Note: This story is the third part of a three-part series. The suggested reading order is Forty Days, Bird Song, and Odd at Sea.
I woke up under a bridge, and, for a moment, wasn’t sure where I was. Cars whizzed by me on the interstate just a few feet away. Oh, yeah, I thought. Starting at rush hour I’d hitchhiked east on I-10, gotten five different rides, each spanning an exit or two. At that rate, the trip was going to take a month.
The last ride had been from a young guy in a pickup on his way to work. He’d offered me the joint he’d been smoking. Not wanting to offend, I’d taken a toke and handed it back. He took a hit and offered it to me again. “I’m good,” I’d said. “Got a long way to go.”
He had dropped me off at the last exit on the way out of Tucson. I stood on the entrance ramp for fifteen minutes, but not a single car had come my way. The cops take a dim view of hitchhiking on the interstate itself, but the late August sun had beaten me into submission. I took refuge in the shade of the bridge over the highway. Once in the shade, I sat down, then laid down. At that point a nap had seemed like a good idea.
I stood up and noticed a piece of cardboard at my feet had “DALLAS” printed in large capital letters. Thinking Dallas was a lot further than the next exit, I picked up the sign and stepped out to the edge of the shade, facing traffic.
The drivers did not seem to see me in the shadow, so I stepped into the sunlight. Minutes later a black Chevy seemed to be slowing down. I turned and saw the car pulling onto the shoulder on the other side of the bridge. I picked up my bag and sprinted for the car. I yanked the door open, pitched my bag into the back and hopped into the passenger seat. As soon as I closed the door, the driver floored the accelerator.
He was a small man, younger than me I think, dressed in a dirty blue t-shirt and jeans. His dark hair hung in greasy ringlets to his collar. He turned to me and smiled showing teeth in need of dental work. The car smelled of mildew (quite a feat in Arizona), rust and other forms of decay. As the car gained speed, the steering wheel began to shake. The man and car were a good match.
“The frontend’s got a shimmy. I can’t really go faster than fifty, but she’ll get us there,” he shouted over the rush of hot air coming through the windows.
“That’s good.”
“You’re going to Dallas?”
“No. Columbus, Ohio actually. I found that sign under the bridge.”
“Well, I’m only going to Oklahoma City.”
Hallelujah! I thought. “That’ll be great.”
“So, what’s in Columbus?”
“A girl.”
“There are girls everywhere, man.”
Three weeks before, I’d been in San Francisco, sitting on a folding chair in Aquatic park. I was enjoying a sparkling morning on the Bay while waiting for a performance by an improv group. A police siren sounded, I scratched my right ear, and my finger came away with a speck of wax. A female voice from the left asked what I was reading. Seated slightly behind me was a young woman – short blonde hair, green eyes, dark red lipstick, V-neck sweater, slacks. She was smiling and gesturing to the book in my lap. We chatted; the thought of asking her to lunch came to mind, but the temptation was easy to resist.
“Not like this girl,” I shouted back. “Why Oklahoma City?”
“Grew up there. Going to see my mom.”
“Guess we’re going to be together for bit.” I offered him my hand. “I’m Jaime.”
He took it. “Cat.”
“Cat?”
“Yeah. Mom named me ‘Felix’.”
“Ah.”
The noise in the car made it difficult to talk. So, we just settled in and watched the road go by. Three hours later we crossed the New Mexico border; in the distance, I could see a column of smoke.
I pointed to it and asked, “What do you think that is?”
“Don’t know,” he said as we started to slow down. “Whatever it is, it stopped traffic.”
We came over a gentle rise and there was scene of confusion. To the left was a west-bound eighteen-wheeler in the median; the cab was tipped onto its left side, but the trailer was still upright. On the east-bound shoulder, completely off the road, was the smoking wreckage of a large passenger car. There were two sheriff’s cars and three highway patrol cars on the scene, all lights flashing. There was a fire engine, also in the median, and a fireman stowing a hose and other equipment into the truck. We came to a stop about a half mile from the wreck. Cat turned off the car.
I got out to get a better look, then stuck my head in the window. “Okay if I stand on the hood?”
“Sure.”
