Guerin and the Sail Cat Blues

Guerin sat high on the concrete bank at freewayside, staring idly down upon the river of traffic beneath him: automobiles, taxis, panel trucks, dunebuggies with whiplasb antennae, besurfboarded woodies, 24and 32-wheeled big irons, groaning beer trucks and cement mixers, even an occasional police cruiser or wailing ambulance rolled below, each oblivious to its respective part in the making of history and considerable money for Guerin's employer. Of course, they were providing for Guerin's livelihood as well, and there was some mildly interesting irony in that, he thought. In their travelling, these drivers were contributing toward his own voyage, though his would be a trip to transcend the earthbound scurrying at his feet. He had balloons on his mind, clean air, free floating on the natural wind. After all, if not to save for such a trip, why else be doing what he was presently doing, and for such a boss as he had ? It was a normal Southern California summer morning, the sun already white hot on his back, the air dry but thick with a chemical haze that obscured even the enormous humps of the dirigible hangars where his eyes lingered momentarily. Not more than a mile away, he realized, as he traced the dim outlines rising incongruously from the vast vegetable fields to the south. He had never seen the great cigarshaped craft themselves, but he knew they were waiting there, as eager as he to set sail. Well, it might be that his own voyage could serve to set them free, he thought. And meantime, it was fortune enough that such ships could find a home at all these days, drydock or no. In this part of the country those hangars preempted the space of a dozen apart-