Free The Lost Highway by David Adams Richards Page A

was something else: it was the basic instinct of pleasure he had at knowing Leo was trying to emulate him after once having tormented him and thinking, That’ll never happen again.
    He laughed at the fact that Bourque was short and lifted weights. It all seemed so ordinary to him.
    “It’s good he saw the error of his ways.” He smiled, folding the letter up. He imagined as time went on how Leo would come to him, ask forgiveness, or do him unsolicited favors. And he felt special when he thought of how he would refuse all of this, all of the favors Leo would want to do for him.
    He plunged into Saint Augustine and Thomas Merton, into the liturgy of the church, into masses and saints and fasts and feast days and calendars. To him, Saint Augustine was brilliant but obscure. So Alex thought Merton a man to emulate and a very great man. Yet what bothered him about The Seven Storey Mountain was Merton’s mocking of physical love. If Merton, who Alex considered a great man, was wrong (as Alex believed he was) in this salient point, then might not other things be wrong?
    He therefore now and then began to think of Minnie, and to wonder what she was doing at any given time during the long day—and if she ever thought of him. Twice, three times, he thought of phoning her—but did not, even though he walked to the phone booth on the highway. And then one day, out of the blue, he was struck by something. Rage. It just overcame him when he was in the field helping with the haying.
    He was very jealous of her when he thought of what she might be doing. And he could not remain pure in his thoughts or deeds, as he lied continually to himself, saying he was. And just as he thought this, he knew others there were lying as well, just by their look, and he knew this grave falsehood followed them. That night he helped put the horse into the stall, and fed it oats, and walked toward the chapel to pray. He believed prayer to be the only thing that could combat what he was feeling. But that night something peculiar happened. All those young men were rushing up the road, some of them hobbling between a walk and a run, just as the sun was going down. They passed through some shafts of light falling through the trees and onto the dusty road as they ran to see the new Corvette that Mr. Cid Fouy had bought. Though they were supposed to be in chapel they had all rushed to see it, for someone told them Cid was giving people rides, and there were only two Corvettes on the whole river.
    He could see them as they hobbled up the road, catching up to one another, shouting whispers. He was stunned by this covetousness, and stunned too by the naïveté of those young men, some born in poverty along the coast, who would rush out to see a car.
    He went back to his room to be by himself, angered that they did not follow him. He realized it was very easy for them to agree with him when they had nothing else to do, but at any other time they were worse than the kids on the school bus.
    Then, after a time, when he could not get Minnie out of his mind, Alex began to think that he would go to serve in some remote place in the north, among the Inuit, and not be seen here again. He was both kind and supportive of the native kids here, and he realized this might be for the best. Then in some manner—saving a village from the plague, a child from some plight—his name would drift over the hillocks of warm snow, south toward her. This daydream occurred in a necessary way, because of the feeble yet inextinguishable lamp lighted in some recess of his brain for Minnie Tucker. He heard too that she and Sam Patch had given up the idea of getting married, and that they saw each other only every couple of weeks.
    But this strangely did not make him consider leaving his study. However, it made him feel pleased.
    Yes, she would be a cause for concern as long as he lived—so best not to live on the Arron side of the great Bartibog. Hopefully if away, never a concern to be