The Lincoln Highway

Woolly, who is not a skilled driver, marvels at the simplicity of the placemat map. Amidst honking horns and admonishments from other drivers, Woolly manages to find his way to the town square, parking Emmett’s car haphazardly on the curb and making his way into the square. Woolly finds the statue of Abraham Lincoln, and gazes up at it with admiration, “What a wonderful likeness, thought Woolly. Not only did it capture the president’s stature, it seemed to suggest his moral courage (189).”

Sitting to admire the statue, Woolly is reminded of the 4th of July and the annual celebrations at his family home on a lake in the Adirondacks. It is to this estate that Woolly and Duchess are bound, the property closed each season and reopened in the summer in time to prepare for the arrival of guests. The holiday festivities included fireworks and socializing and contests in archery, canoeing, swimming, and riflery. Each year tradition dictated that the youngest child under 16 would recite the Gettysburg Address in front of the entire assembly of family members. On his 10th birthday, Woolly’s sister Kaitlin pointed out that this particular year he would be required to give the recitation. Well aware of the difficulty memorization presented to him, Woolly was intimidated by the daunting task. His sister Sarah, however, instilled confidence in him by practicing the recitation well in advance, breaking down the speech into smaller portions so they might be more manageable for him. He mastered his memorization at home but froze in the unfamiliar surroundings and with the multitude of eyes on him. He began, struggling immediately, and Sarah joined in first, followed by the rest of the family seated at the table. Celebratory applause followed, and Woolly was reminded that in the moment he had keenly felt the absence of his father, “Oh, if only his father could have been there, […] if only his father were here now (194).”

Attempting to make his way back to the car, Woolly becomes confused. Distracted by a man reaching into his pockets, Woolly is delighted to discover that the man is feeding popcorn to the birds in the park. Pulling his attention away, he reaches the street to discover a police officer by Emmett’s car with a ticket book in his hand.

When Emmett awakens on the train in the morning, they have stopped, and Emmett assumes they are in Cedar Rapids, where the train takes on boxes of General Mills cereal. In need of food for himself and Billy, Emmett climbs to the top of the car and walks along the roofs of the cars, hoping to find an open roof hatch. A few cars down, Emmett discovers that he is separated from the cereal cars by two private passenger cars. Descending to the platform, Emmett peeks inside and observes the sumptuous décor and fine accoutrements of a luxury private car, strewn with the remnants of leftover food and champagne. Emmett sneaks inside and finds the room in disarray, obviously the aftermath of a scene of a riotous party. Suddenly Emmett realizes that there is someone inside, a tuxedoed young man asleep in a chair. Cautiously, Emmett begins filling an empty pillowcase with leftover food. As he is just about to leave, another man, who he had not noticed, calls out to him, assuming that he is a steward. He asks Emmett to pass him a bottle on the ground and appears suddenly perplexed to find that Emmett is not attired as the stewards were.

Emmett quickly explains that he is one of the brakemen. The other man rousing, Emmett learns that they are Mr. Parker and Mr. Packer, two young men of privilege and means, friends of a man in an adjoining car, a Mr. Cunningham. Their train trip is a part of Mr. Cunningham’s bachelor festivities. Realizing the hour and that the train is preparing to depart, Emmett turns to leave. Mr. Parker rises and demands that he wait and slips what Emmett believes is a $5 bill into his pocket. As Emmett leaves the car with his pillowcase full of food, Emmett realizes the urgency of his situation when the train starts moving. Jumping between the cars against the force of the wind and the rush of the train, Emmett doesn’t recall exactly where the car containing Billy is. When he sees a bend in the tracks approaching, Emmett surges forward, leaping as the train rounds the curve. Landing on the roof, he struggles, finally reaching the ladder and lowering himself onto the platform, suddenly aware of how dangerous his actions had been and Billy’s fate if something had happened to him.

When he boards Billy and Emmett’s boxcar and finds Billy alone, the man who calls himself Pastor John observes Billy’s backpack and assumes Billy is a runaway, and he considers the contents of the backpack and how he might take and make use of them for himself. Pastor John makes the requisite small talk, asking about Professor Abernathe’s Compendium and hinting that he wants something to eat. When Billy opens his backpack, Pastor John hears the sound of coins moving around inside. Inquiring about the tin where they are stored, Pastor John lunges for it, grappling with Billy for it until he manages to wrest it away. Discovering the significant value of the coins within, Pastor John presumes to take ownership of Billy’s property, reasoning “surely it was divine providence that delivered this bounty into his hands, (213).” Billy has closed in on himself, protecting his backpack, and begins, quietly at first, and then louder and progressively louder, to chant Emmett’s name. Driven by further greed, Pastor John begins to close in on Billy, insisting that the Lord’s will dictates that he take possession of the remaining contents of Billy’s backpack. He does not tell Billy that, once he strips Billy of his possessions, he intends to throw Billy out of the boxcar.

Because Billy will not let go of his backpack, Pastor John hits him to compel him to release it and is on the verge of repeating his assault when another person appears in the boxcar. With authority, Ulysses commands that Pastor John release Billy. Pastor John attempts to convince Ulysses that Billy snuck into Pastor John’s boxcar while he was asleep, and Billy had attempted to steal his backpack. Ulysses repeats his command to let go of the boy. Letting Billy go, Pastor John immediately begins picking up all of Billy’s coins, which had scattered on the floor in the struggle. Ulysses demands that he stop, and, despite Pastor John’s lying protestations that they are his coins and his bargaining suggestion that he and Ulysses split the coins, Ulysses insists yet again that he leave the coins alone and opens the boxcar door, telling Pastor John that it is time for him to get off the train. Pastor John begs that he be allowed to recite a prayer before he disembarks the rapidly moving train. In the middle of his performative recitation, Ulysses ejects Pastor John from the boxcar.

