Look at Flower Page 9

  The smell of the coffee is overwhelming; then I smell eggs and bacon, and it’s like I died and gone to lumberjack heaven.

  He’s sticking out his hand. “Andy Sawyer.”

  “Johnny Evans,” I say in my best deep voice, then give his hand a shake.

  Andy leads me over to where he has a fire going on top of a metal plate on the boxcar’s floor, and I sit crosslegged in front of it. There’s an aluminum coffee pot and a cast-iron pan with the eggs and bacon. The smell leaves me dizzy for a moment.

  When I focus, I see Andy pouring me a cup then dishing up the eggs. I get a better look at him. He has very nice skin, I see, smooth and with a good tan. His lips are thick, his nose very delicate and fine. He’s wearing a loose T-shirt that hangs like a tent around him. His eyebrows are curiously thin and well-sculpted. His hair looks Brill-creamed and is combed straight back. He has a strong chin, sort of like the actor Kirk Douglas.

  “When did you get on?” I say, a tin coffee mug in hand, the first sip of java like a shot to my system.

  “Last night, outside Roundup.”

  “That still Montana?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And where’re you going?”

  Andy shrugs and says, “Wherever we end up. How about you, Johnny?”

  For a second there it’s strange being called that, but I answer right away, “Pretty much the same as you, Andy.”

  He looks me straight in the eyes, then holds out his hand again. It’s small and not very strong. Mine’s small and not that strong also, but I do my best to give him a solid, crushing shake, like a man would do. For a second we’re both looking at our hands as they clasp. Then he gives a quick laugh and says, “How long you been riding the rails?”

  I shrug. “Not that long, few weeks is all. How about you?”

  “Oh, I’ve been all over the country this summer. This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, coolest thing. Where you from originally?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “I’m from Portland.”

  “Oregon, huh?”

  “You know it?”

  “Oh,” I say, swallowing, “been there a few times.”

  But he doesn’t push it any further; and then we’re both smiling at each other. I for one am feeling this huge relief to have what’s starting to feel like a traveling companion, and a sweet guy to boot. Not to mention breakfast. And . . . amazing, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue I’m anyone other than Johnny Evans.

  Andy’s got some tin plates and rudimentary utensils, and when the eggs are just the way I like ’em, runny but not too runny, he dishes two of them and some bacon onto my plate, and I dig in like a starved lion.

  After we’ve both eaten, Andy leans back and puts a Camel between his lips. He licks the raw cigarette paper, spits out a few shreds of tobacco, then fires it up with a Zippo lighter. He holds the smoke out to me.

  I shake my head.

  He takes a long draw, then says, “You ever have any trouble on the trains?”

  I shake my head. “Haven’t been out here that long. And . . . I had a guy I was traveling with. Name was Run.”

  “Odd name.”

  “He was half Japanese.”

  “And what happened with him?” Andy’s looking at me a little intensely, through his cigarette smoke.

  “Oh, you know,” I say slowly. It hurts to think about what happened, and I’m missing him terrible. “Nothin’. Just split up.”

  “So you want to travel some together?” Andy asks just like that.

  And as if without a thought, though of course what choice do I have, I nod and say, “Sure, man.”

  - - - - -

  Turns out andy does have a place he’s heading to: a kids’ camp in Northern Minnesota where he’s heard he can get a cook’s job.

  “Isn’t it a little late in the season?”

  “Somebody’s quitting. If I get there in a couple days, I got the gig.”

  “Sounds good.” I’m envious of him, he has a destination, and a pleasant-sounding one at that.

  He shrugs, then says, “You want work?”

  That takes me by surprise. “Um, I don’t know, I—” But the idea’s pretty attractive. I mean, I can’t just ride this train forever, can I?

  “You good at anything?” He lifts his firm chin. “Cooking?” I give my head a quick shake. “Crafts?” A shrug. “Jewelry? I hear they got a whole setup polishing rocks and stuff.”

  I think about this for a moment, then laugh and say, “I don’t think I’m good at anything.”

  Andy cocks an eye at me. “Oh, I bet you’re good at all kinds of stuff . . . Johnny.” He says it with just that pause, and I wonder if he’s tumbling to me. But then he simply goes on, saying, “Listen, why don’t you just come along and see what they need. You got anything better?”

