The Lost Highway

by David Adams Richards

  “Don’t be silly—you will get your share,” Leo answered in a split second, staring at him inquisitively.

  The word “share” bothered Alex a very great deal. He did not let on, but he was too bright not to know that this was a signal that meant something had changed in their positions, from the time of the bid. Even from the time they had left the tavern. It was a shifting of circumstance and position, within the tenuous dimensions of their association.

  He thought it over as they walked toward his cabin. It was becoming difficult to breathe again, and he was worried about all kinds of things. He had always prided himself on being able to control this fellow. But now? Well, who controlled who?

  When they got to his shed, his little garden illuminated in the moonlight, Alex felt his heart thumping wildly. He went into the kitchen and got some water. When he came back, Leo was curled up on the floor, sound asleep. Strangely, there was this: Alex’s seven-inch hunting knife on the counter. It was there as if a signal or a warning—or perhaps to tempt Alex to murder. He thought of this. But then how could he? He had been called “a voice crying in the wilderness” by a local reporter who’d liked what he said. Some voice if he went around stabbing Frenchmen.

  So he went to bed.

  The next morning Alex woke with a start, knowing in his heart he had done and said much too much. He ran into the small living room, sweating and feeble, and found no one there.

  He should have killed him.

  “For great virtue a great crime might be necessary.”

  This is what he decided to put faith in now. Still and all, if he played his cards right, what could go wrong?

  The only thing amiss was that Bourque had taken Alex’s old hunting knife.

  —

  IT WAS AUGUST 15, THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION. VERY few people in the world might know this. Far, far less would observe it. It was now a few days before the agricultural fair started, where Poppy Bourque sold his lettuce and potatoes, with a big sign that read: Poppy’s Radish, Turnip, and Patats!

  Amy had been told all her life about the Feast of the Assumption by her mother and father. She came from the store, where she bought a pop and a bag of chips, which she did on Friday nights, and then walked along the beach to see if there were any starfish. There was an east wind now. Across on a flat, near the steps down to the beach, stood the grotto and the Virgin, and Amy Patch walked there and lit one candle, and it, protected from the wind, burned. Her hair was dark and unruly about her ears, her skin smelled of salt and seaweed. She had a tiny mole on the same side of her face as Minnie.

  Amy knelt before the Virgin, and looked at the face staring at her: childlike, intense, kind, human. The weather had made it more so in the last five years, and had given it more “truth.” The Virgin’s right hand was lifted out toward her, as in greeting, her left hand across her heart. The statue had never moved, yet the elements had made her more transfigured than before.

  Amy blessed herself, kissed her hand, and touched the Virgin’s heart. She was about to leave, and then she turned and came back.

  “Do you know what I think,” Amy whispered to the Virgin, far away from the steps and in the darkness. “I think old Mr. Chapman has a ticket worth a lot of money and doesn’t even know—that’s what I think—but if I told Mom that this is what Alex did, she wouldn’t believe me. Besides, I don’t want to tell on him. It is so strange a thing—I can see his whole brain working away trying to get this money, with no one else knowing! But if I am wrong—what a thing to say! So tell me what to do.”

  But of course no answer came. Who would believe in virgins anymore, or in God, or in Jesus, Moses, or any other mythology? All had been trampled underfoot by the somewhat smug and pedestrian certainty of modern man.

  Man was not powerful? Ha, not a religion in the world man couldn’t topple with a shrug! And Amy had seen this shrug among her friends, all dallying toward something else, precocious and certain of their invincibility.

  But, as always, that was the way of youth!

  —

  OVER THE ROOF OF MINNIE’S HOUSE THE RAIN FELL, AND through the woods, where all the paths led to trout pools, the paths of boys and girls, the paths of fairies and hobbits so innocent that, like Amy, their sexuality or desire was never a question until someone commanded that it should be, and beat them down for it, and submitted them to the idea that their human desire was foul, when it was God given and as brilliant as the sun.

