Idiot Wind by Peter Kaldheim

Author:Peter Kaldheim [Peter Kaldheim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2019-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

You’re a pain in the ass, Pete, but good luck, I guess. I hope for your sake you get your act together soon.

Gino’s parting words were still ringing in my ears as he pulled away and left me shamefacedly clutching the two dollars I’d just cadged from him. Of course, I was grateful for his generosity, but that didn’t stop me from sighing with relief as I watched him go – four days of travelling with Gino had worn me out, both mentally and emotionally.

I suspect if we hadn’t been the same age Gino’s prickly personality and withering candour might have been easier to shrug off. But the fact that our lives spanned exactly the same years, and had been plagued in their own way by the same destructive drug, gave Gino’s criticism a validity that sharpened its edge and made it cut deeper. Then, too, there was the matter of Gino’s imposing size and gruff demeanour, which were so similar to my father’s that they made his remarks even harder not to take to heart. Though it pained me to admit it, Gino had been right when he’d said it was high time I started ‘owning’ my fuck-ups. Facing up to the hard questions I’d been ducking for so long was the only way I’d ever turn my life around. There was no getting around it. But soul-searching is an exhausting business, and for the moment I was glad to be free of Gino and the constant reminder of my shortcomings he’d come to represent as our time on the road dragged on.

The highway rest area where Gino had dropped me off was just over the Oregon border, in the small farming town of Ontario, and the only amenities it offered were the usual blockhouse with public toilets and a few tin-roofed informational kiosks clustered on the sidewalk outside the restrooms. After Gino pulled away, I walked over to one of the kiosks and spent a moment checking the posted roadmap to get my bearings. According to the map, Interstate 84 would take me straight into Portland, 375 miles down the road. I figured with any luck I could cover the distance in ten or twelve hours of hitchhiking. But I’d never been to Oregon before, and I thought it would be a shame not to check out the scenery, so I decided to postpone my departure until the morning.

Before looking for somewhere to bed down at the rest area, I made a cautious dash across the highway to a roadside diner on the eastbound side and spent the better part of Gino’s two dollars on a pouch of Bugler tobacco and a small cup of coffee to go. I took my coffee outside to the diner’s gravel parking lot and sat down on a kerbstone to roll a cigarette. Then, as I relaxed in the chilly twilight, enjoying a leisurely smoke, I noticed a dark mass of clouds sweeping in from the west and had a bad feeling the weather was about to change.

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