MORE IN THE MISADVENTURES OF GUIDO MICHELINI, VAGABOND WRITER

For a long time he lived in his car. He showered in the homes of one-night stands.

All his belongings were in the trunk of the car, a 1975 Monte Carlo with Florida plates. Clothes, books, typewriter, newspaper stories, manuscripts, a few photographs of the past, a copy of the divorce.

His ex-wife had most of it. The house, the furniture, the library of books, the record collection, the photo albums, the dog, the cat, the nine-year-old boy.

Guido wrote to him from the front seat of his car, parked on city streets in America.

He was in a bar in New York City when the car was towed from an expired meter. The cops had it towed to a cavernous shed on the West Side. Guido hadn’t paid the insurance. No insurance, no car. The hell with it. He transferred the important stuff from the trunk to a battered tan suitcase and walked to Port Authority Bus Terminal.

He phoned a former girlfriend in Detroit and said he was down on his luck. She had a big heart. Get your ass here.

The Greyhound rocked west. Filled with losers and lost souls. Empty beer cans rolled down the aisle. A guy plucked away at his guitar. A black girl’s baby cried. Guido slept.

The bus rolled into Detroit. He walked around the side of the bus to get his suitcase. The driver unloaded them all. Except his.

Where’s my suitcase?

They’re all here pal.

Mine’s not here.

I don’t know what to tell you pal. See the baggage claim office.

Guido asked the baggage claim clerk, Where my suitcase, man? My whole life’s in that goddamn suitcase!

No one had a clue what happened to Guido’s suitcase. Mystery of the ages.

Guido filed a Lost Baggage claim and walked to his girlfriend’s apartment in the Cass Corridor.

She opened the door. She looked like she jumped out of a Motown song. She gave him a sideways look. Where you been?

Nowhere.

Come on in then — don’t you have a bag or something?

Just me.

Man, that’s what I call traveling light.

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