Chapter 1

"So, where you off to this time?" the voice belonged to my neighbor Sylvia Potter. Yes we tended to call her Harriet behind her back.

"I'm headed down to Mumfest." I replied.

"Where is that being held?"

"Small town down on the coast."

"So how long you gonna' be gone?"

"Till Sunday night or Monday, your people can park in my spot until then."

"Okay, you need anything before you leave. I could touch up those roots for you."

"Now Sylvia, you know this is my natural hair color."

"It just ain't right for a man to have snow white hair at 35." I had heard that before. I think I was about twenty five when it went snow white. "Must have seen a ghost," She said completing her thought.

"Yeah, or one saw me." I kept my back to her as I arranged the cardboard tubes and stands in the back of the ambulance. I didn't want the wooden tripod looking things to crush the cardboard tubes. Inside each tube rested one 24x30 photograph. Well they were sort of photographs. I am what is known, in the trade, as a retro photographer.

The last thing to go into the old WWII vintage Dodge was the plastic box of cameras. Those went into the floor board on the passenger side. The plastic box was waterproof so it doubled as a camera holder and coffee table. The storage box rested on a 4 inch pad of foam rubber. Vibrations were hell on my home made cameras.

I took one last look at the rinky dink studio, then locked the rear door. I pulled the Dodge out of my parking space then maneuvered it to a spot in front of the space beside. The second space held my camper. The camper was as much an antique as everything else I owned.

The camper wasn't an Aerostream but it did look like a small thermos bottle lying on its side. The camper was much more likely to make it to the festival without mechanical problem than the ambulance. The camper had only one moving system, two wheels and an axle. I checked and greased everything regularly.

The Dodge however was another story all together. There was just no way to drive a WWII vintage vehicle on a two hundred mile trip with any degree of confidence. When I bought the hulk on Ebay, I had to go get it with a rented truck and car hauler. It was the least expensive way to get it home. The little two wheel hauler just held the back wheels off the ground. I had to tie the steering wheel in place so that it wouldn't just fly all over hell. It was not the safest thing I ever did, but I drove carefully and stayed off the main roads. It was a pain but I got it home.

"What the hell is that?" The man in the greasy coveralls asked.

"Why Earl, didn't you ever see Mash?" I smiled over at him from the seat of the 'rent a broken down truck'.

"You mean that thing was in the TV show?"

"No but one like it was. This one was in some guy's barn or storage building. When he died the kids put it on Ebay."

"Any you were the sucker who bought it?"

"I was indeed."

"So you couldn't junk it where ever the hell you bought it, you had to bring it to my junkyard."

"Oh no brother Earl, I brought it to have you restore it."

"You smoking that green shit again?"

"No, I'm not smoking anything. I need you to fix this thing so it is dependable, and to do it cheap."

"First of all I can't get the parts for this monster, and second nothing I do is cheap."

"I don't want you to restore it, I want to be able to drive it. You know go anywhere I want to go."

"Then go buy a Ford truck," he suggested. Earl wasn't playing around, he was just a naturally sour person.

"Come on Earl, you know I'm into retro these days. I'm trying to get something to help with my image. This will do it."

"Are you planning to be a nurse? Get you one of those little white things." He was looking at the red cross painted on the side of the truck.

"No that goes, but first I want to make it run. Not just run but run every time I turn the key."

"Well that engine compartment is big enough to hold two modern engines and still have room for a poker game in there. So what kind of power plant?" Earl was getting into the whole thing. I knew he would come around.

"I want something so that even if I'm stuck in Podunk, a mechanic can get the parts and fix it."

"Small block Chevy," he said looking at the ambulance. He hadn't even bothered to open the hood. Earl didn't care what was under the hood he could fix it. "I got one out there in the yard now. Kid had it rebuilt then drove into the back of an 18 wheeler." I didn't bother to ask if the engine was damaged. Earl wouldn't stick me. Earl was married to one of my sister. He wasn't the incompetent brother in law type. Earl was a guy who knew what he was doing, but he also knew what my sister would do, if he tried to screw me. I felt confident in his abilities. I also knew he would do it for a fair price. Of course I wanted a better than fair price.

