Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (20 page)

When we got close, I could see head lights stopped at the intersection. I pleaded, “If you’re going to go, go now!”

But they didn’t move until we were in the intersection. Just as we got to the center of the boulevard they started across. I screamed, “No, dammit! No!”

Car tires screeched as the white sedan lurched to a stop. Belle bolted to the left around the front of the car with the carriage wheels barely missing the bumper. While we sailed through the intersection the driver laid on his horn, which only egged Belle on.

We had already covered three blocks in this runaway, and only two blocks further was West Street. It had a traffic light, and it’s one of the main thoroughfare’s that connects downtown with New Madison on the hill. Approaching the red light, I could feel Belle begin to run out of steam, but I still couldn’t get her under control. Then, just as we got to the intersection, the light in our direction turned green. When we crossed West Street, Belle slowed to a trot and by the time we got to Mulberry I was able to stop her. But my heart was still racing.

When we turned onto Main, I heard loud creaking and it sounded like something was rubbing at the back of the carriage. When I pulled over and turned around, I found the pumpkin listing off to the right. The pumpkin frame had popped out of the brackets on the carriage frame, and was leaning on the back wheel. I couldn’t see anyway to fix it right there. All I could do was drive it that way back to the Fudge Factory. Downtown was deserted so no one saw me drive that cockeyed Cinderella carriage through Madison.

A couple days later I fixed the carriage and never had another problem with Belle. I didn’t say anything to her owner about it until a couple of
months later. When I did, Jim told me that he had problems with her on the streets of Cincinnati. He brought her to Madison thinking a smaller town might be better for her. I was sorry I ever told him. A few weeks later he took her away and brought a couple of other horses. Neither of them was as good as Belle downtown, and Della hated them both. All of us were broken hearted when they took her away, but it was worse for Della. She searched and called for Belle for days.

It was the middle of January before Patricia landed a job. She had a couple of things working against her. Mainly she was overqualified for the jobs that were available. One was as a waitress at Clifty Inn at Clifty Falls State Park. After the manager read her application, she asked, “So why do you want to wait tables here?”

This is where my wife made her mistake. She told them the truth. Everyone who interviewed her had read about us in the paper. They were all intrigued, but no one wanted to hire someone who’d be leaving in the spring. “Jeez, it’s not like I’m trying to be a CEO,” Patricia said. “I just want to wait tables.”

So, when Patricia applied for a job at Frisches Big Boy, she told them, “We moved here so my husband could run the horse drawn carriage downtown.”

They hired her at the handsome wage of $2.30 an hour. She did such a good job, that a month later they gave her a raise. A nickel.

True, she got tips. But when you work in a restaurant that has a buffet, a lot of patrons feel just because you brought them drinks you don’t deserve a tip. After all, they got their own food, didn’t they? What most people don’t realize is, regardless if it’s a buffet or you’re being served a five-course-meal, that waitress is taxed on eight percent of
your
bill. Whether you tip or not.

Patricia’s favorite group included Grandma, her daughter and three grandchildren–Grandma was buying lunch. They had to have a highchair
for one of the kids–the others were too big for a highchair but not old enough to be in school. Throughout the meal the five-year-old kept screaming, “I want McDonald’s!”

Grandma and her daughter ate from the buffet, while the children got something off the kiddie menu. The one in the highchair ate what Grandma spooned into her mouth. After a few spoons full, the toddler spit half of it out and it drooled down her face, onto her bib and into the highchair tray. Then she started bawling.

The tears stopped when Patricia brought a couple of fresh damp napkins and helped Grandma clean up the mess. During the cleanup, baby’s head wobbled about with wide eyes fixed on the newcomer in her life. She rewarded the waitress with a fat cheeked smile that had bubbles coming out of it. Then, as my wife went to the next booth to check on those patrons, the baby started to whimper.

To keep her quiet, Grandma laid a paper napkin on the highchair tray and plopped some of Junior’s fries down on the napkin. (Junior was boycotting them and the burger because it wasn’t a McDonald’s Happy Meal.) Then, to keep the baby entertained, Grandma squirted a blob of ketchup on the napkin. That way baby could use the fries, or fingers, to decorate the highchair. Most of the fries–coated with ketchup–fell on the floor.

After one spilt Pepsi, a tipped over milk and a kiddie burger thrown on the floor, they were ready to leave. When Grandma got the bill she said, “It’s Senior Citizen’s Day. Where’s my discount?”

Patricia showed Grandma where it was taken off her meal. “But I’m paying for their meals too. It should be taken off the whole bill.”

My wife was just the Slave Waitress. Grandma had to take it up with the manager. “He’s at the cash register.”

They all scooted out of the booth as Mother thanked my wife for being so helpful. “We’re sorry about the mess.”

Grandma got nowhere with the manager, but Junior got his way. Grandma said, “Honey, the boy has to eat something! We’ll just pull into the drive-thru at McDonalds. It’s on the way.”

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you they didn’t leave a tip. Not only did Patricia make nothing, but she had to pay income tax on $2.40 of their bill.

