Read Online The Walk by Richard Paul Evans - Free Book Online Page B

with, there’s a primordial section of the human psyche that still yearns to roam free.
    Alan Christoffersen’s diary
    The first spark of the idea came to me as I watched the banker back his silver Audi out of my driveway. At that moment, one of my elderly neighbors walked by—Mr. Jorgensen from three houses down. Mr. Jorgensen was wearing a polyester baby-blue jacket and straw hat and was leaning against a cane. He had Parkinson’s and was shaking as he walked. I don’t know why seeing him triggered what it did—who knows where ideas come from? But at that moment it was clear to me what I had to do. Perhaps the only thing left for me to do. I needed to walk far
away.
    In retrospect that moment wasn’t really the first time the thought of walking long distance had crossed my mind. When I was fifteen I read a book about a guy who walked across America, and ever since then I had secretly wanted to follow in his steps. Literally.
    I don’t think I’m alone in this fantasy. I believe that in spite of the chains we bind ourselves with, there’s a primordial section of the human psyche that is still nomadic and still yearns to roam free. We see evidence of this in the walkabouts of the Australian aborigines and the Spirit Walk of the native Americans. We also see it cautiously peeking out its head in our own culture, surfacing in our literature and music. From Thoreau to Steinbeck to
Kerouac—each generation believes they have discovered the dream anew.
    But it’s not new. Every generation has dreamed of roaming. Deep in our hearts everyone wants to walk free.

    Maybe not
everybody
. When I told McKale about my secret desire she said, “Not me. I’d rather fly.”
    “But then you’d miss everything,” I said.
    “Not
every
thing. Just the boring stuff.”
    “No, the
real
stuff. The real America. The little towns with names like Chicken Gristle and Beaverdale.”
    “Right,” she said. “The boring stuff.”
    I pressed on. “You mean to tell me that you really have never wanted to just pack up and start walking?”
    “Never. But you hang on to that dream, you crazy old coot.”
    A quote from one of my favorite comedians came to mind: “Anyplace is within walking distance if you have the time.”
    That’s all I had left. Time. Far more of it than I wanted. I retrieved the Rand McNally road atlas from my den, opened it to a map of the continental U.S. and spread it out on the kitchen table. I studied it for a moment, then I went through the kitchen drawers looking for string. The closest thing I could find was a package of shoelaces. I tore the package open and put the plastic tip of one end of a shoelace on the city of Bellevue, then stretched the shoelace to the opposite side of the map, moving it up anddown the east coast to determine the furthest point reachable by foot. Key West, Florida. Key West was as far as I could go from where I stood. That was where I was going to walk. An hour later I called Falene.
    She was relieved to hear from me. “Are you all right?”
    “Yeah. I’m sorry I haven’t called.”
    “It’s okay. I’ve just been so worried.”
    “I need to ask you a favor.”
    “Anything.”
    “This is a big one. I need you to shut everything down. Sell everything at the agency, the furniture, computers, everything. Put it on eBay or Craigslist. I’ll text you a bank account number to deposit whatever you bring in
from it.”
    “What about your personal things?”
    “I don’t care. Keep whatever you want. Throw the rest away.”
    “What about your awards?”
    The
awards
. My golden idols. “Throw them away.”
    “What?”
    “Also, there are the things in my home. The furniture.”
    “But you need it.”
    “Not anymore. The bank foreclosed on my house.”
    Falene groaned.
    “There’s more than a hundred thousand dollars of furniture and junk in here. I guess put it all on eBay or something.”
    “My aunt owns a furniture consignment store,” Falene said. “They can send a