It was strange to be on the road again. Spring had come but it was still cold. With money in my pocket I didn’t worry about lifts. If it was no go I could always hop a bus or a train. So I stood there, on the highway outside Paterson N. J., determined to take the first car heading north, no matter if it went straight or zigzag.
It took almost an hour before I got the first lift. This advanced me about twenty miles. The next car advanced me fifty miles. The countryside looked cold and bleak. I was getting nothing but short hauls. However, I had oodles of time. Now and then I walked a stretch, to limber up. I had no luggage to speak of—tooth-brush, razor, change of linen. The cold crisp air was invigorating. It felt good to walk and let the cars pass by.
I soon got tired of walking. There was nothing to see but farms. Burial grounds, they looked like. I got to thinking of MacGregor and his Guelda. The name suited her, I thought. I wondered if he’d ever break her down. What a cheerless conquest!
A car pulled up and I hopped in, without questioning the destination. The guy was a nut, a religious nut. Never stopped talking. Finally I asked him where he was heading. For the White Mountains, he replied. He had a cabin tip in the mountains. He was the local preacher.
Is there a hotel anywhere near you? I asked.
No, they had no hotels, nor inns, nor nothing. But he would be happy to put me up. He had a wife and four children. All God loving, he assured me.
I thanked him. But I hadn’t the least intention of spending the night with him and his family. The first town we’d come to I’d hop out. I couldn’t see myself on my knees praying with this fool.
Mister, he said, after an awkward silence, I don’t think you’re much of a God-fearing man, are you? What is your religion?
Ain’t got any, I replied.
I thought so. You’re not a drinking man, are you?
Summat, I replied. Beer, wine, brandy…
God has compassion on the sinner, friend. No one escapes His eye. He went off into a long spiel about the right path, the wages of sin, the glory of the righteous, and so on. He was pleased to have found a sinner like myself; it gave him something to work on.
Mister, I said, after one of his harangues, you’re wasting your time. I’m an incurable sinner, an absolute derelict. This provided him with more food.
No one is beneath God’s grace, he said. I kept mum and listened. Suddenly it began to snow. The whole countryside was blotted out. Now I’m at his mercy, I thought.
Is it far to the next town? I asked.
A few more miles, he said.
Good, I said. I’ve got to take a leak bad.
You can do it here, friend. I’ll wait.
I’ve got to do the other thing too, I said.
With this he stepped on the gas. We’ll be there in a few minutes now, Mister. God will take care of everything.
Even my bowels?
Even your bowels, he replied gravely. God overlooks nothing.
Supposing your gas gave out. Could God make the car go just the same?
Friend, God could make a car go without gas—nothing is impossible for Him—but that isn’t God’s way. God never violates Nature’s laws; he works with them and through them. But, this is what God would do, if we ran out of gas and it was important for me to move on: He would find a way to get me where I wanted to go. He might help you to get there too. But being blind to His goodness and mercy, you would never suspect that God had aided you. He paused to Jet this sink in, then continued. Once I was caught like you, in the middle of nowhere, and I had to do a poop quick. I went behind a clump of bushes and I emptied my bowels. Then, just as I was hitching up my pants, I spied a ten dollar bill lying on the ground right in front of me. God put that money there for me, no one else. That was His way of directing me to it, by making me go poop. I didn’t know why he had shown me this favor, but I got down on my knees and I thanked Him. When I got home I found my wife in bed and two of the children with her. Fever. That money bought me medicine and other things that were sorely needed … Here’s your town, Mister. Maybe God will have something to show you when you empty your bowels and your bladder. I’ll wait for you at the corner there, after I do my shopping…
I ran into the gas station, did a little pee, but no poop. There was no evidence of God’s presence in the lavatory. Just a sign reading: Please help us keep this place clean. I made a detour to avoid meeting my Saviour and headed for the nearest hotel. It was getting dark and the cold was penetrating. Spring was far behind here.
Where am I? I asked the clerk as I signed the register. I mean, what town is this?
Pittsfield, he said.
Pittsfield what?
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, he replied, surveying me coldly and with a tinge of contempt.
The next morning I was up bright and early. Good thing, too, because cars were fewer and farther between, and no one seemed eager to take an extra passenger. By nine o’clock, what with the miles I had clicked off on my own two feet, I was famished. Fortunately—perhaps God had put him in my path—the man next to me in the coffee shop was going almost to the Canadian border. He said he would be happy to take me along. He was a professor of literature, I discovered after we had traveled a ways together. A gentleman too. It was a pleasure to listen to him. He talked as if he had read about everything of value in the English language. He spoke at length of Blake, John Donne, Traherne, Laurence Sterne. He talked of Browning too, and of Henry Adams. And of Milton’s Areopagitica. All caviar, in other words.
I suppose you’ve written a number of books yourself, I said.
No, just, two, he said. (Textbooks, they were.) I teach literature, he added, I don’t make it.
Near the border he deposited me at a gas station owned by a friend of his. He was branching off to some hamlet nearby.
My friend will see to it that you get a lift to-morrow morning. Get acquainted with him, he’s an interesting chap.
We had arrived at this point just a half hour before closing time. His friend was a poet, I soon found out. I had dinner with him at a friendly little inn and then be escorted me to a hostelry for the night.
At noon next day I was in Montreal. I had to wait a few hours for the train to pull in. It was bitter cold. Almost like Russia, I thought. And rather a gloomy looking city, all in all. I looked up a hotel, warmed myself in the lobby, then started back to the station.
How do you like it? said Mona, as we drove off in a cab.
Not too much. It’s the cold; it goes right to the marrow.
Let’s go to Quebec to-morrow, then.
We had dinner in an English restaurant. Frightful. The food was like mildewed cadavers slightly warmed.
It’ll be better in Quebec, said Mona. We’ll stay in a French hotel.
In Quebec the snow was piled high and frozen stiff. Walking the streets was like walking between ice-bergs. Everywhere we went we seemed to bump into flocks of nuns or priests. Lugubrious looking creatures with ice in their, veins. I didn’t think much of Quebec either. We might as well have gone to the North Pole. What an atmosphere in which to relax!
However, the hotel was cosy and cheerful. And what meals! Was it like this in Paris? I asked. Meaning the food. Better than Paris, she said. Unless one ate in swell restaurants.
How well I remember that first meal. What delicious soup! What excellent veal! And the cheeses! But best of all were the wines.
I remember the waiter handing me the carte des vins and how I scanned it, utterly bewildered by the choice presented. When it came time to order I was speechless. I looked up at him and I said: Select one for us, won’t you? I know nothing about wine.
He took the wine list and studied it, looking now at me, now at Mona, then back at the list. He seemed to be giving it his utmost attention and consideration. Like a man studying the racing chart.
I think, he said, that what you should have is a Medoc. It’s a light, dry Bordeaux, which will delight your palate. If you like it, to-morrow we will try another vintage. He whisked off, beaming like a cherub.
At lunch he suggested another wine—an Anjou. A heavenly wine, I thought. Followed next lunchtime by a Vouvray. For dinner, unless we had sea food, we drank red wines—Pommard, Nuits Saint-Georges, Clos-Vougeot, Macon, Moulin-a-Vent, Fleurie, and so on. Now and then he slipped in a velvety fruity Bordeaux, a chateau vintage. It was an education. (Mentally I was doling out a stupendous tip for him.) Sometimes he would take a sip himself, to make certain it was up to par. And with the wines, of course, he made the most wonderful
