"so Kenny, where are you from?"
"Harrisburg. Harrisburg PA." he laughed.
and in the fading light, he told his tale.
We could see he was a cool guy. He had long hair, parted in the middle and he had a leather string around his forehead. He wore a solid thick and dark, brown beard. He had a denim jacket and jean jacket over a flannel shirt. He was a carpenter, had married his high school teacher!
Could you inagine that? That must have been steamy. Kenny had two kids, and worked for his father-in-law, and he wasn't too fond of his father-in-law, or his daughter, at this point. After a few minutes, he started to warm up, and tell us more and more of his story.
He was now in his late twenties. He had been in the army after high school. He had somehow, got out of serving in Viet Nam. He had won this car in a poker game several nights ago. This car, it was worth about $150 dollars.
In it, he had packed a fresh water fishing rod, and a fishing box, and in the nose of the VW was a box of tools. He had about 3 flannel shirts on rickety hangers on the back window hook, behind the seat near me. He had taken the car to his brothers house, and not told his wife about it. He loaded his stuff in it for two nights, and had plans to drive north on Route 100 north through PA and New York State north to Canada. Apparently in Toronto, he had an old military friend of his, who promised him a carpenters job. Kenny had a small quantity of marijuana with him, and he never offered us any. We were happy to just be in the ficken car. At this point in his story, he reached into the ash tray, and finished off a roach.
This morning, he had left his house for his day carpenter job, took a deep beath, fired up a joint, and hit Route 80. This trip was premeditated, and he had no second thoughts about leaving his family. In an hour, he made another decision, he blew off driving to Toronto. Instead, he swung the purple Bug west and decided to go west for a couple of weeks. A fishing and camping visit to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming was in order! He took a pee break in the Cleveland rest station, and said "what the hell" and picked us up.
It was raining really hard now, and I could only think about the Great Lakes that we were passing on our right hand side. Kenny's car roared on, and he kept talking. His wife was "really hot", but she took her Dad's side and was nagging him to death. "You know......" he said. (Like we did?) I couldn't take it any more, and decided to leave town". "You just can't change some people" he muttered; along with some other sighing statements which we could not decipher, as innocent single guys. (That knowledge comes with age).
"I was getting a little tired when I decided to get a coffee, and take a leak. I almost picked up the two guys who were hitching in front of the rest stop. You guys were on the right side of this service station, that's when I picked you.
Bob responded, "We like to stand under the lights, and let the people see us!"
"Well it dammed well worked!" said Kenny.
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