Lost in the Ozarks What do you do on a nice Saturday morning when you have just decided to have a leisurely, relaxing weekend and the phone rings? Well, if you live in Hooper you shiver a little, because you just KNOW that something is going to go wrong. That’s what it like in this tiny Hamlet, if something can go wrong it will. And if something can’t go wrong, it will somehow find a way to go wrong. I picked up the phone and sure enough the person on the other end was someone I had not talked to in years. Hey, G.W., “this is Rose, remember me”? “Sure Rose, I remember you, what’s wrong”? “Do you want to go to Alabama”? “No I don’t want to go to Alabama rose. That’s a eighteen hour trip one way and I have a lot to do this weekend.” “Don’t worry about it”, said the unsympathetic lady, “ my husbands truck broke down and we’ll just pick him up and head straight back.” “ Rose “, I said loudly, ”that’s a forty hour trip if we stop for fuel and bathrooms and I have stuff to do this weekend.” “Yeah, I know, ain’t it fun? Grab some clean socks and underwear, I’ll be at your place in three minutes, maybe less. Oh yeah, I told Bernie we would be there in fourteen hours.” “Rose?” This time my voice was not loud. I was yelling. “Rose?” “What’s wrong G.W.”? “Can I at least go to the bathroom before we leave?” “Only if you hurry?” I slammed the phone down, swore, shook for a few seconds, then realized that I had less than two minutes left to me for packing my spare clothes and going to the bathroom. Ten seconds later I heard a knock on the door and a voice saying,” hurry up G.W., we have to get going.” Obviously Rose had lied about the three minutes I had in which to get ready. She had been down at the end of my lane way and had called on her car phone. I just KNEW things were going to go wrong. Rose had moved into the area a few months ago. I had heard that her husband was a truck driver, and that Rose had done some long distance hauling as well. I had also heard that her husband was a nice guy and had felt bad about not meeting him. Now I was going to. Only it would be the hard way. Rose chatted about “the good old days” of thirty years ago when we I had worked for her as a lumberjack. She would start to say, “ do you remember when,” and I would interrupt her and say, “Yeah, I remember, now shut up, I’m trying to drive.” We passed the hours between Hooper and The Canadian United States border in this friendly manner. Yet something kept niggling at me. Then I recalled our telephone conversation. “Did you say that you told you husband that we would be there in fourteen hours. “Yeah, I figured he was lonesome and I didn’t want him to know how long the wait would really be. He’d only feel worse.” “That used to be a eighteen hour trip Rose.” “What do you mean USED to be?” I didn’t answer because I was to busy remembering how hard I had worked for Rose and how to make a long trip into a short one. It isn’t true what the say about the police in the United States of America being tough on folks if they break the speed limit. Well, on second thought, maybe it is true, but I guess they have to catch you first. We fueled up in Ohio and I suppose it was good that I left that gas station in a hurry. Some big fellow displayed a lot of resentment when I told him to hurry up and pay because I had more important places to go and more meaningful things to do than he did. Rose asked me as I accelerated away from the gas station at full throttle, “What’s going on G.W.?” “Some guy seemed upset about something and we ain’t got time to help him out, or answer questions.” Rose gave me what I thought was a rather strange look then asked, ”What’s he upset over?” I Looked at Rose, then the rear view mirror before answering, “I’d say he was upset over the counter, the cash register and about three shopping carts, not to mention a bunch of canned goods and some fresh produce. Last I seen him the store owner was hollering at him to get up off the floor and clean up the mess.” Rose looked at me then said, “I heard you had settled down when you took up being a writer.” “Yeah, I did settle down, now can we be quiet so I can concentrate on driving?” I pulled into the first rest area I saw and got out, found some dirt along the shoulder of the road and smeared the license plate so that the numbers could not be seen. Then I took some water from my water bottle, made some mud and covered the taillights every other light except the head lights. When I got back in Rose didn’t ask any questions, she just put the seat into the recliner position and said, “I think I better get some sleep while I can.” “That’s a good idea Rose, grab some for me to, would you. And when you wake up take notes, I think there’s a story in this.” Rose looked at me and said, “Would you shut up G.W., I’m trying to sleep?” I smiled, said, “sure”, then put the accelerator to the floor, spun the drive wheels, and left the biggest cloud of dust Ohio has ever seen. I was happy to note that the tires had good treads and that the engine was well maintained. My brother was twenty years older than I am. I reckon that tells you that my parent’s sense of timing wasn’t very good. What was good was that my brother grew up in the big engine hot rod days. He and his contemporaries did a lot of race car driving on the country circuits and I wouldn’t be surprised if back in his younger years he had run some moonshine. I know that he liked to take me out on the back roads and show me “tricks” with his car that most folks never learn. He taught me how to make middle of the road turns while going at full speed, how to “run in the dark” as he called it and how to “disappear.” Between that and having a brother-in-law who believed that the most important thing in life was playing practical jokes on folks I had all the wrong kind of education it takes to get in to trouble. As we sped down that Ohio highway I did my best to remember what I had learned over forty years ago. Some of the memories were dim but returning. That’s what living the sedate lifestyle of a writer does I suppose, it dims the