"So Earl, what will it cost me to get the drive train updated?"

"How you would feel about Michael doing the work, him and a his auto shop buddies."

"What the heck, you talking about? Is Mike off the bottle yet?"

"Mike don't drink," Earl was incensed.

"The baby bottle Michael is just a kid." I replied.

"Mike is 18. You just don't come around enough to know he is almost grown. Besides, I'll have them boys do the work here so I can keep on eye on them."

"Is this going to be their shop project?"

"I guess, they do one at school it is their grade, but I promised to show them how it rally works in the world. It will take a little longer but I won't charge you any extra. I'll just charge you a hundred bucks labor for each kid. That's a deal for you and will give them some pocket money."

So that's how I came to be driving a Chevy powered Dodge ambulance on that sunny late summer day. The ambulance tooled along to the sounds of California Dreaming drifting from hidden speakers in the rear. The hidden CD player ran the disk of traveling music over and over. I had installed lots of nice things in the old truck, but hid them away out of sight. I was still after the retro look.

In keeping with the retro theme, I wore a Hawaiian shirt that morning. It hung over my double pleated cotton twill slacks. It could have gone as retro or just weird, I suppose. The straw Panama hat would make it a little more retro than kooky, at least that as my hope. The tiny round sunglasses, which I kept in a case, were only to be worn at the shows.

I had two fairly authentic suits from the early forties. They came from a costume studio that failed. Having them altered was more difficult than locating the suits. Those costume guys tended to come and go. The suits looked baggy on me but that was the style back then. The same was true of the cotton slacks I wore that day.

It was also true of the older style jeans which I mostly wore when I did my real gig. My real gig was real estate photography. Yes I made pictures of houses for insurance companies and banks mostly. A small percentage came from other things I picked up along the way, but the steady money was in houses.

My life revolved around retro photography at the art shows, a few retro portraits in my studio, an occasional odd ball job, but mostly trash digital photography shot from a tiny Ford Festiva. The mini Ford was my office, and on most weekdays it was also my dining room and photo lab.

All the real estate work was made possible by the modern invention of the digital camera, the laptop computer, and the cell phone. I worked for several people on the same day, but frankly if they could have gotten a driver's license for a monkey, they wouldn't have needed me at all. In other words it paid barely better than nothing. I was still waiting for my big break. It was most likely going to be a long fruitless wait. Hope springs eternal in artists, I suppose. Very few people in my hometown saw me as an artist. I think my family and friends considered me an under employed loser, but I didn't mind it fitted into my image.

You don't disappoint people unless they expect things from you. It was just easier to be what I was. I never did feel the need to measure up to what somebody else wanted me to be.

How I managed to relive all that before I got out of the city limits was a mystery even to me. I passed the city limits sign and left my real life behind. I stepped back to 1944. I had planned a route to the little town carefully. I had a good map and a sense of which direction to go, so I headed off with a smile and 60's music blaring. I know it was several decades out of place in the Dodge, but I just couldn't get into swing music.

My little caravan was short enough to travel on the two lane roads, but it was still dangerous. I drove along the interstate in spite of the constant reminder that it wasn't 1944 at all. All the indications were that it was past the year 2000. Driving down the super duper highway, my old Dodge and rolling thermos bottle got a lot of stares. When the people got close enough to see the guy in the Hawaiian shirt behind the wheel, the stares turned to smile usually. Sometimes I got a look of confusion or worse pity, but I didn't mind all that much. I was off for adventure, they weren't.

