"Well, nothing," Garraty said. "I was looking for Baker and found you in stead. McVries says he thinks you'll win."
"McVries is an idiot," Stebbins said casually. "You really think you'll see your girl, Garraty? In all these people?"
"She'll be in the front," Garraty said. "She's got a pass."
"The cops'll be too busy holding everybody back to get her through to the front."
"That isn't true," Garraty said. He spoke sharply because Stebbins had articulated his own deep fear. "Why do you want to say a thing like that?"
"It's really your mother you want to see anyway."
Garraty recoiled sharply. "What?"
"Aren't you going to marry her when you grow up, Garraty? That's what most little boys want."
"You're crazy!"
"Am I?"
"Yes!"
"What makes you think you deserve to win, Garraty? You're a second-class intellect, a second-class physical specimen, and probably a second-class libido. Garraty, I'd bet my dog and lot you never slipped it to that girl of yours."
"Shut your goddam mouth!"
"Virgin, aren't you? Maybe a little bit queer in the bargain? Touch of the lavender? Don't be afraid. You can talk to Papa Stebbins."
"I'll walk you down if I have to walk to Virginia, you cheap f**k!" Garraty was shaking with anger. He could not remember being so angry in his whole life.
"That's okay," Stebbins said soothingly. "I understand."
"Motherfucker! You!-"
"Now there's an interesting word. What made you use that word?"
For a moment Garraty was sure he must throw himself on Stebbins or faint with rage, yet he did neither. "If I have to walk to Virginia," he repeated. "If I have to walk all the way to Virginia."
Stebbins stretched up on his toes and grinned sleepily. "I feel like I could walk all the way to Florida, Garraty."
Garraty lunged away from him, hunting for Baker, feeling the anger and rage die into a throbbing kind of shame. He supposed Stebbins thought he was an easy mark. He supposed he was.
Baker was walking beside a boy Garraty didn't know. His head was down, his lips moving a little.
"Hey, Baker," Garraty said.
Baker started, then seemed to shake himself all over, like a dog. "Garraty," he said. "You."
"Yea, me."
"I was having a dream-an awful real one. What time?"
Garraty checked. "Almost twenty to seven."
"Will it rain all day, you think?"
"I... uh!" Garraty lurched forward, momentarily off balance. "My damn shoe-heel came off," he said.
"Get rid of 'em both," Baker advised. "The nails will get to pokin' through. And you have to work harder when you're off balance."
Garraty kicked off one shoe and it went end over end almost to the edge of the crowd, where it lay like a small crippled puppy. The hands of Crowd groped for it eagerly. One snared it, another took it away, and there was a violent, knotted struggle over it. His other shoe would not kick off; his foot had swelled tight inside it. He knelt, took his warning, untied it, and took it off. He considered throwing it to the crowd and then left it lying on the road instead. A great and irrational wave of despair suddenly washed over him and he thought: I have lost my shoes. I have lost my shoes.
The pavement was cold against his feet. The ripped remains of his stockings were soon soaked. Both feet looked strange, oddly lumpish. Garraty felt despair turn to pity for his feet. He caught up quickly with Baker, who was also walking shoeless. "I'm about done in," Baker said simply.
"We all are."
"I get to remembering all the nice things that ever happened to me. The first time I took a girl to a dance and there was this big ole drunk fella that kep tryin' to cut in and I took him outside and whipped his ass for him. I was only able to because he was so drunk. And that girl looked at me like I was the greatest thing since the internal combustion engine. My first bike. The first time I read The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins... that's my favorite book, Garraty, should anyone ever ask you. Sittin' half asleep by some mudhole with a fishin' line and catchin' crawdaddies by the thousands. Layin' in the backyard and sleepin' with a Popeye funnybook over my face. I think about those things, Garraty. Just lately. Like I was old and gettin' senile."
The early morning rain fell silverly around them. Even the crowd seemed quieter, more withdrawn. Faces could be seen again, blurrily, like faces behind rainy panes of glass. They were pale, sloe-eyed faces with brooding expressions under dripping hats and umbrellas and spread newspaper tents. Garraty felt a deep ache inside him and it seemed it would be better if he could cry out, but he could not, any more than he could comfort Baker and tell him it was all right to die. It might be, but then again, it might not.