The Road to Grace (The Walk) (17 page)

We walked out the front door to his car. I threw my pack into the car’s backseat, then climbed in as Leszek started the car. As we drove out of his neighborhood, Leszek pointed out the Corn Palace again, its façade adorned with murals made of corncobs. As we crossed under the freeway, I pointed to a small turnoff near the freeway on-ramp.

“How about right over there?” I said.

Leszek pulled his car off the side of the road and shut off the engine.

I felt surprisingly emotional.

“Well, my good friend,” Leszek said. “This is goodbye.” He reached out his thick hand. I grasped it.

“Saying thank you seems so inadequate. I am so grateful for all you’ve done for me.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said. “Is your father still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Then he must be proud of such a son. I hope we meet again.”

“Me too,” I said. “I didn’t get your phone number.”

“Then I will give it to you.”

I took out my journal and a pen. He told me his number and I scribbled it down. “I’ll call you when I reach Key West.”

“Yes. You call me. I will celebrate for you with toast.”

“Toast?” I said. “Is that a Jewish custom?”

“Yes. I will drink toast.”

I laughed. Then I shook his hand again and climbed out of the car. “Take care, my friend,” I said. “Be safe.”

“What so bad thing could happen to me in Mitchell, South Dakota?” he replied.

I laughed again. He waved, then started his car, signaled, and slowly pulled back out onto the road. I watched as his car disappeared in the merging traffic.
All gold does not glitter
, I thought.

Over the next three days I walked from Mitchell to Sioux Falls. My travel was without incident and full of corn. There was corn everywhere. At one point I passed what looked like a petroleum refinery, which vexed me, as it seemed totally out of place amid the acres of cornfields. As I examined the plant it occurred to me that they were making ethanol from corn.

On the first day out of Mitchell, I saw a sign for the Laura Ingalls Wilder home. When McKale was little, she was a huge fan of the Little House books, so I got off the freeway to see the house. Then, shortly past the turnoff, I saw a sign that said her home was more than fifty miles off my course. I turned around and walked back to 90.

I kept on walking. Again, there was a lot of roadkill. On one stretch I counted six “sleeping” raccoons in the course of just one mile.

On the third day from Mitchell, after twenty-four days on Interstate 90, I exited south on 29 toward Sioux Falls. I could see the city in the distance, and even though I was tired, I decided that a good hotel with room service and a hot bath would be worth the extra effort. At nearly twenty-six miles I stopped at a Sheraton.

I decided to take a rest day. For breakfast I ordered eggs Benedict from room service, ate, then put on my swimsuit. I borrowed the terrycloth robe that hung in my closet, then went downstairs to the hot tub.

The hotel lobby was crowded with hundreds of mature ladies wearing red hats and purple dresses, some of them
accessorized with feather boas or red or purple fuzzy socks.

I crossed the lobby to the pool area. The hot tub was located on the far side of the pool. Two women were already in the tub, chatting loudly over the sound of bubbling water. They were wearing red hats as well. They stopped talking and looked at me as I folded my robe over the arm of a pool chair and stepped into the water. I closed my eyes and sank into the tub up to my neck.

When I opened my eyes the women were still looking at me.

“Hi,” I said.

“How are you?” the one nearest me said.

“I’m fine. And you?”

“Having the time of our lives,” said the other woman, who was a little taller and had unnaturally red hair.

“Why are you wearing red hats?” I asked.

“We belong to the Red Hat Society.”

“I’m not familiar with that.”

“We’re just a bunch of dames out for a good time,” the first lady said. “You haven’t heard of us?”

“Sorry, no. I’m not from Sioux Falls.”

“Oh, this isn’t just a Sioux Falls thing,” the tall lady said indignantly. “The Red Hatters are global. We have more than forty thousand chapters worldwide. We’ve been featured in
Time
magazine and on television shows. We’ve even been on
The Simpsons
.”

“
The Simpsons
?” I said. “I’m sorry, I guess I’ve been in a cave for a while. Actually, I’ve been on a walk.”

“That must be some walk,” the second woman said.

“I’m walking across America.”

“Oh my,” the first lady said, “that
is
a walk.”