At a point which I felt was close to half way, I found a rest area. I stopped to relieve myself and to have lunch. Lunch was a pack of cheese crackers, an orange, and a canned cola drink from the ice box of the trailer. The ice box was just that. It was a thermal box with a smaller box in the bottom for ice. The ice compartment had a small drain which ran directly from the box through the trailer floor. A plastic tube constantly drained the water from the ice box. It was an arrangement suitable for about one to two bags of ice a day. Food was kept from spoilage. Cokes put in the ice tray at the bottom actually got cold.

I generally used the ice box only to get things from my house to the campground. If I couldn't get a space with power, I used it at the camp ground as well. Usually though the dorm sized refrigerator came into play. It was somehow attached to the ice box. I don't know how and I didn't ask. The camper supply store had it ready made when I was refurbishing the camper. The stove was no more than a cook top and microwave oven. I didn't need much since all I use it for was breakfast, or to heat a can of beans.

"Nice rig you got there," the voice came from the male part of the couple who stood outside my trailer.

"Thanks, you want the two minute grand tour?" I asked it because trailer people always wanted it.

"Sure if you don't mind. We don't see many of these anymore."

"I expect not." I noted the couple was a complete mismatch. She was short and thin while he was tall and about thirty pounds over weight. They came inside the trailer so I showed them around.

The whole rear was a sofa/bed. The little trailer was six feet six inches wide on the outside. On the inside it was six exactly. The sofa had no arms because it was a bed, but it did have square pillows of high density foam which passed for a sofa back and smaller ones for arms. There was a window located above the sofa/bed. The metal awning/shutter was closed while the trailer rolled gently down the road.

A small closet on each side separated the bed from the front kitchen. There was a water tank on the floor of one of the closets. The sink had a small hand pump to suck the water from it. The pump looked like one of those things from an old ice cream parlor. It worked well enough to get a glass of water. I sometimes washed a knife or fork with the water, nothing more. The very front of the trailer was a counter which was hinged. It lay flat against the wall during travel and most all other times as well. There were a couple of white molded plastic chairs which were stacked in the corner. Those were held secure during travel by bungee cords. The trailer did have three nice old fashioned throw rugs on the floor. They covered most of the place and press tiles which I had installed.

"Well it's small," the woman said.

"Yes but I travel light."

"I can see that," the man replied. "So where you headed?"

"The coast, how about you?"

"Yep, we are going fishing at Nags Head." Since I just nodded they dropped it. "Well we better be getting back to the drive."

"Yeah me to, drive careful," I replied as they headed out the door.

The second part of the drive was just as boring as the first. The traveling music and the waves to the people, who stared as they passed, filled my next two hours. The two hundred miles, on the good roads, should have taken about four hours absolute tops, it took me five and a half. I meandered about to be honest. I sometimes found myself being honked at as a traffic hazard. The long lunch hadn't helped my drive time either. Three P.M. on Friday isn't really a busy time for campgrounds. If they were going to be full at all it would by 8 P.M. that night.

I chose a twelve buck a night minimum utilities site. It had an electric hookup and a water faucet that got shared by two sites. Since my little water tank in the trailer was about eight gallons it wasn't a problem to fill it from a five gallon can. Most likely I wouldn't empty what I had brought from home. Since the filler spout was outside the trailer, behind a cute little door, I could do it at home with a garden hose. A much butter arrangement, I felt.

I plugged up the heavy duty, outdoor rated, extension cord to the park's power supply. After that I instantly had television, two channels, and radio. My ice box made that light fan noise so I knew it was running. I put some of the ice from the ice box into the small freezer unit, then moved the mustard and mayonnaise to the refrigerator. There weren't a lot of refrigerator items to move. The little freezer was designed to hold a couple of ice trays. I tossed those in favor of a little plastic bucket to hold crushed ice or three or four small frozen dinners. At that moment it was ice, since I hadn't been to the local grocery store.

With the trailer gone, I went to scope out the town and festival arrangement. Unlike most of the other vendors, I actually needed to be near a park or at least grassy area of some kind. If not that, then some kind of natural backdrop was necessary. I had long since given up on portable backdrops. Yes I did own 'photo shop' and even knew how to use it. I just didn't like to doctor prints, if I could avoid it.