  So that’s how I end up at Camp Wee-Ha-Lay-Ha on a lake outside of the town of Bemidji. We leave the train in Bemidji, dig the huge statues of Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox, eat an unbelievably great burger (the sautéed onions just steaming up my face), then hitchhike north to the camp.

  The woods are thick, the air rich and heady—each breath sweeter than at Big Mike’s—and I’m feeling good from the solid food in me when we get the salesman who’d picked us up to drop us beneath the sign arcing over a dirt road that reads camp wee-ha-lay-ha.

  And here Flower is, at the end of another long table in another big dining hall, eating mac and cheese and drinking bug juice, this time not surrounded by singing lumberjacks in plaid shirts but acres of screaming kids. Can’t they sit still for a minute? I see a pickle slice fly by my head. One girl pulls another girl’s braids, and she squawks like a chicken. And over there a boy’s got another boy down on the concrete floor, pummeling him, while two counselors (about my age) try to pull him off.

  Andy eats his sticky yellow noodle goop unfazed, and I try to follow his lead. It’s already arranged that he’ll be cooking breakfast tomorrow. And me? I’m going to be a lifeguard. (The previous one ran off one night with one of the chick counselors; another counselor’s been filling in since.)

  Which of course poses a problem or two, like how am I going to be a guy sitting out there in the lifeguard booth? Keep fully dressed, my cap on my head? Doesn’t seem too likely. But then I realize that there’s no reason I have to be a dude anymore; I’m not on the train and not in any danger here at Camp Wee-Ha-Lay-Ha, least as far as I can tell (unless it’s from a toxic food fight). Course, it could be a mindblower to have the guy they just hired as a lifeguard turn out to be a honey, but, hey, I’ll worry about that tomorrow—tonight’s going to be a big dance, and I already have a few interesting ideas up the sleeve of Run’s sport shirt.

  After dinner the campers calm down some. Everybody heads out of the dining hall and mills around under the flagpole. I’m hanging with Andy, who’s trying to get to know a couple of the other counselors. They’re obviously college kids, the guys dressed in clean chinos and Sta-Prest shirts, the girls in culottes and expensive tops—total straights—and the vibe I’m getting is that they’re not keen on hanging with two dudes who just rode in on a rail.

  The funny thing is that Andy doesn’t seem to see this yet. He’s going on and on about how beautiful Camp Wee-Ha-Lay-Ha is, and how he’s going to make sure they eat a lot better than that goop we had tonight; and he’s also eyeing one of the chickies, a squeaky-clean blonde, hair long and straight and parted in the middle. She looks a little like the skinny one in the Mamas and the Papas.

  Andy asks her name, and she says, “Sandra.”

  “Like Sandra Dee,” I say.

  “Who’s that?” she says, turning to me. She’s looking at me for the first time, really, and I see a faint smile in the corner of her mouth.

  “Oh, an old actress—before your time.”

  “Yeah, like you’re that much older.”

  “I have an aunt, she was a big fan. Dragged me to all her
flicks, like A Summer Place and Tammy and the Doctor.”

  The chickie gives her head a shake and says, “Only movies we see up here are Disney cartoons and Ol’ Yeller. Chuck, we’re sick of that damn dog, aren’t we?”

  Chuck, one of the crewcut guys, nods.

  Well, this is one lame scene, but I’m still kind of high on the rich oxygenated air and the soaring pines, so I give Sandra a loopy grin, and she gives me one back. No! Come on, she’s interested in me? I mean, I know I’m kind of a cute looking guy, but. . . .

  They’re not at all interested in Andy, that’s for sure, though he keeps trying to make some hay; and then this huge gonging bell starts clanging right above us, bang, bang—it’s like a skyquake—and when I pull my fingers from my ears, everyone’s heading back into the dining hall, which is now, according to the sign above the door, the camp wee-ha-lay-ha ballroom.

  They’ve pushed all the tables aside, hung an old mirror ball from the rafters, darkened the lights, and set up a table at one end of the room with a boxy record player with a microphone plugged into it.

