And gives you space to think. Let your mind drift as you travel down highways that make the journey simple and calm, with places to stop and walk around to keep from getting so cozy you want to doze at the wheel.
So I was going through the Delaware Water Gap, I started thinking about how Simon spent the last forty years of his life just wanting to be left alone. And succeeding. Family is thousands of miles away. Friends are few...just people he worked with and other book dealers.
He had his apartment with his books and DVDs. A chair he liked to sit and read in. Any food he wanted was available. We used to call that cocooning; now it's referred to as rotting. Not my favorite term...but appropriate.
It developed into ReShawn taking a quiet moment after an afternoon of little league and his chate with Dillon's father about one of life's truths...that justice is for the living, and the guilty are rarely held accountable. He sits on his back porch after his sons are asleep, beer in hand, and contemplates it all.
He has a wife he loves, and who loves him. He has two boys he would die to protect. He has plenty of food, shelter, a career he enjoys, and a life of comfort he has been taking for granted...which may have lulled him into a false sense of security.
His wife joins him and they talk in that quiet way parents have, to keep their children from hearing. He tells her Simon had spent decades doing all he could to keep from bringing any real focus on himself. And he'd succeeded...until he came to Barrington. And collided with Frank Paley, a man who had never grown out of being a bully in eighth grade.
All his willingness to keep from making waves...and he still wound up killed by someone who hated him for what he was. And will get away with it because if he is brought to justice, it might reflect poorly on those who gave him tacit permission to hurt people...so long as it was the right people he'd hurt.
Or something like that. Still working it out.
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