A big, long car deserves a big, long story. This one will take a week to tell, a new installment, a new car every day this week. This is the finale.

The trip through New England was beautiful, but the enjoyment was tempered by the homesickness Perry felt.  The freedom he’d enjoyed and the excitement of all he’d seen was almost numbing, but the sense of homesickness was not.  At the heart of it, he was still not yet nineteen and missed the familiarity of Fort Stockton, his friends, and his family.  He’d hoped he’d find a plane ticket to Houston in the envelope with the cash when they hit New York City, but it was not to be.  

The typed note from his mother expressed the fact that she missed him as well, but there was no mention of an early return.

New York City was overwhelming to a kid from southwest Texas, but he endeavored to experience as much of it as he could.  Their rooms at the Carlyle Hotel were as extravagant as any they’d stayed in.  Every night was a different Broadway show, every day a different museum, tour or experience seeing things he’d only read about or seen in movies.  Dinner at The Cafe Carlyle offered Perry the chance to try cuisine from all over the world while Holden quizzed him on the artwork or exhibits they’d seen earlier in the day.

At one point, Perry noted, out of the blue, “Did you know Truman and Eisenhower have both stayed at this hotel?” That led to  a discussion of the Cold War, the Marshall Plan, and why America was now the leader of the free world.  They argued over the decision to drop The Bomb on Japan and then about what the world would have looked like if it hadn’t happened.

At one point they discovered the Packard had been snowed in and would have to be dug out if they were going to go anywhere, so they didn’t. They left it where it was and took the subway, a concept that a kid from Fort Stockton could barely wrap his mind around. They saw a New York Rangers hockey game against the Detroit Red Wings. Perry didn’t understand any of the rules, but was fascinated that the players were all wearing blades and going faster than he could imagine gliding over the slick surface of the ice.

Holden insisted they go to a New York Knicks basketball game, so they watched the hometown team lose to the Syracuse Nationals at Madison Square Garden. They saw Dead Pigeon, In The Summer House, and Oh, Men! Oh, Women on Broadway. Some of the dialog was so confusing that even Holden’s explanations didn’t fully make sense. Perry drew the line at Oklahoma! when he found out it was a musical.

Holden taught Perry how to enjoy a drink without getting drunk.  He exposed him to types of music he’d never heard before.  They took the subway to Harlem.  “We may as well have gone to Mars, as different as it was up there,” Perry said when they got back.  But he asked if they could go back again a couple nights later.

“I think I could actually stay here another week or two,” Perry said as they watched the bags being piled into the back of the Packard and prepared to pull out of the Big Apple. “You’ll enjoy Washington DC,” Holden said, “There’s a lot to see there, too.”

The note in the envelope at the bank in Washington was short.  Mrs. Silverman explained she’d made arrangements with her old roommate from college to give them a tour of the Capitol while they were there and maybe have lunch afterwards.  The woman’s husband had served in Congress in Texas for years, and was serving his first term as a Senator.  “It never hurts to have connections,” Holden laughed.  Perry dreaded it as the most boring thing he could imagine, but knew there was no point in arguing. On second thought, he admitted to himself, he had also had misgivings about meeting Georgia O’Keeffe in New Mexico and Hal Wallis in Hollywood, but wouldn’t now trade those encounters for anything.

The Senator was a huge man, both in size and ego, but was good enough to step away from the levers of power to give a short tour as the two walked into his office.  His wife had made arrangements for Perry and Holden to have lunch in the Senate dining room.  Perry noticed the only people of color were all wearing white jackets and serving the men of power.  He would have never even noticed such a detail a year earlier, but made a mental note to ask Holden what he thought about that later.

Heading south from DC in the spring of 1954, Holden told Perry it was best to get in the backseat of the Packard, probably for the rest of the trip.  “It’ll just make things easy on both of us from here on out,” he explained.  They made their way through Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and were on their way to Georgia when Perry spoke up about the accents being closer to what he was used to, the weather being more like home.  “I don’t know how they live in those winters up there every year,” he said.  “They’d say the same thing about the heat of Fort Stockton,” Holden replied.

“You’ve never said where you grew up,” Perry said, after many more miles.

“About three hundred miles ago,” Holden answered.  “We drove past the house I was raised in.  Shack, really.  Surprised it’s still standing.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Perry said, somewhat irritated.

“This is your journey, not mine.”  Holden didn’t seem to want to go into any detail.

“I feel this has become our journey,” Perry snapped back, the irritation rising in his voice. “And I feel slighted that you don’t think the details of your life mean anything to me.” 

