He looked around at the gang of late-night shoppers watching the show. “Did any of y’all see this boy mugging my customer?”

  Nobody said a word. They got interested in the snacks or souvenir bottle openers at hand. His so-called customer was now in a righteous old-lady snit, giving a fair impression of sober. Somewhere between outside and now, she’d pulled on this pink housedress or shirt type thing that made her look like somebody’s mammaw with a bad hand for makeup. She must have been living out of the giant purse. She buttoned her top button and sniveled. “It’s my pin money I been saving up that I keep in a peanut butter jar. This here little boy grabbed the jar out of my purse.”

  This here little boy that one minute ago you wanted to party with, I thought. And not a person here was going to believe me. Because under the bright lights, this crap-jacked world is what it is and we were what we were: a grown-up and a kid.

  “You were watching me like a damn hawk,” I told the cash register guy. “You saw me go in the men’s, and if you’ve got any eyes you saw her go in the men’s. She followed me in there trying to talk me into a . . .”

  “That’s enough of that,” he said, holding up his big knuckly hand. I was terrified he would put it over my mouth. Because I knew what I would do.

  “Just look in his backpack thing,” she said. “See if he’s got my jar in there.” Higher and mightier than you’d think possible for a truck-stop hooker. How could this guy not recognize her, if she was a regular? But what did I know. Maybe they shopped around.

  “A Jiffy peanut butter jar,” she said. “Full of dimes and quarters.”

  Holy shit. She didn’t even know about the bills. She must have seen it under the door while all the real cash was on my lap.

  “Ask her how much money was in there,” I said. “If she gets it right, she can have it.”

  That got her wailing. “I don’t know, I don’t know! It’s all my spare change I been saving up forever, how am I supposed to know how much it is?”

  Customers were now shuffling over to the register.

  “Nobody thinks you’re funny, kid. Give the lady her money and I’ll let you go.”

  “It’s my money. Sir. She came in the bathroom and saw me with it, and now she’s scamming you, trying to get it away from me.”

  I tried staring him down. He crossed his arms, shook his head, all the signs of “We’re done here and you are screwed.” I considered bolting out the door, running away into the dark. I was faster than anybody here. And he’d get the cops out on me for sure.

  “Do I need to call your parents?” he asked.

  I laughed. “Good luck with that.”

  He didn’t get the joke. “Can I see some form of identification?”

  “Form of identification like what?” I asked, and he named some things, driver’s license, school ID, nothing I had or ever did have. It dawned on me that I could get run over flat on the highway out there, and nobody would know or care what to call the carcass. Roadkill.

  By this time the whole place is on edge, crazy lady caterwauling, people shifting around in the checkout line, and Willie throws a sucker punch that doubles me over. Grabs my backpack. Professional-quality moves. I can’t even catch my breath before he’s pulled out the jar and is asking all high-handed, “What do you call this, you little fucker?” Shaking it in my face like now he’s got me ha-ha, while the rage blows up in my gut, and the hooker bitch is all, I told you! Only she’s wide-eyed, seeing we are talking money plural, major bucks. Her shrieking goes sky-high. Singing her happy song of getting shitfaced for the foreseeable month of Sundays.

  It doesn’t even seem real, seeing this guy put my money in her hands. With all those people watching, not one soul on my side. Nothing to do but punch the magazine rack so hard it crashes over, spilling free brochures all over the fucking welcome mat. Where the screaming is coming from, who knows, it doesn’t feel like me telling this guy he’s a Nazi and I worked all year at my job for that cash so he could give it to a lying fucked-up whore. Telling her off too, getting up in her little wrecked face, telling her to go buy herself a fucking overdose.

  I did that. With all the hate in my heart, I told her to go ahead and die like my mom did. Go have a party and get rid of her ugly self all alone behind a dumpster.

  I walked out the door. It opened for me, and closed behind me.

  My heart was pounding so hard I felt it in my eyes. I walked past the pumps where travelers in a haze of fumes were gassing up their cars. Past the big lot where the tractor trailers idled in their sleep, waiting out this godforsaken night. Shadows of people hung around the trucks, cutting their bargains. Part of me was waiting for somebody to come after me saying this hell is not real and you are not this person. It’s a mistake.

