In the winter of 1970, after a visit with my girlfriend in Chicago, I hitchhiked back to New York. I left in January just in time to get back to Columbia’s spring session. It was 17°F and snowing as I stood in my orange motorcycle jumpsuit on LaSalle at the entrance to I-90 with a sign that said New York. After a ride or two, I was picked up outside of Toledo by a Plymouth Duster pulling a trailer with four passengers already aboard, and the word “Daredevils” written down the side.
“Are you sure there’s room?” I asked.
“Come aboard,” someone answered. We started off as I unzipped, got comfortable, and looked around. Three guys and a girl in their twenties, tough cookies. At the time, I didn’t know the expression ‘white trash’. A very skinny Brucie driving, dark-haired and vivacious Dina the girl, then the strikingly handsome Mike riding shotgun, with a sturdy and tattooed Joe slouched next to me in the back seat. “I saw ‘Daredevils’ painted on the side of the car,” I told them. “What do you do?”
Mike spoke for them, “We crash cars at county fairs for a living.”
“You’re kidding.”
He chuckled, “Nope, it’s for real. That’s what we do.”
Time seemed to stretch as our little capsule floated through the snowy landscape. My mouth opened and I nodded slowly, trying to keep my cool. “Far out. Uh, do you visit the hospital much?”
“Not much.”
“Damn.” A pause while I collected my wits. “Say, do you use this car in the act? It’s sorta dinged up.”
“Yup. But the dings are from an exit a few miles back. Some joker was stopped in the middle of the off ramp as we were coming around so instead o’ hittin’ him, Brucie here goes off the road, does a perfect 360 roll, and keeps right on goin’. You shoulda seen the guy’s face!” He pretended to stare and gape at an amazing sight.
My bullshit meter twitched. I didn’t see how he could roll with a trailer but heck, he was a pro. Another pause, and I pointed, “Uh, this is my exit here.”
Dina laughed, “Oh doan worry, we don’t do that much.”
“I hope not.”
We drove for about twenty minutes when we heard a rumbling noise right front. We pulled over, yanked the tire, and saw smoke coming from the wheel bearing. The axle was too hot to touch.
“Sheeit,” Mike said, “We musta damaged a bearing on that roll.” OK, so they really did roll. I started wondering how to escape these people before I got hurt. They called a local tow company and the fellow drove up presently. He confirmed our diagnosis and said that the mechanic had left for the night and they couldn’t get the part until the morning anyway. I was almost relieved to tell them that I would keep hitching.
“If you see a big semi with ‘Daredevils’ printed on the side, tell the boss what happened to us and that we’ll catch up with him tomorrow.”
“Will do.”
The next ride only was going a few exits so I asked him to let me off in a rest area. Sure enough, there was the Daredevils’ 40-foot trailer in the parking area. I went into the HoJo and said loudly, “Anyone here from the Daredevils?”
A giant of a man in a red shooting jacket stood up, “Who wants to know?”
I smiled, went over and told my tale.
“Why thanks, young feller. I’m called Jim.”
We shook hands. “Mikie.” He glanced at me again. “There are too many Mike’s in the world,” I explained innocently.
“Wanta ride with me in the cab?”
“I’d love to.” I waited while he settled up.
We strolled out to the truck and got in. As he started up, I glanced at him. Broken nose, rugged features, graying hair under a gimme cap, and hands blackened from repairs. There were two stick shifts that he operated while double clutching. One had a button on it that he didn’t use much, and there was a shorter stick next to the other two.
“How many gears?” I asked.
“What? Oh, 36 forward and 6 in reverse.” He pointed to the short stick, “This is reverse. Next is the main stick and next to that is high, medium and low. The main stick has six positions and this button is the power shift, low and high in every gear.”
“So 6 times 3 times 2 is 36, I get it.”
“That’s right.” He seemed impressed with my perspicacity so I got real quiet, not wanting to dispel his illusion. “You wanna drive? I could use a rest.”
“Sure. Just coach me till I get the hang of it.” He pulled over and we switched seats, me going around while he slid over. “I noticed you double clutching.”
“Yes, do that.”
“Roger.” I started off gingerly and soon we were cruising at 55. “I won’t speed,” I told him. “I don’t have a Class 1,” referring to a truck driver’s license.
“Good idea,” he said.
“Where you guys goin’?”
“Massachusetts.”
“Oh. I’m goin’ ta New York. I guess I’ll get off where 90 and 80 split, around Buffalo.”
“Yeah.”
More frozen landscape inched by outside our warm cab, as if we were standing still and the outdoors were moving. We drove in easy silence like two old friends. I thought about my band, my classes, and my girlfriend and about the open space of America that called to me through his guidance. It was like an offer of hemlock. I wanted the open road. I wanted to be in his troupe, to learn how to drive from him.
I became aware of police lights flashing in the mirror so I signaled, pulled to the right and stopped.
“You better get in the passenger seat,” he told me. I hopped over him while he slid under me.
The cop took his time coming to our window. He must have checked whatever it is they check before venturing out. “License and registration.”
