Across America by Motor-cycle. C. K. Shepherd
for instance, I have seen cars "parked" along the side of the road two-deep, so that to cross from one side of the road to the other one has to traverse four separate ranges of automobiles. In the summer, thousands of cars are travelling all day long between Atlantic City and the adjacent large cities, so that the reader can perhaps imagine the state of all the main highways in that direction.
I was here introduced to a diversion which at first seemed quite an interesting one, but which continued familiarity certainly turned to contempt. I refer to the "detour." The unfortunate motorist is perhaps ploughing his way steadily along through the gravel, dust, and sand. He encounters a barrier across the road bearing a notice that repairs are going on and that he must follow the detour indicated. The road selected, I believe, is generally the one with the most pot-holes, ruts, mountains, canyons, etc., in its formation in the surrounding district. Sometimes in these detours one finds further auxiliary detours until finally one has to use the utmost intelligence and a compass in order to get back to the main highway.
I did not, therefore, arrive in Philadelphia strictly to schedule. I was many times tempted to take up my abode at a convenient spot on the side of the road. Several times I dismounted and examined a promising spot, but always there was some very serious objection. This objection either took the form of frogs or of mosquitoes or of both. As we used to read in the days of the War, "the enemy was present in large numbers." I did not relish either the prospect of being kept awake indefinitely with the objectionable gurgling of a battalion of bullfrogs or of being eaten to death in my slumbers by a nation of bloodthirsty mosquitoes.
So I spun onwards, ever onwards towards Philadelphia. Meanwhile the sun was sinking lower and lower in the west. The nearer I got to Philadelphia the more numerous became the cars on the road. It seemed as though the whole of Philadelphia frivolled at Atlantic City on a Sunday afternoon. I was working my way along, dodging tremendous pot-holes and ruts, imagining myself in an hour or two's time reposing comfortably between clean white sheets. All of a sudden a most distressing noise came across my ear. It appeared to be a motor-cycle in pain. At times there was only one cylinder firing. Sometimes there were two. At other times there was none at all. I drew in to the side of the road and waited for the unfortunate author of this disturbance to arrive.
He soon emerged from the darkness. He had no lights, and was only too pleased to stop at the sight of another motor-cyclist.
"Why, I thought I was the only madman about here," I greeted him, surprised but gratified to know that there really were other seemingly sane people who rode motor-cycles in America.
How delighted he was to meet another Englishman! He had, he explained, been in America only a year or two, having come from my old home town of Birmingham during the War. He had got so "fed up" with Americans that it was a treat to set eyes on anyone from the Old Country.
He was a youth of eighteen or nineteen years, and after I had fixed him up with a couple of sparking plugs and attended to a few other urgent requirements, he asked me abruptly, but quite politely, the inevitable question, just as I might have expected. "Where you from, an' where you goin'?"
I explained that I was making for Philadelphia, where I hoped to find somewhere to lay my weary head.
"Well, if you don't want anything very luxurious," said he, "I think I can fix you up all right, if you don't mind going on ahead to light the way."
I gladly assented, and by this means, with my brilliant headlight illuminating the road, it did not take us long to reach the Delaware River, on the opposite bank of which stood the fine old city of Philadelphia. It took a quarter of an hour to cross the river by the ferry, but once in Philadelphia my friend was happy. "Now you follow me," he said.
He had no lights whatever, but his engine was running well, so I agreed and followed. This was not in itself very easy. I am perfectly certain that I have never seen any motor-cycle anywhere dash along at such a rate through a city. Although it was dark and I could not see my speedometer, I am sure that he must have travelled about forty-five miles per hour through the streets of Philadelphia. They were certainly good and straight and wide. There was a little traffic here and there, but this did not seem to worry our friend in the slightest. Occasionally we saw a "cop" or two standing on a street corner make a half-hearted attempt to step into the road to hold us up. Our friend, however, was desperate and would stop for no one. After about a quarter of an hour's riding, dodging round corners and shooting past obstructions at a tremendous pace, he pulled up at a small corner house in a secluded portion of the town and we dismounted. He lived with his mother, he explained, but she was away in New York. Also he had lost his latchkey. Also it was really a florist's shop, but he was sure I wouldn't mind. "There is nothing for it," he said, "but to climb the fire escape and get in through the front window."
I shouldered him up to an iron frame projecting from the house. Thence he clambered on to a rickety fire escape leading up the wall into blackness, and he was soon lost to sight. A few moments later the front door opened and we pushed our muddy, dirty machines on to the clean linoleum of the front room, where they remained overnight surrounded by pots of roses, carnations, palms, and ferns. This, he explained, was quite the usual procedure and his mother would not mind a bit!
It was then about 11.30, and when we had washed some of the dirt from our faces we sallied forth in quest of a meal. We had no difficulty in picking up the scent of a flourishing cafeteria. Neither did we have any difficulty in disposing of disgusting quantities of hot coffee and "waffles," a commodity peculiar to America, resembling pancakes and eaten with jugfuls of maple syrup.
Well after midnight we returned to our domicile, and I laid me down to sleep the sleep of the righteous. At seven o'clock in the morning I bade farewell to mine host. Not a cent would he accept in payment for my night's lodgings. So, with the parting assurance that he would drop in and see me when he was next in England, we each took our several roads—he in the direction of a neighbouring works where he was employed as a mechanic, and I towards Washington, drifting meekly along the streets at certainly nothing like the speed of the night before.
The road for some distance was good, the sun came out, and the day promised to turn out fine and hot. I soon began to feel an inward content. Everything was going smoothly. I was expecting some money to be waiting for me at Washington, and then I should have nothing to worry about for a long time to come.
As it usually happens when one begins to pat oneself on the back, I immediately had a puncture. It was of course in the back wheel. Meanwhile the sun was rising higher and higher, and when, after about half an hour, I had repaired the wheel, I was feeling very thirsty. Another five miles further on I had another puncture. This time it happened to be exactly outside a garage.
I have known places in England where a certain amount of trade is always guaranteed by the ingenuity of some of the garage proprietors who regularly and systematically throw tacks and nails along the road in their vicinity. It occurred to me that this was a practice not confined to England, as examination revealed the cause of the puncture to be a nice long nail driven through from one side of the tube to the other. Not feeling of a very arduous disposition at the time, I wheeled it into the garage to be repaired.
I am afraid I was rather annoyed at the result. In the first place, I had to supply the mechanic with solution. In the second place, I had to take off the tyre for him. In the third place, I supplied a patch; and in the fourth place, I actually had to do the job for him. After settling his account, I finally explained in language as polite as I could muster that in my opinion the practice of strewing discarded nails and other implements on the highway, while not being exactly meritorious in itself, was just as commendable a method of obtaining a business connection as many that were frequently resorted to in other trades or professions of a higher standing. I explained, however, that after having been so successfully victimized by such an artifice, one would consider oneself justified in expecting a much higher standard of workmanship than was apparently forthcoming in his establishment.
Then we parted, the mechanic expressing the hope that he would never (crimson) well see me again, and that if I ever did happen to be coming back that way and got a nail in my (unspeakable) tyre that he would see me in (Arizona) before he would (smoking) well repair it for me!