Characters in The Long Walk

But he had never seen the Major in person. “Aaronson.” A short, chunky farmboy with a sunburned neck gangled forward, obviously awed by the Major’s presence, and took his large plastic 1. He fixed it to his shirt by the pressure strip and the Major clapped him on the back.

He fixed it to his shirt by the pressure strip and the Major clapped him on the back. “Abraham.” A tall boy with reddish hair in jeans and a T-shirt. His jacket was tied about his waist schoolboy style and flapped wildly around his knees. Olson sniggered. “Baker, Arthur.”

someone cried in an ecstasy of delight. “Watch ’im, Alice, he’s gonna puke!” “Garraty! Garraty for God’s sake!” McVries was yelling.

Hank Olson’s the name. Walking is my game.” He said this with no trace of a smile at all. Garraty offered his own name. McVries spoke his own absently, still looking off toward the road. “I’m Art Baker,” the other said quietly. He spoke with a very slight Southern accent.

“She’s probably the Major’s mother,” Garraty said. It was supposed to be funny, but it fell flat. Baker’s face was strained and pallid under the fading light in the rushing sky. “My Aunt Hattie had nine kids. Nine, Garraty. She buried four of ’em with just that same look.

• • • When they crossed into Massachusetts, they were seven: Garraty, Baker, McVries, a struggling, hollow-eyed skeleton named George Fielder, Bill Hough (“pronounce that Huff,” he had told Garraty much earlier on), a tallish, muscular fellow named Rattigan who did not seem to be in really serious shape yet, …

At quarter past the hour, Bobby Sledge tried to scutter quietly into the crowd under the cover of the dark and the driving rain. He was holed quickly and efficiently. Garraty wondered if the blond soldier who had almost sold him his ticket had done it.

Bruce Pastor, the boy just in front of Garraty, turned around to Garraty and said, “Knock, knock, Garraty.” “Who’s there?” “Major.” “Major who?” “Major buggers his mother before breakfast,” Bruce Pastor said, and laughed uproariously. Garraty chuckled and passed it back to McVries, who passed it to Olson.

… Once he had dated a girl who lived on Brickyard Hill, a girl named Carolyn. She was married now. Had a kid.

It sounded to Garraty as if Cathy Scramm’s folks knew something Scramm himself did not. “You must love her a lot,” he said, a little wistfully. Scramm smiled, showing the stubborn last survivors of his teeth. “I ain’t looked at anyone else since I married her. Cathy’s a peach.”

If he went to hell he went to hell. Finally they breasted it (Carolyn had nice breasts, she often wore cashmere sweaters) and Stebbins, panting just a little, repeated: “Well?” The guns roared. A boy named Charlie Field bowed out of the Walk. “Well, nothing,” Garraty said.

“That’s right.” Harkness had a notebook. He wrote Garraty’s name and number in it. The script was strange and jerky, bumping up and down as he walked. He ran into a fellow named Collie Parker who told him to watch where the fuck he was going. Garraty suppressed a smile.

Then the word came back, and this time the word was about a boy named Curley, number 7. Curley had a charley horse and had already picked up his first warning. Garraty put on some speed and came even with McVries and Olson. “Where is he?”

Art Baker told them about a contest they’d had back home, to see who could light the biggest fart, and this hairy-assed old boy named Davey Popham had managed to burn off almost all the hair on his ass and the small of his back as well.

… Davidson, 8, dropped back with them. He was a good-looking boy except for the rash of acne on his forehead.

All were warned. They were doing better than four an hour, but they were doing it in the wrong direction. Dom L’Antio saw them coming and laughed—a crystal, joyous, uncomplicated sound. He clapped his hands, dug into the ice, and came out with double handfuls of pink grinning watermelons.

… Some people say they don’t care,” Baker said suddenly. “ ‘Something simple, that’s all I want when I go, Don.’ That’s what they’d tell him. My uncle.

