My mama had once said that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Even when we were rolling along a highway headed to the next spot, she always had something for me when I woke up. Maybe just a cinnamon bun, or a bottle of pop. So... I didn't forget. I headed uptown to market street. I would have breakfast.
Chapter 10
I burned up two cigarettes, waiting for the girl to set my food in front of me, and then my coffee had gotten too cool, because she had brought it long before my food was ready. But that didn’t ruin the taste. I eat every bit. The waitress who also accepted the money for my check, smiled at me when I left. What next?The library again? Screw it. That’s all I could think of.
There were people waiting for me. Maybe they didn’t even know it, but back in the back of their head in some hidden nook, behind a door, they feared to open, was an image of me. They knew that I would be coming.
I’d passed the place yesterday over on Main Street. Jeff’s Sporting Goods, and it took only a few minutes to get there, but when I walked in the door, I felt like the place was a pawnshop. Shelves on the right side of the store lined the walls, and held an assortment of tools, like drills, hammers, electric saws, and old radios. The only person in the store stood behind a counter in the back of the store.
“Help you,” he said.
“Uh, well, I’m not just sure,” I said, and that was the truth. What in the blazes was I doing, but sometimes a part of our minds has the power to act on their own? No Planning, at least nothing that a person can figure out, yet it acts just as sure as if it was following a written plan. “You carry any small tents?”
“Sure thing” the man said. “One man? Two? We got ‘em all.”
“One man, uh something that I can fold up small.”
“Gotcha,” he laughed. “I got one that will darn near fit in an overcoat pocket. Plastic. Real thin, but strong. Thing is so tight that you can zip it up and never feel the wind, and you can stretch out, to a full six-foot length too.” While he was talking, he reached down on a shelf behind him, and laid the tent on the counter. There was a bundle of sticks with it, and something told me right off that that would not work.
“That won’t work for me. How about a sleeping bag with no padding and made out of the same material?”
“Uh yeah, only it’s more like an enclosed body umbrella, but it comes in two parts. Here he said, reaching back to the shelves. It’s got pants, with boots that the cops use for forensic stuff, and the top will cover the face, but leave a sheltered breathing space.”
“That’s it,” I said. “and now I want a rifle. One that I can take apart, if you got it.”
“Got just the thing. C’mon over here to the rifle rack,” and before I even got there, he was reaching for one of them. “This is a copy of the NATO rifle, and just like the NATO, it’s accurate to better than a thousand yards. It was made for the military, for sniper work but it didn’t work out for them, and for that very reason I can let you have it darn cheap, like what might you say to one twenty-five and still in the box, Never been fired?”
“I also want a thirty-eight pistol. Revolver. Two-inch barrel.”
“Right there in front of you in the glass case. Third one from the right, on the top shelf.”
I started looking him over, as he reached down to get the gun. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but I was leaning over the counter and he was bending down over it, and that put him up so close, that I could see the pores on his head, where his hair had once grown. His glasses were sliding down his nose, and his tie was swinging away from his waist. He was just a clerk.
Why was I checking him out, and then it came to me? The guns, yeah, and everything associated with them. You go along for a long time, thinking everything is buried for good. That the shrinks were full of crap. It was dead and gone brother, but there are cracks in the logic, and things could slip out, or even with a little physical stimulus. Things like a gun in another man’s hand. Threat, but then the clerk was passing it to me, so I swung open the cylinder, inspected the barrel, checked the balance.
“Wrap it,” I said, “and now I need some fishing tackle.”
“Sure. Right next to the gun display.”
I want a spool of eight-pound test monofilament, and two of the smallest popping bugs you have in stock.”
He slid back the glass door on the case and pulled out a whole card, full of popping bugs.
“Pick your own,” he said.
“Give me a price for all,” I said.
“I already got it figured. Three twelve even, and that includes .223 shells for the NATO and .38 for the pistol. Only thing is about the.223, is that they’re illegal for small game. You just don’t want to get caught with them.”
Later, after the store, I could feel the unfamiliar weight of the items in my hand, but the thirty-eight in my belt next to my belly button felt like an old friend that had just got back in town. Guns. We had a past.
Did I fool the clerk? I mean, he just didn’t have that many guys waltz into his store and buy a breakdown rifle. So would he pick up his phone? Did it matter? Of course not. I was blowing town, and besides, there was the fishing tackle. That alone was enough to confuse him. If he made me for a sniper, why the hell would I need the fishing tackle.
Only a real smart fisherman buys popping bugs. They were so effective, that with them, a guy could survive in the wilderness. Just a tiny piece of cork painted white, but jiggled on top of the water they were the deadliest fish bait in existence.
My intention was to walk downriver, which meant any of the three main streets. Main, Market and Chaplin all ran the same way as the river. As soon as I left the business section, I would catch a streetcar. Downtown, someone might have noticed the heavy cardboard box with the handle on it, and maybe even figured the contents. Out in the burbs, no one would notice. I was down where dicks and harness bulls were always on the prowl, but never in the suburbs.
So, my mind was concentrating on how I could ride the streetcar to those small satellite business sections. Then, maybe catch a bus that was running along the river road, to maybe Parkersburg, W.Va. when I spotted this motor scooter, with a for sale on it. I just stopped right in my tracks and stared at it.
No drivers license was required, to drive a motor scooter, and better still, that thing had a top speed of thirty-five miles per hour.
I don’t think there was ever any need to convince myself that I should go back to Cambridge. I had some business there. People were expecting me. In the other direction was Florida, and a steady job for the next ten months. I was expected there also, even though I was already a couple months late. It was already time for them to start the trip north.
I bought it. It was an old Honda, and had a nice storage space under the seat, but too small to fit the box with my rifle. It also had a handful of bungee chords that I used to tie the box behind my seat. Thing about these motor scooters is the fact that they get like sixty miles to the gallon, and with a two-gallon tank you can always find a station before you run dry.
The foothills of the Allegheny’s in Southern Ohio are a maze of twisting hilly roads, and no one that isn’t a native of the area. Will travel through them without getting totally confused.
But the good thing about those same roads is that a guy will not run into any state troopers, and the constable of the dinky little hamlets will not do any traffic stops. It took a couple days of leisurely travel for me to get close to Cambridge, and then I stopped. I did not want to be seen. Yeah, sure, I could have gone right on into town, and big assed it by walking right down the middle of Wheeling Avenue.
The cops wouldn’t bother me. I had broken no law, but the word would go out and the guys that tried to do me in would know.