  There would be no child left in the snow, if as God intended, love and forgiveness were understood. Amy, too, dreamed that night of a boy meeting her in the field where sweet black-eyed Susans waved, and as she lay down her clothes were taken away, until she wore nothing and the sun beat down upon her, and her legs were opened. Who then was this boy she didn’t know who came into her dream to strip her naked?

  She woke one time to the sound of the raccoon against the window, and fell back to sleep and the dream was gone.

  —

  THROUGH THE GREAT LONG UNCUT FIELD BEHIND McDurmot’s tired old house, and down the church lane, a lone figure stood. Rain sweeping in from the bay fell over the top spire of the church, and he passed by the grotto to see the candle flicker and in the wet, dreary night to smell wax.

  Now, after six months in the wilderness, Bourque decided this is how he would proceed. He was now much more resolute in what he had to do. Tragedy allowed his psyche to expand. He would act with decisive strokes and attain all that he sought. He would do it within the next week or two. He would do it for one reason: to get back at his wife who had betrayed him. He would also pay Alex back for having brought him the bid.

  This, to him, was a betrayal of his whole life, and he could not let it rest. He had never hurt his wife, had loved her, and he was gullible enough to think that she loved him. So things would have to change, and he knew in his heart that this ticket was the only way to change them.

  What would he ever do with Alex, that nephew, the foster child and orphan, who remained his biggest obstacle? Bourque did not know. But his estimation of what he might be able to do had changed from his admiration of that man, and he was fraught with pent-up expectation. The man, with or without his degree, was simply a boy, and Bourque knew he could control him. Now the money was so close, no X factor could make him fail. But what if it did fail? Then what? Well, he must do everything in his power not to have it fail. And he recognized that sooner or later Alex would be a problem. This came to him just as a slight shudder, and he tried to dismiss it; that is, dismiss considering what to do about it now.

  He had watched Amy leave the church without much thought of how important she would be in his quest to finally achieve all of this. She was always on the outside, this Amy. And this was significant, too—because she spent much of her time with her cousin Burton. She had one friend, Rory. But everyone said he had gone off with someone else.

  Yes, I will have to watch her, he thought. That is, Bourque was suspicious of her because her solitude had made her a companion of a mentally disabled man who had the computer. Amy had no idea of this, of course. Other girls went in twos and threes to the store on Friday night, Amy walked alone, and this had registered on Leo, who was smart enough to know that she might be a problem.

  Leo stepped beyond the grotto, picked up a Styrofoam cup half filled with water and threw it in childish glee at the candle. It sputtered and went dead, but as he descended the lonely twisted steps, the candle Amy had lit came to life again and flickered against the dark.

  —

  ALEX WAS NOT ASLEEP. HE HAD BUILT A FIRE, AND WAS staring into the dark where his fireplace, still lighted by some embers, burned low. He was shivering, and though not destitute, he felt he was. For he knew he had made a large mistake. How could he have been so foolish? Drink, of course. Even at university—a place where he placed certainty in his morality—he got drunk too easily.

  He had trusted the wrong someone, and now that someone was deciding how everything would work. Alex was jealous of
this. But he had no strength of character to stop it. This is what his study of ethics did. It challenged him to do better, but he always failed. And he thought this: Leo would search for and find the ticket. It would be over for him, then. He had to stop it—had to, but how?

  Then the idea came that all might turn out and that Leo was his friend.

  Alex thought of all the past ridicule he had suffered as a boy, after his mother died. And for what? For what reason was so much ridicule heaped upon him? The horrible death of his mother. The taunting of kids on the bus. The failure to win Minnie. The ultimate failure with his doctorate—and his consequential ouster at the university, a place where he had placed all his pride and certitude. All had floundered.

  Last year, when he went back to visit an old professor, the man had forgotten his name. But as much as he was terrified of this past coming back to haunt him, as much as he hoped it would not, there was no answer.

  Just silence and in the silence the words: You have done what you have done.

