Four motorcycles pulled into Ricetown. It was a discouraging place, typical of remote small towns. The long term effects of the modern world’s uncaring showed with weed-fields abounding to the edge of the two lane road that had led them there. There were no souls in evidence. It was on the edge of a small hill.

There was a strip of mostly closed store fronts, one of which was occupied as the town hall. There was a town patrol car out front that looked like it had just received a washing. There were two gas stations, no graffiti but there was recent political election signage that said this town’s presidential candidate choice had lost. In the distance, there were deserted and boarded up houses.

Marlow pulled his Harley into what likely had been an old Gulf Oil gas station. The circular sign aloft the entrance advertised it as the purveyor of El Cheapo petroleum products. Its pumps were so old that they were electro-mechanical and had no provision for credit or debit cards. He stopped next to what looked to be the sole functioning pump and killed his engine. For a while nothing happened.

All of sudden an older African American man appeared by his side and leaned across his tank to face him square on. The man was wearing a tightly cocked straw hat and was possessed of palsied shaking hands that were deep chocolate brown in color. Marlow didn’t know what to do with this man.

Before Marlow could speak, he asked, “You from the county newspaper?”

”Newspaper?”

“About the promises she made when she drove through.”

“No. Can you point us to where we can get a bite to eat?”

“Wha you talkin about?”

“Oh shit . . .” Marlow whispered aside to no one in particular now recognizing the utter barrenness of the place, then turning back to the straw hatted man “Fill er up, if you please, sir.”

The old man took the hose nozzle off the pump and began slowly searching about the motorcycle for where to put the nozzle, while asking “Prime, Choice or Good?”

Marlow’s head involuntarily jerked around upon hearing these meat grades for premium, medium and regular grades of gas. Marlow considered that he might have been fucking with him until the man belatedly said that they hadn’t had anything but good gas since the county’s real estate collapse and the four-laning of the county’s section of a major US route to west of the town. This final indignity had effectively imposed a death sentence on the town.

Marlow nodded and respectfully offered to show him where the gas cap was. It was looking to be a long pit stop.

To make it go a bit quicker, Marlow offered his mates to put their gas on his tab, so all they had to do was wheel their bikes up to the pump in turn. The pump jockey just had to keep track how many times the three figure price pump turned over from $9.99 to $0.00 for the final payment.

As the attendant moved to feed the second steed, Marlow wandered over to inspect the station’s office, since its three repair bay doors were all tightly pulled down shut. There was a growing tidal wash of brambles and dried leaves that had collected along the crevices between the door bottoms and the pavement. The place was slowly drowning in the weeds of its past. Repair service with a smile was in this place’s distant past.

Marlow pushed on the partially opened office door. The office was spare save for an old cash register with less than $10 in coins and bills in its open till. There was a pile of fading state road maps – the kinds that used to be given away free to customers of oil companies in the US during the 50s. He opened one, laid it out flat on the desk next to the register, and began to peruse the area around Ricetown for clues about the surroundings and where they might head next.

From the publishing date on the map, the town had been an agricultural center sixty years before. There were the telltale marks of a former rail service through the town – perhaps for what was the main product of the town. He spied a river that was a bit over a mile further down the road and other marks that said there were lowlands ahead, probably the sites for the rice paddies whose operations likely dated back to the times of slavery.

He put one of the maps in his shirt pocket, intending to keep and pay for it, if needed.

There was a closed door to his right that led to the repair garage. As he approached, he heard someone exclaim “Shoot fire! Damn Almighty!”

Instead of freezing in place, he pressed on entering the dark, oil scented garage. Through the opened door, he could see a sliver of the garage’s three bays. This place didn’t have hydraulic lifts but grease pits. There was a calendar on the wall from the 80s, a picture of Jesus on the cross, and in the deep shadows under the second pit with a rusted 1932 Ford coupe atop it an older man was just visible. He was hopping about holding one of his hands and likely in some pain. As Marlow’s eyes adjusted, he was struck silent when a beam of light illuminated one of this man’s eyes. It was cloudy white –likely from untreated cataracts. Marlow shuddered when this unseeing eye seemed to hang in space for a brief moment.

Immediately the 32 Ford started to move quickly forward to the front of the bay. Whoever was under it was as strong as a Norse god and powerfully hurting. He clambered out along the narrow slippery pit steps. He stood up and then doubled over, while making directly for the door behind Marlow.

Marlow silently pressed himself into the wall to allow this large bull of a man to pass. While the room was dark at first, other smaller objects soon became visible. Old batteries on workbenches, four barrel Holley carbs, huge truck magnetos, a mammoth bench vise, and an engine hoist with its dangling greasy chains.

He turned back into the office to be greeted by this massive man who was still holding his injured hand. It was impossible to tell if his intense ferociousness was from his pain or the intrusion into his space. Maybe both. There was no humor in his dark brown face. He was enormous, possessed of brutal animal power that had been bested by some careless stupidity in the pit. He was dressed in unlaced. worn US Navy surplus boots, a sports team ballcap, dirty coveralls with a sewn on tag that proclaimed his name as Grimes.

