“No. I’m from Knoxville. Hitched a ride to Bowling Green. What’s your name?”

“Name’s Billy. Billy Constable. What’s yours?”

“Jimmy Joel Jenks,” he told Billy’s back. “Where you headin’, Billy?”

“New York City,” he answered, still staring out the window. Billy preferred to look out his window rather than into the stranger’s eyes. Billy didn’t like to look into a stranger’s eyes. In fact, Billy didn’t like to look into anybody’s eyes. Not at first. “Where you goin’, Jimmy Joel?” he asked the window.

“Anywhere that suits me.”

“How will you know when you find a place that suits you?”

“I’ll know.”

“Have any idea where that might be?”

“Don’t know the answer to that question,” replied Jimmy Joel Jenks, his warm smile wasted on the back of Billy’s head. “You say you’re goin’ to New York City?”

“Yep.”

“Reckon I’ll go there too.”

That’s when Billy Constable turned from the window and faced Jimmy Joel Jenks. “Reckon you’ll go there too?” he asked, his eyes all squinty with seriousness, which was what happened when Billy talked serious.

“Yeah. Why not?” said Jimmy Joel Jenks.

“You’re goin’ to New York City just ’cause I said I was goin’ to New York City?”

“It’s as good a reason as any.”

During their rainy ride north, Billy Constable pocketed a little over a dollar of Jimmy Joel Jenks’s loose change betting on raindrops. Billy chose one raindrop up at the top of their window and Jimmy Joel another. The winner was the one whose raindrop arrived at the bottom of the window first. Sometimes the boys got to yelling and rooting so hard for their raindrop they’d wake up other passengers who were sleeping. Or trying to. Some of the passengers would curse and say nasty things to the boys, but they continued betting on raindrops anyway.

“Lord Almighty, Billy,” said Jimmy Joel Jenks when he was finally out of change. “How you always know which damn raindrop’s goin’ to get down to the bottom first?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” answered Billy Constable.

It was snowing and very cold in Manhattan. There were Christmas decorations already on storefronts, Christmas trees on traffic islands, and wreaths on lampposts.

The boys split up at the main entrance to the Port Authority bus depot on Eighth Avenue. They understood they had been through a baptism of sorts, leaving home close to Christmas and coming to New York together like they did.

“Take care, Jimmy Joel, y’hear?” said Billy Constable.

“You take care a yourself too,” said Jimmy Joel, the condensation coming out of both their mouths when they talked, as if they were smoking cigarettes.

They hugged each other fondly in parting, smacking each other’s back.

Billy Constable checked into the McBurney YMCA at 125 West 14th Street. The room was cheap and clean. The next day he began pounding the streets looking for a job. When he wasn’t looking for a job in the newspapers’ want ads, he was drinking coffee and eating doughnuts in a corner coffee shop named Benny’s Downtown Diner.