скачать книгу бесплатно
‘And how dy’a want your eggs?’
‘Over easy, please.’
‘Links or bacon?’
‘Bacon, please.’
‘Toast or muffins?’
‘Toast.’
‘What bread would you like?’
‘Rye.’
‘Home fries or regular fries?’
‘Home fries.’
‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Oh coffee, definitely.’
Since leaving the Canadian Great Lakes and following the southern beaches of Lake Superior through Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, I had become good at these small-town American diner exams, and with another multiple choice successfully completed all I had to do was wait for the results, and I really needed a good score. Americans don’t like getting rid of their beloved gas-guzzling vehicles and the previous night, unable to find anywhere else to camp before nightfall, I had slept in a post-apocalyptic automotive graveyard, forced to pitch my tent amidst the rusty broken hulks of neglected station wagons, engine blocks, suspension shocks and other derelict metal innards.
Minnesota’s state bird, the mosquito, had plagued me from dusk until dawn, and it had pissed with rain from the early hours and had no intention of stopping. Soaked through after a soul-destroying ten-mile ride through the wind and rain to where I now sat, this small-town, family-run diner, like all the others that fed me as I moved west across America, was a gift from God. A warm, comfortable, friendly sanctuary where, for a fistful of dollars, a hungry cyclist could take in enough calories to burn for a week. Eggs sunny side up, over easy, poached, boiled or fried. Thick pancakes in tall stacks drenched in maple syrup. Chunky waffles smothered in whipped cream and blueberries. Golden slabs of French toast dusted with icing sugar. Rashers of crispy bacon, sticky cinnamon buns, home fries, French fries, hash browns, English muffins, links of sausages, oats and coffee. American diners know all about breakfast.
With a mountain of cholesterol sitting in front of me, I took an essential gulp of coffee, refilled my cup and with a jammy piece of toast in one hand began to peel through the pages of the Frazee Forum the previous occupant had left behind. The quality of regional Midwestern journalism was as reliable as my breakfast and I entertained myself with the headlines that jumped off the page.
NARROW ESCAPE WITH HAY STACKER FOR LUCKY FARMER GIANT QUILT KEEPS RESIDENTS BUSY FRAZEE TURKEY LURES MISS MINNESOTA
Drawn in by an alluring picture of Miss Minnesota in a floral bikini, I read on. This weekend the town of Frazee was holding some kind of turkey festival, and the article informed me there would be a demolition derby, a mystery gobbler competition, a hillbilly horseshoe contest, a Turkey Dayz parade, a Miss Frazee beauty pageant and, most excitingly, a street dance.
At this point in the trip my contact with the fairer sex had been somewhat limited. The myth that an English accent in America would result in more amorous advances than a man could handle was still, sadly, a myth. I was by no means an ugly cyclist, I didn’t think I smelt too bad, but, to date, the closest I had been to having anything to write home about was an over-eager, over-aged waitress who, bored with serving truck drivers for the majority of her life, cooed over my quaint English inflection.
I had barely seen a girl since leaving New York, but surely a weekend involving a street dance and a beauty parade would provide an opportunity. Farmers’ daughters, beauty queens, beer and line-dancing were on the menu and, who knows, even Miss Frazee herself might fall for my pedal-powered tales of derring-do.
‘More coffee, darling?’
The mental picture I had created was interrupted by the waitress hanging over me with two full percolator jugs of brewed coffee.
‘Sure, thanks. Do you know anything about the Frazee Turkey Dayz?’
The waitress looked blank.
‘Frazee Turkey Dayz?’
Nothing. I held up the article.
‘Fraaaazeeeee. Suuuuure, they’re good folk out that way. It’ll be a blast.’
Ripping the article from its page, I screwed Miss Minnesota into my pocket and was on my way.
WELCOME TO FRAZEE. TURKEY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD AND HOME TO THE WORLD’S LARGEST TURKEY
You could smell Frazee before its giant cut-out cartoon turkey welcomed you there. The sour stench of mass-farmed poultry was repulsive and clung to the back of my throat. Cycling on Highway 10, parallel to the train tracks that cut an immaculate line through this featureless grassy landscape, I passed the huge sheds and cooling trucks that left me in no doubt what Frazee produced. Turkeys on an industrial scale. The town’s distinctive water tower came into view and I followed signs for Main Street. Getting off my bike, I checked right and left and began lifting my load over the rusty railroad when a brown Willy’s Jeep skidded to a halt on the other side with a smiling young man behind the wheel.