  The head counselor, Mr. Tibbler, who met Andy and me earlier, has the mike, and he’s welcoming all of us to the fancy dance. The kids have been herded in, and boys are standing at one end, girls at the other; and when the music starts, a droopy Lawrence Welk kind of bubble-music thing like my grandmother would dig, nobody moves.

  Mr. Tibbler says, “Now, children, onto the dance floor. It’s good for you.”

  Yeah, right—nothing.

  “Here,” Miss Jamison says. She’s this aging Veronica Lake look-alike who’s in charge of all the counselors, and she heads out to the floor alone. She’s swaying to the bubble music, stiffly at first, then her hips start moving, and her shoulders shimmy, and it’s all sort of provocative, in a World War II movie kind of way.

  “Ewwww!” rises up from the boys on their side of the room.

  Miss Jamison blushes, then goes over and grabs two boys by the arm and leads them kicking onto the dance floor.

  Andy, seeing how this is going, goes over to the girls’ side and bows in front of two thirteen-year-olds and says loud enough for everyone to hear, “May I have the pleasure?”

  The girls look at each other and mug faces, but Andy’s taken both their hands and is leading them to the center of the room. They stand there, tapping the heels of their shoes against the concrete floor, staring at the two boys, when Miss Jamison goes up to Andy, plants her hands on his waist, shimmies so his hands fall onto her shoulders, gives Mr. Tibbler a nod, then says, “Children, like this.”

  That Andy can dance. He and Miss Jamison are silk smooth across the floor, and effective, too. The girls start out on the floor, dancing with each other, which seems to stir the boys, who go out and one-by-one start tapping girls on the shoulder and moving in for the slow dancing.

  Then Mr. Tibbler starts playing some real music, well, not the Doors or Hendrix, but at least some cool oldies like Shimmy-Shimmy-Ko-Ko-Bop and South Street.

  “Where do all the hippies meet?” Andy comes over and is half-singing to me. His eyes are dancing. Then he says, “Watch this.”

  He brushes his longish black hair back and struts across the floor to where that chick Sandra is, then he makes a big production of bowing before her and asking her to dance. She’s flustered, I even see her blush a little red, and her straight friends are hanging back, amused looks in their eyes, when she says yes and follows Andy out to the floor.

  The song playing is In My Room, the dreamy Beach Boys song, and I remember when I first heard it, in my own room in Bend, back with the peeps; I was just fifteen, sneaking listens to my transistor radio, and that song grabbed me from its first lines and put me in a special place—my most soulful, private place—and it’s having that same strange effect on me here; just like that I feel private and alone, again lost to my own world—my own room—and it’s this pure feeling of meeeee, Flower, or, better, Cynda, just the person I really am before everybody out there started messing with me, that whole dark world locked out . . . I’m even back before my mom got uptight and my dad got silent, just tucked up inside me to the swoony scintillating harmonies of the place where only I can go, safe there, in . . . my . . . room.

  And look who’s looking right at Flower, Sandra is, her chin on Andy’s shoulder, but her eyes locked on me.

  It’s too perfect. I walk right across the dance floor and up to the tight couple. I’m gonna cut in. I tap Sandra on the shoulder, and the look she gives me blooms with her kind of pink-cashmere-sweater desire. She steps back and begins to open her arms, when I reach over and tap her again on the shoulder, then to her incredulity, point her to the sidelines, step forward, and sweep myself into Andy’s arms.

  That boy’s startled, for sure, but I give him a brilliant look from my now fiery eyes, and as I kinda knew, he kinda knows—kind of gets it.

  So there Andy is, dancing with Johnny Evans, but of course this is Camp Wee-Ha-Lay-Ha, with the unripened fruit of America’s youth; and now there’s scandal brewing, the two deadbeat hobo boys who blew in just this afternoon out there . . . dancing with each other.

  But I have everything planned, and while we’re moving over the floor, Andy mouthing to me, You’re blowing my mind! and me just smiling, I start to pull off the loose boy’s shirt I’m wearing, just unbutton it and slip it off my shoulders and pull my hands through the sleeves until it’s all the way off, and underneath it is a sleeveless T-shirt pulled tight against my chest. The shirt reads it’s a beautiful day, that superfine band I saw back in the Panhandle—and it is, it is.

