Good Vibrations (8 page)

I slithered up a side track into the trees as the first drops fell, but long before we found shelter, water was sloshing over us in a near-solid curtain. We jumped off the bikes under a thick, leafy oak and cowered behind a pair of retired tractors that had been there for a long time, judging from the foliage poking up through their vital organs. Our lightweight rain gear seemed almost superfluous, but we struggled into the useless things anyway. Roz's leaked.

‘I've been drier on the foredeck in thirty-foot seas,' she remarked as we resigned ourselves to a soggy wait under a rusty engine.

After five minutes or so things calmed off to what the BBC Shipping Forecast would have described as ‘Continuous Heavy Rain'. We huddled in our makeshift hide and listened as the popping of the rapidly cooling V-twin engines mingled with the steady drumming of the deluge on the tractors and our fuel tanks. Cleaning a Harley properly is half a day's work. Even tarting one up for the road can take the best part of an hour, so keeping the bikes dry had become a private obsession. Despite our brush with Bertha, I was still living with an unrealistic horror of being caught in the wet, but now that there was no avoiding it, I recalled a favourite sailors' maxim: ‘If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have signed on!'

Leaning back on the perished tractor tyre, I inspected Black Madonna. To my surprise, the rain was giving her a new dimension.

As the clear drops ran off her waxed tank to drip over the shining complexity of her power plant, each one carried an image, a tiny world that lasted only long enough to land on the smooth black gloss and run to the edge. Letting go its despairing hold on the underside to tumble on to the cylinder fins, its doom was sealed as surely as that of an iceberg sailing down from Labrador to meet the warm Gulf Stream by the corner of Newfoundland. The droplets hit the hot chrome and evaporated with a hiss, leaving nothing but invisible vapour, where a second earlier had been a fish-eye image of the tractor, me and the oak tree.

An hour later we were at the junction again, soaked through and desperate for a motel room, preferably with a veranda to hang out our kit in the last of the afternoon sun. This had now returned in splendour, the heat had been wound back up and, except for the still streaming road surface which for once had not instantly dried, the world had returned to normal. As we waited beneath the huge sky for an easy gap in traffic that the storm had bunched together, a procession of pick-ups, small trucks and modern cars swished by. Their windows were shut tight against efficient rubber seals and their inhabitants peered gloomily at their half-world through fogged-up glass. As we penetrated further from the East Coast, we had noted Japanese imports thinning out. This was a loud statement of heartland foreign policy, since, with the clear exception of the full-sized American cars, the only true difference we could finger between ‘Tokyo trashers' and the home-grown puddle-jumpers was that Detroit cars were less efficient.

Suddenly, a pair of bright lights pierced the muddy spray that hung like a shroud over the tarmac. They were wider apart than the puddle-jumpers', but too low for a truck. As they approached, a motor car materialised behind them, long, wide and curvaceous; jacked up just high enough above its broad, chromed wheels to give it flair. Its mock radiator grill was divided in the centre and, as it swept closer, immaculate orange paintwork glowed through the filthy road-haze like a beacon of hope.

An early seventies Pontiac GTO.

I don't know when Detroit stopped making these sports saloons, but it was a sorry day for America. This one sailed by like a Wagnerian heroine riding the wings of the storm. Its exhaust pipes growled the discreet message that at 60 it wasn't working at even half-burn, and its pillarless side windows were wound into the doors so that we could see clear through to the woodlands on the other side. The driver turned to glance at the motorcycles through his shades, raised a hand in salute and rumbled on, lost after a few seconds into the mist of his wake. We kicked the bikes into gear and followed him with lightened hearts.

We had seen the Spirit of the Eagle.

8
OLD MAN RIVER

Still soggy, but steaming dry in the comparative cool of the evening, we rode into the bustling tobacco town of Springfield, population 11,277. A feeling of run-down decay pervaded the untidy streets as we cruised along, aching all over, searching for lodgings. Tourism was not a factor hereabouts, so campgrounds were out of the question. Rough camping was also a non-starter because all land in America tends to be owned by somebody, and after the warnings from the lady in the gas station, we weren't interested in taking the chance of upsetting anyone.

