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to, or had he done it? We drove on for more typo hunting, and when we passed by later, we saw that the offending t no longer existed. Benjamin had offered a smile as he thought back and said, “That guy’s a pro. He might have seemed abrupt, but that’s the attitude of someone who gets things done.” That nod had probably reflected this latest item entering his mental to-do list, and I didn’t doubt that everything that went on that man’s list got crossed off.

By contrast, in the second instance, our efforts received a “No … we don’t do that.” We stood inside a credit union, where the marquee outside advertised a HOME EQUTIY SPECIAL.

I stared at the woman behind the desk, confused. I’d explained our mission and asked to borrow a ladder, but she seemed to be answering a different question. “Uh. Don’t do what?”

“Buy whatever you’re selling.” Spoken with the professional authority she’d swaddled herself in, using it as a flak jacket to protect her from really hearing us. Even as I tried to clarify that we weren’t selling anything at all and only wanted to point out that they’d misspelled equity (which I’d thought to be a key term for a banking institution), I could see that she’d given us her official decree. The conversation had already ended, regardless of how long we kept talking.

“What a piece of work is man,” Benjamin began to muse. As for me, I’d done enough investigation into the knotted guts of human behavior to last me for quite a while. The time for home had come.

TYPO TRIP TALLY

Total found: 432

Total corrected: 233

* Or, depending on how Abbott and Costello judged the sensibilities of their audience during their routine, he might manifest as I-Don’t-Care or I-Don’t-Give-a-Damn.

17 | The Welcome-Back Committee

May 17–22, 2008 (Somerville, MA)

Home once more, his Mission complete, still the unslakeable fires for communication Clarity blaze mightily, and new Vision begins to bubble in the cauldron of our Hero’s mind, a reaching out to all those who—actually, no, the Government has other plans.

We took the last miles of the TEAL journey at a tear. Surely only Odysseus returning to Ithaca had experienced the depth of eagerness that I did now. The drive from Manchester to Somerville took about an hour, but felt longer. So many times had I traversed this bland stretch of I-93 on visits to my mom, but never had there been such import to my return. I had traveled nearly twelve thousand miles on my monumental circuit around the country, and now I returned to where I’d begun—albeit with a ton more stuff in the car and a short, bearded fellow in the passenger seat.

No welcoming parade greeted us as we pulled off the highway. No flotilla of floats impeded our progress as I turned Callie onto Cherry Street. It was a cool, sunny May morning. The neighborhood looked as I had left it. My house was as gloomy and dark as it had ever been. Nevertheless, I sprang out of the car, sensing that I was different, and that I had only begun to comprehend the enigmas underlying mankind and cacography.

We entered the silent apartment; my roommate was away for the weekend. I stood in the dim hall for a moment, my keys still in my hand, as the entire trip rushed back over me in recall. Seventy-three days of travel, more epic an adventure than I had ever undertaken. I had hunted typos through frigid snows and baking heat, in teeming cities and lonely outposts, amid mountains and plains and dreaming shores. I had put myself in various perilous situations, but none of my fears about the journey had come to pass. I had not met violence, nor lost my car to theft or the elements, and I had averted both greasy-spoon-induced E. coli and chassis-twisting calamities. Surely some higher patron of grammar had gilded my path. Then I glanced at the sloping range of mail on the foyer table and winced. The nice folks at Emory University Hospital at Atlanta apparently expected recompense for fixing my eye. Other creditors had been awaiting my return with varying degrees of patience. I had a welcome-back committee after all, it seemed.

“Come