If his memory was true, Rodney knew he could get to the highway in half an hour at best, if he stuck to the drive and moved fast. But it was dark and there were trips and dips and deep ruts, and even with the small beam of light in his hand, he couldn’t cover much distance before catching his shoes on the ground and nearly falling into the earth.
His body moved in fits and stumbles and his heart knocked inside of him until he thought it would break through his ribs. Somewhere behind him Lester would eventually figure out that he had gone, and he would come for him. There was no doubt. How many people, he wondered, might be driving the highway this time of night? He didn’t even know what to do if he even made it there.
He thought of his mother, asleep all the way back in Hope, in that bedroom of hers with the door closed tight. Or maybe she wasn’t sleeping at all, but instead sitting at the front window wondering if her son might ever walk up those steps again. He could see her, with her mud-brown hair down over her face, cheeks scrubbed to red. She would have no need for Otis. Not anymore.
Somewhere in the distance, off to his right, the brush moved, and the tapping of little feet sounded, growing faint, as whatever it was ran away from him. There was a stabbing in his side, and his legs felt like they would fold underneath him at any step.
His father had actually taken him fishing with the lure Rodney had found that day at the lake. He had been waiting for Rodney at the house, after school, the doors to his Impala wide open and waiting like two arms. Rodney threw his school bag up onto the porch and the two of them went to the same lake, and Rodney watched as his father baited the hook and clipped the little red and white ball to the line and cast it out onto the glassy surface in an artful, high arc, snapping the reel in place.
“Now keep your eye on the bobber,” he said. “If it drops below the water, give it a little tug.” He unfolded two lawn chairs and they sat together until the mosquitoes found them, and Rodney’s stomach started to poke from the inside. They didn’t catch any fish, but the lure was baitless when he reeled it in. He had forgotten all about that.
The roadway veered to the left and Rodney could see the slope of the hillside as it swept out onto the flatlands, where the highway ran free in either direction. Far into the distance he could make out the tiniest dots of white light and while he wasn’t entirely sure, they seemed to be moving.