Well, thank you very much.
Short Story / The Legend of Walking Wally
In the springtime of his madness, which is late autumn of the year to you and I, the wayfarer Wally, haunt of Hampton Avenue, began his daily trek across the time-worn paths of the planet earth. Always he glided along the bustling avenue, little more than a specter in blue jeans, his head down and oblivious to the proof of life thrumming all about him. He was of that class needing constant reminders that they were alive, that existence was composed of more than a sequence of repeating images, and I oftentimes wondered, of a Tuesday eve, enjoying my hourly cigarette in the lee of a hidden doorway, if he genuinely knew that he belonged to a race outside of the concreted sidewalk in which he constantly stared. Sadly, I never got the opportunity to ask.
I spoke only once to the strange wayfarer, on one of my own habitual outings, long before I had ever come to know his routine. I had just sparked my lighter and brought the flame to my cigarette when I happened to look up, and was struck dumb by some strange influence that I daresay was an overflow of the days when a man could be left awed by some strange and unrecognized ideal. I don’t want to say the sight of the man moved me, because that wouldn’t be right; it was something else, something more. In any event, despite the raging chill of the autumn morning, the walking man wore nothing more than a short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. His left hand was jammed in his pocket, his right carrying a worn QT coffee mug, and his head, covered with a mop of gray hair, was fixed intently on the ground in front of him.
“Man, you’ve got to be cold,” I greeted colloquially as he sauntered past me, and at first, I thought he was going to breeze on by. I was in the process of accusing him, mentally, of rudeness when he stopped abruptly and simply stood there, as still as stone, not moving even to twitch.
“Don’t you own a coat, sir?” I asked when I began to grow uncomfortable. “It’s twelve degrees outside?”
“Gimme’ some money,” was his reply, his voice permeated by a drawling slur, and he looked up at me with a set of beady gray eyes. Something in that gaze, some unsound sparkle deep within its depths, put me immediately ill at ease.
“I don’t heave any money,” I answered simply, beginning to think that hailing him might have been a bad idea.
“Gimme’ some money,” he repeated, that same slur marring his words close to incoherency. I could only stand there and stare at him, terribly confused. For his part, he remained standing still as well, apparently waiting for me to offer him a few quarters to spend down the road. I could only shake my head.
“I’m sorry, buddy, I don’t have a red cent to my name. If you smoke, I could give you a cigarette, maybe.”
The man took that in and digested it for a moment before he looked back at the ground. “Okay,” he muttered, his tone identical to the other two sentences he’d spoken. There was no change at all in him. “Okay,” he repeated, and took the cigarette from me with his eyes still fixed on the ground below. Without a hint of gratitude, he continued on his way down Hampton Avenue, leaving me more than a little disturbed.
I found the man odd, but in a rather interesting sort of way. I increased my hiatuses to that doorstep, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the mad walker that sidled his way to and fro with no hint of purpose or reason. There were even days, when I was of a particularly Freudian mood, that I attempted to recreate his entire life, psychoanalyzing and diagnosing all manners of disorders and childhood abuses. Always, though, he intrigued me. I was still influenced by that odd sensation I’d had on first seeing him, the strange passion that compelled me to try and understand this man and his insane purpose. What drove him? Why did he do what he did?
One morning, as I stepped out into the brisk Tuesday air, I noticed immediately the absence of my ever so prompt friend on his journey to nowhere. The singing alcoholic greeted the sun with his off-key baying, the hulking Metro bus whined its way through the intersection with the squeal of dying brakes, even the mechanic shop across the street hummed with its usual din of oily machinery. Everything was as it should be, all the pieces were lined up and in a row for the daily grind, except that Wally was nowhere to be seen; his small portion of the board was noticeably amiss. Though the street was crowded with noisy cars and neon OPEN signs, the world still had the unusual sense of being empty.
