Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (most life changing books txt) 📗

even then realized that once again he’d missed the plot. Who was the rightful king? And whose fault really was it that Saul was the way he was? And what could possibly be wrong in letting your enemy live and in not slaughtering his animals but giving them to your own men to feed their hungry families?

Then he undressed and went to bed. He listened to the talking downstairs, but couldn’t understand it. He knew they were being especially quiet so that he wouldn’t hear. His parents used to talk down there and he could hear every word. He lay awakeuntil after Sid and Franny Montgomery’s car had left and Becky and Perry turned out all the lights and shut the door of the guest room. He wondered if the string would still pull the bell, or if the top of the door would squeeze it tight.

Then he began to think again of what a fool he’d been, and imagined what going back to school would be like. He pictured himself coming home from school, his friends on the bus, old man Collins’s cats and the front yard. He went on picturing these things until an arc of electrical understanding flashed across his mind: they were trying to fool him again. All of them. Everyone he knew was trying to make him into a fool again. They were trying to make everything easy for him so that he could forget, and within a year maybe—the time didn’t matter—he would have forgotten. He would be so happy that he’d be set up again . . . believing again nothing bad will ever happen to me. No! he decided. I’ll never forget. Just at that point when they think they’ve got you, when the odds are ten thousand to one, to get away! He slipped out of bed, dressed, took all the money he had in his bank, $12.43, his jacket, his father’s pocket knife, a small automatic pistol he’d taken a month ago from among his mother’s things in the attic and kept hidden in the bottom of his drawer to take out to look at when he was alone and wonder how she’d ever come upon it, eight shells, the ring of keys for good luck, a dark blue stocking hat, a billfold full of pictures, and was gone from the house.

Not wanting to be seen close to home—for fear the drivers of the cars would know him—he kept to the ditch all the way to new Highway 1. Twice he had to lie down among the weeds so that the headlights of the pickups would miss him.

Once at the highway he began hitchhiking immediately, and within several cars was given a ride. A middle-aged fat man leaned over with much effort and swung open the door for him. “Kind of late to be out, isn’t it?” he asked, and did not start the car rolling.

“I guess so,” said July.

“What seems to be the trouble?”

It was an odd moment for July, one in which it seemed things could go one way or another—either end or begin. On one hand there was a true desire to be back, unsuspected, in his room. On the other hand, the very idea of such comfort made him feel sick.

“I’ve run away from home,” he finally blurted out.

The man smiled. “OK, now we’re down to the truth. Where do you live?”

“In Iowa City, and I want to go back home.”

“Sure you do. Let’s go.”

The automobile pulled out onto the pavement and sped through the night. In town, July told him that he lived near the depot, and they turned off Riverside Drive.

“That’s it,” said July. “Let me off here.” He pointed to a yellow house uphill from the railway station. After he was out of the car he walked around to the back of the house as though to use the back door, slipped down a walkway and came out on the street.

Although the railway station was closed for the evening, the first train to come by stopped and let off three people. Several cars down, on the other side, away from the boarding ramp, July climbed on. After he was out into the open air of the country, the wheels banging on the rails under him like demons pounding rock with cold hammers, he swung open the door and went inside. Some people looked up from their seats, but looked away, disinterested. Though it was before eleven, most everyone was asleep. He found two empty seats and sat down next to the window. A conductor came in from the front and July felt him linger for a moment next to his seat and pass on.

Before the sun came up they stopped four times, then kept rolling clear up until noon. By overhearing conversation he learned that there was a diner ahead somewhere, and at the next stop he went to find out. There was. He took a table to himself and a black waiter dressed in white came over to get his order. “Hamburger,” he said, without looking at the menu.

“And what has we to drink?” asked the waiter in a fast, clean voice.

“Water.”

The waiter went over to a window, spoke through it and sat down.

The train lurched ahead. July took out his money and disentangled a dollar bill, and put it on the table, feeling, as he did it, grown-up. The waiter returned with a plate from the window ledge—put there by unseen hands—and a glass of water, set them down and snapped up the dollar quickly and as though it had no value, punched out the change from the machine at his belt and went back to where he’d been sitting. July counted the change . . . fifty cents. Then he secretly looked at the menu, hamburger . . . 45¢. Cheated out of a nickel! He looked over at the black man and wondered how he could look so innocent, but knew he hadn’t nerve enough to go over