Steplings: A Novel

Chapter 3

Jason knew to stay off the interstates, so they hiked over to Pioneer , where an elderly Asian couple in an old Lincoln Town Car with duct tape on the leather seats took them all the way to C.E Hawn Freeway. There they thumbed in unison from the shoulder because the signs up and down Highway 175 through Seagoville near the federal prison warned against picking up hitchhikers. Emily said, " How far do you think you'd get by yourself here?" and Jason nodded. He gave her that, at least, but it was not in her nature to make such a point only once and she beat him over the head with it until he protested. "Jesus, Emily! If I was alone, I wouldn't have come this way in the first place, you know?" Minutes later, an old Dodge Neon stopped for them. When they managed to squeeze themselves and their gear into the two-door vehicle, the first thing the middle-aged black woman driving it said was, " I wouldn't have picked you up here ordinarily 'cause you might be excaped, but in my book a man carrying a guitar won't harm anybody but a lovesick girl." The woman wore a floral-patterned dress with half sleeves and a string of pearls and rimless glasses whose lenses flickered as they reflected the headlights streaming on the road. Jason had taken the passenger seat and left Emily to worm her way into the back. Jason figured the woman might be a teacher, or 47 a church lady, in any case. He guessed they wouldn't get free without being prayed over. The woman flashed j ason a grin. " But your sidekick back there-she won't be some kind of desperado, now will she?" "No, poor thing's a retardo." Emily kicked the back of his seat. "You're the retardo." " I'm off to Athens. \'(lhere are you children started to?" This quite logical question caught j ason off-guard-he realized they should've concocted a ready answer, and he sniffed a detective's interest in it. He opened his mouth to say " Houston ," but Emily beat him to a response. "\'(le're going to Austin." " My. Folks usually go by way of Waco." As j ason was working on an explanation for this, Emily blew right by it. "Our daddy's a professor at the university there." "You don't say! Lord, you children must be smart." "And my brother writes songs. He's gonna be rich and famous, aren't you, j ason? He's gonna be on Star Search in December." " My, oh my!" said the woman, surely not believing a word, and j ason twisted about in an effort to shut Emily up with a glare. " If you don't mind my asking, does your mama know you're out here hitching rides at night?" jason said, "Oh, she knows." "She doesn't like it, though," said Emily. jason grimaced. " But, you know, it's like the only way we can ... uh ..." "Get to Granddaddy's house 'cause he's dying, and they called M ama at work today and she had to leave right then and drive down to some other town where our aunt liveswhat 's the name of it, j ason?" "Uh, Whoville," blurted out jason, then hoped the driver wouldn't recognize the name. "Yeah, Whoville!" chirped Emily, and Jason heard her little snicker. "She had to drive down to Whoville right then and we were still in school so she had to go on without us. She 48 wanted us to take the bus but we didn't want to wait. So we're gonna meet her in Whoville-"this time she had to squelch a giggle-"and all go to Austin together." "My,oh my," murmured the woman. " I hope your granddaddy 's ready for his reckoning. Has he suffered much?" Emily was kicking the back of his seat to tilt him off his composure. Clearly she was having a great time fabricating nonsense and wanted him to conspire to even greater heights, but Jason's thoughts had taken their own inevitable dark turn. "Yes, ma'am. I'm afraid so. When they first diagnosed him it surprised us all because he'd always seemed pretty healthy except that he complained about being tired a lot. It's cancer. Cancer of the ... liver...