Memory Boy (8 page)

“This is news?” I muttered. Even as the analyst droned on, the
Ali Princess
drew even with a long field where a farmer's tractor kicked up a swirl of dust. He was cultivating row crops of some kind—probably potatoes, but it was hard to tell. The plants were runty and limp.

“I haven't seen a banana, let alone California lettuce, for over a year,” my mother said.

We all looked at the farmer's field. At the dusty, shrimpy plants.

“Will you turn that thing off?” I said suddenly.

My mother blinked and turned.

“We don't need to hear that stuff!” I said. I tried to stick with the facts. Food stores were still fairly well stocked, though mainly with canned stuff, which was not a good sign. I also was pretty sure that a third year without a good crop, and Dara Jamison might be right: Pets, watch out. “All the news does is make people depressed. Who needs that?”

“Easy, brother Miles,” Sarah teased. She knew that I hated the news. Those endlessly talking heads, their droning voices using too many words.

“Okay, you have a point there,” my mother said. “How about some music?” She tuned to another radio station—classic rock, of course.

“Do we have to listen to
that
?” Sarah said instantly.

“Easy, sister Sarah.”

“How about some jazz?” my father said softly. “Try down around ninety-five.”

My mother rolled the dial. “—was the Shawnee Kingston Jazz Band,” the announcer finished, “from their tribute to the Buddy Rich CD. Next up, a classic set from John Coltrane.”

We all looked at my father.

He was silent a moment. “Maybe Miles is right,” he said. There was something incredibly sad in his voice. My mother clicked off the sound altogether.

“Anyway, Birch Bay tonight, gang,” she said, stowing her Palm Pal and trying to pick up the mood.

No one said anything.

See what the news does? I wanted to say.

For the next half hour we rolled along at a good pace, and even I, the family pessimist, started to relax a bit. We might actually get there alive. Once we got to the cabin, we'd unload our food, including several big bags of rice. The lake was full of fish, and I knew how to catch them. There was firewood, there was fresh water. We'd be fine.

Heading north, with a quartering westerly breeze in the sail, we approached the entrance to Camp Ripley, a longtime center of National Guard activity. As a kid I used to think the convoys of trucks were cool because they were painted in camo. But lately trucks like that made me uneasy.

An armed sentry at the head of the long camp driveway stepped out onto the highway and held up his arm. We had no choice but to dump the sail and coast to a stop. My mother hopped off the
Ali Princess
well before we reached a complete halt.

“Hello there,” the soldier said to her.

“Why are you stopping us?” she said. She was suddenly in the face of the young soldier. “This is a public highway, right?”

“I'm not really—” he began.

“Is there some particular law we're breaking?” she asked.

“Well, my orders are to check on folks—”

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall the United States Constitution being amended lately, particularly Article Twelve, which guarantees citizens the right of free passage. You do know the Constitution, don't you?”

A small convoy of trucks approached and signaled a turn onto the highway—which we blocked.

“Um, have a nice trip, ma'am,” the soldier stammered, and stepped aside.

“That's more like it,” my mother said, shaking her finger at him. “Just because this country's struggling a bit doesn't mean you guys are in charge, remember that!”

“No ma'am, I mean, yes ma'am,” he called out, and waved the trucks forward.

We pedaled a few yards until we caught the wind.

“I don't remember an Article Twelve,” I ventured. I had studied the Constitution in civics class; Article Twelve did not ring a bell.

“Me neither,” Sarah said.

“Well, if there's not an Article Twelve, there ought to be one,” my mother said.

By noon the wind had dropped, as had our speed. It was getting warm, too, another reason I had not wanted to move during the day. All four of us pedaled steadily. Sarah kept drinking water as if our supply was endless.

“Take a break soon?” my father asked. Little rivulets of sweat and dust leaked out the sides of his mask.

“Rock Lake is just ahead,” I called. It was a small town where we always stopped for ice cream.

“Maybe the Dairy Queen is open,” Sarah panted.

“Yeah, well, if it is, let's check the prices first,” my mother said.

Soon, just off the expressway, behind a grove of dusty pines, rose the red-and-white water tower of Rock Lake. Its round top was painted like a fishing bobber.

“I see it,” Sarah said. “I saw it first.”

Not true, but I didn't say anything.

We turned off the expressway and pedaled toward Main Street—which was blocked. A wooden barricade sat across the entrance to town, manned by an old fellow slumped in a lawn chair and wearing sunglasses.
LOCAL TRAFFIC ONLY
read the sign on the barricade. Beyond, down Main Street, a few people came and went on riding lawnmowers and small garden tractors.

We pulled to a stop. The old man jerked upright in his chair; he had been dozing. He stared at the
Princess
as if he was dreaming. “Whoa! What do we have here?” Several locals stepped from the nearby bakery to look at the
Princess
. Three teenagers, each driving a muddy four-wheeler, roared up. Wearing full helmets and dark goggles, the drivers peered at the
Princess
and raced their engines.

My mother ignored the local Hell's Angels kids. “Good afternoon,” she said to the gatekeeper. “Is the Dairy Queen open?”

“Yes. Why?” the old-timer said.

