"Go, Wallace! And don't ever look back!"

I turned away from him, that electricity crackling all through me, and took off running.

Chapter Twenty.

You Are The best thing about pollution is the brilliant sunset it creates. Behind Uncle Skad, the entire time he was talking, I kept looking at that violent red sunset smeared across the sky. Now, as I ran down the other side of the hill, the sun had completely disappeared beneath the horizon. The whole sky glowed an amazing pink color. I was glad I had Skad's blessing. I mean, I'm glad he didn't seem to mind me going. I knew he was probably just a lonely old guy, as eager for friends and company as I should have been. But I wasn't. I meant what I had said to Uncle Skad. I didn't know where the h.e.l.l I was going, I just felt like it had to be done alone.

I did feel kind of bad, but it wasn't anything Skad made me feel. It was something from inside. It was like, no matter how much I liked a person when I first met them, it was only a matter of time before that feeling turned into one of bitter hatred. I didn't want to have to end up hating Uncle Skad. It was like that with the parents. After sixteen years with the parents, even if they had've been decent human beings, I still couldn't have stood them any longer. It was the same at school. Like old blob Pearlbottom. I just hated her more and more every year. I didn't like feeling that way at all. And I didn't want to let myself feel like that about Uncle Skad.

At that moment I didn't hate anybody, I simply ran the pink twilight into night. I ran until I couldn't run anymore which, I guess, really wasn't for that long. My lungs itched. My legs shook. Even when I slowed down and started walking, my legs wobbled each time my feet hit the ground. I didn't know where the h.e.l.l I was. I couldn't even see the smokestacks from Milltown. At least I was away from that G.o.dforsaken place.

It smelled good out there in the countryside. Everything was coming alive, clawing its way out of the ground, breathing color into the world. It wouldn't be long before everything was in bloom. I looked up at the moon, nearly full but not quite. Black clouds wrapped themselves around it only to be quickly yanked away. And somewhere, under that good night smell was another scent, more familiar to spring, the smell of a storm coming up from behind me. Thunder rumbled. It was going to come up quick.

My circ.u.mstances weren't as good as they were last time. Although I didn't have the handicap of two merciless beatings, I also no longer had the comfort of walking along the smooth asphalt and unflinching direction of the state route either. I'd started out going west, into the sun, but had no real idea of which direction I now traveled. Where was I? It really seemed to be the middle of nowhere. There were no lights. That meant there weren't any houses, either. No roads. I couldn't hear any cars. How far away from people was I? It didn't seem like it could be very far. Ohio may not be the most populous state, but it was difficult to drive more than twenty minutes without seeing some sign of civilization.

I tried to gather up the energy to skip, hearing a Bobby DeHaven tune in my head. That made me feel not so alone for awhile. Only it wasn't really the feeling of being alone that bothered me. How could it when I had brought the loneliness upon myself? It seemed like sticking your head in the oven and complaining about the heat. What really bothered me was the fear of being devoured. I mean there was a moment there when I thought the earth was just going to open up and swallow me whole. A shiver ran through my body. I stopped skipping, put my head down and walked as briskly as possible.

Lightning shot across the sky. Thunder roared. The rain came down in huge fat splashes. I was thoroughly soaked in under a minute. It wasn't like the rain just hit me and rolled off. It was more like the rain penetrated me, tearing its way through my skin and soaking my flimsy soul. I dragged along. And what was it for? What the h.e.l.l was any of it for? And how could I go from feeling so great one minute and then, a half an hour later, become nearly suicidal?

Except I didn't really know if I actually wanted to kill myself or if there was some m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic instinct inside me enjoying it. There was some feeling, some belief I was raised with that made it seem like the more a person suffered, the more rewards they reaped. That belief, like many others I'd been raised with, was a huge blobby lie. Did I really think I was going to get any type of reward from suffering? It seemed like almost everyone I'd known had suffered a lot and they didn't seem to get any rewards. Racecar's legs fell off, the mother had a stroke, and they almost lost their child and what were they rewarded with? a.s.sa.s.sination? Death? It seemed like Uncle Skad had suffered and he was a lonely old b.u.m. Where were his rewards? And when does the suffering end? Wasn't that what suicide was? The school slogans and ad campaigns and all that f.u.c.kness always said suicide wasn't a way out but it really was. It was an end to all the suffering. Only, the idea of it seemed absurd. It seemed particularly absurd at the moment because, not only could I never imagine actually killing myself, I didn't know how I would feasibly go about doing it.

