head.
“In your case, you lost her in a second. Like that.”
He snapped his fingers.
“For me,” he said, “it was nineteen months of watching my wife die. If I could, I wonder if I’d trade places with you.”
He picked up the remote again. He weighed it in his hand.
“Thank you for helping my son,” he said. “Please go now and do not come back here again. Mr. Stone will show you out.”
He hit a button and the soccer players came back to life. The ball was advancing to the other side of the field now. I didn’t get the chance to see if they scored. Mr. Stone ushered me back to the front door. He followed me outside to my truck. When I was about to get in, he took my gun out of his pocket and gave it to me. He held it dangling between two fingers, like you’d hold a dead rat.
I took it from him. He turned around and went back to the house without saying a word to me. I started the truck, turned around, and went back out the driveway. When I got back to the main intersection, I stopped. My hands were shaking.
Easy, Alex. Easy.
Okay, I can go left here. Or I can go right. Left or right. Which way do I go?
I wasn’t lost. I knew exactly how to get back to I-75, how to go back to the Upper Peninsula and everything that was waiting for me up there. But in that moment, sitting there in my truck in St. Clair Shores, waiting for my hands to stop shaking, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go home.
I didn’t see the car pulling up behind me. When he honked his horn, I just about leaped out of my skin. I looked in the rearview mirror-it was a BMW convertible, some guy in sunglasses with both hands raised like I was the most helpless human being he ever had to wait behind. I was about to open the door and go after him, had my hand on the door handle in fact. I thought better of that idea, took the left turn, and headed down toward Detroit. I wasn’t sure what I would do there. I just couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.
I drove through the Grosse Pointes. It was funny how Jefferson Avenue meant one thing here, then all of a sudden you hit the Detroit city limit and the same street became something else entirely. It took me downtown, past Woodward Avenue, where I had been shot, where Franklin had died. How many years had that been the black hole in my life? I was free of it now. It was ancient history, utterly surpassed by this new thing.
I was so tired now. But I had to keep moving. I could feel the thing right behind me, waiting for me to slow down.
No. Not yet. Keep moving.
I drove by the old precinct house. I could walk in there now and not a soul would know me. The way I looked right now, they’d think I was a crazy person. An EDP, as they still probably call it. Emotionally disturbed person. Sure, you used to work here, they’d say to me. Sure, you were once a cop.
I almost stopped at a bar. From somewhere inside me a little voice told me that would be the worst possible thing to do right now. The exact opposite of “keep moving.” Besides, they wouldn’t have Canadian beer.
I could go to Windsor to get some. It was right across the river, just a few minutes away.
No, not that either. Not Canada.
I drove by Comerica Park, where the Tigers played now. Next to it was Ford Field, the new park for the Lions. For old time’s sake, I drove by the old Tiger Stadium. The great gray battleship. What next? My old high school? The house in Redford? From out of nowhere I remembered a day in my life, a million years ago when I was a sixteen-year-old sophomore playing on the varsity baseball team. My first game in the uniform. First at-bat, I walked. Second at-bat I nailed one over the center-field wall. It was a 3-0 count. I even remember that. I didn’t take the pitch. I always hated to take a pitch. I swung and I crushed it.
Why do I remember that right now? Why does it come back to me like it just happened? Everything about that day.
It was an away game. In Dearborn. I had to go see that ball field. Before I faced anything else, I had to go see where that day happened.
Dearborn is right next to Detroit. Home of the Ford Motor Company, where my father had put in so many years. I took Michigan Avenue to Telegraph. Took that north, over the Rouge River. Where was that ball field again? I needed to find it. I was afraid to stop and ask somebody. I was afraid they’d have no idea what I was talking about, or if it was an old-timer, that they’d tell me the field had been turned into something else a long, long time ago. No more center-field fence, just a parking lot or a row of houses or whatever the hell else.
When I got to Warren Avenue, I started to wonder if I’d gone too far. There had been a hardware store here when I was a kid. Tela-Warren Hardware, that was its name. All this stuff coming back to me today. Where was it coming from?
I was starting to see double. I almost sideswiped somebody and pulled over while two or three cars honked at me. There was a big salt dump here now, where the hardware store had been. A big building full of salt and sand for the trucks to spread on the road during the winter. It was a lonely place now, a place out of season. I stopped the truck in front of it. I’ll be no bother to anybody here, unless I’m still here in a few months when the snow starts falling.
I put my head back. I closed my eyes. After being in motion all day long, it felt strange to be still now. Who’d have thought this is where I’d end up? Next to a big pile of salt in Dearborn, Michigan.
I don’t want to sleep now. I just want to rest my eyes.
Just rest my eyes. Yes. That’s all…
The banging woke me up. I had no idea how long I’d been out, but it was dark outside now. How the hell did that happen? And who the hell-
Somebody was banging on my side window. A beam of light came stabbing into the truck, blinding me. A flashlight. I rolled down the window.
“Excuse me, Mr. McKnight?”
“What? How do you know my name?”
“I called in your plate, sir. They told me the Michigan State Police are looking for you.”
That didn’t sound good. Next he’ll say they need to speak to me, that I need to come with him, the whole routine. Not that I cared anymore.
“They’re very worried about you,” he said. “I understand you lost your, um…”
I finally looked up at his face. It was a local Dearborn cop. He looked like he was about fourteen years old.
“That you lost your companion, sir. I’m sorry to hear of your loss.”
Companion. An odd word. An odd thing to say to me. And yet it sounded about right. That’s what Natalie was. After a life of being lonely, she was my companion.
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
“If you’d like, I can find a place for you to stay tonight.”
“No, thanks. I should head home. What time is it?”
“It’s about nine thirty. Would you like me to call the state guys? Get you a ride back up there?”
“No. I’ll be all right.”
“Okay, then. Please drive carefully.”
“I will,” I said. “I will. Thank you.”
When he was gone, I pulled out onto Telegraph, heading north. The sleep had given me a little energy boost. I felt like I could make it all the way if I really wanted to.
I stopped for gas again. A million insects buzzed in the bright lights above my head as I filled up the tank. I got a big mug of coffee and hit the road.
I spent the next four hours driving. Straight up I-75. I had the vent open so the fresh air would hit me in the face. The air getting colder and colder as I drove.
By the time I hit the Mackinac Bridge, it felt like November again. Just a few hours on the road and I was back in the land with no summer. It was a stolen season.
My right headlight started to flicker. Finally, it went out. It must have been damaged when I ran Cap off the road. Hard to believe it was just this morning. Hard to believe, as it hit midnight, that the world had made one complete revolution since the thing happened.