… My mother and Jan and Dr. Patterson—he’s my mother’s special friend, you know, they’ve been keeping company for the last five years or so …

The threads on the ball left an imprint dead square on his forehead for a week, like a brand. Freaky was killed by a car on U.S. 1 outside of Freeport. One of Garraty’s friends, Eddie Klipstein, saw it happen.

This time the word was that number 9, Ewing, had developed blisters and had been warned twice. Lots of boys had been warned, but that was normal. The word was that things looked bad for Ewing. He passed the word to Baker, and Baker looked surprised. “The black fella?”

The moon cast a dubious light on the groundfog, leaving it pearly and opalescent in the fields. Garraty took a drink of water. “Warning! Warning 12! This is your final warning, 12!” 12 was a boy named Fenter who was wearing a souvenir T-shirt which read I RODE THE MT.

… had bought it, it was 64, a pleasant, smiling boy named Frank Morgan. They were dragging Frank Morgan off the road. His glasses were dragging and bouncing on the pavement, still hooked stubbornly over one ear. The left lens had been shattered. “I’m not dead,” he said dazedly. Shock hit …

… It had been Freaky D’Allessio’s funeral. Not that his real name had been Freaky, his real name had been George …

“All I’m focusing on is pickin’ ’em up and layin’ ’em down,” Olson said. 5 looked insulted. “You have to pace yourself. You have to focus on yourself. You have to have a Plan. I’m Gary Barkovitch, by the way. My home is Washington, D.C.” “I’m John Carter,” Olson said.

• • • When they crossed into Massachusetts, they were seven: Garraty, Baker, McVries, a struggling, hollow-eyed skeleton named George Fielder, Bill Hough (“pronounce that Huff,” he had told Garraty much earlier on), a tallish, muscular fellow named Rattigan who did not seem to be in really serious shape yet, …

Blue smoke was coming from its dual exhaust pipes. Of Zuck there was no sign. No sign at all. “Where’s the Major?” someone screamed. The voice was on the raw edge of panic. It belonged to a bulletheaded boy named Gribble number 48. “I want to see the Major, goddammit!

Rode. And he had many strange adventures. He fought off thousands of trolls and goblins and a whole shitload of wolves. All right? And he finally got to the king’s castle and asked permission to take Gwendolyn, the famous Lady Fair, out walking.” McVries cackled.

You just adjust, that’s all. Adjustment is the key word here. Remember where you heard that first.” He looked around and discovered Garraty and McVries. “More lambs to the slaughter. Hank Olson’s the name. Walking is my game.” He said this with no trace of a smile at all.

Unless, of course, you’d like to trade it for what’s behind the curtain.” —Monty Hall Let’s Make a Deal “I’m Harkness. Number 49. You’re Garraty. Number 47. Right?” Garraty looked at Harkness, who wore glasses and had a crewcut. Harkness’s face was red and sweaty. “That’s right.”

Harlan down in the dyehouse couldn’t make piecework because I was tying up his blower with full bins. Ralph on the picker couldn’t make piecework because I wasn’t shifting enough bags over to him. It wasn’t pleasant. They saw to it that it wasn’t pleasant. You understand?” “Yeah,” Garraty said.

Garraty stepped up his pace until his legs were at the point of rebellion, and he and McVries moved quickly through the front-runners. There was a space between the boy who had been walking second, a gangling, evil-faced boy named Harold Quince, and the survivor of the two leather boys.

Garraty asked. “He asked me if it was commencing to come off hot down home,” Baker said shyly. “Yeah, he . . . the Major talked to me.” “Not as hot as it’s gonna commence getting up here,” Olson cracked. “Baker, James,” the Major said.

He pointed out Cassiopeia to Pearson, who only grunted. He thought about Jan, his girl, and felt a twinge of guilt about the girl he had kissed earlier. He couldn’t remember exactly what that girl had looked like anymore, but she had excited him.