The town had a four lane highway right up to the city limits but that's where all the modern things stopped. I sat at the exit of the freeway and looked at the signs. I'm a big believer in signs by the way. One sign read, service area, with an arrow pointing right. Another one read, downtown, with an arrow pointing left. I knew for a fact that I wanted to go downtown, but I also needed gas in the Dodge. The old ambulance had real wood strips attached. They were a remnant of Earl's burnt out hippie brain, I think. It looked more like an old woody wagon than an ambulance which suited me just fine.

Gas came before recon, so I turned the woody right. I found not just a mall but about every modern convenience imaginable. The shops were located in strips on each side of the highway. Everything from restaurants to home improvement stores could be found on that service road. Of course the mall and the Wal-Mart were prominent fixtures, one on each side of the road. I was beginning to feel less and less at home in my period dress and the old woody.

I got more than a few stares from the locals as I filled the huge gas tank on the Woody. The trip was likely to be a big loser for me, but I didn't measure retro photography by money. I measured it by the fun I had, and the images I made. It was a nice way to say, I endured the 9 to 5 crap so that I could do the events, whether I made money or not.

I drove under the interstate bridge and then what must have been another mile or so to the downtown. I immediately felt at home again. There wasn't more than two building over four stories in the whole town. The downtown had been rehabilitated, but it wasn't done by some decorator trying to see how artistic he could be. It was done tastefully, with a sense of history and dignity.

If I had lived there, I would have been thrilled. The town's population was just to small or I might have just settled down with a cup of coffee and the houses for rent section of the small newspaper. It was a shame that the old river towns were so beautiful but yet so small. Maybe that's why they could maintain their dignity.

Towns like mine had long ago whored themselves out for the sake of growth. Still, I needed the larger population base for my business. I suppose that was the necessary trade off. I might really enjoy starving in the little town, but surely starve I would.

There was a downside. Once you got past the historical exteriors, the shops fell into two very different categories. They were either old, dark, and shabby, or bright and all tarted up. Neither of which was really appealing. The coffee shop with the cutesy name I avoided like the plague. I did find one older building which had the bricks cleaned and the trim painted as part of the downtown redevelopment but nothing else. It was a drug store. At least that's what the sign said. A smaller set of lettering on the glass said old time soda shop. I had a feeling it was going to be yuppie city but what the heck, I needed a coffee fix.

The store was a strange mix of both old and gussied up. The finishes on the walls and the soda shop furniture looked old as hell. However the lighting was definitely new and modern in design. Why the difference, I had no idea.

"What can I get you?" the teenager asked.

"I think a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich," I replied.

"Kay," was her answer. Talkative little thing, I thought.

"So what's the deal with the mini pharmacy?" I asked it looking at the very small caged area at the back of the store. There was no storage space for drugs at all. The shelves between the soda fountain and the small caged area were filled with patent medicines, but no room was left for the real business of a drug store.

"Oh she ain't no pharmacist. All she does is take the phone orders and call them in to the guy at Riteco. He fills them and they deliver the drugs to us the next day already labeled. She just passes them out to the people and takes their money."

"What if she gets mixed up when she relays the order."

"She makes them check the drugs and sign that they have the right prescription. Besides most of it is refill stuff. Not many people bother with drugs here except maybe the ones who work downtown and there's not many of them."

I could tell by her nervous gestures that she wanted to get back to her magazine. "Thanks, I just never saw anything like it."

"Get asked about her all the time, the fact that she is drop dead gorgeous doesn't help either."

"Oh I hadn't noticed." We both knew that I was lying.

After the canned soup filled with salt and hot sauce, I drove to the park where the exhibitors would be showing their wares. It wasn't just the park of course. The town closed the road which ran along the river front.

