'I won't. Thanks.'
'Welcome,' she said. 'Your ma's going to be just fine. And won't she be some happy to see you.' I hung up, then scribbled a note saying what had happened and where I was going. I asked Hector Pass-more, the more responsible of my roommates, to call my adviser and ask him to tell my instructors what was up so I wouldn't get whacked for cutting-two or three of my teachers were real bears about that. Then I stuffed a change of clothes into my backpack, added my dog-eared copy of Introduction to Philosophy, and headed out. I dropped the course the following week, although I had been doing quite well in it. The way I looked at the world changed that night, changed quite a lot, and nothing in my philosophy textbook seemed to fit the changes. I came to understand that there are things underneath, you see-underneath-and no book can explain what they are. I think that some-times it's best to just forget those things are there. If you can, that is.
It's a hundred and twenty miles from the University of Maine in Orono to Lewiston in Androscoggin County, and the quickest way to get there is by I-95.
The turnpike isn't such a good road to take if you're
hitchhiking, though; the state police are apt to boot
anyone they see off-even if you're just standing on
the ramp they give you the boot-and if the same cop
catches you twice, he's apt to write you a ticket, as
well. So I took Route 68, which winds southwest from Bangor. It's a pretty well-traveled road, and if you don't look like an out-and-out psycho, you can usually do pretty well. The cops leave you alone, too, for the most part.
My first lift was with a morose insurance man and took me as far as Newport. I stood at the intersection of Route 68 and Route 2 for about twenty minutes, then got a ride with an elderly gentleman who was on his way to Bowdoinham. He kept grabbing at his crotch as he drove. It was as if he was trying to catch something that was running around in there. 'My wife allus told me I'd wind up in the ditch with a knife in my back if I kept on picking up hitch-hikers,' he said, 'but when I see a young fella standin t'side of the rud, I allus remember my own younger days. Rode my thumb quite a bit, so I did. Rode the rods, too. And lookit this, her dead four year and me still a- goin, drivin this same old Dodge. I miss her somethin turrible.' He snatched at his crotch. 'Where you headed, son?'
I told him I was going to Lewiston, and why.
'That's turrible,' he said. 'Your ma! I'm so sorry!' His sympathy was so strong and spontaneous that it made the corners of my eyes prickle. I blinked the tears back. The last thing in the world I wanted was to burst out crying in this old man's old car, which rat-tled and wallowed and smelled quite strongly of pee.
'Mrs. McCurdy-the lady who called me-said it isn't that serious. My mother's still young, only forty-eight.'
'Still! A stroke!' He was genuinely dismayed. He snatched at the baggy crotch of his green pants again, yanking with an old man's oversized, clawlike hand. 'A stroke's allus serious! Son, I'd take you to the CMMC myself-drive you right up to the front door-if I hadn't promised my brother Ralph I'd take him up to the nursin home in Gates. His wife's there, she has that forgettin disease, I can't think what in the world they call it, Anderson's or Alvarez or some-thin like that-' 'Alzheimer's,' I said.
'Ayuh, prob'ly I'm gettin it myself. Hell, I'm tempted to take you anyway.'
'You don't need to do that,' I said. 'I can get a ride from Gates easy.'
'Still,' he said. 'Your mother! A stroke! Only forty-eight!'
He grabbed at the baggy crotch of his pants. 'Fucking truss!' he cried, then laughed-the sound was both desperate and amused. 'Fucking rupture! If you stick around, son, all your works start fallin apart. God kicks your ass in the end, let me tell you. But you're a good boy to just drop everythin and go to her like you're doin.'
'She's a good mom,' I said, and once again I felt the
tears bite. I never felt very homesick when I went
away to school-a little bit the first week, that was all-but I felt homesick then. There was just me and her, no other close relatives. I couldn't imagine life without her. Wasn't too bad, Mrs. McCurdy had said; a stroke, but not too bad. Damn old lady better be telling the truth, I thought, she just better be. We rode in silence for a little while. It wasn't the fast ride I'd hoped for-the old man maintained a steady forty-five miles an hour and sometimes wan- dered over the white line to sample the other lane-but it was a long ride, and that was really just as good. Highway 68 unrolled before us, turning its way through miles of woods and splitting the little towns that were there and gone in a slow blink, each one with its bar and its self-service gas station: New Sharon, Ophelia, West Ophelia, Ganistan (which had once been Afghantistan, strange but true), Mechanic Falls, Castle View, Castle Rock. The bright blue of the sky dimmed as the day drained out of it; the old man turned on first his parking lights and then his headlights. They were the high beams but he didn't seem to notice, not even when cars coming the other way flashed their own high beams at him.
