the Island that I can feel free to assume my new identity, which I don like carefully preserved new clothes taken from within their pristine wrappings. It assumes that I am from Vancouver, which is as far away as I can imagine.
I have been somehow apprehensive about even getting off Cape Breton Island, as if at the last moment it might extend gigantic tentacles, or huge monstrous hands like my grandfather’s to seize and hold me back. Now as I finally set foot on the mainland I look across at the heightened mount that is CapeBreton now, rising mistily out of the greenness and the white-capped blueness of the sea.
My first ride on the mainland is offered by three Negroes in a battered blue Dodge pickup truck that bears the information “Rayfield Clyke, Lincolnville, N.S., Light Trucking” on its side. They say they are going the approximately eighty miles to New Glasgow and will take me if I wish. They will not go very fast, they say, because their truck is old and I might get a better ride if I choose to wait. On the other hand, the driver says, I will at least be moving and I will get there sooner or later. Any time I am sick of it and want to stop I can bang on the roof of the cab. They would take me in the cab but it is illegal to have four men in the cab of a commercial vehicle and they do not want any trouble with the police. I climb into the back and sit on the worn spare tire and the truck moves on. By now the sun is fairly high and when I remove the packsack from my shoulders I can feel, although I cannot see, the two broad bands of perspiration traced and crossing upon my back. I realize now that I am very hungry and have eaten nothing since last evening’s supper.
In New Glasgow I am let off at a small gas station and my Negro benefactors point out the shortest route to the western outskirts of the town. It leads through cluttered back streets where the scent of the greasy hamburgers reeks out of the doors of the little lunch-counters with their overloud juke-boxes; simultaneously pushing Elvis Presley and the rancid odours of the badly cooked food through the half open doors. I would like to stop but somehow there is a desperate sense of urgency now as if each of the cars on the one-way street is bound for a magical destination and I feel that should I stop for even a moment’shamburger I might miss the one ride that is worthwhile. The sweat is running down my forehead now and stings my eyes, and I know the two dark patches of perspiration upon my back and beneath the straps are very wide.
The sun seems at its highest when the heavy red car pulls over to the highway’s gravelled shoulder and its driver leans over to unlock the door on the passenger side. He is a very heavy man of about fifty with a red perspiring face and a brown cowlick of hair plastered down upon his damply glistening forehead. His coat is thrown across the back of the seat and his shirt pocket contains one of those plastic shields bristling with pens and pencils. The collar of the shirt is open and his tie is loosened and awry; his belt is also undone, as is the button at the waistband of his trousers. His pants are grey and although stretched tautly over his enormous thighs they still appear as damply wrinkled. Through his white shirt the sweat is showing darkly under his armpits and also in large blotches on his back which are visible when he leans forward. His hands seem very white and disproportionately small.
As we move off down the shimmering highway with its mesmerizing white line, he takes a soiled handkerchief that has been lying on the seat beside him and wipes the wet palms of his hands and also the glistening wet blackness of the steering wheel.
“Boy, it sure is hot,” he says, “hotter’n a whore in hell.”
“Yes,” I say, “it sure is. It really is.”
“Dirty little town back there,” he says, “you can spend a week there just driving through.”
“Yes, it isn’t much.”
“Just travelling
I have been somehow apprehensive about even getting off Cape Breton Island, as if at the last moment it might extend gigantic tentacles, or huge monstrous hands like my grandfather’s to seize and hold me back. Now as I finally set foot on the mainland I look across at the heightened mount that is CapeBreton now, rising mistily out of the greenness and the white-capped blueness of the sea.
My first ride on the mainland is offered by three Negroes in a battered blue Dodge pickup truck that bears the information “Rayfield Clyke, Lincolnville, N.S., Light Trucking” on its side. They say they are going the approximately eighty miles to New Glasgow and will take me if I wish. They will not go very fast, they say, because their truck is old and I might get a better ride if I choose to wait. On the other hand, the driver says, I will at least be moving and I will get there sooner or later. Any time I am sick of it and want to stop I can bang on the roof of the cab. They would take me in the cab but it is illegal to have four men in the cab of a commercial vehicle and they do not want any trouble with the police. I climb into the back and sit on the worn spare tire and the truck moves on. By now the sun is fairly high and when I remove the packsack from my shoulders I can feel, although I cannot see, the two broad bands of perspiration traced and crossing upon my back. I realize now that I am very hungry and have eaten nothing since last evening’s supper.
In New Glasgow I am let off at a small gas station and my Negro benefactors point out the shortest route to the western outskirts of the town. It leads through cluttered back streets where the scent of the greasy hamburgers reeks out of the doors of the little lunch-counters with their overloud juke-boxes; simultaneously pushing Elvis Presley and the rancid odours of the badly cooked food through the half open doors. I would like to stop but somehow there is a desperate sense of urgency now as if each of the cars on the one-way street is bound for a magical destination and I feel that should I stop for even a moment’shamburger I might miss the one ride that is worthwhile. The sweat is running down my forehead now and stings my eyes, and I know the two dark patches of perspiration upon my back and beneath the straps are very wide.
The sun seems at its highest when the heavy red car pulls over to the highway’s gravelled shoulder and its driver leans over to unlock the door on the passenger side. He is a very heavy man of about fifty with a red perspiring face and a brown cowlick of hair plastered down upon his damply glistening forehead. His coat is thrown across the back of the seat and his shirt pocket contains one of those plastic shields bristling with pens and pencils. The collar of the shirt is open and his tie is loosened and awry; his belt is also undone, as is the button at the waistband of his trousers. His pants are grey and although stretched tautly over his enormous thighs they still appear as damply wrinkled. Through his white shirt the sweat is showing darkly under his armpits and also in large blotches on his back which are visible when he leans forward. His hands seem very white and disproportionately small.
As we move off down the shimmering highway with its mesmerizing white line, he takes a soiled handkerchief that has been lying on the seat beside him and wipes the wet palms of his hands and also the glistening wet blackness of the steering wheel.
“Boy, it sure is hot,” he says, “hotter’n a whore in hell.”
“Yes,” I say, “it sure is. It really is.”
“Dirty little town back there,” he says, “you can spend a week there just driving through.”
“Yes, it isn’t much.”
“Just travelling
Similar Books
