Devon liked Joy, but he didn’t want to go to the show. But Devon’s parents had seen James Brown years before he was born and had talked for years of the concert like it was a religious event. James Brown broke down on cue during his shows and his band members would have to guide him off the stage wrapped like a baby in his spangled cape. For years when his father was in a playful mood, he’d mimic the Godfather of Soul and fall to his knees, begging one of his children to rush to his aid. “The soul has overcome me,” his father would insist while Devon ran to get a coat or towel, anything to resemble the clothes of royalty. Don would chant in rhythm like James Brown, break down slain in the spirit of funk. Devon loved to play this game and hurried to be first to his father’s side, ushering him to normalcy. Often he’d played the role too well and his eyes would be damp with tears that held like a miracle inside his eyelids. Tears that scared but delighted him at the same time. Devon had wanted a story like that to tell his own children someday, to make himself big and unreachable to them, the way the Gods are.
He and Joy didn’t make it to the show. Devon had no car anymore and Joy’s car was a piece of junk that stranded them early. Devon and Joy waited at first, neither with cell phones, deep in thought about what to do. What to do was obvious. And they walked the quarter mile to a service station and called her brother collect. As soon as her brother said he would come, Joy started to cry. Devon hadn’t seen her cry since a couple of the girls from the high school came into the sandwich shop, girls with hair like horse’s tails slick and swinging from their heads, and laughed at Joy’s black dyed hair and dark rimmed eyes, their talk loud enough for all the workers in the prep line to hear. “Do you smell something?” Devon had said as loud as he could. “I smell wet dog. You smell it, Joy?” Joy grinned so wide at him, her teeth under the black lipstick looked menacing, like a wolf’s teeth.
Joy’s brother was goat-eyed and nasty, “He’ll not get his black ass in my car,” he’d said, and Joy cussed him in ways that Devon had not yet heard from her but was impressed to witness. “Come on, Devon. Pay no attention to him.”
“That’s okay, I’ll walk.” Devon wouldn’t have gotten in with Joy’s brother for anything in the world. In those days anything might wound him, the wide expanse of an escaped white belly peeking from a shirt, the empty open mouth of a mailbox, but especially any unkind word. He would have to walk the twenty or so miles back home, the road open in front of him, one foot then the other for as long as it took to get there.
“Devon, please, get in the car, Devon. Please,” she’d said. “Don’t listen to him,” Joy said to Devon’s back. He had already started toward the exit with the gas station. “Wait, wait! I’ll walk with you.”
“No.” Devon shook his head and started walking, but Joy jumped out of the car and walked with him.
“Get in here, goddammit,” her brother yelled at Joy. But the two of them walked the half mile to the service station and waited for Sylvia to arrive.
That day Devon was tired, hot, and sweated through. His plan was to make it all the way to Winston-Salem, but it wasn’t looking good. He had walked miles. Ten? More? since he’d last stopped for a soda and wondered what he looked like to the people in the passing cars. He knew it wasn’t much. Did they see a man down on his luck? Did they look for that man’s hissing car on the side of the road? Or did they see a man who walks not for health or fashion but because he had no car to begin with?
At the service station, a slight girl was perched like a bird on the edge of a stool, her sinewy arms, dewy with fine blond hairs, Cutie in glitter letters on her chest, her face bright and round as a moon. Devon caught her eye and nodded in greeting. A handsome girl, Devon thought and laughed to himself. There was nothing handsome about her. That was a silly thing to think. Devon’s interest in her wasn’t exactly about sex. He wanted sex, with her, with any woman, but the thrill of the closeness was better. The knowledge that he could watch a woman sip her coffee in the morning or brush her teeth or walk around in her dingy cotton underwear or watch her fumble with the hooks of her bra as she pulled it on in the morning thrilled him.
For a few months, Devon had had just that kind of relationship. He had helped an old woman his mother knew clean out her basement. Her husband had left town years before, and it was finally time to get rid of the thirty-year-old couches, mattresses, and everyday dishes, the contents of catch-all drawers in boxes from her husband’s mother’s old house. Stuff they meant to but had never bothered to go through, but things her ex couldn’t stand to part with. “Devon will be glad to help you, Linda,” his mother had said. “He’s strong.” Devon had been working at the house for two days when on a break from lifting, Linda put the light bread and mayonnaise on the table, got a tomato from the windowsill for herself, and sat across the kitchen table from him. She was a skinny woman, but not stringy like a plucked chicken, just small. “Do you want to do it with me?” she asked.
Devon had paused at the question, not as surprised as he should have been. “I guess we could.”
“Okay, good,” she said, but she looked like she was going to finish her sandwich first.
There was nothing sweet about this woman but Devon liked her. Every day he came by, after he helped her clear her basement and storage building, her garden plot and attic, she asked him if he wanted to take her to bed. Every day he did. Neither of them had any idea when this situation would end, though they both knew it would. Weeks passed before the woman’s sister came to check on her in the middle of the day and found Devon at the kitchen table naked and unashamed.
“Where’s my sister,” she’d said. Devon had pointed to the bedroom.
