be.”
We sat alone under the great dome of lights, allowing ourselves to be ever so much smaller than the world until Simon woke up.
THE NAKED MAN
The hawk screams, and light spills into my tunnel, dispersing it. I squint, then press my eyes shut for relief. When I open them I see a town.
More significantly, I am standing barefoot on a spot my brother Simon has crossed. For the first time since the start of my wanderings, I have chanced across a piece of my target.
I am pleased with myself for knowing this.
The town spreads out a mile or so below me, but the back door of the nearest house is practically in my lap. I stand facing a board fence where, just the other side, a fiftyish woman in a denim shirt and sun hat and heavy work gloves prunes roses.
The hawk screams again. I look up to see him above her yard in a tree, watching me with agitation. I wonder why the woman does not look up. Maybe the hawk is not really there. Or maybe I’m not. I could be invisible. It’s happened before. I take two steps toward her fence. My movement catches her eye; she looks at my face, questioning at first, then she smiles.
“Good morning,” she says. “You took a nasty scrape there.”
My hand flies to my chin, a band of cracked scab. I’d forgotten, although it hurts. I pull the photo from my bedroll.
“I’m looking for my brother Simon,” I say, and show it to her. “I thought you might have seen him.”
She studies the picture longer than necessary. She likes him, I can tell. Everybody likes Simon. She’s thinking that if she had lost someone like that, she’d want him back, too. I can see that in her face.
I want to tell her that my brother Simon used to be a gardener, years ago, but I am just lucid enough to know she doesn’t care about that.
“I can’t say that I have.”
“His clothes were found twenty or twenty-five miles west of here. I thought he might have come by this way.”
“Clothes?” she asks. “You think he might have come by here without them?”
“Well, it’s unlike him. But it’s hard to know what to think.”
“Unless he was the naked man. But that was over two months ago.”
“The naked man?”
“Well, he wasn’t naked, really. He had on jockey shorts. Walked down off the hill, just like you did now, then on toward town.”
“Was he a blond man, like my brother?”
She shakes her head. “Too far away to tell. Didn’t care to get too close to him, you know. We all thought... well, we weren’t sure what to think.”
“Who else saw him?”
“Seems like nobody except my neighbor. We think he’s the one stole that pair of overalls down off Mr. Mobley’s clothesline. Because a naked man in town—now that would’ve turned a few heads.”
I want to know which neighbor. She says the one who’s in Chicago just now. No, no emergency number. “She didn’t say if he was blond, only that his forehead and arms were all blistered from sunburn and he had something in his hand, something small and flat.”
We talk until I realize she knows nothing more to tell me, then I thank her and limp into town. I feel nothing. How do you feel things, Simon?
I show his picture to every shopkeeper, every passing pedestrian. Everyone shakes their head.
I change into my clean clothes at a service station, wash with paper towels, comb my hair, brush my teeth. This is important. I take my dirty clothes to wash at a laundromat, and as they’re washing, I eat lunch in a diner. The waitress notices my bare feet but chooses not to fuss. I have a turkey sandwich, a Coke, two pieces of apple pie, and seven glasses of water. My legs throb and tingle and stiffen up, and I find it hard to stand again. The linoleum floor of the diner burns my wounded feet with its coolness. I can’t walk anymore. I take wincing baby steps to the cash register. I never should have stopped.
I stay over one night in a bargain motel. In the morning I lever out of bed and crawl to the shower, standing in the warm
We sat alone under the great dome of lights, allowing ourselves to be ever so much smaller than the world until Simon woke up.
THE NAKED MAN
The hawk screams, and light spills into my tunnel, dispersing it. I squint, then press my eyes shut for relief. When I open them I see a town.
More significantly, I am standing barefoot on a spot my brother Simon has crossed. For the first time since the start of my wanderings, I have chanced across a piece of my target.
I am pleased with myself for knowing this.
The town spreads out a mile or so below me, but the back door of the nearest house is practically in my lap. I stand facing a board fence where, just the other side, a fiftyish woman in a denim shirt and sun hat and heavy work gloves prunes roses.
The hawk screams again. I look up to see him above her yard in a tree, watching me with agitation. I wonder why the woman does not look up. Maybe the hawk is not really there. Or maybe I’m not. I could be invisible. It’s happened before. I take two steps toward her fence. My movement catches her eye; she looks at my face, questioning at first, then she smiles.
“Good morning,” she says. “You took a nasty scrape there.”
My hand flies to my chin, a band of cracked scab. I’d forgotten, although it hurts. I pull the photo from my bedroll.
“I’m looking for my brother Simon,” I say, and show it to her. “I thought you might have seen him.”
She studies the picture longer than necessary. She likes him, I can tell. Everybody likes Simon. She’s thinking that if she had lost someone like that, she’d want him back, too. I can see that in her face.
I want to tell her that my brother Simon used to be a gardener, years ago, but I am just lucid enough to know she doesn’t care about that.
“I can’t say that I have.”
“His clothes were found twenty or twenty-five miles west of here. I thought he might have come by this way.”
“Clothes?” she asks. “You think he might have come by here without them?”
“Well, it’s unlike him. But it’s hard to know what to think.”
“Unless he was the naked man. But that was over two months ago.”
“The naked man?”
“Well, he wasn’t naked, really. He had on jockey shorts. Walked down off the hill, just like you did now, then on toward town.”
“Was he a blond man, like my brother?”
She shakes her head. “Too far away to tell. Didn’t care to get too close to him, you know. We all thought... well, we weren’t sure what to think.”
“Who else saw him?”
“Seems like nobody except my neighbor. We think he’s the one stole that pair of overalls down off Mr. Mobley’s clothesline. Because a naked man in town—now that would’ve turned a few heads.”
I want to know which neighbor. She says the one who’s in Chicago just now. No, no emergency number. “She didn’t say if he was blond, only that his forehead and arms were all blistered from sunburn and he had something in his hand, something small and flat.”
We talk until I realize she knows nothing more to tell me, then I thank her and limp into town. I feel nothing. How do you feel things, Simon?
I show his picture to every shopkeeper, every passing pedestrian. Everyone shakes their head.
I change into my clean clothes at a service station, wash with paper towels, comb my hair, brush my teeth. This is important. I take my dirty clothes to wash at a laundromat, and as they’re washing, I eat lunch in a diner. The waitress notices my bare feet but chooses not to fuss. I have a turkey sandwich, a Coke, two pieces of apple pie, and seven glasses of water. My legs throb and tingle and stiffen up, and I find it hard to stand again. The linoleum floor of the diner burns my wounded feet with its coolness. I can’t walk anymore. I take wincing baby steps to the cash register. I never should have stopped.
I stay over one night in a bargain motel. In the morning I lever out of bed and crawl to the shower, standing in the warm
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