The Waking (39 page)

I re-read the letter and raise my eyebrows. It’s not exactly the nicest thing to say to a little boy, but it’s some truth that I wish my father or anyone else had told me.

The bus makes several stops, first in Bay Minette then in Atmore for lunch. I greedily devour half a loaf of homemade bread and several cookies. After stops in Evergreen and Greenville, where the green is greener because of all the rain, we hit Montgomery and are told that we have forty-five minutes until the bus leaves. I follow a white couple after the man says to the woman, “Let’s go see the Capitol.”

“
Mind if I join you?” I ask. “I’m not familiar with Montgomery.”

The man turns. “Neither are we.” He holds out a little guidebook. “But if we’re here,” and he points at a spot on the map, “the Capitol should be a short walk away.”

So we take a walk together, the two of them chatting, me just following. Tangerine buses roll by us as do lots of folks with umbrellas. I offer my umbrella to them since they don’t have one, and the three of us share it until we get to the Capitol building.

While they take pictures of the building, each other, and even one of me, I look around. I look down and see a marker noting the very spot where Jefferson Davis stood when he was sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America. Across the street is the first White House of the Confederacy. A short walk later, I see the Civil Rights Museum and Court Square, where slaves were auctioned off. Everywhere I turn, I see things that don’t belong next to each other. This town celebrates its heritage in the strangest ways. Why are these all within spitting distance of each other?

All this history in one place. All the hate that flowed through this town, and they’re actually promoting it. If your town is falling apart, let it riot and go to hell with lots of fussing and fires, boycotts and strikes. Then declare each and every trouble spot historic and charge admission. History with a cover charge. The folks on the Hill could do this, but would anyone come? Maybe Freedom Corner is just the beginning. What do white folks do to save old buildings? They get them registered as historical sites, and no wrecking ball can touch them. Maybe that’s what we need to do.

I wander back toward the marker where Jefferson Davis stood. I hope the rain clears off soon and gets real hot, so hot someone will be able to fry an egg on this little star beneath my feet. Yeah. That’s a historic
sight
I’d like to see.

“
You ready to get back?” the man asks.

“
Yeah.”

We race-walk back to the bus station and catch it minutes before it pulls out and heads to Tuskegee … then to Auburn … and finally to Opelika. I doze most of the way, only waking when the bus stops to unload or load passengers.

It’s a little after five when I get off, and instead of starting right off on my long walk, I sit on a bench in the bus station and have a little feast. I eat everything, all the cookies and all the cakes, downing most of the canteen of water to lighten my load. Eventually, all I have in the backpack is a lighter, a nearly empty canteen, an African blanket, some toiletries, and some “draws.” I barely feel it on my shoulder. Now where’s my—

I watch the bus I was on rolling away into another wall of rain.

—
umbrella.

I am going to have the softest hair on planet earth after this.

19: On the Road North of Opelika

After waiting out most of the deluge at the bus station, I spend the rest of the evening treading through the muddy side shoulders of 431 past used car lots, signs screaming “NO MONEY DOWN!!!” I wonder if they’d sell a car to me, who only has twenty-two bucks and some change to my name. I walk parallel to I-85 for a while before taking Highway 29 to search for shelter and maybe a place to rest for the night. I find a spot at a particularly sharp bend in a swollen creek, thick underbrush behind and above me giving me some camouflage and relief from most of the rain.

Always cool near de water,
the little girl’s voice says
.

You got that right.

Bugs near de water, too,
The Voice says.

And The Voice is right. I have never seen so many gnats and mosquitoes in my life. They swarm me just as the clouds part and a sliver of the setting sun shines through. I can’t stay here. I’ll be eaten alive.

I cross a dirt road, climb a steep red dirt embankment, and maze my way through pine trees in a little forest, swatting at mosquitoes humming at my ears. Why didn’t they give me bug spray? Wait. I have a lighter. I can build a fire. But will anything light?

You’re a city boy, Manny. You never built a fire in your life.

I did at Camp Allequippa.

That was half a lifetime ago.

Let’s see what I can remember.

I collect bits of bark, small twigs, and old pinecones, most of them fairly dry. At the top of a little hill, I see decaying, charred stumps to my right and gnarled pines to my left. I can still hear the creek, though. It shouldn’t be too hard to find again if I get thirsty in the night.

Hmm. You’re right. Too risky.

This clearing, thickly carpeted with wet leaves, hasn’t been used recently, maybe never. Maybe I’m the first person in a hundred years to use it. Letting the backpack slide off my shoulders, I kick the leaves away from the center of the clearing to form a small circle on which to build the fire.

I sniff the air. A little metallic, a little pine. And more mosquitoes. Rain’s coming again, that’s for sure. Why do the mosquitoes have to bite so hard right before it rains?

I walk to the edge of the clearing. Finding a yard-long dead branch, I crack it into four pieces and rest the pieces against each other in the circle, rearranging them slightly. I slide some of the drier leaves into the spaces between the sticks and add some notepad paper, lighting each leaf and wad of paper with the lighter. Adding the pinecones, I watch as my fire spreads to the branch pieces, hearing the faint hiss of the wet wood. And as the smoke rises and fills the little clearing, the bugs aren’t nearly as bad. The old ladies were indeed wise to give me this lighter.

