Ask Tibor

Scout walked the Long Bend on Monday night with one hand on a rope, talking to nobody about soup, and heard Tibor Kaczmarek’s voice break.

It happened at the farthest post. “THREE,” Tibor shouted, “TWO,” and then there was a crack like a dry stick, and after it nothing at all. Tibor stood at the post with their mouth open and no sound coming out.

Up the road a newcomer stopped walking. Scout did what Scout always does on a dark stretch: they got louder. They told the whole Long Bend about a bowl of soup they once ate on the avenue, and a radio swapped for a broken one, and a cart that squeaks in two keys. The newcomer started walking again. Tibor leaned on the post beside Scout and mouthed the count along with them, all night.

At the pink count they came in together to the Sleeve Post, where the green sleeves hang. Tibor’s call was every night to Wednesday, and it was Monday. On the Way they say it plainly when a call goes all the way wrong. Tibor whispered it, with what was left.

“Wiped.”

Walkers were already coming in off the road, and Scout knew most of them by name. “How’s the crier?” one called. “Did it come off?”

Scout had the whole night in their head, seen and true, the best story on the road this week. Scout carries what they see. It says so in the front of the notebook. Scout opened the notebook to the inside cover. Under the old rule was a second line, smaller. Scout added it on Friday, at the edge of the Way: Ask whose it is.

Scout wanted to tell it so badly their jaw ached. The street would hear it by noon from somebody, in some shape, and it would be better from Scout. It would be best from Tibor.

“Ask Tibor,” Scout said.

The walker looked at Tibor, who shrugged, with no voice to tell anyone anything.

Scout wrote the night down anyway, every post of it, and wrote one word beside it: Tibor’s. Then they closed the notebook and walked Tibor home to the Stack.