I think my only hope is to outrun him. My only hope was to outrun him. To outrun him, but I was always slipping into the past. Is to was. The black mouth gaping, the wolf pack behind, and though I ran as hard as I could, it made no difference. I found myself slipping ever further into the dark. I opted to go North. Ultima Thule. The whitest place. I figured he would have no power there. I took the subway to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I had always been on the subway, heading to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. At the gate I waited nervously, taking slugs of water from a gallon jug, feeling the eye on me. Wolfmouth was the beggar in the wheelchair, rattling a can. He was every one of the young men, hanging around, trying to sell things. A watch, a transistor radio. I turned away when they came near. The eye was on me.
All aboard the bus. Pleasure is the headlight, the devil is the driver. The smeared window glass. The bus pulled away. Outside it had begun to snow. By the time we reached the expressway, it was impossible to see. The city had faded into blessed forgetfulness.
—Ain’t no secret to geeks.
The voice like sandpaper, a shock. JumpJim’s claw of a hand on my back. He was wild and ragged now, wearing sweat pants and some kind of faded patchwork coat over a tee shirt advertising a community fish fry. He eased himself into the seat beside me.
—Thing about geeks. Any man will bite the head off of a chicken if he’s hungry enough or has enough taste for booze. The key is getting him to understand he’s a geek. You catch my drift?
I shook my head. JumpJim sighed.
—I’m sorry for you, son, really I am, but you ain’t the sharpest tool in the box. So where is it you think you’re headed now?
—Maine. Further on, probably.
—This bus ain’t going to Maine.
—Yes it is.
He turned and poked a finger into the ribs of a middle-aged woman hunched into her seat on the opposite side of the aisle.
—Where’s this bus going?
—You don’t know?
—I know. The kid doesn’t know.
—You want me to tell him where the bus is going?
—Give the broad a frickin medal.
—There’s no call to be rude.
—Just tell him.
—Why doesn’t he look on his ticket?
—Jesus, woman. North or south? Is the damn bus going north or south?
She turned her shoulder to us and pulled up the hood of her jacket, refusing further conversation. JumpJim gave the finger, doubled fisted, to her back. I told him I had to use the bathroom, and reluctantly he let me pass. At the back of the bus, I locked myself in the coffin-like toilet, bracing myself as the road vibrated underneath. I tried not to panic. When I came back out, I sat down in another row. For a few minutes he left me alone. Then he made his way back to where I was sitting.
—Sulking?
—I’d just rather be on my own.
—Oh you would, would you? Well, that’s all right. We’ll come soon enough to the parting of the ways. Besides, you need some time to practice your act.
He did a kind of gnashing mime, which I supposed was biting the head off a chicken.
—I don’t know what you’re even talking about.
He sat down beside me, nudging me over with his hip.
—What’s your problem? I’m giving you the window. Look, you’re going to do what Charlie wants, sooner or later. Why not just get it over with? Bite and spit.
—You think it’s that easy? What does he want? I don’t know what he wants. If he’d tell me, then maybe I could sort this out.
—You want to reason with him.
—Exactly.
—Man to man. On a level.
—Right.
—You are fucking soft in the head. You think he wants to negotiate with someone like you? Look at yourself. What have you got to offer?
—I don’t know. I don’t know what he wants. I just want him to understand that, whatever happened to him, I’m not to blame. He shouldn’t be picking on me.
—Picking on you? Ha! You should get a tattoo of that one. My advice: accept it. You’re the horse and he’s the rider. You’re going to do what he tells you, in the end. Seems bad, probably, but beggars can’t be choosers and your old uncle Jim is going to give you a way of looking on the bright side. There’s a great breakfast place down where you’re going. Hear that? Start your day off right. Steak and eggs, tamales, they got a hot sauce’ll take the roof of your mouth clean off. All these fine old pictures on the walls. Convivial scenes from days gone by.
—Breakfast.
—Catch up, boy. Don’t fret, I’ll give you directions.
He reclined his seat and then twisted round and tried to force it back further, onto the legs of the person in the row behind. When banging and straining didn’t produce results, he petulantly folded his arms and went to sleep.
We traveled for some hours. I leaned my forehead against the window and watched the road, the signs, the place names passing by, and I saw that he had been telling the truth. We were heading south, we had always been heading south. I wondered how I had got on the wrong bus, the very last bus I wanted. Perhaps there would be a rest stop where I could get off again. Could I escape without waking him? If only I could still turn around.
As I explored the mechanics of climbing over him into the aisle, JumpJim had a coughing fit, which woke him up. He spat into a wad of tissue paper and peeled off his patchwork coat, releasing a pungent unwashed odor into the already stale air of the bus.
—Damn bug in my throat. How about you share a little of that water?
I clutched my jug to my chest. He excavated something from his nose and flicked it at the sleeping woman, his enemy on the other side of the aisle.
—OK I’m awake now. Back in the game. You’re kind of a prick, you know? So, a question. Do you have any idea what the word miscegenation means?
—Sure.
—Sure, he says. You ever hear of Eddie Lang? No? I always forget it wasn’t you, it was your friend. Eddie Lang was a guitarist. Born Salvatore Massaro, in Philly. Played with Paul Whiteman’s band. Clue’s in the name.
He paused. When I didn’t show any reaction to his joke he shrugged and carried on.
—No one more sophisticated than Eddie Lang. He played with Bix on “Singin’ the Blues” for pity’s sakes. Smooth player, total pro, forget about it. Now, you ever hear of Blind Willie Dunn’s Gin Bottle Four? Probably not. But you couldn’t get a more downhome name. That’s got to be some gnarly old bluesman and his pals, am I right? That’s Lang with Lonnie Johnson. King of the fucking slickers. And who else is in the band? King Oliver and Hoagy Carmichael. Lonnie Johnson and King Oliver, Storyville Negro royalty, with Hoagy Carmichael from Bloomington, Indiana, and Italian Eddie Lang. So tell me, was that a black thing or a white thing? No, that was music.