“You sure ain’t doing very good!”
The wrinkled old face leaned out the window of a battered pick-up truck and spit the words at me from across the road.
I asked, “What do you mean?”
He wore the kind of sunglasses they give you after cataract surgery. His voice was mean and raspy. “You ain’t making very good time. You passed my house a couple of days ago, and you only got this far?”
“So?”
“The paper said you was walking to New England.” He ground out a cigarette on the side of his door. “Hell, you’ll never get there going this slow!”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
“Then you’re the only one who ain’t.” He tossed the butt into the road . “Everybody’s in a hurry these days.”
“I’ve been in a hurry before, but I didn’t like where it was taking me. So I thought I’d slow down and see where that got me.”
I heard the roar of an engine speeding up the highway behind him. He glanced in his rear view mirror, grabbed the gear shift, then turned his old face toward me. I thought he was going to say something. But he just shook his head and sped away.
*