The rapacious pay-to-view TV in the ‘Greyhound’ bus terminus in Chicago hungrily swallowed my coin. I had no real interest in what was displayed; it was just another American novelty that I had to try out at least once, they’re being nothing else to do. I was watching, experiencing, looking for something that didn’t exist.
I was almost ready to return to England after several months touring the USA in a beat-up second hand car together with Rob, a former work mate. We had both thrown in our jobs and escaped from the UK for a little adventure. It was now time to go home, and last night we had parted company before later meeting up again to catch our return flight home. He had taken the car and headed back to Pennsylvania and I was catching the Greyhound to London, Canada, from where I planned to hitchhike to Toronto.
A strange sense of loneliness descended upon me as I watched the grubby TV attached to my seat. We had started out as friends, but somehow we had grown increasingly irritated with each other. The parting was a relief, but was ultimately depressing.
Vagrants, cleaners, drunks and watchfully aggressive security guards milled around within the throng of travelers who were mostly America’s poor – those with no car. I was the only white face in the crowd. Months previously we had refused the offer of a gun, preferring to rely on a smile and our English accents for protection. It had been a good decision, having encountered few problems and unbelievable openness and generosity. Now that I was on my own I still didn’t feel the desire for a gun that many Americans assume is a right, even a necessity.
The media and Hollywood paint a strange picture of America that is not entirely reflected by the reality. The amount of killing through gun crime astonishes, just as their friendliness amazes. Their eager openness is in direct contradiction to the paranoid gun culture, but - as in most societies - murder is mostly a family affaire, and owning a gun I suppose just makes killing that much easier.
I was thinking about this as the bus dropped me off on the outskirts of London, with the freeway on-ramp to Toronto beckoning not far away. I was glad to be off the bus as the family argument three seats back had finally erupted with someone making his point by taking out and aiming a gun. Strangely, I had rejected hitchhiking from Chicago because I had thought it too risky…
I watched the bus roar away in a cloud of dust before I threw my rucksack down onto the side of the road, the Union Jack facing the oncoming traffic. Most people here like the Brits - even in the Irish Republican bars of San Francisco (where I was astonished to have a money collection cup offered to me for IRA fund raising) they were friendly. It was 1976, the Bicentennial, and Redcoats were kind of ‘in vogue.’
So it was not long before a car stopped. Black smoked glass windows prevented a view inside. The window slid down an inch.
“Torronto?” I enquired of the gap.
A pause, then the glass slid down all the way. Wide white eyes and gleaming teeth grinned back at me.
“Sure, man, get in…”
So I did and found myself sitting behind a very large black couple. Despite the enormous width of the car, their shoulders were pressed tightly against each other.
“Where you from? You speak kinda funny…?”
“England” I say in my best Lesley Phillips voice.
“England? I heard of that, somewhere in Europe, right?”
Owning such a big country, Americans have no real need to travel abroad - and most hardly ever venture out of their own State. International news is given little exposure, leaving the world outside distant, and to many, irrelevant.
Another contradiction is found in their worldliness and sophistication leavened with breathtaking naivety. In Arkansas, we stayed overnight at a campsite, and there we met two attractive girls that we simply swept of their feet with our ‘cute’ Brutishness. We were, as we say, ‘in’ and looked forward to some real international fraternization - especially when they invited us back to their monstrous motor home.
I had noticed their knowledge of Europe was a bit vague, but had happily dismissed that thought, distracted by their lithesome figures and the intimate way they flirted with us. American girls seemed just as advertised - young, beautiful and extremely friendly - if a little slow. The question of how two young girls aged around nineteen managed to have such a large motorhome did nag a little, but I had other preoccupations – being not too good at celibacy.
My anticipatory smile dimmed upon entering and meeting the mature couple inside. They greeted us warmly and my lustful ambitions shriveled when I heard, “Glad to meet you, I hope our young teenage daughters have been showing you good time?”
Daughters? Young? “Erm, yes, they have…” I managed to stutter, my carnal expectations dashed.
“Yeah, we always bring the kids out here during school vacations…”
We enjoyed several beers with the girl’s parents, before we somewhat sheepishly went back to our tent. The girls turned out to be only fifteen going on twenty.
On the road again and driving through the heartland of the Smoky Mountains, we were stopped by a police roadblock, miles from anywhere. A lonely road with seemingly no other traffic we were nevertheless confronted by several police cars, and maybe a dozen rifle packing, sunglass wearing, taciturn policemen. It all felt very Hollywood as I studied my reflection in the officer’s sunglasses. We had though, successfully hidden the many empty and full beer cans under the seats before we were stopped.
“Trouble, officer?” I asked in plumy English tones.
He gave me the standard required Clint Eastwood five-second pause before drawling an answer.
“No trouble son, just we have a lot a bad people around…”
I looked, but I couldn’t see any bad people or cameras, but I have to believe that they were real, standing around like that in dramatic fashion as if part of a movie.
We could have done with them later actually, out on the Mexican border as our car was attacked by drunks or wetbacks while we slept overnight in a deserted parking lot. I automatically, (and foolishly in retrospect) responded by shouted angrily and they quickly ran away, probably fearing I had a gun. Later that same night, the police helicopter spotlight turned night into day while hovering above our car. At least the drunks quickly left us alone…
That night seemed a long time ago as I approaching my last North American City, Toronto. Canada was the same but different. Less frenetic I suppose. Once, on a very remote border crossing between Canada and North Dakota, and surrounded by endless miles of nothing but flat prairie land, we had set up our tent for the night. When we woke, at least a hundred cars and trucks encircled us, with people of all ages perched on battered farm fenders and roofs, dressed to the nines, all silently waiting.
It turned out to be a Sunday, and we had unknowingly become center stage in an open field gospel meeting. Just where they had all come from exactly, I never did find out. We got up and quickly collapsed the tent before staggering away sheepishly, disheveled and unwashed, leaving them to their meeting. Judging from their faces, these people had found, unlike me, what they were looking for.
The generosity continued unabated in Toronto, as for the last few days of our trip, we were shown around the city. Rob, my touring buddy had arrived the previous day and we were taken to visit the veteran’s hall, the Canadian ex-service men who had fought and survived both wars in Europe. I was reminded of the debt that we all owed these wonderful old gentlemen and I was surprised to see Rob reduced to tears by their incredible generosity, refusing to even let us contribute one round at their bar.
Arriving back in Manchester, England, we were both changed by our experiences in some ways. I was still lost, directionless, and today I feel I should have taken the opportunity to stay in America. At the airport, Rob’s family was waiting. Eager to meet him, they swarmed around him welcoming him home.
I slipped away while they celebrated his return and once more started hitchhiking, this time with no destination in mind. I was not to see Rob again for several years, neither of us making the effort to keep in touch, probably the result of the strains of enforced companionship.
Did I find what I was looking for? Of course not, but I enjoyed myself and I am still watching, looking, experiencing - searching for something that doesn’t exist.
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