Free Nighthawk Blues by Peter Guralnick Page B

known, and he was waiting for an invitation! Hawk limped back to the fire, where he pulled a saucepan from under his coat and started in to work. Soon something was frying away, whatever it was the smell soon filled the air, and for all of his distaste, for the scene and Hawk’s presence in it, Jerry grew hungrier and hungrier as he watched the old man add ingredients to the sizzling repast. At last when it was ready Hawk removed the pan from the fire and set to work on his meal, patiently picking at it piece by piece, licking his fingers scrupulously as he finished each separate portion. Jerry kept thinking that he would start to feel some remorse, glance back, acknowledge his manager with a nod and indicate for him to come join him, but nothing of the sort happened, of course, Hawk never so much as gave him a tumble. When he was at last done, Hawk licked his lips loudly, trundled back and forth stoking the fire, put his cooking utensils back in the car, then disappeared into the low scrub that surrounded the clearing, only to reappear moments later with a long stick. He lowered himself again in front of the fire, pulled a jackknife from somewhere inside the recesses of his coat, and patiently began to whitde. Even after the sun had gone down and it was completely dark, he kept it up by the light of the fire, and even if Jerry hadn’t been able to see him hunched over his work he would still have known Hawk was there by the slow scraping of the knife, which was the only sound to be heard save for the occasional hooting of an owl or scurrying of a small animal or hiss of a truck’s airbrakes out on the highway. Once Hawk cleared his throat, and Jerry jumped.
    It began to get cold. Jerry shivered a little. He was tired. He was hungry. He would have humbled himself and asked Hawk for something to eat, but he knew Hawk didn’t count gestures for anything, if he had wanted to feed Jerry he would have done so, without Jerry having to ask or be bidden. And it wouldn’t mean anything to Hawk one way or another if Jerry were to admit error, since Hawk never doubted himself long enough anyway to need anyone else’s admission of guilt.
    At last Hawk seemed to grow tired. He stifled a few yawns. Then he carefully folded up the knife and encased it somewhere within his loosely fitting garments, picked up the stick, walked over to the edge of the clearing, and with some difficulty relieved himself. The door of his old car opened with a creak, he climbed over the front seat and lay down in the back. Jerry watched it all curiously, like a spectator at the movies, and looked at his digital watch. It read 8:45. It glowed in the dark. It probably emitted “safe” amounts of radioactivity. What was he doing here?
    At last after a suitable interval he got out of his car, crossed the clearing, and peered through Hawk’s window. Hawk’s eyes appeared to be open, but that didn’t prove anything. He claimed he always slept with his eyes open in case some sidewinder (like Jerry?) ever tried to creep up on him in the middle of the night. Jerry shivered. Well, he supposed it was all right. Hawk was breathing regularly. And he didn’t like to drive anywhere at night.
    Jerry went back to his car, switched on the ignition, after a number of backings and fillings managed a U-turn, and headed back toward the highway. Going out didn’t seem anywhere near as long as going in, with the car bottom scraping against branches and vegetation and the headlights scouring scrubby bushes. When he finally emerged onto the highway, Jerry carefully took note of landmarks, then joined the stream of traffic until he came to a truck-stop diner that looked passable. Inside there was loud talk, men were eating noisily, the jukebox blared country-and-western music, and the waitress wanted to talk about her eight-year-old son Kenny. The steak was tough, the coffee plentiful, you could hear the sound of cars whooshing by on the highway outside. Civilization. When he