Travels with Charley in Search of America Read Online Free PDF

poured each of us a good dollop of twenty-one-year-old applejack and slipped in on my side of the table. Charley moved over to make room and put his chin down on my feet.
    There’s a gentility on the road. A direct or personal question is out of bounds. But this is simple good manners anywhere in the world. He did not ask my name nor I his, but I had seen his quick eyes go to the firearms in their rubber slings, to the fishing rods pinioned against the wall.
    Krushchev was at the United Nations, one of the few reasons I would have liked to be in New York. I asked, “Have you listened to the radio today?”
    “Five-o’clock report.”
    “What happened at the U.N.? I forgot to listen.”
    “You wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “Mr. K. took off his shoe and pounded the table.”
    “What for?”
    “Didn’t like what was being said.”
    “Seems a strange way to protest.”
    “Well, it got attention. That’s about all the news talked about.”
    “They should give him a gavel so he could keep his shoes on.”
    “That’s a good idea. Maybe it could be in the shape of a shoe so he wouldn’t be embarrassed.” He sipped the applejack with a deep appreciation. “That’s pretty nice,” he said.
    “How do folks around here feel about all this talking back to the Russians?”
    “I don’t know about other people. But I think if you’re talking back it’s kind of like a rear-guard action. I’d like to see us do something so they had to talk back to us.”
    “You’ve got something there.”
    “Seems to me we’re always defending ourselves.”
    I refilled the coffee cups and poured a little more applejack for both of us. “You think we should attack?”
    “I think we should at least take the ball sometimes.”
    “I’m not taking a poll, but how does the election seem to be going around here?”
    “I wish I knew,” he said. “People aren’t talking. I think this might be the secretest election we ever had. People just won’t put out an opinion.”
    “Could it be they haven’t got one?”
    “Maybe, or maybe they just don’t want to tell. I remember other elections when there would be pretty peppery arguments. I haven’t heard even one.”
    And that’s what I found all over the country—no arguments, no discussion.
    “Is it the same—other places?” He must have seen my license plates, but he would not mention that.
    “That seems right to me. Do you think people are scared to have an opinion?”
    “Maybe some. But I know some that don’t scare, and they don’t say, either.”
    “That’s been my experience,” I said. “But I don’t know, really.”
    “I don’t either. Maybe it’s all part of the same thing. No thanks, no more. I can smell your supper’s nearly ready. I’ll step along.”
    “Part of what same thing?”
    “Well, you take my grandfather and his father—he was still alive until I was twelve. They knew some things they were sure about. They were pretty sure give a little line and then what might happen. But now—what might happen?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Nobody knows. What good’s an opinion if you don’t know? My grandfather knew the number of whiskers in the Almighty’s beard. I don’t even know what happened yesterday, let alone tomorrow. He knew what it was that makes a rock or a table. I don’t even understand the formula that says nobody knows. We’ve got nothing to go on—got no way to think about things. I’ll step along. Will I see you in the morning?”
    “I don’t know. I’m going to start early. I want to get clear across Maine to Deer Isle.”
    “Say, that’s a pretty place isn’t it?”
    “I don’t know yet. I haven’t been there.”
    “Well, it’s nice. You’ll like it. Thanks for the—coffee. Good night.”
    Charley looked after him and sighed and went back to sleep. I ate my corned-beef hash, then made down my bed and dug out Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. But I found I couldn’t read, and when the light was