I don't think suicide is something you plan for. I think one day you just have to say to yourself, "This is it, I can't take it anymore." No, in the end, suicide is something performed with a great amount of haphazard w.i.l.l.y-nilliness. So, if at that moment, I really did want to kill myself, what was I going to do it with? I had the lighter Drifter Ken had given me but I didn't reckon it would do a lot of good in the present deluge. I briefly considered grabbing hunks of soggy gra.s.s and shoving them down my throat. How many people killed themselves by intentionally choking to death? There had to be a puddle big enough to drown myself in somewhere. But I knew that wouldn't happen. Maybe I would just flop down and die of exposure. That was more my style-to just lie back and let G.o.d, nature, and man gang f.u.c.k the holy h.e.l.l out of me. With the grimmest of fate, I saw myself eventually dying out there in the middle of that neverending field, vultures descending down to consume me, only to later s.h.i.t my remains out somewhere over Milltown. Maybe if I were really lucky, nature would invent some way to shove me back up the Wig's rotten birth hole.

There was something pulling me along. I could hate everything as much as I wanted but something told me that, somehow, I was going to get wherever it was I was going. My shoes were untied. I had always worn Velcro shoes and had no idea how to retie them. But even as I felt the pitiful dead man's shoes dangling at the ends of my feet, I didn't think that would be my fate. No, if it was suffering I was after, I was suddenly, hopelessly aware that I would have a full life of it heaped upon me.

Not only would I get to go through life as a freakishly ugly social half-wit, I would get to go through life as a freakishly ugly social half-wit with horns. With horns? The ridiculousness of it all was astounding, overwhelming. I would be forced to live up in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe to wander around with a pillowcase tied over my head like the f.u.c.king Elephant Man. Then I thought of the opposite. What if I were successful? A big house, a beautiful wife, smart children, and a great job. How old would that get? The people at the office would undoubtedly start calling me something like "Coat Rack" or some f.u.c.kness like that. And they would say it completely harmless like, but every time they said it I'd want to burn the f.u.c.king place down. At home, I'd be completely unable to play Santa Claus because I would be, so obviously, a reindeer. And the neighborhood kids would make me crawl around on all fours while they mounted me with their p.i.s.s-stained bottoms. The wife would constantly hound me to get cosmetic surgery. That's when I would kill myself. When people ceased to be openly aware of my obvious faults. If people weren't going to openly display their derision and hostility, then I was certain they would be doing it behind my back. That would give me overwhelming feelings of anxiety which would probably be a lot worse than the overwhelming feelings of anger.

That force kept pulling me through the raining dark. My skin was completely numbed. What was it for? Shouldn't I be defining myself instead of this battery of ignorant questions? I had been a child. Wasn't it time for me to choose what kind of man I wanted to become? That rope kept pulling me. I was violently exhausted. f.u.c.k it, I thought, let the rope decide.

In front of me, I saw a soft yellow light. Where there was light, there were people. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around the horns. The only thing I could ask for would be to find a nice dry place to refuel in and then pa.s.s through the town as unnoticed as possible. If that had to be my life, wandering from place to place, then so be it. But if I had to do it, it wasn't going to be with those f.u.c.king horns on my head. At least let me slip by unnoticed, I thought. If it meant living like a wild man in the woods, that was fine. I didn't want any more fights. I didn't want to struggle with people anymore. h.e.l.l, at that point, I didn't know what the f.u.c.k I wanted.

I wanted to get to the light. That's all I really wanted and the rope pulled me faster and I sped up into a trot, the light getting closer and closer and, around the original light, other lights. I became aware of nothing else but that light-I focused on it and sped up more and more, running faster than I ever had.

The air was cold. My breath plumed out around me as I ran. Fog rolled around its gray self, spreading the yellow light out. One of those other lights approached quickly from my left. I strained to stop running and my knees buckled, weak legs tossing me to the soaked ground. Beside me I heard the quick sluicing slap of tires and felt the cold grimy spray coat my face.

I stood up, my legs shaking. My whole body was shaking, the light convulsions rattling the burning sensation around in my lungs. The yellow sign was right across the street. It was one of those cheap yellow advertising billboards. The kind rolled out on wheels for special occasions announced in blocky black letters. The sign read, at the top: FARMERTOWN COMMUNITY CHURCH.

And below that: CH_ _CH.

WHATS MISSING?.

I wanted to laugh with the ridiculousness of it all. This is what I had run and run for?

