car, Bobby’s short legs moving twice as fast as his mother’s. He tried not to trip while balancing his overnight bag. She immediately found the conductor and let him know Bobby would be traveling to Chicago alone, and would he be so kind as to keep an eye on him.

  “Why ain’t you comin’?” Bobby asked his mother.

  “I am coming, in another week. Your uncle wants to show you a good time first.”

  Once she got him seated, she handed him a brown paper bag loaded with four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Bobby wrapped his arm around his overnight bag and pulled it close to him.

  His mother’s eyes flicked at the bag. “Why are you hugging that bag? You’ve got something in there, don’t you?”

  Bobby could hear himself gulp.

  “Let me see that bag—wait, no, you open it. You have something in there, what do you got in there?”

  “I don’t got no hamsters or nothing.”

  Her squint relaxed. She dove for the bag, unzipped it, and started throwing his underpants out. Bobby felt a hot flush of embarrassment as he gawked about, hoping nobody saw his unders. She came out with his book—Kidnapped?—and whacked him in the head with the big fat Stevenson pirate novel.

  “What kind of little boy are you that reads a book called Kidnapped? I thought I took this back to the library.” She lodged the book under her arm and threw a paper sack next to him. “Here, I bought you something more appropriate.”

  Superman comic books.

  “But I like Dennis the Menace and Sergeant Rock.”

  “Well, I don’t like Dennis the Menace or Sergeant Rock. You don’t need anymore ideas in that little hamster head of yours.”

  Bobby thought Superman was okay, but he liked Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson’s books better because he felt they were real. And he was pretty sure Superman wasn’t real and able to fly, not like Santa Claus, anyway.

  “Is that a clean shirt you have on?” She jammed her big Roman nose into Bobby’s armpits to sniff them for something she called BO. Bobby only shrugged his shoulders at the passenger standing behind her, clutching his suitcase. The man sort of shrugged back at Bobby and lifted his eyebrows as if to say: Mothers, whaddaya gonna do?

  Bobby watched his mother point him out to a big man with a blue uniform and hat and then his mother left. He got out his Big Chief tablet and began scribbling:

  Dear Mrs. Landers,

  Do you remember me? I’m Long John Silver in Des Moines....

  * * * *

  Bobby finished his letter and sat against the window and chomped into his peanut butter sandwich as the corn fields zipped by in a blur. He was enjoying the clickity-clack against the rails beneath him when he heard a schlup-ker-schlup, and soon a kindly looking old Negro man with nappy white hair pushed a stainless steel cart through the aisle. He stopped and asked Bobby if he’d like something to drink with his peanut butter sandwich. But Bobby couldn’t speak since the Elmer’s gluenut butter stuck his mouth together.

  The old man laughed as he lifted a bottle of milk and poured a glass for Bobby. With his mouth glued together, Bobby “mmph”-ed his thanks and allowed a good drink to unglue the peanut butter in his mouth.

  “Thank-you,” Bobby said. Then his eyes widened. “I don’t got no money.”

  The old man threw back his head and let loose a hardy laugh. He squatted next to Bobby and then looked up and down the car as if he were looking for someone. He put a finger to his lips and said, “Shhh—It’ll be our little secret.”

  A few hours later, Bobby heard the schlup-ker-schlup again. The old Negro man returned with a roast beef sandwich and bottle of Coca-Cola, sat next to Bobby and offered it to him. “A big, growing boy like you can’t live off peanut butter and jam. You needs some meat on your bony little bones.” Bobby started to say thanks, but the old man put a finger to his lips again. “Shhh, be our little secret.”

  The old man sat back and let out a sigh, then stared out the window. His black pants were faded and rumpled and his white shirt loose and wrinkled with big wet yellowish stains under the arms. He smelled a lot like Bobby’s dad after he’d been sawing boards and pounding nails. Bobby looked at the old man’s shoes. They were scuffed whitish and half of the sole was loose and flappy. That was the schlup sound Bobby heard.

  “How come you don’t get some new shoes?” Bobby asked with curious honesty.

  The old man chuckled and wrapped his arm around Bobby’s shoulder. “Coz I don’t gots no money, that’s why I don’t got no new shoes.”

  “But you’re working. My dad says that’s how we get money to buy things we need.”

  The old man laughed again and pulled Bobby tighter, Bobby feeling a warm comfort of the nearness of the old man and his sweaty shirt. “Well, coz I’m black.” He arched his eye. “You ever see a black man before?”

  Bobby shook his head. “Well, kinda, when my mom makes me go downtown with her. I’ve seen some people like you. But they always look so sad.” Bobby slipped his hand inside the man’s leathery old hand and the black man clasped his other over Bobby’s. Bobby liked his laugh, and therefore he liked holding hands with him. “Does being black mean you can’t have new shoes?”

