Free Driving Blind by Ray Bradbury Page A

and test his craze.
    “Don’t fret,” said the voice under the dark Hood. “I got one last Studebaker prime A-1 vehicle, or maybe two, waiting back in Gurney. Someone drop me there?”
    “
Me!
” said everyone.
    “So
that’s
the way you function,” said Grandpa. “
That’s
why you’re here.”
    It was later in the evening with more mosquitoes and fewer knitters and smokers. Another Studebaker, bright red, stood out at the curb. “Wait till they see the sun shine on
this
one,” said Mr. Mysterious, laughing gently.
    “I have a feeling you’ll sell your entire line this week,” said Grandpa, “and leave us wanting.”
    “I’d rather not talk futures and sound uppity, but so it seems.”
    “Sly fox.” Grandpa tamped philosophy in his pipe and puffed it out. “Wearing that sack over your head to focus need and provoke talk.”
    “It’s more than that.” Mr. M. sucked, tucking a cigarette through the dark material over his mouth. “More than a trick. More than a come-on. More than a passing fancy.”
    “What?” said Grandpa.
    “What?” I said.
    It was midnight and I couldn’t sleep.
    Neither could Mr. Mysterious. I crept downstairs and found him in the backyard in a wooden summer recliner perhaps studying the fireflies and beyond them the stars, some holding still, others not.
    “Hello, Quint!” he said.
    “Mr. Mysterious?” I said.
    “
Ask
me.”
    “You wear that Hood even when you
sleep?
”
    “All night long every night.”
    “For most of your life?”
    “Almost most.”
    “Last night you said it’s more than a trick, showing off. What
else?
”
    “If I didn’t tell the roomers and your grandpa, why should I tell you, Quint?” said the Hood with no features resting there in the night.
    “ ‘Cause I want to know.”
    “That’s about the best reason in the world. Sit down, Quint. Aren’t the fireflies nice?”
    I sat on the wet grass. “Yeah.”
    “Okay,” said Mr. Mysterious, and turned his head under his Hood as if he were staring at me. “Here goes. Ever wonder what’s under this Hood, Quint? Ever have the itch to yank it off and see?”
    “Nope.”
    “Why not?”
    “That lady in
The Phantom of the Opera
did. Look where it got
her
.”
    “Then shall I
tell
you what’s hidden, son?”
    “Only if you want to, sir.”
    “Funny thing is, I do. This Hood goes back a long way.”
    “From when you were a kid?”
    “Almost. I can’t recall if I was born this way or something happened. Car accident. Fire. Or some woman laughing at me which burned just as bad, scarred just as terrible. One way or another we fall off buildings or fall out of bed. When we hit the floor it might as well have been off the roof. It takes a long time healing. Maybe never.”
    “You mean you don’t remember when you put that thing on?”
    “Things fade, Quint. I have lived in confusion a long while. This dark stuff has been such a part of me it might just be my living flesh.”
    “Do—”
    “Do what, Quint?”
    “Do you sometimes
shave?
”
    “No, it’s all smooth. You can imagine me two ways, I suppose. It’s all nightmare under here, all graveyards, terrible teeth, skulls and wounds that won’t heal. Or—”
    “Or?”
    “Nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. No beard for shaving. No eyebrows. Mostly no nose. Hardly any eyelids, just eyes. Hardly any mouth; a scar. The rest a vacancy, a snowfield, a blank, as if someone had erasedme to start over. There. Two ways of guessing. Which do you pick?”
    “I can’t.”
    “No.”
    Mr. Mysterious arose now and stood barefooted on the grass, his Hood pointed at some star constellation.
    “You,” I said, at last. “You still haven’t told what you started tonight to tell Grandpa. You came here not just to sell brand-new Studebakers—but for something else?”
    “Ah.” He nodded. “Well. I been alone a lot of years. It’s no fun over in Gurney, just selling cars and hiding under this velvet sack. So I decided to come out in the open