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The sun’s starting to come out. Shafts of light break through the windows and into the dark aisle, sending the dust particles swirling. They’re sort of beautiful illuminated like that. In the light, they seem like they’re rising, coming together to form their own tiny Milky Way. The dust moves like it has a purpose, somewhere it wants to go.

“Heah we are,” the old man says. He’s standing in front of a bank of card-catalog-sized drawers with tiny knobs. The sign above them says NECESSARY. He lets his gnarled fingers drift from drawer to drawer until finally he finds the one he wants.Advertisement

“Umm-hmm. Ummm-hmmm,” he mutters, opening the drawer and peering in. He pulls out a long, slightly rusty screw. “Things have a way of turnin’ up when you need ’em,” he says in that long, slow drawl of his. He hobbles over to the counter, where he grabs a rag and works some grease onto the screw’s threads. “You evah hear of a magic screw?”

I cough back a laugh. “No. No, sir.”

“Weeelll, you lookin’ at one. This lil thing got the power to change a life.” He holds the screw up to the light to inspect it. “Jes’ about right.”

The thing looks like a tetanus infection waiting to happen. It sure as hell doesn’t look magical.

“Hol’ out yeh hand, boy,” he says.

Oh f**k me, how did I get into this mess? Am I going to end up bleeding on an ER gurney while sympathetic nurses shake their heads and cluck, “Oh yeah, Pops the Impaler. We all know about him”? Is he one of those sick guys with a basement full of crawl spaces and human organs in pickle jars?

“I said, hol’ out yeh hand.” Pops stares at me through his bottle-thick glasses. The lenses make his eyes huge, like some prehistoric insect.

“Why?”

“If yeh don’t put yo’ hand out, you ain’t gonna find out, now, is yeh?” He doesn’t sound angry or impatient, just matter-of-fact, like it’s the simplest choice in the world: you either go for it or you don’t.

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Slowly, I put out my hand, palm up.

“Now close yeh eyes,” he drawls.

My hand snaps back by my side. “Close my eyes? Why?”

“Don’t work les’ you close ’em. Jes’ the way it is.”

Right. It would make it a whole lot easier for you to drive that screw through my head if I were to close my eyes, too. My feet start their backward walk. “This was really nice of you, but I should probably take off. …”

Pops shakes his head. “Son, if you cain’t put a little faith in people, how you evah gon’ git where you goin’?”

“Look, no offense, mister, but I don’t know you. …”

“Yeah, no shit, boy. ’N I don’t know you.” He gives the screw one more rub with the rag. “That’s why they call it trust. Now, you in or you out?”

I should just take off, get back in the car and get on the road instead of arguing with some old geezer in a broken-down hardware store about the nature of trust. But then I think of the feather emblem on the exit marker. I walk back, put out my hand again, and close my eyes, and Pops places the screw gently in my upturned palm. He covers my hand with his. His skin is leathery and warm. He’s mumbling something, I can’t tell what. The mumbling stops.

“This is a necessary part of your destiny. It’s in your hands now. Use it well, son. You kin open yo’ eyes.”

I do as he says. The old man’s gone and there’s an old screw in my hand. It doesn’t shine or sparkle or do funny tricks. I don’t understand how it could be a necessary part of anything, except maybe a future bookshelf or CD rack.

Signs. Random coincidences. Trust.

I put the screw in my pocket and head out to the car.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Which Treats of What Happens When There Is a Bounty on Our Heads and We Visit Putopia

I don’t tell Gonzo and Balder about the Wishing Tree or the weird hardware store and the magic screw that’s a “necessary part” of my destiny somehow. I don’t want them to think I’m unraveling fast. I’d rather just freak out about that possibility solo.

Plus, my E-ticket’s losing health power. Adventureland and Frontierland are gone, and the third line, Liberty Square, is fading fast. If we don’t find Dr. X soon, I’m toast.

Near the outskirts of Florida, we stop to get gas. The Caddy eats a lot of it, probably getting about fifteen miles to the gallon. Efficient it is not. The guy inside rings me up. A TV above his head is fixed on an all-news channel. They’re showing that WANTED flyer with the high school pictures of Gonzo and me. My legs go a little wobbly as they cut to a shot of the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction and Snack ’N’ Bowl. Daniel’s and Ruth’s faces fill the screen. Daniel’s not in mellow, don’t-hurt-your-happiness mode, I can tell that much. He’s practically snarling. The newscaster puts the mike in his face, and Daniel doesn’t waste a minute. pqdm.com