The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead Page 0,70

had gone off to college. Elwood and Turner had thrown out a lot of the old toys from when the Grayson boys were little. They had matching red bicycles, Elwood remembered. The bikes were still where they’d left them, next to the gardening tools. The moonlight was enough to make them out.

Turner pumped up the tires. He didn’t have to search for the pump. How long had he been planning this? Turner kept his own kind of records—this house provided one sort of aid, that house another—the same way Elwood maintained his.

There was no outfoxing the dogs once they were on the trail, Turner told him. “Most you can do is get as far away as you can. Put some miles between you and them.” He tested the tires with his thumb and forefinger. “I think Tallahassee is good,” he said. “It’s big. I’d say north but I don’t know up there. In Tallahassee we can get a ride somewhere and then those dogs going to need wings to catch us.”

“They were going to kill me and bury me out there,” Elwood said.

“Sure as shit.”

“You got me out,” Elwood said.

“Yup,” Turner said. He started to say something else, but stopped. “Can you ride it?”

“I can do it.”

It was an hour and a half to Tallahassee in a car. On a bike? Who knew how far they’d get before sunup, taking the roundabout way. The first time a car came up behind them and it was too late to veer off, they biked on and kept their faces blank. The red pickup overtook them without incident. After that, they remained on the road to make as many miles as Elwood’s pace allowed.

The sun came up. Elwood was heading home. He knew he couldn’t stay but it would calm him to be in his city again after these white streets. He’d go wherever Turner instructed and when it was safe, put it all down on paper again. Try the Defender again, and The New York Times. They were the paper of record, which meant they were in the business of protecting the system, but they had come a long way in their coverage of the rights struggle. He could reach out to Mr. Hill again. Elwood hadn’t tried to contact his former teacher after he got to Nickel—his lawyer had promised to track him down—but the man knew people. People in SNCC and those in the Reverend King’s circle. Elwood had failed, but he had no choice but to take up the challenge again. If he wanted things to change, what else was there to do but stand up?

Turner, for his part, thought of the train they’d jump, he thought of the north. It wasn’t as bad as down here—a Negro could make something of himself. Be his own man. Be his own boss. And if there was no train, he’d crawl on his hands and knees.

The morning got on and the traffic picked up. Turner had deliberated over this road or the other country road and picked this one. On the map it looked less populated and the same, distance-wise. He was sure the drivers were checking them out. Looking straight ahead was best. Elwood kept pace, to his surprise. Around the curve, the road lifted to a slope. If Turner had been locked up and had his ass kicked a few times, he’d be laid out going up this hill, little as it was. Sturdy—that was Elwood.

Turner drove his knee down with his hand. He’d stopped looking back when he heard a car behind them but he got a tingle and turned his head. It was a Nickel van. Then he saw the bloom of rust on the front fender. It was the Community Service van.

On one side of the road was farmland—dirt mounds in furrows—and on the other open pasture. No woods beyond them as far as he saw. The pasture was closer, surrounded by a white wooden fence. Turner shouted to his partner. They were going to have to run.

They steered to the bumpy side of the road and leapt off the bikes. Elwood made it over the fence before Turner did. One of the cuts on his back had bled through his shirt and dried. Turner caught up in a second and the boys were side by side. They ran through the tall swaying wild grass and weeds. The doors of the van opened and Harper and Hennepin climbed over the fence, quick. They