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Show •203 up to the mountains and get a hotel room. We'll make love in the country." On the way to the bus terminal I remembered how casually I'd abandoned Wayne Thorneberry's yellow truck after having driven it clear across the plains to New York. My first sight of Walt Whitman's Manhattan had been through that split windshield cranked open to let in a little Eastern air. "I loved that old machine," I said to Fancy. "It had oilcloth seats, an old-fashioned speedometer with the needle shaped like a red arrow, and a four-speed transmission that had to be double-clutched up and down if you didn't want to strip the gears. I wish I'd kept it." "Why didn't you?" Fancy said. "How could I? It was stolen. I left it parked in Times Square with a note inside telling who it belonged to. I wouldn't be surprised if Thorneberry had come out personally to pick it up. He was awfully proud of it." We rode up the Thruway in the swaying Greyhound bus, holding hands and staring at the hills, the trees, the spines of rock heaving up through the grassy fields as if the very skeleton and foundation of the planet was wearing through to the surface. We rolled into a cloud's shadow and at the same time my mind plunged into a patch of inner darkness. Who was this stranger gripping my hand, expecting love from me? I |