Free Go With Me by Castle Freeman

Whizzer. “Along came Nate the Great, on his way to work.”
    “Stopped,” said D.B.
    “Perry asked him to go for help,” said Coop, “or get the jack and raise the car up off his arm.”
    “Nate the Great says, sure,” said Whizzer. “But he don’t go for help. He don’t get the jack. He just gets around front of the car, takes hold of the bumper, and lifts the whole god damned car up so Perry can get his arm out from under.”
    “He’s holding the car up there, and he tells Perry to take his time,” says Coop.
    “‘Take your time,’ says Nate the Great,” Whizzer said. “What I’m saying, he’s a pretty rugged kid. He’s holding the Chevette up in the air like it’s nothing.”
    “The Escort,” said Coop.
    “Nate the Great can give Blackway a run,” said Whizzer.
    Coop shook his head. “I ain’t saying the kid don’t have the grunts,” he said. “But he ain’t clever. He’ll think he’s in some kind of a prizefight. He won’t know to kick or to pick up a chair.”
    “A bar,” said Whizzer.
    “Okay, Whiz,” said Coop. “It was a bar. It was a Chevette. Are you happy now? What I mean, that kid don’t know the tricks.”
    “No,” said Whizzer, “but Les does.”
    “What tricks?” Conrad asked.
    “Whatever ones it takes,” said D.B.
    “You wait,” said Whizzer. “Les knows all the tricks, and then he knows a couple more. And I’ll tell you something else: Les’ll go through. He’ll go all the way through. Hell, come to that, Les is as crazy as Blackway.”

9
     
    FRIENDS OF BLACKWAY
     
    The High Line Cabins are gone today. They stood about at the top of Route 10, where you turn off to take the road into the mountain country to the north. The highway went down a hill and into a curve there, and the crossing road came in just at the bend: a bad spot. Lately the state highway department has gone to work on that stretch. They have taken out the curve, they have taken out the hill — and they have taken out the High Line Cabins. Even the place where they were, you could say, has ceased to exist.
    Few mourn. The High Line was not a good place. A sad, dirty, half-empty place, the habitat of sad, dirty, half-empty people, people who didn’t want to be seen: runaways, suicides, drinkers, addicts, sellers of goods that are on no account to be sold. In particular the High Line catered to adulterers. Restless citizens of Bennington, Rutland, Brattleboro went there with women who weren’t their wives, with men who weren’t their friends. Weekends, you didn’t even have to bring a woman with you to the High Line; the women would be set up there on their own. All you had to do was sit in your car and wait your turn. Then, the High Line amounted to an old-fashioned whorehouse, without the piano and without the warmhearted, middle-aged female boss. Some of the local people called it Tailtown.
    Lillian and the two men turned into the parking lot at the High Line. Nate stopped the truck in front, and they sat and watched the building for a minute.
    “This is the place?” Lillian asked.
    “This is it,” said Lester.
    “What a dump,” Lillian said. “People pay to stay here?”
    “Not for very long,” Lester said. “Hah. What I mean, not for very long — at a stretch. Ain’t that right?” he asked Nate.
    “Yo,” said Nate.
    The High Line wasn’t a big place. It sat on an acre or less, a gravel lot on the road front and a patch of weeds and brush behind, festive with paper wrappings, empty cartons, empty cans and bottles, used-up rubber products, other trash. The building held twenty units in a two-decker range with stairs on each end to get you up to a balcony that led to the second-story rooms. The place was painted white with a green roof, green doors to the rooms. Maybe that paint job was intended to charm. Maybe it was intended to summon the prim, clean order of the Vermont village. It didn’t. For the High Line and places like it, you can paint them any color you