Jim had it ready. “What was the trouble, Officer?”
“Your left taillight is out.”
“Yeah. I noticed that but can’t fix it until tomorrow. It probably just needs a bulb.”
“OK. Just a minute.”
We waited while the cop went back to his car, probably to call in Jim’s license and our tag number to see if there were any outstanding warrants. Both of us realized that we were undesirables as far as the police were concerned—a professional carnie and a long-haired hippie. I felt a little proud that I had ventured so far outside my middle-class upbringing and was now a full-fledged scumbag in the eyes of the law.
Despite the cop’s best efforts to find an excuse to bust us, we passed the test and he came up and handed Jim the papers. “See that you get it fixed. Have a good evening.”
“You too, Boss,” Jim replied and he started us up again.
He waited until the cop zoomed past us and motioned for me to drive again. I went around and went through the gears until we were again doing exactly the speed limit.
I jerked my finger over my shoulder at the trailer behind us, “So, what’s in the back?”
“Props. We got a loop-the-loop rig, track cones, lights, cables, ramps, and like that.”
“And what do you do in the act?”
“Oh, various things. My main thing is bike tricks.”
“Like what?”
“I ride my BMW at 80 miles an hour on a straight track…”
“So?”
“Sitting backwards on it with no mirrors.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. It takes some getting used to.”
I snorted, “I bet.”
“I do jumps and loops, too, of course. I taught Evel Knievel a few things.”
“Really.”
“See his big mistake is he goes off the ramp while he’s still turning slightly so he keeps turning in midair and lands sideways.”
“That sounds unfortunate.”
“Yeah. Unfortunate,” he nodded.
“How’d you break your nose?”
“Doing T-bones.”
“What’s a T-bone?”
“Well, you take two cars you’re tired of looking at and you drive one right into the side of the other one.”
“That sounds bad for your nose.”
“Naw, you just stiffen your arm on the steering column and lock your elbow like this,” he said demonstrating, “and you jerk forward but nothing really happens.”
“So how’d you break your nose?”
“One time, my elbow wasn’t quite locked.”
I grimaced, “That musta hurt.”
“Yeah.”
“How long you been in this business?”
“Thirty years.”
I adjusted the heat down a bit and looked around the cockpit. The interior was a cheerful red color that reflected off the instrument lights. It showed a lot of wear, chipped paint and dirty spots, more than a truck might usually have, and I guessed that was from their rigorous schedule of shows. Outside, the land was white as a snow man. I thought of the poem that begins, “One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow…”
I was curious about his troupe, “So what’s the story with Dina?”
He grinned and looked at me. “I never mind if one of my guys shacks up as long as there are no fights over the girl,” he told me. But both Brucie and Mike like Dina and it won’t be long before there’s trouble.”
I considered this. “Gee, I don’t think Brucie has a chance from what I saw.”
“Aw shit, anyone has a chance with anyone.”
I tilted my head and considered this. Maybe this was more true outside the rarefied air of the university I attended, where it seemed that intellectual issues excited the women more than almost anything else. But no, college girls also liked style and physique as well as the next gal, I supposed. What was it like, always on the road?
“And…how’d you get into it?”
“What? The business? Well, I was at loose ends after my first wife died.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d she die?”
“Well, when I was young, I was in a motorcycle gang in Portland, Maine, called the Portland Mainiacs. My first wife and I, we had a motorcycle weddin’. All the guests were on motorcycles. Even the priest was on a Honda 50.”
I laughed, “Hilarious.”
“We putted up the aisle together on matching BMW 750s.”
“Ooh, nice bikes!”
“Top o’ the line, both of them. Beautiful paint. We had a wild party and then we took off for California on our honeymoon.”
I smiled broadly at him, “Nice plan!”
“Well about five days later, we was coming out of the Stockton tunnels, a long uphill curve to the right…”
“Uh huh, I know them.”
“We saw some blinking lights and started to slow down. She was about 500 yards in the lead. A truck jackknifed, she hit it, and died in my arms five minutes later.”
I was sincerely shocked. “Holy fuck!” The poor guy! He had buried women that he loved more than I could imagine. I felt like a child again.
“Yeah.”
“Wait, so this business, this crashing cars. You’ve been reliving this accident for 30 years.”
“Yeah.”
Every hair on my body stood straight up while I thought about Yeats’ poems and Dante and Christian concepts of suffering that as a Jew, I barely understood. I was quiet for a while. “You ever hear of purgatory?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”
“You’re a pretty amazing guy, Boss.”
He was quiet for a while. “So, uh, you wanna work with us?”
“Me? I don’t know shit about crashing cars.”
“It’s not so hard. You’re a smart guy, you could do it.”
I was quiet while I pretended to consider the offer. I knew he was being as nice as he knew how to be.
We came up on a sign that said I-80 New York, keep right.
“It’s a swell offer, Jim, but I think I’ll keep goin’ ta college, thanks.”
“I don’t blame ya. If I was you, I’d do that.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
We shook hands as I got off and kept hitching. I’ll never forget Jim. He was a real American. I loved him.