In the cool sunlight of an early autumn afternoon, Jack sprinted across the street toward the mall's parking lot.
If it had not been for his conversation with Buddy Parkins, Jack would very likely have stayed on U.S. 40 and tried to cover another fifty miles - he wanted to get to Illinois, where Richard Sloat was, in the next two or three days. The thought of seeing his friend Richard again had kept him going during the weary days of nonstop work on Elbert Palamountain's farm: the image of spectacled, serious-faced Richard Sloat in his room at Thayer School, in Springfield, Illinois, had fueled him as much as Mrs. Palamountain's generous meals. Jack still wanted to see Richard, and as soon as he could: but Buddy Parkins's inviting him home had somehow unstrung him. He could not just climb into another car and begin all over again on the Story. (In any case, Jack reminded himself, the Story seemed to be losing its potency.) The shopping mall gave him a perfect chance to drop out for an hour or two, especially if there was a movie theater somewhere in there - right now, Jack could have watched the dullest, soppiest Love Story of a movie.
And before the movie, were he lucky enough to find a theater, he would be able to take care of two things he had been putting off for at least a week. Jack had seen Buddy Parkins looking at his disintegrating Nikes. Not only were the running shoes falling apart, the soles, once spongy and elastic, had mysteriously become hard as asphalt. On days when he had to walk great distances - or when he had to work standing up all day - his feet stung as if they'd been burned.
The second task, calling his mother, was so loaded with guilt and other fearful emotions that Jack could not quite allow it to become conscious. He did not know if he could keep from weeping, once he'd heard his mother's voice. What if she sounded weak - what if she sounded really sick? Could he really keep going west if Lily hoarsely begged him to come back to New Hampshire? So he could not admit to himself that he was probably going to call his mother. His mind gave him the suddenly very clear image of a bank of pay telephones beneath their hairdryer plastic bubbles, and almost immediately bucked away from it - as if Elroy or some other Territories creature could reach right out of the receiver and clamp a hand around his throat.
Just then three girls a year or two older than Jack bounced out of the back of a Subaru Brat which had swung recklessly into a parking spot near the mall's main entrance. For a second they had the look of models contorted into awkwardly elegant poses of delight and astonishment. When they had adjusted into more conventional postures the girls glanced incuriously at Jack and began to flip their hair expertly back into place. They were leggy in their tight jeans, these confident little princesses of the tenth grade, and when they laughed they put their hands over their mouths in a fashion which suggested that laughter itself was laughable. Jack slowed his walk into a kind of sleepwalker's stroll. One of the princesses glanced at him and muttered something to the brown-haired girl beside her.
I'm different now, Jack thought: I'm not like them any-more. The recognition pierced him with loneliness.
A thickset blond boy in a blue sleeveless down vest climbed out of the driver's seat and gathered the girls around him by the simple expedient of pretending to ignore them. The boy, who must have been a senior and at the very least in the varsity backfield, glanced once at Jack and then looked appraisingly at the facade of the mall. 'Timmy?' said the tall brown-haired girl. 'Yeah, yeah,' the boy said. 'I was just wondering what smells like shit out here.' He rewarded the girls with a superior little smile. The brown-haired girl looked smirkingly toward Jack, then swung herself across the asphalt with her friends. The three girls followed Timmy's arrogant body through the glass doors into the mall.
Jack waited until the figures of Timmy and his court, visible through the glass, had shrunk to the size of puppies far down the long mall before he stepped on the plate which opened the doors.
Cold predigested air embraced him.