Travel Reference
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the motorcycle, two-thirds the cost of my charter flight. But fractional values meant nothing.
I didn't have the bread. I nodded and asked when.
He asked where I would go next. I shrugged. Maybe south, maybe north. He told me to
go ahead to Greece and have a good time, and when I returned, my moto would be ready. He
would need only two days, but the new engine would not arrive for two weeks. I said okay and
left.
Odd as it sounds, the youth brigade of the world that summer communicated via Amer-
ican Express. A few decades prior to computers and cell phones, we had Western Union and
telephones with dials and cords. Most kids didn't carry credit cards then. Most cities in Europe
had an AE office with a bulletin board and message services. So I went to AE in Rome and
sent a telegram to Mom:
All OK. Great fun. Moto broke. Send $165. XXOO to AE Rome c/o me
.
What else could I do?
I went back to the campground to tell Gretchen we could now relax on trains or hitchhik-
ing. She looked concerned, so I explained. Her head wagged into a shake. No, she could not
travel with a boy who had no moto, not when he said he did have a moto. No. It was not pos-
sible. She gathered her things into a bundle and moved them back to the space by Erik. Then
she went to find Erik.
She was willing to trade snatch for a ride on back, and I was dumbfounded that I would
get no snatch without a back to ride on. Ah, well. I lay back, too young to be so tired in late
morning with burdens to process.
The world spun to the other side of my sleeping bag bivouac, to Bruce and Kevin, two
Jews from Juhrzy—no disrespect intended—who had watched all three acts. Any Jew can at-
test that your Jersey Jew varies significantly from your Hoosier schmoozer. Bruce and Kevin
were not surprised at the outcome between the
Hitlerjugend
and me, guaranteeing that the
Aryan femme fatale would have turned sooner or later. They'd camped there for a day and a
night before I arrived, and neither Erik nor Gretchen had spoken a word to them.
Not. One. Word.
Because Bruce and Kevin were Jewish. “How could they know you're Jewish?” I asked fa-
cetiously, as if blind to the noses, the eyebrows, the kvetch and shmageggy?
“Who can't tell?”
“I'm Jewish.”
“Wha! You? A Jew?”
“Gazundteit.”
“No way!”
I shrugged and turned to profile. Turning back I confided, “
Ma nish tah noh, hi lie loh
hazeh.
Okay?”
“Listen, Bubby. She would have found out. Then she would have . . . she would have . . .”
