We Ate the Road Like Vultures

Read We Ate the Road Like Vultures for Free Online Page B

Book: Read We Ate the Road Like Vultures for Free Online
Authors: Lynnette Lounsbury
New York Times and out him—that sounded like the biggest paper in the US and it’s the one you always hear about in Australia. I thought the world deserved to know the truth—that the greatest writer who ever died actually hadn’t, and if his muse was just as alive, then the world should know that, too. But all that philosophy said, I didn’t want to ruin theirlives and, while they lived in a bizarre cocktail of squalor and opulence, far be it from me to say they weren’t happy. They seemed very content to be alone out there with only themselves and a few neurotic circus animals and some protective Mexicans to keep them company.
    I was at a loss as to what to do next, given that I had been right all the time and I’d made the trip all the way out there. It seemed a waste to just say, ‘Hi, I liked your books, and I hope you have a nice retirement, bye.’ I watched Carousel sitting there drinking another coffee, and Chicco struggling to wake up, opening one eye, then the other, and then closing both again and snorting his big nose with its hairs and sun spots. Carousel seemed thoughtful and I wondered if he was thinking about how he could get rid of me with the least amount of fuss—hoping it wasn’t to blow me up, moose-like, or bury me in shallow sand to become a modern mummy with only my ripped cliché shirt to tell people who I was.
    But all he said was, in a sarcastic way, ‘You kids have fun now.’ And took a deep long sip ofcoffee. ‘I guess we’ll see you later. I’ll get Maria to make up that bed with cleaner sheets.’
    I sagged into my donkey chair with relief. I wasn’t kicked out on my arse yet. All I had to do was walk in the footsteps of Jesus and pretend I was Carousel Kerouac’s granddaughter. Easy fucking day.
    Adolf seemed perfectly accepting of the idea that things were falling into place. I guess the son of such freaks must have found the rest of the world an easy place to live in—everyone so generally nice and accommodating. We each packed up a little bag—I had to borrow a hessian sack from Carousel since my backpack was torn up. I took a couple of bottles of water from the fridge and I packed my sunscreen and wallet. That’s all I figured I’d need searching for Jesus in the desert—water, food, cash and a good SPF. I hid my passport under the mattress and it took so much effort to lift the feather tick just enough to slide it under that I knew it was safe from just about anyone, especially oldsters.
    We waved a strange sort of goodbye to my ‘grandpa’ and wandered off down the road I hadwalked on the day before. Adolf had his shirt off by the time we reached the front fence and was down to a sarong within a further hundred metres of that. For every item he took off I put one on, like some game of strip poker—hat, sunglasses, his long-sleeved T-shirt. As he turned even more golden I slathered sunscreen on my ears and the backs of my hands, and shared a sermon from my own religion with Adolf.
    â€˜You’ll get skin cancer, you know.’ I hate to be a doomsdayer but I’m Australian and from birth we are told two things—‘Punish anyone who is successful’ and, ‘You are going to die from skin cancer one day’, so we wear clothes and sunscreen and fake tan that smells like tomcat urine and mock anyone who lies on the beach for more than twelve minutes.
    â€˜No, I won’t,’ he smiled.
    â€˜Ah, yes you will. You want some sunscreen?’ I handed him my industrial-sized Mexico tube, already half empty after a week.
    â€˜No, I won’t, and no thank you. I do not die of cancer, I will die when I am eighty-seven in my bed in my house.’
    Without asking he took my backpack and carried it for me, making me more annoyed than thankful cos it wasn’t heavy and I didn’t need the help, and now I couldn’t fiddle with the straps as I walked

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