The church loomed behind the sign. It seemed too grand for such a low budget sign. The steeple looked like it was stabbing the moon, jaggedly erect atop the bell tower. Houses sat on either side of the church and, looking around, it was surrounded by a whole tiny town. Farmertown. This was as close to my birth I could get without an uncomfortable proximity to the mother's v.a.g.i.n.a. Farmertown was where I was brought home. Standing there, I couldn't really remember much of my childhood here. Had it been happier than Milltown? I didn't know. Whenever the memories did come back, they seemed like bright and sunny things-yellow-filtered visions of a time maybe only made happier through my innocence. This was kind of where I wanted to go, really my last stop before moving on to the rest of the sad and lonely world, and something had brought me here. That rope had dragged me at breakneck speed and then stopped me so I wouldn't be devoured by the road.

Cautiously, I crossed the road. The rain still beat down. A certain warmth emanated from the sign. Shivering there in the rain, I wanted to crawl inside that sign. I put my hand on the top of it, taking note that it didn't have a large blinking arrow, braced myself, and vomited. The vomit splashed steaming on the asphalt. A wave of dizziness. .h.i.t me and I joined the vomit. I looked up at the moon and the fat drops of glistening rain dropping down onto my face. I felt intensely comfortable. I had a million thoughts in a second and was completely incapable of seizing upon a single one of them. And then I was gone.

Chapter Twenty-one.

Maria Thiklet I lay there for a long time, without opening my eyes, feeling good and warm. I kept smelling the comforting smell of food but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then a sinking feeling overwhelmed me. I thought I was back home. The rain became the blue light that sometimes filled my room. I sc.r.a.ped around on my asphalt cot. Somewhere, off in the distance, I couldn't tell if the sounds were screeching car wheels or blaring railroad horns or the high-pitched strumbling of the mother, come to wake me up and pull me through another day of h.e.l.l. Then I flinched because I could have sworn Racecar was parked right up next to the bed and sticking that cigarette filter into my cheek. This made me awake with a violent start.

I brushed the filter away and sat up, trying to focus my eyes and stop the spinning. Being awake didn't help lessen the confusion.

I sat on a couch. Sitting across from me in a rocking chair was a honey-haired woman. I could tell by the way she kept her hands drawn up to her chest she had been poking me in the face. They were somehow drawn up guiltily. A thick blanket covered my legs. I felt sweltering and my eyes must have burned into the woman across from me. Not out of any type of hatred, just an intense effort to try and make some sense out of what was happening or what had happened. Studying her, I decided she was remarkably pretty. Her hair hung down past her shoulders, straight and shiny. The light wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, although she tried to hide them, put her age somewhere in her thirties. Her eyes were a wonderful blue.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

A dry croak was the only thing I could get to come out and I had to cough it away. "Good, I guess."

She reached out toward me and placed the back of her hand against my forehead. I flinched.

"You were burning up earlier. Feel a little cooler now."

I reached my hands up to my head. The horns were unsheathed. She didn't look up at them. She just kept staring into my eyes like, instead of asking me any questions, she was just going to stare into my brain and get the answers out that way.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Wallace Black."

"I'm Maria Thiklet. It's nice to meet you. I hope you don't mind. I threw that old shirt out and put one of my husband's shirts on you."

"Thank you."

"You feel good enough to eat?"

That was the smell. It smelled great. That would be like the third time I had eaten that day. I was beginning to learn, even though I'd never regarded food with any importance other than survival, most people planned their days around it. Like the electricity that came from Skad, that drew me to Skad, there was something I was picking up from this woman that said I really shouldn't be there, succulent scent of the food or not.

"You really don't have to. Thanks, but I'll just get my shirt and go." I had a hard time standing up from the couch. Two or three times I got almost up to my feet before collapsing backward.

"You still don't look too good," she said. "You should stay here tonight. We have plenty of room. Come on into the kitchen and eat something. One of us can drive you wherever you need to go tomorrow."

Drive, the word sounded like time travel. How much ground could I cover if I had a car? The promise of this advanced transportation kind of canceled out my previous feelings. After all, if I left in the morning, it couldn't really be considered staying. Besides, this woman seemed h.e.l.lbent on nurturing something. I was probably just another wounded dog found by the side of the road.

I followed Maria, watching her long skirt flap around her ankles.

I admired the interior of the house as we crossed from the living room into the kitchen. It was impossible for their house to be any cleaner than the parents' but there was something about it that seemed nicer, homier, more decorated. There was something about the soft yellowish lighting that seemed a little bit depressing but that was only because the parents' house was usually as brightly lit as the set of a p.o.r.no. I tried not to look around too much so she didn't think I was some sort of criminal, casing the joint. The kitchen was much brighter and less depressing. She motioned toward the huge table and said, "Take a seat."

I sat down. I wondered why she was being so incredibly nice since she looked like she had the potential to be a huge blob. She put the plate of food in front of me and I was beginning to think that, since I'd never been good at just walking up to people and introducing myself to them, I should pa.s.s out somewhere within close proximity to them. Apparently she had a.s.sumed I must be incredibly hungry. The entire plate was covered; half with some sort of thick beef stew, the other half with warm cornbread.

