The Lincoln Highway (41 page)

When Ma Belle dropped onto the couch at Emmett’s side, he could feel the cushions sink a few inches closer to the floor. Glancing at the cover of the book, Emmett couldn’t help but notice it was the 1951 edition.

—It’s out of date, he said.

Ma Belle gave him a frown.

—You think it’s easy to get ahold of one of these?

—He doesn’t know, said Charity.

—No, I suppose not. Listen, if you were looking for some Polish or Italian friend whose grandparents landed on Ellis Island, then, first of all, there wouldn’t be no book in which to look. But even if there was a book, the problem would be that those sort change their names and addresses like they change their clothes. That’s why they came to America in the first place. To get out of the rut their ancestors put them in.

With a show of reverence, Ma Belle laid her hand on the book in her lap.

—But with this crowd, nothing ever changes. Not the names. Not the addresses. Not a single damn thing. And that’s the whole point of who
they
are.

It took Ma Belle five minutes to find what she was looking for. As a young man, Woolly didn’t have his own entry in the registry, but he was listed as one of the three children of Mrs. Richard Cobb, née Wolcott; widow of Thomas Martin; member of the Colony Club and the DAR; formerly of Manhattan, currently of Palm Beach. Her two daughters, Kaitlin and Sarah, were both married and listed with their husbands: Mr. & Mrs. Lewis Wilcox of Morristown, New Jersey, and Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Whitney of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Duchess hadn’t said which sister they were staying with.

—Either way, said Ma Belle, you’ve got to go back to Manhattan to catch the train. If I were you, I’d start with Sarah, since Hastings-on-Hudson is a shorter ride and has the added benefit of not being in New Jersey.

When Emmett left Ma Belle’s, it was already half past twelve. In the interest of saving time, he hailed a cab, but when he instructed the driver to take him to the train station in Manhattan, the driver asked which one.

—There’s more than one train station in Manhattan?

—There’s two, pal: Penn Station and Grand Central. Which do you want?

—Which one is bigger?

—Both is bigger than the other.

Emmett had never heard of Grand Central, but he remembered the panhandler in Lewis saying that the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest in the nation.

—Penn Station, he said.

When Emmett arrived, he figured he had chosen well because the façade of the station had marble columns that towered four stories over the avenue, and the interior was a vast expanse under a soaring glass ceiling with legions of travelers. But when he found the information booth, Emmett learned that there were no trains to Hastings-on-Hudson leaving from Penn. Those were on the Hudson River Line out of Grand Central. So instead of going to Sarah’s house, Emmett boarded the 1:55 for Morristown, New Jersey.

When he arrived at the address that Ma Belle had given him, he asked the cabbie to wait while he went to knock on the door. The woman who answered said that yes, she was Kaitlin Wilcox, in a reasonably friendly manner. But as soon as Emmett asked whether her brother, Woolly, happened to be there, she grew almost angry.

—Suddenly, everyone wants to know if my brother is here. But why would he be? What’s this all about? Are you in league with that girl? What are you two up to? Who are you?

As he made his way quickly toward the cab, Emmett could hear her shouting from the front door, demanding once more to know who he was.

So it was back to the Morristown depot, where Emmett took the 4:20 to Penn Station, then a cab to Grand Central, which, as it turned out, had its own marble columns, its own soaring ceiling, its own legions of travelers. There, he waited half an hour to board the 6:15 for Hastings-on-Hudson.

When Emmett arrived shortly after 7:00, he climbed into his fourth taxi of the day. But ten minutes into the ride, he saw the meter advance a nickel to $1.95, and it occurred to him that he might not have enough money for the fare. Opening his wallet, he confirmed that the various trains and taxis had left him with only two dollars.

—Can you pull over? he asked.

With a quizzical glance in the mirror, the cabbie pulled onto the shoulder of a tree-lined road. Holding up his wallet, Emmett explained that all he had left was what the meter was showing.

—If you’re out of money, then you’re out of the cab.

Nodding in understanding, Emmett handed the cabbie the two dollars, thanked him for the ride, and got out. Fortunately, before pulling away, the cabbie had the graciousness to roll down the passenger window and give Emmett directions:
About two miles up take a right onto Forest; another mile after that take a left onto Steeplechase Road
. When the cab pulled away, Emmett began to walk, his mind taken up with the scourge of infinitely bisected journeys.

America is three thousand miles wide, he thought to himself. Five days before, he and Billy had set out with the intention of driving fifteen hundred miles west to California. Instead, they had traveled fifteen hundred miles east to New York. Having arrived, Emmett had
crisscrossed the city from Times Square to lower Manhattan and back. To Brooklyn and Harlem. And when, at long last, it seemed his destination was within reach, Emmett had taken three trains, four taxis, and now was on foot.