I hopped up and shaded my eyes, looking at the truck. Then I said, “Holy shit!”
“What is it?”
“There’s like a bunch of cows on the other side of the highway.”
“No shit!” said Cat. He got out the car and jumped up on the hood himself. “What the fuck?”
“I don’t know.” I could see a couple of guys in cowboy hats and a couple of cops trying herd the cows. Then I turned my attention to the smoldering car. At the just that moment the firetruck pulled into the east bound lane and drove away.
It was hot in the sun, so we got back in the car. It was hot in the car too. About twenty minutes later, the cops let the traffic on our side of the highway go, but made us use just the right-hand lane. It took quite a bit of time to get up to the truck; I could see that it was a livestock carrier and that the tailgate was down.
“Do you suppose the cows came from the truck?” asked Cat.
“Looks like.”
“Why would they let them out?”
“You got me.”
Then we went by the burned-up car. A woman was holding a child by hand, and the man was holding a younger child in his arms. They were talking to one of the patrolmen. They were covered in soot, but the parents did not have tragic looks on their faces. I had a feeling they were going to be okay.
Two hours later we came to Las Cruces, and Cat pulled the car off the highway at the downtown exit.
“Where are you going?”
“To the police station.”
“What?”
“Yeah, they’ll give us ten dollars for gas to get out of town.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Yep.”
So, we sat around the Las Cruces Police department for two hours while they ran background checks on us.
As we walked out of the building, I said to him, “You don’t have money for gas, do you?”
“No.”
“Or food?”
He shook his head. “We’ll be in Oklahoma City tomorrow night. My mom’ll feed us. I can wait ‘til then.”
“Well, I can’t, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to eat while you starve. I have some cash, so I’ll pay for gas and food.”
“My mom’ll pay you back.”
“I’m not worried about that.” I thought for a second. “How about this? Your mom can pay me for half the gas and all your food.”
“It’s a deal.”
We got gas with his ten dollars, plus two dollars from me. We stopped at a McDonalds and got Quarter Pounders, fries and cokes. That started his tab at $2.40. Then we got back on I-10, which turned south to El Paso at Las Cruces.
With the sun down, the temperature dropped rapidly. We rolled up the windows, and even though the car was still noisy, it was a little easier to talk.
“What were you doing in Arizona?” I asked.
“Looking for a job in the mines.”
“Yeah, I was looking for a job, too.”
“I guess neither of us found one.”
“No, I had a job. But I it was kind of crappy, and I decided to go back to Ohio.”
“For a girl.”
“Yeah.”
“This girl, she’s from Ohio?”
“Sorta. She has a job teaching job there.”
We went through El Paso and followed I-10 down along the Rio Grande. I nodded off somewhere around Fort Hancock and woke with a start when the car left the highway.
“What’s going on?”
“Stopping at a rest area. Need to get some sleep. I’ll take the front. You can have the backseat.”
It was a restless night for me. The backseat was not quite long enough for me stretch out. With the windows just cracked the car was both stuffy and cold. Cat snored all night. While it didn’t seem like I sleep at all, I woke up with sun just coming over the horizon. I went to the restroom, then walked up and down to warm up. Cat got out of the car to relieve himself and minutes later we were back on the road.
Shortly we turned northwest to route 20, onto the ugliest stretch of road I have ever seen. The land was flat from horizon to horizon. It was covered with a grayish dust, there were intermittent clumps of short, brown, dusty grass. Every couple of miles there was a creosote bush, a cholla, or puny beavertail cactus. It was so much the same, mile after mile, that it seemed as if we weren’t even moving.
We pulled into a truck stop outside of Pecos, got some gas and breakfast (another $3.75 on Cat’s bill). I went into the store and bought a candy bar for the road while Cat filled the water jug. Then I went out and waited by the car.
Once we were under way, Cat pulled a pouch of pipe tobacco from under his shirt.
“I thought you didn’t have any money.”
He smiled. “I don’t.”
“Oh.”
“There are rolling papers and a lighter in the glove compartment. Would you get ‘em for me?”
He proceeded to roll cigarettes while steering the car with one knee. After rolling seven or eight, he lit one up and put the rest on the dash in front of the steering wheel.
