Last India Overland by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

She nodded her head. “And you’re Mickers.” Kind of sarcastically.
    “Well, Mick, actually,” I said. “You never heard of Neil Young? That’s real sad, Suzie. You haven’t really lived until you’ve sunk knee-deep in Neil Young angst.”
    By this time we’re trucking through Bruges, an old city, like something out of the Middle Ages. I looked down this alley and saw an old woman sitting at a spinning wheel.
    “Neil Young’s got the greatest voice in the world,” I said. “You gotta hear it. You’ll thank me for it.”
    She finally gave in and said sure, she’d ask Pete to play it, just to get rid of me, likely. I could tell she wasn’t in a real communicative mood. She got up and asked Pete to plug Neil’s tape in and when she came back, she said, “Satisfied?” just as Neil was beginning to sing “Motorcycle Mama,” and I said yeah, great, thanks a lot, and she didn’t sit back down in her seat, she kept on walking down the aisle, all the way to the back, where she curled up on the long back seat in front of the tent cage. Which was fine by me. I lit up another Marley and leaned back and listened to Neil and watched the Belgian countryside roll past until Patrick tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I’d be interested in a little game of backgammon, and I said sure, and went back to the tables where he had a little backgammon board set up, and we played that until Pete got on the mike and said that it was so many clicks to Heidelberg and that we’d be stopping in Cologne for lunch, and then he held up a black book, the size and shape of your standard high school yearbook, and he said, “What you see here is the daybook. I think you people will find that there’ll be one or two things happen each day that you’ll want to get down on paper, kind of a record of the trip if you like. Best thing to do, I think, is for all of you to take turns alphabetically.
    I put a list of all your names on the inside front cover so you’ll know what order to go in. B for Byrnes is first, so if you don’t mind taking the first turn, Susan, be much appreciated.” From the back seat I could hear Suzie groan. I guess she was a little hung over too.
    “At the end of the trip,” said Pete, “we’ll have a little raffle and somebody will get to take the book home.”
    Then he hung up the mike.
    “Well,” said Patrick, “it shall behoove the would-be wordsmiths among us to come up with either superlative or egregious material for this tome, to make it a worthy keepsake. Don’t you agree, Mr. McPherson?”
    I agreed with him and moved a checker. Eventually I won. Patrick said, “How would you feel about putting a wager on the next game, Mr. McPherson?”
    “Mixed feelings,” I said.
    “And why is that?” he said.
    “Because,” I said, “you could be a shark, setting this poor little fishy up for the kill.”
    Patrick let out a snort. “I’m afraid you overestimate my devious aspect, Mr. McPherson. A wager merely makes the game a trifle more interesting, that’s all.”
    By the time we got to Cologne for lunch, Patrick had about fifteen of my American bucks in his pocket.
    When we got downtown, Pete parked out beside a church that had been bombed in World War II and then he got on the mike and said that lunch committees would have stints of three days each and that me and Rob were the first lunch committee.
    Well, if there’s one thing I am, it’s a good sandwich maker. Used to be, at least, when I had two hands. Just ask any of my old ex-flames. Nancy Pickles once told me that my tuna fish and cream cheese sandwich was so good that it made her wish she was born as two slices of magnolia rye so that her life would have some sort of ultimate meaning.
    Just the same, it’s pretty hard to make a good sandwich when you don’t even have butter, mustard and pickles. When all you’ve got are rock-hard buns and salt and pepper, some lettuce, tomatoes and a sick looking Belgian cheese with green