William Royden

and his jeans had holes in them.

He shook my hand without a smile and immediately took me aside to hand me the money I'd been promised in $20 bills.

He pressed the confidentiality agreement against a fare card machine so I could sign it on the spot.

After he asked me a few technical questions about the specs of my camera and the duration of the blank tapes I had brought, we walked out of the station into a very light drizzle.

Then he began to give me some instructions.

I was to tape courting and our surroundings constantly, wherever we walked, which would probably be all over town, often doubling back if we had to.

There would be a short break in the middle of the day so that I could recharge the camera battery.

Though we wouldn't be talking to anyone specific or venturing into any places that were illegal or dangerous, he said I would most likely see or hear things that unsettled me.

The important fact for me to remember, he said, was that these things absolutely could not touch me.

It wasn't possible.

So whatever my fears were, I was to just keep going and recording.

I said I understood, though inwardly I was quite confused.

Recording spoke almost not a word to me after our initial meeting at the train station.

He walked along in silence.

I hung back a few steps and trained the camera on the widest shot I could in order to get as much of the surroundings as possible.

Having grown up in Robinsong, I was clueless as to what Cording was possibly hoping to see.

He seemed unfamiliar with the layout of the town, and it became obvious he had not been there often.

He would walk in one direction for a quarter mile or a half mile, then stop to think for a moment and go in another direction, seemingly at random.

He turned again and again, never telling me why we were going toward any particular place.

He walked quickly.