Specimen Days. Michael Cunningham

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      “They do, my boy. They are in the grass and the trees.”

      “Only there?”

      “No, not only there. They are all around us. They are in the air and the water. They are in the earth and sky. They are in our minds and hearts.”

      “And in the machines?”

      “Well, yes. They are in machinery, too. They are everywhere.”

      Lucas had been right, then. If he’d harbored any doubts, here was the answer.

      “Thank you, sir.”

      “Tell me of yourself,” Walt said. “Where do you come from? Are you in school?”

      Lucas couldn’t find a way to answer plainly. What could he tell Walt, how account for himself?

       He said at length, “I’m searching for something, sir.”

      “What are you searching for, lad?”

      He could not say money. Money was vital, and yet now, standing before Walt’s face and beard, under the curve of his hat, it seemed so little. Saying “money” to Walt would be like standing in Catherine’s hallway, blazing with love, and receiving a lamb’s neck and a bit of potato. He would have to say what the money was for, why he needed it so, and that task, that long explanation, was more than he could manage.

      He could say only, “Something important, sir.”

      “Well, then. We are all searching for something important, I suppose. Can you tell me more exactly what it is you seek?”

      “Something necessary.”

      “Do you think I could be of any help?”

      Lucas said, “You help me always.”

      “I’m glad of that. Do you hope to find this precious thing on Broadway?”

      “I’ve found you, sir.”

      Walt drew up more laughter from the earth. Lucas felt it throughout his body. Walt said, “I’m hardly precious, my boy. I’m an old servant, is all I am. I’m a vagrant and a mischief-maker. Do you know what I think?”

      “What, sir?”

      “I think you should walk far and wide. I think you should search Broadway and beyond. I think you should search the entire world.”

      “That would be hard for me, sir.”

      “Not all at once, not in a single night. I suspect you’re something of a poet yourself. I suspect you’ll spend your life searching.”

      Lucas’s heart caught. He needed the money now. He said, “Oh, I hope not, sir.”

      “You’ll see, you’ll see. The search is also the object. Do you know what I mean by that?”

      “No, sir.”

      “You will, I think. When you’re older, you will.”

      “I need, sir—”

      “What do you need?”

       “I need to know which way to go.”

      “Go where your heart bids you.”

      “My heart is defective, sir.”

      “It’s not in the least defective. You can believe me on that account.”

      Lucas flinched. He thought he might weep. He hoped Walt couldn’t see the tears rising in his face.

      Walt said softly, “Would you like me to give you a direction?”

      “Oh, yes, sir. Please.”

      “All right, then. Go north. Go up to the edges of the city and beyond. Go see where the buildings diminish and the grass begins.”

      “Should I?”

      “It’s as good a way as any. If you want instructions, I give them to you. I hereby tell you to walk north.”

      “Thank you, sir.”

      “Will you come here tomorrow?” Walt asked. “Will you meet me here at the same time tomorrow night and tell me what you’ve found?”

      “Yes, sir. If you’d like.”

      “I’d like it very much. I don’t meet someone like you every day.”

      Lucas said, “A child said—”

      Walt joined him, and they spoke together. They said, “What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; how could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.”

      “Good night, sir.”

      “Good night, Lucas. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow. I’ll be here, waiting.”

      “Thank you, sir.”

      Lucas turned and walked away. He went north, as Walt had told him to. He strode up Broadway, past the stores and hotels. Presently he turned and saw that Walt stood watching him. Lucas raised his hand in salute. Walt returned the gesture.

      He had gone looking for money and found Walt instead. Walt had sent him north.

      Lucas continued up Broadway. He went past Union Square and farther, until the grand buildings dwindled and there were fewer and fewer people, until fields spread out around him, lit here and there by the lights of farmers’ cottages and more brightly by the windows of important houses, houses of brick and limestone, that stood proudly in the flatness and quiet. He passed like a ghost along the road, which was sometimes paved and sometimes not. He passed a house of particular grandeur, with a stone front and a white portico. He saw within (they did not draw their curtains, so far away) a regal woman in a white gown, lifting a goblet of ruby wine, standing before a portrait of herself in the same gown. A man came and stood beside her, a man in a waistcoat. His chin came to a sharp point—no, his beard was the color of his skin, and the hair on his head was the color of his skin. Lucas thought the man would appear in the portrait, too, but he did not. The man spoke to the woman, who laughed and gave him her goblet to drink from. In the portrait, she continued looking out serenely.

      Lucas watched them. The dead might be present and absent like this, in the world but not of the world. The dead might wander as Lucas wandered, past the windows of strangers, looking in at a woman and a picture of a woman.

      He left the man and the woman and the woman’s picture. He passed other houses. Through another window he saw the crown of a chair and a framed mirror that showed him the crystal drippings of a chandelier. He saw a farmer’s wife pass out of her door and pause, gathering her shawl. He saw an opossum that walked as he did, along the road. The opossum went alongside him with her quick, humping gait, unafraid, like a companion, for fifty or more paces, then slipped away, pausing to show him the pale, articulate line of her tail.

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