Rod, Rex and Rhoda

by Bob Brill

At the Crossroads

We drive for two days. Somewhere in Montana the van croaks.

We stuff our backpacks with a change of clothes, our leftover food, USA roadmap, and remaining dollars.

A car is coming. Rhoda flags it down and a garrulous traveling salesman picks us up. “I’m only going about twenty miles.”

“Hey, every mile counts. Thanks a lot.”

In that twenty miles he tells the whole story of his life, which gives me the feeling that meeting us is the most exciting thing that ever happened to him.

He leaves us at a crossroads and turns off to the left. His car slowly diminishes to a distant speck, and then it’s gone. Not a house in sight. The sun is burning down in a cloudless sky, and there’s no shade anywhere. We stand there and sit there and stand there and sit there for hours. Not a car. We finish off the last of our food, and we’re dangerously low on water. It was stupid to take a twenty-mile ride into the middle of nowhere. If we had refused the ride and couldn’t catch a better one, we could at least have slept in the van.

Should a car come along from any direction, going anywhere, we’d be glad to accept a ride just to leave this miserable patch of earth behind. But the long flat dirt road that stretches from horizon to horizon is empty in all four directions and it’s getting dark. At least the sun will soon stop pounding us.

“Got any bright ideas?” I say.

“This may not be very bright,” Rhoda says, “but you know how just when you’re making love the phone rings or someone knocks on your door? Let’s take off our clothes and make love by the side of the road? That ought to bring a car.”

“And if it doesn’t,” I add, “we get to have our fun in the open air with all the privacy of home. Either way it’s a win.”

We immediately put that crazy idea into practice and pretty soon there is no room in our minds for trouble, worry or boredom. We’re having a rare old time in the beautiful here and now till Rex barks. We look up. Nothing in sight that wasn’t there before, but a distant tinkling sound reaches our ears.

“Somebody’s coming,” Rhoda says.

As the sound increases it turns into music, the delicate strains of a brass band wafting over the sagebrush, and then a dark smudge appears on the horizon that slowly resolves into a truck. No, it’s a line of trucks, coming our way.

We disengage and quickly climb into our clothes. These are big trucks, no two alike, semis and RVs and panel trucks pulling trailers and even a few ordinary cars. The band is playing Meet Me in St. Louis in an open truck with slat sides.

As this motley caravan approaches, we step out into the road and wave our arms. Rex is barking. The whole parade slowly crawls to a halt. On the lead truck a gaudy sign is painted. Morrison and Jellicoe Circus. Coming to Your Town. A man rolls down the window and says, “Where you folks going?”

“Anywhere but here,” I say.

He steps down and says, “Conor Jellicoe is the name. Follow me. We’ll squeeze you in somewhere.” He looks disturbingly like my long-dead Uncle Jonathan, complete with the short stature, the paunch and the generous side whiskers.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Jellicoe.”

He escorts us along the line of trucks. People stick their heads out, waving and calling out to us.

“You folks hungry?” someone says. “We’ve got some leftover pizza.”

“This is the place for you,” says Jellicoe. “Acrobats. Fine people. Teeterboard. Trapeze. High wire. Hey there, Laszlo, would you please help these folks aboard? They sure look like they could use some pizza.”

Strong arms haul us into the back of a truck. About a dozen men and women are lounging on blankets and bedrolls. They make room for us. Someone passes us a paper plate with slices of pizza and drinks in paper cups. The pizza is cold, but it tastes wonderful. The drinks are cokes, which usually I don’t care for, but now they seem endowed with a special sanctified quality.

“Nice looking pug you got there,” says the one named Laszlo. “Does he know any tricks?”

“I’ve never taught him any, but he’s very smart. He’s pulled off a few spectacular stunts on his own. Got us out of trouble more than once.”

“The reason I’m asking, I hope you don’t take offense, but you two seem a bit down on your luck, could possibly use some steady work. If the dog he is as smart as you say, you could work up a fine act. We had a great dog act once, six dogs, they could all dance, jump through flaming hoops, even did some teeterboard. The trainer he steps on the board, the dog he somersaults through the air into the arms of the beautiful assistant. Can you picture that? The crowds they went wild.”

“Oh really. What happened to your dog act?”

“Went on to greater things. Got picked up by the Ringling Show. We haven’t had a dog act for more than a year. Hey, it’s none of my business, but here’s an opportunity.”

To be continued...

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