‘Hey, I’m Paul, where you coming from?’
‘England. Is this the right place for the street dance tonight?’
‘That’s right, starts at nine.’
‘Is there anywhere I can camp in town?’
‘Sure, Town Park, with our giant turkey. Follow me.’
If it smelt anything like the battery sheds I passed on my way into town, I wasn’t sure I wanted to camp near the world’s largest turkey, but obeying orders I followed the jeep through the suburbs to the town park: a scrubby piece of land with a few picnic tables on the banks of a small river.
‘This is Big Tom—over twenty feet tall and weighing in at over five thousand pounds.’
I was staring in complete bewilderment at one of the ugliest things I had ever seen. An enormous fibreglass turkey, complete with snood and caruncles. ‘THE WORLD’S BIGGEST TURKEY’, announced a plaque. I wanted to point out that it wasn’t a real flesh-and-feathers bird, but this was the Turkey Capital of the World and I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings of civic pride, especially as Paul had now kindly invited me to camp in his garden instead of in the shadow of this monstrosity.
Paul and his family lived under the town water tower, a vast white object that, if decorated correctly, would probably become the world’s largest upside-down onion. It towered above the town and ‘FRAZEE’ was proudly painted on its bowl, letting everyone know exactly where they were.
Paul’s family took me in as one of their own and, after leading me through a garage full of fishing gear, invited me to pitch my tent on the tidy lawn behind their bungalow. At a small table on the porch, Paul’s father, an elderly man in a grey T-shirt, denim dungarees and tidy white beard, patiently scaled and gutted recently caught sunfish that filled a plastic bucket. He dipped each one in a dish of milk and then flour before his wife ferried them into the kitchen where she was busy preparing for the invasion of her children and grandchildren, two of them, energetic twins, took great interest as I put up my tent, only to shriek in complaint at the fetid smell once they scrambled inside.
I was invited to join the family for supper, and ten of us crowded round their narrow kitchen table. After holding hands and saying grace, a feast of ‘pot stickers’, a type of Chinese dumpling filled with ground turkey and fried until they stuck to the pot, was served with heaps of rice salad and fried sunfish. After supper Paul and I wondered into town for the street dance. It was time for my ‘Frazee Turkey Dayz’ weekend to get under way.
In the centre of Frazee, under the orange glow of the town’s street lamps, hundreds of residents and outsiders were gathering for the much-anticipated annual street dance. Bunting drooped from telegraph poles decorated with spirals of fairy lights and canvas banners hung over the street welcoming everyone to the town. A pleasant July evening, the day’s earlier storms had cleared the air and under a star-filled sky a lively buzz of excitement resonated in this small Midwestern town. Frazee’s Main Street had been closed off at either end by two enormous turkey-transporting juggernauts, and the space in between was quickly filling up with lively revellers. Leather-clad bikers revved the engines of oversized chrome-decorated motorcycles, clusters of burly men in cowboy hats and blue jeans attracted the admiring glances of giggling blonde-haired Daisy Duke look-a-likes, and from a makeshift bar set up in front of the town’s magnificent fire engines, firemen clad in yellow trousers and tight-fitting Frazee Fire Department T-shirts handed out a constant stream of plastic cups brimming over with cold beer. Paul seemed to know everyone in Frazee, and as the drinks kept coming I was introduced as a continent-crossing cyclist on my way to Brazil. Turkey farmers and ranchers greeted me with roughened hands and ready smiles and impressed local girls asked to squeeze my prominent calves. It was going to be a good night.
The live music started and I looked out over an ocean of swirling, swinging, jiving Midwesterners. Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt, The Eagles and Kenny Rogers—with a feeble knowledge of Country and Western music, I was only able to recognise a few of the classics that kept the crowd moving and my feet irresistibly tapping. But I’d soon had enough of standing on the sidelines. The beer had numbed my shyness and as a new song was greeted with a wild ‘Whoooop!’ from the crowd, I waded into the action, introducing myself to a wholesome-looking girl with the clear completion and bright smile of someone who had spent most of her life outdoors. A flattering checked shirt was tied in a knot above her toned midriff and her big eyes and all-American white-toothed smile sparkled under the rim of her cream Stetson.
‘I don’t have a clue how to dance to Country and Western,’ I called, trying to be heard above the music.
