Лоуренс Блок - Random Walk - A Novel for a New Age

But they’d sleep somewhere, he was sure of that. Meanwhile it was another perfect day, the sun in view much of the time, with clouds scudding across its face just enough to keep the heat down.

Would whatever was protecting them keep them from being badly sunburned? Could a force field keep out ultraviolet rays? That was another question he couldn’t answer, and it was tough to play a game when you had no clear understanding of the rules.

Without conscious agreement, they took turns walking with Sara. She would walk on the left, her right hand in her companion’s. There was no hesitation in her step, and her partner did not have to warn her of approaching cars. She seemed to be well enough aware of her immediate environment even without seeing it.

Walking with Jody, she said, “I hope I’m not slowing you down.”

“You’re doing fine, ma’am.”

“You can call me Sara, Jody.”

“Hell, I know that, but it’s rare enough I get the impulse to act respectful. At first I thought I had to tell you about every piece of gravel on the ground in front of you, but you know just where to put your foot, don’t you?”

“Do you look down all the time when you walk, Jody?”

“No, ’course not, but I’ll drop my eyes now an’ then so I don’t step off a curb or into a ditch. It’s sort of like you get the same message without dropping your eyes.”

“I think that may be what happens.” She smiled. “This is all new to me, you know. I still had some sight until yesterday afternoon.”

They stepped onto the shoulder at the approach of a truck not unlike the Datsun he’d left at the Circle K. Jody gave a wave and the old boy at the wheel raised his index finger in acknowledgment.

“Hope my brother got the truck all right,” he said. “You haven’t got the kind of second sight to check on a blue Datsun pickup parked a few miles north of Beaver Marsh, have you? I just locked her up and walked away from her.”

“That was very brave of you, Jody.”

“You think so, ma’am? I don’t know as I’d put it in the same class with getting in the ring with a bull.”

“A bullfighter knows what to expect. You were walking into the pure unknown.”

“The road to Bend’s a far cry from the dark side of the moon. I could about drive it in my sleep. I see your point all the same, not knowing what I was getting myself into. Thing is, I knew what I was getting out of, and it didn’t take a whole lot of courage to walk away from that.”

“Perhaps not.”

“What did I have? Working for my brother, plus whatever pickup jobs came along, hauling trash to the dump for somebody or putting up somebody’s storm windows in the fall and taking ’em down in the spring. Living alone in a trailer that don’t look a whole lot like a model home. I’m married.”

“Yes.”

“She walked out on me. Went home to her mother.”

“Yes.”

“Easy to tell things to a person who can’t look you in the eye. I slapped her around some, Carlene. I don’t know as it’s what you’d call wife-beating, but I did slap her some. You knew that, didn’t you, ma’am?”

“Not exactly.”

“What’s that mean? ‘Not exactly.’ You can see things about people, can’t you, ma’am?”

“Certain things. I can see” — she searched for the words — “I can see the picture of a person’s life.”

“You mean like a movie?”

“No,” she said. “More like a huge oil painting, so large and with so much detail that you can’t take it all in at once, but you’re seeing it all at once.”

“That’s hard to imagine.”

“I know.”

He thought about it. “Well,” he said, “somewhere in that picture, whether you can see it or not, there’s me giving Carlene a crack in the mouth. I’m not real proud of that.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I never did it that I hadn’t had a few beers, but I don’t guess that’s any excuse. My father drank beer and whiskey every day of his life and he never laid a hand on my mother.”

“He ever lay a hand on you, Jody?”

“Ha! Wasn’t usually a hand. The strap, more than likely. But I don’t know as I ever got it that I didn’t deserve it.”

“Did Carlene deserve it?”

“A woman never deserves to have a man hit her.”

“Does a child deserve to get hit with a strap?”

“Well, see, I was a pretty bad kid. I did things I shouldn’t oughta have done.”

“Oh?”

He felt something shift deep within his center. “I didn’t deserve it,” he said, his voice like a bell. “He thought he had to hit me but he was wrong. I didn’t need to get hit with no strap.”

“Can you forgive him, Jody?”

“Oh, shit. Oh, oh, shit.”

“Can you forgive yourself for hitting Carlene?”

He hiked his T-shirt out of the waistband of his jeans, used the bottom of it to wipe tears from his eyes. He said, “You know something? She wanted me to hit her. I never knew that until this minute. That’s how we picked each other. She picked me to slap her around and I picked her to have someone to slap. How come I never knew that before?”

“Can you forgive her, Jody? And can you forgive yourself?”

“Look at me, I’m crying. I’m ashamed of myself, carrying on like this.”

“Never be ashamed to cry, Jody.” She put her arms around him. “Can you forgive yourself and everybody else? Can you forgive your father for hitting you and Carlene for wanting to be hit? Can you forgive your mother? Can you forgive the obstetrician for not letting you be born the way you wanted? Can you forgive everybody who ever tried to push you around?”

“Do I have to, ma’am?”

“What do you think?”

“Tell me.”

“No, you tell me, Jody.”

His head was on her shoulder, his big chest heaving with sobs. “Oh, God,” he said. “I forgive… I forgive everybody. Oh, Jesus. Oh, dear Jesus.”

“It’s all right, Jody,” she said. “You’re all right now. Everything’s all right.”

Later he said, “I don’t know what-all happened back there.”

“You let go of some stuff.”

“Is that what I did? I must of been carryin’ it a fair spell.”

“All your life, Jody. How do you feel now?”

“Like a house with the doors and windows open. I don’t know. I guess I feel good.”

“You can trust the feeling.”

“I guess. Ma’am, did you say you were a psychologist?”

“A sort of a psychologist. I had a master’s in social work, I did counseling.”

“What you did just now, is this the sort of thing you used to do?”

“I didn’t do anything just now, Jody. You did it all.”

“Well, I sure never did it before, ma’am, and here I spend an hour holding your hand and damn if I don’t fall apart. Did you used to have this happen in your work?”

She waited a moment before replying. Then she said, “I used to try to have this happen in my work. But it hardly ever did.”

He nodded. He said, “This whole thing that’s happening. The four of us walking. It’s special, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s special.”

Shortly after sunset Guthrie suggested they look for a place to bed down for the night. He wasn’t sure of the distance, but he estimated that they were at least two hours west of Millican, with no guarantee that there would be motel rooms available there. “Besides,” he said, “it’ll be dark before we get there, and I know Sara doesn’t like to walk in the dark.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “I’m afraid of the dark.”

They found the perfect spot a quarter of a mile down the road in the middle of a small grove of trees. Someone had camped there before, or at least picnicked; there was the residue of a fire in the center of a clearing, with a small supply of firewood and tinder stacked alongside. Guthrie got a fire started and they sat around it and ate the food they’d bought at a store a few miles back. They sang songs, and then Thom suggested that somebody tell a ghost story. Guthrie told one about a dead boy who came back to life, improvising towards the end because he couldn’t remember the original ending. Thom wanted more, but nobody knew any more.