Instead of reclaiming his possessions, Billy simply stares up at Ulysses and begins asking him a series of questions that unnerve the man. Somehow, Billy seems to know that Ulysses has been in a war, has sailed across the sea, and that he left his wife and son behind, though Ulysses is certain that he and Billy do not know one another. Billy confirms they do not know one another, but he knows who Ulysses has been named for, stating his belief that Ulysses must have been named for the great ancient Greek hero in Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey. Ulysses is befuddled by the boy’s enthusiasm and insistence. Producing Abernathe’s Compendium, Billy begins to read aloud the section devoted to the story of Ulysses. Ulysses is moved by the sudden and unexpected revelation that “though Ulysses had heard his name spoken ten thousand times before, to hear it spoken by this boy in this moment it was as if he were hearing it for the very first time,” (223). Ulysses becomes absorbed in the story.   

In 1939, Ulysses met Macie, who would become his wife. After Pearl Harbor, Ulysses wanted to enlist in the military, but Macie forbade it. With a secure job considered an essential role, his future was secure, but with each passing day Ulysses became more consumed with a sense of personal guilt. Ulysses reached his limit at a Thanksgiving dance, when he was forced to face friends and neighbors who had lost relatives or had relatives serving overseas. Worse were the other men his age who were avoiding service since he saw them as cowards and worthy of contempt. Ulysses found he could no longer maintain his self-respect if he did not join the army. When he departed, Macie warned him that she and the child they were expecting would not be waiting for him when he returned. In his heart he did not believe her threat, but when he came back from serving in Italy they were gone. Ulysses caught a train, riding trains across the country in the eight years since, never once spending more than one night in one place. Billy reasons that, like the Greek hero, Ulysses is nearing the end of his journey. Ulysses, however, has been grappling with his feelings of betrayal ever since the outset of the war. Behind him, Ulysses hears the sound of someone descending the ladder, and Emmett appears.

When Duchess, driven in the cab he had hired, arrived at the park, he was in time to witness a police officer writing down the license plate on Emmett’s Studebaker. When he reached the car, parked in front of a fire hydrant with the engine running and the passenger door open, the officer was approaching Woolly as if to place Woolly under arrest. Duchess intercedes, telling the officer that he works for Woolly’s parents as their groundskeeper and has on multiple occasions advised them to hire someone to monitor him. Through his conversation with Duchess and the questions he asks Woolly, the officer comes to the understanding that Woolly is not neurotypical, that he is not permitted to drive, and that his limitations are understood by those in his household. The two are allowed to leave, but the Studebaker’s license plate has been notated, and Duchess scolds Woolly, emphasizing the importance of “all for one and one for all” (234). In light of his behavior, Duchess asks Woolly about his medication use that morning, learning that Woolly only has one bottle left, which Duchess takes possession of in the interest of rationing Woolly’s remaining supply and controlling his behavior.

The pair reach South Bend, Indiana that afternoon, and Duchess parks the Studebaker around the corner from the address at 132 Rhododendron Road. Duchess tells Woolly to stay in the car, and as Duchess leaves Woolly asks if their schedule will allow them to visit his sister Sarah, and, because Woolly rarely asks for anything, Duchess confirms that pending the outcome of his undertaking, they will visit her.

Haven gotten inside Warden Ackerly’s kitchen, Duchess first considers a rolling pin as his weapon of choice, nosing around the kitchen, weighing his options before settling on a cast-iron skillet. As the former Warden sleeps in his lounge chair in front of the television, Duchess raises the skillet and delivers a forceful blow to Ackerly’s skull. So pleasant is the result in Duchess’s mind that he considers hitting the man again, but he has judged that the single blow should have killed the former warden, and he leaves the house thinking his debt has been collected. 

While Emmett prepares the food he brought back from the Pullman car, Ulysses and Billy remain enthralled with Professor Abernathe’s Compendium, proceeding to read the story of Jason and the Argonauts. Emmett finds Professor Abernathe’s decision to include fictional and mythical figures along with historical figures in his a collection perplexing. Emmett wonders whether it might not have been a lapse of judgement to render these individuals indistinguishable from one another. He feels that “[b]y tossing them together, it seemed to Emmett, Abernathe was encouraging a boy to believe that the great scientific discoverers were not exactly real and the heroes of legend not exactly imagined” (240). Emmett appreciates the intercession of Ulysses on Billy’s behalf in his absence and tries not to think about what might have happened to Billy if Ulysses had not appeared. Emmett grapples with the private scolding that Ulysses gives him out of Billy’s earshot, asking what he could have been thinking to have left his brother by himself.

While he is angry that a stranger had taken the liberty of reprimanding him, he is aware that it had indeed been a mistake on his part, and he is cognizant of the immaturity that accompanies his resentment of being reminded of his lack of judgement. As the train moves along, Emmett attempts to plan out how he will locate Duchess once they reach New York City. He thinks that if he can remember the name of the building where the talent agency Duchess’s father is affiliated with is, he will be able to track Duchess down via his father, but Emmett’s mind drifts to the suitcases marked with the names of faraway places in his parents’ attic, stored there from the time before they had traveled to Nebraska and their sons were born.