The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [5]
The smooth asphalt surfaces and long stop-free expanses of the modern New Jersey Turnpike, opened in 1952, had made the trip shorter, but the big American cars, decked out with chrome and fins, zoomed along the new interstate, opening up more and more farmland to housing, bringing along the suburban shopping centers, drive-in movies, supermarkets, and motels, all of which catered to the new driving lifestyles. The cars themselves looked futuristic: studded with portholes that brought to mind rockets and other signs of modernity. Nineteen fifty-six was a catastrophically bad year for the automotive industry. The venerable Packard automobile company merged with Studebaker and then closed its Detroit plant, laying off hundreds of workers. Detroit was poised for the worst recession since the war, and unemployment in the city would soon rise above 20 percent. But it was clear that the age of the automobile was here to stay. The country’s economic troubles didn’t affect Harry that much. He and Johanna had lived on a strict budget since the day they’d arrived in America. As Harry drove up the new freeway in his beat-up old car, what he saw around him was a land of opportunity.
After making his way through New York City, Harry started the long trek across Long Island, past the subdivisions that seemed to be springing up in every cornfield, each house a matching box on a postage-stamp-sized lot. A couple of hours later, he reached Suffolk County, where the gray waters of Long Island Sound faded seamlessly into the patchy, sandy soil where farmers grew potatoes. Harry breathed easier as he left behind the noise and confusion of the city and its new suburbs. St. James, where he was headed, was a peaceful hamlet on Long Island’s North Shore. The area around St. James had some huge estates: the department store magnate Marshall Field had a home there, as did the Barrymores, the famous film star family; it was a summer retreat for rich New Yorkers. But there were also small farmers and tradesmen who worked on the big estates—and some hardworking immigrants like himself. It was a good place to raise a family.
Harry got home before the horse trailer. It was snowing hard as he pulled into the driveway, but their big three-story farmhouse on Moriches Road was lit up and looked welcoming. Harry’s job as a riding instructor at the Knox School had brought the de Leyer family something they could have only dreamed of before: their own home. Sure, it was a converted chicken farm on a modest lot. Harry had single-handedly rebuilt the chicken coop into a stable with six box stalls, twelve standing stalls, and barely enough room for a small paddock. It was too small for a proper horse establishment, but at least he had his own piece of ground. He’d proudly christened it Hollandia Farms, after his homeland. As he turned off the ignition, the car shuddered to a stop. It felt good to have a place to call home. After a moment, Johanna and the children rushed out the door to greet him.
Johanna worried when Harry made these long drives down to Pennsylvania in the winter. It was a five-hour trip, at least, even when the weather was good. Just a few months earlier, Harry had been hauling four horses in the big horse van on the highway when he’d had a freak accident. A man had flicked a lit cigarette out of his car window and it had landed inside Harry’s horse van, lighting the straw inside on fire. From the cab of the van, Harry could not see the smoke. Another car drove up next to him, its driver waving frantically. Harry steered the van off the road into a ditch and saw thick black smoke pouring out of the tack compartment of the trailer. Just then, a police car pulled up. The noise of the horses’ hooves against the side of the truck was deafening. Harry didn’t have a moment to spare. He climbed through the burning truck to untie the safety knots that secured the horses and got them out onto the grassy highway shoulder