recollection of the fun days of youth. At least it had for me. Just as I was getting comfortable driving at ninety five miles per hour through the rolling hills of southern Ohio I saw the chase lights of a police car in the rear view mirror. “ Hey, Rose”, I yipped “wake up and tell me something, two something’s.” “What now G.W.?” she muttered. “Do you remember what they called excrement when we were young?” “Sure. Why?” “And how fast will this horse-less buggy go?” “I think it’ll go a bit faster than what the speedometer registers for top speed. Why?” “Well Rose, that police officer that’s behind us with all those flashing lights turned on is going to say something about excrement when I put the gas peddle to floor I guess. Rose turned in the seat and looked out the back window just as I put the accelerator down and hollered “ hold on tight, cause here we go. Rose felt the pull of the acceleration, turned and looked at me, then yelled the word for excrement. I figured she was being nice and trying to save to save officer the trouble of swearing. “Hey Rose?” I yelled over the noise of the screaming engine. “What?” she hollered back.” “What’s the name of those mountains over on our left side?” They’re called the Ozark Mountians. Why?” Rose was almost screaming now. I couldn’t blame her for being loud, I was having problems talking over the noise of the engine, the air turbulence and the siren behind us myself. “Write down Lost in the Ozarks, then start taking notes”, I hollered back. “I think I can get a story out of this. It’s going to be dark in a few minutes and these United States constables haven’t ever seen what a Canadian can do at night.” Rose yelled the old fashioned word for excrement again, twice, called me few names that seemed rather un-lady, then started scribbling notes. The Ozarks are beautiful at night. Raccoons and skunks can be seen crossing the road frequently and one can see the occasional deer. I worried for a minute or so about the possibility of there being moose in the area but since Rose didn’t mention that there were any I didn’t dwell on the matter for very long. As I turned down another twisty secondary road and avoided another skunk I noticed that three more of his friends had joined the police officer. “Hey Rose?” “What now you crazy (**&(*&*(_&(_&_(?” “There’s four of them, do you know what that means?” “What’s it mean, you demented &*^%&*)?” “It means we got enough folks together for a good party. Now hold on.” Rose has seen a lot over the years, done a lot to. I figured that up until now the lady had been protesting mainly because she had become dignified as time went by and that she didn’t really mean what she had called me. I was wrong. She had meant every word of it and as I found out a few seconds later her constitution was not what it once had been. There’s a neat trick my brother had shown me that is called “the moonshiner’s turn”. What you do is jam on the breaks, turn the steering wheel as far as you can one way, then as the vehicle goes into a skid and is doing an about face in the middle of the road you correct the degree of the turn real fast with the wheel. I did that now, before the white-faced lady beside me could yell anymore. What I had failed to take into consideration was the fact that these newer automobiles do not have the weight and balance of those of my youth. The car tipped over on two wheels, then as the rear end came around to where the front end had been pointing it slammed down on all fours again and did a kind of rabbit hopping bounce. We turned counter clockwise five times in the course of an eighth of a mile but finally ended up with the hood aiming through the cloud of dust and burned rubber directly at the police cars. We were stationary for a moment as the tires tried to gain traction and sent more smoke and burned rubber billowing into the Ozark night air. I gave a quick glance to right and noticed that the lady beside me had had regurgitated copiously all over the dash, the notebook and her self. Some of the now unclaimed food had even found its way to the windshield and my right shoulder. I yelled, “Hey Rose! You should go easy on those fried potatoes on a long trip. Now watch this.” The Lady looked at me, tried to say something, changed her mind about verbalizing suddenly and allowed her dessert to join the main course. I was just beginning to accelerate out of the cloud of dust, smoke and tire particles when the officers entered it. They were polite enough to make for the ditch and let me have the road. I had sort of expected that they would. Government paid employees are seldom given to the extreme of enduring head on collisions with insane maniacs. It is not part of their job description and they certainly can’t be blamed for avoiding such things. By the time I got back to The Interstate highway Rose was getting some color in her cheeks and exercising her vocal cords non-stop. She heaped verbal abuse on me through most of Kentucky but eventually stopped yelling, screaming and swearing when she lost her voice because of extensive overuse. The rest of the trip was uneventful and rather boring. We got ourselves and the car cleaned up at a roadside stop in northern Alabama and Rose, since she couldn’t talk devoted her time to scribbling notes. Every time she finished writing a new page of swear words and references to my character she would hold the notebook in front of my eyes for evaluation. I would comment, “excellent, very good choice of descriptive phrases,” and she would start writing again. The return journey was nice. Rose still could not speak and continued to take notes. I found that her husband in common to talk discuss. The issue that was important to both of us was the need to drive safely and slowly on the roadways of North America. We talked about this for at least eight hours on the way back home. And I am glad to say that Rose’s voice returned,,, just as her husband was leaving my driveway.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 16:27:45 +0000
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