“Thanks. If I come back this way, I’ll look you up.”
When I looked back from the road he was still watching me. I waved. He waved and turned away, back to his work fixing the scars where somebody had torn up the turf doing funny stunts in an autos mobile. I dug my duffel bag out of the bushes where I had hidden it and shouldered it with the wide strap over my left shoulder, the bag bumping against my right hip. My poncho was strapped to the duffel bag. I wore work shoes, dark-green twill trousers, a faded old khaki shirt, a brown felt hat, a gray cardigan sweater. I had sandy stubble on my jaws and neck. Before leaving Florida, I’d had my hair clipped down to a Marine basic cut, which could have been a prison cut. I carried in my shirt pocket, for the right occasion, a pair of glasses with gold-colored rims, hardly any correction in the lenses, and one bow fixed with black electrician’s tape. I wanted to attract a second look from the av erage cop, but without stirring enough curiosity for him to want to check me out. But if he did check me out, I had some credentials. I had an expired Florida driver’s license with my picture on it, and I had a fragile tattered copy of army discharge papers, and a social security card sandwiched in plastic. They were wrapped in a plastic pouch and were in the compartment in the end of the duffel bag. They all said I was Thomas J. McGraw, address General Delivery, Osprey, Florida, occupation commercial fisherman.
‘~Well, officer, it was like this. My old lady died and I sold off our stuff and the trailer, and I thought I’d come out here and poke around and see if I could locate our daughter Kathy. She took off six years ago when she was fourteen, and we heard from her two years ago, some postcards from San Francisco, and Petaluma and Ukiah. She said she was joining up with some kind of church Me, I come here by Greyhound bus.”
As I walked, I wrote my autobiography, and the story of my marriage, and my wife’s death. I made Peg and Kathy into real people. I made Tom McGraw into a real person. As I walked, I went over and over the imaginary events of my life until I could see them. I outlined my own personality. I was not too quick of wit, and I tended to lose jobs through getting drunk and not showing up. When I worked, I was a hard worker. I was a man of great pride. I did not suffer unkind remarks about my
The Green Ripper character or my station in life. I was a womanizer when I was in my cups. Peg had been a staunch churchwoman. I went with her a couple times a year. I shared most of my political opinions with Archie Bunker. As I walked, I talked to imaginary people, talked as Tom McGraw would talk to them. He was servile when he talked to people in power. He was affable as a dog with his peers. He was nasty to those he considered beneath him. I worked my way into the role.
Long, long ago, I had known an actress. Susan was twenty-four. I was sixteen. She was working in summer theater. I was working in the country hotel where she was staying. She was a lanky lady who cussed, wore pants, and smoked thin little cigars. I found her monstrously exciting. I was worried about myself that year. There had been an episode with a loud chubby girl who, true to locker-room gossip, was willing to put out. But she was so loud that I was less than able. I could almost but not quite count it as the first time. I could lie to others but not to myself, and I had the dread fear Lolly would tell everybody. I was worried about myself.
Though I was a head taller than the actress, she didn’t want to be seen with me around town. I would walk out into the country, and she would come along in her borrowed car and we would go up into the hills and park and go walking together. In August, after we had gotten into the habit of making a bed from a blanket and spruce bows, in hidden places, while we were resting from each other, I told her about Lolly and about my fears. She laughed her deep harsh startling laugh and told me that I had less to worry about than anybody she had ever known. It was very comforting