The best part of Patricia’s day was the ride home. Madison had a public transportation system called “CAR” (Catch A Ride). It was a service that picked you up at your door and took you to most of the commercial areas. In the afternoon, she came home on a small bus with a dozen residents from Madison State Hospital. They did piece work for a couple of the local manufacturers and lived at the hospital.

Patricia was the only one on the bus who didn’t live there, and she was the last passenger they picked up on their way home. Most of the time they would get to the restaurant before Patricia was off the clock. So they’d wait in the parking lot–sometimes as long as half an hour–for her to come out. The patients were assigned seats on the bus, so Patricia was too. She sat in the back seat with Chucky who was in his mid-twenties, had light red hair and Downs Syndrome. In the parking lot at Friches, he would wait outside the bus to help her get on. Angel, who sat in the seat behind the driver, would always call out, “Here she comes. Here comes Patwisha!” Then she’d start clapping her hands, squirm in her seat and giggle as my wife stepped up into the bus. In un-unison chorus they’d all say “Hello, Patricia!”

“Hello, everybody!”

No matter how bad a day it had been, no matter how upset she was walking out of the restaurant, it all melted away as my wife looked down at the faces that welcomed her aboard. Some were contorted, there were those with nervous twitches and others just weren’t normal. But they all had a separate sweetness to them. Some would wave up to her, others would touch her hand or pat her on the leg as she went by. And then there was Bert.

Bert was wiry, in his mid-twenties, with thick black eyebrows and a feisty grin. He was in the fourth row in the seat next to the aisle, but he could never just sit there. It seemed like Bert was always up to something. When my wife walked down the aisle, he’d wink at her in a Casanova sort-of-way. Then, when she got next to him, he would reach for her hand. “Hey Patricia, you can sit with me.”

Chucky followed her and would always slap Bert’s hand away. “No she can’t! She sits next to me. Stay away from him, Patricia. Bert’s nasty!”

After they sat down in the back seat, Chucky hardly said another word the rest of the way home. Bert, on the other hand, would turn around every few minutes, wink at my wife and give her a thumbs-up. Sometimes he would blow her kisses and point to himself as he nodded his head. But he never got out of the way with Patricia.

Bert was the jokester on the bus. He would slip out of his seat, sneak up behind someone and pinch them. Or maybe drop something down their back, then scurry to his seat. Every time, he would turn around, wink at Patricia and giggle. Chucky would always say, “That Bert! Nobody likes that Bert. He’s no good! He’s nasty!”

Then there was Gloria–the matriarch of the bus–who sat two seats ahead of Bert. She was at least ten years older than him and outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Several times on the way home she would yell, “Bert, grow up!” One time he leaned over the seat in front of him and stuck a cold bottle of Dr. Pepper on the back of Gloria’s neck. She whirled around, slapped him hard across the face and screamed, “Grow up!”

Bert laughed, then turned and winked at Patricia with his thumb up.

One evening, on the way home, the guy in front of Gloria was complaining that he felt sick. Every time he said something about it, she would reach around, put her palm on his forehead and say, “Yup, you’re sick all right. Sick in the head.”

Late in the winter, Patricia got bronchitis and couldn’t go to work for two weeks. Her first day back, when she climbed into the bus, it was
pandemonium. They were all cheering and clapping. And the girl in the front seat cried as she bounced up and down yelling “It’s Patwisha! It’s Patwisha!” On his feet, in the middle of the isle, Bert was doing the twist with his thumbs up.

Patricia turned to the driver, a semi-retired man with a big grin on his face. “You’ve got yourself a fan club,” he said. “They asked about you every day.”

But the one who touched her the most was the man in a seat two rows ahead of her. He was always by himself, curled up in a ball, pressed against the wall of the bus. He never looked at or spoke to anybody. A couple of times Patricia saw him look at her as she walked toward her seat. When she smiled at him, he turned away and drew into a tighter ball. But that day, after she sat down next to Chucky, this young man slid out of his seat and shuffled to the back of the bus with his eyes cast down. He stopped in front of my wife, and without a word, leaned over and kissed the top of her head. Then, silently, he turned around and shuffled to his seat where he turned back into a cocoon.

We made lots of friends while we were in Madison. Among them were John, Cheryl and their twelve year old son, Dylan. We met them while camped on the river front when we first got to town. John was a boat builder and ran Eagle Hollow Marina a mile east of Madison.

I wanted to put a lighter back axle on Della’s cart, and John offered to help. The plan was that when we started traveling again, we would walk from the farm to Eagle Hollow on Friday, May 17th. On Saturday, John and I would replace the axle. then Monday we would hit the road headed east.

Cheryl home schooled Dylan and was active in a local home schooling group. She asked me if I would put on a poetry show for the group at Eagle Hollow. We set the time for 7 p.m. Friday night.

Thursday night when we said goodbye to the Greens, there were lots of tears. During the past six months we had become part of the family. Sarah said, “Next winter, if you don’t find a good place to stay, just give us a call. We’ll get a horse trailer and bring you back here.”