Hitchers

CHAPTER 8

Maybe it was my stroll down the toy aisle at Wal-Mart, or maybe it was just getting out of the apartment, but by the time I got home the ideas were flowing. I was hungry, and suddenly had real food (well, real frozen microwavable food), but I was afraid if I stopped to eat I’d lose the mood, so I went straight to my studio.

My throat constricted.

“One thirty-nine for a head of lettuce?”

Just like in the checkout line, the words forced themselves out as if they’d been trapped inside me. It sounded like gas rising from a fetid swamp, and it was something I would never say voluntarily. I was not a complainer about the price of produce. I rarely bought fresh produce, for that matter. I massaged my throat. Something was very wrong with me.

It occurred to me as I cleaned my inking brush that I could be developing Tourette’s syndrome. The thought got me panicked.

Turning to my computer I looked up Tourette’s on Wikipedia and read frantically, my heart thumping, until I saw that it always developed in childhood. But what else could it be? Some other, rarer, neurological disorder? Or maybe it really was a second-order symptom of anthrax exposure.

I would call my doctor in the morning. There was nothing to do until then, so I tried not to think about it and kept working.

CHAPTER 9

I sprawled on the couch with a carton of Ben and Jerry’s and a spoon while Letterman did his monologue against a backdrop of the New York City skyline at night. My throat was especially sore after having a scope on a rope pushed down there by Doctor Purvis earlier in the day, so the ice cream felt good. I relished these mundane moments—they made things feel normal. Things weren’t normal, not by a long shot—the city was still crawling with National Guard, many businesses were still shuttered—but things were at least moving in the direction of normal. There were olives and Snickers bars to be had, and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

My throat twisted up. It was getting easier to identify the telltale signs that I was about to blurt something. I made a concerted effort to stifle it.

“Poor little thing, down in that black water.”

I set the ice cream on the coffee table, my appetite for it vanished. The poor little thing was Kayleigh, I knew instantly. Suddenly I felt incredibly isolated in this apartment, in the middle of rusting amusements surrounded by industrial sites.

I didn’t have a superstitious bone in my body, but the image of Kayleigh down in the black water, still twelve, gave me the shivers. For years after she died I had nightmares of discovering Kayleigh in unlikely places, her hair and clothes soaked, seaweed clinging to her face. Guilt will do that to you. When you’re partly to blame for someone’s death, they show up in the most unlikely places.

How could this problem be psychological?

In the meantime let’s have you consult with a psychiatrist, just to cover all of our bases, the neurologist had said matter-of-factly.

It seemed like it had to be something physical—a brain injury or something, though I’d dutifully made my appointment with the psychiatrist Doctor Purvis had suggested.

On the other hand I was grateful to the doctor for giving me a dignified medical-sounding term with which to refer to my weird and undignified outbursts. Vocalizations. I should practice using it in a sentence.

Please pardon my vocalizations. My neurologist says they’re either myoclonic jerks brought on by a rare neurological disorder, or I’m batshit crazy.

It occurred to me the psychiatrist would probably want to know what sorts of things I was blurting. I wrote down what I’d just said, and some of the others I remembered.

“You all know the comic strip Toy Shop, right?” Letterman asked his audience.

“What?” I looked up at the TV, my heart suddenly pounding.

“Nice old strip, right?” Letterman said. “Cute kids running a toy store.” I couldn’t believe it. Letterman was talking about my strip.

“Have any of you read Toy Shop recently?” Murmurs rolled through the audience.

“Unbelievable,” I whispered.

“Well in case you missed it, Finn Darby, the grandson of the guy who started the strip, has made a few changes. For example he added a talking toy robot werewolf doll to the cast.” Letterman paused for laughter. “A talking toy robot werewolf doll.” He enunciated each word in that droll mock-incredulous tone. “Word is he’ll be making more changes in upcoming strips, including adding another new character: a badger roadkill clown cashier.” A symbol crash punctuated the punchline as Letterman swung his arm like a pitcher getting loose.

I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to grasp this. I’d just been mentioned on Letterman.

When I resurrected Toy Shop two years ago, no one noticed. It was like I’d pushed an old, comfortable piece of furniture back into place—people were happy enough to sit in it, but no one had missed it. There’d been a few little features in magazines, a filler feature on NPR. When I overhauled the strip, it had gotten a little more attention. But Letterman? This was unbelievable.

Inspired, I cloistered myself in my studio and worked on another strip. The vocalizations continued to squeeze from my throat. I wrote them down.

That stuck up son of a bitch Schulz. (I sounded like my grandfather. I have nothing but respect for Charles Schulz.)

You’re never going to make it with that attitude.

Bend that elbow, Danny. I paid for a whole drink. (I’m not much of a drinker—a glass of wine, maybe one martini after a long day. I don’t know any bartenders by name. Again, I sounded like my grandfather, who made a point of knowing every bartender within twenty miles of his house by name.)

As I was putting the finishing touches on my second strip of the night (a blistering pace for me), I was interrupted by a call from my mother.

“Are you watching the news? They found them,” Mom said.

“Who?” I asked, then instantly realized it was a stupid question.

“The nuts who carried out the attack. The news people are yammering back and forth without much information to report, but they found the guys—that much is clear.”

I hurried into the living room and dug around in the couch cushions for the remote. “When will they know who it was?”

“They’re waiting for the police to make a statement.”

I located the remote, clicked on the TV to a shot of an empty dais packed with microphones.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” I croaked, startling myself. I would never get used to that horrible sound.

“Oh, Jesus, Finn,” Mom said. “It doesn’t sound any better. Is the medication making it any better?”

“Not really,” I said. The cameras shifted to a figure coming out of police headquarters. “Here he is.” A red- eyed chief of police with a bushy mustache stepped in front of the microphones.

I was nervous, as if learning the identity of the killers could somehow make the situation better or worse. Or maybe it was that this felt personal; the killer or killers had taken my two closest friends.

Mom and I stayed on the phone, but stayed silent as the police chief told us who it was. It wasn’t Al-Qaeda,