Roadside Bodhisattva Read Online Free Page B

I felt stupid about ever withholding my name from Sid. But I couldn’t see any graceful way to reintroduce myself, so I just shook her hand and said, “That’s what I go by on the road.”
    “I see. You have a last name, Sid?”
    “Sure do. Hartshorn.”
    “And what brings you two to the exclusive Deer Park Kitchen?”
    “Pure chance, Ann. Kid A and I are blindly navigating our way with luck and pluck from one haven to another, and your fine establishment just happened to be one of the lifesaving beacons along our route. Could you tell us a little about this neck of the woods, by the way?”
    “Well, Route One outside there runs from Cape Benefit to Lum-berton, and we’re about halfway between the two. The big rigs all take the freeway, so we don’t see many of them. But there’s plenty of local traffic, and some of the drivers are hungry and undiscriminating enough to stop here. My garage business consists mostly of pumping gas and fixing flats, but every now and then we get a transmission to repair or brake job.”
    “Got a fellow to handle that?”
    Ann’s face got glum for some reason. “Uh-huh.”
    “How about the Motor Lodge end of your corporation?”
    Ann grinned. “Well, you and I pretty much both know where that business comes from. And it’s not tired families on their way to Disneyland.”
    “Gotcha. Well, seems like you got a nice little business empire here.”
    “I suppose. But keeping it all going runs me ragged. I’m about one man short of a full crew.”
    Sid smiled broadly. “Ann, sit yourself down and tell me about your woes. Kid A, take my pack onto your side.”
    Sid lifted his pack over the table to me, and I crammed it beside mine. Ann slid in next to Sid, and they began talking a mile a minute.
    Their talk was pretty boring, and after a minute or so I didn’t pay any more attention to what they were saying. My full stomach kept sending sleepy signals to my coffee-wired brain, and this tug-of-war between sleepiness and alertness sent me off into a kind of deep daydreaming. I thought about home, and the road and everything that had happened since yesterday. A lot of fantasy images of what I’d encounter down the way today and tomorrow and the next day swam through my head.
    Maybe I even dozed off a little. The next thing I knew Sid was shaking me.
    “Wake up, Kid A! We got ourselves jobs!”
    His words weren’t making any sense. “Huh? Jobs? What jobs?”
    “Miss Ann needs a handyman. That’s me. And you’re gonna be my assistant. She’s gonna put us up in that trailer out back. Meals included, and a little cash too. I said I didn’t mind sharing quarters with you, as long as you didn’t bash the bishop too often.”
    I squirmed out of the booth. “What the hell are you talking about, Sid? What about the road?”
    “Aw, pal, the road’ll always be there. This is a chance to rest up a bit and help somebody at the same time.”
    Ann smiled hopefully at me. I felt like they were ganging up on me. I couldn’t think straight.
    “I just don’t know, Sid. I’m not ready to rest up yet. I haven’t been on the road for forty years like you. I just got started.”
    “But Kid A—”
    “I need to clear my head,” I said, and ran out the door.
    I paced up and down the gravel under the noontime sun. What the fuck was going on here? How could Sid give up his freedom just like that? Even if any employment here was only temporary? What about sleeping out under the stars? “That which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.” That was what the Prophet said.
    It had to be the woman. Sid was hot for Ann. He figured that taking this job would let him get into her pants. Or maybe he figured he could score with Yasmine. Or both of them!
    Now I began to get pissed. What kind of friendship was this? He had just gone right ahead and made this decision that affected both of us