3. Maria #2
We go tonight.
Now to talk to Papa.
It’s after midnight before I turn the nose of my battered old silver 1995 Toyota Corolla into the Holland Tunnel, driving under the Hudson and emerging in New Jersey before picking up the I-78 heading west. Exactly where we’re headed, I still don’t know—but the good thing about the I-78 is that it just keeps going, so for now I follow it and hope inspiration strikes.
Waking Papa and persuading him we had to flee Brooklyn had been neither easy nor pleasant.
After sixty-five years of living there, he had no desire to leave or start again somewhere new.
He just wanted his armchair, his Negronis, and to be left in peace.
Well… if you want peace, you shouldn’t borrow money you can’t repay—especially not from the mob.
I didn’t say that, though. It would have broken his heart to think I blamed him for all of this.
Maybe in some ways he is to blame—but not mostly.
Mostly it’s Tony Moretti and his ridiculous ego.
That’s where the real problem lies. In any case, it makes no difference.
In the end, I showed Papa the message Tony had sent to me by mistake instead of to his girlfriend, Camila—and that had convinced him.
After that, he surprised me. Quietly, he went to his room and packed a few essentials—a couple of changes of clothes, a winter coat, and a few keepsakes he couldn’t bear to leave behind, including a photograph of him and my mamma on their wedding day, their faces full of joy and hope.
When he comes back, he hands me a small bundle of notes.
I take it and look down. Twenty-dollar bills.
“There’s hundreds of dollars here,” I say.
“One thousand two hundred,” he replies. “Take it. We’ll need it.”
“But where did you?—”
“I’ve had it a long time. In the back of the frame of that photo. For emergencies.”
I lean over and kiss the old rogue. Seems he isn’t so bad with money after all.
I check what I have—seventy-five dollars in notes and a handful of coins. Not much. On the way across Brooklyn we stop at an all-night gas station. I fill the tank, use the ATM—another two hundred and fifty dollars—and grab sodas and sandwiches for the road.
After that, I dump my debit card and phone in a nearby trash can. I don’t know much, but I know enough to understand how easily we could be traced. And the Morettis have more than a few bent cops on their payroll. It wasn’t worth the risk.
So… just over fifteen hundred dollars, a battered old car worth about the same, and whatever we could fit into a couple of holdalls. Not much to start a new life on.
Still… people have had less and made something of it.
Of course, they didn’t have the mob chasing them—but beggars can’t be choosers.
I glance across at Papa. He’s asleep. Lucky man. I don’t have that luxury. I have to stay awake—he never learned to drive.
I switch on the radio for company, flicking through stations until I find something softer, something that steadies my still-jittery nerves.
A soft rock and country channel. The Eagles.
Linda Ronstadt. Kenny Rogers. John Denver.
I find myself singing along to “Take Me Home, Country Roads”… to the place where I belong.
West Virginia.
Yes.
That’s where we’ll go.
The mountains. A new start. Streams, forests, space to breathe. No one will find us there.
With a flicker of renewed hope, I turn up the volume and keep driving west along the I-78, our destination finally decided.
I glance across at Papa, still gently snoring, his seat rest wound back as far as it goes. Not the most comfortable of positions, perhaps, but old people can somehow manage to sleep anywhere, it seems. Perhaps the constant motion of the road and background noise help too.
I pull into a gas station at about four A.M., more for a stretch and a change of position than anything else.
I wake Papa, and he yawns, stretches, visits the bathroom and returns back to the car, doing his best to look alright in front of me.
But I can see that the emotional and physical strains are taking it out of him.
We each open a carton of sandwiches and a can of soda.
I’d bought a few of his favorite Hershey bars in the convenience store in Brooklyn, and we treat ourselves to one each.
Refreshed, and with a little more energy than before, I pay a visit to the bathroom where I splash some cold water on my face to help keep my eyes open.
Then, as refreshed as we’re going to get, we get back into the Corolla and head back onto the intestate.
Not long after that, we see a sign saying West Virginia three hundred miles, and I realize we’ve come about halfway.
Just another four hours or so to go then.
And now, four hours and twenty-five minutes later, it’s eight thirty in the morning, and there’s steam rising from the vicinity of the radiator, and the temperature control is flashing red on the dashboard.
Goddammit, just as the end is in sight.
I indicate right, and pull off the highway at the next junction. Coyote Creek Falls, WV the sign says. Population 1,751. I can’t help wondering who that final “1” was, and whether if someone dies, the signwriter will have to come along and set the number back to 1,750.
With the steam getting worse by the moment, I nurse our vehicle into a nearby gas station to fill up.
Martha’s One Stop Gas ‘n’ Diner the sign says, and as I open my door, a middle-aged woman—Martha herself, perhaps—steps out of a doorway leading to what looks like the pay till for gas, plus the diner and a small convenience store combined into one.
She flashes me a friendly-enough smile and I return it.
“Fill her up for ya?”
“Sure.”
She reaches for the pump and expertly slips the nozzle into the Toyota’s by now almost empty tank.
A loud, metallic rattling noise is followed by a steady hum, as the gasoline starts to pump, and the numbers start to whirl round merrily—far too merrily, in fact.
Ten, fifteen, twenty… within what feels like moments we’re at sixty-five dollars spent, with no sign of stopping, and I’m beginning to fidget, fighting the urge to tell her to stop.
