Seems to Fit: Chapter 2

Twenty-eight, thought Martin Wilkinson as he shoved his last, hardly worldly possessions of interest into the filthy knapsack. Not so old. Not a bad age to be. Even if you’re starting over.

He looked around at his room for what, he was pretty sure, would be the final time. Books, even the old edition of Who’s Who in American Business he’d used once, recently, and decided the library didn’t need any longer: check. Box of videotapes he’d boosted from the dumpster out behind Ed’s Toy Emporium after the adult-notions-n-lotions establishment had been shuttered by the local bluenoses: check. Posters of rocker chicks and whole girl groups and sitcom actresses he had, at one time or another, fantasized about sharing a house and bed with and doing, separately and serially or even all at once: check.

He wouldn’t need any of this shit anymore. Not where he was going. Where he was going, by his reckoning, he wouldn’t need fantasy anymore. By his reckoning, he figured he’d pretty much be satisfied with reality — once he got where he was going.

He slung the knapsack over his shoulder. Light of weight but disproportionately laden with meaning, it was. Flashlight (might work a while longer, might not, he wouldn’t be out for long so he didn’t really care). Map. Change of clothes, including a white shirt and dark socks swiped from his stepfather’s closet. ATM card, an old one from his mother’s, probably not much left in her account — he’d been using the card for a couple weeks now — but he’d make do with whatever it was. And then, finally, the manila envelope he’d thought would never arrive but, once it did, had justified the wait and the $249.99 money order its contents had cost him…

Down in the kitchen now. Nobody else around, just fine with him. The old lady and old man both at work. Max, their little obnoxious black furball of a cockapoo, he was somewhere in the house but hiding – as he always did these days, when he could, when Martin was prowling around. Christ, Martin hadn’t hurt him that bad, probably just, y’know, pulled a muscle or something. And nobody would’ve held Martin responsible for even that much, either, if he just hadn’t fallen asleep and let the damn dog get away before he could clean him up that last time.

But past was past. Now was now. And now, Martin was going.

He looked around a few seconds for a pen and paper, found the pen, no paper or Post-Its or anything. Finally figured what the hell, he wasn’t coming back, and just wrote his farewell on the wooden table, inscribing it into the varnish in blue ink:

Mother, said his note, Don’t wait up. Marty.

Then he was out the kitchen door. He propped it open with a cinder block, Maybe Max’ll want a little fresh air he thought, laughing at the mental picture of Mère and Step-Père coming home to a silent, Max-less house. Freaking out. Calling the animal shelter, the cops, the SPCA. The little yelper’s face on milk cartons or that jackass’s TV show, Most Wanted. And then maybe a week or two later, finally, resigned to Max’s loss, finally looking down at the tabletop and realizing Oh that’s right, somebody else used to live here, didn’t he?

Well, fuck them. Him and her both, although coupling the verb and those objects made Martin’s skin crawl. Fuck’em.

He didn’t one hundred percent know the best route to take. But this was such a podunk town that he really had only one way to start, given that he had no car and sure as shit wasn’t going to walk to his destination: the #9 bus. He’d take that as far as it went, out to the highway, and then he’d stick out a thumb. Put up with some human interaction. Wouldn’t hurt, he figured; maybe give him a chance to try out his story. Rehearse his lines. Which would go (if all went according to his plan, such as it was) something like this:

How do you do, sir? My name is Martin. Martin Wilkinson. Wilkinson. Perhaps you know my mother by her maiden name: Slottbinder? That’s right, Julia-Marie. Yes. That’s right. She used to work for you, right?

And do you remember what happened with good old Julia-Marie Slottbinder? Yes, of course: she transferred out. The parent company. In 1960, that’s right, there y’go. Went to the New York office, sure she did.

But I’m not really asking you for her fucking résumé, am I? I’m asking why she transferred out in the first place, I—

Well, all right. Maybe this approach still required some work, some practice. So an hour, maybe two hours’ practice, tops, that ought to give him the time he needed to polish it, knock the rough edges off. If he’d been able to find some damn paper before he left, he could write it out in advance, memorize it. But he didn’t have any damn paper and he didn’t have a damn pen, come to that. He had his wits, his determination. He had his bus fare and he had his thumb. Good enough, right?

Now Martin could see the bus’s approach as it made the sharp turn a couple blocks up Asphodel Avenue and headed this way. He could see it slow when the driver caught sight of him, his upraised hand. It stopped before him and the doors hissed open. He gave the driver a fifty-dollar bill and the moron looked like he, Martin, had just crapped in his hand.

“I can’t take this,” the driver said. “I don’t have that kind of change on me. Says right there.” He pointed to the sign which stated the obvious: No bills over 20$.

“The hell am I supposed to do?” said Martin, oblivious to the grannies and uncles and little kiddies in their seats pretending to ignore him in turn, staring out the windows at the relatively uninteresting town scene of the moment. “You want me to walk?”

“Sir, don’t take this wrong but I don’t care how you get wherever you’re going. I just can’t take a bill this big — no change, understand? Now, I think there’s a bank just up the street if you want to walk there, get some—”

“Never mind. Fuck this.” Turning to the passengers. “Enjoy your ride, folks! Leave the driving to this asshole at the wheel!”

He banged down the little stairway, kicked the bus’s fender as the doors whooshed shut again. As it pulled away from the curb, he thought he saw the driver shake his head but hard to tell for sure, reflections on the glass and shit. Well, fuck him, too.

Just walk into the bank: yeah, right. Break a fifty for me, okay? What’s that? Do I have an account, you’re asking me? Do I look like I have a fucking account? Got my old lady’s ATM card here, does that count?

Christ. Walk into the bank. Right.

No, apparently he’d be riding his thumb the whole way after all. Relying on his charm. Maybe some chick in a convertible even. They could stop for—

Oh come on, man. Just get your goddam thumb in the air. Just a few hours, tops, right? Bide your time. Bide, your, fucking time…

He straightened the knapsack’s straps. Never having hitchhiked in his life, he didn’t know all the protocols and tricks, exactly. On TV, they always showed hitchhikers standing on the shoulder of a broad highway or rural road. But here in town there wasn’t a shoulder to stand on; the white stripe marking the edge of the road was mere inches from the curb.

Shit. Improvise.

He stepped onto Asphodel Avenue, and raised his thumb.