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are?” “Jeremy Marsh.” “And you’re a urologist?” “A journalist.” “Don’t have any urologists in town. There’s a few in Greenville,
though.” “Ah,” Jeremy said, not bothering to correct him. “But anyway, about the directions to Cedar Creek . . .”
Tully rubbed his nose and glanced up the road before looking at Jeremy again. “Well, you ain’t going to see anything now. The ghosts don’t come out till nighttime, if that’s what you’re here for.”
“Excuse me?”
“The ghosts. If you ain’t got kin buried in the cemetery, then you must be here for the ghosts, right?”
“You’ve heard about the ghosts?”
“Of course, I have. Seen ’em with my own eyes. But if you want tickets, you’ll have to go to the Chamber of Commerce.”
“You need tickets?”
“Well, you just can’t walk right into someone’s home, can you?”
It took a moment to follow the train of thought.
“Oh, that’s right,” Jeremy said. “The Historic Homes and Haunted Cemetery Tour, right?”
Tully stared at Jeremy, as if he were the densest person ever to walk the face of the earth. “Well, of course, we’re talking about the tour,” he said. “Whaddya think I was talkin’ about?”
“I’m not sure,” Jeremy said. “But the directions . . .”
Tully shook his head. “Okay, okay,” he said, as if suddenly put out. He pointed toward town.
“What you do is head back to downtown, then follow the main road north until you reach the turn about four miles from where the road used to dead-end. Turn west and keep going until you get to the fork, and follow the road that leads past Wilson Tanner’s place. Turn north again where the junked car used to be, go straight for a bit, and the cemetery’ll be right there.”
Jeremy nodded. “Okay,” he said.
“You sure you got it?”
“Fork, Wilson Tanner’s place, junked car used to be,” he repeated robotically. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem. Glad to be of service. And that’ll be seven dollars and forty-nine cents.”
“You take credit cards?”
“No. Never liked them things. Don’t like the government knowing everything I’m doing. Ain’t no one else’s business.”
“Well,” Jeremy said, reaching for his wallet, “it is a problem. I’ve heard the government has spies everywhere.”
Tully nodded knowingly. “I bet it’s even worse for you doctor folks. Which reminds me . . .”
Tully kept up a stready stream of talk for the next fifteen minutes. Jeremy learned about the vagaries of the weather, ridiculous government edicts, and how Wyatt—the other gas station owner— would gouge Jeremy if he ever went there for gas, since he fiddled with the calibration on the pumps as soon as the Unocal truck pulled away. But mainly, he heard about Tully’s trouble with his prostate, which made it necessary to get out of bed at least five times a night to go to the bathroom. He asked Jeremy’s opinion about that, being that he was a urologist. He also asked about Viagra.
After he had replugged his cheek twice with chaw, another car pulled in on the other side of the pump, interrupting their talk. The driver popped his hood up, and Tully peered inside before wiggling some wires and spitting off to the side. Tully promised he could fix it, but being that he was so busy, the man would have to leave his car there for at least a week. The stranger seemed to expect this answer, and a moment later, they were talking about Mrs. Dungeness and the fact that a possum had ended up in her kitchen the night before and eaten from the fruit bowl.
Jeremy used the opportunity to sneak away. He stopped at the department store to buy a map and a packet of postcards featuring the landmarks of Boone Creek, and before long, he was making his way along a winding road that led out of town. He magically found both the turn and the fork, but unfortunately missed Wilson Tanner’s place completely. With a bit of backtracking, he finally reached a narrow gravel lane almost