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

“Just this afternoon—”

“I got rid of a kid, I know, and now I’m talking about getting pregnant again. I don’t mean tonight, all right? I don’t mean right away. I just mean it’s something to think about, okay? Because you’re healthy and decent-looking and smart and you’ve got good genes. There isn’t any insanity in your family, is there?”

“I’m the only one.”

“And you’ve got a sense of humor, and that’s important, because who would want to have a humorless kid? And you’re, fuck, you’re nice , Guthrie. And I think if you’re gonna have a kid, the father ought to be nice . You know?”

His shift at Paddy Mac’s was supposed to start at six, but he’d called and told Harry he might be late. It was close to eight by the time he got there. He took over behind the stick, and after a few minutes he had his rhythm and he was into it.

He’d stopped at Kit’s for a cup of coffee and between that and the day’s events he was pretty wired, so he had himself a couple ounces of scotch to take the edge off, then nursed two bottles of St. Pauli Girl all the way to closing time. The crowd was enough to keep you busy but not enough to drive you crazy, the drunks didn’t cause any trouble, and all in all it was the right kind of night to come down from the days craziness with.

After he closed up he poured himself an Irish Mist and sipped at it while he swept up and cleared the register for Harry’s shift the next day. He drove home, took a hot shower, and went to bed.

He slept late the next morning, made himself a cup of coffee, then went out for a big breakfast at the Greek place on the next block. When he got home the phone was ringing, but it quit before he could answer it. A little later it rang again and it was Kit — she felt fine, he’d been wonderful, and she was sorry she’d been so crazy.

“You’d think you would want a woman friend along for something like that,” she said, “but I couldn’t think of a woman in this town I wanted for company yesterday. You know, there are certain occasions when only an ex-lover will do.”

“I know.”

“Assuming it’s an ex-lover you’re on good terms with. As opposed to, say, Marvin the Asshole.”

“Funny, he always speaks well of you.”

“He never even spoke well of me when we were an item. Anyway, thanks, huh?”

“Forget it.”

“And what I was babbling about toward the end there, that proposal I made for our biochemical collaboration, just forget I said anything, okay?”

“It’s forgotten, Kit.”

“Good,” she said. “But, uh, give it some thought, Guthrie.”

“Forget about it but give it some thought.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

He spent the afternoon at home watching a baseball game. NBC had the Mariners playing the Yankees, and he watched it without paying too much attention. He got to the bar in time to start his shift at six. The crowd was typical for a Saturday night, a little too raucous and a little too loud, but that was part of the deal, it came with the territory. In the quiet bars with light crowds you couldn’t make any money.

You could take a walk .

He didn’t hear that voice again, he’d only heard it the once, but he remembered it and he found himself thinking about it. At first it seemed to be saying that he could step out of his life, that he could walk away from it and everything and everybody in it. But he’d done that, for God’s sake, walked out of one job and into another, out of one apartment and into another, out of one town and into another. Paddy McGuire’s was as good as any place he was likely to work, and tending bar was as good an occupation as he was likely to find for himself. It wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he went to college, but it was hard to remember what he might have had in mind, and he suspected none of them had been things he’d wanted, just things he’d thought he was supposed to want.

Roseburg wasn’t heaven, but neither was it hell. He had lived in Eugene and he could move back there. He’d never lived in Portland but he liked Portland and he could go there. But he couldn’t think of any reason to do that. He had lived, years ago, in California, and he had been born and raised in Ohio, but there was no reason to believe that his life would improve if he returned to either of those places.

There was no real reason even to believe it would be different. It was like the car. He could get a new car, or a newer old car, but he wouldn’t garage it or run it through a car wash regularly, and he’d forget to get the oil changed, and before too long he’d re-create the car he already had.

Around eleven-thirty a girl at the end of the bar started finding excuses to chat with him, and an hour before closing she yawned theatrically and said she guessed she’d better be heading on home. She was looking for him to suggest she hang around until he closed the place, but he decided not to get the hint. “Well, I guess I’d better go,” she said finally, annoyed. Her hips rolled as she walked, perhaps to show him what he was missing.

He went home alone and went to bed sober. Lying there, waiting for sleep to come, he felt on the verge of something.

If there were dreams, he didn’t remember them. But when he woke the idea was simply there. He knew what he was going to do.

He gave it a day. He did a load of wash at the laundromat, found an old backpack on a high shelf in the closet. There was a state map in the Buick’s glove compartment. It had been there when he bought the car. He spread it out on his kitchen table and sat staring at it, then folded it and tucked it into the zippered compartment on the front of the backpack.

Not a very large backpack. He’d originally picked it up to use as a book bag at college, and he’d hardly used it since. Surprising he still owned it.

Sunday was his night off. He stayed home and watched Sixty Minutes and Murder, She Wrote and an early Woody Alien movie on cable. He felt keyed up and thought he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep, but he fell asleep early and woke up early, and awoke knowing that he hadn’t changed his mind, that he was really going to do it.

He went to his bank, drew all but ten dollars from his savings account, left enough in the checking account to cover the checks that hadn’t cleared yet. At a surplus store on Front Street he bought a nylon money belt and looked at hiking boots. He tried on a couple pairs but they were stiff and uncomfortable compared to his running shoes and he figured they’d take forever to break in.

Besides, he wasn’t going to be climbing mountains or slogging through swamps. He went to the sporting goods store down the block and picked up a new pair of Nikes and let it go at that.

He packed socks and underwear and T-shirts and an extra flannel shirt and a sweatshirt, then returned to the surplus store for a light nylon windbreaker, presumably waterproof, and a cotton hat. He saw a canteen, an aluminum flask in a khaki canvas wrapper and sling, and thought it was probably a good idea. He looked at other camping gear, but it all seemed complicated, and a pain in the ass to carry.

He went over to Cactus Jack’s for a bowl of chili and a beer, then drove to Paddy McGuire’s and got there around one-thirty. He told Harry he was leaving, that he wouldn’t be coming in that night.

“That’s a lot of notice,” Harry said. “That’s really great, man.”

“Something came up.”

“Yeah, right. We straight financially? You paid yourself from the till Sa’day night, right?”

He nodded. “I was thinking,” he said. “You want to buy my car?”

“Your car?”

“You know. The Buick.”

“Don’t you need it, man?”