  That’s how I left Virginia, walking down the shoulder of 26 with my thumb out, headed towards my grandmother with the exact same naked-ass nothing I’d had the first and last time she saw me.

  25

  My words came around to haunt me. Before another night passed, I’d be hunkered in the dark between a dumpster and the back of a gas station, wondering would I die there by morning.

  I got shed of that hell-hole truck stop in a hurry, picked up by a long-hauler with a fist of skoal in his cheek and nothing to discuss. His radio was all Garth and Reba, fine, just no Willie please. I was wiped out from what had happened, so I told him I was Tennessee bound and then I guess fell asleep. Mistake. Tennessee turns out to be something ridiculous like four hundred miles long. We covered over half that before I woke up to see the sun rising over these skyscrapers like a freaking movie. One building had horns like Hellboy, I’m not even kidding.

  Nashville, says the driver, and I’m like, Mother fuck, mister, Nashville? Simple as that. How I got farther away from Murder Valley than I’d ever been in my life so far.

  This did not sink in right away. I asked if Nashville was anywhere close to Unicoi County, which was all I knew about where my dad was buried other than the valley with the downer name. The driver didn’t know Tennessee counties but had a map that he unfolded all over the wheel. He gave it a good study at the same time he’s roaring down the interstate, changing lanes, eating a sandwich. Scary. After a while he gave up and pushed the map at me. In due time I found Unicoi, and Nashville, and asked if he could let me out right there please because I’d spent the last five hours going the wrong way. Son of a bitch. Off to seek my fortune, and on day one I’d put myself in the hole by some-odd hundred dollars and half of Tennessee.

  The trucker pulled over on an exit to dump me out. I stood breathing air that didn’t smell like egg sandwich and farts. The signs said my options were three flavors of gas station, a Taco Bell, or a hospital. It was too much daylight for pissing in public, so I headed for a restroom. If I dared. I was starving. I dug in my pack for an apple and ate it as I walked along, thinking of Mr. Golly I’d stolen it from, charging it to the McCobbs. Thinking of Creaky calling us pissants if we didn’t eat the apple seeds and all. Interrupting this report card of my happy life, somebody yelled “Hey brother!”

  I jumped. I’d had my eye on the Phillips 66 and totally missed this couple camped by the road. The guy came staggering out of the tall weeds with his dirty Jesus hair and pale glassy eyes, asking am I his brother and am I saved. The girl tagging behind him was all hangdog, hair in her eyes, like he was the master. They both had the look that comes of hard living, clothes and skin all the same drab color of washed-out leather.

  “I’m as far from saved as it gets,” I told him and kept walking.

  “Give me five bucks then,” he yelled. “The Lord will bless you for it.”

  “I got no money.” I didn’t turn around. “Reckon the Lord’s got nothing on me.”

  The guy came around and grabbed the apple out of my hand. He walked backwards in front of me, teasing me with it. “Repent!” he said. “Whosoever sows generously will reap!”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake. Really?” I stopped walking. “Somebody already stole everything I had, and you’re going to take my last half an apple?”

  That threw him. We stood in the empty gas station bay while he stared at my apple in his hand like he thought it might speak up and settle this. “Who is this coming from the wilderness?” he asked it. “Beneath the tree I awaked thee where thy mother was in labor and gave thee birth.”

  Hangdog girl came edging around behind him, looking at me and shaking her head, like: Seriously friend, be afraid.

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. I walked away fast while he and the apple were still working things out. Sidled into the men’s, slammed the door. Luckily it was the one-person type around the back where you can lock it from the inside. It smelled like a cesspool, but I planned on staying there until homeless Jesus moved along. I stopped being hungry, due to the stink, but was dying of thirst. I drank out of the smelly tap, and sat on the trash can to face various facts. How I had no money now, zip. How hungry I would be, after I got out of that bathroom. How I was farther away from home than I’d ever been. And if I really had to go that many hundred miles on accident, damn: how I could have gone the other direction and been at the ocean by now.

