A man sat down on the bench beyond her knapsack. She couldn’t tell if he was twenty-five or thirty-five. On the one hand, he was as slender as the first youth, but the curly hair which hugged his scalp was as dry and crinkled as a thirty-five-year-old’s. A blue vein throbbed in his slightly hollow temple. He wore matching red sweatshirt and pants, with a white stripe running along the seam of the pants, and odd shoes which were like sneakers except that the sole ran up the back of the heel. He was breathing heavily. These details she had observed in one glance. Now from the corner of her eye she became aware that he was looking at her and wished to speak. It was also clear to her, though she could not have said how, that ordinarily he was shy but that some unusual circumstances had given him leave to speak to her.
“I just ran eighteen miles.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Why?”
“I’ve been into running for three months.”
“You’ve been what?” What was the meaning of the expression “into running”? Perhaps he was in trouble. He was on the run.
“It’s changed my life.”
She didn’t understand him but it was clear that he was speaking of something commonplace, something she might be expected to understand if she had not been away for a long time.
“How has it changed your life?”
“It got me out of my head.”
“You mean—” She was not certain what he meant. Had he gone crazy?
“In another three weeks I expect to be up to twenty-six.”
“Why twenty-six?”
“That’s the marathon distance. But this is no ordinary marathon.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. I’m getting ready for the Richmond marathon, but I’m doing it by running on the Long Trail — that’s what it was originally called and is still called in Vermont. I like that better than the Appalachian Trail, don’t you? You can run it from here north because once you get up it’s mostly flat, but very high. You’re right on the crest of a ridge, with nothing but valleys and clouds on either side. By the way, I’m Richard Rountree.” He held out his hand. She took it. It was very slender, dry, and fibrous. He seemed to be all gristle and bone.
“I’m—” She began and stopped. She wanted to look at her driver’s license.
He didn’t notice. “Would you like to go to Hattie’s tonight?”
“Hattie’s?”
“You know, down the hill. It’s nothing but a barn but the food’s not bad. The music is country and Western. Runners hang out there.”
While he was talking, she was planning a declarative sentence. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said, uttering one word after another. The sentence sounded flat but she finished it and her voice did not go up into a question. “I don’t know where I’ll be staying tonight.”
Though her voice sounded flat to her, like a person recovering from a stroke, like Rip coming down from the mountain and speaking to a villager, he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he drew closer, crowding the knapsack, and crossed one thin leg over the other toward her. As his eyes dropped, showing the damp bluish skin of his eyelids, she seemed to remember something from her girlhood. It was the way her mother had of talking to her about “a boy” and “a girl,” “when a boy does such-and-such” or “leading a boy on.” Perhaps something she had said had led him on, because he yawned, laced his fingers together, and bent them backwards in a way that seemed familiar to her.
“Look,” he said, stretching out his laced-together hands. “I know a shelter on an unused spur of the trail, the spur to Sourwood Mountain. In fact, it’s closed, the spur, that is. In fact, that’s where I stayed last night. It’s not used at all. It’s clean and when the clouds break there’s a lovely view through the pines. Would you like to crash there tonight? You’d be welcome.”
Though she had not heard the expression “crash” before, she could tell that he was using it in a way that was not natural to him. Suddenly she saw that he thought it was the sort of expression she would use. “Lovely” in “lovely view” sounded natural in him, though she couldn’t remember a young man saying “lovely.”
“Thank you,” she said. “It sounds good. But I have a great many things to do. For example, I have to locate and take possession of a house. I had planned to go to a motel but I don’t think I will. I have here a set of instructions on how to locate the house, things to buy, and so forth.”
Her words sounded strange and formal to her, as if she were reciting them from memory. She found herself taking out notebook and wallet as if to prove something to him.
“Like a treasure hunt,” he said, sounding disappointed.
“Treasure hunt,” she repeated.
“Richard Rountree,” he said again, unlacing his fingers and holding out his hand. She took it again. He gave her a strong grip. His hand was as fibrous as a monkey’s. Had he forgotten he had shaken hands already, or did she only imagine he had shaken hands before? It occurred to her that he was more uneasy than she.
Maybe he had been running too much. They seemed to have something in common, having been alone in the mountains too long and feeling strange in the village. Then why wasn’t she attracted to him?
At that moment she was looking down at her driver’s license in her open wallet.
“I’m Allison,” she read, then remembered something. “Allie,” she said suddenly and smiled, looking up at him.
“Allie,” he said. He let her hand go. “Will you be coming back here, Allie? I mean to the bench.”
“Very likely.”
“This time of day?”
“Probably.” Something else her mother told about “boys” came back to her. Don’t ever turn down a boy completely. Keep your options open. You never know. Her mother called this “keeping a boy on your string.”
But he did not look much like a “boy” with his dry crinkled hair coming forward in the middle to make a W-shaped hairline, and his dry narrow fibrous hands.
“I’ll see you, Allie.”
As he walked quickly away, the broad white stripes on his running pants flashed like scissors. His back looked as if he knew she was watching him.
The sun was high. She felt warm and drowsy. Perhaps it was noon. For some time, perhaps five minutes, perhaps twenty minutes, she had been watching the column of ants. They traveled past the toe of her boot. Most but not all carried cutout pieces of green leaves. They followed the same path, climbing over the same granules of concrete, then descending into a crack at the same place, then climbing out of the crack at the same place.
The ants were headed toward the curb at the corner where the policeman stood. His thick yellow-gray hair was creased at the back from wearing a hat or cap. Did his not wearing a hat or cap mean he was off duty? He had a large high abdomen. From a wide black cartridge belt a heavy revolver in a holster was suspended. The belt crossed his abdomen just below its fullest part. The position of the belt and the weight of the pistol created in her a slight discomfort. She wished he would hitch up his pants. How old was he? Forty-five? Fifty-five? Sixty-five?
She opened the spiral notebook.
INSTRUCTIONS FROM MYSELF TO MYSELF (PART 2)
When you read this, you should feel better, rested at least and not so sore. Feel your jaw and your teeth. Are they sore?
She felt her jaw and her teeth. They were sore.
Your memory will not be good, but that varies. Test it. Do you remember your name?
Only after I read it.
Do you remember how old you are?
Yes. No. Eighteen? Twenty-one?
Do you remember how long you were in the sanatorium?
Three years, I think. Or perhaps two. Possibly four.
You will have forgotten most very recent events, but they should come back. You should now begin to remember events that happened long ago. What can you remember?