“Want one?” he asked.
“Ah, no, thanks.”
What seemed like hours later we went through Odessa and then Midland. A few miles northeast of Midland there was a brown cop car parked perpendicular to the highway. The side of the car said “Texas Rangers”. I’d seen westerns about the Texas Rangers, but I didn’t know they still existed.
I sat up in my seat and said, “Hey, Cat, look. It’s the Texas Rangers.”
“Don’t look at them!”
Just as I said, “Why not?” they pulled out on the road and turned on their flashing lights.
“Oh, shit!”
Cat pulled over onto the shoulder. The cop car pulled up behind us.
The car’s loud speaker blasted, “STAY IN YOUR CAR.” So, we there sat for quite some time, fifteen minutes maybe.
One Ranger got out of the car on the passenger side, and loud speaker blared, “EVERYBODY OUT AND COME TO THE BACK OF YOUR CAR.” Another Ranger got out of the driver’s seat. The four of us met between the two cars, and I noticed they had unsnapped their holster straps and rested their hands on the grips of their pistols.
The older Ranger took charge. “This all yawl?”
I nodded; Cat said, “Yes, sir.”
“Who owns this car?”
“I do.”
“License and insurance.” Cat dug the documents out his wallet. The Ranger looked them over. He turned to me. “You have ID?”
“Yes, sir.” I got out my wallet and handed him my Ohio driver’s license.
“Huh,” he said and nodded to his partner.
The younger Ranger started to walk around the car, inspecting the passenger compartment. I watched him, pretty sure what was coming. When he got to the front of the car, he dived through the open window and gathered up Cat’s hand-rolled cigarettes.
“They’re just tobacco,” I said.
He broke them open, gave them a big sniff, and said, “Aw, shee-ittt!”
I turned back to Cat and the older Ranger.
“I want you boys to follow us back to Midland. Don’t you try to run, now.”
“I won’t,” said Cat. “My car only goes fifty miles an hour, so don’t get too far ahead of me.”
We followed the cop car back to the courthouse in Midland, and parked in the police parking lot. They escorted us to a waiting room. And there we sat, waiting under the watchful eye of the younger Ranger.
After about a half hour by the clock on the wall, I said to Cat, “What do you suppose…”
He shook his head and I shut up.
An hour later, the older Ranger walked into the waiting room and signaled for us to follow him. The four of us walked down the hall until we reached a door marked “Cyrus L. Klopp, Municipal Judge”.
It was a large office with a large window behind the desk, but it was not luxurious. The bookshelves, metal rather than wood, were filled with everything from leather-bound tomes to three ring-binders to Louis L’Amour paperbacks. The floor was covered with inexpensive but durable-looking tile. There were three large file cabinets to the left of the desk. The desk and its chair seemed over-sized. There were two upholstered chairs facing the front corners of the desk. Against the wall opposite the desk were four metal framed chairs with molded-plastic seats. The older Ranger motioned us to the plastic chairs. The Rangers took up positions behind and on either side of the desk.
We were no sooner seated than the door opened and a very large man walked into the office. He was well over six-feet tall, but was more remarkable for his girth than his height. He hung a black robe on coat rack next to the door and limped to the desk. He sat down and his fat overflowed the arm rests. He glared at us for a moment and then studied our documents on the desk. He was, perhaps, in his mid-fifties, with a huge head, thinning sandy hair and a ruddy complexion. He wore glasses, but there was no lens in the left side. When he looked up, he left eye did not track with his right.
“Mr. Thompson?” he rumbled.
“Yes, sir,” I said. He compared me to the photo on my license, nodded and put it aside. Then he studied the various other pieces of paper on his desk.
“Mr. Lawson.”
“Yes, sir,” said Cat.
“The Rangers here tell me that the license plate on your car belongs to another vehicle.”
“Well, sir, that plate was originally on my 1962 Plymouth Valiant. When that car died, I junked it and moved plate to the Chevy I’m driving now. That’s the normal thing to do Minnesota. I re-registered the plate, so I don’t understand why Minnesota is telling you it still belongs on the Plymouth.”