Buttoning up my coat further against the chill, I stepped down from the stoop on which I was perched and began to travel down the sidewalk. I didn’t really have much of a plan, just to peek up and down the walk both ways, in hopes that I had just mistimed my patient’s march. I was quickly disappointed, however, as it was deserted for a mile in either direction on my side. If he had passed this way, it had been a considerable time ago, and I immediately dismissed the notion as ridiculous. The man wouldn’t change his routine; he had just been caught up, hit a snag on the way. He had probably run into a group of charitable people at the Amoco up the road, and had begged enough change for a whiskey breakfast. He would be along any minute. I was so sure of it that I remained standing on the walk, my hands in my pockets, waiting, smoking.
Twenty minutes came and went before I finally ceded that he wasn’t coming. There were no whiskey breakfasts or early morning generositeers, the mad walker had simply abandoned his routine. The idea shocked me so much that for a moment, I completely forgot how insane that routine had been in the first place. A cold dread grabbed hold of me, and I was certain that something terrible had befallen him. Something must have happened to leave him unable to make his daily trek. Oddly, though the list of possible horrors was long, I just couldn’t imagine him a victim of a single one. He was the great, dark enigma, and I just couldn’t wrap my brain around him. No scenario was mysterious enough to capture the essence of what surely happened. I was at a loss as to what to do next.
My legs just started moving of their own accord. I have no memory of compelling myself to walk, and yet, there I was, whisking my way down the road without any decided aim or destination. Oddly, I felt that the mad walker and I had switched roles. He had somehow caught me up within the whirlwind of his madness, and now he stood, safely out of bounds, watching me with a carefully scrutinizing eye. A very terrible sickness invaded my being as I wondered if this hadn’t all been some manner of insane game, and that this had been his aim all along. Was I doomed to wander this same path, over and over again, for the rest of my eternity? Had I become his Walking Wally?
I walked over two miles before I could entertain any other thought. Just the idea was consuming, thinking that I had somehow become the specimen on some other man’s lab table. Who did he think he was? He was the mad walker, not me. Whatever madness caused his daily amblings, I shared no part in it. I was in no way augmented or twisted; I was not the crazy one. Even still, I caught myself looking over my shoulder from time to time, sure I would see his beady gray eyes behind me, smiling a knowing smile.
When I finally managed to calm down enough to take in my surroundings, I realized I hadn’t the slightest clue where I was. There were no familiar landmarks to be seen, no friendly edifices or warm welcome signs, even the faces I encountered were odd, most armed with a half-defensive smile. A most ingenuine act, I must admit, but it spoke volumes on just how dire my situation had become. I was not simply caught up in Walking Wally’s madness, I had become him. To these passing strangers, I was the mad walker. My own purpose had become the scrutiny of several sessions of Freudian psychoanalysis. I knew then that I had to get away. I had to turn and go back. Salvation was behind me, I merely had to turn and go home, back the way I had come. But I didn’t.
I’d like to say that it was that same idyllic sense I’d had upon first seeing the mad walker that spawned my hesitation, but it wasn’t. I didn’t turn and race back to my stoop because of the two men seated on a bench alongside the gas station up ahead. They had the undeniably ragged look of the homeless, each of their several layers of clothing in various stages of decomposition, their hair and beards frayed and unkempt. One wore a dingy, camoflage stocking cap while the other featured a pair of overlarge, dark sunglasses. Both were shouting and laughing very loudly, and, at first, I had a hard time imagining these two as acquaintances of my mad walker. It was certainly possible, though. I wasn’t sure of the hobo etiquette, but these two were people, and seeing as humankind is a terribly social creature, I couldn’t imagine three men seeing each other every day and not sharing a single word. Besides, I felt strangely kindred to these two as I continued to watch them, as if we three were the only rational beings in an alien world filled with biophobics.
As I approached, the man in the stocking cap stood and hailed me. Relying on uncomfortable closeness and awkward gestures, the man began to recite the lie that had rolled off his tongue so often that perhaps he himself believed it.
“‘Ay, man, help me out. Help a brutha’ out, will ya’? My car ran out a’ gas a half mile down tha’ road, and I was wondrin if you could help me out, man. I gotta’ get Dex to tha’ hospital. Think he’s got a broke leg. Can ya’ spare just a couple a’ bucks, man? Dex is in pain.”