“Really,” the second said. “Which side of the country did you start on?”

“I started in Seattle.”

“How long ago did you start?”

“It’s been nearly eight months. But I got held up five months in Spokane. I got stabbed just outside of the city.”

“Stabbed?” the second woman said.

I rose up out of the water to show my scars from the attack.

The first woman put her hand over her mouth. “Oh my. How horrible.”

The second woman glanced at my ring finger. “So how did you convince your wife to let you go? Or did she come with you?”

“You lost her,” the first said. “How did you lose her?”

I looked at her quizzically. “How did you know that?”

“Yes,” the second woman said, turning back. “How did you know that?”

“He’s wearing a ladies’ wedding ring around his neck,” she said. She turned to me. “If you were divorced, you wouldn’t be wearing it. If you were still together, she’d be wearing it, and if it belonged to another woman, your wife wouldn’t let you wear it.”

“Aren’t you the Sherlock?” the second woman said. “Is she right?”

I nodded. “She passed away last October. Two days after her funeral, I began my walk.”

Both women just looked at me. Then the second woman said, “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Tell me about the Red Hat club,” I said.

“… Society,” the second woman corrected.

The first woman began, “It started when Sue Ellen, our queen mother—”

“You have a queen?” I asked.

“That’s what Sue Ellen calls herself,” she replied. “The society started when she bought a friend of hers a red hat for her fifty-fifth birthday. There’s a poem about a red hat. I won’t recite the whole thing, but it goes like this.” She straightened herself up a little.

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
,

with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me
.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we’ve no money for butter
.

“And I’ll learn to spit,” said the second woman.

The first woman nodded. “That’s in there too. It means we’ve spent our lives playing by the rules and being fuddyduddies, now we’re going to kick off our shoes and have a good time.”

“And we have
fun
,” the second woman said.

“My wife would have been a Red Hat woman,” I said.

The first lady shook her head. “She’s not old enough.”

“She would be a Pink Hat lady,” the second said. “Those are our younger members.”

“She would do that,” I said.

I lowered myself in the water one more time, then rose back up. “I think I’m boiled enough.” I stood. “Nice meeting you.”

“So nice meeting you,” the first said.

“Good luck on your walk,” the second said.

“Thanks.”

I climbed out of the tub. I dried myself with a hotel towel, then put my robe back on and walked to the elevator. The lobby was not quite as crowded, but still boasted an impressive number of red hats.

As I walked toward the elevator I could see two of the red-hatted women inside. One of them, a very tall brunette with a red fedora, said, “Hold the door, Doris. Here comes some man candy.”

I smiled as I stepped in. “Red Hat Society.”

Fedora lady smiled. “Red
Hot
Society. And where were you last night at our Red Ball when I was looking for a dance partner.”

“I was resting my legs,” I said. “I’ve been doing a lot of walking.”

“You look like it,” she said. “How about losing the robe and giving us a little peek?”

“Janet!” Doris said.

“Oh, don’t be such a prude,” Janet replied. “He’s probably a male model. He’s used to this.”

“I’m not a model.”

“You could be,” Doris said.

“Ought to be,” Janet corrected.

“Sorry,” I said.

Just then the bell rang for my floor.

“Oh, come on,” Janet said. “Just a little peeksy.”

I stepped out of the elevator. “Have a good day, ladies.”

As the elevator door shut I heard Janet say, “Get his room number, Doris. That man is hot.”

The next morning I went downstairs and ate at the hotel’s restaurant. There were still red hats all around, but the women seemed subdued, as if a wild night had done them in.

I left the hotel by eight o’clock, getting back on 29 south. The road led through an industrial area and my walk was slowed considerably. I spent a lot of time maneuvering
the on- and off-ramps, searching for roads that paralleled the freeway. It was difficult walking, but sometimes there’s no easy route.

I had walked for eight miles, to a town with the fantastic name of Tea, before the construction ended and the traffic started to thin out. The landscape turned again to plains, which I was glad to see again. That night I slept under an overpass. It had been a tedious day of walking and I was exhausted. I don’t know why some days are harder than others, but I had thought of McKale all day and my chest ached with loneliness. I was glad to finally sleep.