The woman had started laughing at him, because of him, Devon couldn’t tell. “You tell my sister that I said she’s an idiot,” she said and walked out the door.
DEVON LIKED STORES, shelves of product, all that plenty. A small store with dog food so old, he wouldn’t give it to a dog, he thought. The joke made him laugh. A girl in the candy aisle looked up at him and rolled her eyes.
At the counter the moon-faced girl waited to ring up his items. She was beautiful, Devon thought.
“I’m sad,” Devon said to her.
The girl looked up from her register to see what the joke being played on her was, but there was only the tired boy.
“Don’t be sad,” she said so softly Devon almost walked away without it.
The girl was embarrassed by her concern and shrugged her shoulders slightly, opened her hands like she hid nothing. Devon left a dollar on the counter and walked out with his soda can popped open. Those were the only words he could remember saying out loud in hours. People were always so sure other people didn’t care. Devon saw that with most people you had to come into their sight, not just be an idea, and then they could show their goodness plain.
“You’ve got some change here.” Devon turned back to the counter to get his eleven cents. When he faced the door again a white man in black jeans and faded gray T-shirt walked into the store. The man’s hair was jet-black and greased into a hair helmet. He looked a little like Elvis, if young Elvis had been rough and worn looking. Behind the man was a skinny woman in her thirties, her skin as pale as a bathroom sink made even whiter with the bright red beehive hairdo floating above her head.
Devon watched the two pass a foot in front of him. He tried not to look at their faces, but neither acknowledged him anyway. Devon turned to the girl at the counter.
“Do you see them? You do, don’t you?”
THE PLACE WHERE THE ROAD OPENED UP and became a highway, where lanes of traffic merged with many other lanes, scared Devon. The idea that most people would never know this danger and yes this thrill of hearing the cars from ground level, the sound growing underneath them like a living thing, made Devon sorry for them. There was the most danger here on the highway, but that was to be expected. Not only were there cars everywhere, by this time Devon was exhausted and hungry.
In less than an hour, he stopped at a
Neighbors, a big gas station with multiple pumps, with a McDonald’s attached. At first glance, it would not be the kind of place that Devon liked, but at the main counter, they carried the homemade chocolate-covered oatmeal bars that he loved. Devon even loved the labels with the white grandmother in a bonnet grinning with too large dentures. He kept a stack of the labels in his closet.
Devon was out of money. He’d checked his pockets at least twenty times, but still nothing. He didn’t even have the little bit of change from the last soda he bought. He hated the feeling of being completely broke and was embarrassed to go inside the store. He considered asking people for some change, anything, but he didn’t want to bother any of the people hurrying past him, so busy in their movements, so sure like the shuddering off of an old machine.
A black man, old to Devon, with a white shell of hair picked straight up parked his truck at the service station. Devon watched him walk into the store and come right back out. Though the man didn’t look in Devon’s direction, he knew that he had seen him. The man had on jeans got from a discount store or a worker’s store, someplace they make jeans for people to work in and not for fashion. The man looked purposeful and put together, his shirt neatly tucked into his pants, boots solid and wide, almost prim in their insistence on duty not style. Devon thought it might not be too bad to look like this man when he got old.
“Where are you going?” the man asked.
“Nowhere,” Devon said but he looked like he would cry. “Just here.”
“You all right?”
Devon didn’t answer but looked as if he didn’t understand the question.
“Are you walking?”
“Walking all over the place.” Devon grinned like somebody’d said something funny.
The man looked Devon over. He was a good-looking boy, but there was something a little lost about him that caught your attention, but didn’t make you afraid.
“You hungry?”
Devon didn’t answer and wasn’t sure himself, been walking some time on the hot asphalt for hours and hours and didn’t remember. He’d walked on the dirt roads in the too tall grass, liked to see the bugs flutter up and out of the weeds behind him. A white man had veered onto the shoulder of the road just to scare him and prove that he was more powerful than a walking boy. If the man had seen Devon in his rearview, he wouldn’t have gotten what he wanted. Instead of Devon’s cringing fear, he would have seen Devon laughing like he was in on the joke.
“I’ve been walking so long, I haven’t thought about food. Yeah, I guess I am hungry,” Devon nodded. “Yeah I guess I am.”
“Stay right here.” There was no harm in this. No harm. His own grandboys were young yet, half the age of this one, but if one of them were ever out and alone, he’d want the same for them. Devon followed the man into the restaurant part of the store. He stood in line with the boy at the McDonald’s. “I’m Jimmy Patterson,” he said and held out his hand. Devon clutched it like a woman would, grabbing Jimmy’s fingers instead of touching palm to palm. “Do you know what you want?”
Devon hesitated embarrassed by the question. He clearly didn’t have any money.
“I’m buying. You get what you want.”
Years ago, Jimmy had taken his own children, all four of them, to one of these burger places. They had been so excited and he didn’t mind that they hummed as they ate the dry sandwiches or put their elbows on the table and laughed with their heads reared back like debutantes, chewed food clumped in their mouths. Jimmy had to stop a minute to wonder when he had started to think of those hard times as the good gone days. He tried not to bring his grandkids to these places, but they cried for it. The grown boy across from him ate his sandwich in a couple of bites like he hadn’t eaten for days.