‘Everyone can dance Country and Western,’ she returned with a smile, and putting one hand round my rigid waist and clasping my unattractively sweaty palm in hers, she pulled me into the crowd.
The band played late into the night, interrupted only by the deafening clanking of the freight trains that rumbled through the town every hour, massive, mile-long mechanical serpents that passed so close you could see the driver ringing his bell in recognition of the jubilant mass of people below him. The crowd cheered. This was one hell of a Friday night. I had arrived in the Midwest, in a small town, and I was dancing under the stars with hundreds of happy people. The band kept playing. Travis Tritt was being covered by a group of seven elderly men performing on a trailer bed. They wore denim and Harley Davidson T-shirts, had bandanas and drooping moustaches and their paunches were supported by ornate belt buckles. With closed eyes and sweat-beaded faces they belted out the familiar chorus. The crowd loved it, roaring and twisting to the amplified metallic twang of the guitar and the whine of the harmonica. I had a beautiful cowgirl in my arms and at last life felt good.
I had never seen a snapping turtle. I didn’t even know they existed, but they were a local Minnesota delicacy and Paul insisted, the next day, that I track one down. With the sort of half-hearted hangover that can only be achieved by drinking litres of tasteless American beer, I made my way accompanied by Paul to the local butcher. Ketter’s Meat Market and Locker hadn’t changed for a hundred years. It had one of those false flat fronts I had only ever seen before in Westerns, and a wooden deck raised a few feet above the street. On the counter stood a huge old-fashioned set of scales and bundles of sausage strings were hung up on the back wall. The dusty shelves were lined with bags of various types of jerky—air-cured slivers of marinated meat, the favoured chews of cowboys and cyclists—and disturbing jars of pickled turkey gizzards that would have looked more at home in the laboratory of a mad biologist.
The proprietor was an unhappy fellow who seemed too skinny to be a butcher. A blood-stained apron hung around his neck and in his large rubber-gloved hands was a menacing meat hook.
‘Wal, this is a friend of mine. He wants to see your turtles.’
The butcher gave me an investigative look as if to establish I wasn’t an operative for the CIA.
‘Sure.’
Paul stayed back in the store while Wal led me behind the scenes into a cool concrete corridor lined with the mechanised heavy doors of refrigeration and lit by white fluorescent strips. At the end of the passage a set of damp concrete steps took us underground to another large metal refrigerator door, which opened into a dark, dank, musty cell. I began to recall a schoolboy production of Sweeney Todd and visualised the other unlucky tourists who had came down here to ‘see the turtles’ and who were now being sold upstairs as jerky and gizzards.
A single fluorescent strip hanging from the ceiling flickered to life like an injured insect and adjusting to the raw, unnatural light that now filled the small room I made out eight or ten monsters huddled on the floor around my feet.
‘Keep ’em down here cos the cold makes ’em sleepy. They can get pretty frisky when their blood’s up.’
I had expected to be shown a handful of terrapins paddling about in a dirty fish tank. These lifeless monsters were the size of coffee tables. Armoured horned heads with yellow eyes and ferocious pointed jaws peered out from thick, uneven, lichen-covered shells. Stiff, powerful arms with thick claws rested on the ground on either side of their grotesque faces. These things weren’t turtles, they were prehistoric beasts. Stupidly squatting down for a closer look and a possible photo, I reached out a hand for a stroke. Before I made contact two strong arms grabbed my shoulders and I was yanked backwards, my buttocks landing on the cold hard floor.
‘You wanna lose those little English fingers you’re going the right way about it.’
‘Sorry, it’s just that I thought….’
The butcher took an old broom from the corner of the room and cautiously began prodding the head of an especially large specimen. I can’t say I saw what happened next, it happened so fast, but after a powerful head movement on the part of the turtle the butcher’s broom was six inches shorter.
‘That’s why we call ’em snapping turtles.’
‘And these things live in the wild?’
‘Sure. They make great eating too—four different types of meat per turtle. Makes a fine stew.’
We handed over a few dollars in exchange for a kilo of ‘snapper meat’ and headed home. Paul’s mother was a snapper-stew aficionado and in her small kitchen, which was a confusion of pots and pans, recipe books and washing up, she went to work. The rubbery meat of different shades was cut into small chunks and browned on each side in a little butter before being added to a large pot. Thrown in with it were chopped vegetables—onions, potatoes, celery, carrots and tomatoes—cloves of garlic and plenty of seasoning. The contents were covered in water and left to stew over a gentle heat. Paul’s house quickly filled with the sweet aroma of snapper stew and soon enough his family gathered around the kitchen table. Steaming bowls of this hearty Minnesota classic were passed from place to place, and after grace was said, the slurping began. Chewing on the subtly flavoured meat and drinking up the warming broth, I realised the butcher was right. These strange-looking creatures that lived in the swampy waters and ditches of Minnesota made a great stew.
