Should I brake for ice cream? The old ice cream place was vacant. Weeds had sprung up in the cracked tar of the parking lot.
Whirly Birds, no, Sea Swirl. No, now it was Mayo's Roadhouse. Ugh. "Whirlybirds," she had said once, making her date, Owen laugh. He then made her laugh hysterically what with all of his sarcasm and antics.
She clicked on her left signal light. She watched the green arrow {do we have a Superhero comic series here?} {sic} blink on her dashboard as car after car raced past her, in the oncoming lane of Rural Route 2. Her car always swayed with the vibrations of irate drivers whizzing past her on Connecticut's sprawling roads.
"We oughta do this more often." Teenagers sat at a picnic table near the Roadhouse ice cream place. She combed her hair and got out of her car. She ate the cold, white ice cream, sitting alone in her car. Touches of red spotted the soft serve vanilla. She hoped her red lipstick would not wear off.
She stared at the deserted picnic tables under the dark shade of trees. Green trees, shade. Empty picnic tables. Teenagers, out on a Saturday night. Loneliness.
She backed up the car, hoping it wouldn't make too much noise. How she hated to back up in this parking lot. Screech. Scrape. Oh, no. She pressed the brakes but they went all the way down. Loose. Nothing happened, but then she pumped the brakes and got them back. Skidding along the rocky, sandy parking lot; she edged to Route 2. She turned the wheel, screeching, creaking, scraping. She hoped that nobody noticed. Not the teenage hotshots with their expensive cars.
Screeching like a dry cough, her car rode up Route 2. She turned right, into a dirt driveway, followed it, and turned around. A woman in a truck drove into her driveway. She wanted to ask her for help. She kept driving along the driveway and ventured to the road. Car after car passed, probably on their way to the casino. Her car groaned and creaked until she turned right at Bess Eaton Donuts. A Hispanic man called to her.
"I'm a mechanic. I can help you," he said. She noted his greasy, black hair, his bulging eyes.
She drove her car back and forth in the parking lots of Bess Eaton and the Red Rooster mart.
"It's the brakes," he said. "I can fix it for you. A hundred seventy five dollars."
"I don't have it," she said.
"See? The black stuff on the wheel. If you keep driving on that, it could catch on fire," he informed her.
"I'm not driving on it," she told him.
"I'm willing to fix it for you. Ninety dollars," he said.
"I don't have any cash on me," she said truthfully.
"Let's go see the boss. See what he has to say," he suggested. He sat in a white car with an older Hispanic man. The man ws skinny, with bulging eyes and thinning gray hair.
"What garage do you belong to?" she asked. "When I call my parents, they're going to want to know."
The men hesitated. "Seventy five dollars," the first one said.
"I don't have any money at all. I only have ten dollars. I have money at home. I would have to call someone," she said.
"How much do you have? Forty five dollars," he offered.
"We're going to have to get going pretty soon," the other man said.
"I have Triple A," she said.
"They'll charge you $250 just to tow it," the other man said. What? I thought it was free.
"Do you have a car radio? Anything to trade?"
"All I have are speakers."
The first man quietly started his car. "It should be OK to drive. How far do you live?" And they were gone, in the white car that said SJ or SP 769. Back to New Haven. He was on vacation this week. He had helped a few other people who broke down on this road.
She walked to the pay phone in front of the Red Rooster. A mild mannered woman looked at her. She wore black oval shaped glasses and a gray, curled uner hairdo.
"I just wanted to see if you needed a ride," she said. "My son's an auto mechanic, but I"m afraid there is no place that would be open," she said.
"Yeah. I just called Triple A. Those strange men wanted to help me. They were coming from the casino," Debbie answered.
"I don't pretend to know what goes on there," she said quietly.
"Nothing good can come of it," Debbie agreed.
"It's a den of iniquity," she said. "They say there are people gambling and it's the Mafia's money in there..." she shuddered. She acted as if she could not bear to discuss it any further.
"Money is the root of all evil," Debbie quoted.
"Love of money," she corrected her.
"Yes," Debbie laughed. "People don't want to listen to me."
A red-haired young man with a nose like a chicken beak walked out of the store. A girl dressed in a purple and blue flounced dress walked to her car, her dress blowing in the breeze, above her stockinged legs and black shoes.
Debbie looked at a jeep with three young guys seated in it. Someone with a crew cut sat in back. He waved goodbye to her when the driver came out of the Red Rooster. She smiled and waved back.
The woman started to walk away to her car, but slowly. She was not in a hurry. She paused when Debbie would say something. Finally, they nodded goodbye. Debbie thanked her for waiting with her.
"And they wouldn't fix it here," the young man from Evan's Garage said of the casino guys.
The pay phone had finally rung. "Debbie," he had sai. "I'll be over in fifteen minutes to pick you up."
She went inside the Red Rooster. She bought a couple of postcards and the newspaper. Then she called her parents.
Few lights glistened on the banks of the Thames River. It was not the George Washington Bridge or the 59th Street Bridge that they traversed in this flashing tow truck. It was the Goldstar Bridge. "New London City Line," she read the sign which marked the dividing line in the middle of the water.
They continued to follow the Thames River as they rode along Route 32 to Montville. A boat actually glided up the river. Waterford, she thought. Water. She looked to the edge of the turnpike, where once a bed of trolley tracks stood. What a fine place it must have been, she thought of her home town. The Norwich-New London Trolley. Public transporation. Meadows. Hardly any buildings. No highways.
A police car and truck flashed their lights urgently. She looked to see the unlucky vehicle. There, alongside Route 32 in the shadows, sat a lone biker on his motorcycle.
On they rode past her familiar gas station. One of the guys turned as he pumped gas.
"Speak of the devils," the guy from Evan's Garage said. Harleys and other motorcycles roared at Dot's Cafe.