  He ripped off a big belly laugh over that one and Bobby had never seen such white teeth. “Well, yes, in a way, yes, yes, I’d say that’s what it means.” He looked over his shoulder. He seemed nervous or scared about something. “Now, go on, hurry up an’ eat your sandwich and drink down your pop.”

  Just then the conductor’s shadow grew in front of them. He was a big, stern man with a big walrus mustache. He shook his head and “tsk”ed. “Okay, Luther, what’d I tell you about sitting on your black ass and giving away food?”

  Luther squeezed Bobby’s hand. Bobby squeezed back.

  “We get to Chicago, you clear your things outta the caboose, understand.” The conductor goose-stepped away and the Luther stood and smoothed his faded wrinkled trousers. He looked long at Bobby; his smile was gone. “You look like a real smart boy to me,” he said, “an’ someday you gonna have a whole heaps a money.” He squatted and took both Bobby’s hands into his thick gnarled hands and looked deep into Bobby’s eyes; and Bobby felt very sad, for the whites of the old man’s eyes were yellowish and wet and fading in some form of pain. “I want you to promise me somethin’—you never be mean to poor folks—’specialy old folks and lil’ children’. Understand? You promise?”

  Bobby felt frightened. He blinked the blurry wet in his eyes. “Yes, sir, I promise. I’ll never be mean to poor folks or old folks or little children or nothing.”

  The old man shook his head and his bones creaked. Bobby felt his stomach jerking like he wanted to cry. “You remember, no matter how much money you got, you always do like Jesus do. Don’t you do like those lyin’ ol preachers do, all hollerin’ fire an’ brimstone to give money to Jesus. She-e-it, that preacher just taking the money for hisself. You got to be the one to do Jesus’ work, don’ never trust no preacher askin’ for money for Jesus—understand?” He rested his hand on Bobby’s shoulder and stared far, far away. “Yes sir, you be the one to do Jesus’s work.” He set the palm of his hand against Bobby’s cheek and the hand felt worked and leathery, yet warm and kind. “Yes, sir, I can tell, you’re a good boy, you gonna be the one to do Jesus’ work.”

  The old man wiped his eyes, and his bones creaked more as he shuffled to the front of the car and disappeared through the door. A few seconds later, the blur of a man passed fast outside Bobby’s window. Bobby got to his knees and pressed his face against the glass.

  A black man in black pants and white shirt rolled down the side of the tracks and laid still as the train clickity-clacked away.

  Bobby sat agai
nst the train window and thought about the old man. Why’d he jump off the train? Well, he was sure he was alright since Bobby had seen cowboys jump off trains millions of times before in the movies and they rolled down the side of the tracks and then got up and brushed off their pants. The train had passed before the old man could get back up to brush his pants off, that’s all.

  Then Bobby thought about Father Dreg and how he was always yelling from his church pulpit about money and some strange word called tithing. In the back of St. Pius the Tenth Church, a great yellow banner was pinned to the wall:

  “GIVE 10% of your EARNINGS to GOD”

  He also remembered how his dad said Father Dreg wanted money to build a new church as a monument to himself, and how the St. Pius parish had bought a brand new shiny black Chevrolet for God, though it was really for Father Dreg to “cart his fat pious ass around in.” Bobby’s dad didn’t like Father Dreg, so Bobby didn’t like Father Dreg.

  Bobby took his Big Chief writing tablet and pencil out of his overnight bag, flipped over the big chief’s headdress cover, set the pad on his lap, and began scribbling:

  Dear Mrs. Ann Landers,

  It’s me again still writing to you on the Rock Island train going to Chicago. Please excuse my handwriting being worser than before. The train is bumpy but I like it.

  Guess what! My dad got home and found out my mom called the Animal Wrestler League and had Binky my raccoon taken away. Well, my dad got in the car and went and got Binky back. Then me and dad and Binky drove out to the woods and set Binky free.

  I was mad because I know my mom didn’t like Binky (she called him a ratcoon). But my dad said it was time to return Binky back to the woods for his own good. He said I did a good job helping him get strong and that I did a very good thing by adapting (or is it adopting???) a baby raccoon who lost his mama and that I made a very good mommy and daddy raccoon. So I’m not mad at my dad. But I miss Binky. We were buddyswudsys.

  Today I met a nice old Negro man who gave me milk and a really good roast beef sandwich. I wish he didn’t get off the train because he liked me and I liked him. He is the only other person on earth who has ever liked me. I am glad my mother aint on the train because she would not like Luther because Luther is a Negro man and she is always pulling me away from Negro peoples when she makes me go downtown with her because she says they smell bad and we stop and look at clothes and stupid little toy glass dolls and stuff. But that’s okay. She didn’t like my hamsters or my raccoon or nothing.