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Show RIVER "Look," said Vince. "You've turned this trip into a big ego trip for yourself. If s not any fun for the rest of us." "Did I ever promise anybody it was going to be fun? I sure as hell never expected this to be a pleasure cruise." "I think you're losing your marbles," said Vince. "Whaf s the point of fighting over all this?" said Suzy, trying to keep the peace. "We've just got to keep going one day at a time." We didn't settle anything and were now divided into two camps. I was sure that the other camp would decamp before long. In St. Louis we'd heard about an all-you-can-eat restaurant called Ma Hales. We reached Grand Tower, Illinois, early on a Sunday afternoon about as hungry as piranhas and we decided to check the place out. Grand Tower was a small town nestled under colorful bluffs and it didn't take us long to find the restaurant. Ma Hales occupied an old house filled with gingham covered tables. The one meal on the menu was served family-style, and that meal contained about everything thaf s good to eat in America-corn and beans and peas and carrots and mashed potatoes and yams and chicken fried like I'd never tasted before. We ate until we could eat no more. That evening we took a swim in the river to wash away some of our accumulated mud and all got a dose of dysentery. Dirty weather hit us at about the same time as the dysentery. The adversity did none of us any good, but it hit Vince especially hard. He seemed to hover near death for several days. We'd come six hundred miles and were now sick, cold, dirty, and tired, and we weren't eating so well besides. Vince laid on the bow in complete and useless -83- |