Pearson, Abraham, and Jensen all clutched their crotches with their left hand and thumbed their noses with their right. There was a Rockettelike precision about this little act of defiance that bemused Garraty. “I cried,” McVries said. “I cried like a baby.

But when you work for the Government, the Government is twice as aware that you’re alive, twice as ready to call in a Squad if things seem a little dicky around the edges. And Jim Garraty had not been much of a Long Walk booster.

Jan was gone. Her face became that of Jimmy Owens, the kid down the block from them. He had been five and Jimmy had been five and Jimmy’s mother had caught them playing Doctor’s Office in the sandpit behind Jimmy’s house. They both had boners. That’s what they called them—boners.

Joe. Closer to, his complexion was startlingly bronzed. His eyes stared steadily at the horizon, and his features were expressionless. The many zippers on his jacket jingled, like the sound of faraway music. “Hello, Joe,” McVries said, and Garraty had an hysterical urge to add, whaddaya know?

“John! Hey Johnny, look at that poor bastard over there.” Pointing fingers, half-seen and half-imagined in the darkness. Flashbulbs popped and Garraty turned his head away miserably. Nothing could be worse than this. Nothing. He almost fell on his back and managed to prop himself up with one arm.

“And just about the next thing any of us knew, we were on that plane, even my little sister Katrina. She’s only four. We landed at three in the morning and drove up to the marker. And I think Katrina was the only one who really understood.

The road was now a dark mirror, black ice in which Garraty could almost see the twisted reflection of his own face. He passed a hand across his forehead. It felt hot and feverish. Jan, oh Jan. You must know I— The boy with the hurting side was 59, Klingerman.

He also wondered about Stebbins, back there tailing the group. How are you, Stebbins? Getting tired? Up ahead, a boy named Larson, 60, suddenly sat down on the road. He got a warning. The other boys split and passed around him, like the Red Sea around the Children of Israel.

Garraty tried harder. He struggled to the top of the hill and gasped raggedly all the way down the far side. At 11:40 Marty Wyman bought his hole. Garraty had forgotten all about Wyman, who hadn’t spoken or gestured for the last twenty-four hours. He didn’t die spectacularly.

“Really?” He felt a wave of despair wash over him. “Really?” “Yeah, really. Settle down, Garraty. We still got a long way to go.” He strode away, up to where the leather boys, Mike and Joe, were pacing the group. Garraty’s head dropped and he dozed again.

A shifty-eyed Walker named Milligan saved them all by falling to his knees, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands pressed to his temples, as if he were trying to hold his brains in.

He didn’t think he was going to win. In the sixth grade he had won his school’s spelling bee and had gone on to the district spelldown, but the district spellmaster wasn’t Miss Petrie, who let you take it back. Softhearted Miss Petrie.

Mr. Elwell held him around the middle with his work-callused hands while he threw up over the side, weak with pain and shame. They had sent him home, a boy who had flunked one of his first manhood tests, hay-rash on his arms and chaff in his hair.

It was explosively hot in the loft of the Elwells’ barn, and they had been throwing up the big seventy-pound bales in a fireman’s relay. Garraty had made the tactical mistake of drinking three dipperfuls of the ice-cold water Mrs. Elwell had brought out.

Mrs. Garraty asked. “Don’t they—” “No, Mom,” Garraty said patiently. “Well, I don’t like it,” she said, pulling forward into an empty space.

“You mean I don’t have a point there. The whole thing is pointless.” “You don’t really mean that,” Garraty said confidently. “If you had it to do all over again—” “Yeah, yeah, I’d still do it, but—” “Hey!” The boy ahead of them, Pearson, pointed. “Sidewalks!”

She had parked beside the road, apparently waiting to make sure her boy was still along for the Walk. “Percy! Percy!” It was 31. He blushed, then waved a little, and then hurried on with his head slightly bent. The woman tried to run out into the road.