Given the little I knew about Cat, that story sounded farfetched. I figured Cat was going to jail.
The judge motioned to the older Ranger and they conferred in whispers. The Ranger stepped back and the judge turned back to Cat.
“Where you boys coming from?”
“Arizona,” said Cat.
“What were you doing there?”
“I was looking for a job in the mines.”
He turned to me.
“Visiting my sister at the University of Arizona.”
He stared at us for several heartbeats. “Boys, I have a notion that you’re transportin’ a load of marijuana up north.”
Then I became alarmed. I’d heard possession of marijuana carried a life sentence in Texas. “Judge,” I blurted out, “I’m a hitchhiker. I never met this guy before yesterday morning,”
“There ain’t no marijuana in my car! You search it if you want!”
The younger Ranger said, “Aw, shee-ittt!”
The judge sat back in his chair, clearly disappointed. “Mr. Lawson, it is my opinion that you are a liar, and that you are likely guilty of driving an unregistered vehicle. However, I am really not interested in spending any more of the county’s resources on you. So, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take the title for that piece of junk you’re driving, and buy a temporary tag. Then I want the two of you to get the hell out of Texas and never come back! Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir!” we said together.
The judge handed the documents to the older Ranger who handed them to us.
“Now get the hell out of my office!”
The older Ranger took us to the County Clerk’s office; I wrote a check for $10.75 to purchase a temporary Texas tag. Cat put the tag on his car, and, even without Judge Klopp’s urging, we got the hell out of Texas as fast as Cat’s Chevy would take us.
The following evening, I was standing on an entrance ramp to Route 44 just outside St. Louis with my thumb out. It had taken me three rides to get there. The first ride was a car with four frat boys. They had been in Oklahoma City for a birthday party and were taking the party with them back to the University of Tulsa. I politely declined an invitation to join the party. I was delighted to escape the car with body and soul intact and no additional encounters with law enforcement.
A young woman with a ten-year-old daughter picked me up in Tulsa. My surprise faded as she began to hint around about needing gas money; she was clearly desperate and taking a chance. I gave her a five-dollar bill and she stopped for gas at the first opportunity. We parted ways in Springfield.
I got the final ride from a heavy set, middle-aged man with tired eyes. As I got into the car, I noticed a guitar case on the back seat. I asked him who played the guitar, and he showed me his left hand; all four finger tips were heavily callused. While he didn’t proposition me directly, I got the message that he would like to spend some quality time with me in the back seat. I pretended to be dense and eventually he let it go. He dropped me off in Webster Groves, perhaps to look for more willing companionship.
As I watched the cars go by, I thought Webster Groves, Webster Groves, where have I heard that name before. Nothing came to me. A half hour went by, no ride. Then I remembered; my parent’s best friends had moved to Webster Groves when I was in junior high. Were they still here? There was an ESSO station behind me with a public phone booth. It had was a St. Louis phone book with many pages missing. But there they were, “Mueller Donald & Betty”. I dropped a dime in the slot and dialed the number.
“Mueller residence,” said a male voice.
“Mr. Mueller?” I asked.
“No. This is his son. He’s not home.”
“Is this David?”
“Yes, it is.”
“David, this is Jaime Thompson calling.”
“Oh, hello Mr. Thompson,” he said excitedly.
“No, no, this is Jaime, Nelson Thompson’s son.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Is your mom there?”
“No, they’re out at a play.”
“Oh, darn.”
“What’s up?”
“Well, I’m hitching through town on my way back to Ohio, and I was hoping to crash at your place for the night.”
“Well, I’m sure that would be okay.”
“So, I am at the corner of South Elm and 44. How far away are you?”
“Ten minutes at the most.”
“On foot?”
“Oh, gee, I don’t know. Maybe twenty minutes. I can give you directions.”
I dug a pencil and paper out of my bag, wrote them down. I set off, north on South Elm Avenue and then right on East Lockwood Avenue.
Once I got away from the highway, it turned into a very nice, tree-lined, middle-class neighborhood. It was not one these communities created by a single developer; the homes were older and each was quite different from the last; most were modest three- or four-bedroom houses with well-tended lawns.