I was more than a little surprised to see a woman with a clipboard standing on the curb. She was standing with her back to the river while looking at the road. Since the next day was the opening of the festival, I made a guess that she was with the festival promoter. Most likely she had the space assignments on her handy dandy clipboard.

I parked the Woody a few spaces from where she stood. I didn't want to block her view of the cars or theirs of her.

"Hi, I'm the Retro Man, am I on your list?" The woman was even older than me. She must have been at least forty. Not a lot until you see her forty and my thirty five. She was an old forty, and I thought I was a young thirty five. Most likely she saw it just the opposite.

"Retro Man, yes you are. You are in space 71." I know I gave her a look that was a combination of lost and amused. "Here, this is your map. We would have sent them along with your receipt for the space, but they were an after thought."

"Well let me find my space. I don't want to be lost in the morning."

"No you don't. Set up starts at 6 a.m. and must be finished by nine. People are usually wandering though even before that." I nodded as I turned away. There was nothing more to say. During the Governor's riverfront project a few years before, someone had designed a small grassy area behind beautiful iron posts and chains. It would be a great natural background for portraits. No need for the ole photo shop on this trip, I though. I wasn't exactly beside the park but it was a short walk to it. I wasn't going to have any problem finding backgrounds.

The rules of the show explained that I could bring my car into the festival grounds between six and eight. It just had to be out of the area by 8:01 or else. The else wasn't defined, but I was sure the 'or else' would involve a lot of begging. Not to many festivals had the courage to tow an exhibitors car for staying five minutes over. A rep for that and you would get a lot fewer exhibitors the next year.

All the spaces lined the city streets around the park and even on the access road into the park. The keep off the grass sign was a pretty obvious hint. It would most likely to be ignored at some point during the next couple of days.

When I was absolutely sure that I knew how to find the space in the dark, I headed out to explore the town. Let me tell you the first thing I learned was that the old streets were not designed for the woody. It was close going in some of the back streets. Cars parked along the sides made it a one way street for me. The small econobox cars managed to pass each other, but the Lincoln town cars and I weren't going to make it.

I stopped by a grocery store for a pound of ground beef and a hamburger helper meal. With a little luck, and a plastic storage container, I could get two meals from it. I didn't plan to be in town much longer than that. I did get a large bag of chocolate covered Oreo cookies. Well not Oreo the knock off brand. I would have bought coke knock off, but I always brought a case of cans with me.

Once I had the small bag of groceries installed in cabinets and the refrigerator, I untied one of the plastic chairs and sat it outside the trailer. That along with a TV tray with a coke and radio was my complete evening plan. Oh yeah, and the cookies of course. Somewhere along the way I would need to cook the hamburger glop. Otherwise I planned to sit on my fat ass until bedtime. But alas, the best laid plans ect.

It must have been close to ten when I heard the loud voices. A heavy man's voice and then an excited woman's voice filled the night air. Since I am a nosey bastard, I tried to judge the distance and direction but came up short.

I turned the volume on the radio up so that I could ignore them. I supposed that someone else had called the park ranger. The trailer's outside light burned over my head. It was the only illumination, since I hadn't built a fire. I was most likely a lot more visible to her as she approached, than she was to me. If she had been visible to me in detail, I might have went inside and locked the door behind me. I probably should have done just that.

I expect she chose me because it was better lit on my space than the other spaces, also because I looked harmless. The white hair was very deceptive. Maybe, just maybe, she didn't think about any of that. She was moving quickly and looking over her shoulder. I determined that from the way she moved. She was literally almost falling forward with every step.

She was a mess, small scratches and red splotches on her skin which would soon be bruises. One of her eyes was almost completely swollen shut.

"What in the world?" I asked it even though I was pretty sure of the answer.

"Help me, please help me." She burst into tears as she clutched at me. She was loud enough so that the people in the next space looked out of their camper.

"Call the ranger," I shouted over at them. It never entered my mind that they might not be able to do it. I figured that I was the only one left on the planet who did not own a cell phone.

