It lasted a year. This was my fourth and last marriage and she was now fully vested in a local law firm, while I had lost all misconceptions about the islands.
So we went our ways. I went to New York and she stayed on to handle the divorce and continue her sober and sane professional career.
But, in all honesty, I must say she was never the same creature when sober and all business. The memories of our combustible lifestyle remain like typhoons blowing thru our shared days. It was never good or right, but it certainly was different.
The lady from Akron Ohio called me in New York when our divorce was final and that is the last I ever heard from her
The Midwest
The Lost Years
I am not sure how we ended up in Elkhart Indiana. We were trying to ride a freight train to Florida, but somehow in Harrisburg we had hopped the wrong train.
It had been freezing in Harrisburg. There were no open freights and we were getting desperate so we decided to ride one of the flat cars that carries semi trailers.
We crawled up where there are four tires surrounding us and the three of us huddled under our sleeping bags.
It was the coldest I have ever been. We rode all night huddled together with the three bags on top. It was morning when we realized that we were moving thru Mid America - not Florida.
The Englishman who called everyone “squire”, the carnival guy who changed his name about once a day and me.
We raided the McDonald’s dumpster after closing time and scored a huge bag of tossed out product. But on our way back to the Elkhart yard the bull stopped us in his four wheel drive and said he didn’t mind if we caught a car out in the morning but to not sleep under the cars. Yea, that sounds like good advise.
The next morning we shopped around and found the ELIN going to Indianapolis. The conductor allowed us to ride in a unit that was on the tail end of the line. He showed us the water and told us when they changed crews in the night to say we were a section crew catching a ride.
When the train stopped the next day to do something a new conductor came back and gave us $10.00 and reminded us that Jesus would always help us in times of need. That is a bit of knowledge with which I was very familiar and have often relied on miracles of faith like someone would depend on the electricity coming into their home.
This conductor like every worker we encountered on the rail lines was friendly, kind and helpful. It was if we were all engaged in an active conspiracy - trying desperately to keep an American legend alive.