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The day he turned ninety, Joseph Nolan decided to walk across town. The dew was light, the hot sun nowhere to be seen, and his wife at peace behind the church. He pushed open the screen door and made it to the first porch step. A furled newspaper wanted unfurling; he picked it up and tossed it over his left shoulder. "Avoid bad news," he told the sparrow on the sidewalk. The bird flew off.

He passed a row of houses and wondered who else was awake. But the homes were dark, the streets empty, and soon he reached the main road. A car passed. Iron buckets of geraniums hung from lamp-posts. He stopped, scrutinized the bolt used to fasten such great weight. He thought that was what a man of his age should be seen doing: examining the work done with taxpayer's money. He laughed softly. In his life he had touched little else beyond books, paper, the handles of coffee mugs, his wife's skin, and the smoothness of steering wheels. Having hated his wife's last cat (Parnell) for ten years, Joseph had never touched fur. However, he did grip wax with joy when he lit a candle to commemorate Parnell's death by car wheel. Joseph couldn't convince his wife that it was an accident, he hadn't seen the tabby. She never forgave him. As consolation, he bought her an aquarium and exotic fish. It didn't matter.

There was Stan, another oldie out for his morning constitutional. Joseph shook his head: why did Stan have to dress his age? The suspenders, the flat cap, the top button of his shirt strangling his neck.

"Stop and talk, Joseph." Stan's voice scratched, a mouse in a wall.

"Stan, you know me. I have to walk."

"Did you see the paper? More bombings. There's drought in Niger. In Alberta, a man killed his pregnant wife."

"Visit your children and hold them. I have to walk."

Joseph had never fought in a war. Born during the First, too short for the Second, he had taught school instead. When he wasn't doing that, he jogged alone or strolled with his wife, and, much later, nursed her in her decline. Colon cancer. Joseph still heard his wife's moans in his dreams. He had never told her, but that was why he killed Parnell. His cries were the same.

Joseph walked on towards town, his arms swinging, his shirt cool and loose on his skin. "I feel tremendous," he said to a passing sun goddess, a young cyclist in orange Lycra. She didn't answer, which made him nod at the red hair flying behind her. "Yes, of course - we talk too much."

The sky was white and pink, opalescent: it reminded him of a ring his mother had worn. She'd told him the milkman gave it to her after his own wife died. The milkman had told Joseph's mother that she was the only other woman with kind words for him every day for forty years. "So maybe I'm wrong," Joseph said to a weeping willow. He snapped off a branch. "Maybe I need to talk more." He held the branch as he walked, pretended he was Leonard Bernstein and sliced the air. Then threw the branch away. A few blocks later he stopped, winced, and swore at the sidewalk. After JFK was killed, Joseph had taken up marathoning, run Boston eighteen times and never boasted about it, but, to be consistent, stayed quiet about the lumbar pains that followed. Two decades worth. He could only read lying down. It was one more reason he hated the newspaper, yet felt the need to "keep up" - a phrase he'd always liked, and had used when he chased his wife into the bedroom. In their good days. Now he rubbed his back with his right hand. Even his arm hurt. He shrugged and went on.

He passed shops and box stores, KFC and gas stations, a diner and cinema. The world was neon. A few cars and SUVs motored by, the drivers almost always without passengers. On the sidewalk, a boy of about eleven looked in a shop window. His hands banged against his sides.

Joseph and the boy eyed each other. Neither had anything to say; each found the other repellent. Joseph saw money in the boy's cell phone, the outsized running shoes; he could also tell that the boy saw a scrawny camel ready to die.

"I have to walk," said Joseph, and moved on. It was Sunday: bells started to clang from two different directions. He smiled at a clapboard church and whispered "Tintinnabulation." He liked the way it took so long to say.

The bells clanged on - now obnoxiously so, and Joseph walked with his hands over his ears. The boy appeared beside him.

"Too much religion," said the boy, loudly. Joseph stopped. Blinked.

"Son, you're right."

The boy turned and stared at a sports shop window. He addressed the dozen pairs of running shoes.

"You said you had to walk." Joseph had seen the boy's pout.

"Where," he said, "did you learn to manipulate people?" The boy grinned.

"Partly at my mom's house, partly at my dad's."

"Want to walk with me for a spell?"

Together they went on, shielding their eyes against the sun when it came over the buildings across the street. The boy kept up a patter about soccer practice, his new mountain bike, the trails at his dad's cottage. Then the talk eased off. Once Joseph and the boy reached the town limit, the only sound was the scrape of shoes on roadside gravel. Joseph still had a fair distance to go before he reached his turnaround point, the sign for the concession road. He took the boy's elbow and stopped.

"You can't come," he said. "I have to walk alone."

The boy kicked a rock across the asphalt. When he raised his head, hair flicked over his face.

"Why?" he said.

Joseph's back spasmed. He bent over, clamped his hands on his thighs.

"Just fucking bone," he muttered.

He ground his teeth and glanced up; the other's eyes were wide. "Can I put my hand on your shoulder?" Joseph said.

He leaned and the boy stayed still. Then he held out his cell phone.

"My mom could be here in ten minutes. You could lie on our couch. And our freezer's crazy-full of Häagen Dazs."

"I'm training," Joseph said, straightening up despite the pain. "I have to walk. Alone." He slowly took a notebook and pen from his pocket, scribbled down his name and phone number, shoved a torn page at the boy.

"Call me," he said, and shambled away, a walk more pathetic than any he had executed. But he forced one foot ahead of the other.

"Hey!" the boy shouted. He ran a few steps forward. "What are you training for?"

Joseph didn't turn, but he threw his right hand in the air and hoped it looked like a wave.