He started walking. He would let the trajectory of the deer run choose the trajectory of the story. His legs pushed through the mist of dawn and began to warm. Movement was not so hard after all. Once started, it would be harder to stop. He felt his joints loosen, felt the muscles gather their old strength. Just two years ago, the legs had carried him to a respectable finish in the Pittsburgh Marathon, three hours and forty-nine minutes, and since then, his legs had logged at least twenty miles per week. They were strong, reliable legs. And now they belonged to a character in a story, a man seeking answers in movement, escape from memory, a man on a narrow, twisting trail.
When this character came to the edge of a wide swampy area, then noticed to his left the road of hard-packed clay and gravel, he crossed to that road, turned north, walked more briskly now, eager until Huston told him, Wait. The character stopped. You can’t go home, Huston told him. You have to get off the road. The character pivoted and, moving more hesitantly, uncertain, returned to the edge of the cranberry bog. He stood there and stared at the water and waited for the writer to decide what he should do.
He knows the police are somewhere back there in the woods, Huston thought. He knows they probably have dogs. He knows they might even bring in a search helicopter once the mist rises and it’s safe to fly. So what would he do now?
With a little effort, Huston was able to achieve the split point of view that allowed him to do his best work. Usually, he was aware first of himself at his desk, blue ink moving across a yellow legal pad, but also aware of himself as the character in the story unrolling in his imagination. This time, the perspectives were reversed. He was the character first, cold and tired and hungry, and then, removed to the background, the writer watching and directing the action.
The character from Huston’s story stood by the edge of the swamp and waited. Huston had given him no name and was unwilling to consider the reason for the man’s flight. He had filed the man’s backstory in a black pigeonhole in his mind. Huston’s only concern at the moment was to focus on this troubling plot point before him. What should the character do now?
He’s got to get into the water.
The character looked down at his shoes. They were leather Skechers, moccasin style, with rawhide laces. They would offer no protection against the icy water.
A month from now, I would be wearing my Clarks. The Clarks were ankle-high with an inch of protective black rubber around the lower sides, the leather waterproofed against the inevitable sludge that would slicken the campus’s walkways until early March. I should be wearing my Clarks.
But then Huston pulled himself back and stepped away from the character, because he did not want to be the character beside the swamp, he wanted to be the writer writing the character. The Skechers are good, Huston told himself, because they put him in more peril. And peril is good for a story. The more peril, the better.
He should go into the water but not too deep.
Gingerly, the character stepped into the water, first his left foot, then his right. The water circled his shins like icy socks. The bottom of the swamp was soft and spongy, a layer of matted grass.
He should work his way around the bog, Huston thought, and the character started moving toward the south. Huston did not know how big the swamp was because he had not written it. The swamp had existed prior to the story and had appeared of its own volition. Huston had no choice as a writer but to take this unforeseen story element and employ it as best he could, with no knowledge of its ramifications. He reminded himself of what Doctorow had said, that writing a story is like driving at night through a fog. The thing to do is to just keep moving.
Just keep moving, Huston told his character. Even if you can’t see very far ahead. Take it one page at a time. Let the story grow organically.
Huston was pleased to see that the charcoal water swallowed up every sign of his character’s passage. With each step, his character had to lift his foot completely out of the water so as not to be caught and tangled in a lasso of wild vines, but at least the water quickly erased his footprints, and the clouds of muddy water were quickly diffused and absorbed back into the swamp. It was not long before the character’s feet began to burn with cold, but he had no choice but to keep going. He could not risk setting foot on solid ground just yet. Huston told him to just keep moving as quickly as he could, and the character did so. He was not an absurdist character but a Huston character. He did as he was told, to the best of his ability.