“Noted.” was all Holden responded, the word actually catching with emotion in his throat. Silently, he was elated and proud at hearing Perry’s outspoken affirmation of the bond that had developed between them.

In Atlanta, they checked into the Candler Hotel, tired from the drive.  Perry called for a wake-up call early in the morning, a habit since missing the noon cutoff at the bank in Denver and finding his $1,000 weekly allowance had been withheld.  In the lobby of the bank, both men were ushered into the president’s office.  Each was handed an envelope. In Perry’s envelope was the usual ten $100 bills, and a very short note from his mother.

Dearest Perry,

You are very much loved.  I’ll see you soon,

Mother

In Holden’s envelope was a more detailed letter and some other documents.  He glanced at them and slid them into his jacket pocket to read in more detail later.  He abruptly declared that they needed to return to the hotel to plan the rest of the week.  Perry thought both developments odd, but looked forward to getting back to his room and maybe getting a couple more hours of sleep.  “We’ll meet for lunch at noon sharp,” Holden announced.

Among many of the gifts nineteen-year-old men possess is the ability to sleep near anywhere, near anytime.  Once back in his room, Perry was able to do just that, drifting off to sleep with memories of Kandy filling his head as he did.  With time, the memories of his performance in the Nevada bordello had become inflated and embellished in his mind far beyond the actual transactional nature of the act. His attempted seduction by Lauren Bacall in Los Angeles early in the trip also added to Perry’s rich fantasy life. 

Perry was jolted awake by the phone ringing on the bedside table.  “What are you still doing up in the room?  You’re supposed to be downstairs, now, for lunch!” Holden barked in an uncharacteristically urgent tone.  “Give me five minutes.”  Perry groaned, still half-asleep. He hung up the phone, and within a minute or two had left the room and was headed for the elevator, Kandy and Bacall slinking back into the recesses of his mind till another time.  Arriving downstairs at the hotel restaurant, Perry found Holden in a booth towards the back, waiting.  He had a look on his face that Perry had never seen before and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

With no preliminary discussion, Holden started right in, “I’ve booked you on a flight to Houston later today.  I need to get you to the airport by 5:00PM,” Holden said, adopting a terse and businesslike demeanor Perry had rarely observed in their months together.  “At Hobby Airport, a hired car will pick you up and take you to a hotel and will return the following morning to collect you and take you to the train station to catch the Texas Flyer to Fort Stockton. You’ll be back home by 5:00 tomorrow.”

The look on Perry’s face was one of complete incomprehension and confusion. After a few seconds reflection, Perry started to fill in the logical blanks, “My mother…is she …”

Holden sighed, the tension of the moment easily readable on his face. “There’s obviously a lot I need to tell you before you go.”  Holden hadn’t been sure where to start.  He’d thought about having this conversation several times throughout the trip, and had even run through practice scenarios in his head, but had truly hoped he’d never have to deliver the news he was now required to impart to his young charge.

“Your mother is ill,” he said, “but she is alive.” His voice was quivering noticeably. “She’s been ill for a while, since before we left, actually.”  Holden waited for a moment for his words to register with Perry.  “In fact, she was told prior to your graduation that she only had a year, maybe a year and a half left.  That’s when she began making arrangements for this trip.  That’s when she found me.”  Perry remained motionless, his white-knuckled hands clenched tightly on the table before him. A tear began rolling down one cheek.  

“The purpose of the trip was two-fold,” Holden soldiered on with his explanation. “She knew you wouldn’t be able to go to college.  You’ll have to take over the family business, you wouldn’t be able to do that and be away at college.  Her purpose was to give you an education, not entirely academic but with copious practical and experiential elements as well … Jeez, listen to me, I sound like a goddamned college professor. Look. She wanted to give you the best all-round education possible of everything that was important and condense it into a year and she selected me to do it.  By my own evaluation — I’d say that goal was met, or nearly so, and I fervently hope, that you feel you’ve benefitted.”

“You said the purpose was two fold.  What’s the other part?”  Perry asked.

“She knew life would be different when you got back home.  You wouldn’t be able to travel for a while.  You’d be grieving.  You’d be in no mood.  You’d be overwhelmed.  This was to be your opportunity to see as much as you could, experience all you wanted to before then,” Holden explained.  “And, she didn’t want you to see her suffer.  She couldn’t bear the idea of that.  She felt like, if you knew how sick she was, there would be no way you’d have gone.  That’s even why all of her notes to you were typed.  So you couldn’t see the decline in her abilities. In her view, it truly was a gift to both of you to have you away from home for the past year.”

“Why are you telling me now?” Perry asked. “Has she gotten worse?”