Left on North Bompart Avenue, past Newport Avenue, left on Clark Avenue. It was closer to forty minutes than twenty and pitch dark by the time I reached the Mueller home. I rang the doorbell and David answered the door.
“Come on in; we’re watching the ball game.” He led me to the family room where the Cards and the Reds were on the TV. He motioned to the sofa. He did not introduce me to his friend. He did not offer me a beer or even a glass of water. He didn’t say another word to me as long as the game was on. David never did have much use for me.
I stretched out on the sofa and fell asleep. I woke up when the game ended and David turned off the TV.
David said, “We’re going out drinking. See you later.” And they walked out the front door.
“Yeah, not if I see you first,” I said and laid back down on the sofa.
I woke up again when I heard the garage door opener kick into gear. It was then that I realized how awkward this was going to be. I stood up. The Muellers walked into the kitchen from the garage, and stopped short when they saw me, caution, suspicion, perhaps fear in their eyes.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” I said.
“No,” said Mr. Mueller.
“I’m Jaime Thompson, Nelson’s son.”
“Jaime?” said Mrs. Mueller. “Oh, my gosh.” She came over, put her hands on my shoulders and looked up at my face. “Pull you hair back for me, please.”
I gathered up my shoulder length hair with my right hand.
“There are those ears,” she said; my ears had always been prominent. “And your mother’s cheek bones.”
She put her arms around my waist and gave me a motherly hug. Mr. Mueller came over and shook my hand and pounded me on the back. Mrs. Mueller stepped back to look at me again.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’ve been out west this summer and I’m hitchhiking back to Ohio. My last ride dropped me nearby, so I called the house; David answered the phone and said it would be alright if I stopped by.”
“Where is David?” she asked.
“He and his friend went out.”
“They left you here alone?”
I shrugged. “I was asleep on the sofa; I was too tired to go anywhere.”
The look on Mrs. Mueller’s face made it clear what she thought about David leaving me here alone. “So, are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”
“Yeah, a sandwich would be great.”
“Oh, nonsense.” She looked in the refrigerator and the freezer. “How about a steak and salad?”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” I would have preferred the sandwich.
Mr. Mueller said, “I’ll start the fire,” and went out the patio door.
Mrs. Mueller took a small steak out of the freezer, ran warm water on the package to defrost it, and started on the salad.
Mr. Mueller came back in the house and asked, “Are your parents still in Europe?”
“Yes, but right now they are on the West Coast. I just spent a week with them visiting relatives in San Francisco and LA.”
She asked, “What does your mother think of that hair?”
“She probably hates it, but she hasn’t said. Speaking of hair, my mother dyed her hair blonde.”
“Really, how does it look?”
“Well, I got used to it after a while. I met their plane at the San Francisco airport, and, when I they came through the gate, I was shocked. And, like, the first thing my dad asks me is, ‘What do you think?’ with a big grin on his face. And I said something like, ‘I don’t know.’ He got so mad I thought he was going to punch me. But, gosh, she’s my mom, you know. You just want your mom to stay the same.”
Mrs. Mueller smiled.
They finished making my dinner and we sat down at the kitchen table. They asked me questions about Europe and my parents and my sisters. I told them about visiting my younger sister at the University of Arizona and my trip from Tucson to Oklahoma City.
“The creepiest part of the trip, though? Just as we got to the outskirts of Oklahoma City, this other guy, Cat says, ‘Do you know what I’d really like to do?’ I say, ‘No.’ He says, “Ever seen Death Wish with Charles Bronson?’ I say, ‘No’. He says, ‘That’s what I’d like to be: a killer for hire that hunts down bad guys.’”
They were quiet for a moment, then Mrs. Mueller asked, “Do your parents know what you’re doing? This hitchhiking thing?”
I considered my next words. “You know, I was flipping through a New Yorker magazine a couple years ago when I came across an article called something like In Praise of Hitchhiking. The author described a lot of sketchy situations he had gotten into while hitchhiking, but he had never been hurt or even felt threatened. At the end of the article, he did say that hitchhiking will let you know when it is time to stop.” I paused. “I’ve been giving that article a lot of thought the last couple of days.” I sighed. “I was wondering if I could get a ride to the bus station in St. Louis tomorrow?”
