He kept the unopened letter in his breast pocket safe like a tiny coiled lifeline until after dinner, that he ate alone behind the van under the little detachable awning at the small round folding table they used for meals and sometimes card games on cool nights when the mosquitoes weren’t too vicious. When an older woman carrying a blue cloth parasol with a wide chuffed rim approached, asking to look at the exhibits, he got up, let her in and showed her around. When he stepped out to finish his ham sandwich, she stole half a dozen photos, a fact he only became aware of after the professor got back and discovered it.
The professor was in a foul mood over his teeth. The fretwork hurt and had cost him more than it should have and on top of that among the purloined snaps were two of his favorites. He swore and ordered Delvin out of the van and off the property.
“You firing me?” He was stricken and angry himself.
“Just go on,” the prof said, sitting down in the chair Delvin had vacated. “Leave me be.” The old man felt like closing the museum and driving off someplace by himself to grieve his wounded teeth and the loss of the photos (grieve the founderings of time, the raw blast that had wakened him that morning with thoughts of his own demise, grieve the single-minded woman he’d left back in Biloxi years ago, a woman with shiny hair and a quickness of spirit that sat him up straight in his chair). For the moment he felt as if he could not go on. The boy — damn the boy.
Delvin walked fast away from the van. He had been about to read the letter when the professor appeared. He walked until he was out of town and then crossed the gully and entered the hobo camp. It was mostly deserted this time of day, but a few men were lying under a large persimmon tree smoking and talking. He didn’t want any company, he only wanted to feel less peeled. He was so nervous his hands shook. He walked through the camp and into a field of broomsedge, made a little clearing for himself and sat down in the grass. A ways farther on a little willow stood up from the field, its branches cut partially back and heavy with leaves. He got up and went over there and sat down in the shade of the tree. A killdeer fluttered up and made her little flopping display trying to draw trouble away from her chicks, but he didn’t pay any attention.
The letter was brief. I thought so much about our talk and was glad, but I know it is best if I go back to where I belong now. Maybe you would like to write me sometime. She gave her address, not the school’s address but, so he assumed, her parents’ house, or was it her dormitory, in Shelby. She signed it simply Celia. He spread the single pink page out and ran his fingers lightly over it. He sniffed the spicy, brassy scent, her scent. His heart pounded. He jumped to his feet and started to run — stopped and sank back into the dry grass. The long-fingered willow leaves rustled and shifted and settled.
I thought so much about our talk. ., he read again, stopped and restarted, forcing himself to read again, I thought. . First she wrote I, the side of her hand pressing against the paper. She was thinking of him at that moment. I thought—had she paused then and struggled to decide what to say next? What did the letter mean? Did it mean for him to forget about loving her? Maybe not.
He lay back in the grass with the letter pressed to his face and for a few minutes inhaled its smell into his body. Part of her was on the inside of him now, filtering through the pipes and tracks, easing in among the muscle and bone, settling into little culverts and housings, finding shelter, seeping into his being. We leave these little trademarks and gizmos and reliquaries behind us. Little stacks of dust in a corner. That others snuff up and take away. Now I am one of them.
He turned over on his stomach and, propped on his elbows, read the letter again. She had sneaked away, that was a fact. But maybe because she felt too much to speak to him. Yes, she felt something strong. But maybe not. Maybe she was used to boys approaching her, used to giving them rides in her car. We didn’t even go to a beautiful spot, or beautiful enough. And what was an africano girl doing owning her own car? This was Bee-luther-hatchee, not Chicago. Not even Shelby, where they had a college. It was Ginny Gall. Bad things happening over on this side of the universe.
He jumped up, fierce in feeling now, ready to go save her. It was not a boy’s notion, or only a boy’s. The grass surged heavily under a freshening breeze. He shuddered — like a mule, he thought, old Stubbornness, twitching off flies — and a hooting, wailing thing slid off from him, peeling away into depths inside. It trailed a whole lifetime of griefs behind it like knots pulled tight in greased rope, headed toward a howling. He staggered and had to catch himself to keep from falling. What is this? His body, the inside of it, seemed to have slid down, dropped, concentrated itself in a heap, a muddle. He didn’t want any of this now. Not now, not any time. But here it was. Something sharp as a hawk cried Run! — run for your life! But before he could act it threw ropes around him. He was being squeezed to death. In a blur he saw his hand out waving, or falling, in front of him. He could feel his forehead burning. I’m a crazy person. She was headed at high speed away from him but she was not diminishing in size. Wadn’t that funny. He paced a circle in the grass, catching switches of it, crumbling the feathery tops. Gradually the influence subsided. Somebody over at the camp hooted. Another let loose a high cackling, hateful laugh. Delvin got up and looked over that way past a broken-down fence and a few thin chokecherry trees. Nothing unusual. Down at the far end of the gully, where it passed under a low railroad trestle, he saw some men waiting. They were figuring to hop the westbound that would still be moving slowly after picking up freight in Eula. He thought of joining them. He loved riding on top of a car in good weather, watching the country pass. But he could catch a train any day.
Ah, jeez — he felt like lying down and not getting up. He wanted to run after her without stopping until he found her. Just to get a look at her. What was it — five days since he met her? Before Tuesday he hadn’t in his whole life had one single thought about her, didn’t expect her, wasn’t looking, and now he’d do anything just to touch her hand again. A breeze charged the thin hair on his arm. He closed his eyes. He was an inch away from her. Then she was gone like a bird flown. He ran his fingers along his arm but they were only his fingers. His eyes stung.
The train, pulled by a scuffed green locomotive, rumbled out of a woody area just east and came smoothly on around the big curve before the straight run to the trestle. He watched as the men got to their feet and stood brushing off their patched pants, resettling bindles and soogans, jostling or joking or just standing alone looking. They were like passengers at the special open-air station — like fleas, he thought bitterly, returning to the dog. Sometimes the bulls got after you, but lately, so he’d heard, there’d been no real trouble of that kind. It was news you couldn’t count on. The train rolled clacking over the trestle and the men began to find their way onto the gondolas and into open boxcars, climbing ladders or pulling themselves through the doors. Many of the gunnels were already taken. In cities you could board a standing train, but there was sometimes more risk. No hobo names on the weigh bills. He wanted to run along and join the boys.
He took a few steps in that direction, folding the letter as he walked and sliding it into his breast pocket. He was about to start running, but he stopped himself. A bitterness that had risen into his throat subsided. The men were scattered across the cars. Some he knew. A baraby wearing a patched crushhat, Parly from Denver, gave a slow looping wave and made a finger sign of good times. Delvin gave a small cocked wave back. He could still make the train, but he didn’t try.