“Don’t be sad,” she said so softly Devon almost walked away without it.
The girl was embarrassed by her concern and shrugged her shoulders slightly, opened her hands like she hid nothing. Devon left a dollar on the counter and walked out with his soda can popped open. Those were the only words he could remember saying out loud in hours. People were always so sure other people didn’t care. Devon saw that with most people you had to come into their sight, not just be an idea, and then they could show their goodness plain.
“You’ve got some change here.” Devon turned back to the counter to get his eleven cents. When he faced the door again a white man in black jeans and faded gray T-shirt walked into the store. The man’s hair was jet-black and greased into a hair helmet. He looked a little like Elvis, if young Elvis had been rough and worn looking. Behind the man was a skinny woman in her thirties, her skin as pale as a bathroom sink made even whiter with the bright red beehive hairdo floating above her head.
Devon watched the two pass a foot in front of him. He tried not to look at their faces, but neither acknowledged him anyway. Devon turned to the girl at the counter.
“Do you see them? You do, don’t you?”
THE PLACE WHERE THE ROAD OPENED UP and became a highway, where lanes of traffic merged with many other lanes, scared Devon. The idea that most people would never know this danger and yes this thrill of hearing the cars from ground level, the sound growing underneath them like a living thing, made Devon sorry for them. There was the most danger here on the highway, but that was to be expected. Not only were there cars everywhere, by this time Devon was exhausted and hungry.
In less than an hour, he stopped at a Neighbors, a big gas station with multiple pumps, with a McDonald’s attached. At first glance, it would not be the kind of place that Devon liked, but at the main counter, they carried the homemade chocolate-covered oatmeal bars that he loved. Devon even loved the labels with the white grandmother in a bonnet grinning with too large dentures. He kept a stack of the labels in his closet.
Devon was out of money. He’d checked his pockets at least twenty times, but still nothing. He didn’t even have the little bit of change from the last soda he bought. He hated the feeling of being completely broke and was embarrassed to go inside the store. He considered asking people for some change, anything, but he didn’t want to bother any of the people hurrying past him, so busy in their movements, so sure like the shuddering off of an old machine.
A black man, old to Devon, with a white shell of hair picked straight up parked his truck at the service station. Devon watched him walk into the store and come right back out. Though the man didn’t look in Devon’s direction, he knew that he had seen him. The man had on jeans got from a discount store or a worker’s store, someplace they make jeans for people to work in and not for fashion. The man looked purposeful and put together, his shirt neatly tucked into his pants, boots solid and wide, almost prim in their insistence on duty not style. Devon thought it might not be too bad to look like this man when he got old.
“Where are you going?” the man asked.
“Nowhere,” Devon said but he looked like he would cry. “Just here.”
“You all right?”
Devon didn’t answer but looked as if he didn’t understand the question.
“Are you walking?”
“Walking all over the place.” Devon grinned like somebody’d said something funny.
The man looked Devon over. He was a good-looking boy, but there was something a little lost about him that caught your attention, but didn’t make you afraid.
“You hungry?”
Devon didn’t answer and wasn’t sure himself, been walking some time on the hot asphalt for hours and hours and didn’t remember. He’d walked on the dirt roads in the too tall grass, liked to see the bugs flutter up and out of the weeds behind him. A white man had veered onto the shoulder of the road just to scare him and prove that he was more powerful than a walking boy. If the man had seen Devon in his rearview, he wouldn’t have gotten what he wanted. Instead of Devon’s cringing fear, he would have seen Devon laughing like he was in on the joke.
“I’ve been walking so long, I haven’t thought about food. Yeah, I guess I am hungry,” Devon nodded. “Yeah I guess I am.”
“Stay right here.” There was no harm in this. No harm. His own grandboys were young yet, half the age of this one, but if one of them were ever out and alone, he’d want the same for them. Devon followed the man into the restaurant part of the store. He stood in line with the boy at the McDonald’s. “I’m Jimmy Patterson,” he said and held out his hand. Devon clutched it like a woman would, grabbing Jimmy’s fingers instead of touching palm to palm. “Do you know what you want?”
Devon hesitated embarrassed by the question. He clearly didn’t have any money.
“I’m buying. You get what you want.”
Years ago, Jimmy had taken his own children, all four of them, to one of these burger places. They had been so excited and he didn’t mind that they hummed as they ate the dry sandwiches or put their elbows on the table and laughed with their heads reared back like debutantes, chewed food clumped in their mouths. Jimmy had to stop a minute to wonder when he had started to think of those hard times as the good gone days. He tried not to bring his grandkids to these places, but they cried for it. The grown boy across from him ate his sandwich in a couple of bites like he hadn’t eaten for days.
“How long have you been out in this heat?”
“I’m not sure,” Devon said his straw straining against the ice packed in the cup.
“You look like the sun found you. It’s hot out there. You got anybody to call?” the man asked.
Devon nodded. “I’ve been gone since early this morning. It wasn’t that hot then.”
“We need to call somebody if you’ve got people.”
The man followed Devon out to the pay phone in the parking lot. Devon recited his mother’s phone number while the man dialed it in. “What’s your name, son?”
“Devon.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sitting here with Devon at the Yadkinville exit on forty. Yes, ma’am. He just ate a McDonald’s sandwich. Oh there’s no need for that. Yes, ma’am. I’ll sit here until you come. No, he’s fine,” Jimmy said and looked over at Devon. “Sweaty and tired-looking, but nothing serious. You’re certainly welcome. No, I don’t mind. All right then,” Jimmy said and hung up the phone. “They’re coming,” he said.
Jimmy walked back into the restaurant with Devon. He had nowhere to be.
“I’m glad she’s coming,” Devon said. “I don’t think I could walk any more today. I’m tired.” Devon wiped his face with his hands, covering his eyes.
The man had the thought that like a child, Devon didn’t know he could be seen with his eyes closed. “Devon, you been walking long?”