“Yes. She’s taken a turn.  She only has a few days left.  She wanted to say goodbye to you in person.  To tell you she loves you.  To hear about what you’ve learned, where you’ve been,” Holden said.  “You are her world.  Think about the sacrifice it took to send you away.” Holden was clearly shaken. His cheeks became streaked with tears, which flowed in sympathy with the ones now freely rolling down Perry’s face.

“I want you to come with me,” Perry said.  “We’ll drive through the night.  We can be there in three or four days.”

“We don’t have four days,” Holden answered softly, daubing his eyes with the napkin from the table.  “Your mother is in the hospital.  Time is of the essence here, Perry. 

No, this is where my part of the journey ends.”

“Will you be following later, in a few days, with the car?” Perry asked.

“No, Perry, I’ll be returning to my home. With respect to the Packard, it is actually mine.” Holden explained.  “It always has been.  It was part of the agreement. Your mother put the title in my name from the time she ordered it.”  He chuckled ruefully and continued, “She was afraid you’d get homesick, or love sick, or bored, and sell it so you could go home before the year was over.”

“I actually thought about that in Denver,” Perry said.  They both laughed.  “What will you do? Where is home?”

“I’ll be going back to Chicago.  I teach History and Economics there.”  Holden reached into his jacket pocket for his wallet. From it, he extracted a business card from the renowned university where he taught and handed it to Perry. “I’m actually Dr. Holden. For the past year, I’ve been on sabbatical, a most unusual, challenging and personally rewarding sabbatical. Don’t know what I’ll do with the Packard once I get back. It’s not really my personal style.  I may sell it to a livery service in Chicago, where it can spend the rest of its years ferrying ‘Fat Cats’ to their Board meetings in the Loop. Hm. That’s kind of sad to think about, huh? Your mother’s attorney sold the Buick for me that I left in your carriage house and wired the proceeds to my bank back home.”

Perry’s mind was spinning.  He was angry, scared, grateful, and devastated all at once. So much had happened without his knowledge, so much planned without his input and all he could do was to abide by the events that were now beyond his or anyone else’s control. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach and was about to pass out. 

“Will you send me the books when you get back home?”

“Which ones?” Holden asked.

“All of them.  And, of course, the painting from Santa Fe,” Perry said.  “All that means more to me than anything I’m going back to.  Except my mother, of course.”

“I’ll box them up myself.  Look for inscriptions in your favorites.  In view of its value, Georgia’s painting will have to be professionally crated and sent fully insured.” There was a long silence.  Neither of them knew what to say next.  The boy who’d never known a father and the man who’d never had a son had somehow formed an incredible bond while seeing most of the country together.  Perry got up to go upstairs and pack.  Holden rose to shake his hand.

“I took the job for the money.  And for your mother,” Holden said.  “If I’d known then what I know now, I might have done it for free.”  The two hugged.  Tightly.  For the only time ever. “You have to visit me in Fort Stockton.” Perry pleaded. “In due time, I will, I assure you.” Holden replied. “And you must come visit me in Chicago when your circumstances permit. It would be an honor.”

By the time Perry got back to his house following the whirlwind trip from Atlanta, he was exhausted.  Braxton had picked him up at the depot in Fort Stockton.  “Susan’s at home.  She’s big as a house with the baby due any day.  She thought it best if she didn’t come, but she says she’s sorry about your mom.”  Perry just nodded.  “I understand.  Maybe we’ll all get together after she has the baby.”

Going into his own house for the first time in nearly ten months was strange.  It smelled of disinfectant, though for the most part it looked just the same.  There were prescription bottles everywhere.  He noticed his mother’s big four poster bed had been replaced by a hospital bed in her room across from his.  He showered to get the travel dust off himself and tried to wake up completely and look his best when he went to  the hospital to see her.  He opened the suitcase to pull out fresh clean clothes to put on as he stood in his room naked and dripping wet.  He wanted to break down, but vowed to wait.

Dressed and ready to face the inevitable, he made his way to the garage for the drive to the hospital in his mother’s Packard Station Sedan.  In its place was a brand new 1954 Kaiser Darrin convertible.  Champagne White over a red interior, the car was the most beautiful thing he’d seen since he’d left California.  The keys were in the ignition, a note resting atop the dash.

“Congratulations on your real graduation,” it read.  “Probably more your style. Mom”

He fell into the sports car, folded the note and put it in his pocket.  He choked back the tears as he turned the key and the 161 cubic inch Hurricane F-head inline-six sprang to life.  Perry did top speed to the hospital so he could say hello, and goodbye to his mother.  And tell her everything he could remember in between.