Chapter 10
FLINT ENDED all of a sudden and I was in the country. It was like one of those days that it's raining on one side of the street and not on the other. Here you have Flint and a sidewalk, you take one baby step, and here you have country and a dirt path. On the sidewalk side a sign said, YOU ARE NOW LEAVING FLINT, HURRY BACK, and on the dirt path side, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FLINT—ENJOY YOUR STAY.
I jumped in and out of Flint around seven times before that got boring and I decided I'd better head for Grand Rapids. It was already very, very dark and unless things were different in the country it wasn't going to be getting light anytime soon.
One hundred and twenty miles. It didn't take too much time before I figured out that twenty-four hours' worth of walking was a lot longer than I thought it would be. I must've only been walking for a couple of minutes when everything changed.
First off there were the sounds. Flint could be pretty noisy, what with cars honking horns and trucks with no mufflers on them shifting gears and people yelling out at each other so you couldn't tell if they were happy or about to bust out fighting.
Out here in the country the sounds were loud too, but what I was hearing was the sound of bugs and toady-frogs and mice and rats playing a dangerous, scary kind of hide-and-go-seek where they rustle around and try to keep away from each other or try to find each other. Instead of being tagged and called "it" like the way human beans play the game, out here the ones that got got, got ate up. Every step I took toward Grand Rapids I could hear the sounds of mouse bones and bug skeletons being busted up by the teeth of bigger things.
Every once in a while a couple of cats would give out the kind of howls and yowls that would make the hair on your neck jump up if you were a human bean and your heart turn into a little cup of shaky yellow custard if you were a mouse.
I walked and walked and walked. Some of the time a car would come by and I'd have to duck into the bushes and wait till it had passed, so I don't think I was doing any five miles a hour.
I felt like I'd been walking all night but I'd only gone through three little towns.
I was getting so tired that I started to forget to duck in the bushes when a car would roar by. Some of the time they'd see me and step on their brakes for a second, then speed off. Most times they never noticed me.
Another car bounced over the top of a hill. The lights blinded me for a second and then I ducked into the bushes again.
The guy in the car stepped on the brakes to slow down and I could see him twist his neck around.
He stuck the car in reverse and pulled to a stop about thirty giant steps away from where I was hiding. His door opened and he stepped out and started walking slow toward my bushes. He brushed his hand over his head and put on a black hat like the kind the police or some army men wear. But all the cops I'd ever seen were white so I knew this guy must be a soldier.
He stopped and put his fingers to his lips and whistled. The whistle was so loud that it made me duck down and put my hands over my ears, it felt like he'd blown it right inside my head. All the bugs and toady-frogs shut right up, they quit chasing and biting each other 'cause this had to be the loudest whistle they'd ever heard too.
Rocks were crunching as the man in the black hat walked a couple of steps up the road, then stopped again. For the second time he blasted my ears with that whistle. The noise-making critters in that patch of road got quiet.
He said, "Say hey!"
He waited, then yelled, "Say hey! I know my eyes aren't what they used to be, but I know they aren't so bad that they'd lie to me about seeing a young brown-skinned boy walking along the road just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two-thirty in the morning."
I couldn't tell if he was talking to me or to hisself. I peeked up to see if I could get a better look at this man. He came closer to me, then stopped about ten giant steps away.
"And I'ma tell you, I've seen some things out of place before and a young brown-skinned boy walking along the road just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two-thirty in the morning is definitely not where he ought to be. In fact, what is definite is that neither one of us should be out here this time of night."
He squatted down and said, "Are you still there?"
I raised my head a little higher to get a better look at him and his big car. He'd left the door open and I could hear the engine of the car grumbling, it was saying, wugga, wugga, wugga, wugga, wugga.
"Son," he said, "this is no time to play. I don't know and I don't care why you're out here, but let me tell you I know you're a long way from home. Are you from Flint?"
How could he tell I was from Flint just by seeing my face for a second in his headlights? I wonder how grown folks know so doggone much just by looking at you.
Something was telling me to answer him but I still wanted to get a better look.
He stood up. "You know what? I bet if I can't get you to come out with talk I got something else that might make you show your face.
"From the quick look I got at you, you seemed a little on the puny side. I'll bet anything you're hungry. Just so happens that I've got a spare baloney and mustard sandwich and an apple in the car. You interested?"
Shucks. How did he know I was so hungry?
Then he said, "Might even have some extra red pop."
Before my brain could stop it my stomach made my mouth yell out, "But I don't like mustard, sir."
The man could tell which bushes I was hiding in but he didn't bum-rush them or try to get me, he just laughed and said, "Well, I didn't check, but I don't suppose the mustard's been glued on, I'll bet you we can scrape it off. What do you say?"
I was carefuller talking to him this time so he couldn't track where I was. I turned my head and talked sideways out of my mouth like one of those ventriloquists. "Just leave them at the side of the road and I'll get them. And please open the bottle of pop, sir, I don't have a bottle key on me."
He squatted back down again and said, "Oh, no, can't do that. The deal is I feed you, you show me your face."
From the way the man talked he seemed like he was OK and before my brain could stop it my stomach told the rest of me to slide my suitcase deeper into the weeds and walk out.
The man stayed squatted down and said, "I knew I saw something. A deal's a deal so I'ma go get your food, all right?"
"Yes, sir."
He stood up, turned his back to me, then ducked inside the car. A second later he came back with a brown paper bag and a big bottle of red pop.