‘Leg or breast, Miss Minnesota?’
Taken in by the kind people of Frazee as something of a cycling celebrity, the next meeting on my Turkey Dayz agenda was to join none other than Miss Minnesota for a VIP turkey dinner before she crowned this year’s Miss Frazee. The bikini-clad beauty that had been screwed up in my pocket for two days was going to become a reality. This would be something to tell the folks back home about.
The dinner was held at the substantial mansion of a prominent Frazee real-estate dealer. A recently built home in a traditional style, it boasted a grand hallway that led up to a sweeping stairway lined with wooden balustrades. The bathroom was encased with dark marble and in the living room a vast television beamed a football game to the owner’s sons, who slouched in the expanse of an enormous leather sofa.
On a veranda that ran the length of the back of the house, a long table had been set up for the feast. Various journalists and people of local importance were there, and the finest Frazee spread was on display. Turkey soup, turkey fricassee, cold turkey breast, turkey Caesar salad, grilled turkey drummers and a large turkey hotpot. The people of Frazee were clearly proud of their town bird and loved eating it. I raced a couple of keen local dignitaries for the best seat in the house—next to Miss Minnesota herself. She ate as I expected, nibbling away daintily at a piece of turkey breast. I more than made up for her lack of appetite and as a result soon found myself in a strange, sweaty, post-turkey coma that left me completely unable to communicate with the Barbie doll beside me. Her teeth were whiter than white, her skin was free of any blemish, her hair perfectly blonde, and she said all the right things, mostly about her boyfriend, who came in the muscle-bound shape of the Minnesota state football team quarterback. We had an enjoyable evening. Miss Minnesota was pleasant on the eye and she never stopped smiling. She was kind enough to leave me with a signed photograph of herself to add to my collection. I was unable to return the favour. We wished each other luck and went our separate ways. Miss Minnesota was there to crown Miss Frazee and I was there to watch her at the greatest of American small-town events. The beauty pageant.
The Frazee high school gymnasium was packed. Neat rows of spectators ran the length of the hall, twittering with nervous anticipation. The question on everyone’s lips was: who will be crowned Miss Frazee?
Shortly after I took my seat, the lights went down. A synthesised dance beat throbbed off the concrete walls and spotlights chased each other around the room. The crowd erupted. Bursting from behind a pink curtain decorated with tinfoil stars, five girls of all shapes and sizes, dressed in leotards, white tights and top hats, hurled themselves on stage. High kicks, tucks, twists and spins were all attempted as each girl struggled unsuccessfully to stay in time.
The initial excitement was soon extinguished as the self-important organiser took the stage to make a rambling speech about the virtues of beauty pageants. Each girl was introduced to a judging panel of local dignitaries who sat impassively at a desk at the foot of the stage.
Apparently the opening gambit of wobbling and gyrating had not been enough for the judges, and the first test in this gruelling contest was to be Modern Dance and Singing.
Each contestant returned individually to sing a chosen song while performing a choreographed dance routine. One by one Celine Dion, Elton John, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston were all dishonoured, but it was contestant number five who got my vote. Dressed in fishnet tights, her ample proportions squeezed into a bustier, she performed a raunchy small-town rendition of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. Her puffing and panting was amplified around the hall by the microphone concealed in her corsage while she attempted a routine that managed to incorporate tripping, stumbling and belly dancing. She was greeted with proud applause by the enthusiastic audience.
The next round was designed to test that most important of female virtues: how to look good in a bikini. Eagerly anticipated by the male contingent in the room, who did their best to disguise their eager anticipation from their wives and girlfriends, the girls took to the stage in their finest beachwear to ripples of polite applause. Frazee is thousands of miles from the nearest beach and it was obvious the contestants had spent their winter evenings scanning home-shopping channels and catalogues in order to acquire the most alluring Californian beach swimsuits. Sashaying forward, each competitor attempted a pin-up pose, lowering their heads to smirk suggestively at the judges before turning with a final swing of their assets to leave the stage.