My stick and pinecone fire gleaming, I settle my back against a moss-less fir trunk, my two-tone boots sinking into the decaying leaves, my hands stretched out over the glow to keep any stray bugs away from my knuckles. I flick the smaller of the branches into the fire, now blazing orange and red flames. Maybe I’ll do some writing. Yeah. Good time and place to write about the day. As I reach for a notepad in my back pocket, though, I hear something shuffling through the leaves down over the hill to my left.

Something’s coming.

I know.

Bet it’s big and hungry.

It’s too noisy to be a dog or a cat. Pushing with my legs, I inch up the tree, barely scraping my shirt against the scabrous bark. Then I tense as a solitary beam of light crisscrosses the woods. I can’t see who’s carrying the flashlight, but it has to be someone who knows the territory well. Maybe the landowner? Who would own this expanse of nothing? It’s just my luck. The light beam, now only a few dancing shadows away, stops moving suddenly then continues swaying to the edge of the clearing.

My fire, now burning intensely, illuminates a stocky, ancient gray-black man who nearly falls into the clearing. The man wears a green and black camouflaged hat and a blue windbreaker. A hunter? He clicks off his flashlight and steps next to my backpack. I stand my ground, even though it isn’t my ground, as the man checks me over.

“
I’m Hughes, deputy sheriff Robert Hughes,” he heaves.

You got luck all right.
Bad
luck.

“
Howdy,” I say.

Howdy? You think you’re a southern boy now?

Shh.

“
Saw your fire from the road.” He smiles and heaves again. “A bit hot and wet to be out here with a fire, ain’t it?”

“
The bugs were bad.” I shift my weight from my left foot to my right foot, just in case I have to start running. An old guy can’t catch me like this. He just can’t.

“
You ain’t lyin’ about the bugs,” he says, finally catching his breath. “All this rain. Never seen it rain so much. Mind if I sit down? It’s a bit of a haul from the road.”

Hughes sits his hulking body down near the base of a burned-out stump. He withdraws a can of snuff from the breast pocket of his shirt and holds it out to me.

“
No thanks.”

“
I ought to quit, but …” He shakes his head, laughing heartily, and puts the can back into his pocket. “Where you headed?”

Which is a nice way of saying, “Don’t be here tomorrow
.
” I relax a little. Maybe he’s not going to bother me. “Atlanta.”

“
Hotlanta, huh? Got a good ways to go then. Terrible travelin’ weather, huh?”

I nod.

“
You mind me asking how old you are, son?”

“
I’m twenty-nine.”

“
Yeah? You don’t look it.”

Maybe I’m growing younger or something.

“
Got any ID?”

I shake my head. Here we go.

“
No ID. Hmm.” Hughes spits on the ground. “Summer cold. Just can’t shake it.” He coughs. “And if I asked you your name, would you give it to me?”

“
Emmanuel Mann.”

“
Emmanuel Mann. Related to any folks around here?”

“
Don’t know for sure. I know I’m related to a bunch of folks down in Mobile, though. I just discovered them yesterday. I rode the bus up from Mobile to Opelika today.” Just looking for my roots, Mister. No crime in that.

You talk pretty durn fast for a quiet, southern country boy, I’ll give you that.

He smiles. “From Mobile to the big swamp. That’s what Opelika means in Creek.” He waves in the direction of the creek. “And that’s Halawakee Creek roarin’ out there. A Creek name for a creek.” He laughs. “This used to be Creek Indian land.”

“
Oh.”

He shifts his weight. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

“
No sir. I’m from Pittsburgh.”

“
And you’re way down here?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Hmm. Emmanuel Mann from Pittsburgh. Now where have I heard that name connected to that place …” He snaps his fingers. “That’s right. We got a bulletin on you.” He squints. “Somethin’ about you beatin’ up a white boy over in New Orleans. You really do that?”

If you didn’t have that lighter, you wouldn’t have thought to build that fire, and you’d be safe now. And you said those ladies were wise?

“
Uh, yes sir, I did.”

“
But the bulletin said you were bigger.” He laughs. “That APB said you were six-two, two-twenty with tattoos all over your body.”

I look at my skinny arms, the cross shining in the firelight. “I only have two tattoos, and I barely weigh a hundred fifty.” That boy was trying to make himself look better by making me bigger than I am. As for the tattoos, though, I guess it looked like I had a thousand tattoos with my arms flying like that at his face.

“
You beat him good?”

Is there any other way to beat a person who you don’t like? “Yes sir.”

“
Good.”

I blink. That’s not the response I’d expect from a deputy sheriff.

Me, neither.

“
You been runnin’ now, what, a week or so?”

“
I’m not sure. I’ve lost track of time. I think so. I’ve been away from Pittsburgh for over a month.” I think. But do you really need to check a calendar when you’re rebuilding your entire life? Like Maxi said, we have no clock here.

“
A whole month?”

I nod. It’s the running that keeps me going.

He wipes his dripping brow. “And you ain’t tired yet?”

“
No sir.”

“
Well, I ain’t gonna chase you, now. I’m too old to do that.” He purses his lips. “And I ain’t gonna take you to the jail either cuz I have yet to see a person fittin’ the description on that bulletin.”

This is weird. “So … I can just go about my business?”

“
Bet you could use a bath and a hot meal. My house is just a little hike from here.”

A bath
and
a hot meal? There’s got to be a catch. “Wouldn’t that mean that you’d be, uh, harboring a fugitive?”