I was lying awake in the Mueller’s guestroom, thinking. For the last three days I’d been focused on the trip, not thinking, not feeling, not anticipating. I knew how the trip would end. I thought, Tomorrow I will board a bus. Tomorrow I will be in Columbus. Tomorrow I will see Ellie.
I thought about our semester; I thought about the disastrous summer; I thought about her letter and our telephone call; I thought about the letter I sent her a week later saying that I was probably going back to Ohio; I thought about our telephone conversation ten days ago when I called her from my uncle’s house in LA.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi, Ellie.”
“Jaime!’
“It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Yes! Yours, too!”
“So, you’re moving into your apartment tomorrow?”
“Yes!”
“That’s good. I’m sure you’ll be glad to be on your own.”
“Yes,” she said more guardedly.
“I mean you’ll be glad to be in a place of your own.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“Look, I called to tell you that I’m coming back.”
“Oh, Jaime! Oh, good!”
“So, here’s my plan. On Friday, I’ll fly from LA to Tucson to visit my sister. I’ll spend Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with her. On Tuesday, I’ll start hitchhiking. Will you pick me up when I get to Columbus?”
“Oh, sure! When will that be?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll call you on Saturday to let you know where I am.”
“Alright.”
“Ellie, I love you. You know that if it weren’t for you, there’s no way in the world I’d be going back to Ohio.”
“I know,” she said in a small voice. “I can’t wait to see you.”
“Well, I’ve spent enough of my uncle’s money. I’d better go.”
“See you soon.”
“Yes.” I paused, reluctant to let her go. “Goodbye.”
“’Bye.”
One more day. One more day. One more day.
Mrs. Mueller dropped me at the bus station just after noon. The express bus left at 1:05, which, with the time zone change, would get me to Columbus around 11:45. Ah, well, I’d still see Ellie tonight.
I went to the ticket window and paid $18.50 for my fare. I asked the cashier where the phones were, and she pointed to the booths along the wall behind me. The booths were ancient and actually had seats. I slid my bag under the phone, sat down, and dialed ‘0’. When the operator answered, I asked to make a collect call and gave her Ellie’s number. The phone rang, but there was no answer. I called again a few minutes before the bus left. Same result.
I went out the gate, put my bag down next to the luggage compartment and boarded the bus. Minutes later we were on our way. I couldn’t concentrate on my book, so I watched the silos, the farmhouses, the windmills and row after row of ripening corn go by in slow motion.
The bus stopped in Terre Haute, and I walked to the front of the bus. The bus driver was a tall, rangy black man with a sprinkling of gray hair under his cap.
“Excuse me,” I said to him.
He smiled, revealing a gap between his two front teeth. “Yessir?”
“I need to make a phone call. How long will the bus be here?”
“Let’s see,” he looked at his watch. “It’s 6:25 and we are due to leave at 6:40. Better make it quick.”
“Thanks.” I hustled into the terminal, found a pay phone. No answer.
I hurried back to the bus, and watched the déjà vu scenery until we stopped in Indianapolis. The driver stood up and announced a 45-minute dinner stop. “Please be back on the bus by 8:40.”
I tried Ellie again and there was still no answer. I went to the lunch counter and bought a ham and cheese sandwich, a bag of chips and a lemonade. I sat down on the one of the darkly stained wooden benches. I was just finishing my food when a baseball hit me in the shoulder and almost landed in my lemonade. I caught the baseball as it bounced off the bench. A ten-year-old boy with a blonde burr cut ran up to where I was sitting.
“Hey, mister, can I have my ball back.”
“Sure, but go play catch someplace else.”
“I’m not playing catch. I’m trying to get my brother’s kickball down.” He pointed to a nearby pier that supported the mezzanine and the roof. I stood and looked up to where the boy was pointing; sure enough, there was a kickball sitting on a flat space at top of the pier, just below the level of the mezzanine.
“How did it get up there?” A second, younger boy joined us.
“We were playing up on that balcony, and it bounced over the railing. Then somebody came and kicked us out. I was trying to knock it out with my baseball. I guess we lost it, cuz I can’t throw that high.”
