Honeymoon for Three

washed them. He stumbled out of the restroom and realized that he had no place to go. Along with no food and no transportation. He could walk to the restaurant and eat breakfast. But then what?
    He strolled at random along one of the primitive roads of the campground, trying to warm up and observing the early risers as they heated coffee on their Coleman stoves. He could use a cup of hot coffee right now. The hotter the better.
    A white Volkswagen camper with a customized bubble-top was parked at one of the campsites. It had a California license plate. A middle-aged woman tended a stove, which was set on the wooden picnic table. She was cooking bacon in a frying pan. Alfred’s taste buds started to work overtime. He’d better get to the restaurant.
    As he passed the camper, he saw a man crouched in front of the rear-mounted engine. The engine door was open, and he was fiddling with something on the engine itself. From his look of puzzlement, Alfred concluded that he probably didn’t know what he was doing.
    “Having a problem?” Alfred asked in what he hoped was a friendly voice. His vocal cords had thawed to the point where he could speak almost normally.
    “God damn engine has lost all its power,” the man said. “Never should have bought a Volkswagen. I had some work done a couple of days ago, before we came into the park. Haven’t been able to climb a hill at over twenty miles per hour since.”
    “I might be able to help you. Want me to have a look at it?”
    “Might as well. I sure as hell don’t know what the problem is.”
    The man got out of the way, and Alfred crouched in front of the engine. He actually did know a little about engines, because his father was a decent amateur mechanic and had taught him how to change the oil and do other simple tasks. He had never looked at a VW engine before.
    He didn’t want the man to notice his ineptness, so he said to him, “Why don’t you start ‘er up.”
    The man, who had a two-day growth of beard and was wearing a cap with some sort of naval insignia on it, looked glad that he had something to do. He wasn’t big, but his movements exuded power through his jeans and flannel shirt. He strode to the cab, climbed in, and in a few seconds the engine was running.
    Running, but not running very well. It sounded rough, as if it were under duress. Alfred peered at it, wishing he actually knew what he was doing. When the man stuck his head out of the doorway and looked back at Alfred in a questioning manner, Alfred yelled at him, “Rev it up.”
    As the engine sped up, Alfred noticed something. There was a metal piece that moved and had a sort of hook on a spring attached to it, but the other end wasn’t attached to anything. Then he saw the eye it must go into. The problem might be a very simple one to resolve. He yelled at the man to shut off the engine. After the quiet returned, Alfred asked him whether he had a pair of pliers.
    The man produced them from the vehicle’s toolkit. An idea was forming in Alfred’s mind. He couldn’t let the man see what he was doing. He took the pliers and said to him, “Be ready to start it up again when I give you the signal.”
    The man returned to the cab. Alfred gripped the loose end of the spring with the pliers and fed it into the eye. Then he called for the man to start the engine. The difference was instantly noticeable. It sounded smoother. When it was revved up, it sounded even better. Alfred was sure that the problem was fixed. He was equally sure that he didn’t want to show the man what he had done.
    When the man shut off the engine and returned to the rear of the VW, Alfred said, “I think that fixed your problem. Do you want to take it for a test run?”
    “We’ll be leaving after breakfast. That will give us plenty of time to test it. Gotta be heading back home. Thanks for your help.”
    Alfred was glad he didn’t ask what the problem was. “You live in California?”
    “Northern California. Crescent City, near the Oregon border.”
    The woman who had been cooking breakfast had come over to stand beside her husband. She heard the part about the engine being fixed. She was plump, but she didn’t have a bad figure. A kindly face and short, nondescript hair of an uncertain drab color. Probably in her forties. She wore a sweatshirt that said, “I survived the big one.”
    Now she said, “Bless you if you’ve fixed the problem. Don is so mechanically inept, he couldn’t tie his shoes if