  Also, that being a long way from home isn’t really your problem if you don’t have one.

  Twice somebody banged on the door and then went away. My brain wormed its way to the worst place and got stuck there: I’d cursed another person to die. She was probably better off than I was right now, if God or whoever was paying attention. Which probably they were.

  Finally a guy came with jingling keys and hollered there’d be no loitering in his facilities, so I eased myself out and looked around. Coast clear. I told the attendant sorry, and headed out. Crossed the interstate to the other on-ramp to catch a ride headed east, but there wasn’t a lot happening. An ambulance screamed by, and I thought of how one of those carried me off from home. The last day of my life I really had one. The little does anybody ever know.

  The sun got high and I was still on the shoulder with my thumb out, wondering if I looked homeless yet. As long as I’d been in that bathroom, I could have changed out of the T-shirt and underwear I’d had on forever. Cars went by, business guys, moms with kids. Nobody looks you in the eye whenever they’re leaving you flat. I kept thinking about the food in my pack that was all I had, so I needed to save it. Then ate the candy bars and beef jerky, one by one.

  It did dawn on me, this was Nashville. Amazing, given who all lives there, Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, etc. Carrie Underwood. Too bad, but without money the city is no place you want to be. I knew that much, even if this was only my second one. I remembered guys on the streets in Knoxville with their deer-carcass eyes and pitiful cardboard signs: “Help Please,” “Hungry,” “Disabled Vet.” Or the name of someplace they wanted to get the hell out of there to. Bingo. I got out my drawing pad and made an amazing sign using all the colors: UNICOI.

  Freaking unbelievable. The very next car to come along pulled over, a yellow VW, not a Beetle but one of those sporty sedans. Power windows. The girl driving it rolled down the passenger side and said, “Go you!” so I did. Headed the right direction at last.

  Could this girl ever talk. The first subject she got onto was how she had a thing for unicorns, same as me, was that too bangin’ crazy or what. I had no idea what to say, being actually not a fan, but I was not needed for this conversation. I watched the miles go by while her list of favorite unicorn items went in one ear and out the other. Bedspread, raincoat. I spent all that time trying to figure out how old this girl was. She had to be Miss Barks’s age or so, because of driving a car for one thing, and for another her too-small T-shirt was showing off her bare middle part and plenty else. On the other hand, glitter nail polish, pouffy bangs, those little butterfly clip things like bugs in your hair, pretty much on par with Haillie McCobb, second grader.

  She moved on eventually to TV shows, her favorite one being Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I told her I liked comics better than TV. It might have been the first thing I’d said since I got in the car a hundred miles before, and she was like, “Go you!” It turned out she said that a lot. If I told her I knocked off an old lady and hid her body in a thirty-foot roll-off, I’m pretty sure this girl would have said, “Go you!” She was slugging down a giant thermos of coffee and driving barefoot to keep herself awake, with her shoes up on the dash which were these red sandals with gigantic bottom parts made out of wood. All new shit to me, I was out in the world now. She’d been driving all night since Memphis, going to see her boyfriend in Knoxville that looked exactly like Paul from Mad About You except younger. Nerdy in the cute way.

  Knoxville, damn. Probably Emmy had moved now. I would be in Knoxville soon, she’d be in Lee County, and whoever was sitting at control center of the universe, laughing his ass off.

  My Unicoi sign was still on my lap, and it finally did hit me that she’d read it wrong, duh. Unicorns. The entire three hours of me in her car was a mistake. We started seeing signs of how many miles to Knoxville, countdown on me getting ditched by the roadside again like the stray cur I was: unwanted, not yet drowned. I’d gone past hungry into crazed, and was wondering if I had anything in my backpack I could sell this girl. If I’d learned one thing from Mrs. McCobb, it was that people will buy the weirdest shit. I had my marking pens, but was not parting with the best gift anybody ever gave me. I wondered if Aunt June even remembered.

  Barefoot driver girl asked where I wanted left off, and I said anyplace but a truck stop. So that was that, an exit marked Love Creek. One last “Go you!” and off she flew.