Each potential champion then re-emerged in a shiny evening dress made by their grandmothers for the battle of the ball gowns. More sauntering, more simpering, more posing, more cleavage, and more purposeful scribbling from the judges.
Last but not least the judges asked each of the contestants a series of taxing questions.
‘What are your hobbies?’
‘What do you think makes Frazee such a special place?’
‘What are your plans for the future?’
Each girl did her best to remember her scripted answers, telling us how much she enjoyed working with children and animals and wanted to save the world. The final question, ‘What are your views on America’s involvement in Iraq?’ was responded to in every case with patriotic fervour and roars of approval from the audience.
While the panel of judges discussed their decision in whispers, last year’s Miss Frazee, as pink and plump as one of the town’s prized turkeys, stood up. Predictably she burst into floods of tears, while trying to tell us through an onslaught of sniffling and blubbering how being a beauty queen had changed her life. She was followed by the sophisticated visiting Miss Minnesota, who drew astonished gasps from the crowd who had apparently never seen anything so beautiful.
Teasingly she peeled open the gold envelope holding the results while the five contestants and the whole of Frazee held their breath. In a slow Midwestern drawl, she announced:
‘This year’s Miss Frazee is…Anna Hanson.’
The stage erupted in a tumult of shrieks and tearful hugging. The crowd rose to its feet in applause. At last the ordeal was over.
Or so I thought. Sadly, this was not the case. My buttocks, anaesthetised by three hours on a hard plastic seat, and my hands, weary from perpetual applause, would have to endure another forty-five minutes of crying, crowning and acceptance speeches before I could escape. At long last it came to an end and, mentally exhausted, I staggered from the hall. I had survived the roller-coaster ride of my first small-town beauty pageant, and Frazee had a new Queen.
Paul’s family wouldn’t let me leave. After all, how could I possibly say goodbye to Frazee without enjoying the turkey luncheon and the Turkey Dayz parade? The previous night’s dinner had pushed my annual turkey intake dangerously close to maximum and the thought of Christmas almost brought on a panic attack, but in the name of gastronomic research I promised to push on.
Held in the sterile surroundings of the Frazee event centre, the annual turkey luncheon was another excessive, no-holds-barred celebration of the town’s bird. It took place shortly after the announcement of Frazee’s mystery gobbler, in which the public had to identify a local dignitary from his warbling imitation of a turkey played out over the tannoy. The doors were opened and the townspeople shunted forward in an orderly line. A hard-working team of blue-rinsed female elders bustled around industrial-sized ovens, from which abnormally sized golden turkeys were produced. Other teams of busy Frazee doyennes set about tearing birds to pieces with alarming enthusiasm, piling the steaming meat on to large metal serving trays. Turkeys were being cooked, carved and served on an epic scale. Waiting in line with my flimsy paper plate, I inched closer towards the panel of old ladies serving up this gargantuan meal. Two heavy dollops of potato salad. An eight-inch gherkin. A turkey leg the size of a small child’s arm. A ladle of gloopy gravy and a packet of crisps. My plate buckled under the weight of its load, my stomach gurgled in frightful anticipation of the suffering it was about to endure, and I tried to forget the rancid smell of the turkey sheds I had passed as I pedalled into town. I found a seat and did my best to dissect my genetically modified turkey leg with a plastic knife and fork.
The turkey luncheon was clearly a gathering of the Great and the Good of Frazee. On my table I was sharing conversation with none other than the deputy fire chief, the town sheriff and the local undertaker.
‘And you must be Taaarm.’
Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I turned round to be greeted by a friendly-faced man with a large gold chain around his neck.
‘I’m Mayor Daggett and people here tell me you’re riding your bicycle to Brazil.’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘Well, that’s just wonderful,’ he drawled. ‘The people of Frazee would be honoured if you would ride your bicycle in the Turkey Dayz parade.’
Filled with a mixture of pride, nervous anticipation and turkey nausea, I accepted. With my turkey luncheon slowly working its inexorable way through my system, I fetched my bicycle and hurried to where I was told the parade would begin. A clipboard-wielding woman in a blue tracksuit gave me my orders.
‘Taaarm, today you’re riding in position eight. You have candy?’
‘No.’
