The Gospel of the Knife | Page 9

his speedometer stay on the forty-five. Dad would approve.
Your hand starts shaking. You want to cry again, but you aren't about to do that in front of anyone, especially not a stranger. You squeeze your fist.
You suddenly feel certain that someone's in the backseat, maybe a lot of people, so you turn. The long backseat holds nothing but shadows.
You wish the radio was on, or the man would talk about something like sports that you could listen to and not care about. You say, "I appreciate the ride."
He keeps his gaze on the road. You think he'll ignore you. Then he says, "I spend a lot of time working. It's nice to do something purely to help someone, no matter how small it is."
"Yeah." You wonder if that includes giving money to runaways, but you won't beg until all you have is gone.
"Where're you going?"
"To the mall." If he volunteers to drive you there, you can accept that without feeling you had asked for favors.
"What'll you do?"
You shrug. You want to pick oranges or hawk newspapers or shovel coal on freighters bound for the Suez Canal. If you discovered a diamond mine in the Andes, the whole family would be sorry they hadn't treated you better. You say, "Hang out."
The man nods. "I wish I could drive you there. I have an appointment nearby."
"You're not from around here?"
He shakes his head. "Business brings me here fairly often."
"What do you do?"
"I'm in collections." He's obviously successful. You don't recognize his sedan, but it's new, clean, unblemished, big enough to carry Catholic families. His suit and hat are made of something soft that soaks up light. You think about asking if it's cotton or wool, but you can't think of a way to ask and sound manly.
You say, "Do you like it?" You can't tell if his eyes flick from the road to you and back again, or whether he has heard at all. You add, "Collections. Is that good work?"
He makes a sound between a cough and a laugh. "People are rarely glad to see me."
"That sucks."
"It's a job."
"You think about quitting?"
"Often."
"Dad says-" You pause, hearing what you're saying, but you've already started the sentence, so you swallow and press on. "You should only do what you want or what needs doing, so long as you don't hurt anyone."
"That's not as easy as it sounds."
"Nope. The old man thinks it just applies to him, anyway."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Like mowing the lawn. It's not fun, and no way it needs doing."
The man's head turns toward you. "Oh?"
"It's grass. What's it hurt to let things grow?"
He looks back at the road. "Weeds sprout up. Old growth strangles the new. The green shoots never see the sun."
"You sound like a gardener."
He smiles, more widely than before.
A traffic light is ahead, glowing yellow, at the first major intersection on the way into town. As the car slows, you say, "Thanks."
"No. Thank you."
"For what?"
"For reminding me it's good to do work that needs doing."
Something swells in your chest. "That's Dad, not me."
"He passed it to you. You passed it to me. All you can do is thank those who give what you need."
"I guess." The car stops. You open the door, thinking you don't want to hear any more about how wise your idiot father is.
"Let me give you something."
You stop, halfway out of the door, and look back. If he offers money you haven't asked for, can you take it and respect yourself?
His hands stay on the wheel. He says, "Enjoy it. Enjoy it all."
You frown. Did he give you something and you didn't notice? Then you understand. He's just giving you advice to make himself feel good. You say, "That's it?"
He nods. "Yes. Because it ends when you least expect it."
"Uh-huh." You look down the road. Headlights are coming, maybe your next ride.
The man waves. "See you later."
"Sure." You close his door, thinking how unlikely that is. You're running away to New Orleans or Los Angeles or New York, Paris or Algiers or Amsterdam, Timbuktu or Fiji or Singapore. His job would have to take him pretty far for him to see you again.
The dark sedan rolls away quietly and turns south at the light. You wait to cross the intersection. An ambulance races by, siren screaming, red lights strobing, heading the same direction as the sedan.
You run across the highway and stick your thumb out, but the next car isn't your ride. Nor the one after that, nor the one after that.
You stand at the intersection for half an hour, long enough for the sun to drop below the horizon, long enough to have walked from where the sedan picked you up, long enough for the ambulance to return, slow and quiet, lit only by its headlights. You wonder if you'll be standing here until