  Nobody knows what hit ’em. I hear gasps from the boy side of the room, and nervous stutters from the girl side. And I’m not done. I begin to pull off Run’s jeans, it’s a little awkward, but when they’re gone, I’m in these chartreuse short shorts that let my long legs fly. Finally, I pull off Run’s newsboy cap and let my blonde hair shimmer out. Hey, everybody, I’m a chick!

  They all get it now. In My Room has run down, now they’re playing a wailing ’50s sax instrumental—I don’t recognize it—and Andy sweeps in and whisks me up, getting me to bop with him. It’s an amazing dance. Eyeballs are just poppin’ out of people’s heads. We kick it, and when the final golden sax note feathers into silence, Andy takes my shoulders, leans me allllll the way back, my hair nearly sweeping the floor, then pulls me up and kisses me.

  I’m waiting for applause—what a show we’ve given ’em—but get only silence. The next song is all lady harmonies, some kind of Andrews Sisters thing, and there’s no dancing in it for us, so we head to the edge of the room, where of course Mr. Tibbler rushes right over.

  “I don’t understand,” he says in this fake deep voice, like he’s gotta be the big man in charge. “What’s the meaning of—”

  “No meaning,” I say. “I just wanted to cut loose a little.”

  “But . . . weren’t you a boy this afternoon?”

  “That was when we were on the trains getting here,” Andy says. “She was in disguise so nobody would mess with her. Right, Johnny?”

  “Actually, it’s Flower,” I say. I give my hair a shake, then hold out a hand to Mr. Tibbler. “Or Cynda, if that’s better.”

  “No,” he says, and it’s less a word than a kind of low-level shriek. “This is a family camp. I don’t think any of this is any good.”

  “What difference does it make?” I say. I take a step back. There’s a weird vibe coming down on me now. “I’ll be a perfectly good lifeguard—”

  Tibbler’s shaking his head. “No, we can’t let that happen. This is all . . . too . . . strange.”

  “But you need a lifeguard,” Andy says, bless his heart. “And Flower here will be a great one.”

  Tibbler turns on Andy. “There’s nothing I need to know about you, is there?” He gives him a hawk eye.

  Andy takes a second then shakes his head. “No, sir.” He gives me a little wink. “I’m all man.”

  “I think under the circumstances, young
lady—you are a young lady, right? No more surprises?” I shake my head also. “No, I don’t see how we can keep you around after this—this display.”

  “You mean—”

  “I think we’ll have to send you off, miss.”

  “I’d love to stay here, Mr. Tibbler,” I hear myself saying. “It’s a lovely camp—”

  “No, my decision is final. We’ll just have to keep muddling through at the pool.”

  Andy gives me a quick look, which I take to mean, Should I be really gallant here and say I’ll quit if they let you go? I think about that for a few seconds, then wink at him in a way I’m sure he’ll see means, No, you don’t owe me anything—this is all my doing. Hope you like the job. He gets it; winks back a thanks.

  And that’s it—my camp career is over before it starts.

  - - - - -

  Look at Flower standing at a highway crossroads, it’s a high-sky day up here in Minnesota, the summer sun’s beaming down, and I’m trying to decide which direction to hitchhike in. I got 15 going north, 2 going east and west, and . . . looks like 2 goes south, too. The corner itself has nothing going on; it’s just a dusty place with the green-and-white route signs. And I’m thinking, well, not north, probably not any farther east, don’t dare head back out west, so, hey, south it’s gotta be. There aren’t many cars anyway, so it’s easy to get to the right place on the crossroads; and out goes my thumb.

  I’ve gotten a near-daybreak start thanks to the Camp Wee-Ha-Lay-Ha bell, and I’ve gotten a good send-off thanks to Andy, who gave me fifty bucks even though I told him over and over not to. He kept saying, “How much money do you have?” and I kept answering, “I’m fine, I’ll get by, I always do,” and he kept giving me eyebrows-up looks, and finally I realized that my $9.47 wouldn’t get me very far, and so I took the fifty.

  “That must be all you have,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’m not that crazy.”

  “Are you sure?” I gave him a wink.

  “What, that I want to give you the money, or that I’m not that crazy?”