over the water, the long, mournful foghorns sounding from shrimp boats trolling the bay.
I grew anxious to get there, just listening, but Paul wouldn’t go. He stood wobbling in the door of his wife’s empty bar holding her half-empty pitcher, and as we drove away I watched him until he dissolved and I turned, saw that we were headed west, away from the wedding that was gathering behind us.
When the baby is born dead, there’s no reason to stay married.
I’m on day shift at the plant. At night I drink zombies at Judge
Roy Bean’s until I think Jan’s ready for bed and I come home and try to fool around. She says no, or doesn’t say anything, just waits until I realize she isn’t going to answer, and I slam the door and go into the den and fall asleep on the sofa with the TV on.
One night, when I come in, she tells me she’s still spotting.
I ask her what she wants to do.
“I want to cry,” she says.
Judge’s is always full of laughing flirting women who’ll let you buy them drinks. I’m on speaking terms with the bartender, and when I go back in that night he says, “Here’s the man with the plan!” and I say, “Where, where?” looking cleverly behind me, and he laughs and starts my tab.
In the morning, the phone next to the sofa rings. I sit up. It’s Bruce—he’s been gone for seven months, since the wedding.
He says, “How’s married life?”
“What day is it?”
“Saturday?”
Jan stands in the bedroom doorway in her white gown. She’s pale, thin, the dark under her eyes like mascara that’s run from crying.
When I hang up, she says, “Who was that?”
I don’t say anything, but she knows.
“That asshole,” she says. “Is he coming here?”
“We’ll go out.”
She hugs herself. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
Bruce arrives on a Triumph. I throw a leg over and he revs the motor and we’re off, Jan watching from the kitchen window, holding herself. Bruce pulls a flask from his pocket and hands it over his shoulder. I drink dizzily and feel the wind lift the hair from my scalp. On the Bayway Bridge we use the hazard lanes to
pass cars, swerve to miss something dead. You can see over the rails to the water below; you could let your fingers drag along the concrete.
We sling through the Bankhead Tunnel and fly through the blinking downtown caution lights, then hit the interstate and ride two nonstop hours to Evergreen, where Bruce leans the bike onto an off-ramp and we roll into a Texaco station. “Got your plastic?” he asks, and I tap my wallet. He pumps the gas, I pay and load the supplies—beef jerky, two six-packs, M&Ms, cigarettes—into the bike’s knapsack. I go around the side of the building and take the pay phone from its cradle and try to think of what to say to Jan.
There isn’t anything.
So Bruce and I peel off, leaving a long thin black strip of tire on the road behind us—probably the only evidence Bruce leaves anywhere. But there’s evidence of me everywhere, on the credit-card receipt in the gas station’s register, a time card at the chemical plant, a bleeding woman in my house, a child’s white marble tombstone.
Back on the interstate I close my eyes and see Jan putting things into a suitcase. She isn’t crying but she looks hollow and sick. She slips her wedding band off and sets it on the nightstand. Then keeps packing.
I remember the last time I saw Bruce, the shark fishing, riding on the beach, half in, half out of the surf. Having to roll up the window to keep the waves from crashing in. Bruce driving the way he drives, better drunk than sober, things appearing before us, malevolent driftwood shapes, sudden boulders, a sofa. Not catching a shark, not even a nibble.
Passing out on the tip of the island, waking up sunburned.
Not remembering how I got home, somebody feeding me coffee an hour before the wedding.
Jan saying, “How could you?”
Maybe I was in the kitchen, maybe throwing up in the sink.
Her bridesmaids there,
I grew anxious to get there, just listening, but Paul wouldn’t go. He stood wobbling in the door of his wife’s empty bar holding her half-empty pitcher, and as we drove away I watched him until he dissolved and I turned, saw that we were headed west, away from the wedding that was gathering behind us.
When the baby is born dead, there’s no reason to stay married.
I’m on day shift at the plant. At night I drink zombies at Judge
Roy Bean’s until I think Jan’s ready for bed and I come home and try to fool around. She says no, or doesn’t say anything, just waits until I realize she isn’t going to answer, and I slam the door and go into the den and fall asleep on the sofa with the TV on.
One night, when I come in, she tells me she’s still spotting.
I ask her what she wants to do.
“I want to cry,” she says.
Judge’s is always full of laughing flirting women who’ll let you buy them drinks. I’m on speaking terms with the bartender, and when I go back in that night he says, “Here’s the man with the plan!” and I say, “Where, where?” looking cleverly behind me, and he laughs and starts my tab.
In the morning, the phone next to the sofa rings. I sit up. It’s Bruce—he’s been gone for seven months, since the wedding.
He says, “How’s married life?”
“What day is it?”
“Saturday?”
Jan stands in the bedroom doorway in her white gown. She’s pale, thin, the dark under her eyes like mascara that’s run from crying.
When I hang up, she says, “Who was that?”
I don’t say anything, but she knows.
“That asshole,” she says. “Is he coming here?”
“We’ll go out.”
She hugs herself. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
Bruce arrives on a Triumph. I throw a leg over and he revs the motor and we’re off, Jan watching from the kitchen window, holding herself. Bruce pulls a flask from his pocket and hands it over his shoulder. I drink dizzily and feel the wind lift the hair from my scalp. On the Bayway Bridge we use the hazard lanes to
pass cars, swerve to miss something dead. You can see over the rails to the water below; you could let your fingers drag along the concrete.
We sling through the Bankhead Tunnel and fly through the blinking downtown caution lights, then hit the interstate and ride two nonstop hours to Evergreen, where Bruce leans the bike onto an off-ramp and we roll into a Texaco station. “Got your plastic?” he asks, and I tap my wallet. He pumps the gas, I pay and load the supplies—beef jerky, two six-packs, M&Ms, cigarettes—into the bike’s knapsack. I go around the side of the building and take the pay phone from its cradle and try to think of what to say to Jan.
There isn’t anything.
So Bruce and I peel off, leaving a long thin black strip of tire on the road behind us—probably the only evidence Bruce leaves anywhere. But there’s evidence of me everywhere, on the credit-card receipt in the gas station’s register, a time card at the chemical plant, a bleeding woman in my house, a child’s white marble tombstone.
Back on the interstate I close my eyes and see Jan putting things into a suitcase. She isn’t crying but she looks hollow and sick. She slips her wedding band off and sets it on the nightstand. Then keeps packing.
I remember the last time I saw Bruce, the shark fishing, riding on the beach, half in, half out of the surf. Having to roll up the window to keep the waves from crashing in. Bruce driving the way he drives, better drunk than sober, things appearing before us, malevolent driftwood shapes, sudden boulders, a sofa. Not catching a shark, not even a nibble.
Passing out on the tip of the island, waking up sunburned.
Not remembering how I got home, somebody feeding me coffee an hour before the wedding.
Jan saying, “How could you?”
Maybe I was in the kitchen, maybe throwing up in the sink.
Her bridesmaids there,
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