“I don’t have any money,” I responded. “I’m looking for someone. Have you ever seen an older man that never wears a coat, carrying an old, empty QT mug? He walks back and forth with no hint of reason at all. Have you seen the mad walker?”
“Aw, ‘dat crazy white dude,” the man in the stocking cap answered without hesitation, momentarily forgetting his plight. I felt the excitement grow unbearable at his mention of Walking Wally, terribly anxious to hear more. “What choo call ‘im, Dex? Army?”
“Yeah,” Dex answered, his sunglasses fixed on me, unblinking. “‘Dat cracker ‘us da’ craziest sumbitch I ever rapped wit’, man. Always askin’ somebody fo’ some money. Ain’t nothing else, jus’ ‘gimme’ some money, gimme’ some money.’ Man, ain’t nobody got no cheese ‘round here. Tha’s wha’ we doin’, we tryin’ ta’ get paid.”
“Why’d you call him army?” I asked, handing each of my brothers a cigarette and urging them to smoke with me.
“Man, ain’ no reason. He jus’ looked like one a those crazy vets dat be walkin’ round all da’ time, crazy as a shithouse rat. I jus’ called ‘im army.”
“I see.” That was a bit disappointing. “Well,” I continued, “have you seen army recently?”
“Army?” the first asked, surprised, of all things. “Shoo’, man, he dead.”
“Dead?” I blurted, amazed that such a thing was even possible.
“Yeah, man. He was beggin’ off some ‘struction workers that was workin’ on the sidewalk, and BAM, a big ass rock fell on ‘im. Kilt ‘im right away. Man, erybody knows you don’t beg off no ‘struction workers after lunch, man. They ain’t never got no money after lunch.”
I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at the two men in complete awe. All I can remember is sitting on that bench for hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette, reflecting on a world that could allow such blind cruelty rage unchecked. How could such random chance exist with such a twisted irony?
I also thought about the walker. Could he have possibly known something that I did not? Could he have read his destiny, scrawled in the wear of his own footsteps? Could he have possibly known, this ambling corpse, this Walking Wally, that his legacy would be defined by those blocks of concrete on which he constantly trod? For thousands of years, humankind has looked to the stars to read their destinies, and as I stand here now with my cigarette, contemplating the absence of the staple that has become part of my own routine, I wonder if perhaps they’ve been looking in the wrong direction. What if our paths weren’t laid out for us by the heavens and mapped out across stars, but composed of concrete, and built by the hands of women, and of men?
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Whitebear reviewed Version 1 -
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LettersToYou reviewed Version 1 -
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Lisa_M reviewed Version 1 -
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you said “which is late autumn of the year to you and I,” why not shorten that to “which is late autum to you and me” And.. it’s not “I”, Late autum to I? No, late autum to “me” would be correct.And let’s try a period after “to you and me.” then go into the next sentence “The wayfarer Wally, haunt of Hampton Avenue.” otherwise that is on long sentence. And to break it up into two doesn’t hurt the flow at all.
okay,why did you call him “the” wayfarer Wally, when just getting rid of the works well too.
you said “his tone identical to the other two sentences he’d spoken.” to shorten that up you could say “he’s tone didn’t chance” or “his voice retaining the same monotone as the rest of the conversation” now that is a bit longer.I’ll give you that, but…it’s not as choppy. you set the character up at that point to be rather…Blah! Not a bad thing, just how he (this wally guy) feels to me.
Your dialog is pretty good and I like that you use dialect, but not to the point where you lose the reader. Kudos there! you need to go back and format this better, there were a few things here and there that popped out. paragraphs that were not flush with the rest, things like that. The flow, was at times choppy but at other times right on. I think you may be trying too hard to capture the scene and not enough time of character development. Hang back a little, let us get to know the characters.You need us to invest in them.
Other wise, nice start. The only thing I can say is that I canot really connect with your characters on the level I would have liked.
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slenderpanther reviewed Version 1 -
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I love the way this is written… It feels so natural.. I think this is a wonderful story… Keep going!
JamesMHolmes reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed reading this, the opening paragraph got me hooked in the sense that it was so delicately described and the words and sentence structure make it almost poetical.
