Stories From Under The Sky

Romany Rides Again

romany rides again I T HAS BEEN SAID that an outdoor life creates either monsters or poets. I wouldn't know about that, for I've met neither in my ramblings around the boondocks. But I'm sure that the outdoors somehow shapes odd characters, and that fresh air enhances them. And since I'm outside quite a bit, I'm always stumbling across characters that are drawn much larger than life. Like the Roamers of Romany at Little Wall Lake. It was a cool gray day in early April, and although the frost was weeks out of the earth, its bite still lingered in the wind. The sky had been clear when I left home that morning , but by the time I reached Little Wall the rain was starting again. I drove down the gravelled road at the south end of the lake, parked just off the shoulder about a hundred yards from the main highway, and headed upshore. I was making a phenological study of the lake, determining the order and dates of appearance of aquatic plants. Little Wall is only about a mile around, but it took me I93 nearly five hours to work the shoreline and check on emerging arrowhead, flag, threesquare bulrush and cattail. Except for a few winter-thin muskrats and some ragged squadrons of sprigs and bluebills that were having a wild party in midmarsh , 1 was alone. By late afternoon I'd had it. 1 completed the circuit of the lake and returned to the car, tossed packbasket and wet coat into the trunk, slid under the wheel, and looked to Story City and a bait of hot coffee and buttered kringlas. But as soon as 1 let out the clutch, 1 knew 1 had trouble. The rear wheels spun hub-deep into the soft ground and my car was peacefully interred in the lakeshore. 1 was standing beside the mired car, swearing quietly and trying to dope out a course of action, when company arrived. There were three ancient sedans, laboring through the rain beneath loads of furniture, stoves, duffle and tarpaulins. The leading car stopped nearby with a clatter of burned valves and the driver got out and walked over. He was a thin, swart man with a mop of black ringlets and a face as benevolent as a stropped razor. He was wearing a lavender silk shirt, a pair of old army pants, and pointed yellow shoes. People began to swarm out of the cars behind him - young dark men, old dark men, dark women and girls with bright kerchiefs, and a crew of dark, ragged kids that included one improbable youngster with golden hair. "Watsa matter, sport?" said the dark driver with the yellow shoes. "You steeck the car?" 1 didn't think that deserved an answer, and the gypsy chief stood there in the drizzle in his lavender silk shirt and surveyed the situation. "1 sink 1 can help you, sport," he said finally. "You got moony?" 1 was loaded. Two eighty-five in cash and another two dollars in a government travel check. 1 told him 1 had money. I94 "Den I know I help you. 'Ow moch you pay to gait pooled from ze mod?" I did some fast figuring and said I'd go two bucks' worth. By this time he had been joined by three other men who looked things over and discussed me rapidly in Hungarian or something. "Eet's a dill, sport," said the chief, and scuttled back to his old sedan. He opened the trunk, threw some blankets and bags and stuff out on the wet gravel, and emerged with some rope. They jockeyed the old sedan into towing position and found that the rope wasn't long enough. More digging through duffle, and more Hungarian discussion. As I stood there in the mud and dolefully watched all this, an unoccupied gypsy sidled up to me and said: " 'Ey, gorgio. 'Ow you get zat fender busted in like zat?" I told him that a corncrib had hit it. "I feex zat fender good, eh gorgiol" "Leave it like it is." "Nah-h-h. Zat's no dom good. I feex heem." "Look. I don't have much money and you don't have any tools. Forget it." "Ah got zee tools. 'Ow moch moony you got?" "Couple bucks. Forget it." But he was already on his way back...