  The sky was dark, clouding up. I felt too beat up to stand on the shoulder getting ignored, and too hungry to think what else to do. I left the interstate and walked down Love Creek Road because, hell. You never know. It started pelting rain, and I ran for a little mini-mart similar to Golly’s. I could see the lights on inside, an old guy at the counter settled in for a slow night. He would never know I’d been there. Around the back of the building, I curled up between the block wall and a dumpster where it was almost dry, and pawed through my backpack like an animal. I ate the last Slim Jim I had to my name, stolen from Mr. Golly.

  The thing about him though. He loved nothing better than giving you food and watching you eat it. He made a big deal of handing customers their fried pie or corn dog, and had a sign saying people were welcome to eat in the store. It was for the reason of his childhood. This might be one of the weirder things ever. He said his parents, sisters, and all their dump friends were so-called no-toucher people. Meaning if they touched food or anything at all, it was like, doomed. Regular people would have none of it. Same for bodies, no shaking hands. If he let his shadow touch a high-class person, they’d call the cops to come beat the hell out of him. He said a name for this kind of people that sounded like “dolly.”

  I was sure there had to be a catch. What about helping somebody get up out of the road, if they fell? No, he said, they would get run over before they’d touch you. What if you wanted to give them a present? Nope. What about money, buying something at a store? He said you’d leave the money on the counter and they’d do a prayer thing over it to clean it up, after you’re gone. He and his little pals for their best prank would run up to some guy selling food on the street and put their hands all over it, so he’d have to throw it away. If they hid out long enough and didn’t get killed first, they’d go back and eat it.

  This was a million years ago obviously. But even after all this time, you could see how he had the biggest time handing people food. If the most important person imaginable was to come in his store, like the governor of Virginia or Dale Earnhardt, Mr. Golly could hand them a corn dog, and they would eat it. He said it felt like a magic trick. He said he never would get used to how nice Americans are to each other.

  I told him yeah, I guess. But I had my doubts. A lot of people don’t ever get touched. Not even high-fived after a rim shot. I should know. Little kids chase around yelling “Cooties,” which are a made-up thing. But if we had a word for that type of person in America, it would get used.

  I didn’t die that night behind the dumpster. It took all the next day and three more rides to get to Unicoi County. First, another trucker on his radio the whole time. He left me off at the junction of 26 where I’d gone wrong the day before. Next, a peckerhead kid in a truck that was older than he was. Face like a country ham, chest like a cement block. He kept asking why didn’t me and him go try and locate some women. I said no thanks, but he was kind of one-track. Finally I told him I’d sworn off hookers because the last one I tangled with took all my money. He slapped the steering wheel, laughing and laughing.

  Ride three, a Caddy Deville. It was that dark brown color they call doeskin, and so was the man driving it. Another preacher. Suit and skinny tie, neat-cut hair, not young and not old. His car, definitely old. He had this way about him like whatever you’ve seen, he’d probably seen it too. He asked what was my burden and I told him: eleven years old without a dime, running away from nobody that gave a damn, probably headed for more of the same. He kept his eyes on the road, nodding his head, sometimes running a hand over his hair, while everything came out of me. Fighting with Stoner, Mom dying on me, getting sent to Creaky Farm, right up to two nights ago where I’d cursed a junkie hooker to die for stealing my money. He listened, now and again rubbing that hand back over his head like sweeping off the tears of heaven falling on us.

  He’d heard of Murder Valley. He said he traveled pretty wide over those parts looking after his folks, and I could believe it. If he was in charge of my church, I would go. He never put on the hard sell about Jesus or anything. His only advice was to be careful in Unicoi because there were folks down there mean enough to hang an elephant. I said okay, thinking it was an expression his people had. But no. They gave the death penalty to an elephant there one time. He said if I was ever in a library to look it up, but try not to look at the photos because the sight of an elephant hanging was not an easy thing to forget. It was a circus elephant that got fed up and finally ran off after its drunk trainer whipped and tormented it to the point of going on a rampage, which, I could relate. But in the process of running off, it accidentally trampled somebody in town, and those folks were not going to be still until justice was done. Christ. Imagine the size of the noose. Plus what all they’d have to build, to hold it up.