Not only did the people call the ranger, the lady from the space next door came to help with her. She somehow managed to pry the woman from me, then lead her to my chair. She knelt beside the woman for a second.

"Get her some water." It was very much an order.

I went inside to pump a glass of water for the bruised and bloody stranger. I tried to remember her features, but the only thing that stood out was her blonde hair. Even that was matted with blood. I remembered from watching her approach that she wasn't very tall, but not short either. She wasn't heavy but she also wasn't especially thin. I guess she was pretty much average in everything.

Either the man was vicious or she put up one hell of a fight, either way she was hurt and balling when I returned. The women from the space next to me had been joined by her husband.

Since he didn't know the story he looked at me suspiciously. He was measuring to see if he could beat me, should it come to that. He might think he could, but odds were that he would come up short. Not that I was big or bad, just more experienced in the ways of the street.

I hadn't always been a small town real estate photographer. I had once been a big town cop. Ten years in a sector car and I thought I had seen it all. No matter how many times I saw it, I never got used to the site of a woman bleeding, crying, and looking in a hundred directions at once. That poor woman would never feel safe again.

"Ask her where it happened," the man next door suggested to his wife.

"Why?" I asked.

"We should go look for him," he suggested it with a sneer. He was obviously thinking that I didn't want to go from fear. He was going to be the hero. Now that would ordinarily be fine with me, but I didn't want to see him contaminating a crime scene. Especially since rapist aren't likely to hang around waiting for the cops to show up.

"I expect it would be best to leave that to the pros," I suggested to him.

"What the park ranger?"

"I'm sure the ranger can handle what needs to be done better than you." I was losing my temper.

It seemed like hours until she arrived, most likely was only a few minutes. Standing around, trying not to say too much at my own 'home' was a real pisser. Still there was no sense in arguing with other people who were trying to do the right thing.

The green park pickup pulled right down my drive to the space behind my own truck. The woman, who stepped from the cab of the dark truck, was most likely somewhere over forty years old. It was hard to tell since it was pretty dark and she wore no make up at all. She might have been a bit younger than I thought. She also might have been a bit trimmer if not in those double knit uniform pants. Her hair was unruly and the color of a barn. I mean it. She must have used house paint as a hair dye.

She carried her hat in her hands. I had done the same now and then, back in the old days. Hats are a pain in the ass, if you have to move around any at all. They also make a pretty good distraction. if you need that kind of thing. In your hand they can be dropped so that you know where to find them, if you have to run. In your hand it can also be thrown giving you a second's edge. It seemed our little ranger had been well trained, or been around the block a few times.

Little Range was a bad choice of words. She was almost six feet tall, at least five ten. She was close to being heavy even without the double knit. She was just an Amazon type.

She went immediately to the battered woman. She knelt, in the dirt, on one knee while she spoke to the woman. She also took notes feverishly.

"The local sheriff's men are on the way. I'm sorry Jill this might be a bit uncomfortable for you but we need to know some things from you." The ranger looked up telling us with her eyes to go leave them to talk alone. I knew the look and somehow so did the woman from the next space. The woman had to pull her husband along.

"Let me get my coke, then why don't you take her into the trailer to talk," I suggested.

The ranger nodded. They were still in the trailer when the Sheriff's care rolled by slowly. I walked to the road to flag them down as they came back around. I moved my chair to the edge of the light as my trailer became an interrogation room. Make no doubt they were interrogating her. She had been raped in their county and inside a public and state run park. It was going to be lawsuit heaven, if it wasn't handled just right.

I sat far enough away so as not to hear her being questioned. I sat there eating my cookies and drinking a coke. I resisted the urge to take a walk down memory lane. I knew for sure that I couldn't resist it for long. I managed to stay in the moment until they bundled her off to the hospital. I would have done that before I questioned her, but I wasn't on the case thank god.

The park ranger stayed until everyone else had gone. She had no choice her truck was blocked in my drive. Obviously so was I.