"Here it is."
He stood there acting like I was going to have to come over to him and get it.
"Could you put them down and I'll eat them and you can keep driving, sir?"
He laughed again. "Thanks for your concern, but I've got a little time to spare."
With him standing there in the dark dangling the bottle of red pop out of his right hand and the red taillights of the car behind him shining through the bottle it looked like the reddest red in the world. I walked right up to the man like I was hypnotized. I forgot all my manners and reached right out.
He raised the bottle over his head. "Hold on now."
"Could I have some of the pop, sir?"
He smiled. "That's not why I said hold on, I said it because we have some talking to do first."
My eyes left the bottle and looked at the man.
His hat wasn't a cop hat or a soldier hat, it was the kind of cap men wore who drive fancy cars for rich folks. And it wasn't black, it was red.
He said, "I've got a problem and I need you to help me figure it out."
Uh-oh. What he'd just said is another one of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. This was Number 87.
RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 87
When a Adult Tells You They Need Your Help with a Problem Get Ready to Be Tricked— Most Times This Means They Just Want You to Go Fetch Something for Them.
The man said, "My problem is I'm not quite as brave as you are. I'm feeling very, very uncomfortable standing on the side of the road just outside of Owosso, Michigan, at two-thirty in the morning, and the sooner you can put my mind at ease about what you're doing out here the sooner we both can go about our business, OK?"
I nodded.
He waited a second, then nodded too.
I nodded back.
He said, "Well?"
I was too doggone tired and hungry to think up a good lie. "Nothing, sir."
He looked disappointed. "What's your name, son?"
"Bud, not Buddy, sir."
"Now there's an unusual name. Did you run away from home, Bud-not-Buddy?"
I could tell this guy was poking fun at me but I answered anyway. "Yes, sir."
"OK, that's a start."
He handed me the bottle of red pop. He must've had it sitting in ice in the car, it was cold and sweet and delicious.
After a couple of seconds he pulled the bottle away from my mouth.
"Hold on, hold on, don't belt it all down on the first pull. There's plenty here."
I slowed way down.
"OK, Bud, you've run away from home, where is that?"
I don't know if it was because of the red pop juicing up my brain or because I'm such a good liar, but one of those things got me thinking again real quick.
The first thing I knew was that no matter what I told him this man wasn't going to let me stay out here by myself, but the nervous way he kept looking around was making things seem so scary that not staying out here was OK.
The second thing I knew was that I couldn't tell this man about the Home or the Amoses. I wasn't about to let him take me back to either one of them.
The man said, "Where's home, Bud?"
Then another jolt of red pop must've pumped through my heart because my brain came up with a perfect lie.
"I ran away from Grand Rapids, sir."
See how perfect the lie was? Maybe this guy would feel sorry for me and put me on a bus to Grand Rapids and I wouldn't have to do any more doggone walking. He must have some money, anyone driving a car like this would have to be rich or at least know somebody who was rich.
The man scratched under the back of his hat and said, "Grand Rapids!" He said that like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world, like you'd need to put six exclamation points after it.
Something about the way he said it made me nervous but I answered him. "Yes, sir." That's the bad thing about lying, once you say one you've usually got to stick with it.
"Well I'll be . . . ," the man said. "That's where I'm from, I left there not an hour and a half ago."
He snatched the bottle out of my hand, grabbed my arm, walked me over to the passenger's side of the car and started to open the door.
I was glad I was going to be getting a ride but I said, "Sir, I left my suitcase over in the bushes, can we please get it?"
"See, my eyes aren't near as bad as I thought they were, I knew you had a box or something. Bud-not-Buddy, you don't know how lucky you are I came through here, some of these Owosso folks used to have a sign hanging along here that said, and I'm going to clean up the language for you, it said, 'To Our Negro Friends Who Are Passing Through, Kindly Don't Let the Sun Set on Your Rear End in Owosso!'"
He must not have trusted me 'cause he kept holt of my arm. We went over to the bushes and I grabbed my suitcase. Then he walked me back to the car.
When he opened the passenger's side door I could see that there was a big box sitting on the front seat. The man never let go of my arm and wrestled the box over into the backseat.
If he would've let go of my arm for just one second I would've run like the devil was chasing me. On the side of the box some big red letters said as clear as anything, URGENT: CONTAINS HUMAN BLOOD!!!
Oh, man, here we go again!
My heart started jumping around in my stomach. The only kind of people who would carry human blood around in a car were vampires! They must drink it if they were taking a long trip and couldn't find any people to get blood from. This guy figured he'd rather have my fresh blood than blood out of a bottle!
I barely heard him say, "Get in. I'm going back to Grand Rapids tomorrow, I'll send a telegram to your folks and then take you back."
Then he made his first mistake, he let go of my arm. I slid into the car and he closed the door behind me. Quick as anything I locked the door and crawled over to the driver's side of the car and pulled that door closed and locked it just as the vampire reached for the handle to get in. I dug around in my pocket and pulled my knife out and put it under my leg.
I put my hands on the steering wheel and looked at the gearshift to try to figure which way was "Go." I stretched my legs out as far as they'd reach and could just get to the gas pedal.
I pulled the gear lever down and the car took off with the vampire running as hard as he could to catch me.
Wow! If I kept things like this up I would knock Baby Face Nelson off the FBI's ten most wanted list!