He could just imagine how Mr. Nickerson would have diagrammed it: with San Francisco on the left side of the chalkboard, Emmett’s zigzagging progression on the right, and every leg of his journey growing shorter than the last. Only, the paradox that Emmett had to contend with wasn’t Zeno’s. It was the fast-talking, liberty-taking, plan-upending paradox known as Duchess.

But as exasperating as this was, Emmett understood that having to spend his afternoon shuttling back and forth was probably for the best. Because when he had walked out of Ma Belle’s earlier that day burning with frustration, had Duchess been standing in the street, Emmett would have pounded him into the ground.

Instead, the train rides and taxi rides and this three-mile walk had given him the time not only to revisit all the causes for fury—the Studebaker, the envelope, the mickey—but the causes for temperance too. Like the promises he had made to Billy and Sister Agnes. And the advocacy of Ma Belle and Charity. But most of all, what gave Emmett pause, and called for some sense of measure, was the story that Fitzy FitzWilliams had told him over glasses of whiskey in that dead-end bar.

For almost a decade, Emmett had quietly nursed a sense of condemnation toward his father’s follies—the single-minded commitment to an agrarian dream, the unwillingness to ask for help, and the starry-eyed idealism that sustained him, even as it cost him his farm and his wife. But for all his shortcomings, Charlie Watson had never come close to betraying Emmett in the manner that Harry Hewett had betrayed Duchess.

And for what?

A trinket.

A bauble stripped from the body of a clown.

The irony hidden in the old performer’s story wasn’t lost on Emmett for a second. It announced itself loud and clear—as a rebuke. For of all the boys whom Emmett had known at Salina, he would have ranked Duchess as one of the most likely to bend the rules or the truth in the service of his own convenience. But in the end, Duchess was the one who had been innocent. He was the one who had been sent to Salina having done nothing at all. While Townhouse and Woolly had stolen cars. And he, Emmett Watson, had ended another man’s life.

What right did he have to demand of Duchess that he atone for his sins? What right did he have to demand it of anyone?

Within seconds of ringing the Whitneys’ bell, Emmett could hear the sound of running inside. Then the door swung open.

At some level, Emmett must have been expecting Duchess to appear contrite, because he felt a sharp stab of annoyance to find him standing there smiling, looking almost victorious as he turned to Billy and extended his arms—just as he had in the doorway of the Watsons’ barn—in order to say:

—What’d I tell you, kid?

With a big smile, Billy stepped around Duchess in order to give Emmett a hug. Then he began to gush.

—You’re not going to believe what happened, Emmett! After we left the circus—while you were with your friends—Duchess drove us to the Empire State Building so that we could find Professor Abernathe’s office. We rode the express elevator all the way to the fifty-fifth floor and not only did we find his office, we found Professor Abernathe! And he gave me one of his notebooks in case I ran out of blank pages. And when I told him about Ulysses—

—Hold on, said Emmett, smiling in spite of himself. I want to hear all about it, Billy. I really do. But first, I need to talk to Duchess alone for just a minute. Okay?

—Okay, Emmett, said Billy, sounding a little unsure of the idea.

—Why don’t you come with me, said Woolly to Billy. I wanted to show you something anyway!

Emmett watched as Billy and Woolly climbed the stairs. Only when they had disappeared down the hall did he turn to face Duchess.

Emmett could see that Duchess had something to say. He had all the telltale signs: his weight on the balls of his feet, his hands ready to gesture, his expression eager and earnest. But he wasn’t simply getting ready to speak. He was going to launch himself heart and soul into another explanation.

So before he could say a word, Emmett grabbed him by the collar and drew back his fist.

I
t was quite true
that in Woolly’s experience, when somebody said they wanted to speak to someone else in private, it could be difficult to know what to do with yourself. But when Emmett asked to speak to Duchess, Woolly knew exactly what to do. In fact, he had been thinking about it ever since 7:42.

—Why don’t you come with me, he said to Billy. I wanted to show you something anyway!

Leading Billy upstairs, Woolly took him to the bedroom that was and wasn’t his.

—Come in, come in, he said.

When Billy stepped inside, Woolly closed the door—leaving it a few inches ajar so that they wouldn’t be able to hear what Emmett had to say to Duchess, but they would be able to hear when Emmett was ready to call them back.

—Whose room is this?

—Once upon a time it was mine, said Woolly with a smile. But I gave it up so that the baby can be closer to my sister.

—And now you have the room by the back staircase.

