There was no way Eddie could recognize what a developmental leap he had taken: Eddie was in control of himself. Not completely, but enough so to manage. He was on his own, and he was doing okay. It wouldn’t last long. It couldn’t. But these were some of the most important minutes of his life.
He was surprised to realize he had become surrounded at an intersection by a group of elderly people who had just gotten off a bus labeled “Skyways.” He didn’t understand why a bus, which traveled on the ground, would be called Skyways. An airplane, maybe, or even a helicopter, but not a bus. It made no sense.
The old people were waiting to cross the street when Eddie remembered what Detective McHenry had said: “Find the largest group of tourists you can and stay in the middle of them.” So that’s what Eddie did. He wasn’t sure that these people were tourists, and was about to ask one of them, when he remembered that they were strangers. Mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to do, Eddie stayed within the group until they arrived at a theater where a musical called Chicago was being performed. Why a group of tourists would come to New York to see a musical called Chicago was another thing that made no sense to Eddie. Is there also a musical called New York being performed in Chicago? The world was so confusing.
In any event, a heavyset woman in a yellow vest was handing each of the senior citizens a ticket that allowed them to enter the theater for the musical’s next performance. The woman in the yellow vest did not hand Eddie a ticket, so he was not allowed to enter with them.
Alone once again, Eddie looked for another group to stay in the middle of. The next group he saw consisted mostly of men in dark business suits with either red or yellow ties. He had no idea what the significance of their tie colors was, but guessed each color must refer to a particular type of job. In Harmony House, different types of employees wore different types of outfits. The nurses wore tan. The cafeteria workers wore blue. The doctors wore white. Dr. Fenton sometimes wore a tie, but there was no consistent pattern to the colors of them. Eddie would have noticed if there was.
This particular group walked much faster than the older group from the Skyways bus. Eddie wanted to ask them to slow down, but didn’t speak to them because it wasn’t safe. He observed them, finding it curious that none of these men talked to each other. The old people in the other group didn’t stop talking to each other the entire time he was with them, but all of these men talked into devices to people who were somewhere else, or typed on devices with their thumbs.
Eddie had never talked on a mobile phone, or typed with his thumbs. He had never sent a text message or an email, never updated a social-media page. He understood that these things existed and more or less how they worked, but it was strictly against Harmony House policy for patients to contact the outside world without permission. He had asked Dr. Fenton on numerous occasions, but the doctor always said the same thing: there were a lot of bad people out there, and the only way Eddie could be protected was to prevent the bad people from getting to him. He looked at those around him, wondering which of them were the bad people. Some of them? All of them? How could he tell? It was all very scary.
His world started to spin as Eddie became increasingly uncomfortable. New York City was too loud and too crowded and too different from Harmony House. He didn’t belong here. He wanted to go home, but didn’t know where Skylar was. He was surrounded by strangers, and Eddie knew he shouldn’t be alone. It wasn’t safe. Something bad could happen. He might get hurt, and the thought of that frightened him. There were so many ways a bad person could hurt him. He knew that people got robbed and stabbed and raped and murdered and tied up and tortured, all the time. None of these things ever happened inside Harmony House. He had only read about them, or watched them on television. These were things that only happened in the outside world, which he was now in the middle of. And it suddenly all became much too much.
SLAP! SLAP SLAP! SLAP SLAP SLAP!
Most of the businessmen around him didn’t even notice, but those who did kept right on going. Except for the guy closest to Eddie. The investment banker stopped to ask if he was okay. Eddie slapped himself several more times until his entire cheek was bright red. It looked like a nasty patch of sunburn. Catching his breath, he answered that he didn’t talk to strangers. The investment banker shook his head, wondering why he had even bothered, and quickly moved on. The freak could slap himself right into the emergency room for all he cared.
Eddie stood alone on the sidewalk for quite a while, wondering which way he should go, when he felt something he hadn’t in years. A rumbling in his stomach. It was well past Harmony House dinnertime. The day’s excitement and the unusual amount of walking had made him feel particularly hungry. He thought of his brief attempt at a hunger strike many years ago, and how much he’d disliked the feeling. To no one in particular, he said, “I’m hungry.” No one answered. Or even bothered to glance at him. Eddie briefly wondered if he had become invisible, but then dismissed the notion. Invisibility wasn’t possible. Not yet, anyway. But the gnawing in his stomach persisted, so he repeated himself. “I’m hungry.”
The soft-pretzel vendor was at the other end of the block when Eddie first smelled the man’s wares. Eddie breathed in deeply through his nose as his feet led him toward the scent. “I’m hungry.” He’d repeated the sentence another six times by the time he reached the pretzel man.
“Two dollar.” The man’s accent was Egyptian.
Eddie was again confused. “Two dollar what?”
“Two dollar.” He pointed to his handwritten sign, which read: “PRETZELS—$2.”
“You mean two dollars.”
The pretzel guy sneered with disgust at the arrogant American correcting his English. “Two dollar.”
Eddie remembered the two one-dollar bills Skylar had given him after their bet in the police station, and reached into his pants pocket. He pulled out the two bills and held them up for the pretzel man to see. “This is two dollars.”
The vendor quickly snatched the bills from Eddie’s hand and replaced them with a freshly baked good. “This is pretzel.”
It was the first item Eddie had ever purchased in his life. He enjoyed the warmth of the baked, twisted bread in his hand. It was comforting. Not too hot, and not too cold. He hesitantly took a very small bite, chewing with just his front teeth. Eddie had clearly never tasted one before.
“You never have pretzel?”
“Not one like this. The only kind of pretzels I have eaten are small and hard and crunchy.”
The pretzel guy grinned widely. “Then you never have pretzel.”
Eddie looked confused. “I just told you that I have only eaten pretzels that are small and hard and crunchy.”
The Egyptian man motioned to the pretzel in Eddie’s hand. “You like?”
Eddie took a moment to chew the small bite he had taken. He took his time like a connoisseur. “Three.”
“Three what?”
“I give this pretzel a score of three. It could very well be a four, or even a four plus, but I have never tasted another pretzel like this one, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. That’s why I cannot give it a higher score. But I promise that when I eventually write down the score in my notebook, I will revise the number accordingly after I have a sufficient number of comparisons, if the revision is warranted.”
The vendor nodded, not understanding a word Eddie had said after “three.” But the man was pleased when Eddie took a large second bite, and an even larger third.
Eddie shoved the rest of the soft pretzel into his mouth, causing his cheeks to bulge and nearby pedestrians to maintain their distance, as he continued on down the sidewalk. Keeping his head down, looking at the cracks in the pavement as he stepped over them, he had no idea where he was or where he was going. Eddie knew only that he should keep walking. To nowhere in particular. So he continued counting his footsteps. Seven thousand four hundred and eighty-three. Seven thousand four hundred and eighty-four. Seven thousand four hundred and eighty-five.