He looked at me again, this time a little longer, and nodded himself because I needed convincing now. I had said aloud what I wanted to do, something I had avoided doing because I was never sure. But I was sure now. We would use all the money to get set up in New York. I had no idea how much that really would cost, but I didn’t care. I was sure that we would make it.

“We ain’t never coming back to Chicago,” I told Rasul. “We’re gone from that life, and everything in it. Just like Jewel. Folks wanna come see us, that’s fine. But we ain’t coming to see them. Half of ’em didn’t give a fuck we was there anyway. Fuck ’em.”

He just shook his head and listened to the radio, looking for the next place to stop as the car suddenly began to shudder and spit.

WE STOPPED IN a place called Clearville, Pennsylvania. I had never heard of it. The only place in Pennsylvania I knew of was Philadelphia. I had learned in History that the Liberty Bell or some shit was there. Before I realized how long this trip was going to take, I had wondered if we could stop and see it. Just so I could say I had seen something once that I had only before seen in a book. But I knew there would be no time. There were no signs at all for Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, still called Interstate 80-East on the map. Thankfully, we did see signs for New York City, but it was still almost four hundred miles away. It had taken us forever to go the first four hundred miles. If there was something longer than forever, I feared that was how long it would take us to do the last four hundred. Road signs had been announcing Clearville for miles, so we figured that it was a major place where we could feel safe pulling over at night. We turned off and came upon a Shell gas station with a Dunkin’ Donuts. We both were hungry, having sustained ourselves off the McDonald’s breakfast and potato chips. I noticed a pay phone on the side of the station. I decided to use it while Rasul went inside to pay for more gas and grab sandwiches.