—Which is much more sensible, said Woolly, what with all my comings and goings.

—I like the blue, Billy said. It’s like the color of Emmett’s car.

—That’s just what I thought!

Once they had appreciated the hue of the blue, Woolly turned his
attention to the covered pile in the middle of the room. Throwing back the tarp, he located the box he was looking for, opened the top, set aside the tennis trophy, and took out the cigar box.

—Here we go, he said.

Then since the bed was covered with Woolly’s belongings, he and Billy sat on the floor.

—Is that a collection? Billy asked.

—It is, said Woolly. Though not like your silver dollars, or your bottle caps back in Nebraska. Because it’s not a collection of different versions of the same thing. It’s a collection of the same version of different things.

Opening the lid, Woolly tilted the box toward Billy.

—See? These are the sorts of things that one rarely uses, but that one should set safely aside so that one knows exactly where to find them when they’re suddenly in need. For instance, this is where I keep my father’s shirt studs and cuff links should I suddenly have to wear a tuxedo. And those are some French francs, should I happen to go to France. And that’s the biggest piece of sea glass that I have ever found. But here . . .

Gently pushing aside his father’s old wallet, Woolly removed a wristwatch from the bottom of the box and handed it to Billy.

—The dial is black, said Billy in surprise.

Woolly nodded.

—And the numbers are white. The very opposite of what you’d expect. It’s called an officer’s watch. They made them this way so that when an officer needed to look at the time on the field of battle, enemy snipers wouldn’t be able to aim for the white of his dial.

—Was it your father’s?

—No, said Woolly with a shake of the head. It was my grandfather’s. He wore it in France during the First World War. But then he gave it to my mother’s brother, Wallace. And then Uncle Wallace gave it to
me as a Christmas present when I was younger than you. He’s the Wallace that I was named after.

—Your name is Wallace, Woolly?

—Oh yes. Very much so.

—Is that why they call you Woolly? So that people won’t get you and your uncle confused when you’re together?

—No, said Woolly. Uncle Wallace died years ago. In a war, just like my father. Only, it wasn’t in one of the world wars. It was in the Spanish Civil War.

—Why did your uncle fight in the Spanish Civil War?

Quickly wiping away a tear, Woolly shook his head.

—I’m not sure, Billy. My sister says that he had done so many things that were expected of him, he wanted to do one thing that no one expected at all.

They both looked at the watch, which Billy was holding gently in his hand.

—You see, said Woolly, it has a second hand too. Only, instead of it being a big second hand going around the big dial like the one on your watch, it’s a tiny little second hand going around its own little dial. Seconds are very important to keep track of in wars, I should think.

—Yes, said Billy, I should think so too.

Then Billy held the watch out in order to return it.

—No, no, said Woolly. It’s for you. I took it out of the box because I want you to have it.

Shaking his head, Billy said that such a watch was far too precious to be given away.

—But that’s not so, countered Woolly excitedly. It’s not a watch that’s too precious to be given away. It’s a watch that’s too precious for keeping. It was handed down from my grandfather to my uncle, who handed it down to me. Now I am handing it down to you. And
one day—many years from now—you can hand it down to someone else.

Perhaps Woolly hadn’t put his point to perfection, but Billy seemed to understand. So Woolly told him to wind it up! But first, he explained the watch’s only quirk—that once a day it should be wound
exactly
fourteen times.

—If you wind it only twelve times, said Woolly, by the end of the day, it will be running five minutes slow. Whereas, if you wind it sixteen times, it will be running five minutes fast. But if you wind it exactly fourteen times, then it will keep the time exactly.

After taking this in, Billy wound the watch exactly fourteen times while quietly counting to himself.

What Woolly did not tell Billy was that sometimes—like when he first arrived at St. Paul’s—he would wind the watch sixteen times for six days in a row on porpoise so that he could be half an hour ahead of everybody else. While other times, he would wind it twelve times for six days in a row so that he could be half an hour behind. Either way—whether he wound it sixteen times or wound it twelve—it was a little like when Alice stepped through the looking glass, or the Pevensies through the wardrobe, only to find themselves in a world that was and wasn’t theirs.

—Go ahead and put it on, said Woolly.

—You mean I can wear it now?

—Of course, said Woolly. Of course, of course, of course. That’s the whole point!

So, without any help, Billy strapped it on his wrist.

—Doesn’t that look fine, said Woolly.

And having said so, Woolly would have repeated himself for emphasis, but for the fact that from somewhere downstairs suddenly came a sound that was very much like a gunshot. Exchanging wide-eyed glances, Woolly and Billy leapt to their feet and dashed out the door.