Rushing to the general store I grabbed two bags of synthetic lollipops and returned just in time. The Frazee marching band rolled their drums and crashed their cymbals, and the large trucks pulling the floats started their engines. At position eight in the parade I was riding behind none other than Miss Frazee, who was perched like a cake decoration atop a giant sequinned re-creation of a red stiletto-heeled shoe, being pulled by a tractor. In the position behind me was the Frazee Retirement Home float, a low-loader lorry with a few dazed octogenarians still in their beds, complete with swinging drips and catheter bags.
Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!
An immaculately polished fire engine let out a controlled blast on its siren and the parade began to inch forward through the backstreets of Frazee before turning on to the main street. Frazee may only have had a population of 1,500 but her main street was lined with cheering residents and visitors. I rode with no hands and cycled in circles like a circus performer, rang my bell and waved to the crowds. The streets were lined with families and children who swooped like seagulls to pick up the sweets I tossed to them from my handlebar bag, like all the characters on the other floats were doing.
It was a surreal experience. Police cars and fire engines let off their sirens. The marching band played perfectly, while silver batons were tossed high into the air. Scantily-clad cheerleaders with turkey-fattened thighs ducked and dived, shaking day-glo tinsel pompoms. Clowns on stilts mingled with dancing turkeys, a group of fez-wearing old men in go-karts swerved crazily. Cowboys and cowgirls trotted on horses, their harnesses jingling. Vintage cars beeped their horns, children rode on the back of plump pigs, and the Hungry Cyclist rang his bell and cycled amidst this hallucinatory procession. I had no doubt that I would see some weird and wonderful things on my way to Brazil, but my weekend in Frazee would take some beating.
In the last two days all my Christmases had come at once and, never wanting to see a turkey again, I left Frazee and moved west towards North Dakota and Fargo, a large Midwestern town made famous by the Cohen Brothers’ 1996 film of the same name. By all accounts the townspeople of Fargo could not have been more excited at having a feature film made about their beloved city, only to find that it portrayed them as group of backward, inbreeding maniacs who liked feeding people into industrial shredders. I didn’t find any maniacs in Fargo, just car dealerships, endless strip malls and organised traffic patterns that cleverly led you to the doors of Burger King or Starbucks.
Less than happy with my stay, I turned northward for Grand Forks and got my first taste of the scale and emptiness of this rarely documented heart of America. Gone were the winding roads and the meandering highways that connected the small towns of Michigan and Minnesota. Here in North Dakota getting from A to B was much more functional and the straight roads on my map now looked like the national grid, a system perhaps left behind by the German farmers who settled here in the nineteenth century. Riding Highway 200, I was now on a straight road that would be my home for two weeks and carry me five hundred miles across North Dakota, from small town to small town without deviation. Day after day I moved gently, silently through flat fields that stretched as far as the eye could see, unbroken in every direction. I was cycling across the floor of a giant room. Take a pedal-boat cruise across the Atlantic and you will have an idea what it’s like to move so slowly over such a vast distance. Gentle winds generated hypnotic waves through the corn, wheat and flax that surrounded me, as if an invisible giant was slowly dragging his hands over the tops of his crops. Perhaps it sounds monotonous, but this huge state, half the size of Europe with a population of no more than 650,000, held a unique peace and tranquillity all of its own, and as a tiny speck in this enormous landscape of land and sky I felt blissfully unimportant. I passed under herds of huge clouds moving gently across the deep blue sky, casting heavy shadows over the landscape like dark sprits. When I wasn’t deep in thought, thinking about why I was thinking about what I was thinking about, I found ways to entertain myself on the never-ending strip of tarmac that passed beneath me. Mystified truck drivers peered down from their air-conditioned cabins in bewilderment at the strange Englishman pedalling across the state with a good book propped up on his handlebars.
More often than not they would release long, deep blasts of greeting from their air horns. The deafening noise would startle me from my book, forcing me to swerve and wobble as twenty tons of fast-moving cargo rushed past me in a violent vortex of wind and dust. Unlike the dirty and impersonal lorries of England, these huge juggernauts were palaces of polished metal, boasting rows of chrome-capped wheels, bright fenders and cabs personalised with flames, crossed pistols and semi-naked women, like those found on World War Two fighter planes. Tall vertical aluminium exhausts protruded like proud animal horns and their personalised slogans—Got A Problem? Just Try JESUS! and Keep Honking I’m Reloading—were the last words of wisdom they offered me before vanishing into the distance. Following slowly in their wake with my own heavy load decorated with stickers, flags and lucky charms, I felt an affinity with these kings of the road.