I hefted the ball in my hand. “Would you like me to try?”
“Sure.”
“Is this your brother?” I asked, pointing the younger boy. The older nodded. “Okay,” I said to the younger boy, pointing to the other side of the pier, “you go over there and catch whatever comes that way.” I turned to the older boy. “You stand here to keep the baseball from going into the benches.”
They took their positions and I turned to warn a middle-aged couple sitting on a bench nearby; they nodded and turned to watch. I took a position where I had a clear view of the ball and loosened my arm. Then I wound up and fired the baseball in the direction of the kickball; it careened off the facing of the mezzanine and plowed into the kickball. The older boy caught the baseball on one bounce; the kickball bounced over the younger boy’s head, but he chased it down with no trouble. No one was more surprised than me.
The older boy said, “Thanks, mister.”
“You’re welcome.”
They went to join their mother on the other side of the terminal. I turned back to my seat, and the middle-aged man caught my eye.
“Good throw.”
“As my father likes to say, ‘It’s better to be lucky than good.’” He laughed.
I called Ellie again; still no answer.
I climbed back onto the bus and night had already fallen. Once we left the city, there was nothing to see out the window, not even the monotonous, endless rows of corn. As we jostled ever eastward into the endless night, I worried about where Ellie had been all day. I started to wonder if we had any future together. She had made it clear that I couldn’t live with her, not in that little rural town where she’d be teaching. Where would I live? What kind of work could I get? For the first time since I’d left Ohio, my doubts, my fears, my loneliness, my frustration crept into my heart. I might have cried, but I didn’t. For the first time that I day I was able to take some comfort from my book.
The bus pulled off the interstate, and I blinked at the lights as the driver turned north onto South Fourth Street. Minutes later we pulled into the bus terminal between Rich and Town. I waited several minutes while the driver sorted through the luggage.
I went to the bank of pay phones and called Ellie’s number. While the phone was ringing I had time to wonder what I would do if she still didn’t answer the phone. Who did I know in Columbus that I could call at this time of night?
“Hello?”
“Will you accept a collect call from Jaime Thompson?” said the operator.
“Yes,” she said. Then “Jaime!”
“Hi, Ellie. How are you?”
“I’m great, but I thought you were going to call me on Saturday.”
I expected her to be glad to hear from me. As I struggled for a response, I looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was just after midnight.
“It is Saturday!”
She laughed, “So, it is. Where are you?”
“I’m at the bus station in Columbus.”
“You are!?”
“Yeah, I got some great rides, and, when I got to St. Louis, I decided to take the bus to Columbus.”
“Oh!”
“I called you a bunch of times today, every time the bus stopped. Where were you?”
“I was in and out a lot running errands, and this evening I went shopping in Lancaster for apartment stuff. I had dinner there and didn’t get back until pretty late. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until tomorrow. Or today. Oh, you know what I mean.”
“Sure. So, can you come and get me?”
“Yes, of course. How do I get there?”
I gave her the directions and she read them back to me.
“I’m excited to see you,” she said
“Yes, me, too.”
I don’t really know how I made it through the next hour. I was bone-tired from four days on the road. I couldn’t stand or sit or pace. The air-conditioned terminal was too cold. On the street it was too muggy, and the vehicle exhaust was nauseating. I was aware of every heartbeat, every blink of my eyes. My socks were damp, my underwear was binding, the stubble from my beard irritated my skin, my glasses were smeared and dirty, the stink from my tee-shirt was unbearable.
After forty-five minutes, I went out and stood on 4th Street. There was a cutout in the sidewalk for cars to pull in temporarily and park. I stood looking south at the one-way traffic coming north. I willed her to come. I willed her to come. I WILLED her come. She didn’t come.
Finally, a green Dodge Dart pulled into the cutout. I tried to open the car door, but it was locked. She had trouble with her seatbelt. Finally, she opened the door, and leaped into my arms.
“It’s you.” she said. “It’s really you.”
I said, “I’d forgotten how tiny you are!”
She looked up at me with her cherry-cheeked smile. And I knew. And I could see that she knew.
We were home at last.