Chapter 11

Charlie looked in awe at the plate of food before him. This was for one person? He had always thought his father tried to push too much food on him, but…this was for one neighborhood?

"Worth driving a few extra miles into Phoenix for this," said Joe, buttering an English muffin and dipping one of his bacon strips into the gravy threatening to overtake Oregon. He drained his coffee, signaled the waitress for more. "Be back in Sacramento by this afternoon," he said, "and I'm sleepin' tonight. How 'bout you? How much further ya goin'?"

Charlie's fork approached an egg with caution. What kind of chickens did they raise here? "Don't rightly know," he said, and froze. What did he just say?

"If I didn't already have that haul, I'd catch me some fish up to Shady Cove."

Charlie decided to try the mound of hash browns, which appeared to stop somewhere short of the ceiling. "Is that close?"

"Oh, yeah, Highway 62. Nice rural route. Beautiful country, southern Oregon, ya get yerself off'n this freeway."

"Is fishing season open?"

Joe smiled at the waitress who topped off his coffee, took another swig. "Don't much matter," he said. "Rogue River's somethin' just to look at."

Charlie felt like he had eaten more food in the last 10 minutes than he had for the first 32 years of his life, but his plate looked like it hadn't been touched. He looked at Joe's plate. Almost empty.

"Need some help with that?"

It was not possible for this man to be that thin.

Charlie pushed the plate at him. "Do you think I could walk there?"

Joe was already making inroads into the hash browns and it was hard to understand him. "Wha?"

"Shady Cove?"

"Oh, oh, sure. Take ya a while. Go on North about four miles into Medford, ask around for Highway 62…" Joe appeared to be looking over his shoulder, and Charlie jumped when he suddenly hollered, "Tiny!"

'Hollered', thought Charlie. My brain just said the word 'hollered'.

Sure enough, the Tiny who soon appeared at their table was anything but. "Hey, Joe, haven't seen you in a coon's age. Where ya haulin' today?"

"Back home after breakfast. This here's Charlie," Joe indicated him with a fork. A piece of egg flew off and narrowly missed Charlie's face. He hoped it wasn't in his hair. "You still retired?"

"Still off the road," answered Tiny. "Like to come out here on Saturday mornin's to keep up with the drivers." He looked at Charlie. "Hey."

Joe pushed away his second plate, not quite empty, reconsidered and pulled it back. "You got time to take him out to Shady Cove?"

"Don't see why not." Tiny's eyes darted between the two men. "Hitcher?"

Joe winked at Charlie. "Nah. He helped me drive last night."

"I was going camping," Charlie offered. "My gear was stolen."

Tiny took a toothpick out of his pocket, picked at his teeth for a moment. "Well, this here is the yard sale capital of the world," he finally said, "so if you've got a few bucks, you can set yourself up again. County parks are open now, too."

Charlie looked at his benefactors and felt like he was at the bottom of a rabbit hole, looking up. "Um…there's a campground there?"

"Sure, sure, right on the river," supplied Joe. This time he really pushed the plate away. "Wish I could go with ya."

Tiny stretched, an act that seemed to expand him like a balloon. "Next trip, Joe. Or maybe this summer, when school's out — bring yer boy."

School. Colorful as these characters were, Charlie suddenly really missed his students, Larry and Amita. He was nearly lost in his own thoughts when he felt Joe kick him under the table. "What?"

"Better git goin', Tiny's halfway to his car, already. Nice travelin' with ya, Charlie."

Charlie scrambled out of the booth, quickly shook Joe's hand. "You too," he said sincerely. "Y'all have a good trip home."