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He tried
to present her with the look of moral outrage he summoned up
whenever he was called in to upbraid the eighth-grade boys for
circulating a pornographic magazine. His righteousness was
particularly effective in that situation because he had a
reputation for being an easy-going fellow who liked to toss a
football with them in the schoolyard.
       “ Miss—whatever your name is—I happen to be a Roman Catholic
priest.”
        She
regarded him as if he had just said he was Joan of Arc. But then
she looked down at his black trousers and the dark valise on the
floor.
       “ Holy Jumping
Jesus!”
        He took a
hitching breath and tried not to let her see how badly he was
trembling.
       “ But you
drank wine with me! Priests ain’t supposed to get skunked on cheap
booze, either.”
        Now he
realized what had seemed so familiar about his lightheadedness: it
was the same giddy feeling he got when he drank consecrated wine on
an empty stomach.
       “ I guess you’re
one of them alkie priests I heard about.”
        He asked her to
turn the pickup around and drive him back to the main road. She
started up the engine, but didn’t bother to close her
shirt.
       “ Can’t
turn around, mister,” she said, backing out at almost the same
speed she had driven in. “Even a drunk priest could see
that.”

 
     
     
        CHAPTER FOUR
       
        Anne-Marie wanted to drive him as far as 537, but he insisted
she let him out as soon as they reached the end of the dirt
road.
       “ Sorry
you feel this way,” she said. “We could’ve had a good time.” He
pulled his bag out of the pickup and slammed the door. He couldn’t
have felt more relieved if he had just escaped a burning building.
“If you’re ever in these parts again and feel like copping some
pussy, look me up. No offense, Reverend, but I’d say it’d do you a
world of good.”
        Despite
an approaching vehicle in the southbound lane, she made a wide
U-turn and leaned on her horn. He didn’t turn to watch her drive
off. As it was, his legs felt barely able to support him, and the
rest of his body was still quaking.
        He
resumed walking north along the shoulder of the road. Although only
half full, his valise now seemed filled with stones. He had no idea
how far it was to 537. He wondered if he shouldn’t just hitch back
to the general store, where he might still make a connection to
Philadelphia. But the prospect of confronting that mendacious old
man made his blood race angrily (despite Anne-Marie’s advances, he
did not doubt anything she had told him.) He had been made enough
of a fool for one day.
        He heard
a vehicle approaching. He stuck out his thumb, unable for the glare
to make out whether it was truck or car until it was almost upon
him. When he recognized the same gray pickup he had just escaped
from, the contents of his stomach vulcanized.
        She flew
by like a phantom, a big grin on her face, her horn sounding a
brash tattoo.
        When she
was out of sight he sat down on the road’s shoulder. He had not
felt this ill since his childhood. Only, now there was no one to
lay cool cloths on his brow and give him cola to sip. Feeling so
sick in a strange part of the world, alone, with no one to care if
he lived or died, was like a bad dream come true.
        He heard
the distant whine of another engine, this time from the south. He
strained to see through the highway heat and the fog of his nausea.
It was a pickup alright, a gray one. He searched for a break in the
dense undergrowth behind him, but was met with a solid wall of
green. With the road all to itself, the pickup was moving slowly
this time, no doubt to better ridicule him. Its deliberately
sluggish approach seemed crueler than any abuse she was planning to
direct at him. Anger replaced his shame. He stood up and raised a
clenched fist at the loathsome vehicle.
       “ Damn
you!” he yelled as the pickup puttered by, a