Then came 23 April, a day I’ll not forget even if I live another fifty-eight years.
It was a balmy Saturday afternoon, and I was walking up what a little boy fishing
from a bridge told me was called The Old Smith Road. I had taken a lunch in a brown
FoodWay bag, and had eaten it sitting on a rock by the road. When I was done I
carefully buried my leavings, as my dad had taught me before he died, when I was a
sprat no older than the fisherman who had named the road for me.
Around two o’clock I came to a big field on my left. There was a stone wall at
the far end of it, running roughly northwest I walked back to it, squelching over the
wet ground, and began to walk the wall. A squirrel scolded me from an oak tree.
Three-quarters of the way to the end, I saw the rock. No mistake. Black glass and as
smooth as silk. A rock with no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. For a long time I just looked at it, feeling that I might cry, for whatever reason. The squirrel had
followed me, and it was still chattering away. My heart was beating madly.
When I felt I had myself under control, I went to the rock, squatted beside it–
the joints in my knees went off like a double-barrelled shotgun–and let my hand
touch it. It was real. I didn’t pick it up because I thought there would be anything
under it; I could just as easily have walked away without finding what was beneath. I certainly had no plans to take it away with me, because I didn’t feel it was mine to
take–I had a feeling that taking that rock from the field would have been the worst
kind of theft. No, I only picked it up to feel it better, to get the heft of the thing, and, I suppose, to prove its reality by feeling its satiny texture against my skin.
I had to look at what was underneath for a long time. My eyes saw it, but it
took a while for my mind to catch up. It was an envelope, carefully wrapped in a
plastic bag to keep away the damp. My name was written across the front in Andy’s
clear script. I took the envelope and left the rock where Andy had left it, and Andy’s friend before him.
Dear Red,
If you’re reading this, then you’re out. One way or another, you’re out. And If you’ve followed along this far, you might be willing to come a little further. I think you remember the name of the town, don’t you? I could use a good man to help me
get my project on wheels.
Meantime, have a drink on me–and do think it over. I will be keeping an eye
out for you.
Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no
good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well.
Your friend, Peter Stevens
I didn’t read that letter in the field. A kind of terror had come over me, a need
to get away from there before I was seen. To make what may be an appropriate pun, I
was in terror of being apprehended.
I went back to my room and read it there, with the smell of old men’s dinners
drifting up the stairwell to me–Beefaroni, Ricearoni, Noodleroni. You can bet that
whatever the old folks of America, the ones on fixed incomes, are eating tonight, it
almost certainly ends in roni.
I opened the envelope and read the letter and then I put my head in my arms
and cried.
With the letter there were twenty new fifty-dollar bills.
And here I am in the Brewster Hotel, technically a fugitive from justice again-
-parole violation is my crime. No one’s going to throw up any roadblocks to catch a
criminal wanted on that charge, I guess–wondering what I should do now.
I have this manuscript I have a small piece of luggage about the size of a