  That was all. The sum total of all his plans and ambitions came to this sentence: You have done what you have done.

  He shivered and tears came to his eyes. For suddenly he thought of the time his uncle bought him a bicycle, and couldn’t teach Alex how to ride it because he had never ridden one himself.

  “I’m sorry—I was put to work when I was nine,” was all he said.

  And then once when they were alone not so long ago, just when night was falling, the old man had looked over at him and said, “I’m sorry.” Not for anything in particular, but for everything altogether.

  There was something else he had seen on the third day when searching his uncle’s house. In a drawer in his uncle’s room, a dozen or more faded personal ads that had been put into the papers between 1960 and 1965: “Rosa Beth Chapman, traveling or living with son or daughter, or anyone knowing of her whereabouts, please contact James Oliver Chapman, 506-987-9017. Concern for her safety. Reward to be offered.” Just as Aunt Muriel had once told him. After Rosa left his uncle had never given up looking for her. Alex had not believed it. At that time he didn’t have to.

  The personal ads had been stuffed away in an envelope, things that make the heart go weak. There was also something else—it was a bank notice of payment in the amount of $4541.11, the year Old Jim brought him home from the foster home. It was a payment—one time—for Mr. Roach to be out of their life—his son’s life—money for nothing, part of the legacy Mr. Roach had connived for. What was worse was the realization that Mr. Roach had taken this money, and never came back. What was worse was the seemingly insignificant amount.

  Still, beyond all the rectitude of Muriel, this showed more than anything the old man’s troubled love.

  —

  THE EMBERS FELL AND THE COALS BRIGHTENED, AND THERE was a knock on the door.

  Bourque walked in, and Alex was stunned to discover how short he was. His black eyes were penetrating, however, and matched his toss of black hair and his thick mustache and thicker neck. He sat on the couch and put his right arm around Alex, like a man might with a woman. Alex had once mocked Leo behind his back. He would not dare now. But still and all, might he have to outsmart him?

  Leo placed his right arm, which Alex could tell was as strong as an iron bar, over Alex’s shoulder and said, “You won’t have to worry anymore—and we will figure this all out together—but we have to do it very quickly and get Poppy onside. I think of you as my friend. I always have!”

  Alex tried to calm himself, but he could feel his high blood pressure, which caused his legs to ache suddenly. He did not know what to say, and finally said, “It is all a dream—if it was there, I should have found it by now. And I think we should try to tell my uncle about it—he did do some awful kind things for me, you know!”

  Leo slapped him on the back of the head. “Not your uncle, no! Trust me! I’ll take care of it for you. Later you have your uncle to deal with—now is the time—is our time! I’ve never had my time, now is it!”

  “Why can’t we tell my uncle?”

  “Because it is too late—for you have told me—and have already told Toes.” (This was unfortunate Burton’s nickname, because of his amputated foot.) “If you go to your uncle, everything will fall apart—he won’t give me a cent! That is the position you are in now, so get used to it. Besides, once you have the money you can be more generous to your old uncle than he would be to you.”

  Alex was beginning to feel the deep betrayal of his uncle, and the substantial part he had played in his own Aunt Muriel’s heartbreak.

  Then, after a considerable pause, Leo said, “But I want at least a little bit more.”

  “More—what do you mean?” Alex asked. In all his travels, in all the time he had spent on the earth, he suddenly realized this was the moment bound to happen. He suddenly felt as if he had joined some other part of the highway—that part his uncle had always fought against—but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what part of the highway he was now being loyal to. Leo, too, after a lifetime of trying hard to please the better angels of his nature had now fallen into somewhere darker than ever before, because of this promised ticket.

  Leo, knowing the power of being mysterious, simply said very quietly, “A little more, not much—three quarters.”

  There was a long pause.

  Leo kept his hand on Alex’s shoulder and said, “I am willing to take care of it all for you! Burton hasn’t caught on, has he—and that’s the thing, to keep Burton in the dark—”

  “Yes,” Alex said, “but I will give you half—no more.”