He growled “Wha?”

Marlow stepped toward him and said, “Is there anything I can do for you?” while pointing to his hand.

“Naw. Ain’t bad. Wha you want?”

“Could you please tell me where the nearest place to eat is?”

“In these here parts? Are you fucking with me, boy?”

Ignoring his insult, Marlow softly said “I don’t mean any disrespect. We’ve been on the road for hours and we’re looking for something, anything, to eat.”

“There might be. If you git there and git a seat, you might not git out.”

The situation was becoming possibly dangerous, but, as he was wont to do back then, Marlow ignored the voice in his head that said “To hell with this.” His gaze just bore into Grimes with honesty and no intentions of foulness

Grimes relented after many seconds of silence, offering, “Thar’s a place a half mile or so down the road on the right, where hands git to eat. Nuttin fancy. Folks pay what they’re able.”

Marlow thanked him and exited the office to pay for the gas. A small crowd had gathered across the road by the weed-field. They all wore overhauls, and sported straw hats or ball caps. They glanced in fascination at the black leather clad city boys and their shiny big motorcycles, quietly talking and pointing among themselves.

Paying the attendant with cash and telling him to keep the change, Marlow told the riders that food was just down the road a piece.

They hurled their motorcycles out onto the road. In the background, they could hear the voice of the giant shout “Good luck, city boys!” followed by the derisive laughter from the field hands on the road side.

Right where the black skinned mammoth said was the dilapidated house. A hint of a dirt track led off to it. Marlow drove on while downshifting to slow the pace. His front wheel dove sharply down into unseen holes and ruts in the path. This driveway was obviously a water sluice at flood time.

The ruts and holes were so deep that the underside of their bikes’ frames and foot boards dragged and crunched as they rode on.

Suddenly Marlow’s bike stopped. He had inadvertently stalled it since he had not down shifted enough.

It was time to park and walk the rest of the way.

Behind the house they trudged into and were swallowed into the dark green belly of a seven foot high weed-field. Unmistakably, there was the scent of brewing coffee, fatback and cornbread in the air. As they moved forward, Marlow grinned wildly at his disbelieving mates as the scents intensified and their stomachs growled in response.

“Looks like we’re gonna have to get further lost before we can eat.”

Spotting a narrow trail through the weeds, Marlow pressed on with the others in close formation behind.

“You reckon there are any snakes around here?” Augustus queried.

“Yup. Watch where you step.”

Marlow was glad he had on his calf high leather boots on.

Suddenly a sizeable clearing appeared with a small cook shack at the back.

Arrayed around the shack were red checkered oil cloth covered picnic tables with a scattering of field hands entering the clearing from assorted narrow trails, greeting one another before sitting down and awaiting the day’s meal. As they assembled, the bikers noticed that more than a few were missing a finger or an eye, while others had serious scars — from agricultural accidents I surmised. All had rough, outsized hands and arms. There were no city-boy, skinny minnies here. This was a rough place, a rough life, with very rough and tough men. All were black.

They waited until all were seated before taking their places. A middle aged tawny skinned women then appeared.

“Wha you want?”

“Grimes said we could get something here to eat, if there was enough after the regulars.”

She eyeballed them real hard, thinking but not asking about their business. She grunted and said “Aw-ite.”

What then appeared before them was simply amazing. Mismatched silverware, cups, bowls and plates were followed by family style heaping platters and bowls full of breads, vegetables, meats and eggs. Baked, fried and steamed. Pitchers of iced tea and pots of coffee. This was the day’s largest meal for these men who worked with their hands and needed full loads of fuel. They ate like machines. The tables were mostly silent, since this feeding break was singular in purpose and the diners knew everything about everyone at the tables.

Except for the bikers and they were interlopers that they wanted nothing to do with.

Once finished, diners would get up and bid their goodbyes to their table mates and then head to the shack to make their payment. Some offered eggs, a chunk of cured ham, bags of spices, herbs, sugar and flour from their deep overall pockets.

All the bikers had was cash. It was graciously and silently accepted. It was then that Marlow noticed the cook had the tip of her left pinky finger missing.

They were full and felt sleepy. Against Marlow’s advice, they took several false exit routes. One path was filled with grasping vines and boot- sucking mud. The going became so tough that they became separated from one another. Staying upright was a chore as the weeds began to scratch and claw at them. As the bikers struggled, their boots sank deeper into the mire, sometimes over their ankles and close to their knees.

Augustus called out, “It’s got me.”

“What’s got you?’ Marlow responded.

”Ít!”

Chills of the memory of the service station pit monster’s admonition descended upon Marlow.

After another ten minutes they were out, free and clear of the green giant weed patch.

After that morning meal and subsequent escape, they were really, truly and finally heading up to the country, free on the wide open, back country, blue highways of their dreams.

She’s got a face like a fish, a shape like a frog,
When she love you mama, holler whoo hot dog!
I love that gal, better than I love myself.
She’s all alone, all alone, on the shelf, on the shelf.

– Chorus of blues song, Going up to the Country, overhead on an a western Piedmont AM radio station that night

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