Auntie was pinched lipped as she vacuumed the carpet in front of the TV where the girls had enjoyed some popcorn and Cokes. She had had enough of these lack-a-daisy girls and their travels. Kristie and Vicki were hitch hiking together, traveling to towns down the east coast and into the southern states stopping in any little hamlet wherever they knew someone.
They had Vicki’s dog, a mid-sized collie with them too. They called her “Jessica” as if she was a close friend of theirs.
“Jessica, where do you think we should go today?”
“Jessica, do you feel like a hamburger?”
“Jessica, let’s go to Kentucky!”
Jessica would act appropriately like a dog, wagging her tail and ready to hit the road. The dog was added protection for the girls even though she could be skittish in uncomfortable situations.
Their first ride out of The City took them into Jersey where they stopped for lunch with a couple of guys who had only one thing on their minds. Their house was one of those mid century moderns clustered in a neighborhood of middle class tract houses. Jessica kept prancing around ready to continue the road trip. When the guys realized that they were never gonna get it, they gave up on their quest and dropped them off on an on ramp headed south.
Their final destination on this trip was a school in Kentucky that Vicki wanted to check out. The girls stayed there for a few nights. University campuses were usually friendly places to find shelter, some food, and other recreational indulgences like wine and marijuana. College kids all over the nation welcomed young travelers.
Vicki was on a quest that would eventually lead her to become a minister. They spent some time at a Christian Youth Outreach Hostel where they found no wine, but plenty of happy young converts to God’s spell. They participated in a Friday night hootenanny where they stole the show with Vicki playing guitar, Kristie singing, and Jessica howling the blues.
They thought about taking a couple of rooms in town where they could find a casual job, but even though the rooms were nice, they couldn’t find any work. The only job available seemed to be working as a barmaid at one of the local joints. They needed money, so Kristie took a turn at it for a few days.
All the old geezers kept constantly hitting on her, promising her a “big tip if she took them into the back room.” She got tired of avoiding all the grab ass, cop a feel, bullshit one day and walked out. She collected her pay which at $1.25 per hour amounted to only fifteen dollars for three days work. Some serious labor laws needed to occur in that state.
Kristie had met one old guy at the bar who was nice and harmless. He offered his trailer for their use out on his old dilapidated farm. He was a scrappy looking fellow who the girls figured wouldn’t harm a flea. They made a big pot of vegetarian spaghetti which they all shared on mismatched plates and bowls in his unusually clean kitchen. “It’s clean because I never use it,” he said.
The girls decided to bed down on a soft layer of Kentucky blue grass behind the trailer, but when the unmistakable smell of a skunk approached, they quickly moved back inside. The old man was amused by the bravado of these two young women. Taking risks to travel the country on their own with very little cash and just their wits about them.
He had been a fighter pilot in WWII. When the girls said they’d be interested in taking a trip to Chicago, the old guy tried to arrange to borrow a plane. A trip to the local airport to find some of his old buddies proved fruitless. Besides who would lend a plane to a friend?
They had one more option while in Kentucky and that was to look up Antoine, a friend of Kristie’s who would put them up for a few days. At the end of it, the girls decided to split and go their separate ways.
They were sitting in the parking lot of a MacDonald’s counting out their money. They decided they could afford to buy the hamburger special which included four cheese burgers, two orders of fries and two Cokes for $10. Kristie thought it was strange that they ordered hamburgers since they were both courting vegetarianism, but as much of a veggie as Vicki was, she still liked Mickey D’s.
The girls each had one burger and gave two to Jessica. After their meal, they hugged and hit the on ramps. Kristie was heading back to the desert where she knew she had a job and places to stay. Vicki headed back to New York to regroup before her trip to Africa.
(First published 7/10/12)
