The Long Walk

each field, each house. Now he tingled with excitement. The road seemed to fly by. His legs seemed to gain a new and spurious springiness. But maybe Stebbins was right—maybe she wouldn’t be there. It had to be considered and prepared for, at least.
    The word came back through the thinned ranks that there was a boy near the front who believed he had appendicitis.
    Garraty would have boggled at this earlier, but now he couldn’t seem to care about anything except Jan and Freeport. The hands on his watch were racing along with a devilish life of their own. Only five miles out now. They had passed the Freeport town line. Somewhere up ahead Jan and his mother were already standing in front of Wool-man’s Free Trade Center Market, as they had arranged it.
    The sky brightened somewhat but remained overcast. The rain turned to a stubborn drizzle. The road was now a dark mirror, black ice in which Garraty could almost see the twisted reflection of his own face. He passed a hand across his forehead. It felt hot and feverish. Jan, oh Jan. You must know I—
    The boy with the hurting side was 59, Klingerman. He began to scream. His screams quickly became monotonous. Garraty thought back to the one Long Walk he had seen—also in Freeport—and the boy who had been monotonously chanting I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
    Klingerman, he thought, shut ya trap.
    But Klingerman kept on walking, and he kept on screaming, hands laced over his side, and Garraty’s watch hands kept on racing. It was eight-fifteen now. You’ll be there, Jan, right? Right. Okay. I don’t know what you mean anymore, but I know I’m still alive and that I need you to be there, to give me a sign, maybe. Just be there. Be there.
    Eight-thirty.
    “We gettin’ close to this goddam town, Garraty?” Parker hollered.
    “What do you care?” McVries jeered. “You sure don’t have a girl waiting for you.”
    “I got girls everywhere, you dumb hump,” Parker said. “They take one look at this face and cream in their silks.” The face to which he referred was now haggard and gaunt, just a shadow of what it had been.
    Eighty forty-five.
    “Slow down, fella,” McVries said as Garraty caught up with him and started to pass by. “Save a little for tonight.”
    “I can’t. Stebbins said she wouldn’t be there. That they wouldn’t have a man to spare to help her through. I have to find out. I have to—”
    “Just take it easy is all I’m saying. Stebbins would get his own mother to drink a Lysol cocktail if it would help him win. Don’t listen to him. She’ll be there. It makes great PR, for one thing.”
    “But—”
    “But me no buts, Ray. Slow down and live.”
    “You can just cram your fucking platitudes!” Garraty shouted. He licked his lips and put a shaky hand to his face. “I . . . I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. Stebbins also said I really only wanted to see my mother anyway.”
    “Don’t you want to see her?”
    “Of course I want to see her! What the hell do you think I—no—yes—I don’t know. I had a friend once. And he and I—we—we took off our clothes—and she—she—”
    “Garraty,” McVries said, and put a hand to touch his shoulder. Klingerman was screaming very loudly now. Somebody near the front lines asked him if he wanted an Alka-Seltzer. This sally brought general laughter. “You’re falling apart, Garraty. Settle down. Don’t blow it.”
    “Get off my back!” Garraty screamed. He crammed one fist against his lips and bit down on it. After a second he said, “Just get off me.”
    “Okay. Sure.”
    McVries strode away. Garraty wanted to call him back but couldn’t.
    Then, for the fourth time, it was nine o’clock in the morning. They turned left and the crowd was again below the twenty-four of them as they crossed the 295 overpass and into the town of Freeport. Up ahead was the Dairy Joy where he and Jan sometimes used to stop after the movies. They turned right and were on U.S. 1, what somebody had called the big highway. Big or small, it was the last highway. The hands on Garraty’s watch seemed to jump out at him. Downtown was straight ahead. Woolman’s was on the right. He could just see it, a squat and ugly building hiding behind a false front. The tickertape was starting to fall again. The rain made it sodden and sticky, lifeless. The crowd was swelling. Someone turned on the town fire siren, and its wails mixed and blended with Klingerman’s. Klingerman and the Freeport fire siren