“How long have you been out in this heat?”
“I’m not sure,” Devon said his straw straining against the ice packed in the cup.
“You look like the sun found you. It’s hot out there. You got anybody to call?” the man asked.
Devon nodded. “I’ve been gone since early this morning. It wasn’t that hot then.”
“We need to call somebody if you’ve got people.”
The man followed Devon out to the pay phone in the parking lot. Devon recited his mother’s phone number while the man dialed it in. “What’s your name, son?”
“Devon.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sitting here with Devon at the Yadkinville exit on forty. Yes, ma’am. He just ate a McDonald’s sandwich. Oh there’s no need for that. Yes, ma’am. I’ll sit here until you come. No, he’s fine,” Jimmy said and looked over at Devon. “Sweaty and tired-looking, but nothing serious. You’re certainly welcome. No, I don’t mind. All right then,” Jimmy said and hung up the phone. “They’re coming,” he said.
Jimmy walked back into the restaurant with Devon. He had nowhere to be.
“I’m glad she’s coming,” Devon said. “I don’t think I could walk any more today. I’m tired.” Devon wiped his face with his hands, covering his eyes.
The man had the thought that like a child, Devon didn’t know he could be seen with his eyes closed. “Devon, you been walking long?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve been walking. For years and years.”
The man grinned slowly. He wasn’t sure if he was being let in on a joke or creating one himself. “What did you say?”
“I appreciate this food.” Devon gestured to the empty wrappings in front of him. “I don’t have any money,” he said patting his empty pockets, “but I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
“When you get a job, you can buy somebody else a sandwich.”
“I can do that.” Devon grinned.
“Your mama will be here before you know it. Here,” Jimmy said and handed a napkin to Devon. “Wipe your mouth.” Jimmy looked away while Devon rubbed the napkin across his face, wiping sweat with it on his face and his neck. “Your mama sounded worried. You should tell her when you set out for a walk.”
“I know it. She’s a good woman.”
“Well, you think about your mama when you’re running around.” Jimmy rubbed his head a little embarrassed to be scolding this stranger.
“I’m almost twenty-three.” Devon laughed.
Jimmy laughed with him. “One day you’ll think you couldn’t have been twenty-anything, it’s so young. You’ll look at people, kids,” Jimmy said, looking around the restaurant for someone Devon’s age to make his point. “You’ll see people that same age and you’ll wonder how you ever thought you were grown. I said to myself ‘why did anybody let me out of the house.’” Jimmy chuckled. “I didn’t have my head on straight, that’s for sure.”
Devon nodded wisely. “I know what you mean. I don’t feel all that good sometimes. I let my car roll down the hill. I forgot the brake.”
“That’s a shame.”
“It didn’t hit anybody, but it was rolling down the road backward until it ended up in the woods.”
“Well, don’t take it too hard. You can get another one.”
“I don’t. I like to walk. I hear the road, the outside, and the animals. I don’t have to think so much.”
“What do you mean?”
“In my mind.”
“What do you hear?”
Devon looked at Jimmy Patterson but didn’t answer. He liked this man, but there was no telling what he might think of the truth. “It’s nothing. Just headaches.”
“Whatever it is, Devon, you have to let it go. Keep on trying to get a job. Get a girl. That’ll take your mind off of things. Work is the main thing.”
Devon shook his head so slightly, Jimmy could barely tell.
“Church is on Sunday. I need to stop preaching.” The man took a package of cigarettes and tapped them in his palm. “You smoke?”
“That’s not good for you.”
The man laughed. “You’re right about that.” The man put his ashy hands on the table. He needed lotion, but he always forgot or better said he always let it go. He hated
the effeminate feel of rubbing his hands together, beautifying. A man didn’t take care like that.
“Do it in the bathroom,” his wife said. “Nobody will think you’re gay in your own bathroom.” She laughed.
“I’ll be right outside. You hear?” It occurred to Jimmy that Devon wouldn’t be there when he came back. “I’ll be right outside that door. Okay? Come on out with me and keep me company.”
Devon nodded and balled up his trash. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” Devon motioned his head to the store. “Gotta go.” Devon did not look at Jimmy’s face.
“You coming right back? I’ll just wait here for you.”
Devon didn’t answer. “I appreciate the sandwich, sir. Not many people will help you out.”
“You’re grown, Devon.” Devon looked over Jimmy’s head. “Devon, listen, your mama’s coming all the way out here to get you, Devon. You want her to find you, don’t you?”
“She’ll find me.”
“Be back here, son.” Jimmy knew he shouldn’t, but he let the boy out of his sight. He thought about going to the bathroom with him and waiting for him outside the door. Jimmy quickly smoked his cigarette with his eye on the door. Devon did not come past him. That he was sure of. He waited at their table for five minutes, maybe less, before he entered the two-stall bathroom. “Devon,” he called. “Are you in here?” Though he knew it was no use. Jimmy hurried outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the young man on the road. He had no choice but to call the boy’s mother. For hours, maybe more, long after the dark would consume a solitary figure on the shoulder, Jimmy searched for Devon on the highways.
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