Not long before, we'd stopped for an ice cream in a village and had felt a distinct hostility in the glare of a pair of farm hands who clearly didn't take to outsiders. At this stage of our journey, the phantom in the GTO represented my idea of one end of conservative American nationalism. These xenophobes placed themselves stolidly at the other. They were from the dark end of that street.

Entering from the east, the outskirts of Springfield held little charm. Straight road, dust, run-down business buildings and the occasional store burning up in the afternoon sun. No hotels. Past a square brick tobacco warehouse in dire need of pointing and identified by a huge leaf on one wall, we came abruptly upon a light-controlled junction with a main road. On the map, this throughway had looked nothing special, but in the flesh it was wide and busy as it swept around a long bend from the north and away out of town up a steady incline to the south-east. No high-rise buildings disturbed the skyline. Everything was on one, or at the most, two storeys.

To the left of the junction stood a motel that looked as cheap as it was. The room was filthy, the beds cripplingly soft and the television only worked if you hit it. The smart joints we could see in the distance down the north-south highway had ‘Days Inn' and ‘Holiday Inn' signs on tall stalks. Tempting, except that they were going to be $60 and more. Such top-of-the-line accommodation would have set us back at least £70 back in Britain. Here it could be had for a mere £30 for two. Add the fact that we had just moved two heavy motorcycles 130 miles for a fuel bill of five pounds fifty, and you being to realise how cheap America is for travellers, even at the up-market end of town.

That night, our fleapit cost us fourteen pounds, plus five pounds ‘all up' for a burger and salad apiece at a diner down the strip. We secured our budget but, as is often the case, we got what we paid for.

Outside the next room a young man was tinkering with a rusty, nondescript American car.

‘Need any help?' I asked. I carried a useful tool kit in my saddlebag, but since most males from the US countryside can sort out an automotive problem any day of the week, the question was really more of an invitation to conversation.

‘Nuthin' I can't handle,' he said slowly, adjusting an air screw. He looked me up and down. ‘You guys bound for Sturgis?'

I'd never heard of Sturgis – with a soft ‘G', or any other sort of ‘G' for that matter.

‘No, I don't think so,' I responded quizzically. ‘Why would we?'

‘Jus' wondered,' he drawled, ‘you bein' bikers an' all. That's quite some event. Where you from anyway?'

Everyone on the road in America starts out by asking where you are from, and by now I'd given up handing out my life story. I set Sturgis on the back burner, skipped the ‘Britain' bit and told him we were out of Baltimore, bound for San Francisco.

He whistled, and I returned the question.

‘My buddy an' me are cruising down to South Carolina from St Louis. We do house carpentry. There's jobs to spare down on the shore since Hurricane Bertha hit.'

It was my turn to whistle.

‘You mean you'll drive all that way – what is it, 1,500 miles? – to find work?'

‘Sure… besides, it's summer. Nice to be down on the beach. We'll find some girls. Have a ball.' He reached into a cold box in the back seat and tossed me a beer.

‘So why aren't you on the interstate?' I asked. ‘Why is everyone on this road when the highway's only ten miles away?'

‘This here's Route 41,' he replied. ‘Used to be the main drag from Chicago to Miami. Went by way of Nashville Tennessee, Chattanooga and Atlanta. You can't just shut down a road like this by building a bigger one. Me and my buddy, we run most of our distance on the interstate, but every so often, we come off and drive the back roads. We lose some time, but we see more action. It's gonna take above a few days to rebuild those houses. The work's not going away.'

Later that evening, I thought about America always rolling down the road. The average US citizen who fills in census forms will move seventeen times before he or she sinks back into the ground. Brits move eight. Perhaps these two guys would never return from Carolina. The beaches are a different world from St Louis, but they are still safe territory. Still the ‘Good ol' USA'. It might be a thousand miles or more, but the change would not be remotely akin to waking up in New Zealand, or Ireland, or even Britain. They would find the same fast food, the same cars, the same essential tax structure from New Mexico to Maine, although not perhaps the same pre-set cultural data.

