‘Didn’t you go into the first stall?’ Dylan asked.
Head lowered in his customary shy posture, but also cocked so he could look up sideways at the towel machine, Shepherd frowned at the handle and said, ‘Germs.’
‘Shep, when we came in here, didn’t you go straight into the first stall?’
‘Germs.’
‘Shep?’
‘Germs.’
‘Hey, come on, listen to me, buddy.’
‘Germs.’
‘Give me a break, Shep. Will you listen to me, please?’
‘Germs.’
Dylan cranked out a few towels, tore them off the perforated roll, and handed them to his brother. ‘But then didn’t you come out of the fourth stall?’
Scowling at his hands, drying them energetically, obsessively, instead of merely blotting them on the paper, Shep said, ‘Here.’
‘What’d you say?’
‘Here.’
‘What do you hear?’
‘Here.’
‘I don’t hear anything, little bro.’
‘H-e-r-e,’ Shep spelled with some effort, as if pronouncing each letter at an emotional cost.
‘What do you want, bro?’
Shep trembled. ‘Here.’
‘Here what?’ Dylan asked, seeking clarification even though he knew that clarification wasn’t likely to be granted.
‘There,’ said Shep.
‘There?’ Dylan asked.
‘There,’ Shep agreed, nodding, though continuing to focus intently on his hands, still trembling.
‘There where?’
‘Here.’ The note in Shep’s voice might have been impatience.
‘What’re we talking about, buddy?’
‘Here.’
‘Here,’ Dylan repeated.
‘There,’ said Shep, and what had seemed to be impatience matured instead into a strained note of anxiety.
Trying to understand, Dylan said, ‘Here, there.’
‘Here, th-th-there,’ Shep repeated with a shudder.
‘Shep, what’s wrong? Shep, are you scared?’
‘Scared,’ Shep confirmed. ‘Yeah. Scared. Yeah.’
‘What’re you scared of, buddy?’
‘Shep is scared.’
‘Of what?’
‘Shep is scared,’ he said, beginning to shake more violently. ‘Shep is scared.’
Dylan put his hands on his brother’s shoulders. ‘Easy, easy now. It’s okay, Shep. There’s nothing to be scared about. I’m right here with you, little bro.’
‘Shep is scared.’ The kid’s averted face had faded as pale as whatever haunting spirits he might have glimpsed.
‘Your hands are clean, no germs, just you and me, nothing to be afraid of. Okay?’
Shepherd didn’t reply but continued to shake.
Resorting to the singsong cadences with which his brother most often could be calmed in moments of emotional turmoil, Dylan said, ‘Good clean hands, no dirty germs, good clean hands. Gonna go now, go now, hit the road now. Okay? Gonna roll. Okay? You like the road, on the road again, on the road, goin’ places where we never been. Okay? On the road again, like old Willie Nelson, you and me, rollin’ along. Like always, rollin’. The old rhythm, the rhythm of the road. You can read your book, read and ride, read and ride. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Shep.
‘Read and ride.’
‘Read and ride,’ Shep echoed. The urgency and tension drained out of his voice even though he still shivered. ‘Read and ride.’
As Dylan had calmed his brother, Shep had continued to dry his hands with such energy that the towels had shredded. Crumpled rags and frayed curls of damp paper littered the floor at his feet.
Dylan held Shep’s hands until they stopped trembling. Gently, he pried open the clenched fingers and removed the remaining tatters of the paper towels. He wadded this debris and threw it in the nearby trash can.
Placing a hand under Shep’s chin, he tipped the kid’s head up.
The moment their eyes met, Shep closed his.
‘You okay?’ Dylan asked.
‘Read and ride.’
‘I love you, Shep.’
‘Read and ride.’
A pinch of color had returned to the kid’s wintry cheeks. The lines of anxiety in his face slowly smoothed away as crow tracks might be erased from a mantle of snow by a persistent breeze.
Although Shep’s outer tranquility became complete, his inner weather remained troubled. Shuttered, his eyes twitched behind his pale lids, jumping from sight to sight in a world that only he could see.
‘Read and ride,’ Shep repeated, as if those three words were a calming mantra.
Dylan regarded the bank of toilet stalls. The door of the fourth stood open, as he had left it after he’d checked on the nature of the partitions. The doors of the two middle stalls were ajar, and that of the first remained tightly closed.