“We thought we'd stop for some ice cream,” my mother said.

The old man's gaze went to our luggage in the cargo bay. “You're not from here?”

“Yes and no,” she said. “We have a cabin just up the road a ways. That's where we're headed.”

“A cabin? Where?”

“It's on County Road 77, north side of Gull Lake.”

“Where on the north side of Gull Lake?” one of the teenagers called; he gunned the engine of his lawn tractor.

“Just a half mile past the golf course.”

The men looked at each other. One of them shrugged.

“Okay, then,” the old man said. He pulled aside the barrier with a scraping sound. “Otherwise I'd have to ask you to get on that crazy rig and head back where you came from. We already got too many people coming up here from the cities.”

“Too many,” another rough-looking guy echoed.

“Have a nice day,” Sarah said as we passed by. The four-wheeler posse made two loud loops around us and raced their engines while we parked.

“Losers,” Sarah muttered.

The Dairy Queen clerk was a middle-aged woman wearing a little red-and-white hat. There was only vanilla ice cream, and no cones, but sundaes were possible.

“And how much might these sundaes be?” my mother asked.

“Ah, four sundaes? That would be $32.00.” The clerk looked at my mother without smiling.

“I always said this town was a tourist trap,” my mother murmured to my father. Then she looked up. “All right. Four sundaes. And don't spare the ice cream.”

In the end they weren't that big. As we ate, some locals watched us.

“Strangers,” Sarah said to them. “That's us.”

They stared blankly.

I kicked her sharply under the table. “Don't,” I said. I didn't like being here. Outside, the four-wheelers kept making circles around the
Princess
. I felt like that carp with its fin out of the water.

“Eat up,” I said to my family.

As we left Rock Lake, the whining four-wheeler brigade was nowhere to been seen. That was fine by me. We picked up the pace on the
Ali Princess
and quickly put Rock Lake a couple of miles behind.

Maybe it was the energy boost from the ice cream, or maybe it was because we were almost to Birch Bay, but we finally found our pedaling rhythm. Another hour at the most. I began to daydream about a nap on the wide lakefront porch....

“Miles!” my father shouted.

“Oh, God!” Sarah chirped.

In a whine of engines and a blue cloud of oil smoke, a half dozen four-wheelers broke out of the trees and raced alongside us. Two of them, ones I hadn't seen in Rock Lake, were driven by larger guys; plastic rifle scabbards jutted from the rear.

“Keep going!” I shouted to my family.

The gang matched our pace, then sped ahead. I thought they were leaving—until they turned sharply, skidded to a stop, and blocked the highway. We had nowhere to go.

And the
Ali Princess
had no real brakes.

“Drag your feet!” I cried. We did, and managed to stop just inches short of a muddy, battered vehicle with balloon tires.

“What is this?” my mother said. As usual, she hopped off the
Ali Princess
and stepped forward.

“This is a toll road,” the biggest driver said. He glanced to the others, who nodded. We could see none of their faces. I looked again at the rifle scabbards.

“No, it's a public highway,” my mother said.

“Not today it isn't,” another rider said.

“Go easy,” my father murmured to her. He, too, was looking at the gun cases. He stepped forward.

“Hey, young dudes,” he said easily. I recognized his stage voice, his musician's manner. “What's going on? We're headed up to our place on the lake.”

“Fine. Pay us and you can be on your way.”

My father smiled. “You guys need a few bucks for ice cream, maybe a little gasoline, I can understand that. Hey, all you got to do is ask.”

I understood—maybe for the first time since I was small and saw him sail the
Tonka Miss
all day against the wind—that my father knew how to do a lot of things. It was just that he was totally different from me.

“So, we're asking,” the leader said him.

“Okay,” my father replied. He kept his voice light and amused. He wagged a finger as he counted the riders. “Six of you. How about five bucks apiece. Thirty bucks.” Without waiting for an answer, he reached into his shirt pocket and peeled off three tens. He held out the money. The leader snatched it.

“Now we got some miles to cover, and you boys have a nice day,” my father said. He jerked his head for us to get ready to pedal.

The lead bandit looked at the money in his hand. “Seems to me if you got thirty, then you must have a hundred.”

There was silence.

“Or three hundred,” another said. They all laughed.

“In fact, why don't we take all your money?” the leader said.

I looked at my baseball bat. One against six was not good.

“Listen, boys,” my father began.

“You listen to me. I want you all to step off that crazy vehicle,” the leader said. The others nodded.

“So much for traveling in broad daylight,” I muttered.

The hijackers dismounted and pulled narrow wooden clubs from their rifle scabbards. At least there weren't real guns.

“Step aside,” the leader said.

We obeyed.

Just as the gang was about to ransack the
Princess
—like in an old cowboy movie—the sheriff arrived. Not really the sheriff, but a single green Humvee with its headlights on.

“Shit!” the leader said. The gang whirled around to look at the Humvee. In one motion they leaped onto their little iron horses and cranked the engines. Within seconds they lurched forward and roared up the bank and into the trees. Their dust hung in the air.

The Humvee approached, then braked to a stop. “Hello, folks.” The driver wore mirrored sunglasses.