Climbing Up the Walls (6-9)

6.

Indian Tommy never came and I wasn’t surprised or bothered but I was low on water and it had been days since he had come. Days since my last candle. Days in the darkness. I couldn’t wait any more for someone to come so I put my back pack on and decided I would walk the mile to the state route and the three or four miles to the nearest gas station on the edge of town, and hopefully find someone to give me a ride back. In case I didn’t though, I left early in the morning.

The morning was cool but promised a bit more. The woods were already alive around me as I walked along the dirt driveway and later the dirt road. The wind brushed lightly through the trees and small animals skittered about near me and probably far from me also. Large animals, I didn’t want to think about them. Birds chirped. Light splayed through branches and leaves and rocks and across the dirt in front of me in an ever changing show of light and dark. Color and contrast and there was beauty and I thought to myself, This isn’t so bad.

7.

I was hungry by the time I had reached the state route. The sun was creeping higher in the sky and sweat beaded on my forehead, even though I hadn’t really done much of anything and it wasn’t that hot.

The road stretched out in both directions in front of me but was insulated on both sides by tall pine trees.

A red car drove by me and it was going much too fast to stop if I stepped in front of it and I thought of the light patterns in the dirt road.

I turned right and walked toward town.

I took a joint out of my pocket and lit it. Thank God for that crop, I thought. No one would bother me. I walked and inhaled and exhaled and became lighter in my head and I thought about writing a book or whittling or becoming a knot enthusiast. I knew a couple of knots. I could tie my shoes a few different ways. I could make others up. Maybe I’d find the perfect knot. Maybe because I knew nothing of knots and what was considered right or wrong in the knot enthusiast world I could break all of the rules and be some goddamned knot dynamo and I wondered if they had knot tying championships and I knew that if I kept at it I would be the greatest in the world and I would be the first knot champion ever that children would look up to and Wheaties would want me on their box and…

A car honked and I jumped and dropped the joint.

“Shit,” I said and picked it back up. The car was gone and I noticed I was almost to the gas station. I could see it and I saw that the sun was higher now. I was hungrier and I wished I had bought more bread the last time I was out. I told myself I had to remember to buy more bread. And something protein. I had been feeling weak. Maybe nuts. I didn’t think nuts went bad and they had a lot of protein. Unsalted.

The gas station was yellow and fit in a small cutout of pine trees all around it. The parking lot was small and the black top was old and I could feel where it had buckled under many winters under my feet and the pumps weren’t digital here yet.

I walked up to the door and opened it and the sleigh bells above it chimed and the I went in.

8.

I was high. I hadn’t quite realized it until the clerk looked up at me from under his glasses and didn’t smile and I smiled back at him but he didn’t. I went to the cooler.

“You have to leave your bag up front here,” the clerk said.

His words bounced around in my skull and I stood I front of the cooler for a second trying to catch them.

“What?”

“You can’t walk around with a bag like that. You get what you want and pay for it and then put it in the bag.”

“What do I do with it until then?” I was still staring at the cooler.

“Put it outside.”

“I can’t. What if someone steals it?”

“Then put it up here on the counter. No one will steal it here.”

“Okay,” I said. I walked back up to the counter and slid my bag off of my shoulders and the clerk grimaced at me and his face contorted around the air and he knew I was fucked up and I looked at the ground. I set my bag on the counter.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.” I walked back to the cooler. “Do you sell wine?” I asked.

“No. Beer only.”

“Oh.” I knew that but I had forgotten. I opened the cooler and from the bottom row I pulled out two twenty four packs of bottled water. I stared at them and wondered if I took them out of the plastic if they would all fit in my bag and I imagined putting them all in my bag and they fit so I took them up to the counter.

“That it?” the clerk asked.

“No. Food.”

He raised an eyebrow at me and I was hungrier than ever now.

I went to the small grocery section and took two loaves of bread and three large cans of unsalted nuts and a bag of chips and brought them all up to the counter and set them down.

“How much is the beer?” I asked.

“What beer?”

“Oh, I’m,” I looked around. “I’m going to get some.”

“You have I.D.?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring the beer up here and I’ll tell you how much it is.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.”

I walked back to the cooler, grabbed the cheapest twelve pack there was and brought it up.

“Ten twenty nine,” he said.

“For all of it?”

He looked it all over. “No.” He rang things up. “Thirty seven eighteen.”

“Okay.” I took out my wallet and handed him two tens and four fives.

“I.D.?”

“What?”

“I.D. son. For the beer.”

The beer was on the counter. “Oh, yeah. Right.” I handed him my I.D. and he looked at it and looked at me and handed it back. He took my money, rang me out and gave me my change.

“Thanks sir,” I said.

“No problem. You want a bag?”

“I think it will fit in here.” I pointed to my backpack and the clerk shook his head.

“Good luck.”

I began filling the back pack up and I fit the nuts and the beer and most of the water. I put more water bottles in my pocket and I tied the loaves of bread to the straps of my backpack like sneakers over a telephone wire and held the chips. I was quite proud. I looked at the clerk and smiled.

“Well done,” he said.

“Thanks.”

A girl came in.

9.

Her hair was dark and curled and waved gently over her shoulders and down her chest and back and her lips were full and her eyes were deep and I looked like a fucking idiot. She smiled at me as she walked by.

I didn’t say anything and I left.

I was hungry.