Moon Palace (42 page)

I gave up after that. The moment Mr. Smith spoke those words, I knew there would be no point in going on. I had always
known that I would have to stop sooner or later, but I had never imagined it happening so abruptly, with such devastating finality. I was just getting started, just warming up to my task, and now there was nothing left for me to do. I drove back to Bluff, spent a last night in the motel, and checked out the following morning. From there I went to Lake Powell, wanting to get a firsthand look at the water that had destroyed my beautiful plans, but it was hard to feel much anger against a lake. I rented a motorboat and passed the whole day cruising over the water, trying to think of what to do next. It was an old problem for me by then, but my sense of defeat was so enormous that I failed to think of anything. It was not until I returned the boat to the rental shack and started looking for my car that the decision was suddenly taken out of my hands.

The Pontiac was nowhere to be found. I searched everywhere for it, but once I realized that it wasn’t in the spot where I had parked it, I knew that it had been stolen. I had my knapsack with me and fifteen hundred dollars in traveler’s checks, but the rest of the money had been in the trunk—over ten thousand dollars in cash, my entire inheritance, everything I owned in the world.

I walked up to the top of the road, hoping to hitch a ride from someone, but no cars stopped for me. I cursed them all as they passed, shouting obscenities as each one sped by. Evening was coming on, and when my bad luck continued on the main highway, I had no choice but to blunder off into the sagebrush and find a place to spend the night. I was so stunned by the disappearance of the car, I never even thought of reporting it to the police. By the time I woke up the next morning, shivering against the cold, it struck me that the theft had not been committed by men. It was a prank of the gods, an act of divine malice whose only object was to crush me

That was when I started walking. I was so angry, so insulted by what had happened, that I stopped holding out my thumb to ask for rides. I walked the whole of that day, from sunup to sundown, walking as though I meant to punish the ground beneath
my feet. The next day, I did the same thing again. And the day after that. And then the day after that. For the next three months, I continued walking, slowly working my way west, stopping off in little towns for a day or two and then moving on, sleeping in open fields, in caves, in ditches by the side of the road. For the first two weeks, I was like someone who had been struck by lightning. I thundered inside myself, I wept, I howled like a madman, but then, little by little, the anger seemed to burn itself out, and I settled into the rhythm of my steps. I went through one pair of boots after another. By the end of the first month, I gradually began talking to people again. A few days later, I bought a box of cigars, and every night after that I smoked one in honor of my father. In Valentine, Arizona, a chubby waitress named Peg seduced me in an empty diner at the edge of town, and I wound up staying with her for ten or twelve days. In Needles, California, I twisted my left ankle and couldn’t walk on it for a week, but otherwise I walked without interruption, heading toward the Pacific, borne along by a growing sense of happiness. Once I reached the end of the continent, I felt that some important question would be resolved for me. I had no idea what that question was, but the answer had already been formed in my steps, and I had only to keep walking to know that I had left myself behind, that I was no longer the person I had once been.

I bought my fifth pair of boots in a place called Lake Elsinore on January 3, 1972. Three days later, all ragged with exhaustion, I climbed over the hills into the town of Laguna Beach with four hundred and thirteen dollars in my pocket. I could already see the ocean from the top of the promontory, but I kept on walking until I was all the way down to the water. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when I took off my boots and felt the sand against the soles of my feet. I had come to the end of the world, and beyond it there was nothing but air and waves, an emptiness that went clear to the shores of China. This is where I start, I said to myself, this is where my life begins.

I stood on the beach for a long time, waiting for the last bits
of sunlight to vanish. Behind me, the town went about its business, making familiar late-century American noises. As I looked down the curve of the coast, I saw the lights of the houses being turned on, one by one. Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.

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