Break Down

           The air was warm and moist as the afternoon wore on and the air tousled my hair and the bugs sacrificed themselves against the windshield.  The sun had completed its work and the moon was standing guard.  The night air was warm and the Mog was a phantom.  Absence of calm prevailed as we floated through the night.   A sudden absence of warm air and a curtain of darkness enveloped us.  A rushing wall of water before us turned into a giant sponge being wrung over our heads.  Visibility was cut dangerously, and water came flying up from the road as fast as it was coming down from the sky.  We dared not slow as I huddled in a pocket of relative dryness created by the rushing air over the windshield.  My hope was to drive through this torrent, but we were up against a formidable obstacle.  The Mog needed filling and I needed emptying.  What a team!  Running out of petrol would have, in this weather, been folly equaled only by running out of bladder space.  Looming in a blurred and muted light was both my respite and my hope but also my lament, for slowing meant taking a needed but ill timed bath.  But, the alternative offered a more dismal prospect. A disembarkation record was surely made from freeway exit to service station shelter and the next couple of hours warming and drying over a coup of hot coffee was proof that records are often good only for the record book!

           As I rushed through the South, New Orleans was a fleeting ribbon of concrete and rapidly moving buildings.  It was a sorry epitaph for such a great city, as the desire to see this old and historic town was swept away by the contrails of concern.

           Houston is a place where cars reign supreme and where two airline hostess friends maintained an apartment.  A chance for Mog to have this ailing wheel bearing repaired and me to regroup for the next stretch.  Little outside the wheel bearing could be done due to lack of funds.  The irregular beat in the heart of Mog was getting worse.  The starter could no longer be counted on to start the throbbing heart.  The generator was weakening in its efforts to keep the life blood flowing.  We still had a quarter of the way home.

           Like a lost, hungry, wounded hound, Mog was setting his nose for home and so we pushed on through the endless Texas country side and on into the cold winter winds of New Mexico.  Stopping for rest or fuel meant that only I gained relief.  The engine could not be shut down without an opportunity to either push start or roll start it down a hill.  Through the cold nights where rest stops sat on the tops of hills, Mog and I huddled together.  Little room meant that feet dangled out over the front door becoming numb with cold.  Each Morning meant a supreme effort for the old car as it struggled for life.

           Fatigue was setting in.  The hard suspension could tell the difference between a penny and a dime and was taking its toll on my stiff body, and as well as on Mogs.  Something had to give, and it did. 

           Pushing the clutch peddle in one of the countless and thoughtless times to shift, I felt it give, suddenly.   As we slowed.  I synched it into second gear and drove to the next rest stop, where upon quick examination, I found that the linkage under the car had finally bent and broken.

           It was cold but clear, still early afternoon.  Some instant friends offered to give me a ride to the next small town thirty miles away where with luck I could find someone to weld the linkage rod back together.  They dropped me off at a gas station on the edge of town with the part, little money and lots of hope.  They directed me to a derelict of a building with its roof canted oddly to one side and with rusted clutter on well oiled ground.  For $2.00 a kindly man with hands as greased as mine welded the small piece back together.  It was turning dark and Mog was a ways away, alone.  I jumped the Freeway fence, started walking, put my thumb out with anticipation and walked and walked and walked.  Car after car whisked by, swirling the frigid air around me.  It figured for a long night and my pace quickened.  I no longer turned when I heard an approaching car, for by then I gave out little hope for help and instead my step quickened yet again and I stretched my thumb out as far as it could go on stubborn faith.

           Finally, when hope was a dim light in the sea of reality, one of those wayfarers of concrete hi-ways coaxed his giant ship to a lumbering halt, some 1/4 miles down the road, in an apparent after thought and, breaking a six year moratorium, offered me a lift to where old Mog was patently waiting.