That we haven’t got much money. That we need to make every dollar last.
But I don’t want to make a scene, and besides, we’ll need the fuel in any case, so I thrust my hands in my pockets and try to look casual.
At last, the pump shuts off with an audible click, and the whirling figures finally come to a reluctant stop at eighty-seven dollars and thirty-nine cents. The attendant gives a little shake of the nozzle to catch the final drips, then resets it in its holster at the side of the pump.
“That’ll be eighty-seven thirty-nine,” she smiles at me.
“What? Oh… yes, of course. Sorry. Tired. Been driving all night.”
“All night? You must be exhausted. Where you headed?” she asks.
Shit! Why did I open my big mouth? Now she’ll remember us for sure. If anyone comes asking about a younger woman with an older man, she’ll remember what I said.
“Oh… err… we’re on vacation.” I smile back as best I can, trying to sound bright and cheerful.
Trying to look like a tourist, whatever they look like.
We don’t see too many in downtown Brooklyn, and I’ve no direct experience myself, never having been anywhere further from home than Manhattan Island. Until today, of course.
“That’s nice. Say… is that steam coming out your radiator, honey?”
“Err… yes, I think so. That’s kinda why I pulled off the highway. It’s an old car, we’ve had it forever. It’s not used to being driven these sorts of distances.”
“Come a long way, huh? Where y’all from?”
Damn—I’ve done it again. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.
“Chicago,” I say quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly, because she looks at me a little oddly. Like she doesn’t entirely believe me.
“Well,” she says. “You can’t carry on driving your car in this condition. What are ya gonna do?”
“Good question.” It was a good question. I hadn’t given it any thought as yet. Things had just… happened. “I guess I should get a mechanic to take a look at it. Do you have one on site?”
“Sorry, no.” Damn. “But, Grant Naylor and his boys are just up the road. They’ll look after you. Want me to give him a call for you?”
“Would you?” I smile gratefully at her.
“Sure, no problem. And they’re good guys.
I’m always happy to send business their way.
They come in occasionally to use the diner, or buy milk and bread from the store.
We get stuff delivered fresh every morning.
” She whisks her phone out of her pocket and dials the mechanic’s number.
After a moment or two talking she hangs up.
“The tow truck’s at another job. Grant says they’ll be about forty-five minutes.
Why don’t you grab some breakfast at the diner while you wait?
Solomon—that’s our chef—makes amazing pancakes.
Why, people come from miles around, just for our pancakes.
” She smiles at me again, her white teeth flashing in the morning sun.
This time my return smile is genuine. I could just use some pancakes. And strawberries, and syrup. And a whole lot of strong black coffee… coffee so strong you can practically stand your spoon up in it.
“Yes. Yes, I think we will. I’ll go and wake Papa.”
The diner’s ancient and a little shabby—one of those old-fashioned style ones with a central aisle.
It’s clean and bright and cheerful enough though.
A radio is turned down low, playing country and western music.
On the left as we go in is a long, aluminum counter with barstools, behind which the work of coffee making and food preparation appears to take place.
To the other side of the central aisle is a row of maybe six or so wooden tables with chairs, lined up back-to-back next to the windows.
A couple of trucker-types in jeans and baseball caps sit up at the bar, drinking coffee and chatting to a man in an apron—presumably the famed Solomon.
They have the air of locals about them, and they nod to Martha—or whoever it is who served me outside—when she follows in behind us.
A young couple sit at the table in the far corner, holding hands across the red-checkered table-cloth, seemingly oblivious to anything else but each other.
“Now,” says our hostess, who has installed herself behind the counter. “What can we get you?” We both order coffee and pancakes, and I ask for orange juice too, since I’m thirsty. Then we pick a table a couple down from the lovebirds to give them some privacy, and settle down to wait.
The pancakes are every bit as good as we’d been promised, and we’re onto second coffees when a huge, ancient and battered tow truck pulls into the yard. The tow truck parks up next to my Corolla, dwarfing my car, and making it look almost modern and clean by comparison.
A shiver of doubt goes through me.
We don’t know anyone here. What if they make a mess of things, but still charge us a fortune? What if they’re not really mechanics at all? What if they capture us and sell us into slavery or something?
Ridiculous! I shake my head in an effort to clear it, the tiredness beginning to really hit me, now I’ve stopped driving for a while.
The driver’s door opens on the tow truck, and out steps…
Holy crap…
I can feel my mouth hanging open, and I rapidly close it, glancing across guiltily at Papa to make sure he hadn’t noticed.
Standing at well over six feet tall, the stranger is dressed in a blue cotton mechanic’s overalls and work boots.
His long, dirty-blond hair looks to be cut in that sort of messy style that Michael Hutchins from INXS always looked so good with.
I can’t quite tell from this distance, and especially not through the less than perfectly clean window glass, but I think he might have hazel eyes.
What definitely cannot be missed even from this distance is the size of the guy’s muscles.
Oh.
My.
Actual.
God.
If this is what a car mechanic looks like, then I can’t wait to see the lumberjacks.
The truck door slams shut as my blond Adonis drops easily to the ground, notices Papa and me through the diner window, and strolls casually—almost arrogantly—towards the door to the diner, whistling a song, and looking for all intents and purposes like he owns not just the place but everything and everyone in it.