I dreamed I found the statue. I opened a box on my lap and there it was. It was creepy because Nancy was trapped in the statue, or she was the statue; something like that. She couldn’t talk or move or anything. I said, “You can’t go out.” I was afraid because she was a statue, and then I was afraid she would come alive. “Don’t go out,” I said. I heard the midnight train coming and I thought, I’m at my camp. Then I woke up and the train passed.
Mr. Winkley was asleep and I left quietly. As soon as I stepped out on the sidewalk and closed the door I realized that I’d forgotten to take my jacket and my key, and I wouldn’t be able to get back in the hotel until Elsie unlocked the door in the morning. I walked to the railroad tracks and toward the bridge. At two in the morning it’s mostly only cops and crooks that are out, so I had to be careful. I thought there was probably a cop following me, but I didn’t run or look back, because then he’d grab me for sure, so I just walked, fast but not too fast, and I didn’t look around too much but I didn’t look down either. Then I had the feeling that I was somewhere up above watching myself walking down the street in the dark. I thought, That guy looks like he maybe killed somebody.
I walked down the tracks that went under the bridge and found my ladder where I’d hid it in the bushes. I set it up against the concrete and climbed up. I hadn’t been there much since I’d moved into The Morpheum, except sometimes I’d put things there. It was a safe place because nobody could see you and the only way you could get to it was with a ladder. I still had blankets and things up there, and you could even build a small campfire and nobody would know.
When I got to the top I felt around for the statue but I didn’t feel anything except concrete and sand. I swung my leg up and rolled onto the shelf. I wished I had a flashlight. There wasn’t a lot of headroom up there so I crawled around on my elbows and knees looking for the statue. I knew that if I killed Nancy and forgot I did it, I would have hidden the statue under the bridge, because that was the only hiding place I had.
I couldn’t see much and I bumped my head on an I-beam and I had to be careful not to get too close to the edge. I was turning around on my elbows and knees and my foot knocked over something that made a clinking sound when it fell. If it was the statue, that meant that I killed Nancy and couldn’t even remember doing it. When the Colonel psychoanalyzed me he said I forgot all the bad things I did.
The way it clinked when it fell over, it sure sounded like the statue. I turned around on my elbows and knees and saw a little glimmer from it and I reached my hand toward it, and then I stopped. I didn’t want to think I killed Nancy, but I did want the statue; so I didn’t know what I wanted. Finally I said, “I’m going to find out.” I took a deep breath and put my hand on it, and it was only a bottle. I shook it, and it was about half full. I opened it and sniffed. It was Thunderbird! I must have put it there and forgotten about it.
I looked around some more, in my blankets and pillow and everywhere, just to make sure the statue wasn’t there, and all I found was half a bag of ginger snaps that I remembered leaving there a year earlier. It was cold and I couldn’t get back into The Morpheum until morning, but I didn’t care because at least I knew for sure that I didn’t kill anybody.
I ate the rest of the ginger snaps and drank the Thunderbird. Then I pulled up the ladder, lay down on my blanket, and went to sleep holding onto my rabbit’s foot in my pocket. It was warm and it felt like Mr. Winkley’s foot.