Tired after a long, hot day, we turned in early to the sound of constant traffic in and out of the space in front of the Crown Motel. I was fast asleep when a commotion started outside around midnight. Glad that I had double-locked the bikes and chained them to the rusty stanchion supporting the porch, I pulled on my jeans and stepped out.

The chippies had gone on down south, driving through the night to avoid the heat in their non-air-conditioned jalopy. In their place, a beat-up Chevy van was discharging four men with overnight gear. All short in stature, they were calling loudly to one another in Spanish under the glim of the only exterior lamp that still worked. One was sitting on Black Madonna rolling himself a joint. I hated him for his arrogant invasion of my space, laying on me the clear onus to act. I groped round our door for my leather jacket, a proven psychological boost in a confrontation, then materialised over him from the shadows, feeling infinitely less menacing than I hoped I appeared. He stared me hard in the eyes and I could see he was lit up, but he was isolated by 15 yards from his mates who were now piling into their room. To my relief he dropped his gaze after a few seconds, glanced around, then climbed to his feet. As he rose, two more of his chums tumbled out of the vehicle. This pair were gibbering from drink or drugs. My man wandered across and the three of them fell through the door into what must by now have been a crowded room. Two beds, six guys, at least half of them out of their minds. I was just wishing them as bad a sleep as they deserved when the sick-looking customer who'd parked his butt on my bike reappeared.

‘You OK, man? Got all you need? This is prime.' He produced a plastic bag of what looked like cocaine. ‘Price is good…' he hissed, a hint of menace, despite the cartoon accent.

‘I'm cool,' I mumbled, ‘we got our stash together. You know how it is. Can't carry much on the bikes…'

He came on again, but before I had to turn him down flat, one of his more sober cronies flopped out and half-threw him into their room. Ignoring my existence he slammed shut the sliding door of the van and briskly followed his shot-away mate indoors. His attitude reeked of the confidence borne of a loaded hand gun.

I stepped back inside, locked the door and shoved a chair under the handle for good measure. The night passed sweating and sleepless, listening to the throb of large-capacity engines coming and going. I lay watching the shadows on the blinds. Twice I rose and peered out at the bikes, but there was no more mischief afoot than commercial travellers down the block pulling in hookers for one-hour sessions.

As I willed the van-men to stay away from our transport, the mystery of their existence, chasing round the country in their worn-out truck with their heads full of crack, homed in on my insomnia. I couldn't talk with them as I had the carpenters. I might as well have challenged deer in the woods, yet they had the same rights in this enormous republic as the two lads on their trip to the coast, or Clark, or the dude in the red Pontiac. Perhaps, on the other hand, they were among America's four million known illegal immigrants and had no rights at all, but whatever their electoral status, somewhere along the dark hours before dawn my brain shook them off and I dozed. In the morning, they too had slipped away.

The day after the wretched night in Springfield was to be our last before the Mississippi. I had the notion that things would change after we had crossed the United States' greatest natural artery, for while the riding was rarely tedious, we had already covered over a thousand miles and seemed hardly to have begun.

Pressing on harder now, we swung into Charlotte, Tennessee in the late morning, searching for shade and a cold Coke. The town had grown up around a small-scale colonial square with a two-storey brick courthouse in the middle complete with dome. By now we had realised that, in daylight at least, securing all our gear to the bikes then chaining them to the doors of the local bank was a superfluous precaution. Things might be different in the inner cities or sometimes by the high road, but in this divided land, the towns and villages away from the beaten track are remarkably free of petty crime. We therefore dumped our leathers on the saddles, hung the helmets on the handlebars and strolled on to the manicured lawns on course for the deep shadow of an ancient cottonwood.