"I hope you like it," she said. There were six chairs at the table. She sat me at one end and pulled back the chair on my right and closest to me, sitting down and crossing her legs.

I felt kind of uncomfortable. The family hadn't eaten together since I was like maybe eight. The burden of small talk nagged at the back of my mind. She just sat there staring at me. By glancing at her in brief snippets, I couldn't really tell if she was more concerned or more afraid. I suddenly panicked, thinking she had maybe called the police on me. My hands trembled as I brought a forkful of food to my mouth.

"You're shaking," she said.

"I'm okay," I said, then, "Slight palsy."

"I'm so sorry."

Then I took a deep breath and asked, "Did you call the police?"

She giggled, "Why would I do that?" And then, maybe because for a brief moment she felt unprotected, like maybe I had just given her a reason to think she should have called the police, she said, "Besides, Boo's gonna be home any minute."

"Thank goodness," I said.

"Boo's my husband. His name's Robert Thiklet but everybody calls him Boo." A strange look came over her face. Then she said, "I don't know why."

She got up and went over to the counter, grabbed a coffee mug from the cabinet and poured herself a cup of coffee.

"You want some coffee, Wallace?"

"No, thanks."

"Are you thirsty? You want some c.o.ke?"

"Sure. Thanks."

She opened the refrigerator and grabbed a can of c.o.ke, sitting it down in front of me. I pulled the tab and drank down half the can. Maria came back over to the table and sat down. She slowly sipped her coffee, staring out into s.p.a.ce with those calm blue eyes.

"Are you a runaway?" she asked.

"I think I'm too old to be a runaway."

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"A sixteen-year-old should still be at home with their parents. That's what I think. Are you running away from them?"

"I guess I'm running away from everything."

She paused, taking another sip from her mug, looking as though she was trying to find an answer to that.

"Me and Boo can't have any kids. That's why there aren't any running around. If I could have kids we'd have a whole bunch of them. I guess your parents aren't very nice to you, huh?"

"It's not just about them."

"When I was your age, I think I wanted to run away, too. That's probably why I got married so early. Boo and me got married when I was seventeen. He was twenty-two. My parents had to give permission for us to get married. They were probably glad to get me out of the house. We had to go to Tennessee to do it."

I briefly thought about this sober-looking woman giving anyone a hard time.

"What about you? You gotta girlfriend?"

"Good Lord, no." Look at me, I thought.

Then Maria fell silent again, staring at me.

"Dinner's really good. Thanks."

"You're very welcome. I guess I found you about the right time. I have dinner waiting every night for Boo. I don't mind being the one who cooks and cleans, though. All I do is some work at the church. He should be home by now but sometimes he goes out with the boys. He's gotta unwind, you know. Boo works for Korl out in Milltown. He works an awful lot. You work?"

Not a day in my life, I thought. "No," I said.

"Boo works real hard. He's already paid for this house."

I was glad to be eating so I had something to do. Otherwise I would have been thrashing all around with boredom, the patented vapidity threatening to suck me in. It sounded like Maria was talking from a script, saying all the things she knew she was supposed to be saying. Except, when I looked up and glimpsed into her eyes, there was something there that said maybe she knew this life was a joke. I'd been awake and conscious in the house for under an hour and I already had the feeling the only thing this house had to offer was comfort. The stagnancy clung to my skin with sticky little teeth. I had an impulse to reach out and shake Maria. Where was the pa.s.sion here? I sc.r.a.ped up the last remnants from my plate and fatigue overwhelmed me. I could have dropped right out of the chair and went to sleep right there on the floor.

"You look tired," Maria said.

"A little, yeah," I said, my eyes drooping with drowsiness.

"You're more than welcome to stay here tonight. Like I said. We have a guest bedroom. Keep waiting for the day we can turn it into a nursery."

"Can I really?" I asked. I was genuinely surprised. It seemed unusual to drag me in from outside and feed me dinner but it was completely unexpected that she invited me to stay for the night.

"Sure. You look like you've been through a lot. We humans hafta help each other out. Besides, you don't look like you'd hurt a flea. Follow me."

I stood up, sluggish, and followed her back through the vaguely depressing and dimly lit family room all the way to the far end where brown carpeted steps led to the upstairs. Maria turned a light switch and I followed her up the steps, my legs straining. Sleep will do me good, I thought. A night of genuine rest. It occurred to me that I hadn't slept on an actual bed for years.