He had a bad scar along one cheek. Garraty walked over to him and said hello. The dark-haired boy gave him a glance. “Hi.” “I’m Ray Garraty,” he said, feeling mildly like an asshole. “I’m Peter McVries.” “You are ready?” Garraty asked. McVries shrugged. “I feel jumpy. That’s the worst.”

“Her name was Priscilla,” McVries said. “You think you got a case? I was the original Korny Kid, Moon-June was my middle name. I used to kiss her fingers. I even took to reading Keats to her out in back of the house, when the wind was right.

… “With Ralph, the guy on the picker. He blacked both my eyes and told me I better take off or he’d break my arms as well.

Barkovitch himself, furious at being warned (the boy he had tripped over was Gribble, who had wanted to tell the Major he was a murderer), yelled at him: “Your mother sucks cock on 42nd Street, Rank!” With that, Rank suddenly turned around and charged Barkovitch. Cries of “Break it up!”

… much earlier on), a tallish, muscular fellow named Rattigan who did not seem to be in really serious shape yet, and Stebbins. The pomp and thunder of the border crossing slowly passed behind them. The rain continued, constant and monotonous. The wind howled and ripped with all the young, unknowing …

Garraty wondered if he hadn’t been a little stupid not to bring one himself. “You won’t change your mind?” It was guilt, guilt taking the face of anxiety. Although he was only sixteen, Ray Garraty knew something about guilt.

… Reggie Cotter was the only guy from Maine to ever win the Long Walk. It happened a long time ago.

But he hadn’t. That signal honor had gone to 13, Roger Fenum. Unlucky old 13. Garraty was beginning to think that Olson would go on indefinitely. Maybe until he starved to death. He had locked himself safely away in a place beyond pain.

People I meet consider I’m schizophrenic just because I’m completely different offscreen than I am before the cameras . . .” —Nicholas Parsons Sale of the Century (British version) Scramm, 85, did not fascinate Garraty because of his flashing intelligence, because Scramm wasn’t all that bright.

Garraty chuckled and passed it back to McVries, who passed it to Olson. When the joke came back the second time, the Major was buggering his grandmother before breakfast. The third time he was buggering Sheila, the Bedlington terrier that appeared with him in so many of his press releases.

Garraty wondered what McVries had meant, winking like that. Was he making fun of Olson? The skinny boy in the tree was named Stebbins. He got his number with his head down, not speaking to the Major at all, and then sat back at the base of his tree.

… Up ahead Toland fainted and was shot after the soldier left beside him had warned his unconscious body three times.

… a boy named Travin, one of the early leaders who was now falling slowly back through the main group. Travin had diarrhea.

A boy named Tressler, 92, had a sunstroke and was shot as he lay unconscious. Another boy suffered a convulsion and got a ticket as he crawdaddied on the road, making ugly noises around his swallowed tongue.

—Radio Commentator Second Clay-Liston Fight Tubbins had gone insane. Tubbins was a short boy with glasses and a faceful of freckles. He wore hip-hanging bluejeans that he had been constantly hitching up. He hadn’t said much, but he had been a nice enough sort before he went insane. “WHORE!”

“I feel like I could walk forever,” he said blandly. A couple of the Walkers around him grimaced. They passed an all-night gas station and the attendant came out to wave. Just about everyone waved back. The attendant was calling encouragement to Wayne, 94, in particular. “Garraty,” McVries said quietly.

Yannick, 98, was discussing the ancestry of the soldiers on the halftrack in an overloud voice with Wyman, 97. Both agreed that it was mixed, colorful, hirsute, and bastardized. Pearson, meanwhile, abruptly asked Garraty: “Ever have an enema?” “Enema?” Garraty repeated. He thought about it. “No. I don’t think so.”

Garraty was somehow fascinated with the boy. Number 100 was a red-headed fellow with a volcanic complexion. His name was Zuck. He got his number and then they all sat and waited for what would come next. Then three soldiers from the halftrack passed out wide belts with snap pockets.