I really liked the description of wally, and the interaction he has with the narrator/main character. It was comical and so well observed that I couldn’t help but laugh.
Didn’t really see anything that needs changing tooi much, so all in all a really well written and enjoyable read. Keep it up!!
socalwriter4321 reviewed Version 1 -
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I must say that this piece consumed me so whole heartedly that I read straight through twice without even taking notes on what needed to be edited. Each time though I became disappointed with the fact that he dies and we do not see a relationship grow between Wally and the narrator or that we don’t at least get to learn what really pushed him over the edge. Pieces like that can be great as the reader’s imagination is allowed to colour in the lines but this time I was so sucked into the character that I found it to be a let down. You made me feel as my imagination was not enough to elaborate on the blanks – it made me need you as the writer to write again or continue onward.
As a huge fan of lengthy sentences (the ones that some cast aside as run-on; the ones that made Hemingway and Robbins and Wallace famous), I would like to recommend honing the use of not only the comma but also the semi colon and the parenthesis as they both add to your arsenal of reader direction regarding grouping of thoughts in longer sentences but also conducting of the pauses. I hope that made sense – it was a bit of a run-on itself!
I would also like to applaud your great use of slang speak and street talk. Your contractions are perfect and it was as if the reader is really there listening to a couple of authentic street guys. Most of the time you read attempts at this type of dialogue seems fake and forced where as here it seems natural and right on.
Overall, excellent and I look forward to reading more of your work. Thank you for a great read!
R.E. Knowlton III
TheWorstRobot reviewed Version 1 -
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This is definitely very good, I liked it a lot. It took me a little while to get used to your writing style which at first seems superfluous, but when it started clicking it turned out to be a great read.
I am sorry, but I can’t see anything to change.
Lunsford reviewed Version 1 -
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cars and neon OPEN signs, ... I used caps in my manuscipt in a similar way and every review that it received said that it was wrong.
The singing alcoholic greeted the sun … In the sentence before this, you were writing about your prompt friend, then the alcoholic and I had to go back as I thought your friend was the alcoholic. I just know it’s never good if the reader has to pause and go back.
I read your story from start to finish and I must say, it captured amy attention right away. I was as curious as the narrator about the walking-man (Army). You have a real talent for expression. Your writing flows smoothly and your characters very well defined, The dialogue with the homeless guys was excellent. Good work.
RedBelle reviewed Version 1 -
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Your composition is very well-done. You’re afflicted with some extraneous words and phrases, but we’re all guilty of that.
“I don’t heave any money,” // have
leaving me more than a little disturbed. // cut this.
from the stoop on which I was perched // cut “on which I was perched”
either direction on my side.// cut “on my side”
calm down enough to take in my surroundings, // cut “enough…surroundings”
“Why’d you call him army?” // capitalize Army since you’re using it as a man’s name
The fact the protagonist refers to the two homeless guys as “brothers” is a great indicator of his current mindset, that in some way, he does feel as if he’s become the Mad Walker.
I really enjoyed this piece because it was an observation on the seemingly mundane. We are all affected by random people and events around us, things that, on the surface seem ordinary. Often we don’t even realize how their habits become ours until they’re broken. Nice job.
campb26593 reviewed Version 1 -
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Your writing style is solid and easy to absorb. The pace of the story is quick and engaging with good prose and detail.
However, the basis for the narrator’s interest in Wally could use a boost of plausibility. Most people are no more surprised or compelled to investigation by the demise of a person with a severe mental illness than by a person with a severe physical illness.
The narrator’s first infusion of concern implies that mental illness is as contagious as the common cold. If the narrator had some internal motivator, say the past guilt of allowing a mentally-ill relative go without help, then his obsession with Wally would be more credible. Otherwise, he would have to be a hopeless romantic to harbor such compassion, even though Wally did not have a coat in cold weather.
A family history of mental illness might also help to explain the narrator’s apparent descent into physiological turmoil.
At one point I felt like you were implying that all hobos were mentally ill. Then the two informants seemed fairly lucid so I let the implication go. I would remove the cliché “crazy as a shithouse rat.” The dialog works well without it.
The last sentence is really good.
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