“I can slide you into my dining hall. Get you some help if you need it.”
East shook his head again, stood, crept away. The guy seemed okay. But nothing was enough to trust him. And no sense in just bringing the man his trouble.
—
He slept the night in the gymnasium. Collapsed, the stacked bleachers made a tower of thin shelves on their backside, each one twelve inches below the next. East slid himself onto one of these shelves, waist-high. The next plank was just a few inches above his nose. Like a tool in a drawer, he thought, like a body in a morgue. It had been more than twenty-four hours since he had slept, but even in his dreamless sleep he knew that he must stay quiet.
—
At five in the morning East was awake. The gym must be closed, he judged, but he lay in his safe slice of darkness, mind and body still, until the first sounds careened in the hallway: a mop bucket, the metallic knock of deadbolts. His fingers straightened the guns in his pocket, and he waited until he heard the first voices, early comers. Then he slipped out of the bleachers. He considered taking another shower. But it would only be luxury. He could not stay here in the gym forever.
He drank, used the bathroom, then saw three people on the way out of the building, enduring the briefest of greetings. Frosty air. Except for its watery lights, the campus was largely dark. He felt good after the long night’s rest. Eight hours, nine?
Ninety dollars and change left after gas and tolls and the food of the first day. He bought a bagel with cream cheese at a walk-in place on one of the side streets. A bagel: three dollars and eighteen cents. His first college lesson.
—
Today the road rose and fell. The trees twisted low and misshapen, as if storms had combed them many times. A few dark apples still dangled. He hungered, but he dared not walk into the orchards. Once he found an apple on the side of the road and picked it up. Nearly perfect, like bait in a story for children. He put it in his pocket with the gun.
He noticed tags on the backs of the signs across the road: C+W. Some of the paint weathered, some still glossy fresh. On most of the signs. Then on all the signs. He turned around and looked behind the signs on his side. Tagged as well. He was walking through territory.
A figure came walking toward him on the shoulder gravel half a mile ahead. At a shorter distance he decided that the figure was a girl. He sank his head low into the collar of his sweater. Avoided even taking a good look. A mass of brown hair pinned back. She had a down jacket on, but she was shivering too. He felt relieved when she was by him.
One house caught his interest. He saw that it had burned from the center out, not long ago. The bricks were still smoked black. The roof’s peak had given way to something like the mouth of a volcano. Heavy smudge still bloomed in the air. Across from the front yard, a school bus, still caution-yellow, but its long yellow sheet metal was marked in primer gray: CHRISTIAN WOLVES. Then the plus sign. Like a cross.
Like the van. He stamped it in his mind, then crossed to walk on the other side.
—
Slipping. A light rain had done little more than grease the roadside. His joints were webbed with red exhaustion. He had not reckoned on the cold. Toward midday he crossed a small junction, not even noticing it until a truck hurtled past.
He touched his pocket. The apple was gone. He could not remember eating it or throwing it away. The guns were still there in the loosening pockets, riding the bruises they were making on his thighs.
The next town was two miles off, and he thought that if it had a store, he would buy clothing. If it had a place to rest, he would rest. He imagined Walter walking with him, his voice, his hypotheses: what this closed factory had made, how those trees were planted, how this kind of church felt about black boys. But Walter could never have walked this far. Walter would be home, wondering why East hadn’t called. And worrying about that old lady, Martha whatever. She’d be coming back on the plane, East recalled. Perhaps today. And Walter would be beside himself with guilt over it.
He wondered if he was far enough. He felt far. He felt lost. But if there were such a thing as far enough, it wasn’t a place you could walk to.
The next town was what he settled on. Far enough was going to have to be here, at least for a while, even if he hadn’t glimpsed it yet.
—