  Leo only shrugged.

  Alex asked for his pills, in the cupboard, and tried as best he could to look serene, but his heart was pounding, and as always his left arm became weak.

  Kill him or it will be a disaster, came a sudden thought. Bourque’s back was turned, he was whistling. Still Alex could not.

  “Pills,” Bourque said, “poor little fella—you on pills—on the pills.” And he brought the pills over to his friend. “Don’t die on us yet,” he said, smiling.

  Alex shuddered, took two pills with some water, and sat at the table trying to catch his breath, while Leo stood over him, hand on his shoulder. He could smell the damp evening air.

  “A bit of asthma,” Alex said.

  “It’s all this weather and chemicals in the air,” Leo said sympathetically. “It’s the government—we should have a revolution. Something like in Cuba.”

  “That’s exactly what I said for years,” Alex commented. “That was the whole purpose of my doctorate. I wanted an ethical revolution—one that brought us all together.”

  “Yes, well that’s what we will have—a big friendly revolution, starting tonight!” And Bourque tossed Alex’s orange hair with his big friendly hand.

  Alex found it hard to breathe again. Staring at this man, he knew if he did or did not do anything, helped or not helped, it no longer mattered, because the lie he invested in was already out, and this man had taken flight into dreams of wealth and power.

  He stared in astonishment as Leo spoke about the ticket, about what he would do when he got it. That he would “put a few things to rest, let me tell you.”

  He spoke like a man who had been tormented all his life and was now willing to get back at everyone.

  “Sooner or later I knew it would come my way,” he said.

  How could this be happening? Leo stood, short, blunt, with an impassive jovial face. The one who had written Alex as a schoolboy.

  That friend from his past Alex had boldly demanded had come back.

  —

  ALEX HAD THOUGHT THAT WHO WOULD COME BACK WERE the friends he so desired to have near, those boys and girls all practiced in the art of easy common-room revolution, piqued and galled, protected, ineffectual and cowardly. The ones he could easily impress with progressive thought.

  But someone else had returned. That erstwhile right winger into his left-wing world. He’d returned and was deciding in quic
k measure what direction Alex’s life should now take. Alex realized the great respect this man had for him, and would continue to have for him—as long as he performed the way this man believed he should. But wasn’t that like his friends in the common room as well?

  Leo was curious about Alex now. “All that learning and after the same thing I am,” he said. He smiled roughly wondering about this.

  And Alex didn’t like his look, or his wondering.

  “I am going over to your uncle’s and find the ticket.”

  “When, now—tonight?”

  “No, tomorrow afternoon—of course tonight—why not tonight! Your uncle might be back tomorrow—”

  “Well don’t touch anything else!”

  Bourque turned at the door, and a look of displeasure at this command crossed his face, and then he shrugged.

  —

  ALEX STARED AT THE DOOR LONG, LONG AFTER THE MAN had gone. He thought of sin, and himself as a child. How he worried about sin in the priesthood, and how he combated the idea of any sin in university among the professorial. To believe there was sin was to conjure up forgiveness—which he refused to do. Approval or disapproval was better. One might say the priests themselves instigated this with their demonic irrelevance in the modern world, and how everything to some of them was a sin.

  He did not know that Amy now lived her life in constant worry about Fanny Groat who was dying, about Burton who was teased, and that the money he had promised her was to be given all away, to help get Fanny Groat a bed at the senior citizens’ home.

  He did not know that she believed him, and wanted to like him. Would he then approve or disapprove?

  “I need the ticket—and I will do whatever it takes to get it,” he decided again.

  He followed Leo Bourque into the dark, across the wet field, and stopped dead, looking up at the windows of the house. There, from his vantage point, he could see a small flashlight zigzag crazily against the inside night, spraying the walls and certain curtains, illuminating for a second some artifact Alex had long held in private affection. For some reason this horrified him, and he could not move—as that flashlight moved, from one dark room to the next, and then up the long dark stairs.