I followed Maria down the hall. She pushed a door to her right open and said, "That's the bathroom up here. If you wake up in the middle of the night you don't have to go all the way downstairs." She took a couple more steps and opened a door. She stepped across the threshold and turned on a light. "This is the guest bedroom. Just make yourself at home. Me and Boo'll be right across the hall if you need anything. We'll probably just eat dinner when he gets home and then we'll probably go to bed."

"Thank you."

I walked into the bedroom and kind of stood there. She took a step toward me and looked at me with that curious stare. She put her hand on my forehead and said, "Still kind of warm."

"I feel fine. Really. I'm sure sleep'll do me a lot of good. Thanks."

"I guess I'll just leave you alone, then."

She shut the door behind her when she left. I wandered around the room, kind of pacing, feeling the plush carpet mush beneath my feet, looking around the room. A small lamp with what I figured must have been a 40-watt bulb illuminated the room. The walls were primarily yellow, light pink flowers s.p.a.ced throughout at wide intervals.

The dresser shoved against the wall had a large sparkly mirror on top of it. I avoided looking at myself. I dragged the dark green comforter off the bed and threw it over the dresser. The one window in the room looked over the churchyard. The church itself was a huge brick thing. I noticed the graveyard behind it. It was one of the old graveyards with the gargantuan tombstones sprinkled with a few heavy square mausoleums. I waited for the melancholy feelings to hit me, that giant wave of sadness. But standing there I didn't feel much of anything at all. Like my emotions had just run up on a brick wall. I seized the opportunity. I pulled back the skin-colored blanket and climbed into bed. Maybe I would let this feeling give me a good night's sleep but I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to let it lull me into a sense of complacency. Some moments I might be exuberant and other moments I might be melancholic but complacency-the complacency would allow the f.u.c.kness to trample all over me. And I knew the f.u.c.kness wasn't gone. It was simply poised in some dark corner like a snake.

It took me longer to fall asleep than I thought it would. The house was entirely quiet. Like an intimidating void. I couldn't hear the wind or the big machines wrestling with sheets of steel, or the dark railroad speeding through the night. Lying there wide awake, I thought to myself, this is sleep. Being awake in that house was as good as being asleep. Maybe I was just being cynical. I didn't know these people, these Thiklets, but I imagined them. Tomorrow was Sunday. They would undoubtedly rise and go to church. They'd get all dressed up too, a brimstone-threatening end to their complacent week. A few hours of being bombarded with fiery h.e.l.ls and mortal sins and morals, morals, morals. Then the week would begin anew. Maria Thiklet would run around town, rushing to pay bills, buy groceries, running home and hurriedly preparing dinner for Boo. I was sure Boo was a real c.o.c.kwrinkle. Gotta work to pay the bills. Gotta pay the bills to live. There may have been fun in Boo's world but it was probably the kind of fun you had to buy. I was sure he came home and sat down in that big recliner I'd seen downstairs, pressing his tainted a.s.s-reek into the b.u.t.tocks- indented cushion. I imagined him sitting there, maybe drinking some beer and watching auto racing on TV. Maybe he just sat there and made Maria give him head, the crumbs from his sandwich dropping onto the top of her head. He probably asked her to hop off so he could shoot his wad into her face. "But it gets in my eyelashes," she'd complain. And I was sure he didn't just blow farts but was also the type of person to comment on the flatulence. "Whoo hoo," he'd say, waving his hand in the air and wrinkling his nose, "'bout ripped the seat of my pants out on that one." A real c.o.c.kwrinkle.

And what would I be when I was that age? Would I be anything? If this is what I became by going and getting a good job as a steelworker, how would I tolerate it. I would have to find some illicit habit to throw my money toward. Some type of heavy narcotic that would sugarcoat the daily death march to work every day. Every f.u.c.king day. How could anybody do anything every f.u.c.king day of his life. That certainly wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted the f.u.c.kness to go away. Maybe the parents weren't too bad. Maybe the fighting made me happy. Maybe being someplace where my bitterness and anger was completely understood was just what I needed. I decided I'd start back home the next day. I was tired. The burning in my lungs and the nearly constant whumming in my head told me that I was probably sick. I didn't think I'd be able to spend the rest of my life running. I would go home and pretend nothing happened. I could probably do that. It's what I did most days anyway. It's what I had to do because most days, something did happen. Maybe somehow, I kidded myself, the parents were still alive. I could only hope the parents would be more enthralled by having me back safe and sound than the fact that I'd put them through a couple days of h.e.l.l. Maybe I could tell them I was abducted. Maybe as I rubbed some sort of burn salve on them I'd ask, "How did this happen? Me? Oh, no, I was out in Farmertown finding myself."