Curtis was fully cognizant that his terror of telephone pole shadows was baseless, yet knowing that did not relieve the fear. Several times he had tried to explain that seeming contradiction to people, but discovered almost no one would really listen to anything he said, much less give it any credence. “Almost” because there were at least two individuals who had shown themselves willing to take anything he said seriously and seemed to consider him a real friend.One was the aging former lawyer Coleman Caldwell, the reclusive man who provided him friendship, food, and a free place to live in his vegetation-shrouded dwelling. The other true friend, a woman named Kendra Miller, slightly younger than he, had been immediately present in Curtis’s life for a relatively brief time, then moved on. She lived in a neighboring county now, where she’d gone to take a job. Curtis had made long treks on foot to visit her there, and sometimes he and Coleman Caldwell had gone there together in Caldwell’s creaky Oldsmobile.
