“The reason we are out here is,” Walter said, “everything is not going to be all right.”
The ointment stung, but East made a slick of it, along his brow, under the eye. He rubbed with his fingertip as they regained the road. Now the van with only three in it seemed too long, voluminous, a dark burrow from front to back. East rolled the window half open, taking air and the afternoon light. The same storm was behind them now, piled up and coming. Across a fence East saw a new little neighborhood already policed by streetlights, rows of houses in a knot. Two white girls shot hoops in a lighted driveway.
His face had stopped hurting after the first hour. Now it was the drawn-out, scraped feeling inside, where Michael Wilson had slugged him in the back and then followed up, sucker-punched him, in the side. Hot mixed with cold. Like purple bruises going all the way, meeting in the middle: he pictured a rotten pear. His breath had a hitch, like a child trying not to cry. The pain angered him, and the anger made him quiet.
He took the road atlas up from between the seats, flipping through listlessly. State by state. Arizona. Arkansas. California. He stopped and studied the full-page city map of Los Angeles. He recognized names in the sprawl of towns. But could not find The Boxes on there. Nobody had ever taught him maps. It took faith in them, believing they were going the right way. Faith in the road, the book, the plan. That whatever they were following made it to somewhere.
He came to Iowa with its plastered pink flyer. Black woman with long tits like footballs. The phone number beamed out beneath her like a black seesaw.
Traced the number with his finger. “When you want to make this call?”
Walter sipped a drink. “When do you?”
“Next stop is good.”
“All right. I’m a need to stop again anyway. That drugstore didn’t have a bathroom.”
“Piss out back.”
“You piss out back,” said Walter. “With your ghetto ass. I was brought up with some dignity.”
East let himself laugh.
“How you feeling?”
“Tell me how much money again.”
“Five hundred eighty-two dollars. Minus five for your Band-Aid.”
“All right,” said East. “Don’t ask me how I’m feeling no more.”
—
“You gonna need quarters, E.”
In back of a gas station, air hissing from the fill hoses, East and Walter huddled together at the phone, road atlas in East’s hand.
“It ain’t a cell phone. It don’t dial free,” Walter said.
“I know it,” East said, but he gaped at the dial, the instructions. Resenting.
Walter read the number out: 213. Then 262. Then 8083. The buttons were sticky.
“Ask for Abraham Lincoln, then?”
“Abraham Lincoln.” They kept straight faces.
“Shit. Get this done before it rains.” East rechecked the pink flyer. A voice in his ear asked for the money then. “Give it up,” he said spitefully, till Walter held out the silver coins, shining, warm.
Something in him was tired of Walter too, the chirpy voice, the can-do all the time. Something in him was not content yet.
At first came some slow jam and a woman’s recorded voice: Hi, baby. Glad you called me. Half a minute. The live operator was quieter, just wanted payment information. East had to cough up his voice again. “Let me talk to Abraham Lincoln,” he managed to say.
Walter giggled this time.
“I will connect you,” agreed the woman.
Who was it? A cool voice, anonymous. The slit-mouthed woman at Fin’s house? No, but he thought of her again, the net of shiny beads in her hair. Her hands, bringing the tea.
A man’s voice came next.
“How you boys doing?”
Automatically East said, “All right.” A new strangeness took the next moment to get over. For two days they’d been riding, mouths zipped, their mission buried deep. All the worries of the van. Now it was back on the table.
“Abraham Lincoln,” he said warily.
“Right,” said the man. Deep. Not Fin, but some of his gravity.
Walter hissed, “Who is it?”
“We’re in Nebraska,” East reported.
“Where at in Nebraska?”
“Gas station.”
“Listen to me,” the man said. “Where’s the station at?”
“Oh. I don’t know,” East admitted.
“You don’t know? You don’t know what town you’re in?”
“We been in Nebraska a while,” East stammered.
“All right,” said the voice, grudging. “You made good time. Good work. Call me back in an hour. Make sure you got a pen or pencil. I’ll have directions for you.”
“Got it,” said East.
“I’m a confirm it,” the man said. “Make sure you know where you’re at. Exactly.”
“Sorry.”
“Call me.”
The line went dead. East stared at the hot plastic receiver. He touched his face again where it still held the mouthpiece’s warmth.
Walter was twitchy. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” East had to say.
“What’s the deal?”
“Call back in an hour. Next time, know what town we’re in.”
Walter slapped the side of the phone box. “I know what town we’re in.”