The Gospel of the Knife | Page 8

Even if you escape, you've thrown your life away. Run. Everything's fucked up. It's all fucked up.
You parallel a wire fence, heading for where it ends and the path into the woods begins. You hear an engine coming up fast behind you. It could be a pickup, but you know it isn't.
You cut across the ditch and scramble up the fence. The weather-browned wire forms big rectangles; the fence is meant to keep large animals from crossing it. For you, it's a ladder.
At the top, you hear the camper brakes grind and gravel slide under the tires. Dad yells, "Chris, goddamn it, get down!" and slams the car door behind him. "Now!"
You leap. The fence sways under your feet as you launch out, throwing you forward and sideways. Your right foot twists as you land hard in a cluster of bushes. You fall, scratching and snagging yourself on branches. But Dad is on the fence and climbing. You lurch to your feet and run on.
"This is it!" Dad calls. Something in his voice makes you stop. He's at the top of the fence, looking at you. "You come back now, or you don't come back at all!"
"Eat shit and die!" you shout, and you run on. When you reach the trail, you wonder if Dad knows about it. He could be running down it now like a grizzly after a rabbit. He could drive to the far side and wait for you. He could call the cops and have them hunting you, everywhere you go, like The Fugitive. He could drive through the night in the big red camper, hunting without sleeping till he finds you.
Then you remember his last words. He could go home and tell everyone it's goodbye and good riddance. Mom and Tish would cry, but not too hard or too long. They know there would be more peace in the house with you gone. George would laugh. He could move into your room, the second largest in the house, and say you'd sure done a bad job of planning for running off.
Which is too true. You shiver, rub your arms, and walk faster. When the trail forks, you turn on a path you rarely take. As you walk, you rub your nose on the back of your hand. You haven't cried for years. Today you're Captain Snot Rivers.
But you know you'll stop crying soon. Your stomach has started whispering that you haven't eaten since lunch at school, and then you skipped the lima beans and the red Jell-O with marshmallows.
You pull out your wallet. You have a dollar, enough for six comic books or two orders of burgers and fries at McDonald's if you drink water. In your jeans' coin pocket are a quarter, a dime, and two pennies. Make that nine comics or three McDonald's meals. You poke through your wallet, checking every pocket, though you know you didn't tuck twenty dollars away for an emergency. Your emergency money is where you can't get it in an emergency, in a black plastic cube that, when you were nine, you were sure spies would use to hide atomic secrets.
But in the back of your wallet, in a pocket you never use, you find the Penney's card that you were sure you had put in your desk. Mom insisted on getting it for you. You have ten dollars of credit there. You never used it because Penney's is the only store in the universe that is less cool than Sears.
Cool is a luxury now. And who would look for you at Penney's? So you hike to a county road that parallels the highway, then walk along it, sticking out your thumb for every headlight and praying that none of them are Dad's.
Chapter Three
As the sky turns red, a dark sedan slows as it approaches. You squint into its lights. It stops precisely beside you. You think about unmarked police cars. Should you take to the woods?
The passenger door opens. A dim overhead light shows the driver. He wears a dark suit, a white shirt, a dark tie, a dark hat. The hat puts his eyes in shadow, but when he smiles, you like him a little. He says, "I can take you to the crossroads."
He seems a bit conservative to be picking up a long-haired kid, but he'll save you two miles of walking. You say, "Thanks," and slide in.
The overhead goes out when you pull the door shut. The car rolls back onto the road. The twilight seems very quiet. The car smells smokey, like pipe or cigar smoke, which makes you think of Dad and wish you had just mowed the damn lawn.
You don't pass any other cars. The man's engine is a well-tuned purr. He drives precisely at the speed limit; you can see