Outside the courthouse doors a small group of people stood around in the powerful sunshine. One of these was a girl wearing slingback stilettos without stockings and a thin cotton dress. She leaned seductively against the wall smoking a cigarette, her dress pressed intermittently against her thighs by the light breeze. Occasionally she tossed a head of thick, dark hair. I couldn't hear her conversation with two young men, but with an act like hers she must have supported a voice straight from a Tennessee Williams play. Were they just clerks on lunch break or were they litigants who had walked out for air while an unseen jury reached its awesome verdict? I never found out, because the temperature was up in the nineties and the humidity climbing fast. We had to find a cool drink or perish there on the turf.

Roz spotted a Coca-Cola sign outside a small, antiquated pharmacy, but the place was padlocked. We were just turning to leave when the tall, elderly proprietor materialised and opened up. As we drank from traditional bottles – no cans here – Mr Elliot talked of his life in Charlotte.

The whole scene must have been already out of date by the 1950s. So, it must be said, was Mr Elliot today, in his cream linen suit and horn-rimmed spectacles, but he was none the worse for that. Profits had thinned out since the premature death of Mr Elliot's brother, the local doctor, but for those who still wanted the basics of medical chemistry, he maintained a supply of zinc sulphate, asafoetida and other reliable standbys. Beneath the counters he had buckets full of worked flints from pre-settlement times, and several shelves were stocked with wooden artefacts which he made himself and sold to boost business. He used only well-seasoned timber and would provide you with a honey dipper or a potato masher as easily as mix you up a bottle of cough linctus.

We bought a masher and were rewarded when Mr Elliot reverently lifted out a dog-eared photograph album from a deep drawer.

‘You like history?' he said. ‘Here's mine.'

As the faded pages turned, we saw the town as part of a linear progression of time from his own childhood, the black-and-white images tucked into the cartridge paper with corner ‘stickies'. In the mid sixties, the pictures changed to gaudy colour, now well past its prime, with the courthouse, ‘the oldest in Tennessee', and the square thinly parked with '57 Chevrolets and other classics. Flicking back to the early pages of the 1930s, we saw a circus parading through town, elephants to the fore and tumblers manning the wings of the advance. Next to it was a sepia print of the pharmacist as a lad, standing on the stump of a 12-foot diameter poplar tree.

‘That tree was one of the last survivors of the primary growth of this country,' he said nostalgically. ‘We nearly took the lot. I guess we knew no better. But our planet will not see such trees again.'

Beyond Charlotte, we passed through a nondescript succession of small green farms and woodland until late in the afternoon when we began to feel the unmistakable pull of the Mississippi. Imperceptibly, the undulating ridges of Tennessee gave way to flatter, longer lands where the pines were cut 100 yards back from the road, adding to the feeling of increasing space. At last, we were starting to see the tarmac in an undeviating line ahead of us, with traffic thinning out so that a converging vehicle became an event in the passing afternoon.

By now, certain patterns and practices were emerging in our teamwork. When Roz vanished from my mirrors, one of three things had generally happened. She sometimes saw things I didn't and elected to investigate, knowing that sooner or later I would retrace my tyre tracks. Or I might have made a wrong turning, leaving her waiting for me back at the offending junction. Many times, I was simply riding faster than she cared to, so she had elected to drop behind. There was, of course, a fourth possibility. She might have come off.

We were demolishing the last 50 miles to our next night stop at Dyersburg, itself twenty or so short of the river, when I missed Roz's headlight. There had been no junctions or possible places of interest for miles and I had been riding faster than I'd realised, so I stopped to wait. Things had been going well and I was beginning to ignore Roz's assertions that she was not yet ready for fast cruising.

No Roz appeared after four or five minutes, so I paddled Black Madonna around and set off in the opposite direction, going hard. No junctions had split the road for at least half an hour, so there was no wrong turning option to ease my mind. I dreaded what I might see. We had no intercom sets like the Gold Wing boys, preferring not to crash in on one another's privacy, but I wished to goodness that I could call her now.